Cite this article as:
Khristenko D. N. Religion and Soviet Society in the Works of American Observers of the 1930s. Izvestiya of Saratov University. History. International Relations, 2019, vol. 19, iss. 4, pp. 439-445. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18500/1819-4907-2019-19-4-439-445
Religion and Soviet Society in the Works of American Observers of the 1930s
The article is devoted to the analysis of American observers’ views on the status of religion in the Soviet society in the 1930s. There were two different groups among them: engineers and workers who came to participate in the industrialization of the USSR, and professional journalists from the United States. Perceiving the socio-political processes that took place in our counrty often in different ways, the American observers agreed on one position. From their point of view, the decline of the role and significance of religion in Soviet society was not the result of repression by the state, but the result of the mass disillusionment of the population in the church, that was related to the deep internal social transformation of Soviet society. As a result, the article draws the conclusion about carrying out large-scale cultural revolution in the USSR in the 1930s, which radically changed the position of religion in the Soviet Union.
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