Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless

By Daniel Peris

A member of the first generation of scholars allowed access to formerly closed Soviet archives, Daniel Peris offers a new perspective on the Bolshevik regime's antireligious policy from 1917 until 1941. He focuses on the activities of the League of the Militant Godless, the organization founded by the regime in 1925 to spearhead its efforts to promote atheism and he presents the League's propaganda, activities, and personnel at both the central and the provincial levels. On the basis of his research in archives in rural Pskov and industrial Iaroslavl', as well as in the central party and state archives in Moscow, Peris emphasizes the transformation of the ideological agenda formulated in Moscow as it moved to its intended audience. Storming the Heavens places the League within the broader context of a Bolshevik political culture that often acted at cross purposes to undermine the regime's stated goals. The League's lack of success, argues Peris, reflects the bureaucratic orientation of Bolshevik political culture, particularly in how it pursued the radical social vision of 1917. His book provides a framework for undertanding secularization in revolutionary contexts as well as contributing to the on-going reassessments of the Bolshevik era.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801434858
• ISBN13: 9780801434853
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

The Horrors of Militant Godlessness.

Nonreligious man in the pure state is a comparatively rare phenomenon, even in the most desacralized of modern societies. The majority of the "irreligious" still behave religiously, even though they are not aware of the fact . . . The modern man who feels and claims that he is nonreligious still retains a large stock of camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals. - Mircea Eliade, _The Sacred and the Profane_. _Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless_, published by Cornell University Press in 1998, by Daniel Peris, is an academic account of the creation and development of the Soviet League of the Militant Godless and its actions in Russia. The League of the Militant Godless constitutes a little known aspect of the Soviet state in its persecution of religion and especially the Holy Russian Orthodox Church. This persecution of the churches was carried on by Marxist fanatics beginning in 1917 when the Bolsheviks gained power until the late 1930s when the League was revitalized. In addition to much of the needless bloodshed and economic horrors inflicted upon the Russian people by communists, the crimes of the League of the Militant Godless and militant atheism among the Soviets against the Russian peasant and his religion constitute one of the outstanding criminal acts against both God and man of the Twentieth century. Make no mistake about it, many modern day atheists would like to see the same events recur again in their desire to see the churches suppressed totally and dominated by the state! This book traces the growth of the League of the Militant Godless as a bureaucratic organization within the Soviet regime. The book is academic in tone and thus it may be difficult for some to follow (including footnotes in Russian); however, for all students of history it represents an important achievement in our understanding of Soviet Russia. The Introduction to this book traces the development of the League of the Militant Godless as a bureaucratic organization beginning in 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power. This introduction explains the notion of "godlessness" and how it applied to many of the Marxist atheists at the time. The League's chief enemy which it sought to utterly eradicate was the Russian Orthodox Church (though it opposed all Christian churches generally, as well as all religions) which was the traditional religious institution of the Russian people. The Russian Orthodox Church claimed close to 100 million believers and included priests, monks, and nuns as well as others who had devoted their life to the service of Christ. Following the introduction, the author turns his attention to policies, confusion, and cadres within the League of the Militant Godless from 1917 to 1925. The author mentions the role of the League and its attempt to "make Holy Russia godless". The author compares the League to similar instances of militant godlessness in revolutionary France and Mexico, where crimes against th