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→See also
*Froese, Paul (March 2004). [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jssr/2004/00000043/00000001/art00003?crawler=true "Forced secularization in Soviet Russia: why an atheistic monopoly failed" [abstract]]. ''Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion'', vol. 43, 1, pp. 35-50. Abstract: Ingentaconnect</ref>
*Froese, Paul (March 2004). [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jssr/2004/00000043/00000001/art00003?crawler=true "Forced secularization in Soviet Russia: why an atheistic monopoly failed" [abstract]]. ''Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion'', vol. 43, 1, pp. 35-50. Abstract: Ingentaconnect</ref>
== Tactics ==
== Soviet atheism: Tactics and strategies ==
Advancing on the already atheist doctrine of [[Karl Marx]], the power hungry [[atheism|atheist]] [[Soviet Union]] leaders brutally suppressed practiced religion in Communist society and engaged in forced [[atheist]] indoctrination in the USSR which the people often rejected. The atheism in Communist regimes has been and continues to be [[militant atheism]] and various acts of repression including the razing of thousands of religious buildings and the killing, imprisoning, and oppression of religious leaders and believers.<ref>
Advancing on the already atheist doctrine of [[Karl Marx]], the power hungry [[atheism|atheist]] [[Soviet Union]] leaders brutally suppressed practiced religion in Communist society and engaged in forced [[atheist]] indoctrination in the USSR which the people often rejected. The atheism in Communist regimes has been and continues to be [[militant atheism]] and various acts of repression including the razing of thousands of religious buildings and the killing, imprisoning, and oppression of religious leaders and believers.<ref>
*[https://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/28/china.church.crackdown/index.html?hpt=T2 Underground Christians fear China crackdown]
*[https://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/28/china.church.crackdown/index.html?hpt=T2 Underground Christians fear China crackdown]
In the atheistic and Communist [[Soviet Union]], 44 anti-religious museums were opened and the largest was the 'The Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism' in [[Leningrad]]’s Kazan cathedral.<ref>http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-anti-christmas.html</ref> Despite intense effort by the atheistic leaders of the Soviet Union, their efforts were not effective in converting the masses to atheism.<ref>http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-anti-christmas.html</ref><ref>http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jssr/2004/00000043/00000001/art00003?crawler=true</ref>
In the atheistic and Communist [[Soviet Union]], 44 anti-religious museums were opened and the largest was the 'The Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism' in [[Leningrad]]’s Kazan cathedral.<ref>http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-anti-christmas.html</ref> Despite intense effort by the atheistic leaders of the Soviet Union, their efforts were not effective in converting the masses to atheism.<ref>http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-anti-christmas.html</ref><ref>http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jssr/2004/00000043/00000001/art00003?crawler=true</ref>
=== Atheist indoctrination in the Soviet Union and its limited effectiveness ===
== Effects ==
''See also:'' [[Atheist indoctrination]] and [[Persecution of Christians in the USSR]] and [[Militant atheism]] and [[Atheistic communism and torture]]
[[File:Martyred in the USSR Poster.jpg|thumbnail|right|200px|The above photograph shows the Russian Nikolai Khmara, a new Baptist convert in the [[Soviet Union]], after his arrest by the [[KGB]]. He was tortured to death and his tongue cut out.<ref>Double references:
*Gonzales, Kevin (January 29, 2013 or bef.). [http://martyredintheussr.com/ "Martyred in the USSR Militant Atheism in the former Soviet Union, Russian Orthodox church, religious persecution, atheist"] Martyred in the USSR website.
*Hoover, Peter with Petrov, Serguei V. (2005). [http://www.anabaptists.org/books/russians/trs-1.html "Anabaptists: The Russians' Secret -- Speaking without a Tongue".] ''The Russians' Secret: What Christians Today Would Survive Persecution?'' Anabaptists.org website/books/Russians (Shippensburg, PA: Benchmark Press, 1999), ch. 1, pp. 1-3.</ref> See: [[Atheistic communism and torture]] ]]
Paul Froese in the ''Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion'' indicated:
{{Cquote|Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky set out to demonstrate the League’s achievements by including a religious question in the 1937 Soviet census. The results were disastrous to the future of the [[League of Militant Atheists]], which was disbanded in 1941, and religious survey questions never reappeared in subsequent Soviet censuses. Although no detailed results from the 1937 census can be reported because data analysis was quickly aborted, Soviet documents indicate that just over 56 percent of the population admitted to being religious believers (Corley 1996:76; Fletcher 1981:211). Yaroslavsky also ambiguously maintained that most (around two-thirds) of the religious believers resided in rural areas (Pospielovsky 1987:65). These crude results indicate a dramatic drop in religiosity when one considers that in 1900 nearly 100 percent of the people that lived in regions that would eventually constitute the Soviet Union were religious believers (see Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 1980). Regardless, Yaroslavsky and Stalin viewed the number of atheist converts (even with probable inflation) as unsuccessful (Pospielovsky 1987:65).
The findings were disappointing because the “science” of atheism had predicted a different outcome. Communists expected individuals to abandon religion with fervor. As it turns out, Russians did leave the Russian Orthodox Church in droves but did not abandon religion at the same rate.
In 1900, non-Orthodox Christian groups represented around 10 percent of the Russian population (Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 2001). These groups included Baptists, Evangelicals, Flagellants, Mennonites, Old Believers, Pentecostals, and Tolstoyans, to name a few that were most
visible at the beginning of the 20th century (Corley 1996). By mid century and toward the end of the Soviet era, Hare Krishnas, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and various “charismatic” sects entered the religious landscape. Quite interestingly, data confirm that while membership in the Russian Orthodox Church rapidly declined under communism, Protestants and various Christian sects slowly proselytized new members (see Figure 1). From 1900 to 1970, the percent of non-Orthodox Christians (not including Roman Catholics) went from 11 to 31 percent of the Russian population...
Soviet society clearly contained numerous incentives to relinquish religious belief and membership. First and foremost, the costs of religious belief and membership were extremely high because, in many instances, religious individuals could be executed or sentenced to decades of hard labor. Religious groups were the victims of extreme violence immediately following the 1917 Russian Revolution. In the Civil War that followed the Revolution, Bolsheviks targeted Orthodox churches, monasteries, and clerics as potential sources of anti-religious activity. Church property was seized and religious leaders, monks, and nuns were often killed in the process. The
terror of the Civil War sometimes spun out of control as murderous gangs took advantage of the melee: “in many cases the tortures, murders and vandalism were the autonomous initiative of local anarchistic bands of army and naval deserters calling themselves Bolsheviks” (Pospielovsky 1988:1).
More systematic religious persecution began in the 1930s and reemerged periodically according to the whims of Soviet leadership. Anti-religious propaganda grew in the 1920s but the unfavorable results of the 1937 census marked a turning point in Soviet religious policy. Because religion was thought to be the result of social inequality and an opiate of the oppressed masses, the League of Militant Atheists was in a bind to explain the endurance of religion within a socialist utopia. Therefore, “they made a tactical move of proclaiming religion as a cause and not merely the symptom of social problems... religious practices became the scapegoat of the Soviet ideological machine, they became the only readily admissible reason for the failure of the complete re-education of the masses” (Pospielovsky 1987:26). According to this argument, Communist society did not secularize because religious believers prevented communism from
attaining perfect social justice, which, in turn, would effortlessly secularize society. To end this cycle of religion, Yaroslavsky declared that “several hundred reactionary zealots of religion” needed to be exterminated (Pospielovsky 1987:65).
The failure of scientific atheism in Russia is interesting because it had every advantage. First, the Soviet government generously financed atheists while brutally suppressing religious advocates. For this reason, scientific atheism should be considered the equivalent of a religious monopoly. Second, scientific atheism was promoted throughout Soviet Russia in schools, workplaces, and the community.
Finally, scientific atheism offered rituals, ceremonies, and the promise of a utopian society as a direct alternative to religious offerings. The most generous estimates of atheistic belief show that less than one-quarter of Russians were atheists and this number dramatically drops to around 5 percent of the population after the fall of communism. In other words, scientific atheism was surprisingly unsuccessful when one considers all its competitive advantages.<ref>[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.656.7922&rep=rep1&type=pdf Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed] by Paul Froese, ''Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion''</ref>}}
After the fall of the Soviet Union there was a religious resurgence (see: [[Collapse of atheism in the former Soviet Union]]).
== Effects of Soviet atheism ==
By forcing atheism upon its people, the Soviet Union further promoted its brutal policies. It provided a way to implement "[[social darwinism]]" on the people of the USSR.<br />
By forcing atheism upon its people, the Soviet Union further promoted its brutal policies. It provided a way to implement "[[social darwinism]]" on the people of the USSR.<br />
Soviet atheism still stands as a vivid example of how harmful an explicit rejection of religion and God can be to a society.
Soviet atheism still stands as a vivid example of how harmful an explicit rejection of religion and God can be to a society.
[[Image:Solzhenitsyn.jpg|thumb|160px|right|[[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]]]
[[Nobel Prize]] winner [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] was asked to account for the great tragedies that occurred under the brutal communist regime he and fellow citizens suffered under.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated:
{{cquote|Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen [[Russia]]: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'
Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' <ref>Humber, Paul G. (October 1987). [https://www.icr.org/article/stalins-brutal-faith/ "Stalin's brutal faith"]. ''Acts and Facts'', vol. 16, no. 10. Retrieved from the Institute for Creation Research website on May 22, 2015.</ref>}}
== Collapse of atheism in the former Soviet Union ==
== Collapse of atheism in the former Soviet Union ==
*[[Atheism and communism]]
*[[Atheism and communism]]
*[[Soviet Union and morality]]
*[[Soviet Union and morality]]
*[[Atheism and authoritarianism]]
*[[Atheism]]
*[[Atheism]]
*[[Atheism and Karl Marx]]
*[[Atheism and Karl Marx]]
== External links ==
== External links ==
*[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.656.7922&rep=rep1&type=pdf Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed]
*[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.656.7922&rep=rep1&type=pdf Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed], Paul Froese, ''Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion''
{{Nb Atheism}}
{{Nb Atheism}}
==References==
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
{{reflist|2}}
[[Category: Atheism]]
[[Category:Communism]]