The Catholic Question in the Work of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults under the USSR Council of People's Commissars in 1944–1945

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Abstract

In the final years of the Second World War, anti-Catholic rhetoric in the Soviet Union intensified, shaped by growing suspicions toward the Vatican. Among the key bodies involved in shaping religious policy was the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults, established under the USSR Council of People’s Commissars. This article examines how the Council gathered and interpreted information on Catholic activities within Soviet territory, the image of the Vatican it constructed, and the ways in which this image informed policymaking at the highest levels. Relying on an extensive network of regional commissioners, the Council monitored the Catholic Church across the Soviet republics, often with uneven results. Its assessments of Vatican policy were shaped by the limited and ideologically filtered reports received. In 1945, Ivan Polyansky, Chairman of the Council, advanced a plan aimed at severing ties between the Soviet Catholic Church and the Vatican – an initiative that included collaboration with the Old Catholic movement. Drawing on archival materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the article argues that the Council operated in alignment with broader state objectives, and actively reinforced the perception of the Vatican as politically hostile. In doing so, it became a key institutional actor in the formulation of Soviet religious policy during this transitional moment.

About the authors

E. S. Zhdanova

Lomonosov Moscow State University

Author for correspondence.
Email: ekaterina.msu.hist@gmail.com
Moscow, Russia

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