Bureaucrats Bewildered

Abstract

Using Kazakhstan as a case study, this chapter shows how the atheist officials charged with policing religion in the Soviet Union quickly lost track of the religious policies they were tasked with enforcing. Meanwhile, bureaucrats at local levels were often oblivious or even indifferent to those policies. Beyond the bureaucratic confusion and malaise, there was also significant confusion among officials over the very nature of Islam in the Soviet Union. What was the point of “registering” mosques, for example, if Kazakh Muslims, with their legacy of nomadism, did not need mosques? What was the point of monitoring mullas and other Islamic leaders when each Muslim is, according to tradition, ritually autonomous and self-sufficient? By showing the grey areas where enforcement met devotional practice, this chapter argues that Soviet Muslims were given a broad space for religious activity not only thanks to Stalin’s policies, but also through bureaucratic incompetence, indifference, and bewilderment.