Muslims in the USSR

Originally posted by TheDiplomat Recently I read an article about the Muslims in Russia published by TheEconomist, and it read that Muslims are the only religious group growing in Russian Federation. They make up more than 10% of the overall population, and 20% in the capital city-Moscow.

Originally posted by TheDiplomat I know that Lenin sympathzied with Muslims greatly by uttering remarks likethe Muslims of Russia would experience a degree of freedom that they had never been able to under the Tsarist Rules.

Lenin sympathized with every non-Russian ethnicity to get their support against the whites (Tsarist Russians) during civil war. This was one of the reasons for establishing Baltic state independence and founding for example various republics within Soviet Union - Ukrainian Soviet Republic, Uzbekistan Soviet Republic and so on.

As far as I know the Soviet leaders after Stalin carried on his policies of suppressing any religion that might compete with communism.

Edited by DukeC - 09-Apr-2007 at 14:16

Originally posted by Feanor Originally posted by DukeC As far as I know the Soviet leaders after Stalin carried on his policies of suppressing any religion that might compete with communism. It was the rise of Islamic fundamentalism that helped bring about the fall of the U.S.S.R, something that was supported in the west at the time. Kind of ironic given the current climate in the world today. Irrelevant. Fundamentalism was not common among the muslims of USSR.

Edited by DukeC - 10-Apr-2007 at 00:14

^ I agree TheDiplomat, mainly from what ive know about the Chechen conflict.

The Chechens split from the USSR not because of Islam but because they are Chechen and also because of their awful history of suffering under the Russians. This is mainly because of Stalin but it goes back before the USSR. When the USSR was already breaking up they saw their chance and took it like every other nationality Christian or Muslim.

AFAIK Islam in Chechnya wasn't nearly as strict as what exists in the middle east. As that war continued and the original nationalist leadership were picked off, Islam in its nasty Wahabi form started to take over the ideology of resistance, no doubt helped along by Russian brutality. So if we take that conflict as an example it is quite easy to see that it was the break down of the USSR, previous injustices but most importantly new injustices that created the more radical Islamic counter movement we see today.

Edited by Leonidas - 10-Apr-2007 at 08:20

Every kind of religion was "opium for the people". However it was not completely prohibited as such. But you could be excluded from party (or komsomol, pioneer, oktjabrenok organizations) for being religious. So, to be a religious (Muslim or Christian mainly) was not sort of speak "popular".

Originally posted by Constantine XI The USSR had a very practical approach to dealing with its Muslim inhabitants. It tried to synthesise the principles of Islam and communism where they were compatible. Where Muslims valued the Medina tradition of egalitarian treatment of humanity and striving to better humanity, communism pointed to Marx's ideology and declared these principles one and the same. I think the communists were prepared to accept that Muslims could be brought into the fold by accepting that they could not completely obliterate Islamic identity. They seemed to accept that Islam and communism were not mutually exclusive, but that ties to the former could help persuade Muslims to become receptive to the latter.

The Soviet Union was only able to exist as long as it could suppress the regional identities of its' many republics. While the Islamic population there couldn't be thought of as fundamentalist they were influenced enough by the movements to the south of them to begin to see themselves as other than Soviet.

I don't remember the exact figures but I'm fairly certain Muslims made up about 1/3 of the Red Army. Because of it's huge size it faced manpower shortages which could only be made up by conscripting non-Russians.

Originally posted by Feanor Originally posted by axeman Well there was constant discrimination against Muslims, central Asians, Caucasians in Soviet army.. Wasn't Stalin a Georgian?

Stalin was a Georgian with a Christian upbringing, who later became atheist and embraced the idea of Russian racial superiority. He also rose to his rank via political movement, not military promotion.

He also personally oversaw brutal repressive measures taken against his native Georgia when Georgia revolted during the Civil War.