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When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in November 1917, they used a wide range of techniques—some subtle, some violent—to eradicate religion in areas under their control. The new Soviet government arrested priests, closed church buildings, exposed fraudulent monastic relics, forbade the printing of religious literature, and denied religious education to the young—all the while proclaiming abroad that there was no religious persecution in Russia. They set out to crush not only all organized religion but even the likelihood of religious thought. In this thoroughly researched yet accessible study, historian Paul Gable offers a new understanding of the only effort in world history to upset the universality of religion. Besides the main conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the atheist state, Gabel also considers the tensions that this campaign against religion caused within the Communist Party. In addition, he discusses the bitter hatred dividing the Orthodox factions that refused cooperation with the government from those that tried to adapt the church to communism. Was the failure of Soviet communism to eradicate religion simply a matter of practical miscalculation, or was this effort, in light of the persistence of religion throughout history, ultimately unrealistic and doomed from the start? This is the key question that Gabels fascinating, insightful narrative attempts to answer.
