Associations of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in Tatar ASSR during 1960s – 1980s

The relevance of the problem under study is caused by multi-confessional character of Russian society and the need of power to take into account the specific features of each confession in its religious policy. In order to understand the essential characteristics of contemporary issues in the state-confessional and inter-confessional relations the events and the processes taking place in the atheist Soviet past should be examined carefully. The purpose of the article is to study the specifics of the relationship between the authorities and associations of Evangelical Christians-Baptists during 1960s – 1980s, using the example of such a multi-confessional region as Tatarstan. The leading approach to the study of this problem was the civilizational approach, which enabled a comprehensive study of the object under study. The main results of the study are the studying of Tatar ASSR Baptist association forms and ways in the context of Soviet political and legal realities. The materials of the article can be useful in the preparation of educational literature, as well as in the practical activities of state structures implementing the policy in the spiritual sphere.


Introduction
By 1917, apart from the traditional confessions of this region -Islam and Orthodoxy, other beliefs were common on the territory of the Kazan province. The following communities operated here: Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, the Old Believers of Belokrinitsky and pope free consent, various Protestant religions (Evangelical, Baptists, Pentecostals, Adventists) (Nabiev, 1997). In accordance with the legislation of Russian Empire, the above-mentioned confessions had different rights. With the adoption of "The declaration on the Rights of Peoples of Russia" by the Bolsheviks in November of 1917 all existing national and religious privileges and restrictions were abolished, each confession had equal rights to carry out their religious needs (The collection of normative acts of the Soviet state law, 1984).
During the first decade of Soviet power, its attitude toward the Baptists and Evangelical Christians was relatively mild, since the authorities used them as an instrument to combat the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. In this regard, a significant increase of Baptists and Evangelical Christians number takes place. If by 1917 their number in the Kazan province was no more than 300 people, then over 40 of their communities operated (legally and illegally) in Tatar ASSR during 1920s (Lipakov, 2002). Anti-religious campaigns of the late 1920's -1930's forced the association of Evangelical Christians and Baptists to act informally.
Only in the conditions of relative softening of the Soviet state policy towards religion during the Great Patriotic War, Baptists and Evangelical Christians (in 1944 they merged into a single organization -the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians and Baptists, since 1945 -All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (hereinafter referred to as AUCECB), as well as the representatives of other faiths, had the opportunity to register some of their associations in the state bodies. For example, in 1946 two such associations were registered in the Tatar ASSR -in the city of Kazan and Chistopol. The overwhelming majority of believers were forced to unite in illegally functioned groups and associations.

Methods
The methodological basis of the study is the civilizational approach that made it possible to identify the specifics of religious association functioning for evangelical Christian Baptists in the conditions of the social-political reality of the Soviet state during 1960s -1980s, using the example of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
While working on the article, the author was guided by the principles of historicism and objectivity. In accordance with the first of them, the events and the processes of the past were studied and evaluated from the point of view of their emergence and development in the conditions of Soviet social-cultural and political realities. The principle of objectivity obliged the researcher to dissociate himself from various subjective factors that could affect the objectivity of research: political attitudes, national, religious aspirations, etc.
Special historical methods of research were used: problem-chronological, applied in the structuring and the presentation of material, which allowed us to trace the relationship of power and associations of Evangelical Christian Baptists of the republic gradually in the specified chronological framework; synchronic, which made it possible to examine the events and the processes in the life of Evangelical Christian Baptists of the Tatar ASSR in different regions that occurred in the same period; statistical, used to determine the religious activity of the Baptists of the Republic at different stages of the period under study.

Discussion
In the late 1950s -the first half of the 1960s Evangelical Christian Baptists experienced the toughening of the Soviet state policy towards religion fully, the essence of which was to increase the administrative pressure on believers and clergy, to activate massive atheist propaganda and to close the legally functioning religious associations. AUCECB leaders were forced to call on their followers to abide the Soviet legislation on cults scrupulously in order to retain its legitimacy, on the recommendation of the Council for Religious Affairs. For some part of Baptists it was unacceptable and during the early 1960s the movement of Initiatives -Baptists appeared among them who defended the right to freedom of religious activities. In 1965 they created the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (hereinafter CCECB) as opposed to legally prevailing AUCECB, put forward the requirements on the formation of religious organizations without official registration, and also required to cancel the decision of the All-Union Central Executive Committee and UNC RSFSR issued on April 8, 1929 "on religious associations" and the provision of the right to an unrestricted propagation of religion, declaring at the same time that the observance of Soviet legislation on cults is the deviation from the foundations of a free Baptist church. Since all these demands had the character of a pronounced dissatisfaction with the current legislation on religious cults and their disobedience, the attitude of the authorities towards this trend was defined as intolerable in the following years.
In order to strengthen the control over the activities of unregistered religious associations in general and Baptist ones in particular, as well as the desire of the state to compel the believers of this sect to comply with Soviet legislation on cults, a circular of the Council for Religious Affairs at the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued on April 19, 1963, which instructed authorized persons "not to hinder the believers (mostly of sectarian associations) to use private premises for prayer meetings, that as the mass closure of houses of worship by administrative means will cause dissatisfaction among the population" (National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan, R-873 fund, inventory 1, the case 5, sheet 328). The implementation of this directive was possible only if Baptists exclude the abovementioned actions from their activities, which are not commensurate with the Soviet legislation on cults.
After Khrushchev's removal from power, the policy of the Soviet state regarding religion was somewhat softened. However, this was not spread to the CCECB associations, which were already operating in considerable numbers during that period. In particular, in Tatar  In addition to the use of law enforcement and fines, the party and the government bodies recommended to local authorities to use such form of influence as discussion the activities of sectarians of CCECB associations in work collectives and in the community more often.
However, as the subsequent practice showed, these methods of combat were not successful.

Conclusion
The problem under study has long enjoyed the steady attention of the scientific community.
The works published during the Soviet period have inevitably ideological dogmas and the stereotypes of the Soviet era (Kalinicheva, 1972, Klybanov, Mitrokhin, 1967Lyalina, 1977;Malakhova, 1987;Mitrokhin, 1966;Filimonov, 1968). Despite this shortcoming inherent in all humanitarian works carried out in the Soviet state, the specific historical material presented in them is certainly of interest to modern researchers.
The works published during perestroika and post-soviet periods, are characterized by the understanding of the events and processes in the life of the Baptist associations of the Soviet state that took place during the period under review from the standpoint of new scientific approaches and the introduction of new sources into scientific circulation (Mitrokhin, 1997;Melnik, 1992;Kurilo, 1996;Licender, 2000;Plohotniuc, 1996;Knyazeva, Solovyov, 2001; and others).
Despite a significant number of works devoted to the situation of religious associations of Protestants in the Soviet state, many aspects of this problem were not studied enough at the regional level and in Tatar ASSR in particular. The novelty of the presented article is largely determined by the object of study and the source database -mainly consisting of archival documents, many of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.
Thus, the schism among the evangelical Christians of the Baptists in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s gave birth to almost a unique phenomenon in the Soviet state, when a religious organization, namely CCECB, did not recognize Soviet legislation on cults openly. The experience of relations between the authorities and the community of believers from CCECB associations on the example of Tatar ASSR showed that the measures applied by the government in this regard, ranging from power actions to public condemnation, did not bring any tangible result. Such a specific relationship between the authorities and CCECB associations preserved until the end of the 1980s, until the democratization of Soviet society and the development of a fundamentally new approach by the authorities in their relations with confessions, including the Protestant ones.