How did religion still strong in post USSR state despite 70 years of state atheism?
Although religion wasn’t allowed as a foundation for governance, converting everyone into atheists was never a goal. Because the USSR was focused was on changing people’s base material conditions, not their religious superstructure. That’s why China doesn’t force people to abandon their faith either.
“It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.”
what WaterBowlSlime said, but also after the USSR fell people lost the luxury of being able to be non-religious.
For those in power, religion can be a tool that can be used to keep the proletarians in line. But for those without power, it’s a cry for stability in a world that lacks any semblance of it. With the society that followed the fall, it makes total sense that religion would become an important part of Eastern European culture again.
