Religious Diplomacy of the Soviet Unionduring the Cold War (the Time of N.S. Khrushchev and L.I. Brezhnev)

Abstract

This article will be consider the main areas of cooperation between Soviet departments and religious organizations in international politics from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. Contacts of the representatives of the churches of the USSR steadily expanded in geographical and religious terms at that time. The article shows that the establishment of contacts under the religious line, material support and promotion of international relations of religious organizations of the USSR were part of “people’s democracy”. This was used as “soft power” to spread the Soviet ideological project. Religious diplomacy contributed to the reduction of international tension, was a channel of alternative relations between the two opposing superpowers in a bipolar world. At the same time, the Soviet Union continued the ideological struggle against religion and its institutions, and the socially significant activities of Soviet religious leaders were addressed only to foreign audiences.

Keywords

• religion in the cold war
• religious diplomacy
• the cold war
• the “late” soviet union
• “people’s democracy”
• the roc
• ministry of foreign affairs
• cpsu central committee
• kgb