Oldal 121 [121]
OCR
ABOUT A LETTER OF THE SOVIET BUDDHISTS TO THE THIRTEENTH DALAI LAMA Vladimir Uspensky Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg Religion and Oppression after the Russian Revolution The ideology and policy of the Soviet government and the Communist Party were openly antireligious from the first days of the Russian Revolution of 1917. However, it was the Russian Orthodox Church — the state church of the Russian Empire — which was initially the main target of this repressive policy. At the same time, ethnic minorities were regarded as being oppressed by the Czarist regime and were enticed by the new power into becoming supporters of the Revolution. Colonial peoples of the East were regarded as natural allies of the proletarian Revolution. For this reason in the first years after the Revolution religions other than Orthodox Christianity acquired new opportunities for growth. The major area in Russia where Buddhism had already flourished was Eastern Siberia. Direct Soviet rule from Moscow was established there only by 1923. The number of monasteries (datsans) founded by the Buryat Mongols increased soon after the Revolution since the former restrictions of the Czars ceased to exist. This is how the state of affairs was described in 1923 by M.N. Yerbanov, the head of the Buryat Mongol Autonomous Republic: “Tt seems to me that in no other autonomous republic or region do religious issues have such actual importance and exercise such an influence upon the working masses as in ours. This is easy to explain. However strange it may seem, in some areas of the Far Eastern Autonomous Region between 12 to 17 per cent of the total population are lamas who live in their monasteries (datsans) and are not involved at all in working for a living being spongers who are fed entirely with what is produced by the local population. They have methods of assessment of their own, a peculiar taxation system which is, in fact, exercised in a compulsory way. In any case we have to give serious consideration to Lamaism. [...] Religious problems are of utmost importance to us and much depends upon their proper management. We should approach carefully these issues since our Lamaism is linked not only to Mongolia but to Tibet and the Dalai Lama.” Tajny nacional’noj polimiki CK RKP: «Cjetvjertoje sovjestanije CK RKP s otvjetstvjennymi rabotnikami nacional’nyh respublik i oblastjej v g. Moskvje 9-12 ijunja 1923 g.». Stjenografièjeskij otéjot. Izdatjel’stvo Insan, Moskva 1992, pp. 182-183, 185. 119
