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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 ==
=== Soviet Union atheist indocrination ===
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.
== Effects ==
== Effects ==