p The bulk of believers—workers and poor peasants—supported all the Soviet government’s measures irrevocably. The reactionary clergymen’s anti-Soviet activities met with no sympathy from believers, even in the early years of the Soviet state and increasingly isolated them as the time passed. That was the beginning of a radical change in the evolution of the Russian Orthodox Church. The logic of events started by the October Revolution and consolidation of socialism forced the church in the 98 USSR to begin searching for new ways to find its place in the fundamentally new social conditions, to “fit in”, as it were, politically and ideologically. And this side of their activities is a characteristic feature in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as of other religions in Soviet society.

p The more far-sighted churchmen could not help noticing that freedom of conscience in the USSR allowed the people who still believed in God to conduct their religious activities without hindrance. The broad democracy of the Soviet way of life and great economic and cultural progress made an immense impact on the church organisations and their representatives, who changed their political orientation. Under the circumstances, the church hierarchy was faced with the dilemma of either continuing their anti-Soviet struggle and losing support from the believers completely, or adapting to the new conditions, laying down their political weapons, and continuing to preach and tend their flock. Their switch to a new position, however, was a complex, uneven and contradictory process. The pre-revolutionary unity of church organisation in Orthodoxy, just as in many other religions, had been broken. Many newly-organised groups and trends emerged. The church entered a period of interior crisis.

p Events inside the country and the intrigues of the international imperialist reactionaries compelled most of the clergy and believers to become loyal to the Soviet system. When the plan of socialist industrialisation was made public, anti-Soviet circles outside the country launched a furious campaign of lies and slander and the Pope even urged a crusade against the Soviet Union. The clergy in exile became more active. Its leaders offered a union to the Church of England in order to accelerate intervention in Russia. Whiteguards abroad also intensified their activities. The leading White emigre clergy used various channels to instigate unloyal clergymen inside the country. They urged their brothers-in-Christ to sabotage the undertakings of Soviet power, and they succeeded in some places.

p Some churchmen and sectarians inside the country tried to hinder industrialisation, encouraged believers not to participate in building a new life. They hampered the sale of bonds for national industrialisation loans, the change-over to continuous production and the shock-worker movement. A convention of 99 Evangelists, for example, forbade their members to attend Soviet cultural centres and reading-houses. A convention of SeventhDay Adventists proclaimed physical culture and sports to be debauchery. In order to paralyse commerce and stir up the population, churchmen hoarded small change to withdraw coins from circulation. Some clergymen did not like even the census. The Orthodox clergy started a rumour that the census day— December 17, 1926—would be the Day of Last Judgement. Moslem preachers prohibited adherents to answer the questionnaire. In the North, shamans prophesied deer plague for those who would deal with census officials.

p In some places, churchmen and sectarians penetrated the government and economic bodies, public organisations, factories and offices, and did as much damage as they could. Sometimes they managed to wreck a campaign for voluntary donations in the countryside, to foil subscription to national bonds or other important measures. Some churchmen set up secret organisations for sabotage. In 1929, state security organs disclosed and neutralised a counter-revolutionary group in Leningrad composed of priests, monks, former members of nobility, and landowners, and had youth terrorist cells. The group leaders maintained contacts with their supporters in Minsk, Tomsk, Vladivostok and other cities. In Vyatka, for instance, former business owners, priests and monks discontented with Soviet power rallied around the local bishop.

p The activities of some groups of churchmen and sectarians were still political. In 1929, state security organs disclosed a counter-revolutionary organisation called the Union for Liberation of the Ukraine aimed at overthrowing Soviet power. A court trial of the members of this organisation revealed that the so-called Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church headed by V. Chekhovsky, the former Prime Minister of the Petlyura government, was closely connected with The Union for Liberation of the Ukraine, whose membership included Metropolitan V. Lipkovsky and the bishops O. Yareshchenko, S. Orlik, K. Krotovich and Yu. Zhovchenko. The anti-Soviet plotters used the church as a machinery for counter-revolutionary propaganda. “We hoped,” said a leader of this organisation during the trial, ”that faith was not yet extinguished in the masses despite 100 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1983/FCU180/20070313/180.tx" vigorous anti-religious propaganda and that the priests, particularly in the village, can still do much to propagate the ideas of the Union for Liberation of the Ukraine.”

p But the bulk of ordinary believers had no sympathy for the anti-Soviet actions of the reactionary clergy and the latter found itself increasingly isolated.

p There was a split that went ever deeper among the clergy of all persuasions on their attitude towards the new social order. Many groups emerged in the parish clergy, which were in favour of unconditional recognition of Soviet power and observance of its laws. Following the sentiments of most of ordinary believers, the 5th Congress of the Seventh-Day Adventists, held in 1924 in Moscow, adopted a special declaration addressed to the AilUnion Central Executive Committee whereby the leaders of the sect formally recognised Soviet power and expressed their willingness to adhere to its laws.

p An All-Russia Convention of Moslem Clergy took place at Ufa in October 1926. The delegates unanimously supported the Soviet government’s domestic and foreign policies. Their telegramme addressed to the Soviet government and Communist Party said: “On behalf of all Moslems, the Convention expresses its gratitude and devotion to Soviet power, the defender of the oppressed peoples of the Orient and promises to support Soviet power in its undertakings to strengthen the gains of the Revolution.”

p In the early years of Soviet power, the reactionary leaders of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) incited their co-religionists to ignore Soviet laws and urged them to refuse to serve in the Red Army under pretext of the creed. But drawn into the flow of events and faced with a new attitude of the state to their faith, the Pentecostals felt the need to define their attitude to the socialist state and its laws. In 1926 and 1927, conventions of Christians of Evangelical Faith adopted resolutions urging the believers to support all the undertakings of the Soviet government and to abide state legislation without fail. “Having heard the report on the attitude of Christians of Evangelical Faith toward existing Soviet power and military conscription,” states a resolution of the 1927 Convention, “the Convention welcomes all the measures of the Soviet power. ... 101 Every Christian of Evangelical Faith called up for service in the Red Army, whether at the time of peace or war, must do this service on equal terms with all the citizens of the country.”

p In 1927, Metropolitan Sergii of the Russian Orthodox Church, later elected Patriarch, appealed to believers with a declaration that called for and gave assurances of the Russian Orthodox Church’s loyalty to the Soviet system.

p The Soviet Union was laying the foundations of the socialist economy by carrying through socialist industrialisation and collectivisation. The Soviet people’s heroic and self-sacrificing labour was crowned with a triumph of historic significance for the whole world. The 17th Congress of the Communist Party, held in 1934, summed up the results of the radical changes in the country. A backward agrarian state, in the past, the Soviet Union had turned into a mighty industrial and agricultural power. The socialist sector became dominant in all spheres of the national economy.

p The successful construction of socialism and elimination of the exploitative classes in the USSR by the late 1930s resulted in achievements in all fields of the economy and culture. Profound changes occurred in the people’s mentality. These historic changes in the country’s life had to affect the social views of believers and the clergy, who now saw for themselves that the socialist system had brought unheard-of benefits and democratic freedoms to the Soviet peoples, including real freedom of conscience. The absolute majority of ministers of all religions adopted a loyal attitude to the socialist state, even at this early period.

p The radical changes in the Soviet people’s lives were legally formalised in the Soviet Constitution adopted on December 5, 1936. The Constitution of the country where socialism had triumphed established universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot. All kinds of disfranchisement were abolished. Clergymen were entitled to participate in the elections of government bodies at all levels just like all other citizens. Equal rights to work, education, leisure and maintenance in old age were guaranteed to all, atheists and believers alike. Under Article 135 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution, adherence to any religion could not preclude anyone from voting in elections or being elected deputy to any Soviet body of authority.

p The loyal position taken by clergymen and, consequently, their efforts to adapt to Soviet life called for more intensive atheistic education of the working people by those responsible for ideological work.

Party organisations everywhere took up the communist education of the working people. More atheist literature was published, more lectures and talks arranged, new museums and other cultural-educational establishments were opened, and courses for propagandists of atheism expanded and began to be held more regularly. But the Soviet people’s peaceful work was broken by the war. The Communist Party raised the country to defend itself against the Nazi invaders.