From year to year, when the last spring month comes, in some publications (and just on social networks) there are indications that on May 15, 1932, Stalin signed a certain decree on holding the "five-year plan of the atheists" (in other words - "godless five-year plan "). This is easily taken on faith, since such an action freely fits into the well-known confrontation of the Bolsheviks with religious organizations and their rejection of religion in general - for worldview, ideological, political, and even utilitarian-tactical considerations. The only trouble is that, as noted by various experts, the existence of such a Bolshevik decree has not been confirmed by anything.
There was such an idea
However, the fact that the existence of a decree on the holding of a five-year plan, aimed, as it is believed, at the complete eradication of religion in the Land of the Soviets, is not confirmed by anything, ideas about this existed and were even carried out. The main conductor of this policy was the so-called Anti-Religious Commission, officially - the Commission for the implementation of the decree on the separation of church from state under the Central Committee of the RCP (b). She really did have large-scale plans to fight religion. And these plans cannot be called vegetarian.
Cruel specifics
Let's make a reservation right away that these plans existed only in unofficial and nowhere published papers. But it will not be superfluous to get acquainted with them in order to imagine the scope of the struggle, which naturally turns into repression in such cases.
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It is not known where the ideologists of this struggle gathered to draw forces and funds, but by 1932 they assumed the closure of all religious buildings in the country. This should not only mean the closure of Orthodox churches. No, I meant exactly all religious buildings: synagogues and mosques, Buddhist temples and Protestant prayer houses. By 1934, it was planned to finally overcome all sorts of religious ideas and ideas. A year later, they were going to cover all Soviet youth with anti-religious propaganda. In 1936, they wanted to liquidate by a miracle the surviving prayer houses. There should have been no clergy left. Finally, as they expressed in those cruel times, by the end of the five-year plan (that is, by the end of 1937), religion had to be expelled from the most secluded corners. One can only imaginewhat a giant meat grinder the religious figures should have gotten into.
All familiar faces
To understand how influential the Anti-Religious Commission was, you can simply remember who headed or supervised it in different periods of its activity and who took part in its work. For example, such well-known revolutionary and Soviet leaders as Lunacharsky and Bonch-Bruevich, Chicherin and Menzhinsky were part of this body, and the most prominent Bolshevik figures, starting with Lenin, were in charge of its activities in the strategic and even tactical terms. Among them are Trotsky, and Stalin, and Dzerzhinsky, and Bukharin with Zinoviev and Kamenev. But the main role was played by E. M. Yaroslavsky. It really was an odious figure. And we will remember about him.
Union of militant atheists
The Anti-Religious Commission is still an incredibly serious, but nomenklatura body. A drive belt was needed for the masses, which would allow them to ignite the idea of an anti-religious struggle. And such a drive belt was found. Rather, created. It became the so-called Union of Militant Atheists. And it was headed by the same E. M. Yaroslavsky. And the implementation of the "godless five-year plan", which should put an end to religion in the USSR by May 1, 1937, is the slogan of this very Union.
History of appearance
The history of the appearance of the Union of Atheists dates back to the twenties of the last century with the formation of the Society of Friends of the Atheists newspaper. This was in 1924. The newspaper itself began to appear two years earlier. That's when a massive "godless movement" was needed, this society was remembered.
The case was handled on a Soviet scale. Suffice it to say that at the second congress of the Society in 1929, when it was renamed the Union of Militant Atheists, guests from several European countries were noted. Including from France, Germany and Austria. And among the speakers at the congress were not only political and statesmen like the same Bukharin, but the then rulers of thought from among the creative intelligentsia: Mayakovsky, Demyan Bedny and Gorky.
Tirelessly
Like everything created then in the USSR, the Union of Atheists did not become just a form without content. He immediately took up the most ebullient activity. He was engaged in the promotion of atheism and the publication of popular science literature, he published publications of a tough anti-religious orientation, his primary organizations operated in factories and plants, in schools and higher educational institutions, on collective farms.
If the enemy does not surrender
If everything was limited to anti-religious propaganda and education, that would be fine. The struggle of ideologies, so to speak. But the fighters against religion had other methods. Including repressive ones. Here are the 1932 statistics for the Russian Orthodox Church alone, excluding other religions and confessions: 40 bishops were arrested, 70 dioceses were liquidated, 95% (!) Of churches were closed. What can we say about the arrests of ordinary priesthood and ordinary believers … "The forest was cut down" - the "chips" got the most.
General idea
What cannot be taken away from the Bolsheviks is collectivism. Even Comrade Stalin, even during the period of his greatest power, formalized his decisions as collective. And if someone thinks that in this way he tried to avoid responsibility or make it clear to the people that it is not the tsar who rules, but the party - the vanguard of the working class, then such a person is mistaken. First, even in a nightmare, Comrade Stalin could not have dreamed that opportunists would prevail in his party. So to whom could he answer? And secondly, the people still accepted the decisions of the party as the decisions of the leader. In any case, the anti-religious struggle that unfolded in the vastness of the USSR and led to such tragic consequences was not the idea of one person. She had many reasons under herstarting with the works of European educators and Marx himself and ending with the need to protect the young republic from counter-revolution, which was often indulged by the clergy.
Main conductor
And yet there was a person who basically put the idea of war with religion into practice. Moreover, it was a merciless war in the form in which it unfolded in the country. This is Emelyan Mikhailovich Yaroslavsky, already mentioned above. But this is not his real name, because in fact his name was Miney Izrailevich Gubelman. At this point, of course, all sorts of conspiracy theorists can get excited and say a few words about the "Jewish conspiracy" against the Orthodox faith, but such views have very little to do with reality. Everyone got it. And the fact that it was the Orthodox Church that suffered most of all is because it was the largest and most influential religious organization in the country. The anti-religious trend is a common place for many revolutionaries of that time. And if in the place of Gubelman there were a thoroughbred Russian Ivanov,the situation would hardly have changed dramatically. The point is, rather, what role Gubelman played in the revolutionary environment.
In the leadership of the Combat Center
Gubelman became a member of the RSDLP at the age of twenty. And at twenty-five - one of the leaders of the so-called Combat Center of this party. It was these armed formations that were engaged in exs (expropriations), raiding both banks and private owners of large capital. In the language of the criminal code of any country, such an activity is called robbery. The money went to the needs of the party.
Gubelman took an active part in the 1905 revolution. His bride died at the hands of the Black Hundreds while carrying weapons to the revolutionaries. He visited hard labor and settlement. And during the October Revolution he was a member of the leadership of the armed uprising in Moscow. Gubelman survived the Soviet repressions, which did not escape many other leaders of the revolution, and he died in 1943 as a result of cancer. And now a person with such a biography led the struggle against religion in the early USSR, applying the methods to which he was accustomed during the underground and revolutions.
The people were silent?It cannot be said that the people fully supported the actions of the Soviet government in relation to the church. No. Even in 1930, there were mass protests of believers and clergy against the anti-church policy of the authorities - about one and a half thousand. But here's what is interesting: if, in general, attacks on the faith and the church were perceived negatively, then repressions against the clergy often remained outside the zone of attention of ordinary people. Perhaps this happened because, as some publicists wrote, the priesthood (priests) were often perceived among the people as those who are corrupt and rich, who profit from faith. And when the power robbed the church of wealth, it could even be considered commendable to some extent. But when the authorities encroached on the sacred - the icons and the temples themselves, then it caused rejection. Maybe that's why,despite the repressions against the priesthood, with faith, that is, with religion, the unofficial "godless five-year plan" failed.
By the same year by which the "atheists" intended to destroy religion in the USSR, that is, by 1937, the majority of the country's population, according to the census, were believers - 55 million out of 98. To one degree or another, religion in the USSR was fought quite hard until the end of its existence. This was probably one of the most serious mistakes of the leadership of the Land of the Soviets. Mark Raven
