Role of religion in Cultural Revolution (Comparative Study on Position of religion in the cultural revolution of Iran, China and Russia from historical sociology perspective)

Volume 12, Issue 2
February 2022
Pages 37-58

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Social Studies Education Department, Farhangian University, Tehran (Zanjan Shahid Beheshti Campus)

2 Theoretical-Cultural Sociology Faculty, Social Studies Research Department, Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies.

Abstract
Abstract

Despite significant studies in the field of cultural revolutions; comparative study of Iran, China and Russia Cultural Revolutions is less common due to the role of religion. The question of this study was how did each of the cultural revolutions in Russia, China, and Iran relate to the religious teachings of the social context in which they occurred?

According to the study conditions, the authors have briefly addressed the secular and revolutionary-religion approaches in cultural revolutions and attempted to test these approaches by using the comparative-historical method based on the selected events. Historical-comparative study has been done in intra-systemic and inter-systemic form; at the intra-systemic level the process of relationship between the two phenomena has been narrated and at the inter-systemic level the religious characteristics of the Cultural Revolution in the three countries have been compared using the Mill methods.

Findings shows that in all three cases, the role of religion is important, but the Iranian characteristics support the ideal perspective and the characteristics of Russia and China confirm the instrumental perspective on the role of religion in the Cultural Revolution. The results of the article, while confirming the authors' claim, explain the differences and similarities between the three events studied.

Keywords

Subjects
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