The “New Course” of Soviet Religious Policy and the Buddhist Confession in the Buryat-Mongol ASSR: Mechanisms of Institutionalization and State Control

Abstract

The article examines the mechanisms for implementing religious policy in the USSR during the “New Course” period from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, using the case study of Buddhists in the Buryat-Mongol ASSR. Drawing on archival materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the State Archive of the Republic of Buryatia, the authors analyze the process of institutionalizing the Buddhist confession through the creation of the Provisional Central Spiritual Administration of Buddhists of the USSR, which was controlled by the authorities, and the only legal temple, the Khambinsky Sume. The paper provides a detailed analysis of key aspects of this process: legal foundations, personnel policies aimed at recruiting loyal clergy, the unification of ritual practices, the economic activities of the datsan, as well as the efforts of the state and the Provisional Central Spiritual Administration of Buddhists of the USSR to eradicate alternative forms of religiosity. It is concluded that the “New Course” did not signify a genuine liberalization of religious policy; rather, it represented a strategy of strict administrative control and the integration of Buddhism into the structure of the Soviet model of state-religion relations. The experience of Buryat Buddhists is considered a particular manifestation of the general model of Soviet state-religion relations during the era of “late Stalinism.”