League of Militant Atheists
Membership card of the league
Членский билет Союза воинствующих безбожников |
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| Motto | "The Storming of Heaven" |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1929 |
| Extinction | 1941 / 1947 |
| Type | Volunteer organisation |
| Purpose | The promotion of atheism and the extermination of religion in all its manifestations |
| Location | |
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Founder
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Emel'ian Yaroslavskii |
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Volunteers
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3,500,000 |
The League of Militant Atheists (Russian: Союз воинствующих безбожников Soyuz voinstvuyushchikh bezbozhnikov, literally League of the Militant Godless); Society of the Godless (Общество безбожников Obshchestvo bezbozhnikov); Union of the Godless (Союз безбожников Soyuz bezbozhnikov), was an atheistic and antireligious organization of workers and intelligentsia that developed in Soviet Russia under the influence of the ideological and cultural views and policies of the Soviet Communist Party from 1925 to 1947. It consisted of party members, members of the Komsomol youth movement, those without specific political affiliation, workers and military veterans.
The league embraced workers, peasants, students, and intelligentsia. It had its first affiliates at factories, plants, collective farms (kolkhoz), and educational institutions. By the beginning of 1941, it had about 3.5 million members from 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, the League aimed at exterminating religion in all its manifestations and forming an anti-religious scientific mindset among the workers. It propagated atheism and scientific achievements, conducted 'individual work' (a method of sending atheist tutors to meet with individual believers to convince them that gods do not exist); most of the peasantry was unimpressed, and even the party apparatus considered the League to be meddling and inefficient. The League'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!" The League had international connections; it was part of the International of Proletarian Freethinkers and later of the Worldwide Freethinkers Union.
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