League of Militant Atheists

The Association of battling wicked ( rus. Союз воинствующих безбожников ) was a 1929 to 1947 existing in the Soviet Union atheist club. He had been founded on the basis of existing since 1925 in Moscow Association of the wicked, who in turn went out of the Society of Friends of the newspaper " Bezbozhnik " out. The organization was close to the Soviet Communist Party. Their leader was Yemelyan Yaroslavsky.

Religious Policy

According to Lenin's formula, that the fight against religion, " the ABC of all materialism and consequently of Marxism " is the declared aim of the organization was the propagandist fight against the Russian Orthodox Church, moreover, but also other religious communities. The Association was a member of the International Union freethinkers.

The controlled by the CPSU wicked movement reached in 1932 with five and a half million members, its highest level. 1936 ended the Stalin Constitution discrimination against the civil rights of clergy. In early 1941, the organization had yet 3.5 million members from 100 countries.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin introduced a temporary anti- religious publications and the Orthodox Church blessed their Russian- patriotic tradition following the weapons of the Red Army.

Successor organizations

Since atheism was considered a fundamental component of Marxism- Leninism, after the war successor movements were founded, whose stated goal the so-called " scientific- atheist propaganda " was. Therefore, In 1947 the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of scientific and political knowledge; it was renamed in 1963 in the All-Union Knowledge Society.

Atheism as an educational goal

Atheism in the Soviet Union part of the curriculum in schools. The so-called scientific atheism was since the beginning of the 1960s a compulsory subject at universities and colleges.