The article is devoted to a little-known episode from the history of the relationship between the Bolsheviks and religious sectarianism in the first post-revolutionary decade. We are talking about the discussion 312 that unfolded in the leadership of the country in the spring of 1924 - in the summer of 1925, about the boundaries and forms of concessions to sectarians on the issue of the obligation / non-obligation for them to serve in the ranks of the Red Army. The archival materials used in the text of the article, to a large extent being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, expand and clarify our ideas about the peculiarities of the Soviet state confessional policy, which, for all its ideological predestination, was not devoid of a certain pragmatism and variability.