League of Militant Atheists

"Militant atheism" redirects here. For other uses, see Atheism, Antireligion, Antitheism, State atheism, and New Atheism.
League of Militant Atheists
Сою́з Вои́нствующих Безбо́жников
SuccessorAll-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge
Formation1925
DissolvedBetween 1941 and 1947
TypeVolunteer organisation
PurposeThe promotion of atheism and the extermination of religion in all its manifestations
Location
Founder
Emel'ian Yaroslavskii
Volunteers
3,500,000
RemarksThe fight against religion is the fight for socialism!

The League of Militant Atheists[1] (Russian: Сою́з Вои́нствующих Безбо́жников, romanized: Soyúz Voínstvuyushchikh Bezbózhnikov, lit. 'The League of Militant Godless'[2]), also Society of the Godless (Russian: О́бщество безбо́жников, romanized: Óbshchestvo Bezbózhnikov) or Union of the Godless (Russian: Сою́з Безбо́жников, romanized: Soyúz Bezbózhnikov), was an atheistic and antireligious organization of workers and intelligentsia that developed in Soviet Russia under influence of the ideological and cultural views and policies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1947.[3] It consisted of party members, members of the Komsomol youth movement, those without specific political affiliation, workers, and military veterans.[4]

The league embraced workers, peasants, students, and intelligentsia. It had its first affiliates at factories, plants, collective farms (kolkhozy), and educational institutions. By the beginning of 1941 it had about 3.5 million members from 100 ethnicities. It had about 96,000 offices across the country. Guided by Bolshevik principles of communist propaganda and by the Party's orders with regards to religion, the League aimed at exterminating religion in all its manifestations and forming an anti-religious scientific mindset among the workers.[5][6] It propagated atheism and scientific achievements,[7] conducted so-called "individual work" (a method of sending atheist tutors to meet with individual believers to attempt to make them renounce their faith); most of the peasantry was unimpressed, and even the party apparatus regarded the League as meddling and inefficient.[8] The League's slogan was "Struggle against religion is struggle for socialism", which was meant to tie in their atheist views with the Communist drive to 'build Socialism'. One of the slogans adopted at the 2nd congress proclaimed: "Struggle against religion is struggle for the five-year plan!"[9] The League had international connections; it was part of the International of Proletarian Freethinkers and later of the Worldwide Freethinkers Union. By the mid-1930s, the Communist regime considered socialism to have been 'built',[10] and the League adopted a new slogan: "Struggle against religion is struggle for communism", communism being the next stage after socialism according to Marxist ideology.

The league was a "nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism".[11] 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 telling Soviet citizens that religious beliefs and practices were wrong and harmful, and that good citizens ought to embrace a scientific, atheistic worldview.[12]

  1. ^ Burleigh, Michael (2007). Sacred causes : the clash of religion and politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror (1st U.S. ed.). New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-058095-7. OCLC 76829103.
  2. ^ Keep, John L. H. (2005). "10: Captive minds: faith, science, history". In Litvin, Alter L; Keep, John L. H. (eds.). Stalinism: Russian and Western Views at the Turn of the Millennium. Totalitarian movements and political religions. Psychology Press. p. 153. ISBN 9780415351096. Retrieved 2017-02-01. The principal vehicle for atheist propaganda was the League of (Militant) Godless, or LMG, headed by E.M. Yaroslavsky, which operated under close Party supervision and often in conjunction with its youth organization, the Komsomol.
  3. ^ Richard Overy (2006), The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p. 271 ISBN 0-393-02030-4
  4. ^ Burleigh (2007), p. 49.
  5. ^ Compare: Across the Revolutionary Divide: Russia and the USSR, 1861-1945 by Theodore R. Weeks, John Wiley & Sons, 1st edition, 2010: "Antireligious Campaigns"
  6. ^ A Thousand Years of Christianity in Ukraine: An Encyclopedic Chronology by Osyp Zinkevych by Andrew Sorokowski (1988), Smoloskyp Publishers and the National Committee to Commemorate the Millenium [sic] of Christianity in Ukraine, p. 206: "At the same time, the League of Militant Atheists and Party activists wrecked churches and harassed believers. No religion was spared in the general onslaught."
  7. ^ Compare: The History of Russia by Charles E. Ziegler (2009), p. 77: "A League of the Militant Godless, aided by the Komsomol, organized atheist lectures, satirized religious holidays, published anti-religious posters and pamphlets, and confiscated church bells and icons."
  8. ^ Childers, Barry. "The Plurality of Soviet Religious "Policy"". Florida State University Libraries.
  9. ^ Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, St Martin's Press, New York (1987) p. 52
  10. ^ Большая советская энциклопедия. Социализм
  11. ^ Peris, Daniel (1998). Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 2. ISBN 9780801434853. Retrieved 2017-02-01. Created in 1925, the League of the Militant Godless was the nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism.
  12. ^ Daniel Peris, Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless Cornell University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-8014-3485-3