The article examines the campaign to confiscate church valuables in 1922 in Western Siberia through the prism of the plan of the Bolshevik leaders V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky to disintegrate the Russian Orthodox Church as a social institution. Based on archival materials, information from published sources, the works of historians, the following events are presented in a consistent relationship: the seizure of church property and its stages; the resistance of believers to the confiscation of cult objects; the repressive policy of the Bolsheviks and the role of the GPU. The study found that the seizure of church valuables in the Orthodox parishes of Western Siberia was generally peaceful, and excesses, if recorded, were not accompanied by believers, with rare exceptions, with gross violence. Resistance to confiscations in its most radical manifestation, in most cases, was expressed in the exclusion of representatives of the commission from the temple, in the cries of protesting believers, in which the communist blasphemers were cursed. Despite this, measures to confiscate valuables in a number of regions ended with repressions and open trials in the case of, as it was customary to mention in the press, “clergymen”. As a rule, parishioners and clerics were accused of counter-revolutionary agitation under a religious pretext. It has been established that the main goal of the judicial measures within the framework of the seizure of church valuables in the regions was to neutralize the active hierarchs and clergy of the “Tikhon” wing and to promote the spread of the renovation movement in the Russian Orthodox Church, more loyal to the Soviet authorities. In addition, it was established that the total value of what was confiscated from the Russian Orthodox Church did not at all correspond to the alleged calculations of the party leadership. The results of the seizure campaign for the Russian Orthodox Church in general and for Western Siberia in particular were obviously negative: churches were desecrated, expropriation damaged the economy of parishes, Siberian culture suffered – objects of the Orthodox historical and cultural heritage, as well as part of the clergy were irretrievably lost and destroyed, and believers were subjected to repression.
Key words: Orthodox Church, Soviet power, seizure of church property, renovationism, repressions, Western Siberia
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2023_2_47
About the authors
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Alexey V. Gorbatov – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of General History and International Relations, Kemerovo State University; 6 Krasnaya str., Kemerovo, 650000, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
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Petr K. Dashkovskiy – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Regional Studies of Russia National and State-Confessional Relations, Head of the Laboratory for Ethnocultural and Religious Studies; Altai State University; of. 312, 66 Dimitrove str., Barnaul, 656049, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |