Peculiarities and implementation of the campaign against church bells in the mid-1920's and early-1930's in Smolensk

The author considers one aspect of the religious persecutions of the second half of the 1920's involving the confiscation of church property. The state's policy against church bells underwent several stages of development: an ideological, consisting of limits on bell ringing; an economic, involving legislation to confiscate religious property; and a primarily anti-religious, which included both of the above. By the end of 1929, the campaign against church bells, together with the closure of churches, was the primary tool of the state's anti-religious policy of persecution. The events in Smolensk are used as an example to evaluate the mechanisms of how anti-religious legislation was implemented at the local level.