Anti-Religion Campaigns in the Soviet Union Karl Max called religion “the opiate of the ma

Anti-Religion Campaigns in the Soviet Union

Karl Max called religion “the opiate of the masses,” and Soviet leaders in the 1920s and 30s took his words to heart, as these propaganda posters show. Religion was touted as a backwards institution that had no place in a Soviet Republic that strove for scientific advancement and industrialization. The Bolsheviks focused their attentions on the Orthodox Church in particular, for two reasons: it was the dominant religious body of the Tsarist era, and its use of glittering churches and artifacts gave it a bourgeois air; meanwhile, its hierarchical body of power made it a threat to the authority of the Soviet regime. Starting in 1920, churches across Russia were closed and repurposed as secular buildings, particularly for educational purposes.