Scientific atheistic propaganda in the framework of the work of the Stalingrad (Volgograd) branch of the All-Union Society "Knowledge" in the 1940s and 60s.

Knyazeva Anna Sergeevna Teacher of history and social studies, International Gymnasium IC Skolkovo 4 Zvorykina str., Moscow, 143026, Russia anna.khalimova@bk.ru Other publications by this author

The All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge was established in accordance with the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 1377 dated April 29, 1947, according to which the Council of Ministers approved the appeal of scientists and public figures to all figures of science and culture on the creation of a society for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge. The organizing committee was approved, consisting of the most prominent scientists of that time period: Academician S. I. Vavilov (chairman), academician. Bruevich, N. G., acad. Varga E. S., acad. Tarle E. V., acad. Palladin A.V., acad. Lysenko T. D., acad. Grekov B. D., etc. ^[1]. From the first year of operation, the All-Union Society began to develop actively, regional branches appeared throughout the country. The annual statistical report on the lecture and publishing activities of the society for 1948 indicates that 26 branches of the society were organized by the first of January 1948. In 1948, 137 more new branches were organized. On January 1, 1949, the society had 163 branches, of which: 6 regional, 114 regional, 4 in autonomous regions, 16 in autonomous republics and 23 in cultural and industrial centers of the USSR ^{[2, L.1]}. The first organizational meeting of the Stalingrad regional branch of the All-Union Society was held on March 17, 1948, and During the first year, it was quite actively involved in the process, so in the first year of work, a total of 685 lectures were delivered, which ranked 18th among regional departments according to this indicator ^{[2, L.37]}. It is clear from the name of the society that its purpose was to spread political and scientific knowledge, the activities of the society were organized into thematic sections, the number of which changed over time. The first sections were the following: section of history, philosophy, literature and art; section of economics and Technology; section of medicine and Natural sciences; section of foreign policy; agricultural section; section of physics and mathematics. Scientific atheistic work was initially conducted within the section of medicine and natural sciences, later it will be separated into a separate section on scientific atheism. But although a separate section did not appear immediately, special attention was paid to this area from the first years of work. Thus, the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the formation of the society states that the functions of the Council of Militant Atheists for the dissemination of scientific and materialistic knowledge are transferred to the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge, the Union of Militant Atheists ceases to exist and transfers all material means to the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge ^{[1, l.3]}. In In 2016, the Znanie Society was organized in the Russian Federation, which in fact is the successor of the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge, in connection with the above, the relevance of studying and analyzing the work of regional branches and directions of the All-Union Society is obvious. The purpose of this article is to analyze the scientific atheistic trend in the work of the Stalingrad (Volgograd) regional branch of the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific and political knowledge. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to study the methods of scientific atheistic propaganda, the problems, what goals were set and the results achieved. This study is based on archival documents of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (hereinafter GARF) Fund 9547 inventory 1 and inventory 2, archival documents of the Center for Documentation of the Modern History of the Volgograd Region (hereinafter CDNIVO) fund 6653 inventory 1 and inventory 2. Aivazova Natalia Valentinovna in 1984 defended her dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Philosophical Sciences on the topic "The role of the society "Knowledge" in the formation of a scientific, materialistic, atheistic worldview of workers in modern conditions" ^[3]. Natalia Valentinovna writes that over the years of its existence, the Znanie society has accumulated a wealth of experience in atheistic education of workers. The Znanie Society carried out atheistic work under the leadership of party organizations, working closely with Soviet institutions, the Komsomol, trade unions, and other public institutions designed to form a scientific, materialistic, atheistic worldview of workers. A number of modern researchers are also engaged in studying and analyzing the work of regional branches of the All-Union Society "Znanie". A.V. Vorontsov in the article "Kazan branch of the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge and its role in the cultural and educational life of the TASSR in the post-war period" reveals the activities of the Kazan branch from the late 1940s to the late 1960s.x ^[4]. I.V. Nikitina in the work "The activities of the Amur regional branch of the All-Union Society "Knowledge" at the stage of formation" considered the history of the formation of the Amur regional branch ^[5]. Some works are devoted to the functioning of society as a whole, for example, M. A. Mamontova studied the features of the creation and activity of the first three years of the society in the article "Society becomes a mass organization of the Soviet intelligentsia: information on the organization and work of the All-Union society for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge" ^[6]. The issues related to the functioning of the Stalingrad (Volgograd) branch have not been raised by researchers before.

Studying the protocols, reports, transcripts and other documents reflecting the activities of the Stalingrad (Volgograd) branch of the All-Union Society "Znanie", one can write with full confidence that during the Soviet period of the existence of the regional branch, scientific atheistic propaganda was one of the priorities of the society, since this topic was often on the agenda of the day. Various methods were used to activate this work, such as printing and distributing brochures, conducting seminars for lecturers, printing articles in local newspapers, holding Q&A evenings, and showing films to the public. In the protocol of the Organizing Committee of the Stalingrad Branch No. 6 dated September 27, 1948, the Bureau of the Section of Natural Sciences and Medicine, Prof. Mogilevsky was instructed to develop, no later than October 10, a series of lectures on anti-religious topics for reading at enterprises and clubs in the city and region ^[7]. We see that from the first years of its existence, the society has paid great attention to atheistic propaganda. This is not surprising since in 1950 The Presidium of the Board of the All-Union Society set the task: to draw the attention of the section leaders to the fact that the work on scientific atheistic propaganda, as one of the most important areas of activity of the whole society, cannot be confined to only one section. A wide range of members of the society, especially from the natural science, philosophical, and historical sections, were actively involved in conducting scientific and atheistic propaganda. In this regard, the message of C.N. Khudyakov "On the scientific atheistic propaganda carried out by the society" dated July 13, 1950 is interesting ^{[8, l.297]}. In which Khudyakov reports that scientific atheistic propaganda remained a weak area of the society's activity. According to the author, the lecture work in the field of scientific atheistic knowledge, especially in districts, collective farms and state farms, was extremely unsatisfactory. S. N. Khudyakov also noted that a number of lectures given were at a low ideological and scientific level, and contained serious mistakes. The next problem was the limited publication of scientific atheistic literature by the society. Of the thirty pamphlets approved for publication in Moscow before September 1950, transcripts of lectures on scientific and atheistic topics, by June 1950 only eleven pamphlets had been issued ^{[8, l.298]}. After this report, seminars aimed at working with lecturers began to be held. So in September 1953, a three-day seminar was held for lecturers speaking on scientific and atheistic topics. The plan of the three-day seminar was as follows:

1. Marxism-Leninism on religion and ways to overcome it

2. New in the science of the origin of life

3. The origin and class essence of Christianity

4. Communist morality and bourgeois morality

5. The students of academician I.P. Pavlov are sharp weapons in the fight against idealism and religion

6. I.V. Michurin's teaching is a sharp weapon in the fight against idealism and religion

7. The XIX Congress of the CPSU and the tasks of communist education of workers

8. The international situation in the struggle of peoples for peace

9. Exchange of experience ^[9].

The work plan of the regional department for 1954 indicated that the activities of the scientific atheist section had "improved". It was also noted that the Presidium of the Board of the Stalingrad branch of the Society developed measures to strengthen anti-religious propaganda, as a result, the scientific atheist section under the Board of the Society noticeably "revived its activities" ^[10]. Before the publication of the article in the newspaper Pravda about the intensification of atheistic propaganda, 17 people worked in the section, after publication it increased to 32 people. 30 new texts were developed, of which 22 were discussed and reviewed. In order to assist members of the Society conducting scientific atheistic propaganda, a regional two-week seminar of atheist lecturers was also held in March 1956. The preparation of the seminar was entrusted to the scientific and atheistic section and the staff of the Society's department. In order to assist the lecturers of the district offices, during the 1st quarter of 1956, materials were prepared and sent to the districts of the region "to help the lecturer" on the topic "How the first religious ideas arose among people" ^[11].In the report of the Board of the Stalingrad regional branch of the Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge at the fourth Regional Conference, a lot of attention was paid to discussing evenings of answers and questions on religious topics. In 1958, these evenings were held on the topic: "Science and religion". They took place at Tyazhstroy, a factory named after him. Petrov, at the machine-building plant, STZ, etc. In total, 11 of them were held in Stalingrad. The evenings covered the questions: "What is religion?", "How did religion arise?", "What is the Bible?", "What is sectarianism and what is its harm?", "Why is science fighting against religion?". According to the speaker, the evenings of questions and answers attracted numerous listeners. The reviews about them were very positive. It should be noted that this form of scientific atheistic propaganda has been successfully used in district offices. So in Serafimovich, such an evening turned into a big social event. A few days before the evening, posters with a list of program questions were posted around the city, which members of the Society of the Seraphim Department successfully answered during the event ^[12]. In the case of the state of atheistic work for 1964, the plan of a 3-day seminar for teachers of the course "Social Studies" is prescribed. The plan presents the following topics: "Dialectical and historical materialism – an integral part of Marxism-Leninism", "The subject of dialectical and historical materialism", "Tasks of scientific atheistic propaganda in modern conditions", "Modern ideology of the Orthodox Church", "Modern ideology of Sectarianism", "Scientific criticism of the Bible", "Forms and methods of atheistic propaganda" ^{[13, L.2]}. Films were actively used as part of scientific atheistic propaganda. For example, we can find the following note: "Active believers of the village of N-Dobrinka are still worried about the inactive church. The church has been closed for more than a year, but it is too early for atheists to calm down. For where there is no education of people, churchmen activate their work there" ^{[13, l.8]}. It turns out that the church in the village of N-Dobrinka was closed only in 1963 and after its closure, there were believers who were probably unhappy with this decision. In order to establish work on scientific atheism, the party organization of the collective farm in January 1964 discussed the issue of individual work with believers. To help atheists, the directorate of the cinema network showed the film "Not by God, but by man", and a university for scientific atheism was also established. As for the people's universities, this was also a fairly common form of propaganda. People's universities were opened in various fields: literature and art, universities of technical progress and excellence, universities of pedagogical knowledge, universities of legal knowledge, etc. The report on the work of the people's universities of the All-Union Society for 1962 indicated that in total 5,530 people's universities worked in the USSR in the 1961-1962 academic year, of which 96 were in scientific atheism ^[15]. At the People's University for Scientific Atheism in Serafimovich, students were shown a series of films every month in the classroom, "clearly showing the struggle of science against religious prejudice." The following films were shown: "The Truth about Xenia the Blessed", "Under the shadow of the Cross", "Return to life", "Not by God, but by man", "Foresight prompted by nature". In winter, the evening "Science against Religion" was held. The doctor M. A. Baigin spoke at it with the theme: "Science conquers diseases", the director of the school D. V. Shaposhnikov – "Life is not time, but wings", the teacher G. I. Butenko – "The Master of miraculous healing", after which the feature film "Clouds over Borsk" was shown ^{[13, L.9]}. In 1964, the scientific atheistic section paid special attention to the working village of Krasny Yar. The fact is that at one time there were many parishioners from it to the St. Dobrinsky Church. Film lectures on scientific atheism were held in the house of culture and in the central club of the collective farm "Testaments of Ilyich". 400-500 people gathered at them. "As a result of many years of diverse work with people, there are almost no believers left in the village" ^{[13, l.13]}.

Atheistic work in the city of Volzhsky (Volgograd region) was carried out both through the atheistic section of the Znanie Society and through the city atheist club, which was established in 1963 on the initiative of the Volzhsky Department of Culture. The section of scientific atheism of the society "Knowledge" in the city of Volzhsky in its work focused more on conducting individual short conversations. These conversations were held in villages, in campaign apartments, in clubs, in the Palace of Culture, in city parks. On January 1, 1963, 22 active Orthodox churches and houses of worship were registered in the Volgograd Region. During 1963, one religious association (Krasnoarmeysky district) was closed. There were 21 remaining on January 1, 1964, including 15 standard churches and 6 houses of worship. They were located: in cities – 10, working settlements – 4, in rural areas – 7, operating churches and houses of worship were located in 16 districts. There are 3 churches in the Seredneakhtuba district, Mikhailovsky – 2, Novoanninsky – 2, Kalachevsky – 2, and one church in each of the other districts. In churches and prayer houses there were ministers of worship – 26 people: priests – 14, deacons – 5, psalmists – 7 ^{[13, l.29]}. All these statistics indicate that the scientific atheistic propaganda, which was conducted by the society "Knowledge", was unable to change, destroy the age-old foundations. In 1963, only one religious association was closed, although work aimed at destroying faith was carried out quite actively. In addition to the above-mentioned forms of work, new non-religious holidays and rituals were widely introduced into the life of Soviet people. The practice of introducing such rituals in Soviet society had several active phases. In the 20s, with the advent of the new government, attempts were made to introduce new rituals that were supposed to replace the old religious ones. For example, instead of baptisms, the so-called "octobrines" were actively introduced, where the cross to the hero of the celebration was replaced with a red star made of cardboard ^[14]. Instead of Maslenitsa, winter celebrations were introduced, the celebration of the first of May was supposed to replace Easter, etc. Then interest in this topic subsided, the development and some kind of control of new non-religious holidays and rituals was not subordinated to any state structure, they were not unified in any way. During the Khrushchev thaw, interest in this topic arose again, much of it was due to the anti-religious company announced at that time. In a certificate on the work carried out by the Volgograd regional branch of the Znanie Society to implement the decisions of the June 1963 Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Executive Secretary B. Dudkin reported that the scope of scientific atheistic propaganda had increased, new civil rites began to be introduced into life, such as the solemn registration of the birth of a child, the presentation of passports to adults, holidays farewell to winter, "Birch Tree" and Komsomol wedding, etc. ^{[15, l.30]}. The number of lectures given has also increased, if in 1962 918 lectures were given by members of the Society on atheism, then only in the first quarter of 1963 they were read almost twice as many. To help the lecturers, brochures "Atheistic upbringing of children in the family", methodological manuals – "On the use of fiction in atheistic propaganda", "Solemn ceremony of registration of a newborn child" were published. Sets of chemical reagents were sent to the district offices to illustrate lectures on atheistic topics ^{[16, l.34]}.Minutes No. 22 of the meeting of the Presidium of the Volgograd Regional Organization of the Znanie Society dated January 11, 1966, presented an approximate plan for the course "Fundamentals of Scientific Atheism" for students of universities and schools of atheism: "Marxism-Leninism on the origin and class essence of religion", "The origin and essence of Christianity", "Modern Orthodoxy and its reactionary essence", "Islam", "The opposite of science and religion", "Religious holidays and their harm", "What is the harm of religious rituals. New Soviet rituals", "Criticism of religious morality", "The reasons for the existence of religious remnants in the USSR and ways to overcome them" ^[17].

Scientific atheistic propaganda was an important area in the work of the Stalingrad (Volgograd) branch of the society "Knowledge". Various forms of work have been used, some of them still seem quite modern in working with the public, such as question and answer evenings, film screenings. In addition, lectures were held, brochures were printed, seminars for lecturers were organized, individual work with the population was actively promoted. The regional office took part in the conduct and implementation of non-religious holidays and rituals in everyday life. But at the same time, religious institutions functioned and closed reluctantly, often in reports it is indicated that the quantitative indicators of lectures given or printed brochures do not correspond to the plans that were set by the central organizing committee.