League of Militant Atheists
Encyclopedia
The League of Militant Atheists (or The Union of Belligerent Atheists; ); other names include Общество безбожников (Society of the Godless) and Союз безбожников (The Union of the Godless), was a mass volunteer antireligious
organization of Soviet
workers and others in 1925–1947. It "consisted of Party members, members of the Komsomol
youth movement, workers and army veterans".
S.o.G. was an antireligious movement
that developed in Soviet Russia
under the influence of the ideological and cultural views and policies of the Communist Party
.
S.o.G. embraced workers, peasant
s, student
s, and intelligentsia
. It had its first affiliates at factories, plants, collective farms (kolkhoz
), and educational institutions. By the beginning of 1941, S.o.G. had about 3.5 million members of 100 nationalities. It had about 96,000 offices across the country. Guided by Bolshevik principles of antireligious propaganda
and party's orders with regards to religion
, S.o.G. aimed at fighting religion in all its manifestations and forming scientific mindset among the workers. It popularized atheism
and scientific achievements, conducted 'individual work' (a method of sending atheist tutors to meet with individual believers to convince them of atheism, which could be followed up with public harassment if they failed to comply) with religious people, prepared propagandists and atheistic campaigners, published scientific literature and periodicals, organized museums and exhibitions, conducted scientific research in the field of atheism and critics of religion. S.o.G.'s slogan was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism
", which was meant to tie in their atheist views with economy
, politics
, and culture
. One of the slogans adopted at the 2nd congress was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for the five year plan!" S.o.G. had vast international connections; it was part of the International of Proletarian Freethinkers and later of the Worldwide Freethinkers Union.
The League was a "nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism." It published newspapers, journals, and other materials that lampooned religion; it sponsored lectures and films; it organized demonstrations and parades; it set up antireligious museums; and it led a concerted effort to persuade Soviet citizens that religious beliefs and practices were "wrong" and harmful, and that good citizens ought to embrace a scientific, atheistic worldview.
(Godless, Atheist) (1922–1941), founded and edited by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky
, played a significant role in S.o.G.'s establishment, and had a wide network of correspondents and readers. Bezbozhnik appeared first in December 1922, and the following year a Moscow monthly for industrial workers Bezbozhnik u stanka (The Godless at the Work-Bench, AKA Bezbust) formed the like-minded Moscow Society of the Godless in August 1924.
The Moscow group tended to support the leftist side of the debate on how to destroy religion (i.e. in favour of attacking religion in all of its forms rather than moderation), and in 1924 it attacked Lunacharsky, Yaroslavsky
and Bonch-Bruevich
for differentiation between different religions, instead of genuine godlessness. It accused Yaroslavsky of attacking only the clergy rather than religion in general. Yaroslavsky protested this and affirmed that all religions were enemies of socialism including the Renovationist schism in the Orthodox church, but that the methods of struggle against different religions should vary due to the large number of loyal Soviet citizens with religious beliefs who should be re-educated as atheists rather than treated as class enemies. Bezbozhnik argued that it was an oversimplification to treat religion solely as a kind of class exploitation to be attacked, forgetting the complex nature of religions, as well as the individual believers. The CPSU Central Committee supported Yaroslavsky's viewpoint on this issue, although this debate was remained unresolved at the Union that came in 1925.
The Moscow group merged with the Society of Friends of the Godless Newspaper (associated with Bezbozhnik) in April 1925 to form the All-Union League of the Godless at its first congress. Between 1925-1929 a power struggle took place in the new organization between Yaroslavsky and his followers, and the leadership of the former Moscow group (Galaktionov, Polidorov, Kostelovskaia, Lunin and others). The 1926 All-Union Conference on Antireligious Propaganda voted in favour of Yaroslavsky's views on the antireligious campaign, but the debate still continued. The Moscow group argued that the antireligious struggle should be led only by the party and the industrial proletariat, as opposed to the whole nation which Yaroslavsky wanted to mobilize to conduct the antireligious struggle.
In 1929, when the resolutions that would set the tone for the vicious persecution of the next decade were set and Yaroslavsky's victory in the power struggle had been completed, there were a few last attacks made on Yaroslavsky and the organization for minimizing the class-enemy thesis in attacking religion, of having few works and peasants in its ranks, of using archaeology instead of aggressively attacking religion, of being indifferent to transforming the school system into a militantly antireligious atmosphere and of opportunistically using non-marxist western bourgeois atheists in publications. In response, Yaroslavsky claimed that they had supported antireligious education for years, but in contrast to the leftists who simply wanted to attack religion, he was working to replace the popular religious culture with that of dialectical materialism. He also claimed (correctly) that Lenin had used the works of 18th century French atheists and other bourgeois atheists to assist in the campaign to disseminate atheism in the USSR. He admitted that the work of the effect that they had had at that point was more modest than he had hoped, which he implicitly blamed on the Moscow branch for their lack of cooperation, lack of support from the party and some branches of the Komsomol, a ban operating on their activities in the Ukraine as well as a lack of adequate finances.
Yaroslavsky, Stalin's obedient aide in the secretariat and one of the founding editors of Kommunist, came out on top despite resistance from the Moscow group to retain autonomy and the support for that group from the daily Komsomol'skaia pravda.
The problems that Yaroslavsky outlined in the above response were addressed in 1929 at the second congress. The CPSU Central Committee delegated to the LMG full powers to launch a great antireligious attack in order to completely eliminate it from the country, with rights to mobilize all public organizations.
In 1929, the Second Congress changed the society's name to The Union of Belligerent (or Militant) Atheists. The Central Council chose Yaroslavsky as its leader (who occupied this post continuously).
The League not only attacked religion but also attacked deviations from what it saw as the proper line to combat religion in the USSR and, in effect, set the 'proper' line to follow in this sphere for party membership. Early Marxist beliefs that religion would disappear with the coming of a tractor (claimed by Trotsky) were ridiculed by the League. The popularity of religion among nationalistic intellectuals was pointed out by Lukachevsky (LMG) and he claimed that if religion was only rooted in ownership of property, it could not explain the growth of the renovationists.
The League occupied the leadership role in the antireligious struggle of the Communist Party.
It employed the powers given to it by the CPSU Central Committee at the 1929 congress to dictate orders to schools, universities, the armed forces, the trade unions, the Komsomol, the Young Pioneer Organization
, the Soviet Press and other institutions for the purpose of its antireligious campaign. It criticized many public institutions (including the Communist Party) for failing to adequately combat religious belief and instructed them on how to be more effective. The People's Commisariat for enlightenment was heckled and Glavnauka, the Chief Administration for Science and Scholarship was also singled out for criticism. A spokesperson for the latter tried to justify their behaviour to the LMG by claiming that they had reduced the total number of historical buildings under its protection (mostly ancient churches and monasteries) from 7000 to 1000, by destroying them.
The League concerned itself with the issue of active believers who had infiltrated its own membership and who were trying to prove their loyalty to the regime or even undermine the antireligious work of the League. League members who suspected each other of harbouring religious beliefs secretly discussed their concerns in the early years. The League also had to address the issue of committed atheists in its membership who may have sympathized with the religious believers and who may have had doubts about the rightness of what they were doing. In answer to these problems, the League adopted a policy that any League member who entered a church (to conduct antireligious work by checking on the strength of believers or numbering them) had to first receive local branch approval beforehand in order so that he did not give the impression that he was going to the church to pray. In contrast the League in Tashkent actually tried to translate the Quran into Uzbek so that more Muslims could read it and therefore see its alleged "fallacies".
All members of the Komsomol were obligated to join the League, and it directed all members of the CPSU to support the League's work. The extreme character of the line to be taken against religion is described:
In 1930 the Second Plenum of the LMG Central Council adopted an antireligious five year plan with the intention of annihilating religion in the USSR.
The League purged its rightist members in 1932–1934.
At its 1929 congress it admitted that there had been some growth in sectarian groups, but claimed that this was local rather than national phenomena. They warned, however, that lay religious activists exceeded one million and that all of the religious communities including the old Orthodox had begun to adopt modern methods and were attracting youth. It determined therefore that the fight against religion needed to be pressed, although it still, as Yaroslavsky had said for years, warned against extreme antireligious ultra-left attacks. At the same meeting it demanded that no holidays should be allowed to coincide with important Church feast days; this policy was carried out in the same year.
The resolutions at the meeting called for local LMG branches to effect total public ostracism of the clergy. They ordered that priests should not be invited to private homes, donations to churches should discontinue, and that trade unions should be pressured not to perform any work for churches. The party would adopt this resolution a year later.
The congress also criticized the armed forces for failing to conduct adequate antireligious education among its soldiers. The organization had set up cells in the armed forces in each unit beginning in 1927. In a study done on a unit in 1925, it was found that 60% of recruits were religious believers at the time of recruitment, while only 28% remained believers at the end of their service. This data may have ignored the phenomena of soldiers who hid their religious convictions during their service and thus have some innacuracy. These experiences nevertheless played a role in the LMG's approach to combatting religion in the military in the following decade.
The 1929 congress called on public institutions to treat antireligious propaganda as an inseparable part of their work and to provide regular funding for it.
The congress eliminated preferential treatment for different sects and declared unrelenting war against them, but contained the moderating statement to differentiate between the rank-and-file believers and the leadership, the latter of which were considered fully conscientious class enemies of the state.
The congress resolutions stated that religious temples should be shut only with the agreement of the majority of the working populace. There was, however, no qualification for this majority to include religious believers associated with the given religious structure. This allowed the practice to be conducted in the following years wherein a meeting would be organized under pressure at which believers who attended would be risking their social status and would often find themselves in a minority, which would allow for a vote to close the structure. The LMG would take advantage of rifts between different believers, including that between the Orthodox and renovationists, in order to get either side to vote for the closure of each other's religious structures.
The congress called on antireligious education to be instituted from the first-grade up. Two years later, further calls would be made by leading antireligious propagandist N. Amosov to institute antireligious education among pre-school children.
This congress much larger coverage in the Soviet Press than the previous congress, although it was overshadowed by the German Communist congress that occurred at the same time.
In 1931, the LMG boasted that 10% of the nation's schoolchildren were LMG members.
The LMG underwent great growth between 1929 and 1932, partly as a result of the requirement of Komsomol members to join it. The LMG's hold over the Komsomol is reflected in the latter's programme at its 10th congress that state 'The Komsomol patiently explains to the youth the harmfulness of superstitions and of religious prejudices, organizing for this purpose special study circles and lectures on antireligious propaganda. The League had grown from 87,000 members in 1926 to 500,000 in 1929 and it reached a peak of 5,670,000 in 1931 (dropping to 5.5 million in 1932) (it had intended to get 17 million, however, as its target). It declined to 2 million in 1938, but rose again to 3.5 million in 1941. The Communist party at the time only had 1.8 million members. Almost half of the LMG's membership, however, resided in the vicinities of Moscow and Leningrad, which led to the LMG then creating 'cells' across the country in order to reach rural citizens for atheist preaching.
The LMG claimed massive growth in the Central Asian republics in the 1930s. The Central Asian muslims, who had a long history of encountering Christian missionaries attempting to convert them away from Islam, were considered to pose a special issue for LMG activists who were told by Yaroslavsky that
Under the LMG's guidance, 'Godless collective farms', were formed. Yaroslavsky in 1932 predicted that the campaign would be successful, when he said:
The enthusiasm of its new members was notably poor, however, as its dues were left unpaid and only a minority appeared to have great interest in antireligious work.
The League printed masses of antireligious literature. These would mock religious belief.Robert Service
, A History of Modern Russia, from Nicholas II to Putin p 136 ISBN 067401801-X The weekly Bezbozhnik
reached 500,000 copies per issue in 1931. The monthly Bezbozhnik, grew from 28,000 in 1928 to 200,000 in 1931, dropped to 150,000 after 1932, climbed to 230,000 in 1938 and went down 155,000 in 1939. The Bezbozhnik u stanka consistently ran 50,000-70,000 copies per issue, however, it changed from a monthly to a fortnightly in 1929 and continued to produce until it was closed in 1932. Yaroslavsky's scholarly monthly for the LMG central committee 'Antireligioznik' (The Antireligious) appeared in 1926, and reached 17,000 circulation in 1929 (it was a 130 page publication), 30,000 in 1930 and 27,000 in 1931. Its material was often repeated over different issues and it was more primitive in its scholarly material than it had been intended. It was reduced to 64 pages in 1940, and produced between 40,000 and 45,000 in 1940-41 before it was finally cancelled.
The League also printed antireligious textbooks. An 'Antireligious Textbook for Peasants' was produced between 1927 and 1931, with a circulation of 18,000 for the first edition and 200,000 for the sixth. A similar textbook for urban people was created in 1931, followed by a universal amalgamated textbook.
LMG member, I A Shpitsberg began publishing a scholarly journal in the late '20s called Ateist. It was changed to Voinstvuiuschii ateizm (Militant Atheism) in 1931 and it was published by the LMG central council. In 1932 it was swallowed up by Antireligioznik.
From 1928 to 1932, a journal for peasants named Derevenskii bezbozhnik (The Rural Godless) was produced. It was claimed to be so popular among the peasantry that it was 'read to tatters', and contradictorily it ceased publication in 1932. The supposedly popular nature of the atheist propaganda was also contradicted by cases of reported lynchings of antireligious propagandists and murder of LMG agitators. In a similar vein, in 1930, the LMG leadership advised that social surveys of believers in schools classes where the majority of pupils were believers was harmful, and that such data should not, as a principle, be used. Another such anecdote can be found in the 1929 Moscow religion survey, in which 12,000 industrial workers were surveyed anonymously and only 3,000 returned the survey, of which 88.8 % claimed to be atheists, and it was then declared that 90% of Moscow industrial workers were atheists.
The non-serial LMG literature grew from 12 million printed pages in 1927 to 800 million in 1930 (making up at least 100 million pieces of printed antirelgious literature). In 1941 sixty-seven books and brochures of antireligious propaganda were printed with a total circulation of 3.5 million copies. Up to 1940 there were about 2000 titles published every year.
A textbook produced by the LMG in 1934 admitted the existence of sincere believers among the intellectuals, however, this was contradicted by Yaroslavsky in 1937 who claimed that all scholars and scientists who believe in God were insincere deceivers and swindlers.
The League trained a massive number of antireligious propagandists and antireligious workers. This work included lecture cycles.
The LMG had successfully reduced the number of religious communities of all faiths from 50,000 in 1930 to 30,000 by 1938 and 8,000 by 1941. The last figure includes, however, 7,000 communities in the annexed western territories (thereby making only 1,000 remaining in the rest of the country).
He claimed that there were very few attempts to re-open churches and that this was a sign of the decline in religion. He branded those who tried to re-open churches as former kulaks and falsifiers of figures. This report was contradicted, however, by the LMG's own figures (based on the 1937 census) that found perhaps half the country still held religious beliefs, even if they had no structures to worship in any longer and they could no longer openly express their beliefs.
An answer to this report was found when the Nazis invaded in 1941, and churches were re-opened under the German occupation, while believers flocked to them in the millions. In order to gain support for the war effort (both domestic and foreign; the allies would not support Stalin if he continued the campaign ) against the German forces that were effectively liberating religious believers from the persecution against them, Stalin ended the antireligious persecution and the LMG was disbanded. All LMG periodicals ceased to publish by September 1941. Its official disbandment date is unknown, but traced somewhere between 1941–1947.
Yaroslavsky turned his attention to other pursuits and in 1942, he published an article on Orthodox writer Dostoevsky, for his alleged hatred of the Germans.
Antireligion
Antireligion is opposition to religion. Antireligion is distinct from atheism and antitheism , although antireligionists may be atheists or antitheists...
organization of Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
workers and others in 1925–1947. It "consisted of Party members, members of the Komsomol
Komsomol
The Communist Union of Youth , usually known as Komsomol , was the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918. During the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Communist Union of...
youth movement, workers and army veterans".
S.o.G. was an antireligious movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
that developed in Soviet Russia
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
under the influence of the ideological and cultural views and policies of the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
.
S.o.G. embraced workers, peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s, student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
s, and intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
. It had its first affiliates at factories, plants, collective farms (kolkhoz
Kolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...
), and educational institutions. By the beginning of 1941, S.o.G. had about 3.5 million members of 100 nationalities. It had about 96,000 offices across the country. Guided by Bolshevik principles of antireligious propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and party's orders with regards to religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, S.o.G. aimed at fighting religion in all its manifestations and forming scientific mindset among the workers. It popularized atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
and scientific achievements, conducted 'individual work' (a method of sending atheist tutors to meet with individual believers to convince them of atheism, which could be followed up with public harassment if they failed to comply) with religious people, prepared propagandists and atheistic campaigners, published scientific literature and periodicals, organized museums and exhibitions, conducted scientific research in the field of atheism and critics of religion. S.o.G.'s slogan was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
", which was meant to tie in their atheist views with economy
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
. One of the slogans adopted at the 2nd congress was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for the five year plan!" S.o.G. had vast international connections; it was part of the International of Proletarian Freethinkers and later of the Worldwide Freethinkers Union.
The League was a "nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism." It published newspapers, journals, and other materials that lampooned religion; it sponsored lectures and films; it organized demonstrations and parades; it set up antireligious museums; and it led a concerted effort to persuade Soviet citizens that religious beliefs and practices were "wrong" and harmful, and that good citizens ought to embrace a scientific, atheistic worldview.
Origins and formation
The newspaper BezbozhnikBezbozhnik
Bezbozhnik was a monthly anti-religious and atheistic satirical magazine, published in the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1941 by the Society of the Godless. Between 1923 and 1931, there was also a daily newspaper called Bezbozhnik u Stanka...
(Godless, Atheist) (1922–1941), founded and edited by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky
Yemelyan Yaroslavsky
Yemelyan Mikhailovich Yaroslavsky was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, communist party organizer and activist, journalist, and historian...
, played a significant role in S.o.G.'s establishment, and had a wide network of correspondents and readers. Bezbozhnik appeared first in December 1922, and the following year a Moscow monthly for industrial workers Bezbozhnik u stanka (The Godless at the Work-Bench, AKA Bezbust) formed the like-minded Moscow Society of the Godless in August 1924.
The Moscow group tended to support the leftist side of the debate on how to destroy religion (i.e. in favour of attacking religion in all of its forms rather than moderation), and in 1924 it attacked Lunacharsky, Yaroslavsky
Yaroslavsky
Yaroslavsky , Yaroslavskaya , or Yaroslavskoye may refer to:People*Yemelyan Yaroslavsky , Soviet politician, leader of 1930s anti-religious campaign in the USSR*Zev Yaroslavsky , U.S...
and Bonch-Bruevich
Bonch-Bruevich
Bonch-Bruevich is the last name of the following persons.*Alexey Bonch-Bruyevich , Soviet physicist, expert in quantum electronics and physical optics, recipient of the USSR State Prize , son of Mikhail...
for differentiation between different religions, instead of genuine godlessness. It accused Yaroslavsky of attacking only the clergy rather than religion in general. Yaroslavsky protested this and affirmed that all religions were enemies of socialism including the Renovationist schism in the Orthodox church, but that the methods of struggle against different religions should vary due to the large number of loyal Soviet citizens with religious beliefs who should be re-educated as atheists rather than treated as class enemies. Bezbozhnik argued that it was an oversimplification to treat religion solely as a kind of class exploitation to be attacked, forgetting the complex nature of religions, as well as the individual believers. The CPSU Central Committee supported Yaroslavsky's viewpoint on this issue, although this debate was remained unresolved at the Union that came in 1925.
The Moscow group merged with the Society of Friends of the Godless Newspaper (associated with Bezbozhnik) in April 1925 to form the All-Union League of the Godless at its first congress. Between 1925-1929 a power struggle took place in the new organization between Yaroslavsky and his followers, and the leadership of the former Moscow group (Galaktionov, Polidorov, Kostelovskaia, Lunin and others). The 1926 All-Union Conference on Antireligious Propaganda voted in favour of Yaroslavsky's views on the antireligious campaign, but the debate still continued. The Moscow group argued that the antireligious struggle should be led only by the party and the industrial proletariat, as opposed to the whole nation which Yaroslavsky wanted to mobilize to conduct the antireligious struggle.
In 1929, when the resolutions that would set the tone for the vicious persecution of the next decade were set and Yaroslavsky's victory in the power struggle had been completed, there were a few last attacks made on Yaroslavsky and the organization for minimizing the class-enemy thesis in attacking religion, of having few works and peasants in its ranks, of using archaeology instead of aggressively attacking religion, of being indifferent to transforming the school system into a militantly antireligious atmosphere and of opportunistically using non-marxist western bourgeois atheists in publications. In response, Yaroslavsky claimed that they had supported antireligious education for years, but in contrast to the leftists who simply wanted to attack religion, he was working to replace the popular religious culture with that of dialectical materialism. He also claimed (correctly) that Lenin had used the works of 18th century French atheists and other bourgeois atheists to assist in the campaign to disseminate atheism in the USSR. He admitted that the work of the effect that they had had at that point was more modest than he had hoped, which he implicitly blamed on the Moscow branch for their lack of cooperation, lack of support from the party and some branches of the Komsomol, a ban operating on their activities in the Ukraine as well as a lack of adequate finances.
Yaroslavsky, Stalin's obedient aide in the secretariat and one of the founding editors of Kommunist, came out on top despite resistance from the Moscow group to retain autonomy and the support for that group from the daily Komsomol'skaia pravda.
The problems that Yaroslavsky outlined in the above response were addressed in 1929 at the second congress. The CPSU Central Committee delegated to the LMG full powers to launch a great antireligious attack in order to completely eliminate it from the country, with rights to mobilize all public organizations.
In 1929, the Second Congress changed the society's name to The Union of Belligerent (or Militant) Atheists. The Central Council chose Yaroslavsky as its leader (who occupied this post continuously).
Authority on antireligious methodology
The debate on how to best combat religion was argued among the Soviet leadership, until in the late '20s and early '30s, when it was resolved by Stalin who condemned the extremes of both sides, and Yaroslavsky followed suit. The do-nothing approach of the rightists who thought religion would die away naturally and the leftist approach to attack all forms of religion as class enemies were both condemned as deviations from the party line. Yaroslavsky argued against the leftists (who had earlier criticized him) that if religion was simply a class phenomena there would be no need to combat it if a classless society was truly being produced. He affirmed that an all-sided attack on religion was needed, but did not subscribe to the leftist deviation that had been condemned.The League not only attacked religion but also attacked deviations from what it saw as the proper line to combat religion in the USSR and, in effect, set the 'proper' line to follow in this sphere for party membership. Early Marxist beliefs that religion would disappear with the coming of a tractor (claimed by Trotsky) were ridiculed by the League. The popularity of religion among nationalistic intellectuals was pointed out by Lukachevsky (LMG) and he claimed that if religion was only rooted in ownership of property, it could not explain the growth of the renovationists.
The League occupied the leadership role in the antireligious struggle of the Communist Party.
It employed the powers given to it by the CPSU Central Committee at the 1929 congress to dictate orders to schools, universities, the armed forces, the trade unions, the Komsomol, the Young Pioneer Organization
Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union
The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, also Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, also Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, also Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer...
, the Soviet Press and other institutions for the purpose of its antireligious campaign. It criticized many public institutions (including the Communist Party) for failing to adequately combat religious belief and instructed them on how to be more effective. The People's Commisariat for enlightenment was heckled and Glavnauka, the Chief Administration for Science and Scholarship was also singled out for criticism. A spokesperson for the latter tried to justify their behaviour to the LMG by claiming that they had reduced the total number of historical buildings under its protection (mostly ancient churches and monasteries) from 7000 to 1000, by destroying them.
The League concerned itself with the issue of active believers who had infiltrated its own membership and who were trying to prove their loyalty to the regime or even undermine the antireligious work of the League. League members who suspected each other of harbouring religious beliefs secretly discussed their concerns in the early years. The League also had to address the issue of committed atheists in its membership who may have sympathized with the religious believers and who may have had doubts about the rightness of what they were doing. In answer to these problems, the League adopted a policy that any League member who entered a church (to conduct antireligious work by checking on the strength of believers or numbering them) had to first receive local branch approval beforehand in order so that he did not give the impression that he was going to the church to pray. In contrast the League in Tashkent actually tried to translate the Quran into Uzbek so that more Muslims could read it and therefore see its alleged "fallacies".
All members of the Komsomol were obligated to join the League, and it directed all members of the CPSU to support the League's work. The extreme character of the line to be taken against religion is described:
All religions, no matter how much they 'renovate' and cleanse themselves, are systems of idea... profoundly hostile to the ideology of... socialism... Religious organizations... are in reality political agencies... of class groupings hostile to the proletariat inside the country and of the international bourgeoisie... Special attention must be paid to the renovationist currents in Orthodoxy, Islam, Lamaism and other religions... These currents are but the disguises for more effective struggle against the Soviet power. By comparing ancient Buddhism, and ancient Christianity to communism, the Renovationists are essentially trying to replace the communist theory by a cleansed form of religion, which therefore becomes more dangerous.
In 1930 the Second Plenum of the LMG Central Council adopted an antireligious five year plan with the intention of annihilating religion in the USSR.
The League purged its rightist members in 1932–1934.
1929 congress
In addition to what is stated above, the 1929 congress also issued a number of other orders that would form the basis of the LMG's activities (as well as the character of the antireligious persecution throughout the country) in the following decade.At its 1929 congress it admitted that there had been some growth in sectarian groups, but claimed that this was local rather than national phenomena. They warned, however, that lay religious activists exceeded one million and that all of the religious communities including the old Orthodox had begun to adopt modern methods and were attracting youth. It determined therefore that the fight against religion needed to be pressed, although it still, as Yaroslavsky had said for years, warned against extreme antireligious ultra-left attacks. At the same meeting it demanded that no holidays should be allowed to coincide with important Church feast days; this policy was carried out in the same year.
The resolutions at the meeting called for local LMG branches to effect total public ostracism of the clergy. They ordered that priests should not be invited to private homes, donations to churches should discontinue, and that trade unions should be pressured not to perform any work for churches. The party would adopt this resolution a year later.
The congress also criticized the armed forces for failing to conduct adequate antireligious education among its soldiers. The organization had set up cells in the armed forces in each unit beginning in 1927. In a study done on a unit in 1925, it was found that 60% of recruits were religious believers at the time of recruitment, while only 28% remained believers at the end of their service. This data may have ignored the phenomena of soldiers who hid their religious convictions during their service and thus have some innacuracy. These experiences nevertheless played a role in the LMG's approach to combatting religion in the military in the following decade.
The 1929 congress called on public institutions to treat antireligious propaganda as an inseparable part of their work and to provide regular funding for it.
The congress eliminated preferential treatment for different sects and declared unrelenting war against them, but contained the moderating statement to differentiate between the rank-and-file believers and the leadership, the latter of which were considered fully conscientious class enemies of the state.
The congress resolutions stated that religious temples should be shut only with the agreement of the majority of the working populace. There was, however, no qualification for this majority to include religious believers associated with the given religious structure. This allowed the practice to be conducted in the following years wherein a meeting would be organized under pressure at which believers who attended would be risking their social status and would often find themselves in a minority, which would allow for a vote to close the structure. The LMG would take advantage of rifts between different believers, including that between the Orthodox and renovationists, in order to get either side to vote for the closure of each other's religious structures.
The congress called on antireligious education to be instituted from the first-grade up. Two years later, further calls would be made by leading antireligious propagandist N. Amosov to institute antireligious education among pre-school children.
This congress much larger coverage in the Soviet Press than the previous congress, although it was overshadowed by the German Communist congress that occurred at the same time.
Activities
The LMG underwent great growth between 1929 and 1932, partly as a result of the requirement of Komsomol members to join it. The LMG's hold over the Komsomol is reflected in the latter's programme at its 10th congress that state 'The Komsomol patiently explains to the youth the harmfulness of superstitions and of religious prejudices, organizing for this purpose special study circles and lectures on antireligious propaganda. The League had grown from 87,000 members in 1926 to 500,000 in 1929 and it reached a peak of 5,670,000 in 1931 (dropping to 5.5 million in 1932) (it had intended to get 17 million, however, as its target). It declined to 2 million in 1938, but rose again to 3.5 million in 1941. The Communist party at the time only had 1.8 million members. Almost half of the LMG's membership, however, resided in the vicinities of Moscow and Leningrad, which led to the LMG then creating 'cells' across the country in order to reach rural citizens for atheist preaching.
The LMG claimed massive growth in the Central Asian republics in the 1930s. The Central Asian muslims, who had a long history of encountering Christian missionaries attempting to convert them away from Islam, were considered to pose a special issue for LMG activists who were told by Yaroslavsky that
A careless approach to the matter of antireligious propaganda among these people can call up memories of this [Tsarist] oppression and be interpreted by the most backward and the most fanatical part of the Muslim population as a repeat of the past, when Christian missionaries reviled the Mohammedan faith.
Under the LMG's guidance, 'Godless collective farms', were formed. Yaroslavsky in 1932 predicted that the campaign would be successful, when he said:
There can be no doubt that the fact that the new state of the USSR led by the communist party, with a program permeated by the spirit of militant atheism, gives the reason why this state is successfully surmounting the great difficulties that stand in its way - that neither "heavenly powers" nor the exhortations of all the priests in all the world can prevent its attaining its aims it has set itself.
The enthusiasm of its new members was notably poor, however, as its dues were left unpaid and only a minority appeared to have great interest in antireligious work.
The League printed masses of antireligious literature. These would mock religious belief.Robert Service
Robert Service (historian)
Robert John Service is a British historian, academic, and author who has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia, particularly the era from the October Revolution to Stalin's death...
, A History of Modern Russia, from Nicholas II to Putin p 136 ISBN 067401801-X The weekly Bezbozhnik
Bezbozhnik
Bezbozhnik was a monthly anti-religious and atheistic satirical magazine, published in the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1941 by the Society of the Godless. Between 1923 and 1931, there was also a daily newspaper called Bezbozhnik u Stanka...
reached 500,000 copies per issue in 1931. The monthly Bezbozhnik, grew from 28,000 in 1928 to 200,000 in 1931, dropped to 150,000 after 1932, climbed to 230,000 in 1938 and went down 155,000 in 1939. The Bezbozhnik u stanka consistently ran 50,000-70,000 copies per issue, however, it changed from a monthly to a fortnightly in 1929 and continued to produce until it was closed in 1932. Yaroslavsky's scholarly monthly for the LMG central committee 'Antireligioznik' (The Antireligious) appeared in 1926, and reached 17,000 circulation in 1929 (it was a 130 page publication), 30,000 in 1930 and 27,000 in 1931. Its material was often repeated over different issues and it was more primitive in its scholarly material than it had been intended. It was reduced to 64 pages in 1940, and produced between 40,000 and 45,000 in 1940-41 before it was finally cancelled.
The League also printed antireligious textbooks. An 'Antireligious Textbook for Peasants' was produced between 1927 and 1931, with a circulation of 18,000 for the first edition and 200,000 for the sixth. A similar textbook for urban people was created in 1931, followed by a universal amalgamated textbook.
LMG member, I A Shpitsberg began publishing a scholarly journal in the late '20s called Ateist. It was changed to Voinstvuiuschii ateizm (Militant Atheism) in 1931 and it was published by the LMG central council. In 1932 it was swallowed up by Antireligioznik.
From 1928 to 1932, a journal for peasants named Derevenskii bezbozhnik (The Rural Godless) was produced. It was claimed to be so popular among the peasantry that it was 'read to tatters', and contradictorily it ceased publication in 1932. The supposedly popular nature of the atheist propaganda was also contradicted by cases of reported lynchings of antireligious propagandists and murder of LMG agitators. In a similar vein, in 1930, the LMG leadership advised that social surveys of believers in schools classes where the majority of pupils were believers was harmful, and that such data should not, as a principle, be used. Another such anecdote can be found in the 1929 Moscow religion survey, in which 12,000 industrial workers were surveyed anonymously and only 3,000 returned the survey, of which 88.8 % claimed to be atheists, and it was then declared that 90% of Moscow industrial workers were atheists.
The non-serial LMG literature grew from 12 million printed pages in 1927 to 800 million in 1930 (making up at least 100 million pieces of printed antirelgious literature). In 1941 sixty-seven books and brochures of antireligious propaganda were printed with a total circulation of 3.5 million copies. Up to 1940 there were about 2000 titles published every year.
A textbook produced by the LMG in 1934 admitted the existence of sincere believers among the intellectuals, however, this was contradicted by Yaroslavsky in 1937 who claimed that all scholars and scientists who believe in God were insincere deceivers and swindlers.
The League trained a massive number of antireligious propagandists and antireligious workers. This work included lecture cycles.
The LMG had successfully reduced the number of religious communities of all faiths from 50,000 in 1930 to 30,000 by 1938 and 8,000 by 1941. The last figure includes, however, 7,000 communities in the annexed western territories (thereby making only 1,000 remaining in the rest of the country).
Disbandment
The climate of the campaign against religion was changing in the late '30s and early '40s. The regime slowly became more moderate in its approach to religion. Yaroslavsky, in 1941 warned against condemning all religious believers, but said that there were many loyal Soviet citizens still possessing religious beliefs. He called for patient and tactful individual work without offending the believers, but re-educating them. He claimed that religion had disappeared in some parts of the country but in other parts (especially in the newly annexed territories) it was strong, and he warned against starting a brutal offensives in those areas.He claimed that there were very few attempts to re-open churches and that this was a sign of the decline in religion. He branded those who tried to re-open churches as former kulaks and falsifiers of figures. This report was contradicted, however, by the LMG's own figures (based on the 1937 census) that found perhaps half the country still held religious beliefs, even if they had no structures to worship in any longer and they could no longer openly express their beliefs.
An answer to this report was found when the Nazis invaded in 1941, and churches were re-opened under the German occupation, while believers flocked to them in the millions. In order to gain support for the war effort (both domestic and foreign; the allies would not support Stalin if he continued the campaign ) against the German forces that were effectively liberating religious believers from the persecution against them, Stalin ended the antireligious persecution and the LMG was disbanded. All LMG periodicals ceased to publish by September 1941. Its official disbandment date is unknown, but traced somewhere between 1941–1947.
Yaroslavsky turned his attention to other pursuits and in 1942, he published an article on Orthodox writer Dostoevsky, for his alleged hatred of the Germans.
See also
- Tatar Union of the GodlessTatar Union of the GodlessThe Tatar Union of the Godless was an atheist political group in the Soviet Union, specifically in the territory nowadays known as Tataristan, consisting mainly of Muslim socialists and intellectuals. It was part of the Society of the Godless, an organisation which existed from 1925 to 1947...
- Soviet Orientalist studies in IslamSoviet Orientalist studies in IslamSoviet Orientalist studies in Islam are academic discourses by Soviet Marxist theoreticians about Islam, its origins and development based on Historical materialism and Muslims. The central question of this discourse was how Muslim society would fit into the general development of human history....
- Persecution of Christians in the Soviet UnionPersecution of Christians in the Soviet UnionThe history of Christianity in the Soviet Union was not limited to repression and secularization. Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union...
- Political religionPolitical religionThe theory of political religion concerns governmental ideologies whose cultural and spiritual aspect is so strong that it takes an overwhelming hold of peoples lives that can be only considered as religious...