Strategy of relations between evangelical communities and the Soviet government in the BSSR in the 20–30s of the 20th century

Abstract

The article analyses transformation of the believers attitude in the late Protestant communities of the BSSR to the Soviet government in 1917–1939. The author identifies three periods different in their strategy of building relations between evangelical believers and the Soviet government (1917–1926, late 1920s – early 1930s and the second half of the 1930s). At the first stage, the Belarusian communities adopted a strategy of normalizing religious activity under the existing political and legal conditions. They were determined to operate within the legal framework. In the second half of the 1920s, as the heads of the central communities are forced to recognize compulsory military service, ban on religious education for children, administrative restrictions on communities’ activities, Belarusian communities’ attitude to the Soviet government changes towards greater mistrust. Active anti-religious policy in the BSSR from the beginning of the 1930s, repressions against believers resulted in the transformation of the attitude of Belorussian EvangelicalBaptists and Adventists to the Soviet power changing it from neutrality to rejection. The developed strategy of the late Belorussian Protestant communities’ attitude to the Soviet power in the 1930s was based on the principle of their demonstrative apolitical nature and distancing from any political activity. At the last, Belarusian communities adopt the strategy of self-preservation, using illegal forms of religious activity.