Zydokomuna Atheism USSR Jews Pushed Husband

Godless Communists: Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia, 1917-1932, by William B. Husband. 1999

An Introduction to Soviet Communist Militant Atheism and the Main Drivers Behind It

This work presents a good overview of this subject. I elaborate on a few major themes:

MILITANT ATHEISM LARGELY POSTDATED THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The author makes this clear, “There is, in short, ample evidence of disunity within Orthodoxy by the beginning of the twentieth century but very little for the existence of atheistic nonbelief on the part of a broad constituency.” (p. 33).

Even among the anti-tsarist revolutionaries, atheism was of low priority. Author Husband remarks, “On balance, antireligiosity and anti-clericalism became common among the radical intelligentsia as the twentieth century approached, but no significant broad and sustained effort to promote atheism as an independent goal took shape.” (p. 34). Furthermore, “Bolshevism has not devoted significant attention to the techniques of promoting atheism prior to 1917…” (p. 161).

ZYDOKOMUNA: LEADERS IN THE COMMUNIST WAR ON RELIGION

Did the extensive Jewish influence in Soviet Communism make it more aggressively atheistic than it otherwise would have been? While the author does not raise this question, he does provide some information relevant to it.

Husband writes of “Trotsky [Bronshteyn], the champion of the extralegal tactics, euphemistically called administrative measures” (p. 64). The author recounts Zinoviev [Apfelbaum] and his 1923 call for “serious antireligious propaganda” (p. 60), as well as Zinoviev’s statement that a Soviet citizen must choose between religion and membership in the Party. (p. 120).

Enter Emelian Iaroslavskii (Yaroslavsky), vel Minei Izraelevich Gubel’man. (p. 123). Author Husband calls Emelian Iaroslavskii “the most influential antireligious activist in the country” (p. 61), and one who complained that the Communist Party “made antireligious work too low a priority”. (p. 61).

Yaroslavsky became head of the League of Godless [later the League of Militant Godless]. It was “technically a voluntary social organization”. (p. 63). Iaroslavskii “understood antireligious agitation as a task of cultural conversion”. (p. 66). Although the League favored gradualism in its approach (p. 67), it is unclear what role it played in the Cultural Revolution (1928-on) and its emphasis on the active persecution of the Church. However, any disapproval of violence against religion is itself not informative; as such violence was often opposed for tactical reasons: It tended to stiffen the resolve of religious believers. (pp. 139-140).

In any case, the actions of Yaroslavsky and the League cannot be dichotomized from the other Communist antireligious initiatives. Husband comments, “Soviet, party, and Komsomol groups led the way in enrolling collective farms, factories, unions, and educational institutions into the League of Militant Godless en masse…” (p. 138).

YAROSLAVSKY AND THE LEAGUE PUSH A MORE AGGRESSIVE ATHEISM

Some leading officials in the USSR thought that all that was needed was a positive presentation of the virtues of rationalism to the masses. For instance, Husband writes, “Minister of Enlightenment Lunarcharsky and his deputy Nadezhda Krupskaya believed that nonreligious, scientific lesson content—not antireligious activism—would inculcate the desired materialist beliefs among students as it prepared them for new modes of labor and social behavior.” (p. 80).
The League and its leader very much disagreed with this, as exemplified by BEZBOZHNIK, its leading publication, “BEZBOZHNIK called for greater militance in teaching materialism, and when Iaroslavskii addressed the Organizational Bureau of the Party Central Committee on 10 December 1928, he held a variety of institutions responsible for what he characterized as ‘pacifist and neutral’ positions.” (p. 85).