The War on the Church

In the early 1920’s, the newly solidified government of Russia began seeking to consolidate its gains and secure its future as the sole ruling group in Moscow. One of the primary objectives they set before themselves was the destruction of the Eastern Orthodox church, thus began years of anti religious campaigns, church closings and occasional, […]

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“…A tower that reaches to the Heavens…”

Red brick dotted the horizon puncturing deep into the black clouds of industry. Horizons that had once been speckled with gold coated Christian Crucifixes, were now framed in brick and coal. The Party had found its titan, the factory. The mass industrialization of the Soviet Union and its cultural effects came about due to Stalin’s ambitious Five Year Plan. … Continue reading “…A tower that reaches to the Heavens…”

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A Devout City Becomes Godless (1929)

This image and video relate to not only the Stalin’s First Five Year Plan, but also revolutionary culture. Because of the socialist government’s desire to control everything in Russia they banned religion all across that nation. These two primary sources show church bells being taken down (27 bells out of 32 bells in the video […]

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A New Era of Manipulation

“Vodka, the Church, and the Cinema” This writing by Leon Trotsky provides a glimpse into what Trotsky envisioned the new culture as. As one of the leaders of this new soviet endeavor Trotsky looked towards the future but also the past. He saw how the old fit with the new, and how the old would […]

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Cinema as a Weapon of Revolution

In 1923 Leon Trotsky wrote an article for Pravda in which he explored the relationship of the church to the revolution, espoused the virtues of Cinema as a tool for re educating the masses, and went about describing how cinema could be used as a weapon by the Bolsheviks to destroy alcoholism and religion within the budding […]

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