T. P. Samsonov, Memo on the Need to Destroy Religion by Force. December 4, 1920

Original Source: Neizvestnaia Rossiia, XX vek (Moscow: Istoricheskoe nasledie, 1992), Vol. I, 34-35.

Top secret

In amplification of the letter of comrade Latsis on our attitude to the clergy, I can say the following:

1) Comrade Latsis is completely right when he says that Communism and Religion are mutually exclusive and is also deeply right that no other apparatus is capable of destroying religion apart from the apparatus of the VChK.

2) The line taken by the VChK for the destruction of religion is, from the practical side, true in principle, with the exception of the question of the possibility of breaking down religion from the center through persons holding high posts in the church hierarchy. The attempt undertaken by the VChK in this connection has resulted in a fiasco. Thus, the 'Executive committee for the clergy' took a false direction and started to adapt the orthodox church to the new conditions and times to the point where we destroyed it, and the religious fathers such as Archbishop Vladimir Putiata (of Penza) proved to be useless for the simple reason that he, like any inveterate enemy Of Soviet power, did not have enough boldness of spirit and will to expand his work in all breadth and depth and to inflict on the church the destructive blow; instead of this Putiata argued against Tikhon and sneaked on him to the VChK, at the same time doing practically nothing himself to destroy the church. Even such a decisive and bold warrior in a cassock as Iliodor Trufanov, even he in the web of the church could not find the presence of spirit openly to hit the church hierarchy straight in the face.

3) Proceeding from this understanding, as well as taking into account that the lowest young secular clergy, it is true in their insignificant little part, are without doubt progressive, reforming and even revolutionarily inclined in relation to the reconstruction of the church, the secret department of the VChK has recently focused all its attention on its plans for breaking down the church precisely on the mass of clergy, and that only through them can we completely destroy and break up the church, by means of slow, intensive and laborious work. We have already had some successes in this relation, though admittedly in small measure so far. This path is true, all the more because the old church wolves, like Tikhon, Vladimir Putiata and others, can work for us only insofar as they need to save their skins, while their very soul sees and does something else, then just as the lowest clergy, having liberated themselves from the claws of the big church wolves, sometimes completely sincerely works for us and with us and, in addition, spontaneously working among the believing mass, the lowest clergy, preaching our line, will bring destruction right to the heart of the believers, and then that will be it.

4) Up till now the VChK has concerned itself only with the destruction of the orthodox church as the largest and most powerful, but this is not enough as there are on the territory of the Republic a whole range more of no less powerful Religions, like Islam etc., where we also have to bring the same destruction step by step that was brought to the orthodox church. {Penciled remark by Dzerzhinskii: 'This is dangerous and we should not undertake it.'}

5) The work of dispelling the religious darkness is extremely difficult and great and for this reason one must not rely on speedy success. Strong and capable people are needed in this work which, unfortunately, we do not have as the CC does not give us them.

Head of the secret department of the VChK
Samsonov

Source: Felix Corley, ed., Religion in the Soviet Union: an Archival Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1996), Doc. 06.