User talk:Irishpunktom/workingonitwhileblocked

The Soviet Union was a state comprised of fifteen communist republics which existed from 1922 till its dissolution into a a series of seperate nation states in 1991. Of these fifteen republics, six had a Muslim majority, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. There was also a large Muslim presence in the Volga-Ural region and most of the population of North Caucasus of Russian federation were Muslims and a large number of Tatar Muslims lived in Siberia and other regions.

Unlike the Russian Orthodox Christian church, the Muslims of the Soviet Union originally encountered a larger degree of religious freedom under the new Bolshevik rule. Vladimir Lenin oversaw the return of religious artifacts, such as the Uthman Quran, the foundations of court systems using principles of Islamic law which ran alongside the Communist legal system , Jadids and other "Islamic socialists" were given positions of power , an affirmative action system called "korenizatsiia" was set which helped the local Muslim populace , while Friday, the day of Muslim religious celebration, was declared the legal day of rest throughout Central Asia.

Under the Tzars, Muslims were brutally repressed and the Eastern Orthodox Church was the offical religion. On 24 November, 1917 Lenin declared;


 * "Muslims of Russia…all you whose mosques and prayer houses have been destroyed, whose beliefs and customs have been trampled upon by the tsars and oppressors of Russia: your beliefs and practices, your national and cultural institutions are forever free and inviolate. Know that your rights, like those of all the peoples of Russia, are under the mighty protection of the revolution.".

However, under Josef Stalin, Lenin's direct successor, things changed. Stalin took the Paranji veil that the women wore (as part of the Islamic Hijab interpritation of Modesty) as evidence that the Muslim women were oppressed, and began the Hujum to try and forcefully remove it. This backfired, and the veil became more popular than ever among the workers, whereas prior to this was mostly used by the middle, wealthier classes. Stalin's Cult of personality, wherein he was almost deified, left virtually no place for any any religious sentiment.

Stalin also forcibly moved Muslims from their homeland in Chechnya during World War II, lest they rise up against him in favour of the enemy.