Storming the Heavens

by Peris, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780801434853
• ISBN10: 0801434858
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-07-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

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 anti-religious 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 s

Table of Contents

Illustrations	viii	(1)
Acknowledgments	ix	(2)
Glossary	xi
Introduction	1	(18)
1. Making Holy Russia Godless: Policies, Confusion, and Cadres, 1917-1925	19	(28)
2. Organized Atheism in the 1920s	47	(22)
3. Soviet Atheism?	69	(30)
4. "The Battle against Religion Is the Battle for Socialism"	99	(19)
5. The League of the Godless in Iaroslavl' and Pskov, 1926-1933	118	(32)
6. The League of the Godless, the Communist Party, and Bolshevik Political Culture	150	(24)
7. "Cadres Decide Everything"	174	(23)
8. The Second Coming? The League of the Godless in the Late 1930s	197	(24)
Epilogue and Conclusion	221	(9)
Selected Primary Sources	230	(5)
Index	235