p In the very first days of its existence, the Soviet state adopted a number of statutes which laid the foundation of a new society free from any social and spiritual oppression. The Great October Socialist Revolution abolished private ownership of the means of production. The establishment of public ownership of land, factories, plants, and nationalisation of banks by the proletarian state paved the way for removal of the main root of religion— the rule of capital in all its forms. The first decrees of Soviet power—the Decree on Land, for instance—embodied Lenin’s ideas on abolishing the church’s economic and spiritual power over the working people. In response to a desire by wide sections of the peasantry, Soviet power put an end to the centuries-old alliance between the church and the state with its very first legislative act. The Decree says: “All land, whether state, crown, monastery, church, factory, entailed, private, public, peasant, etc., shall be confiscated without compensation and become the property of the whole people. .. .” The socialist revolution thus deprived the church of property rights to land, thus beginning separation of the church from the state and creating economic guarantees for complete freedom of conscience.

p In accordance with the Decree, all lands owned by monasteries and churches were not only taken away in favour of the working people but, in the future, no land could become the property of private persons or religious organisations and institutions. “The landed estates,” said the Decree on Land, “as also all crown, monastery, and church lands, with all their livestock, implements, building and everything pertaining thereto, shall be 32 placed at the disposal of the volost land committees and the uyezd Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies....” At the same time, Soviet power did not limit the rights to use land for religious reasons. The Decree on Land stressed that the right to use land was granted to all citizens, without distinction of sex, nationality or faith.

p The proletarian state abolished the privileges of the Orthodox Church. All religions and sects were granted equal rights to organise worship for their members.

p It would not be out of place to note here that the enemies of socialism have recently launched a noisy campaign ostensibly for democracy and human rights, trying to convince the lay public that the USSR and other socialist countries are restricting freedoms and human rights. And they deliberately conceal the fact that the October Revolution in Russia as well as later revolutions in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America have been carried out in order to assert the most vital human rights of the overwhelming majority of the population in those countries. It is universal knowledge, for instance, that the Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Soviet government in November 1917 was of historical significance for guaranteeing human rights and sundering the age-old ties between the state and religion. The Declaration spoke about the abrogation of “each and every national and national-religious privilege and restriction”. It emphasised that the old policy of the overthrown classes who had set one nationality against another was to be replaced henceforth by the policy of a voluntary and honest alliance between the peoples of Russia. The Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia was followed by a special appeal, To All the Working Moslems of Russia and the East, in which the Soviet government once again told the peoples oppressed in the past that from then on their faiths and customs, national and cultural institutions were declared free and inviolable. All the nations of the old Russia’s outlying areas were given equal rights alongside all citizens in the Land of Soviets. “Be informed,” the Appeal said, “that your rights, just as the rights of all the peoples of Russia, are protected by the entire power of the revolution and of its bodies, the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.” The Appeal explained 33 specifically that Soviet power had done away for good with the oppression and restriction of rights of Moslems in Russia, the Volga Area, Turkestan and Transcaucasia. The democratic principles of equality of all religions thus became the new society’s way of life.

p Soviet power’s respectful attitude toward customs and faiths of the formerly backward peoples and the realisation of the principles of freedom of conscience in practice were demonstrated to Islamic nations by the return of the Koran of Osman, revered by Moslems the world over as one of the most ancient holy books for Moslems.

p In December 1917, representatives of Moslems living in Petrograd and its environs met for their first legal congress. Expressing the desire of all Russia’s Moslems, the congress asked the Council of People’s Commissars to return the Holy Koran of Osman to the Moslem faithful. The RSFSR Council of People’s Commissars decided on December 9, 1917, “to give back immediately the Holy Koran of Osman to the Territorial Moslem Congress".

p To separate church from state and school from church, as required by the Party Programme, the Soviet state, from its very start, adopted legislation on the position of the church and religious institutions under the new state system which guaranteed the right to freedom in belief or unbelief. That was precisely the reason why the proclamation of real freedom of conscience, of the principle of equality for all religions by decrees of the young Soviet state were acknowledged with satisfaction not only in Central Russia but by believers of outlying national areas as well.

p The young Soviet state took special care to do away with the age-old domination of religion in education. The teaching of the Scriptures was compulsory in all educational establishments of pre-revolutionary Russia. Priests spied on progressively-minded teachers at school and cut short any attempt to explain the absurdity of superstition to their pupils.

p The tsarist government spent enormous money to stupefy the people with religion, but only small amounts were allotted for public education. Thus, the tsarist government allotted 46 million gold roubles for the church machinery in 1912, which was 34 much more than was appropriated for the Ministry ot Public Education. Russia remained one of the world’s most backward countries in terms of educational standards until the late 19th century Public education was controlled by ignorant pnests_ Parish schools employed 50 thousand priests as teachers. Halt the classroom time was allotted for learning prayers by heart and studying religious rituals. It was very difficult for the children of working people to enter a secondary school. About threequarters of the population were illiterate, including 83 per cent of women In the mid-19th century there was only one literate person for every 135 illiterates in Russia, while in Austria the proportion was 1 to 14, in France 1 to 11, and in Britain 1 to 9. Lenin wrote in “The Question of Ministry of Education Policy” that while 22 per cent of the population in Russia was of school age’ only 4 7 per cent attended school. “This means that about four-fifths of the children and adolescents of Russia are deprived of public education!"  [34•1 

p The unbelievable backwardness of tsarist Russia in education resulted from absolute power of the land- and serf owners, and from the dominance of the church in education. The founders of scientific communism considered it one of the tasks of a proletarian revolution to replace religious instruction in all general schools with secular teaching and to substitute a schoolteacher for a priest in the classroom.

p The Communist Party and the Soviet state were the first in history to carry out these plans of the founders of scientific communism into practice. On December 11, 1917 a decree, “On the Transfer of Education and Instruction from the Department on Religions to the Authority of the People’s Commissariat for Education,” signed by Lenin, was published. It proposed that the former Department on Religions should transfer to the authority of the People’s Commissariat for Education “all the parish schools (primary one-year and two-year schools), teachers’ seminaries . . . schools for training missionaries, academies and all other primary, secondary and higher schools and institutions under different names .. . with their personnel, appropriated funds, 35 fixed and movable property, i.e. with buildings, barns, land under the buildings and lands necessary for schools, with estates (if any), with libraries and any aids and textbooks, valuables, capitals, securities and interest thereon, and with everything which was intended for the above schools and institutions”. Thus the age-old domination of the church in public education came to an end. In accordance with this Decree, the People’s Commissariat for Education issued an order which abolished the religious instructors for all denominations in all educational establishments and the State Commission for Public Education adopted a decision entitled “On Secular School" on February 5(18), 1918.

p All the people of old Russia were obliged to profess some religion. The law did not permit a “non-religious state”. Any organisation or person who wanted to spread atheistic views was persecuted. The Code of Laws of the autocracy included more than a thousand articles which instructed the police to see that there was “proper respect for faith”. Celebration of rituals was introduced under compulsion. The church and the state intruded into people’s private lives and crudely treaded upon freedom of conscience. The church was the supreme authority in matrimonial relations. Civil marriage was practically non- existent and outlawed in Russia. Even if he or she did not believe in God, a person had to marry in church, and baptism was the only official ceremony for registration of the newly-born. Marriages, registration of births, deaths and divorce were in the hands of the church. Tsarist legislation prohibited marriages between Christians and non-Christians. One could only marry at a certain time of year for religious considerations. Thus, there were no more than 120 or 130 days out of 365 days of year when persons officially recognised as Christians could be married in church.

p On December 18, 1917 the ARCEC (All-Russia Central Executive Committee) and the Council of People’s Commissars approved a decree “On Civil Marriage, On Children and On Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths”. This Decree guaranteed all the citizens complete freedom to marry in church and to be registered in church books, but such a marriage was to be a private affair of believers. Only civil marriage was recognised 36 to be binding. The Decree stressed that henceforth the church marriage or divorce would not be of legal force and would not entail mutual legal obligations between man and wife. Citizens who wished to exercise their conjugal rights would have to register in local offices.

p The registration of births and deaths was also made civil. The Decree said: “All religious and administrative institutions who were formerly in charge of registration of marriages, births and deaths according to ceremonies of whatever religious cults are ordered to send these registries to appropriate local administrations of cities, uyezds and volosts.”

p From the very first days of Soviet power, marriages have been registered in the presence of witnesses, relatives, friends and acquaintances whom parties to the marriage can invite to participate in the solemn ceremony. In the USSR, marriages are registered only in rooms on the premises of local registry offices intended specially for the purpose. By law, the religion of either of the party is not recorded.

p Lenin regarded the break from the old marriage laws as a great gain of Soviet power. “Even the slightest acquaintance with the legislation of bourgeois countries on marriage, divorce and illegitimate children, and with the actual state of affairs in this field,” he pointed out, “is enough to show anyone interested in the subject that modern bourgeois democracy, even in all the most democratic bourgeois republics, exhibits a truly feudal attitude in this respect towards women. . . ."  [36•1  Of course, old Russia was no exception. The church wedding ceremony “for good" was a source of family tragedies. Women were in an especially humiliating position. Children born out of wedlock were restricted in their civil rights.

p Soviet marriage legislation, based on humanism, precludes any vestiges of serfdom in conjugal ties. It was for this reason that, on December 16(29), 1917 the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars adopted a decree “On Dissolution of Marriage”, applying to all the citizens of the republic, regardless of their religion. Later on, in 37 1918, special registry offices were established under the auspices of local Soviets. They were placed in charge of registering marriages, births and deaths and of issuing the appropriate documents.

p The organisation of these offices was of great importance in emancipating people’s minds from the influence of religion because the church was deprived henceforth of its monopoly in the legal registration of the newly-born, marriages and divorces. The Decree did not prohibit marriages in church but proclaimed that, in future, the Russian Republic would recognise only civil marriages. Legal relations between husband and wife and between parents and children have thus become independent of the church.

p The ARCEC Code of Legislation on Registration of Marriages, Births and Deaths and on Marriage, Family and Guardianship was adopted on September 16, 1918. The Code abolished the church and religious restrictions for marriages. Persons of different faiths, monks, nuns, ordained priests or deacons, as well as persons who had vowed to be celibate, even if they were representatives of the clergy, were allowed to marry.

p Lenin said in his speech at the 1st All-Russia Congress of Working Women on November 19, 1918 that Soviet power, having broken the chains of capitalist slavery, had eliminated all the restrictions on women’s rights. “It will soon be a year now,” said Lenin, “since complete freedom of divorce was legislated. We have passed a decree annulling all distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children and removing political restrictions. Nowhere else in the world have equality and freedom for working women been so fully established. . . . For the first time in history, our law has removed everything that denied women rights."  [37•1 

p The legislative acts of the young Soviet state abolished all the state offices which supervised the affairs of the clergy and ceased providing state funds for religious needs. Thus, the Department of Court Priesthood was abolished by a special order of the Council of People’s Commissars of January 14, 1918 and the 38 People’s Commissar for Military Affairs issued an order to disband the Military Chaplains Department in the Army on January 16, 1918.

p On November 21 (December 4), 1917 the Council of People’s Commissars chaired by Lenin met to discuss a proposal that the payment of funds to church institutions from the treasury should be forbidden. The Council supported the proposal and recommended that a decree on disestablishment of the church be adopted. Accordingly, the People’s Commissariat of Charity ordered in January 1918 that economic ties between the church and the state be abolished. Based on the decision of the Council of People’s Commissars, and in accordance with the order of the People’s Commissariat of Charity all clergymen who had received a salary from the treasury were to be given a month’s pay. As of March 1, 1918 the state bodies ceased to pay out money from the treasury for church maintenance. Religious services and rituals could continue without hindrance provided the believers undertook to keep their clergymen, places of worship and churchplate at their own expense.

All the measures of the Soviet state, including such actions as the confiscation of lands belonging to churches and monasteries, the removal of the clergy from registration of marriages, births and deaths and transfer of those functions to secular authorities, the abolition of religious administration of public education and instruction and the end to state financing of church institutions, were carried out painlessly and with the approval of the masses. The former domination of the church was eliminated by the Soviet authorities very tactfully, without hurting religious feelings of the believers. Believers of all denominations were allowed to gather for public worship and to celebrate religious ceremonies and rituals unimpeded.