League of Militant Atheists of the USSR

The League of Militant Atheists of the USSR (Союз воинствующих безбожников) — a mass voluntary organization of working people in the USSR that existed from 1925 to 1947. The formation of the League of Militant Atheists was a manifestation of the antireligious movement that developed in the USSR after the victory of the October Revolution of 1917. It was founded during socialist construction as part of the work of the Communist Party in the cultural and ideological enlightenment of the people.

The newspaper "Bezbozhnik" ("Atheist", 1922-1941), with its broad network of correspondents and reading groups, played an important role in the founding of the league. Adherents of the newspaper organized the Society of Friends of the Newspaper "Bezbozhnik" (SFNB) in August 1924 in Moscow. In April 1925, at the first congress of the SFNB, they founded an all-Union antireligious society, the League of Atheists, which was renamed the League of Militant Atheists at the second congress, in 1929. The Central Council of the league was headed throughout its existence by E. M. Iaroslavskii.

The League of Militant Atheists comprised workers, peasants, students, and members of the intelligentsia. Organizations were founded at plants, factories, kolkhozes, and educational institutions. By early 1941, the league consisted of approximately 3.5 million working people of 100 nationalities. The number of groups reached 96,000. Guided by Leninist principles of antireligious propaganda and by the party’s decisions on these principles, the league dedicated itself to ideological struggle against all forms of religion and the development of a scientific world view among working people. It disseminated propaganda on the natural sciences and atheism, offered believers individual counselling, and trained propagandists and atheist agitators. It also published scientific and popular scientific works and a number of periodicals, founded museums and organized exhibitions, and conducted scientific research in the field of atheism and criticism of religion. Working under the motto "The struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism", the league coordinated atheist propaganda with economic, political, and cultural tasks. The league maintained extensive international ties; it belonged to the International of Proletarian Freethinkers, and then to the World Union of Freethinkers. In 1947 the league turned over its tasks of disseminating scientific-atheist propaganda to "Znanie" ("Knowledge"), a newly created all-Union society.

Союз Воинствующих Безбожников СССР