The Problem of the Church’s Attitude to the Fall of the Autocracy in the Soviet Historiography: a Conflict of Approaches

Abstract

This article discusses the reflection of the problem of the Russian Orthodox Church’s attitude to the fall of the tsarist autocracy in Russia in the Soviet historiography. In Soviet era authors’ writings three points of view can be distinguished: a negative attitude, a positive attitude, and “opportunism” as the main characteristic of the Church’s reaction to the events taking place in February 1917. The dependence of the author’s research conclusions on such a fact of his biography as the presence of a higher education, especially of a professional historical one, is traced. Relationships in the reception of Orthodoxy and of various sectarian doctrines by the leading Soviet atheistic propagandists are noted. The author shows the relevance of this problem in determining a biographical factor’s influence on the degree of historical objectivity of its researchers.