The article deals with the anti-religious policy of the Soviet state against the Buddhist clergy. Having destroyed churches and monasteries, turning over the possessions of all faiths to the state, the Soviet government subjected priests to repression. In most cases, there were no legal grounds for that at all. The main criterion for the prosecution was the social status of being the priest. Repressions against Buddhist clergy in Kalmykia and Buryatia were carried out by a rather extensive system of organizations of the OGPU, NKVD and extrajudicial bodies under the leadership of the party committees. In the 1930s, in these republics, significant number of Buddhist priests was sentenced to various punishments, up to the death penalty illegally. By 1938 in Kalmykia, all Churches and Buddhist temples had been closed, many Buddhist clergymen had to leave the service in order to avoid persecution, most of them were subjected to repression by judicial and extrajudicial bodies. In neighboring states where the population professed Buddhism the clergy was subjected to repression as well. In the Mongolian and Tuva people's republics, like in the USSR, by the end of the 1930s, as the result of the struggle against religion of the population monasteries had been actually liquidated and spiritual people had been repressed.
