Cleansing NEP Russia: State Violence Against the Russian Orthodox Church in 1922

This essay offers a case study of how the Bolshevik state reacted to popular, sometimes violent, opposition and resistance to its policies during the early period of New Economic Policy. The case study concerns the ruling Bolshevik Party's repressive approach to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1922. This culminated in show trials and executions of clergy and lay believers in response to resistance throughout the country to the state's campaign of collecting church valuables that year, ostensibly to provide relief for victims of a catastrophic famine that afflicted much of southern Russia in 1921-1922.