A new and more aggressive phase of anti-religious persecution in the Soviet Union began in the mid-1970s after a more tolerant period following Nikita Khrushchev's downfall in 1964.
Yuri Andropov headed the campaign in the 1970s when it began. This new persecution followed the 1975 amendments to the 1929 anti-religious legislation and the 25th Party Congress. A Central Committee resolution in 1979 played a key role in the period as well. The intensification of anti-religious activity had continued since the early 1970s; between 1971 and 1975 over 30 doctoral and 400 magisterial dissertations were defended on the subjects of atheism and criticism of religion.Pospielovsky (1987), pp. 111–112. In 1974 there was a conference in Leningrad dedicated to "The Topical Problems of the History of Religion and Atheism in the Light of Marxist–Leninist Scholarship".
This persecution, like other anti-religious campaigns in the USSR's history, was used as a tool to eliminate religion in order to create the ideal atheist society that Marxism–Leninism had as a goal.Anderson (1994), p. 3.
Criticism of Khrushchev's campaign
After Khrushchev left office, the anti-religious campaign that occurred under him was criticized. The same anti-religious periodicals that had participated in the campaign criticized the articles of past contributors.
Anti-religious propaganda in those years was criticized for failing to understand the causes of religious belief and that religion did not simply survive as a legacy of the past, but continued to attract new people. It was criticized for reducing religion to simply a mass of swindling of credulous fools and failing to acknowledge the notion of faith. It was criticized for misrepresenting religious societies as being composed of evil and immoral people who were working against the Soviet Union. It was also criticized for misrepresenting believers as mentally handicapped enemies who were worthy of all contempt.Pospielovsky (1988), p. 109.
The propaganda was criticized for being counter-productive, immoral (by telling lies about believers and encouraging hatred of them thereby) and for being false. The propaganda had not adequately explained why people really practiced religion nor had it given an accurate portrayal of what occurred. Many criticized it for having done more harm than good, because rather than eliminating religious belief, it instead simply pushed it underground where the state would have more difficulty trying to control it. The persecution had also attracted popular sympathy for believers, both in the USSR and abroad, as well as to increase interest in religious faith among non-believers.
There were calls that atheism should not be forced down upon people, but rather should be accepted voluntarily.Pospielovsky (1988), p. 111.
The propaganda after Khrushchev employed a more moderate tone.
Anti-religious propaganda
The official line that believers' feelings should not be insulted continued to be widely violated in practice. Anti-religious propaganda after Khrushchev was still very much influenced by the policy set down by the 21st CPSU Congress in 1959.Chumachenko, p. x.
The Soviet press began to sound an alarm in 1972 on account of Communist party and Komsomol members who were not only participating in religious rites, but even initiating them.
The volume of anti-religious literature grew in the 1970s, partly due to a hardening general line towards religion formed as a result of more people turning to it. The press and special conferences complained about the insufficiency of atheistic propaganda. The anti-religious education in the school system was accused of laxity.
Faculties and departments were created for training atheist lecturers in the regions of Moscow, Leningrad, Lipetsk, Gorky and in the Tatar ASSR; permanent seminars existed for the same purpose in Ukraine, Moldavia and Lithuania. All of the state work, however, was found insufficient to counter the influence of religion, especially among youth, who were believed to be finding the atheistic material unconvincing and of low quality. In some areas, such as Uzbekistan, the quality of the propaganda allegedly declined. The establishment was troubled by the growing indifference and apathy among the youth for atheism as well as anti-religious propaganda.Pospielovsky (1987), pp. 116–117.
The Eastern Orthodox Church was seen as an increasing threat, especially with regard to its historic claims of developing the Russian nation. At the same time, anti-religious propaganda came to increasingly distinguish between the supposed loyal majority of believers and the enemies of the state who occupied the fringes of religion.
The atheistic journal Problems of Scientific Atheism () in the late 1970s began to question the explanation that the perseverance of religious beliefs in the USSR was simply a survival of the pre-revolutionary past. This was because the vast majority of believers were born and raised after the October revolution, as well as the fact that religion had shown surprising vitality, despite the decades of efforts to stamp it out. The number of believers who were considered well-educated Soviet citizens was also a challenge for old theories of religious belief being a result of intellectual ignorance. The journal criticized the old Marxist notion that religion would die away with the disappearance of class society.
In the post-Khrushchev years, the leading anti-religious periodical Science and Religion adopted a new approach through a dialogue with believers, by printing portions of letters to the periodical and responding to them. Typically the periodical preferred to print letters that contained assertions that were easier to argue against. For example, a believer might write a letter that argued God must exist because many people believe in Him and they cannot all be wrong, and the periodical would then respond by noting that there were many cases in history where many people believed something that was discovered to be false, such as a flat Earth or even the pagan religions that came before Christianity.Pospielovsky (1988), p. 110.
Among justifications used for not printing everything believers' wrote included the argument that believers would not print atheist material in their publications, that by doing so it would help disseminate religious propaganda and also because believers wrote things that bordered on criticism of the state. The publications that believers were permitted to print were limited to be far smaller in circulation than the atheistic propaganda, and the material that was permitted to be printed by believers was also often dictated by the state.
The atheistic side possessed almost a monopoly on the media and it had relative impunity to tell lies, which believers were not permitted to expose.
There continued to be criticisms of the anti-religious propagandists employed by the USSR for being uneducated about religion and failing to produce effective arguments that convinced believers. However, the volume and quality of critical studies of theology, church history and believers greatly increased after Khrushchev, although it retained much bias. Clichés, insults and name-calling that had been repeated for decades continued to be the main methods of propaganda. A critical problem with the more serious studies was that by doing serious critiques of religion, this could be interpreted as admitting religion's respectability, which was not a view that the Ideological Commission of the CPSU Central Committee was willing to tolerate.
There was a Marxist hypothesis that prehistoric humans possessed no religion that was advocated as truth. The atheist propagandists argued that people turned to religion as a result of some tragedy in life, loneliness or lack of compassion from others.
Anti-religious propaganda often depicted kind, compassionate and good atheists, while contrasting them with believers who were depicted as fanatical, intolerant and heartless (e.g. for breaking up marriages when one partner was a non-believer). They were blamed for counterfeiting miracles and promoting anti-Sovietism. Christianity was partly blamed for this by alleging that its teaching of humility deprived people of courage and freedom.Pospielovsky (1988), p. 112. In one instance, a female Christian writing to the propagandist Osipov claimed that there was more intolerance and drinking than in previous years, and she blamed the state for provoking this.
A growing interest among the Russian population in its national culture and history, including iconography and religious art, growing nationalism coupled with renewed interest in Orthodoxy as "Russia's church",Daniel. as well as a number of conversions to Christianity that began with interests in these topics, prompted the Soviet media to argue that culture and religion were not linked, and that religion had bastardized Russian art and culture. The media further argued that the religious art of previous ages (including the work of Andrei Rublev or Theopanes the Greek) was simply expressing humanistic and secular concepts through the only way that such things were permitted to be depicted. Science and Religion printed pictures of religious artwork which they interpreted according to secular values.
The atheist press also criticized museum guides in religious buildings that had been converted to museums, for giving uncritical theological dimensions to what they presented, such as explaining the theology of icons and their function in the Orthodox church, explaining the theological symbolism of the liturgy, the purpose of monastic life and for uncritically explaining the lives of the saints. The press called on them to explain the class character of religion and give secular explanations of religious art and that they should emphasize the negative aspects of church history and not the positive.Pospielovsky (1988), p. 114. In a similar vein, the atheist press often published stories about episodes in Russian history that portrayed believers and the Church in a negative light in order to emphasize the point that Christian morals are deficient and that the Church is immoral.
Scientific means were used to support atheism by placing holy water under a microscope and determining it to be identical to normal water, the corpses of saints were exhumed to show that they did in fact experience deterioration, while exhibits at atheist museums showed Noah's ark to be impossible even in concept due to the fact that the number of different animal species on the Earth could not fit within the dimensions in Genesis.Froese (2004), pp. 35–50.
The press avoided attacking the Church establishment, but directed the brunt of its attacks against actively-evangelizing believers and banned religions.
The anti-religious propaganda tried to depict a connection between religious dissent and foreign intelligence services as well as with anti-communist Russian émigré organizations such as NTS. Caches of religious literature confiscated by Soviet customs officials reportedly were subversive and were alleged to be widely accepted among believers. Marxist ideology held that religion was intrinsically hostile to communism, and therefore believers could not be trusted to be sensitive to the ideological threat posed from the West. They even may have felt affinities for the West, and cooperation between the Vatican or other western Christian establishments with the CIA, or the radio messages by Orthodox priests broadcast through Voice of America, also influenced the interpretation to see believers as untrustworthy. Believers were in this manner depicted as the 'weak link' in the Soviet defense line.Pospielovsky (1988), p. 116.