“In Order to Stop the Hostile Activity of the Khlyst Underground”: The 1945 Directives of the NKGB of the USSR on the Struggle against Khristover Sectarians

Аннотация

The article is devoted to the publication of the directive documents of the NKGB of the USSR on the intensification of the battle against the sect of the Khlysty. To date, the existence of the old Russian sectarianism in the Soviet Union has been an area of little study. Practically the only sources are documents from repressive Soviet era governmental bodies, still virtually inaccessible to researchers. The opening of the archives of the Soviet secret services in some post-Soviet countries opens up new opportunities for the study of religious movements in the USSR. The religious policy of the Soviet government created a situation where the main ‘researchers’ of religious movements were not scientists but investigators and the operational officers of the special services. The agents, by virtue of their profession, were inclined to exaggerate the significance of vertical ties in religious communities. In their eyes, the sect of the Khlysty appeared as a centralised organisation with a hierarchical leadership structure. As a result, a very peculiar ‘research program’ was formed in the heads of the state security workers, to which the collection of operational material was adjusted and to which the investigation was oriented. The approach of the Soviet special services practically differed little from the approach of prerevolutionary officials and missionaries. The published materials contain a brief history of the sect of the Khlysty as seen by the Soviet Chekists, and provides intelligence information about the ritualism of the Christian faith in the Soviet period.