T.V. Hrushova. Measures to Combat Protestant Denominations in the 1970s in the Ukrainian SSR and the Reaction of Believers to Them

June 1, 2013 · Persecution, About the site, USSR, Ukraine

The political situation in the USSR during the 1970s definitively demonstrated the utopian nature of the idea of building an atheistic society. Despite this, the mass media cultivated the notion that true democracy reigned only in the “socialist camp.” From that time on, censorship grew stricter, and repressive measures against those who disagreed with the regime intensified.

During this period, the country’s legislative framework was tightened by a series of adopted decrees that further restricted the possibility of religious societies existing in the Soviet country. The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of February 23, 1970, “On Measures to Intensify the Struggle against Persons Evading Socially Useful Labor and Leading an Anti-Social Parasitic Way of Life” began to be used in convicting leaders of Protestant movements (as is known, some of them were supported by funds from religious communities). On July 16, 1971, the resolution of the CC CPSU “On Intensifying Atheistic Upbringing of the Population” was adopted (on July 31, 1971, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine approved a resolution with an analogous title). Besides proclaiming the need to strengthen individual explanatory work with believers, locally the resolution was perceived as a call for a new large-scale offensive against religious organizations. The lack of positive results in work with the Protestant underground was one of the reasons why the CC CPU adopted on October 9, 1973, a resolution “On Measures to Intensify the Struggle against Unregistered Religious Sects.”

According to official data, in 1973, 2,474 different sectarian associations operated on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, numbering 140,000 believers. 1,252 communities functioned without registration, including 540 Pentecostal groups — over 14,000 believers; adherents of the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, 165 groups — over 6,000 believers; around 200 Jehovah’s Witnesses groups — over 14,000 believers, and also some believers were followers of the Adventist-Reformist movement and others [1.-Ф.Р-1.-Оп.10.-Спр.1475.-Арк.73]. For comparison: in 1977, state authorities recorded 5,793 registered religious associations and 969 illegal sectarian communities and groups [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.25.-Спр.1508.-Арк.13].

To suppress the functioning of religious groups, in addition to individual explanatory work, the authorities continued to use coercive pressure in the 1970s. Some leaders of underground groups were subjected to public censure, and the most active ones were brought to criminal liability: in 1970 — 62 leaders and active participants of illegal religious sects, in 1971 — 60, in 1972 — 127 [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.10.-Спр.1475.-Арк.74; Оп.25.-Спр.872.-Арк.26].

In 1974, the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine prepared a high-profile open trial against the secretary of the Council of Churches of the ECB, G. Vins. The “Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR” and personally Academician A. Sakharov came to his defense. In the spring of 1979, G. Vins was released and sent abroad among other political prisoners in exchange for the release of Soviet intelligence officers in the USA [2.-C.156].

To isolate Soviet believers from world religious movements, on April 24, 1977, the CC CPU adopted a resolution “On Intensifying the Struggle against Foreign Religious Propaganda.” But the attempts of Soviet believers to establish contacts with fellow believers abroad did not cease.

The Soviet authorities also saw a danger in the growing popularity of Protestant radio broadcasts transmitted from abroad (“The Karataev Family” (USA), “Bible Lectures,” “Word of Life — to Russian Youth” (USA), “Echo of Youth” (Canada), and the transmission of religious information in a veiled form, when, while solving psychological and other problems, a conclusion is made about the necessity for a person to return to God). The analysis of religious radio broadcasts by Soviet researchers boiled down to accusations of foreign Protestant centers of anti-communism, “psychological subversion,” and the creation of myths about a “religious opposition” to socialism.

On March 24, 1978, the resolution of the Politburo of the CC CPU “On Intensifying the Struggle against Bourgeois, Bourgeois-Nationalist, Zionist, and Religious Propaganda” was issued. In implementing it, in 1979 the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR and its authorized representatives locally made an attempt to pay more attention to improving the patriotic upbringing of religious officiants and, through them, to exert a positive influence on members of foreign religious delegations, seeking to change their perceptions of Soviet reality [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.25.-Спр.1887.-Арк.67-68].

From the end of the 1970s, while analyzing the situation in the sectarian environment, representatives of the authorities and researchers of sectarianism increasingly began to use the term “religious extremism.” This was an attempt to mount a real assault aimed at rapidly destroying “religious prejudices.”

The harsh measures of the country’s leadership to halt the activity of religious organizations significantly weakened the Protestant sects but did not destroy them. The authorities attempted to bring Protestants under control by using list-based records. However, the representatives of the Council did not manage to bring all believers into their field of vision.

At the same time, the Council’s representatives received information about facts of crude administration. These consisted in the fact that locally, fines were often baselessly imposed on ordinary believers for the presence of their children at prayer meetings, on the owners of houses where prayer meetings were held, children of believers were not hired for work or were expelled from educational institutions.

In the 1970s, the state continued to monitor the participation of Protestants in the country’s public life. Control over sectarian groups and so-called preventive-prophylactic measures were significantly intensified during elections to the Supreme and local Soviets of Working People’s Deputies. The refusal of believers to participate in the country’s public life caused concern among state bodies, which established that on June 17, 1973, more than 1,600 sectarians did not take part in voting for local Soviets of Deputies [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.10.-Спр.1475.-Арк.74]. In 1977 this indicator decreased: 855 believing citizens of various confessions, mainly from illegal sects of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostals, and some other religious directions and interpretations, did not participate in elections to local Soviets of Working People’s Deputies [3.-Ф. Р.-2.-Оп.14.-Спр.1726.-Арк.1о].

As a result of systematic religious influence on young people in certain sectarian communities in the early 1970s, as before, cases of refusal by some young people to serve in the Soviet army occurred (during 1970–73, more than 100 believers of various cults living on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR refused to serve in the Soviet army [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.10.-Спр.1475.-Арк.74]. This tendency persisted in subsequent years.

In addition to this, local authorities recorded cases of refusal to perform civic duties on religious holidays for religious reasons. Such “violations” of Soviet legislation as refusal to participate in elections, calls to pray for “prisoners of conscience,” organized religious instruction of children, refusal of conscripts from sectarian families to take the military oath and to take up weapons for religious reasons were classified by state bodies as “especially serious illegal manifestations in sectarian associations.” Sectarians were also blamed for conducting rites, processions, and other ceremonies outside prayer houses in violation of the established order, distributing letters with “slander” about Soviet reality, teaching religion to children, and evading registration.

Observing the reaction to the draft of the new Constitution (1977) among the Soviet population, the leadership noted that some believers, especially in the western regions, and, above all, illegally operating Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, supporters of the Council of Churches of the ECB, and others, as before, continued to protest against the communist upbringing of youth and atheistic propaganda, demanding to add to Article 52 of the Fundamental Law “not only to conduct atheistic, but also religious propaganda” [3.-Ф. Р.-2.-Оп.14.-Спр.1726.-Арк.18, 19, 21].

The apolitical nature of their views also contributed to conducting additional explanatory work with believers. For example, such work was carried out with Pentecostals, Baptists, Adventist-Reformists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses after they avoided directly answering the question about their attitude to Chinese aggression against Vietnam, citing that they do not interfere in politics [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.25.-Спр.1887.-Арк.40].

An outright offensive against the religious life of society by the state, the transformation of religious communities into a kind of reservation, the lack of real opportunity to meet cultic needs — all this generated a backlash from believers. Various religious movements, in order to preserve faith in an atheistic country, employed various means: from hidden protest to open confrontation.

In the Pentecostal environment in the 1970s, dissatisfaction with the active process of atheization of the population manifested itself in the emergence of emigration sentiments, which took an organized form. To defend Pentecostals who wished to emigrate, in 1975, “Emigration Councils” were created in a number of religious communities in the Krasnodar Territory and the Far East. This human rights organization finally took shape in 1981, when the Committee of Pentecostal Representatives Seeking Exit from the USSR (the “Right to Emigration” committee) began to operate [2.-C.161]. Emigration sentiments among Ukrainian Pentecostals took on broad forms.

In Ukraine, this process began in April 1977, when in a number of regions of the republic, among some Pentecostal believers, the influence of emigration sentiments was noticed. At that time, the following applied with statements for exit to capitalist countries on religious grounds: in the Rivne region — 93 families (590 people), Ternopil — 76 (276 people), Chernivtsi — 44 (226 people), Donetsk — 27 (130 people), Zaporizhzhia — 21 (98 people), Volyn — 11 (30 people), and also several families each in Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zakarpattia, Voroshilovgrad, Kharkiv, and other regions — a total of 324 families (1,562 people, including more than half of them school-age and preschool-age children) [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.25.-Спр.1508.-Арк.4].

Undoubtedly, the reaction from the state was immediate. On instructions of the CC CPU dated October 12, 1977, a conference was held at the Prosecutor’s Office of the Ukrainian SSR on October 25 of the same year with the participation of M.T. Samaev, First Deputy Prosecutor of the Republic, I.D. Gladush, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, K.Z. Lytvyn, Authorized Representative of the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, and senior officials of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, and the Prosecutor’s Office of the Ukrainian SSR, at which practical measures were considered to intensify the work of administrative bodies in neutralizing emigration sentiments among believers. The KGB bodies conducted work to identify and prevent the activity of persons disseminating emigration sentiments and establishing contacts with foreign centers and dissidents. However, all measures to suppress the emigration sentiments of believers were ineffective; only a minority of Pentecostals abandoned their intentions.

The radical measures of struggle to preserve their own doctrine by Pentecostals influenced the moods of related religious movements. In 1979, in the Chernivtsi region, authorities discovered emigration sentiments among representatives of ECB communities, who categorically declared their demands: if they were refused visas to exit the USSR, they would demand to renounce Soviet citizenship [1.-Ф. Р-1.-Оп.25.-Спр.1887.-Арк.32].

Thus, the strategic directions of the religious policy of the Soviet leadership in the 1970s remained the same as in previous years. The activity of religious organizations outside the law defined by the totalitarian state and the persistence of the number of illegal groups did not prompt the Moscow government to change its previously chosen course aimed at resolutely overcoming the religiosity of the population. This period continued to be characterized by an offensive against religious organizations by state institutions, persecution of believers, and attempts to demonstrate to the world community the “well-being” of the religious question in the USSR.

Sources and Literature

Central State Archive of Public Associations of Ukraine

Bazhan, O.H. The Opposition Movement in Ukraine (second half of the 1950s – 80s of the 20th century). Dissertation … Candidate of Historical Sciences. — K., 1996.

Central State Archive of the Highest Bodies of State Power and Administration of Ukraine.

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