The Bolsheviks were aggressively atheistic. They viewed organised religion as an instrument used by ruling class to deceive the masses into accepting their inferiority and poverty without complaint. They saw religion as a sign of backwardness and intended to replace it with scientific education. The Bolsheviks also believed that the church was a counter-revolutionary body. The Orthodox Church came under fierce attack losing its privileged status and much more of its wealth. Their lands were nationalised without compensation, its publications outlawed and they lost their control of its schools. In January 1918, the Bolsheviks issued the decree on the separation of the church and the state. This separated the church from the state. This meant that they were banned from owning property and religious instruction in schools was outlawed. Raids on churches by the red army units or the red guards in which objects of value were seized and resistance brutally suppressed, all became common. A large number of churches were destroyed or converted into other purposes. In 1918 all monasteries were closed down and their assets seizes while patriarch was temporarily placed under house arrest. Priests and clerics were declared “servants of the bourgeoisie” which meant they were not allowed to vote and did not receive ration cards. In 1921 the Bolsheviks established the “Union of the Militant Gods” with branches across the country. This held events such as debates to prove that god did not exist. It also had its own newspaper which attacked the clergy as fat parasites living off the peasantry. It also meant that peasants were taken for rides in planes to show there was no god in the sky.
In youth there were two organisations set up. They were the Pioneers for children under 15 and the Komomsol for those from 14 into their 20’s. Their purpose was to inculcate communist values and to promote loyalty to the working class. The pioneers were much like the boy scouts with activities, trips and camping. The Komomsol was much more serious and was used by the Communist party to take e propaganda onto towns and villages and to attack religious beliefs and bourgeois values.
For Lenin education was an essential building block in creating a socialist society. Schools were placed under the communist for enlightenment and each child was to receive 9 years of free universal education. The aim was to combine education and political propaganda. Pupils were to be cleansed of bourgeois ideas and religious teaching was to be replaced by emphasis on communist values and atheism. There was also practical education, focusing on technical subjects and industrial training. Between 191 and 1920 schools were encouraged to follow a more liberal line focusing on the development of child’s personality. The authority of the teacher was reduced and they were designated as school workers who shared administrative control with committees drawn from older pupils and factory worker. Teachers were forbidden to discipline pupils or set homework and examinations.
Following the October revolution the Bolshevik government set up the Commissariat of Popular Enlightenment headed by Anatoly Lunacharsky. Initially the Bolsheviks thought swift to make use of the visual arts for propaganda purposes allowed writers and artists a fair amount of attitude. After the restrictions and censorship of the old regime many artists were encouraged by the Bolshevik policies especially Lenin seemed prepared to accommodate those artists who were not communist but who were sympathetic to the ideals of the revolution and who found plenty of material for their work in the events of the period. These artists were labelled by Trotsky as “fellow traveller”. State control of the arts tightened in the early 1920’s. During the civil war era censorship was patchy and inefficient, but in 1922 it was put on to a new footing when the directorate for literature and publishing also known as the Glavlit was formed. After 1922 al items intended for publication needed a licence from Glavlit before they could appear. Glavlit had also the responsibilities for suppressing underground literature working closely with the Cheka.
In conclusion the Bolsheviks cultural values in Lenin’s Russia controlled the Russian society in the period 1917-1924. It brought about fundamental changes in the position of women in society, religion and the position of the church, education, youth organisations and popular culture and the arts. These fundamental changes helped the Russian society greatly by helping them to control everything that went on in Russia.
