The History of Scientific Atheism: A Comparative Study of Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union (1954–1991) [1 ed.] 9783666310867, 9783525310861

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Jan Tesaˇr

The History of Scientific Atheism A Comparative Study of Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union (1954–1991)

Religiöse Kulturen im Europa der Neuzeit Herausgegeben von Miloš Havelka, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, Przemysław Matusik und Martin Schulze Wessel

Band 16

Jan Tesař

The History of Scientific Atheism A Comparative Study of Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union (1954–1991)

With 9 figures, 2 maps and 8 tables

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

The printing of this book was made possible with support provided by the International Research Training Group “Religious Cultures in 19th and 20th Century Europe”, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.de © 2019, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG , Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Göttingen All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Cover image: Poster, Religion — The Obstacle of The Five Year Plan (Religiia — tormoz pjatiletki) Typesetting: textformart, Göttingen | www.text-form-art.de Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2197-0955 ISBN 978-3-666-31086-7

Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Analytical Categories and Underlying Theoretical Assumptions . . . 13 Earlier and Contemporary Approaches to Scientific Atheism . . . . . 19 The Outline of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 1. Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 1.1 The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 1.1.1 The Prehistory of Marxist Atheism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 1.1.2 Socio-Political Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1.1.3 The Emergence of the Soviet Antireligious Tradition . . . 45 1.2 Czechoslovakian Freethinkers and the Communist Godless . . . 50 1.2.1 The Prehistory of Marxist Atheism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 1.2.2 The Socio-Political Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 1.2.3 The Freethinkers’ Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 1.2.4 The Emergence of the First Godless in Slovakia . . . . . . . 61 1.2.5 Freethinkers’ Organization and Method of Thinking . . . 63 1.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 2. The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective in the Post-war Years (1954–1958) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 2.1 The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in the Soviet Union . . . . 71 2.1.1 The Socio-Political Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 2.1.2 Institutional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 2.2 The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in Czechoslovakia . . . . . 82 2.2.1 The Socio-Political Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 2.2.2 Institutional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 2.2.2.1 The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in the Jihlava Region: A Case Study . . . . . . . . . . 93 2.2.2.2 Atheist Cadres in the Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 2.3 The Thought Style in the 1950s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 2.3.1 What is Religion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 2.3.2 The Roots of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 2.3.3 Old and New Atheism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

6  Table of Contents 2.3.4 The Role of the Catholic Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 2.3.5 Scientific-Atheist Education in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . 115 2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 3. The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective (1959–1971) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 3.1 The Beginnings of the Esoteric Thought Collective in the Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 3.1.1 The Socio-Political Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 3.1.2 The Institutionalization Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 3.1.2.1 The Structure of Scientific Research Prior to the ISA’s Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 3.1.2.2 The Foundation of the ISA and Changes in the Research Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 3.1.2.3 The Formation of the Esoteric Group of Professional Scientific-Atheist Scholars . . . . . 137 3.1.3 Elements of the Soviet Esoteric Thought Style . . . . . . . . 141 3.1.3.1 The Status and Definition of Scientific Atheism . . 141 3.1.3.2 Scientific-Atheist Sociology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 3.2 The Beginnings of the Esoteric Thought Collective in Czechoslovakia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 3.2.1 The Socio-Political Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 3.2.2 The Process of Institutionalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 3.2.3 Elements of the Esoteric Thought Style . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 3.2.3.1 Continuity and Break from Established Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 3.2.3.2 The Conservative Approach to Scientific-Atheist Education in 1959–1963 . . . . . 188 3.2.3.3 Scientific-atheist Sociology in Czechoslovakia . . 194 3.2.3.4 The Status and Definition of Scientific Atheism . . . 198 3.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 4. Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science (1971–1989) . . . . . . . . . . 219 4.1 The Socio-political Context of Scientific Atheism in the Era of “Developed Socialism” in the Soviet Union . . . . . 223 4.2 Institutional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 4.3 The Socio-political Context of Scientific Atheism during the Era of Normalization in CSSR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 4.4 Institutional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 4.5 International Relations between the Soviet and Czechoslovakian Esoteric Thought Collectives . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Table of Contents  7

4.6 Elements of the Scientific-Atheist Thought Style . . . . . . . . . . 275 4.6.1 The Theological Revisionism of Scientific Atheism . . . . 275 4.6.2 Definitions of Scientific Atheism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 4.6.3 The Marxist Sociology of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 4.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 List of Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Note on Transliteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 a) Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 b) Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 c) Layout of the ISA’s local bases in 1966(9)–1979 . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 a) Archival sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 b) Published sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 c) Secondary literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Introduction During  a heated discussion at the Institute of Contemporary History of the Charles University in Prague, a professor of Czechoslovakian history declared that scientific atheism is total nonsense and that it has never existed. He maintained that science and atheism are two incommensurable categories, and that the phenomenon itself is not worthy of research because everything is clear and, consequently, there is nothing to find. The present work is a rather long answer to this professor because it tries to document the modes of scientific atheism’s existence in the national contexts of the Soviet Union and socialist Czechoslovakia in the period after Stalin’s death until the dissolution of the authoritative regime in 1989, or 1991 respectively. Furthermore, it strives to understand how this “weird” scholarship came into being, how it survived in the given environment and what contributed to its deprecation. Within this study, scientific atheism1 is understood as  a way of seeing.2 Such a perspective allows the investigation to go beyond the borders of a highly ideologized approach that prevents us seeing atheist specialists as rational people who produced “ordinary” knowledge that fully corresponded to their surrounding socio-political and cultural context. This theoretical perspective opens the possibility of comprehending the limits of thinking as well as its structure and content in the context of an authoritative political regime. Scientific atheism is in this case a specific sphere of human activity analysis that can help to understand the more general process of knowledge production under socialism in two distinct national contexts. Such analysis will contribute to a sincere portrayal of the atheist specialists and their style of thinking. The goal is to approach them not as mere puppets in the hands of the all-mighty ideological apparatus of the Communist Party (CP henceforth), but as  a relatively autonomous yet co-dependent unit which existed within the system, that is, within the galaxy 1 Because historical actors used the term “Marxist atheism” and “scientific atheism” as synonyms the present work also does not draw a distinction between the two expressions. 2 In his 1929 essay, Fleck wrote: “an experienced teacher has found that only  a small minority of students independently notice something new without having their attention explicitly drawn to it, and that even then only a few see it immediately as it is shown to them. They first have to learn to see it. […] it is just this ‘seeing’ that one first has to learn, which makes for the progress of any science, the progress which thus is again and again given its social imprint.’ Cit. Fleck, Ludwik: On the Crisis of Reality, in: Cohen, Robert / Schnelle, Thomas (eds.): Cognition and Fact. Materials on Ludwik Fleck. Dordrecht 1986, 48.

10 Introduction of Marxist-Leninist thinking, but which also had its own, partially independent agenda. The primary goal is thus to comprehend what exactly was this convoluted and seemingly haphazardly comprised doctrine and set of practices that existed as a subsidiary stream in the river of Marxist-Leninist ideology. How large was the phenomenon, what institutions, groups, and individuals were connected to it, and was it any different outside of Czechoslovakia? What were the goals of scientific atheists, and how did they try to achieve them? Questions like these began the investigation into the long-deceased scientific atheism. Its vestiges proved to be engaging on their own. Investigation showed that there was  a considerable amount of knowledge generated by certain Marxist scholars such as Aleksandr Okulov, Igor Iablokov, Jiří Loukotka, and Ivan Hodovský about topics that were then seen as the domain of so-called scientific atheism and that form the main parts of the present study as well. This led to questions about the conditions of existence of such knowledge and questions about the nature and characteristic features, or “quality,” function and influence of that knowledge. Looking into these matters, it is possible to uncover not only the relationship of allegedly “indispensable parts of Marxism-Leninism” towards the main body of the doctrine, but to make some claims about the nature of science and its agents during socialism as well. The intertwining of the scholarly discipline of scientific atheism with antireligious (or atheist) propaganda on the other hand sheds some light on the process of knowledge management, and importance of its dispersion throughout the population. Scientific atheism was considered by western scientists of the time as “pseudoscience.” However, western scholars were not the only ones who used this description, as Marxist scholars also used this derogatory term also, although in  a completely different context. First, they used it defensively in order to show the total misapprehension of Marxism by western scholars. Second, they used it offensively to expose theologians as real scientific charlatans in their scientific field. Yet, it is beside the point, and it would not bring us any further epistemological gain if we looked at scientific atheism from the same perspective and dismissed it as a crackpot or plain dogmatic endeavour. The approach taken by the historian of science Michael Gordin in his book about the pseudo-science of Immanuel Velikovsky in the US context is far more productive. He maintains that labelling a science as “pseudoscience” does not help us to understand why there were adherents to such a “pseudoscience” in the first place and why it was able to gain some space in the public sphere without being universally accepted by “establishment” (that is, official, institutionalized and publicly funded) science.3

3 See Gordin, Michael: Pseudoscience Wars. Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe. Kindle edition. London / Chicago 2012, position 345–384.

Introduction  11

The aim of this book is, therefore, not to say conclusively whether scientific atheism was  a form of scholarship, pseudo- or quasi-science or rather  a form of ideological doctrine, completely detached from the scientific method of any scholarly discipline. It may be understood as a parallel science, or parallel scholarship, because scientific atheism was not in fact an “exact science” but rather an aggregate of the social sciences and humanities. By the term parallel science is meant the notion of the separation of Western and Eastern knowledge on political, philosophical, and ideological grounds. Thus, what was taken as a plausible explanation or very probable theory in the West was categorically rejected in the East on methodological and epistemological grounds and vice versa. Western and Eastern scholarship thus existed as two sides of one coin. They knew about each other but did not talk to each other, with one notable exception, which is described in the third chapter of the present work under the title “The Czechoslovakian Deviation.” It should be emphasized at this point that this study does not pursue the of goal describing and assessing political actions and technologies that had an antireligious or atheist character. The bureaucratic measures and sometimes open hostility of the political and bureaucratic plenipotentiaries of the party in both national contexts is not denied.4 However, the methodology of the present work is founded on a distinction between the act of aggression initiated by the party “laymen” and the act of thinking which was the domain of the scientific-atheist experts. The line between those two groups was drawn quite clearly, and the latter group almost never joined the bureaucratic measures of the former; thus, it is possible to divide these two groups and focus only on the latter one for the purposes of the analysis. The exception confirms the rule and although both, that is western and socialist specialists, dealt with similar social phenomena and were partially interested in similar questions — for example, the process of secularization — t heir interpretation of the gathered data was completely irreconcilable with one another. Therefore, even though there was some reception of western scholarship in Czechoslovakia and in the Soviet Union as well, it was almost always fundamentally critical. The characterization of scientific-atheist scholarship as a parallel 4 The secondary literature devoted to the appraisal of the relationship between the Soviet Union, socialist Czechoslovakia, and various churches has become abundant in recent years. The focus of such literature is predominantly on the coercive and disciplinary measures that sought to bring the defying church organization and its members into line. Therefore, it could be characterized as a narrative of martyrdom or oppression of the tyrant against the righteous. From the recently published literature see Balík, Stanislav / Hanuš, Jiří: Katolická církev v Československu 1945–1989. Brno 2013, Chumachenko, Tatiana: Church and State in Soviet Russia: Russian Orthodoxy from World War II to the Khrushchev Years. New York 2002, Shkvarovskii, Mikhail, Vitalievich: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov v XX veke, Moskva 2010.

12 Introduction science can be supported by Ludwik Fleck’s thesis, that “direct communication between the adherents of different thought styles is impossible.”5 Fleck can be used to characterize yet another feature of the relationship between scientific-­ atheist scholarship and western scholarship that is understood as  a different thought style: the greater the difference between two thought styles, the more inhibited will be the communication of ideas. […] The alien way of thought seems like mysticism. The questions it rejects will often be regarded as the most important ones, its explanations as proving nothing or as missing the point, its problems as often unimportant or meaningless trivialities.6

As opposed to Western scholarship, which was dealing with similar topics as scientific atheism but did not share  a single scientific paradigm,  a particular version of Marxism-Leninism was taken as an inevitable point of departure and epistemological paradigm by Eastern scholars. Therefore, it formed their reasoning, argumentation, choice of research topics, core methodology, and, of course, outcomes as well. Yet, whatever the underlining principles, whether the Marxist-Leninist paradigm was rigid over the course of time or whether there were shifts, changes in the tried and trusted instruments, approaches, and interpretation framework remains to be seen. The question concerning the magnitude of the change within the epistemological paradigm in both national contexts, that is whether it was a succession of evolutionary shifts or rather an abrupt cadence of revolutionary rifts, has to be investigated as well. Being a parallel science, scientific atheism was ridiculed and rejected in the West, yet taken seriously by the scholarly community, responsible policy makers, and cultural institutions in the East, presumably because they all adhered to the similar paradigm of Marxism-Leninism. The question is, from which sources stemmed the legitimization of scientific atheism? Did it come exclusively from its embeddedness in Marxism-Leninism, or was it partially a result of the completed research projects and their own values? Or were there other prevalent external influences that cannot be explained from within the scholarship? How was the actual value of scientific-atheist research appreciated in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia? Finally, what were the benchmarks for “real” science in this context, and how was it achieved?



5 Cit. Fleck, Ludwik: Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Chicago 1979, 36. 6 Cit. ibid., 109.

Analytical Categories and Underlying Theoretical Assumptions   13

Analytical Categories and Underlying Theoretical Assumptions As Jürgen Kocka put it, “Historical comparisons are asymmetrical in the sense that they investigate one case carefully while limiting themselves to  a mere sketch of the other case(s) which serve(s) as comparative reference point(s).”7 The comparison of scientific atheism in socialist Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union is no different because it also perceives one set of phenomena as central and the other as peripheral. For the purposes of analysis, the Soviet Union, more precisely Moscow with its research institutes, is taken as such a center and socialist Czechoslovakia with its regional centers in Brno and Bratislava plays the role of  a periphery. This approach was dictated partially by chronology. It seems that the development mostly took place at first in Moscow and only than it moved to peripheries abroad. Partially, practical reasons lie behind this.8 Finally, this approach helps to distinguish what development was unique in the context of the Eastern Bloc and what was adopted as  a universal institutional or research practice and explain why this was so. The analytical emphasis is put not only on similarities and differences between both countries. Rather, the focus is also oriented on such moments when both groups of actors met with one another. The nature of exchange, that is cross-national communication, networks and institutional relations, and their usage is put under scrutiny. In this sense, the methodological approach is similar to that of entangled history which has lot in common with the concept of transfer studies.9 The combination of asymmetrical comparison and entangled history has its advantages. First and foremost, it enables not only the delimitation of the original form and its deviation but allows observation of the process of negotiation that lies behind the adoption or rejection of certain techniques, modes of thinking, or discursive practices. Furthermore, it brings to the fore the agency of historical actors who are not understood as passive recipients but rather active co-creators of the atheist content in the national institutional framework. To put it differently, if there were no capable scholars in Czechoslovakia, who would be 7 Cit. Kocka, Jürgen: Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: the Case of the German Sonderweg, in: History and Theory 38/1 (1999) 40–50, here 40. 8 One could conduct research of scientific atheism in the Soviet Union as such and observe the regional differences and communication between the center and periphery. However, such analysis would be impossible without extensive research in the archives of former Soviet republics and interpretation of sources predominantly in the respective languages of the republics. 9 In Michel Espagne’s definition, transfer is the process through which the norms and representations of one culture appear in another. Transfer studies follow the transmission of one culture into another, analyzing the process of change. See Mikkonen, Simo / Koivunen, Pia: Beyond the Divide: Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe. New York 2015, 12.

14 Introduction able to participate in the collaborative project of scientific atheism, there would not be any Czechoslovakian scientific atheism either. Finally, the notion that scientific atheism was some kind of Soviet, or Czechoslovakian deviation, to be dispelled. Indeed, if a more comprehensive comparison was made, which would account for other socialist countries as well, then our understanding of variety and commonness of scientific atheism in the Eastern Bloc would be even more complete. In this sense, the present work is the first attempt to put scientific atheism into a wider context. Thus, the comparison helps to distinguish firstly to what extent scientific atheism was centrally “governed” from the Soviet Union, and to what extent it was linked to and inspired by a national context; secondly, how the community of scientists communicated, and how this communication influenced scientific production; and thirdly, to what extent this type of science was susceptible to the political field. Generally, the purpose of the comparison is to measure how Czechoslovakian scientific atheism differed from its Soviet archetype and whether there was always a rather one-sided influence. Such a method will thus help us understand whether Soviet scientific atheism was “unique” or not. The main categories for comparison are socio-political context, institutions, and field of knowledge. The purpose is to elucidate what formal and informal institutions were activated in order to promote the project of scientific atheism. In the case of institutions, the attention is turned to the question of who professional scientific atheists were, what type of career they could have, and what was their position in society, relative to other spheres of knowledge and practice. The field of knowledge perspective aims to look into the public and semi-public utterances, describe the main themes of scientific-atheist scholarship, and their role in the socialist public sphere or in the sphere of intraparty debate about the technology of society-construction. The goal is to explain why certain topics were claimed by scientific-atheist scholars, what they wanted to achieve by studying them, and how it helped them to legitimize themselves in the eyes of the CP and other scholarly disciplines who were in fact competitors for the limited resources in the party’s disposal. If asymmetrical comparison and entangled history form the broadest analytical framework of this study, the more refined questions mentioned above can be answered only when scientific atheism is approached in a certain way. It goes without saying that behind every question is always a theoretical or at least hypothetical assumption that draws on concepts and categories, laden with specific meaning. There is also no denial that the formulation of a question itself partially constructs its own answer. In order to avoid epistemological confusion, and in order to achieve a higher degree of explanative clarity, the most important concepts and categories, along with their underlying theoretical assumptions must be briefly sketched out. This is also vital because in some cases the usage of a concept or a term comes from a different scholarly tradition which is slightly

Analytical Categories and Underlying Theoretical Assumptions   15

modified for the purposes of the current analysis. The reason behind such amendments could be explained as the supremacy of historical sources which take the primary position over theory. In other words, theory and methodology are employed in order to enhance the interpretation of sources and not the other way around, as is sometimes the case. A crucial heuristic question is how we approach the discipline of scientific atheism. One distinction has been made already, with the introduction of the term parallel science. Yet, this says more about scientific atheism’s relationship to the West than about the nature of the discipline itself. Therefore, it is necessary to outline through what lens the phenomenon is studied. The first concept in need of explanation is a “thought style.” The term’s usage in this study is directly linked to Ludwik Fleck’s classical book about the genesis and development of a scientific fact and other essays that served as a major source of theoretical and methodological inspiration.10 Fleck’s theoretical framework is also useful for deeper analysis of the institutional framework of scientific atheism which can be understood as a specific thought collective. Such analytical category enables to delineate smaller and larger esoteric circles of various experts, specialists, and acolytes, which are characterized by a) the ability to make assumptions and b) both mental and manual practice together with a research scientist’s entire experimental and non-experimental fund of knowledge, including features clearly conceived, those that are uncertain, and those that are “instinctive.“11

Furthermore, it allows observation of the creation of bonds between the members of the collective through the construction of specific language and terminology and through the formation of restricted content viewed as a “special realm of thinking.”12 This special realm of thinking is another way to characterize a paradigm. All these concepts form the basic instruments that are used to approach the subject matter of this book. Scientific-atheist propaganda and the group of scientific atheist propagandists may be understood as a specific type of popular science, i. e. an exoteric thought style and thought collective that adheres to the same paradigm but which does not have the same ambitions regarding knowledge production and fact genesis as an esoteric thought style. It is capable of setting the standard for the content 10 See Cohen / Schnelle: Cognition, 39–160. Fleck defines thought style as (the readiness for) directed perception with corresponding mental and objective assimilation of what has been so perceived. It is characterized by common features in the problems of interest to a thought collective, by the judgment that the thought collective considers evident, and by the methods that it applies as a means of cognition. Cit. ibid., 99. 11 Cit. Fleck: Genesis, 96. 12 Cit. ibid., 104.

16 Introduction of expert knowledge and thus co-determines its development. Conversely, it disperses exoteric knowledge which is simplified, lucid, and apodictic. Precisely because of this it is able to influence  a large circle of adults in favor of the paradigm thus presented.13 Whilst thought style is understood in this book as a broader category that allows accounting of the social, historical, and cultural forces in the process of scientific cognition and development, an esoteric thought style is perceived as its specific mode that is closely linked to the production of science as it is. Thus, it is more closely connected to the world of ideas that circulate in one specific discipline, which is in this case scientific atheism. Contrarily, the exoteric thought style puts the existence of a science into a broader social and cultural context. In other words, whereas scientific atheism as a whole (scientific-atheist propaganda, ritual practice, policies, and science) can be defined as a thought style, the epistemological, theoretical and methodological assumptions, and rules of scientific-atheist scholarship belong to the esoteric type of knowledge, which is a subcategory of the thought style. Whereas for Fleck it was sufficient to explain the emergence and existence of the thought style from the inner logic of interaction within certain members of the thought collective and their scientific facts, it has to be extended in order to take account of the socialist socio-political context. Mainly, the external role of the CP in the inner workings of the esoteric thought collective has to be assumed and the extent of its influence on the knowledge production process thoroughly investigated. This is why the CP in the present work is conceptualized as one of the most significant reference groups. As  a significant reference group, it entered into very close dialogue with the esoteric thought collective and, as the hypothesis goes, it influenced its knowledge quite profoundly. In contrast to Fleck’s model, the present work thus presupposes a profound influence of the laymen on the realm of knowledge. Moreover, it maintains that the genesis of a scientific fact can be finished only if the fact is accepted as such not only by the members of the esoteric thought collective but by members of other significant reference groups as well. The largest difference between the Marxist-Leninist paradigm and other paradigms is that the former was endorsed with force by the ruling communist party, whereas other scientific paradigms normally do not have such strong and direct ties to political power. However, even under the auspices of an authoritarian dictatorship it would not be possible to practice science without the consent of scholars who, for various reasons, decided to adopt the endorsed scientific worldview, that is, the paradigm, while designing projects and using Marxism-Leninism as a point of departure and mode of explanation. Moreover, even in the authoritarian context, where a scientific paradigm is co-determined 13 See ibid., 113.

Analytical Categories and Underlying Theoretical Assumptions   17

by political forces, change is possible, as the Lysenko affair and its end in the 1950s indicate.14 It should be noted that such conceptualization of the term paradigm views science from a perspective similar to Ludwik Fleck, who maintained, that “truth in science is a function of the particular style of thinking that has been accepted by the thought collective. To be correct is rather to be accepted by the collective.”15 Therefore, the aim is not to delineate truth and falsity, or science (that is, the pursuit of truth) from pseudoscience.16 In other words, it is not the goal to criticize and refute scientific atheism as a plain pseudoscience. Rather, the goal is to determine how it emerged and functioned as a science (or scholarship) in specific historical — temporal and spatial — boundaries. As Sonja Luehrmann pointed out, such approach moves us away from focusing on the truth value of the statements and points towards questions broadly related to Foucaultian concept of regimes of truth, the rules of their functioning, maintanence, and expansion.17 Finally, because it is impossible to think about function without the notion of influence and, therefore, power in some sense or other, it is necessary to explain what is meant by power, and where we look for it. Furthermore, it ought to be explained what role power plays in the concept of science outlined above, and how it contributes to the description and analysis of the scientific-atheist thought collective. According to Foucault, knowledge and power go hand in hand.18 Foucault states that power is the activity of political technologies in the whole societal body.19 More precisely, it is the control of the controlled and ordering of the possible. To govern means to structure the field of possible action of others.20 14 See Graham, Loren: “Stalinist Ideology and the Lysenko Affair,” in: Science in Russia and the Soviet Union. New York 1993, and Vucinich, Alexander: Empire of Knowledge. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1917–1970). Berkeley 1984, 199–256. 15 Cit. Fleck: Genesis, 156. 16 The typical example is to be found in classical work of Popper, Karl: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York 2002, 48. When truth is thematized, it is strictly in the manner proposed by Fleck: “truth is not  a convention but rather 1) in historical perspective, an event in the history of thought, 2) in its contemporary context, stylized thought constraint.” Cit. Fleck: Genesis, 100. 17 On the Foucault’s use of the regimes of truth concept see Foucault, Michel: Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. New York 1991, 23, 30. On the methodological application of the concept for research about socialism in the Eastern Europe see Verdery, Katherine: Secrets and Truths: Ethnography in the Archive of Romania’s Secret Police. Budapest 2014 and Luehrmann, Sonja: Religion in Secular Archives. Soviet Atheism and Historical Knowledge. Kindle edition, Oxford 2015, location 410. 18 See Foucault: Discipline, 27 f. 19 See Dreyfus, Hubert / Rabinow, Paul: Michel Foucault. Za hranicemi strukturalismu a hermeneutiky. Praha 2002, 281. 20 Cit. Foucault, Michel: Subjekt a moc, in: Dreyfus / Rabinow: Michel Foucault, 329.

18 Introduction Therefore, the reconstruction of rules that governed the formation, that is, institutionalization and organization of a certain thought collective in a given society, is a key to the power structure of the thought style. The most important powers in the context of scientific atheism were, firstly, the external, structuring and delineating heteronomous force.21 One has to take into consideration that the subject that come to understand something, the objects of knowledge, and modalities of knowledge are to certain degrees consequences of the fundamental implications of power-knowledge relations and their historical transformations.22 In our contexts this is the CP elite — t he Central Committee (CC from now on) — who are the main representative of the heteronomous force. It is heteronomous to the thought collective because it is not part of it, but it exerts a considerable amount of influence over it. The knowledge production cannot be analyzed as a composition of free floating radicals; therefore, it is contextualized by the socio-political development that includes the decision-making process of the CP elites. Such attitudes of these elites are conceptualized as important forms of direct influence which co-­ determined the “horizons of expectation”23 for the other historical actors. Apart from that, the heteronomous force influences the form of the esoteric thought style indirectly. The most significant form of indirect influence, which is constantly analysed throughout this study, is the organizational structure of the esoteric thought collective, because without it the development of the thought style would be incomprehensible. Although the term is not used in the study, the conditioning of the thought collective and thought style through the internal rules of the epistemological paradigm and external influence of the heteronomous force could be understood as a “dispositive” that ultimately determined what could and could not be said in the framework of the scientific-atheist realm of knowledge.24 Inspired by Foucault, scientific-atheist scholarly production is understood as a type of expert knowledge that is able to exert its own power over certain subjects of knowledge and emanate it back to other significant reference groups. The hypothesis goes that the result of such emanation can amount to a profound change of the reference group’s attitudes towards the object that has been constructed as a scientific fact by the experts. Such power stems from the fact that the esoteric thought style had the sole authority to describe certain objects of 21 The term heteronomous force is inspired by Bourdieu’s reflection on the preconditions for the field of cultural practice’s autonomy. In this context, his analysis of external — heteronomous — restrictions and possible reactions of the autonomous field on such a situation are especially fruitful. See Bourdieu, Pierre: The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York 1984, 1–34. 22 See Foucault, Michel: Archeologie vědění. Praha 2002, 76. 23 See Koselleck, Reinhart. Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlichen Zeiten. Frankfurt 1979, 98. 24 See Dreyfus / Rabinow: Michel Foucault, 195.

Earlier and Contemporary Approaches to Scientific Atheism  19

research and put them into relations with other categories, thus making them not only visible but also intelligible in the framework of the given epistemological paradigm. This intrinsic power of the esoteric thought style had of course many implications that are partially explored in the next parts of this book.

Earlier and Contemporary Approaches to Scientific Atheism Although the attention of researchers coming from various scholarly disciplines has turned to the problematic of scientific atheism in its broad sense only relatively sporadically, their approaches should be discussed in order to better understand the theoretical position of this book in the ongoing debate about the nature of scientific atheism. The oldest and probably also most ideologically biased approach could be labelled the “Cold War perspective.” In regard of scientific atheism, its main aim was not to comprehend the phenomenon but to de-mask and criticize it as a propagandist failure and thus beat it in the ongoing worldview competition. The research concentrated on the so-called bureaucratic measures such as forced church closures, persecution of believers in the workplace, and curtailing of their religious freedom.25 In short, the focus was predominantly on political action and its consequences. Therefore, scientific atheism, which was widely confused with antireligious propaganda in the secondary literature, as a whole had been seen from the point of view of propaganda, that is, as a type of political action. The scientific-atheist scholarship was either not taken into consideration, or it was dismissed as a defunct pseudoscience on the grounds of its adherence to the Marxist-Leninist paradigm, as the following quote clearly underlines: “Most of what passes for ‘scientific atheism’ is very crude,  a mere repetition of the arguments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and where it raises above this level, its result can be to stimulate interest in religion.”26 25 Illuminating is the statement of one of the chief proponents of the Cold War approach in the study of religion and atheism in the Soviet Union, Bohdan Bociurkiw: “Unleashed forces of ideological fanaticism and totalitarian arbitrariness have caused in the recent years the large-scale closing of churches, mosques and synagogues, the suppression of the large portion of monastic and theological institutions, and numerous renunciations of priesthood and faith, contributing to  a marked expansion of ‘religious underground’ in the Soviet Union.” Cit. Bociurkiw, Bohdan: De-Stalinization and Religion in the U. S. S. R., in: International Journal 20/3 (1965) 312–330, here 312. Later in his article, Bociurkiw interprets atheist propaganda along the same lines: “the post-Stalin religious campaign has featured a two pronged attack aiming at the weakening and the ultimate elimination of religious organizations, and, at the same time, attempting gradually to deprive the churches and sects of their popular base through the ‘conversion‘ of believers to a ‘scientific-atheist’ worldview.” Cit. ibid., 325. 26 Cit. Lawrence, John: Observations on Religion and Atheism in Soviet Society, in: Canadian Slavonic Papers, 14/4 (1972) 577–585, here 581.

20 Introduction The main function of scientific-atheist scholarship was ideological in essence. A typical quote from this “engaged” western scholarship illustrates the case: “There is no doubt that Soviet sociologists of religion are devoted to the task of facilitating the militant struggle against religion in their country.”27 The overarching idea behind the cold war approach was to emphasize how the totalitarian regime, symbolized by the communist party, tried to oppress society in order to gain more power and leverage over it. The situation of religion, under the oppressing influence of antireligious policies and atheist propaganda was another case in point.28 Heuristic problems of this black-and-white picture regarding atheism consisted of the fact that it was not able to explain why certain people actually adhered to scientific atheism, yet did not share the militant attitude against religion, as Pankhurst, Lawrence, Bociurkiw, and many others believed. The positive atheist identity, without abuse of power or inherently sinister ideological goals, going against the will and well-being of the believers, was virtually unthinkable when the Cold War approach created dichotomies of victims and perpetrators that was used as an analytical framework. Furthermore, the genuine belief in Marxism-Leninism was also hard to imagine, if one adopted an outlook presuming that ideology was used only as a tool for control and not as a guiding principle. Another Cold War mode of explanation, implicitly touching on the topic of scientific atheism as well, was the pseudo-religion thesis. Dating back to Eric Voegelin and Raymond Aron, who introduced this concept, some political scientists and historians have maintained that Marxism-Leninism and the Soviet Union should be understood as an entity resembling religion, drawing most often on the structural similarities shared with the Catholic church, perception of sacredness, role of dogma, holy scriptures, and so on.29 Apart from the fact that the pseudo-religion thesis was always closely connected with totalitarianism, it has primarily been used in order to slander. Therefore, it has been a political Kampfbegriff and far less a scientific concept. In other words, it has been employed less in order to analyse and more to assess, evaluate, and denigrate Soviet developments and delegitimize political tenure.30 27 Cit. Pankhurst, Jerry: Soviet Sociology of Religion, in: Religion in the Communist Lands 10/3 (1982) 292–297, here 292. 28 See Bociurkiw: De-Stalinization, 329, and Bociurkiw, Bohdan: The Orthodox Church and the Soviet Regime in the Ukraine, 1953–1971, in: Canadian Slavonic Papers, 14/2 (1972) 191–212. 29 See Maier, Hans: Politická náboženství. Totalitární režimy a křesťanství. Brno 1999, 24–29. 30 The following quotation should illustrate the case in point: “Marxism as  a pseudo-­ religion is at an end in the Soviet Union. Even among CP members it is  a small minority that even pretends to take Marxist ideology seriously, whereas the religious believers are

Earlier and Contemporary Approaches to Scientific Atheism  21

Furthermore, the epistemological gain of Marxism-Leninism as religion is far from clear. Firstly, as the at least two-hundred-years long and ongoing debate about the nature of religion shows, no consensus regarding its definition has been reached yet.31 Then, the question immediately arises, to what type of religion should the “quasi-religion” of Marxism-Leninism be compared? In what ways does the analogy help us to understand the nature of the, in the words of Stephen Kotkin, socialist civilization? To say that Marxist-Leninist ideological doctrine is millennial is one thing, yet to compare CP secretaries to a hierarchy of the clergy, Marx’s Capital to the Bible, and statues of Lenin to statues of Saints completely another. The point is that such superfluous analogies and comparison of seemingly similar phenomena are often de-contextualized in order to fit the predispositions of a certain theoretical pattern with ideological repercussions. Most importantly, the historical dimension is overlooked by such approaches, and the self-definition of historical actors is neglected. Crucially, whereas all religious believers would describe themselves as such without hesitation, that is, no Christian or Muslim would deny his religious identity, the proposed adherents to the Marxist-Leninist “pseudo-religion” were in fact unanimous in believing that their actions and words were the exact opposite of religion. In other words, no Marxist would describe himself as a religious believer. Therefore, even if superficially similar, the driving forces, legitimization, and, crucially, the thought style and epistemological paradigm in the Soviet Union and other socialist states were not understood by historical actors followed in this study in religious terms. Moreover, due to the fact that the goal of the pseudo-religion approach is to ascribe and not to describe the identity of the analysed subjects, it is unable to help us understand the self-appreciation of the historical situation and mental horizons of the individual people living in those countries. Notwithstanding the critical points just mentioned, this approach, especially when not applied rigorously, could point to a few interesting new aspects. William van den Bercken was among the first who actually acknowledged that scientific-atheist scholarship could be understood from the endemic and not exogenous point of view. In his book, he asserted that scientific atheism “is a science in the light of Soviet ideology’s concept of science which is esoteric and a priori declares itself closed to external (bourgeois) criticism.” Even though van den Bercken concedes that “from the standpoint of epistemology, one is obliged to call Soviet atheism ideological and not scientific,” he then adds that “it is true to say that Soviet ideological atheism is scientific — but with the same epistemonumbered by tens of millions. Similarly, Marxism as an ethical system has never taken hold.” Cit. Lawrence: Observations on Religion and Atheism in Soviet Society, in: Religion in the Communist Lands, 1/4–5 (1973) 20–27, here 21. 31 For a well-arranged overview of the most influential theories of religion see e.g. Pals, Daniel: Eight Theories of Religion. Oxford 2006.

22 Introduction logical status as theology.”32 This conclusion is based on his view of the Soviet Union as a form of theocracy that controlled interpretations of its doctrine.33 Scientific-atheist scholarship plays in this case  a supportive role, yet it is unable to abstract itself from the ideological monoculture enforced by the state. Van den Bercken then asserts that it has decisive implications for the epistemology of scientific atheism. Although this model is not far from the views presented in this study, there is one important distinction. Whereas Van den Bercken emphasizes the centralist, totalitarian requirements and top-down governmentality of the Soviet state, he does not account for the role of experts, that is atheist scholars in this case, as opposed to the role of politicians in the Soviet Union. It is one of the central arguments of this study that atheist scholars were not only passive executors of the ideological line but active participants and co-creators of the seemingly monolithic ideology controlled presumably only by CP apparatchiks as well. In other words, they were able to create new spheres of knowledge and breach such topics that were previously hidden. By this virtue, they were changing the very ideological framework they, according to Van den Bercken, had to blindly follow. Probably the best treatise from the Cold War era on the topic of Soviet scientific atheism was written by James Thrower.34 In his voluminous book, he explores the ideational background of the esoteric thought style from its very inception in the works of Marx and Engels. The subsequent chapters are devoted mainly to the Leninist phase of militant atheism and to post-war development. Thrower’s analysis is predominantly written from the perspective of religious science. Although Thrower takes into account pivotal moments that influenced the form of the esoteric thought collective, he assesses scientific-atheist production of knowledge not from the perspective of the Soviet thought style but from the point of view of Western scholarship. However, notwithstanding a few penetrating observations about the method of Soviet thought style’s construction and development, his admirable attempt to begin a dialogue and find certain points of contact between both epistemological paradigms ultimately fails because all underlying assumptions of the Soviet scholarship are denied by the author in order to make way for the deconstruction of the false claims from the Western perspective. The Soviet ambition to participate in the formation of an objectified truth about religious phenomena is thus eventually denied and sole authority is attributed to Western scholarship. In other words, whereas the descriptive and some analytical parts of Thrower’s book can still be used as an important 32 Cit. Van den Bercken, William: Ideology and Atheism in the Soviet Union. New York 1989, 125–7. 33 See ibid., 9. 34 See Thrower, James: Marxist-Leninist “Scientific Atheism” and the Study of Religion and Atheism in the USSR . Berlin 1983, 140.

Earlier and Contemporary Approaches to Scientific Atheism  23

source of inspiration and even guidance, his interpretation and evaluation of the gathered material bears some grievous marks of the Cold War approach. Whereas Thrower’s book tried to establish a dialogue between religious studies and scientific atheism, the same attempt was made by German scholar Bernd Groth in the context of theology.35 Groth focuses on the worldview aspects of scientific atheism and analyses mainly its potential for social change and actual success in the framework of Soviet society. Although Groth does not completely disregard the scholarly aspect of scientific atheism, his attention is devoted mainly to the theoretical justification and expectation of the thought collective from the scientific-atheist propaganda. Unlike Thrower, who wanted to assess the scholarly endeavour in the Soviet Union from the position of Western religious studies, Groth looks on the object of his analysis through the optics of the dialogue introduced during the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Groth’s conclusion does not completely disregard the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style because the dialogue between both systems of knowledge, that is theology and scientific atheism, is theoretically possible.36 By this statement, Groth admits the existence of certain points of contact that document that his interpretation was not permeated by the necessity of denial but by the will to understand, which makes it an important source of inspiration for the present work. The Cold War approach relied heavily on ascriptions stemming from theoretical presuppositions dictated by the ideological struggle between East and West. However, it was increasingly challenged and marginalized as a viable explanatory framework after the 1989 revolutions and dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.37 This change of perspective had its consequences for Western scholarship about scientific atheism in the Soviet Union which is called the “perceptive approach.” The first scholar who took an unbiased look at scientific-atheist scholarship was the Finnish historian Kimmo Kaariainen. In his systemic study of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline, he not only understood it as a legitimate “branch of science”, but he also concurred that its various spheres of knowledge played a constitutive role in the social context of the Soviet Union.38 However, Kaariainen’s approach was centered predominantly on published sources which greatly inhibited his heuristic options. His analysis is thus based mainly on the selected aspects of the esoteric thought style that look rather disconnected from the socio-political aspect of the Soviet Union. 35 See Groth, Bernd: Sowjetischer Atheismus und Theologie im Gespräch. Frankfurt am Main 1986. 36 See ibid., 325–328. 37 The programmatic book Beyond Totalitarianism, co-edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick, marks such change for history. See Geyer, Michael / Fitzpatrick, Sheila (eds.): Beyond Totalitarianism. Stalinism and Nazism Compared. Cambridge 2008. 38 See Kaariainen, Kimmo: Discussion on Scientific Atheism as a Soviet Science 1960– 1985. Helsinki 1989, 11 f.

24 Introduction Recent books about Soviet scientific atheism can be characterized by their departure from the Cold War interpretive framework. The typical example is the anthropologically oriented study of Sonja Luehrmann, which analyses the motivation of exoteric thought collective members to carry out scientific-atheist propaganda in the Volga region in the period of developed socialism and “perestroika” (restructuring). The main contribution of her study is the description of identity change after the dissolution of the overarching scientific-atheist thought style and the attempt of former propagandists of atheism to reinvent themselves in completely different epistemological frameworks that are characterized by worldview pluralism competing on the market of ideas.39 Probably the most extensive treatise about scientific atheism was written by American historian Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock.40 In her meticulously researched doctoral dissertation “Sacred Space is Never Empty,” she explored the phase of exoteric thought style’s emergence in the Soviet Union. Her pioneering analysis, based mainly on archival research and analysis of Soviet propaganda discourse during the 1950s and 1960s, introduces atheist specialists, that is semi / professional groups of people who created and steered scientific-atheist propaganda. Her conceptualization of the process shows the thought collective as a group of convinced activists who fought an uphill battle against a resistant population. Smolkin-Rothrock’s case study about the usage of space flights for propaganda purposes convincingly depicts the mental horizons as well as expectations of the historical actors at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. In general, the part devoted to scientific-atheist propaganda is so comprehensively written that it was not necessary to devote it any special attention to it in the present work. Although her mainly descriptive analysis of archival sources is not supported by a deeper theoretical background, which would have brought the historical narrative nearer to more general conclusions, the book serves as a constant source of inspiration due to its richness of citations and attention to historical detail. Such a sober approach indicates how Western scholarship has evolved from the times of the Cold War approach, its rather shallow overview of antireligious propaganda epitomised by the work of David Powell. Moreover, the periodization coined by Smolkin-Rothrock as well as several other connections between the socio-political context and scientific-atheist thought collective were taken as a point of departure by the present study. Another scholar who shares methodological approach regarding scientific atheism’s interpretation with Smolkin-Rothrock and the present work because

39 See Luehrmann, Sonja: Secularism Soviet Style. Teaching Atheism and Religion in a Volga Republic. Bloomington 2011. 40 See Smolkin-Rothrock, Victoria: “A Sacred Space is Never Empty”: Soviet Atheism, 1954–1971. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Berkeley 2010.

Earlier and Contemporary Approaches to Scientific Atheism  25

she also takes it seriously is Sonja Luehrmann.41 Luehrmann’s contribution to the contemporary debate about scientfic atheism stems from her novel perspective based on the analysis of archives and the whole documentation process which enabled the existence, storing and reading of atheist documents. Furthermore, inspired by research on collonialism and notion of “hostile archives”42, she analyses the aspect of certain bureaucratic documents as “text acts”43 which, based on an analogy with speech acts introduced by Austin, have certain reality building qualities. Luehramann’s research is illuminating especially in regard to regional workings of the Soviet bureacratic anti-religious apparatus, especially the position of regional secretary of religious affairs, in relation to the religious communities which is explored as a case study of the Mari and Tatar republics during the Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s tenures. Crucially, Luehrmann’s book served as  a great source of inspiration and methodological guidance for the present work because it understands archival records from Soviet-era scholarship not as means for its debunking but as archeological traces which can serve as evidence leading to recontextualization of a contested field of knowledge production. Consequently, these sources enable to reconstruct “what was at stake in Soviet attempts to understand religion from an atheist point of view.”44 A specific stream of scholarship dealing with scientific atheism has appeared relatively recently in Russia. The main focus of the debate held predominantly within the context of philosophy and religious studies is centered on the issue, if (and to what extent) it is possible to integrate certain aspects of scientific-atheist scholarship to the existing epistemological paradigm of Russian religious studies. One typical interpretation is represented by Smirnov, who maintains that the esoteric thought collective was essentially a victim of the Marxist-Leninist ideology that prevented the acquisition of un-deformed knowledge about religious phenomena in all spheres of knowledge developed within the scientific-atheist thought style. However, Smirnov admits that such stance was quite common in Russia, where everything was forever until it was no more because the values represented by the esoteric thought collective “were shared by the majority of the country’s population.”45 Another approach is represented by Konstantin Antonov, who emphasizes the need to research the relationship of the esoteric thought collective with other factors that contributed to the development of scientific knowledge in the given 41 See Luehrmann: Religion, position 519. 42 See ibid., position 361. 43 See ibid., position 430. 44 Cit ibid., position 1651. 45 See Smirnov, Mikhail, Iurievich: Religiia i religiovedenie v  Rossii. Sankt Petersburg 2013, 210 f.

26 Introduction historical circumstances.46 He shares Smirnov’s opinion about the common sense nature of the ideological environment that was perceived by historical actors of that time not as something disruptive, preventing objective enquiry but as something quite natural. Moroever, Antonov believes that from the one hand, the fact stands that “scientific atheism” possessed a method which worked and was able to give quite comprehensible, verifiable results. Together with the fact that this method has claimed scientific monopoly and had quite close relations with the hegemonic worldview […] and led to the deformation of scientific ethos — a ll this gives us enough ground to talk about an extreme form of the scientific rules of the game which were for the scientists not something external but internal or an object of internalization during the process of socialization in the scientific community.47

It should be emphasized that this theoretical stance is an important point of departure of the present work as well. In the Czech Republic, scientific atheism has been characterized as a pseudoscience or peculiar anomaly. Typical is the approach of sociologist Zdeněk Nešpor, who summarily condemns the whole scientific atheism period in Czechoslovakia with the conclusion that “the outcomes of the official normalization sociology of religion were practically non-existent.”48 His interpretation rests on total denial of the Marxist-Leninist epistemological paradigm to begin with. Moreover, Nešpor disputes the idea that such a thought style could exist in post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, he maintains that the scientific-atheist scholars were victims of ideological pressure and that they only bent under the whip of Marxism. Conversely, he highlights the role of the 1960s’ generation of thinkers as well as the dissent tradition that started during the 1970s. Such an approach is motivated by Nešpor’s own epistemological standpoint, which evaluates the past development of the esoteric thought style not from the perspective of historical actors but from the current perspective of the dominant discourse, which in the Czech Republic is at least partially in its anti-communist phase.49 46 See Antonov, Konstantin, Mikhailovich (ed.): “Nauka o religii,” “Nauchnyi ateizm,” “religiovedenie”: aktual’nye problemy nauchnogo izucheniia religii v Rossii v 20-nachala 21v. Moskva 2014. 47 Citation was taken from the response of Konstantin Antonov on the discussion entry written by Kirzhelov, Aleksandr: “Nauchnyi ateizm kak povod dlia diskussii,” in: Gefter, URL : http://gefter.ru/archive/14973 (on 11 July 2017). Whereas Smirnov and Antonov try to understand the logic of the knowledge production in their contributions with the possibility to save at least some parts of scientific-atheist analyses for further use in the academic debate, other participants of the debate, such as Kirzhelov, deny scientific atheism any rational ground and characterize it as a “mental aberration” because it researched such phenomena that were simultaneously condemned to extinction. 48 Cit. Nešpor, Zdeněk: Ne / náboženské naděje intelektuálů. Praha 2008, 321. 49 The new approach to Czechoslovakian contemporary history that tries to conceptualize the 1948–1989 period in a more nuanced, complex way is represented by the following titles

Earlier and Contemporary Approaches to Scientific Atheism  27

Another conceptual weakness of Nešpor’s approach towards the interpretation of scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia is based on insufficient, or rather nonexistent, comparative dimension which would take into account either other centers of research within Czechoslovakia (i. e. the Slovakian thought collective) or in the Eastern Bloc. Such omission is particularly striking due to the fact that the author is trying to generalize the Czechoslovakian development and put it into broader context of European thinking about religion but without prior comparative analysis.50 Had the Czechoslovakian “specificity” or “exceptionality” not been compared to  a few conveniently selected countries of the Western Europe but with other countries of the Eastern Bloc, the outcomes of Nešpor’s analysis would have been fundamentally different, as the findings in the present work suggest. Furthermore, Nešpor’s interpretation of scientific atheism based on Cold War theoretical assumption that Marxist atheism is just a form of ersatzreligion appears to be rather derived from epistemological assumptions of the author than from the close reading of the available sources.51 A similar, although not as clearly defined approach is represented by David Václavík and Тomáš Bubík. The latter author admits certain ideologization of religious studies after 1948 but does not completely deny their scientific nature even in the form of scientific atheism. Instead, he maintains that scientific atheism represents an extreme epistemological perspective that rests on an antireligious attitude and has a distinctive critical vein.52 Bubík also draws a distinction between normalization “hardliners” in the esoteric thought collective and “progressivists,” which is typical for such an analytical strategy that favours those who think more like us before those who think differently.53

that also serve as a broader source of inspiration of the present work because they showed that the socialist period does not have to be necessarily assessed in binary categories of victims and perpetrators. Kopeček, Michal: Hledání ztraceného smyslu revoluce. Zrod a počátky marxis­ tického revizionismu ve střední Evropě (1953–1960). Praha 2008, Pullmann, Michal: Konec experimentu: přestavba a pád komunismu v Československu. Praha 2011, Randák, Jan: V září rudého kalicha. Politika dějin a husitská tradice v Československu 1948–1956. Praha 2016, Sommer, Vítězslav: Angažované dějepisectví. Stranická historiografie mezi stalinismem  a reformním komunismem (1950–1970). Praha 2012. 50 See Nešpor, Zdeněk: Příliš slábi ve víře: Česká ne / religiozita v evropském kontextu. Praha 2010. 51 See ibid., 58. 52 See Bubík, Tomáš: České bádání o náboženství ve 20. století. Příbram 2010, 213. 53 Such an approach is discernible also by Czech sociologist, David Václavík, see: Václavík, David: Český ateismus ve dvacátém století. K vývoji a institucionalizaci v letech 1948–1989, in: Soudobé dějiny, 14/2–3 (2008) 471–488.

28 Introduction

The Outline of the Study The first chapter of this thesis deals with the status quo ante. Its main task is, therefore, to outline and define the starting positions of scientific-atheist tradition in both national contexts. The interwar period delineates the chronological framework, although it would be possible to look for the origins of the Marxist atheist tradition even during the nineteenth century, as some researchers have already done.54 The main goal of the chapter is to analyse how the socio-political context co-determined the institutional and organizational structure of antireligious or atheist intellectuals. The emphasis is put on the markedly different position of early Soviet and Czechoslovakian intellectuals during the interwar period which was determined mainly by the authoritarian political regime in the former and liberal democracy in the latter. At the same time, principal attention is devoted to the emergence of Marxist “antireligiozniki” in both national contexts. In terms of intellectual tradition, the main debates are followed, and several characteristic features of the tradition that played important roles in the next phases of thought style’s development are followed too. The first chapter serves as a contextualization of scientific atheism; therefore, it has more synthetical than analytical character. The synthesis rests mainly on secondary literature supplemented by primary sources in order to document the main points by empirical evidence. However, the first chapter does not strive to provide a complete picture because such an endeavor would require a specialized study that is beyond the scope of the current work, whose main task is to analyze and interpret scientific atheism in the post-Stalinist period. The first chapter also serves as an evidence for the thesis that scientific atheism in the post-war period in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia was different to its interwar counterparts. First of all, it is difficult to speak about 54 A seminal book about the origins of atheist thinking in Russian intellectual culture of the nineteenth century was written by Frede, Victoria: Doubt, Atheism, and the Nineteenth-Century Russian Intelligentsia. Madison 2011. Frede shows that atheism became thinkable in Russian intellectual circles only around the middle of the nineteenth century and that it was strongly connected to the social origins of its proponents. Moreover, it was at first an opposition to official tsarist ideology and reception of selected philosophical treatises from the western left Hegelians such as Feuerbach. The revolutionary Marxist atheism of the Bolsheviks can be explained as a continuation of this tradition. The interwar period was from the perspective of antireligiosity analyzed by Froese, Paul: The Plot to Kill the God. Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization- London 2008. Other authors focused on the most important atheist institution in the early Soviet Union and its development. Most notably Peris, Daniel: Storming the Heavens. The Soviet League of the Militant Godless and Bolshevik Political Culture in the 1920s and 1930s. Urbana / Illinois 1994. Compare with Piotrowsky, Harry: The League of the Militant Godless 1924–1941. Unpublished Phd dissertation. Syracuse 1971.

The Outline of the Study  29

any systematic form of public atheism in the years 1945 to 1953 at all. Actually, the orchestrated scientific-atheist campaign was effectively put on hold in years 1941–1945. The roughly fifteen-year chasm then enables us to view post-Stalinist development as  a new beginning of scientific atheism not only because there was a very weak personal and institutional continuity, but because the techniques of the new campaign and the general approach were different compared to the pre-war period. The task of the second chapter is to investigate the emergence of the scientific-­ atheist thought collective in both national contexts. The chronological point of departure is exemplified by the year 1954, when antireligious propaganda was rejuvenated by the communist party in the Soviet Union. Its rather symbolic end was demarcated by the year 1959, when a ground-breaking resolution about the cultivation of atheist education in Czechoslovakia was passed. The five years between these events are presented as an important phase during which was created the very first exoteric thought collective. The focus of the second chapter is thus directed predominantly at the organizational aspects of the exoteric thought collective and its intertwining with the heteronomous force. The other purpose of the chapter is to explore the first themes and topics that arose as the product of the thought collective and demarcated the first realm of scientific-atheist knowledge in both countries. The second chapter rests on the analysis of archival sources that comprise mainly documents, resolutions, and minutes left by the CPCC in both countries. The other bulk of sources was provided by institutions in which a framework was organized to realize the scientific-atheist propaganda. In the Soviet case, the archives of the “Obshchestvo znanie” (Knowledge Society, KS henceforth) and of the Central House of Atheism in Moscow played an indispensable role, enabling reconstruction of the development of scientific atheism from the perspective of the center. The regional aspect was then assured by analysis of secondary literature, such as the candidate dissertation of Chausov. In the Czechoslovakian case it was not possible to systematically follow the central and regional aspects because the sources of Společnost pro šíření vědeckých a politických znalostí (The Society for Dispersion of Scientific Knowledge, SPŠPVZ from now on) have not survived intact. As a result, the perspective of the center cannot be fully reconstructed. However, the availability of regional sources left by the local branches of the SPŠPVZ in Jihlava and Most allow reconstruction of at least some aspects of the scientific-atheist thought collective and its activity. The collections of sources in Opava also contributed to the partial reconstruction of the relationship between the organizational center of the emerging exoteric thought collective in Prague and regional groupings of semi-professional propagandists. The final part of the second chapter is based mainly on the published sources that were produced by the members of the exoteric thought collective in both

30 Introduction countries. The purpose of the book is not to give an encyclopedic overview of all spheres of knowledge that were grasped and explicated within the thought style’s framework, but to study the borders, shifts, and changes of the epistemological paradigm and interpret their origins; therefore, only particularly striking examples from the multitude of published sources were subjected to more detailed analysis. The omission of, for example, scientific-atheist propaganda of the conquest of space, or first debates about the nature of civic rites of passage, does not mean that these spheres of knowledge were not part of the exoteric thought style during this period. Rather, they were excluded after careful consideration because they are either discussed elsewhere or their analysis only corroborates the points made in relation to the elements of thought style that are part of the analysis in this book.55 The third chapter is chronologically delineated by the 1959–1971 time period. This is because the heteronomous force in this time period facilitated the emergence of the esoteric thought collective. One of the main purposes of this book is to analyze the esoteric thought collective; therefore, special attention was devoted not only to the socio-political context but to the institutional development of the organizational structure, exemplified by the Institute of Scientific Atheism, which was founded in 1964. The formation process of the esoteric thought collective is followed on multiple levels; one is represented by the system of professional training that gives an important insight into the thought collective’s reproduction possibilities, whereas another is devoted to the geographical aspect of the thought collective’s expansion. Although the exoteric thought collective continued to exist and was susceptible to its own development, its history is not pursued in the framework of this chapter in any great detail in order to avoid repetition. Instead, it is understood as one of the significant reference groups for the esoteric thought collective. The next integral part of the chapter focuses on the elements of the esoteric thought style. Apart from the meta-theoretical debate that was particularly important for the self-understanding of the discipline’s identity and delineation of the epistemological paradigm as well as possible research questions, was reconstructed the introduction of sociology into the Soviet scientific-atheist esoteric thought style. The main attention in this case was devoted to the process of knowledge production and genesis of scientific facts. The underlying questions in this case focus on the borders of the thinkable, that is, the mental horizons and their boundaries erected by the socio-political situation, heteronomous force and the self-imposed epistemological paradigm.

55 On the conquest of space see Andrews, James / Siddiqi, Asif (eds.): Into Cosmos: Space Exploration and Soviet Culture. Pittsburgh 2011 and Gerowitch, Slava: Soviet Space Mythologies: Public Images, Private Memories, and the Making of a Cultural Identity. Pittsburgh 2015.

The Outline of the Study  31

The Czechoslovakian part of the analysis in the third chapter represents one of the crucial points of the analysis because it deals with the so called “deviation”; the deviation from the Soviet epistemological paradigm that was stabilized by the thought collective during the 1960s. The Czechoslovakian development is understood as a specific reaction to the socio-political context that was characterized by relaxation of the heteronomous force’s influence in the public sphere in general and on the scientific-atheist thought collective in particular. The institutional presuppositions of the Czechoslovakian “Sonderweg” as well as the main outcomes of the epistemological revolution are thoroughly discussed in respective parts of the chapter. The reconstruction of the organizational structure and its underlying political support in both cases rests on the archival research that focused on the resources left behind by the Institute of Scientific Atheism in Moscow and by the Philosophical and Sociological Institute of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences. The role of the heteronomous force was reconstructed with the help of the Central Committee’s and Ideological Commission’s collections in the respective national archives. The parts discussing elements of the esoteric thought style focus predominantly on those aspects that were markedly different to the Soviet thought style of the 1960s. The goal in this case was to analyse to what extent was the Czechoslovakian epistemological rift acceptable for the Soviet thought collective, what new spheres of knowledge it opened, and what ideas and presuppositions were laid in the foundations of the rift. The fourth and last chapter describes the period in which scientific atheism, in both national contexts, can be described as  a “normal science” in Thomas Kuhn’s sense. The chronological framework was in this case 1971–1989/91 in order to show development across a longer time period. Moreover, it was decided to analyze the dissolution of the esoteric thought style during the last years of the 1980s as the last phase of scientific atheism’s development. As well as in the case of the second and third chapters, the main analytical categories were also in this case socio-political context and institutional development, which influenced the existence of the esoteric thought style in this period. The emergence of a unified, international thought collective, its main characteristics and rules of survival were reconstructed as the most important new aspects of these two decades. The examination of the elements of the esoteric thought style should be understood as an organic continuation of the corresponding part of the third chapter because it follows the ongoing debate, analyses the main changes and explains the motivations for shifts within the epistemological paradigm, as well as emphasizing certain spheres of knowledge before others. As was the case in the previous chapters, the heteronomous force is understood as an important factor, whose impact is continually put under scrutiny.

1.

Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period

Scientific atheism in socialist Czechoslovakia and in the post-war Soviet Union did not arise in complete isolation from its predecessors. Atheist propagandists and scholars had claimed since the end of the 1950s that the atheist tradition had its roots in ancient Greece. From these beginnings, they invented the chain of a progressive atheist tradition, which they traced through the periods of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment, and which culminated in the formation of scientific, i. e. Marxist, atheism in the 19th century. They argued that multiple blind channels had formed along this central stream of atheist thinking which did not contribute to their tradition of atheism.1 Nevertheless, certain links can be traced that connect the initial atheist movement in those countries with Marxist atheism, even though post-Stalinist scholars would not associate themselves with them. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to explore the first Bolshevik forms of Marxist atheism or antireligious thinking in order to provide the necessary context for later developments. Secondary purpose is the description of the interwar atheist or antireligious movements in The First Czechoslovak Republic. The purpose of this exploration is to discover how and to what extent other forms of atheism contributed to the formation of post-Stalinist scientific-atheist thinking. Therefore, this chapter provides an overview of the prior development and focuses predominantly on the necessary context and key events. The early antireligious and atheist institutions are scrutinized as they served as a nexus for an exchange of ideas and exemplify the first centers of specialized knowledge. 1 See the entry “atheism” in the Czech translation of the Soviet atheist dictionary from the beginning of 1980s, Ateismus. In: Kapesní slovník ateisty. Praha 1982, 22–25. or more detailed entries “atheism in ancient times,” “atheism during feudalism,” “bourgeois atheism,” and “Marxist atheism” in domesticized Slovak translation of the Soviet original “Kratkii nauchno ateisticheskii slovar” from 1969, published as an extended edition in Bratislava under the auspices of the editor-in-chief Felix Vašečka in 1983. See Slovník vedeckého ateizmu. Bratislava 1983. 42–48. The same narrative structure appears in other Soviet texts such as in Grigorian, Mikhail, Markovich: Kurs lektsii po istorii ateizma. Moskva 1974, and Tazhurizina, Zulfiia, Abdulkhakovna: Aktuaľnye voprosy istorii ateizma. Moskva 1979. Czechoslovakian monographs about the history of atheism change neither the story centered around intrinsic progressiveness of atheism throughout the history nor the qualitative raise of atheist thinking up to its “genuinely scientific foundations.” See: Sviták, Ivan: Klasikové Marxismu-Leninismu o boji s náboženstvím. Praha 1955, Halečka, Tibor / Leško, Vladimír: Kapitoly z dejín ateizmu a kritiky náboženstva. Praha 1988.

34  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period They also formed a basis for the formation of esoteric and exoteric circles, which eventually developed into groups with different agendas regarding both the state establishment and the rest of the society. It should be emphasized that, while the Bolshevik form of Marxist atheism was supported by the state on an unprecedented level in the interwar Soviet Union, Czechoslovakian atheism had to compete on the marketplace of ideas in the pluralistic environment of a democratic republic. Despite this fact, it is possible to compare their main ideas, institutional forms, and means of communication. However, the focus of the comparison cannot be solely oriented toward the relative reach of their thought style in the public sphere but should rather focus on the inner development of Marxist atheism in the group of its adherents and on the inner workings of the institutions they established. This means that, where possible, the monopolistic nature of early Soviet atheism needs to be bracketed for the purposes of analysis. This methodological decision will enable the discovery of the extent to which the specific organizational, structural, and discursive forms of atheism were similar in two different social contexts.

1.1 The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless 1.1.1 The Prehistory of Marxist Atheism Recent scholarship has established that Russian atheism developed around the middle of the 19th century. Multiple factors played an important role in this development. First of all, there was a growing disappointment among the intellectual elites with the growing political and ideological subordination of the strongest religious institution (the Russian Orthodox Church, ROC from now on) to the will of the Russian emperors since Aleksandr I. Even though this disappointment of predominantly noble elites had not led to the formation of the atheist worldview at the beginning of the 19th century, the ROC had lost its unshakeable position as an ultimate source and distributor of knowledge about ethics, purpose of life, and other “existential questions.” As  a result, Russian nobility began their search for another, more authentic and reasonable worldview which would be able to answer such questions the Church was no longer able to provide. As Victoria Frede wrote in her book, the Russian intellectual elite at the beginning of the 19th century had opened the Pandora’s box and began to doubt their faith and challenge the traditional worldview.2 The search of an oppositional system of ideas independent from the official imperial ideology which, as was fittingly described by count Sergei Uvarov in

2 See Frede: Doubt, chapters 1–2.

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   35

1833, rested on three pillars of “pravoslavie” (Orthodoxy), “samoderzhavie” (autocracy), and “narodnost” (nationality), coincided with the reception of western philosophical literature. This literature contributed first to the anticlerical and later to anti-religious attitude of the Russian intellectuals. From the point of view of atheist development, the reception of left Hegelians such as Ludwig Feuerbach and his brother, and treatises of French philosophers of enlightenment played a decisive part. However, as Frede shows, the social status and embeddedness of Russian nobility in the cultural context predominantly formed by the ROC did not allow them to extend their mental horizons so far as to reject religion utterly.3 In the second half of 19th century, three important events took place. The first was the radicalization of intellectual elite, now comprised predominantly by people coming outside of nobility in the 1860s. Secondly, reforms of Aleksandr II regarding the relaxation of censorship allowed people like Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Dmitrii Pisarev to publish anticlerical and antireligious ideas publicly. Further democratization of higher education on the other hand broadened the possible readership, although godlessness remained  a worldview held almost exclusively by oppositional intelligentsia. Nevertheless, the consequences were that broadly defined atheism ceased to be debated on the level of closed circles of friends or associates and became an opinion which could have been expressed and debated publicly, even though Orthodoxy remained one of the pillars of the imperial ideology until its demise in 1917. However, the ROC was still less and less able to successfully frame atheism as dangerous and even criminal activity. Last process important in our context was the reception of Marxism by intellectuals leading to the foundation of the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP from now on) in 1898. Beside the radicalism and revolutionary character of the RSDP stemming from the philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the party leaders had a strong opinion on religion and atheism, which derived from the works of both materialist thinkers as well. As opposed to earlier but very much alive atheist tradition connected to Ludwig Feuerbach and his concept of “anthropologic religion”, which put a human in the place of god, the adherents of Marxism such as Georgi Plekhanov and Vladimir Lenin rejected the Feuerbach’s interpretation on the grounds of Marx’s and Engels’s postulates as insufficiently materialist and, therefore, fundamentally false. The formation of Russian socialists’ attitude towards atheism took place in the first decade of 20th century and was originally far from united. Consensus appeared only after an intellectual struggle between the Russian Marxist intelligentsia in which had adherents of Feuerbach’s anthropologic religion combated the orthodox Marxists in order to delineate the nature of atheism for Russian socialists. The results are well known; the defenders of

3 See ibid.

36  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period Feuerbach, known as God-builders and represented by Anatolii Lunacharskii, Maksim Gorkii, and Aleksandr Bogdanov were not able to persuade the rest of the socialist intelligentsia to merge Marx’s revolutionary ideas with Feuerbach’s vision of men’s religion. As  a result, the majority of Russian Bolsheviks were united under the banner of Marxist atheism interpreted and extended by Lenin.4 Whereas God-builders defined themselves as agnostics towards religion and, at the same time, tried to sacralize progress, collective, and society in order to put into practice the ideal vision of communism, Lenin dismissed such ideas as Machism and proposed a radical critique of religion in general as a “dushevnaia sivukha” (spiritual booze),  which was not too distant echo of Marx’s famous claim that religion is the opium for masses. Moreover, Lenin opposed the idea of sacralization of society as well. Instead, he maintained that Marxism ought to be understood as a true science and, therefore, an exact opposite of all religions. In other words, atheism was one of the guiding principles of the emerging Marxism-Leninism before 1917, yet it was far from being a coherent doctrine, separate branch of propaganda, or an autonomous scholarly discipline. Neither was it  a reservoir of specific knowledge which would require  a specialized training in order to get to grasps with it or to produce new facts within the field. There were neither atheist institutions, nor professional atheist specialists, nor exoteric / esoteric circles. The main point is, that the field of scientific or Marxist atheism as  a part of Bolshevik propaganda or as  a specific type of scientific knowledge did not exist in the prerevolutionary period. It was present as a concept in Marxist thinking, but its meaning and usage were limited and blurred at best. On the other hand, anti-clericalism became the mainstay in Bolshevik rhetoric strongly linked to the revolutionary program. The ROC , as one of the most important parts of the imperial establishment, was  a frequent target of Bolsheviks, who in this case used the similar type of arguments against the institution and function of church as the oppositional nobles in the first half of 19th century, or the first petit-bourgeois godless. On political level, Bolsheviks pressed for the secularization of the state via separation of both church and state and church and school. It should be stressed out that the conceptual dispute of God-builders on the one side and Lenin’s vision of de-sacralized but “scientificized” Marxism played an immense role for the future of scientific atheism, especially in the post-Stalinist context. Due to the fact that Lenin and his works were made  a part of the epistemological canon of all Marxist philosophy and humanities alike already under Joseph Stalin and then again after his death, all atheist knowledge in the Soviet Union was bound to develop on the foundations of the dispute’s outcome.



4 See Thrower: Marxist Leninist Scientific Atheism, 109–113.

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   37

In other words, those, who wanted to promote Marxist atheism in the context of the interwar Soviet Union, had to base their thinking on Lenin, Marx, and Engels in order to steer away from the dangerous waters of various ideological deviations or accusations of adherence to the bourgeois atheism, which was an equally dangerous fallacy. 1.1.2 Socio-Political Context One of the first decrees the Bolshevik party issued after the October revolution concerned the position of the ROC in the new political circumstances. The decree Separation of the Church from the State and the Schools from the Church approved by the Soviet of National Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on 12 January 1918 had two implications. Firstly, it dismantled the last remaining pillar of the ancient regime. Secondly, it weakened the power of the ROC in the public sphere and facilitated the initial secularization of the new state under Bolshevik rule. This was an important initiative because, as Daniel Peris notes, “the country under the rule of the party remained predominantly Orthodox and thereby posed an ideological threat to  a regime openly hostile to religion.”5 As a result, the Bolsheviks seized many church buildings, closed down churches and monasteries, and took possession of church properties. On 19 January 1918, just a few days after the issuing of the Decree, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow anathemized the Soviet leaders for the desecration of churches and the violent antireligious campaign.6 However, this restraining of the church’s presence in the public sphere did not automatically lead to a massive atheization of society, as the ardent Marxists had initially believed. Moreover, although the ROC had lost control of the schools and had lost many sources of its financial income, it maintained a strong and widespread network of parishes, with priests opposing Bolshevik demands, especially in the countryside. The hostile attitude of the Bolsheviks in the first months after the October revolution meant that it came as no surprise when many members of the Orthodox clergy publicly supported the Whites in the civil war that broke out soon after the October revolution. Apart from the legislative project referred to above, the Bolshevik leaders did not have a clear program regarding how to transition from belief to “scientifically” grounded disbelief in God. Neither Lenin, Trotskii, nor Lunacharskii were in favor of a radical antireligious campaign but rather advocated a cautious approach towards believers, although they did not hesitate to conduct an aggres 5 Cit. Peris: Storming the Heavens, 23. 6 See Pospielovsky, Dimitry: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory and Practice, and the Believer. Vol. 1. New York 1987, 27.

38  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period sive campaign against the Orthodox clergy and hierarchy. However, it gradually became apparent to the political elite that religious belief would not wither away by itself. Therefore, some form of antireligious propaganda was foreseen. The theoreticians initially trusted in the power of the enlightened propaganda of science and reason. A typical stance was that of Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhenskii. In their book “Azbuka kommunizma” (The ABC of Communism) published in 1919, they asserted that scientific knowledge slowly but surely undermines the authority of all religions and of religious prejudice.7 As it happened, after the political decision to separate the state and education from the church had been made by Lenin, all other thoughts concerning the population’s religious beliefs were forcibly postponed due to the outbreak of the civil war. After the White armies had been defeated, the ROC remained the last opposing force. Its already unstable position was further undermined by the “collaboration” of priests with the Whites during the civil war. The Soviet regime used the activities of such clergymen politically in order to portray the ROC as not only an ideological threat, but also a political one. The Bolshevik party dealt with the rebel clergymen in 1922, after issuing a decree to seize all church valuables in order to mitigate the consequences of the famine that had broken out as a result of the civil war. Resistance to the Bolsheviks’ demands on behalf of the clergy resulted in their imprisonment in many cases, as the example of the Shui region noted by Pospielovsky demonstrates.8 The attacks on the ROC also affected the upper echelons of the hierarchy, and Patriarch Tikhon was arrested in May 1922. These initial steps in the years 1918–1922 did not target religious believers. Rather, they should be seen as an extreme form of political anticlericalism which was intended to facilitate secularization but did not contribute to the production of atheist knowledge. The first antireligious journals appeared as early as in 1919, but their significance and duration was negligible.9 Only in the 1922 does one see the true beginning of organized antireligious propaganda, particularly in the general and mass media. The early antireligious propaganda was generally marked by  a cautious approach towards religious institutions which contrasted with harsh physical attacks on clergymen during the civil war. However, this public 7 See Bukharin, Nikolai / Preobrazhenski, Evgenii: Azbuka kommunizma. Moskva 1919, paragraph 92, in: URL : http://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=92821 (on 22 June 2016). 8 See Pospielovsky: A History. Vol. 1, 36. 9 The first one was “Revoliutsia i tserkov” (Revolution and the Church), with Pavel Krasikov as an editor-in-chief. Its purpose was simply to inform about the changes after the separation of the state and school from church. However, this journal was published irregularly, and it had a limited circulation until it was stopped altogether in 1924. See Piotrowski, Harry: The League of the Militant Godless 1924–1941. Unpublished Phd. Dissertation. Syracuse 1971, 52.

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   39

display of militant atheism was then sidelined in favor of  a more sustainable “constructive-educational” propagandistic approach. Pospielovsky maintains that such a timid approach was one of the consequences of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which was introduced after the Kronstadt Uprising.10 All Soviet and Czechoslovakian post-war scientific-atheist scholarship agrees that Lenin marked the beginning of perspective change regarding the struggle against religion in March 1922 with the publication of his famous article “About the Meaning of Militant Materialism.” Writing in the party journal “Under the Banner of Marxism,” he stated that “we need to give the masses the most diverse material about atheist propaganda […] in order to wake them up from a religious dream, shake them up from different sides and with different methods.”11 His support of antireligious propaganda was also made clear in his speech at the XI Party Congress. Initially, there was essentially only one institution in the Bolshevik bureaucratic apparatus that could dedicate itself exclusively to matters of religion. This role was fulfilled by the “Antireligious Commission,” which was established in 1922 and operated until 1929 and which was subordinated to the “Agitprop” and then directly to the CPCC .12 Its competences included the overseeing of all aspects of church-state relations and antireligious activities.13 Its role should not be underestimated, particularly during the first half of the 1920s, as it was this Commission that successfully advocated for a change in antireligious policy in May 1923.14 The CC responded immediately to the Commission’s proposal, and the practice of administrative church closures was stopped. However brief its actual existence, the Antireligious Commission was one of the first think-tanks assembled by the party and was comprised of available experts on religion and 10 He argues that the party elites needed to stabilize society, and that this was a necessary precondition in order to reassess their future actions and the tempering down of the antireligious agitation was intended to contribute to this overall stabilization. See Pospielovsky: A History, vol. 1, 30. 11 Cit. Lenin, Vladimir, Iliich: O znachenii voinstvuiushchego materializma, in: Pod znameniem Marksizma 3 (1922), URL : http://www.gumer.info/bogoslov_Buks/Ateizm/Article/ Len_ZnVoin.php (on 22 June 2016). 12 See protocols of the Antireligious Commission. Arkhiv prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, APRF henceforth), f. 3, op. 60, d. 12, no. 25–28. 13 Apart from that, soon after the October revolution were founded special departments dealing with various churches as a part of the early Soviet bureaucratic apparatus. However, their agenda was determined by church activities, their monitoring and control. The task to create a godless society or to carry out antireligious propaganda was outside of their scope. They ought to prepare the path, yet the completion of antireligious turnover was not their responsibility. One of such departments, charged with religious affairs, was created as a secret part of the OGPU with Smidovich and Tuchkov at its head. 14 See protocols of the Antireligious Commission in 1923. APRF, f. 3, op. 60, d. 12, no. 12–53.

40  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period atheism. In contrast to the politicians, who, presumably due to their lack of expert knowledge, did not shy away from open confrontation and administrative measures against the ROC , particularly during the revolutionary years, the experts advocated more cautious approach, which was centered on ideological activities. The commission included leading experts on religion, such as the scholars Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich and Pavel Krasikov, and the party ideologues Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov, Lunacharskii, Nadezhda Krupskaia, and Emelian Iaroslavski. However, because the Antireligious Commission was expected to oversee all matters related to religion, it was able to dedicate itself exclusively to antireligious propaganda. Furthermore, its possibilities for action were limited by the lack of other supportive institutions that were expected to have carried out the program outlined by the Antireligious Commission. If the Antireligious Commission resembled a brain and the specialized journal called “Bezbozhnik” a mouth, then the body and limbs remained missing. Thus, the lack of an institutional network shows that the fight against religion was not a top priority for the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) at this time (AUCP(b) from now on). However, the non-existing network also prevented the implementation of a unifying policy that could have enforced an overarching antireligious campaign in the public sphere and overseen its progress and outcomes. In 1925 was taken another step which led to a further organization of atheists in the Soviet Union as the “Society of Friends of the Bezbozhnik Newspaper” was formed. This initially rather small group was renamed “Soiuz voinstvuiushchikh bezbozhnikov” (the League of the Militant Godless, henceforth LMG) in 1929. It represented a shift in the Bolsheviks’ thinking regarding atheism in that they came to understand that an inconsistent approach may have led the atheists into disarray, as the dispute between Emelian Iaroslavski and Mariia Kostelovskaia indicated.15 Consequently, it became accepted that potential progress in the fight against religion was possible provided the systemization and centralization of the propaganda effort were improved. A special conference of the CC in April 1926 not only resolved the disagreement between Iaroslavski and Kostelovskaia mentioned above but also approved the formation of the LMG as the main organization to deal with antireligious propaganda, which was expected to be carried out along the lines of Iaroslavski’s “cultural approach” to religion. The party approved the League as the sole institution for organizing atheists, as opposed to haphazardly created atheist societies that had existed until then. However, it did not provide it with a sufficient financial support, nor did it give other mass institutions, such as Komsomol and Agitprop, clear orders to comply

15 For further details about the dispute, see Piotrowski: The League, 80 f.

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   41

with the League’s antireligious activities. As a result, the organization itself was loose and its central authority meant little.16 Despite a rapid growth in membership, the League did not change the style of antireligious propaganda in the Soviet Union during the years 1926–1929, and in the most cases its impact was quite superficial. Being a member of the League was more a formal personal statement of compliance with the official antireligious stance than a commitment to an antireligious activity. The fact that the League had hundred thousands of members soon after its foundation in 1926 did not mean that the number of atheist activists also grew exponentially. Therefore, the LMG cannot be considered as the first incarnation of the exoteric thought collective. However, it was within the framework of the LMG that the first loci of atheist thinking emerged, which, in turn, contributed to the emergence of the thought collective after Stalin’s death. In addition to organizing antireligious propaganda in the regions, one of the main activities of the League was the promotion of the antireligious press. In theory, an increasing number of people became exposed to antireligious propaganda through the distribution of the “Bezbozhnik” (The Godless) newspaper and its mutations, but the effects remained comparatively marginal.17 Nevertheless, the first mass atheist organization provided  a forum in which atheist knowledge could be discussed. Furthermore, it developed into a network of detached yet centrally steered bases, with a potential for a Union-wide antireligious campaign, although it remained largely inactive until the end of 1920s. The initial detachment of the party from the League curtailed its effectiveness as the League could not rely on systematic political or financial support, despite being officially financed by the Soviet state.18 Moreover, its range of activities was further limited by the party as the elites feared that the League’s activities could cause unnecessary destabilization in some regions. Most notably, it was banned in Ukraine for a short period of time.19 A major transformation of the first antireligious mass organization in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR from now on) occurred during the years 1928–1929. A broad framework of change was set in motion by Stalin’s rise to power and by the beginning of the first Five Year Plan, which marked the end of the NEP era. General changes in the economy, together with the ideological offensive of the newly formed Stalinist regime, led to a re-activation of the LMG . The decisive moment came in 1929 when the League’s second congress occurred. 16 See ibid., 98. 17 The case study conducted by Peris demonstrated that the directives that emerged from Iaroslavski’s leadership of the League remained largely on paper. See Peris: Storming the Heavens, 141. 18 See Pokrovskaia, Svetlana, Viktorovna: Soiuz voinstvuiushchikh bezbozhnikov SSSR : Organizatsia i deiateľnosť (1925–1947). Moskva 2007, 19. 19 See ibid., 21.

42  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period This sent a clear signal to the CP, namely, that the creation of a godless society was one of the main goals of the Cultural Revolution, facilitating the creation of the new socialist man. In contrast to years 1926–1929, the party provided the LMG with full financial and institutional support in order to accomplish its goal. Furthermore, the state legislature approved new laws that effectively prohibited religious associations from conducting any form of public, social, or communal activities for religious believers, including educational, publishing, and missionary activities.20 The antireligious campaign started immediately after the LMG ’s second congress and continued until 1933. Internal CP and LMG reports, together with published propaganda, depicted the battle against religion as  a matter of two competing armies. The narrative presented a strong opposition, which was contrasted to the weak ranks of the Godless. Despite the constructed disadvantage, the antireligious programs and provisions that were formulated at the center were only realized in a limited way in practice. Many antireligious resolutions were passed or approved by local party committees and then filed away. No one was responsible for the outcome of the campaign at the level of the party administration and, consequently, there were no clear expectations, apart from minimalizing the influence of religion among the masses and maximizing the number of the League’s members.21 Despite the general inefficacy of the campaign, this time period contributed to the formation of the first cohort of atheist specialists that actively disseminated antireligious propaganda within the framework of the League. As later accounts of the first semi-professional and professional atheists suggest, their activities were interpreted as effective to a certain degree. When reminiscing about the pre-war period in 1967, the old “antireligioznik” Dmitrii Braude even elevated the years of the LMG over the contemporary state of affairs.22 20 See Regulation All-Russian Central Executive Committee from 8 April 1929 “On Religious Associations,” URL : http://russia.bestpravo.com/ussr/data04/tex16632.htm (on 27 June 2016). 21 According to Peris, the antireligious rhetoric represented an internal, circular flow of words among political institutions and had little bearing on the outside world. Peris also maintains that the antireligious aspect of the modernization discourse was of great importance in Bolshevik political culture and was apparently substituted for actual social transformation. See Peris: The Storming of Heavens, 218–232. 22 “What, from my point of view, was good in those times, and what we don’t have now? It is above all a mass character of the atheist movement. If today it is practically exclusively an affair of intelligentsia, then in those times […] were around us, without exaggeration, hundred thousands of activists […] we had a commission of godless, storm brigade of godless at the ‘Krasnoe Sormovo’ factory and in other places. […] The main thing, which is now missing, regrettably, is that we were able to turn the attention of the widest population towards the antireligious front.” Cit. Tsentraľnyi arkhiv goroda Moskvy (Central State Archive of the City of Moscow, TsAGM henceforth), f. 1782, op. 1, d. 122, ll. 14–16. The personal experience of being godless in interwar Czechoslovakia is accessible through two autobiographies: Kolman,

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   43

Therefore, judged by the historical actors themselves, the situation was not as one-sided as the broad assessment of the campaign might suggest. For the active, believing Marxist atheists, the late 1920s and early 1930s represented the first chance of propagating their convictions in an organized way with the state support. Thus, they not only made atheism visible in the public sphere, but they also reinforced their own atheist identity and created the first exoteric circle of the atheist thought collective. However, the problem of cadres, that had been so dire at the beginning of the 1920s, remained unresolved. Although some measures were taken to educate new atheist agitators, they were erratically implemented. The League’s CC tried to form atheist universities, which were basically a series of courses designed to prepare propagandists for their work with the masses. However, the outcome was unsatisfactory as many students either dropped out of the course or did not continue with antireligious propaganda after its completion. Another issue was that in order to become an effective propagandist of Marxist atheism one had to master not only the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, but also acquire a deep understanding of religion. This meant that of the relatively small number of activists who received education at some of the atheist universities, an even smaller number was able to carry out the propaganda with the desired expertise and quality. It should be emphasized that the collective of atheist specialists was practically created from scratch during the second half of the 1920s and at the beginning of the 1930s. Furthermore, specialized debates concerning various levels of expertise, engagement, and quality became increasingly common among the enthusiasts. This was a rather new development in comparison to the situation in the party prior to 1922. The atheist debates in the early phase were the domain of a few self-appointed experts. While they defined the sphere of atheist knowledge for the first time, they did so behind the closed doors and their debate reached neither the broader audience nor party members. By contrast, the phase initiated by Lenin’s 1922 article brought atheism or “godlessness” as a relatively autonomous concept with a specific meaning first to the party members and, in the final phase, at least partially to the masses. Although the number of atheists remained comparatively small, the field itself grew in terms of professionalization and specialization. Yet the lack of finance and the unstable nature of the propaganda system itself could not facilitate  a safe environment for work prospects. As a result, both the formation and the

Arnošt: Zaslepená generace — paměti starého bolševika. Praha 2005, and Lahulek-Faltys, Zdeněk: Jak jsem žil bez boha. Praha 1963. Whereas the former autobiography tells rather the story about the personal perception of atheism, the latter contains even the description of work in the two most important antireligious organizations in the interwar Czechoslovakia.

44  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period professionalization of the atheist thought collective remained unfinished at this point. Part of the problem was connected to the technique employed by the Stalinist administration. Instead of a long-term investment in the infrastructure of the antireligious movement, which would have been oriented to quality rather than quantity, the leading party executives favored the idea of great leaps that could be accomplished by short but intensive “campaigns.” The industrialization and collectivization of agriculture campaigns during the early 1930s serve as a prime example of this on a different level. This approach was also employed as the main organizational principle of the antireligious activity. This so called “kampaishchina” was effective when  a certain number of churches had to be closed down, or when a particular number of new members had to be recruited into the LMG .23 However, this approach was not compatible with the systematic building of influence, the construction of a network of atheist centers, and the persuasion of the population over years rather than months. Therefore, the developments in the years 1929–1933 should be understood as a series of short, intensive outbursts of a frantic activity, rather than as an organized, orchestrated antireligious effort. While they were successful in terms of statistical reports, they were unable to affect the deeper layers of religiosity.24 Therefore, a believer’s personal and emotional dimensions were not seen as a decisive factor but were rather dismissed as an unimportant detail, or not thematized at all. The League continued to fade away around in the 1930s. Its final upsurge of activity occurred in 1937, after the results of the national census had been revealed to Stalin. As Peris asserts, there was not a strong personal continuity in comparison to the first half of the 1930s. This meant that the professional atheists quickly found a new occupation when the initial structure collapsed in 1935. Therefore, the last pre-war antireligious campaign had to be carried out with the help of people who were mostly assigned by Agitprop. Thus, the training and expertise that had been accumulated during the League’s existence were largely lost.25 After this last outburst disintegrated most of its cells, almost all its publications were terminated, and even Bezbozhnik drew its last breath in 1941. 23 See Peris: The Storming of Heavens, 262. 24 Because sociology was abolished as a bourgeois pseudo-science in the 1930s, the reports concerning levels of religiosity were often based on unreliable data, such as attendance at certain liturgical acts. These data were then interpreted by party officials as a sign of diminishing religiosity, although atheist specialists such as Krasikov and Iaroslavski occasionally pointed out that the level of religiosity is a far more complex matter, and that antireligious actions do not necessarily lead to the intended outcomes. As a rule, the believers themselves were not interviewed and their religiosity was not measured against their self-ascribed identity as historical actors, but rather against the constructed perception of an “ideal believer,” which was based on party officials’ outdated perceptions about believers. See Piotrowski: The League, 75. 25 See Peris: The Storming of Heavens, 341 f.

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   45

Its official membership dropped from its peak of five million in the first half of 1930s to just a few hundred thousand. It is highly probable that the latter figure represents a rough estimate of the more or less persuaded “antireligiozniki.” The more compact and lasting exoteric thought collective of the post-Stalinist time period would emerge from these few hundred thousand. These people were not only instructed in the early forms of atheist thought style, but they also believed that the active dissemination of their knowledge was one of the core aspects of being  a self-conscious Marxist atheist. This group, or rather its remnants, therefore represent  a link between the interwar and post-war phases of the scientific-atheist thought collective. The strength of the link was determined by almost twelve year long period of rapprochement between the Stalinist state and the ROC called mode of living. 1.1.3 The Emergence of the Soviet Antireligious Tradition The foundation of Bezbozhnik, a journal exclusively dedicated to antireligious propaganda followed the Lenin’s article in December 1922. Its main editor was Iaroslavski and the other editors were Skvortsov-Stepanov26 and Nikolai Semashko27. The journal was oriented to the masses, which meant that its content was simplified. As one contemporary Russian scholar observes, the weekly Bezbozhnik stood out as an example of antireligious propaganda that was moderate in tone and largely focused on positive propaganda, i. e. on the description of scientific progress, and how it undermines religious belief and religion in general.28 While Bezbozhnik adopted a somewhat mitigated approach towards believers’ feelings, the journal “Bezbozhnik u stanka” (The Godless by the Lathe) adhered to a different strategy. Issued as the press organ of the Moscow Committee of the AUCP(b), with its editor-in-chief Kostelovskaia, Bezbozhnik u stanka offered 26 Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov (1870–1928) was a Bolshevik journalist. Since 1917 he worked as an editor mainly in “Pravda” (The Truth), and he was a member of the editorial team at the party’s publishing house Communist. In years 1921–1925 he was a member of the Central Revision Commission and in years 1925–1928 a member of the Central Committee of the AUCP (b). Apart from that, he was an ardent atheist, and it was logical for him to join editorial board of Bezbozhnik. Since the middle of 1920s, he was active not only as an atheist journalist but as a propagandist of atheism as well. 27 Nikolai Semashko’s (1874–1949) main occupation was medicine and politics. He met Lenin in his exile in Geneva. In years 1918–1930 he worked as the national commissar for health. His contribution to antireligious campaign was linked to his profession as well because he explained the unsustainability of certain religious traditions from the medicine’s point of view. In general, medicine was seen as an important field where science met superstition and where rational arguments could persuade the masses to live a healthier life. 28 See Metel, Aleksei, Vadimovich: Stanovlenie antireligioznoi periodicheskoi pechati v SSSR (1919–1941), in: Vestnik Omskogo instituta 1 (2013) 43–47, here 44.

46  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period religion no quarter. Both sensationalist in nature and even more simplified in style, it was an example of ardent, uninhibited, militant atheist propaganda. With bright, often offensive illustrations and shorter texts, it resembled a tabloid that exploited the lowest human emotions, rather than  a journal that sought to persuade believers by its clarity of reasoning and the depth of religious phenomena analysis. The difference between the attitude towards believers held by Bezbozhnik and Bezbozhnik u stanka was so great that it resulted in a quarrel between the editors-in-chief in the years 1923–1926. Iaroslavski was associated with the former journal and understood religion as a complex cultural phenomenon. In his contributions he reflected both the relations of production within society and the Russian peasantry’s centuries old isolation and subservience to nature which were objective factors that inhibited the masses’ departure from religion. Therefore, he was adamant that “it is an imperative to avoid any insults of believers’ feelings which leads only to religious fanaticism.”29 He argued that the victory of the scientific-materialist worldview required the alteration of both the rural relations of production and the peasantry’s relationship to nature and technology. In the meantime, antireligious propaganda was necessary and should consist of a careful explanation of what religion was and how it harmed believers. This approach entailed certain specific policies. Firstly, great care had to be exercised when confronting religion. Secondly, this “cultural” approach also implied the need for specially trained cadres with some knowledge of Orthodox history and also of modern science.30 Moreover, Iaroslavski deemed the aggressive stance of Bezbozhnik u stanka to be counterproductive because it appalled and disgusted the believers’ feelings, rather than persuading them. Kostelovskaia and her group at Bezbozhnik u stanka held  a simpler, more mechanistic view of social transformation and of religion’s role in the old order. According to her view, the ROC was the direct manifestation of exploitation in Russia. This fact alone warranted the immediate closing of churches and elimination of the clergy. She argued that only zealous radicalism and utter hate could create the necessary atmosphere for the final breakthrough of the antireligious campaign. This “militant” approach argued for the continuation of revolutionary practice and called for violent action rather than careful persuasion. Kostelovskaia and her supporters were not concerned with understanding religion and believers in order to influence them peacefully but were rather determined to act uncompromisingly as the “true Bolsheviks.”31 29 Cit. Iaroslavski, Emelian, Mikhailovich: O metodakh antireligioznoi propagandy, in: Pravda, 29 January 1925, 2. 30 See Peris, The Storming the Heavens, 86. 31 See Kostelovskaia, Mariia, Mikhailovna: Ob oshibkakh antireligioznoi propagandy, in: Pravda, 25 January 1925, 2.

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   47

The quarrel in 1926 was decided in favor of Iaroslavski. It is characteristic that the approval of Iaroslavski’s stance was given by the CC , which had the authority to resolve the dispute. The dispute between Iaroslavski and Kostelovskaia in the mid-1920s was the first confrontation that exemplified two approaches to antireligious propaganda in the Soviet Union. The result indicates that, for the first time since the revolution, the adherents of  a more cautious, indirect approach, based on an understanding of the nature of religious belief, won over the advocates of revolutionary measures. Of course, this does not mean that the radicals immediately disappeared from the ranks of the Soviet atheists.32 The boundaries of desirable and undesirable conceptualization of antireligious propaganda (or godlessness) were negotiated by the community itself. It should be noted in this context that the historical actors at this time did not conceptualize their tradition of thinking as “scientific-atheist” as this term was only invented and disseminated into a wider social awareness in the 1950s. Although some interpret the change in the antireligious approach as a temporary deviation from the true colors of revolutionary Marxism, which operated under the slogan of “Shturm nebes” (storming of the heavens), it should rather be interpreted as an evolution of Bolshevik thinking about religion and atheism, which had been in constant development throughout the 1920s.33 Iaroslavski published some of the first atheist treatises on religion in order to fill the gap in home-grown antireligious literature. In 1922 he wrote his most famous contribution to antireligious propaganda with “The Bible for Believers and Unbelievers.” A year later his expanded analysis appeared in “How Gods and Goddesses are Born, Live, and Die.” Both texts conformed to Marxist and Leninist views. Their purpose was to unmask religion and its function as the invention of  a false human consciousness which initially explained the seemingly inexplicable workings of the forces of nature and later imposed by the ruling class on the subaltern class in order to maintain the latter’s false consciousness.34 Other early works of Soviet atheists, such as those of Skvortsov-Stepanov, emphasized the class nature of religion, its oppressive functions, and retrograde nature.35 Thus, the first categories from which the esoteric thought style of the 1960s would arise were already introduced in the Soviet antireligious thinking of the 1920s. While the goal remained the same, the fact that the general attitude towards religion was susceptible to change indicates that the process of overcoming religion ceased to be a matter of faith in Marxist formulas and instead became a problem that required creative thinking and the development of new knowledge. This change was observable in the effort that was put into organizing antireli 32 See Piotrowski: The League, 59, and Pospielovsky: A History, vol. 1, 37. 33 Compare with Pospielovsky: A History, 29–49. 34 See Piotrowski: The League, 72–74. 35 See Skvortsov-Stepanov, Ivan, Ivanovich: Mysli o religii. Moskva 1922.

48  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period gious propaganda and the first public institution for godless in the middle of 1920s, that is the LMG . The main antireligious propaganda topics can help us to understand how the historical actors themselves perceived atheism, and what was important for them. Bezbozhnik and other propaganda sources initially relied on simple, enthusiastic claims that religion was dying out. The antireligious press bristled with reports about empty or closed churches, unemployed priests, and the abandonment of icons and religious holidays. This early approach was soon complemented by the promotion of a comprehensive system of substitute values and rituals devoid of religious meaning. As Peris puts it, “by creating an alternative worldview that closely approximated many aspects of traditional society, the League sought to harness the predispositions of the population, rather than fundamentally alter the thinking of the masses.”36 If manifestations of religious belief had previously been interpreted as obstacles to social development, by 1929 they were presented as direct threats to Bolshevik rule. From 1929 onwards, the Orthodox clergy and hierarchy were increasingly framed not as simple vestiges of the past that would soon be overcome, but rather as an active, oppositional force that was sabotaging the development of Soviet society and was a political enemy as a consequence. By contrast, the new secular Soviet man became the apogee of cultural change and was depicted as the prototype that should be emulated by masses.37 Another propaganda topic involved dealing with religious actions from  a medical standpoint. The main argument against Orthodox icons and some religious rituals, such as the christening of a new-born child or pilgrimages to a holy water source, involved their allegedly detrimental hygienic effects. The medical analysis in the antireligious press explained that holy shrines and icons could be a source of malicious germs, and that kissing an icon or being submerged into  a water source could cause serious illness. Religious icons represented  a threat in the eyes of the propagandists because they formed part of an individual’s beliefs, and it was therefore more difficult to “regulate” them. Therefore, many articles were devoted to explaining the utter uselessness or potential maliciousness of the icons in so called red corners. Even if they were unable to destroy the centuries-old tradition, the propagandists argued that the red corner should rather be replaced by portraits of political leaders such as Lenin and Stalin. By substituting the visual representation of a saint with a political leader, they strove to accomplish a bricolage that supported the evolution culminating in a profound change of worldview.38 36 Cit. Peris: Storming of Heavens, 275. 37 See ibid., 275–8. 38 See Tumarkin, Nina: Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia. Cambridge 1983, and Lane, Christel: The Rites of Rulers. Ritual in Industrial Society — T he Soviet Case. Cambridge 1981.

The Soviet Antireligious Campaign and the League of the Militant Godless   49

The technique of substituting religious content with secular content formed an important part of the campaign against religious holidays, particularly the anti-Easter and anti-Christmas campaigns. These campaigns were supported by the Stalinist regime, which also briefly changed the week period of work days and weekends according to the six to one principle in 1931.39 As a result, Sunday, which had traditionally been a holiday on which the important weekly Orthodox mass occurred, often became a normal work-day, which meant that believers were unable to attend mass due to their work obligations. In contrast to the “culturalist” agenda of the 1920s, religious holidays were again interpreted in political terms. In 1920s the propagandist discourse had referred to religious holidays as a vestige of the past, which had lost their legitimation in the new circumstances. By contrast, the argumentation’s emphasis centered in 1930s mainly on the economic loss caused by religious rituals that disrupted the harvest or generally decreased the work intensity in some regions. The antireligious press of the time also pointed to the link between the harmful consumption of alcohol and religious holidays. The substitute holidays of the post-revolutionary Soviet calendar, which were naturally secular, retained much of the traditional religious-like performance, except that the mise-en-scène and the props were replaced by secular ones. The antireligious propagandists invariantly propagated the new social reality of the new traditions as the progressive and true celebration. They were by no means religious but instead signified the path to the scientifically preordained communist future.40 The Soviet antireligious propagandists limited themselves to simply promoting those aspects of socialist culture that were a direct response to religion at this time. Much of their propaganda effort involved the promotion of a generally Soviet political culture. It included promoting the first Five Year Plan, enthusiastic reports on industrialization, collectivization, and the economic situation in general, admonitions concerning alcoholism and absenteeism, contrasting the socialist freedoms with the rest of the world, and commentating on the position of the Soviet Union in the global political arena.41 Finally, the “antireligiozniki” struggled with the creation of a coherent alternative atheist culture. As in the early 1920s, while they knew what they were fighting against, they were unsure what the soon to be “withered-away” religion should be replaced by. The alternative culture they promoted was a patchwork of the Soviet culture coupled with a ritualized and stylized atheism, a concept 39 See the regulation of The Committee of National Commissars of the USSR on 21  November 1931, URL : http://www.lawrussia.ru/texts/legal_346/doc346a558x382.htm (on 27 June 2016). 40 Compare with Tumarkin: Lenin Lives, 207–251, Rolf, Malte: Soviet Mass Festivals, 1917–1991. Pittsburg 2013, 31–64, and Lane: The Rites, 153–180. 41 See Peris: The Storming of Heavens, 289.

50  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period associated with the denial of religion but with an unclear positive content. In short, to be an atheist during the first half of 1930s practically meant to be a Soviet man, who participated in official holidays and believed in a radiant future and the “scientific laws” of Marxism-Leninism. The specifically atheist aspect lay in the explicit rejection of religion. However, beyond that the contribution of atheism to the Soviet identity remained undefined.42

1.2 Czechoslovakian Freethinkers and the Communist Godless 1.2.1 The Prehistory of Marxist Atheism Even though some scholars connect the beginnings of Czechoslovakian atheist tradition with famous publicist and nationalist Karel Havlíček Borovský, who was active around the middle of the 19th century, or with an excommunicated priest Augustin Smetana it is safe to say that he, as well as some of his compatriots were rather anticlerical than atheist.43 Similar to the case of imperial Russia, atheism as  a form of godlessness in the sense of French materialists of 18th century or anthropologic religion of Feuerbach was in the Czechoslovakian society in the context of Habsburg monarchy thinkable only in the second half of 19th century. Yet the anticlerical, more precisely anti-Catholic attitude was more prevalent among the intellectual elite in Czech lands. On the other hand, in traditionally religious Slovakia and in parts of Moravia retained the Catholic Church its integrative and identity building role even during the period of state socialism in Czechoslovakia.44 The so-called alliance of the throne and altar was by the emerging and self-conscious Czech intelligentsia interpreted along the same lines as the ROC by the nobles at the first half of 19th century imperial Russia. The hostility against the Catholic church organization did not extend on other forms of institutionalized religion such as protestant or Calvinist churches because these organizations did not have close ties to the ruling dynasty. In other words, the anticlericalism of the Czech intellectuals was politically motivated. First and foremost, they fought for the greater autonomy of Czech lands and, as a consequence, opposed the institutional framework of the monarchy and its ideology, and, therefore, the Catholic Church, which had been seen as its emissary, as well.45 42 Compare with ibid., 301 f. 43 See Balík, Stanislav / Fasora, Lukáš / Hanuš, Jiří / V lha, Marek: Český antiklerikalismus. Praha 2015, 54–58. 44 See Balík, Stanislav / Hanuš, Jiří: Katolická církev v Československu 1945–1989. Brno 2007. 45 See Balík / Fasora / Hanuš / V lha: Český antiklerikalismus, 59–87.

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Finally, Czech anticlericalism was from its beginning linked to the petit-­ bourgeois social milieu. Whereas Czech aristocracy, as opposed to the Russian case, remained due to the cultural tradition by far and large faithful to Catholicism, although their faith was in many cases rather superficial. The educated bourgeois intellectuals did not share their sentiments. However, because there were other religious traditions which were historically present in the Czech lands and, moreover, compatible with the fight for autonomy, these elites were not pushed to pursue more radical attitudes towards religion as was the case with Russian non-aristocratic intellectuals in the second half of 19th century. The situation changed in the end of 19th century, when socialist ideas and Marxism began to take hold in Czech lands as well as in the rest of the Habsburg monarchy. The foundation of the Social Democratic Party in Czech lands in 1878 is important for the later development of atheism, but it was not as decisive as the formation of the party in imperial Russia. The main reason was that Czech social democrats did not hold to the Marxism as vigorously and rigorously as their Russian counterparts and the attitudes towards religion were even more blurred than in prerevolutionary Russian Social Democratic Party. Therefore, the general attitude of Czech Social Democrats towards religion was from the start comparatively more anticlerical if compared to the other Czech political parties, such as the National Liberal Party (former Young Czech Party). However, it should be noted that theoretical questions about the relationship between Marxism and religion, which can be exemplified by the dispute of Lenin against God-builders, were absent in the anti-clerical discourse of the Czech Social Democrats and, as a consequence, atheism was for the Czech socialists in the pre-war period even less important than for their Russian counterparts.46 As opposed to the private circles of the first Russian atheists and politically organized Russian social democrats, the first Czech atheist organization started as “Spolek volných myslitelů” (the Society of Free Thinkers), founded by an intellectual with agrarian roots, Alfons Šťastný, in 1874. However, the first center of Czech atheism did not last long. It took only a year until the state authorities dissolved the society under the pretext of its inimical activity. The second attempt to organize the Czech atheists on a legal base came at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1904 was founded “Spolek Augustin Smetana” (Augustin Smetana Society) which ought to serve as a meeting point for Czech godless regardless their political adherence. All members had to be without a confession according to the rules of admission, but the philosophical background of members was not specified. The main goals of this loose organization were the exchange of ideas and enlightenment of the masses. Whereas the enemy, i. e. religion in general and religious organizations in particular, was clear, there was no unifying atheist 46 See Fasora, Lukáš / Hanuš, Jiří / Malíř, Jiří (ed.): Secularization and the Working Class. The Czech Lands and Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century. Eugene 2011.

52  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period program or philosophical system pertaining on the Augustin Smetana Society as a whole. Also Augustin Smetana Society did not last long, even though it was not dissolved by authorities as its predecessor. Rather, it partially disintegrated, and it was partially absorbed by another society, which lasted more than three decades.47 The new successor organization, founded in 1905, was called the “Hnutí volné myšlenky” (Free Thinkers Movement, FTM from now on). Unlike its predecessor, Czech Free Thinkers Movement had connections to international Free Thinkers, who set up their organizations all over the West.48 The Czech branch even hosted the World Congress of Free Thinkers in 1907 and 1920. The importance of Free Thinkers for the development of atheism in Czech lands grew when they started to publish its own periodical “Volná myšlenka” (Free Thought) in 1905. Similar to Augustin Smetana Society, the FTM did not subscribe to a single atheist philosophy. Instead, they declared that free thinking was a method, not a discipline. Furthermore, they declared the main goal as education in the sense of the enlightenment tradition coupled with modern and humanist ideas. The struggle for the minds of people went against all dogmas, superstitions, and prejudices. On the political level, the FTM advocated for separation of church and state as well as church and school which ought to loosen the grip of religion on the masses and help to create a secular state where all types of thought could flourish. The secularization of public sphere and, primarily, weakening of the catholic church’s influence in political matters was the main topic of their practical agenda, not dissimilar from the demands of prerevolutionary Bolsheviks.49 The first clash of beliefs in the FTM , which has been a conglomerate of many different worldviews, ensued just one year after the World Congress of Free 47 See Kudláč, Antonín: Příběh(y) Volné myšlenky. Praha 2005, 9–15. 48 The International Free Thinkers were formed in Brussels in 1880. The goal was to organize all free thinkers in  a fight against despotism and religious dogmatism. The free thinkers represented from the outset an organization uniting different streams of thought. Atheist intellectuals worked alongside social democrats, anarchists, and positivist scholars to further their cause. Because of an amalgam nature of free thinkers, the movement could not adopt single doctrine and had to work out many compromises. The most important one was its a-political nature. Furthermore, the international free thinkers put an emphasis on anticlericalism, enlightened mass education, and scientific progress which should have led to the social change and produce a-religious worldview. 49 Knowing that Catholic Church keeps influencing society through rituals, the FTM decided to develop an alternative in order to promote their modernism and rationalism, uninhibited by dogma and superstition. Therefore, together with the society “Krematorium” (Crematorium) which co-financed the transport of bodies to the nearest crematorium (Bodies of those who wanted to be cremated after their demise were sent to the nearby Germany, where were cremations allowed since 1880s), provided information about the cremation and propagated it as well in its own journal, they promoted the legalization of cremation and civic funeral rites. This struggle has not been successful until the end of the Habsburg Empire,

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Thinking in Prague. Bohumír Šmeral, social democratic leader, argued in 1908 that the sole public education is not enough to uproot clericalism. He maintained that only radical change of political regime can bring about such change. This marked  a radicalization in the social democratic party, where had risen the Marxist left wing promoting  a revolutionary change.50 Šmeral also indicated that not FTM but social democrats should steer the wheel of anticlericalism and atheism: The consequence of historical materialist worldview is that we do not regard religion as something independent, as something what started independently and can end independently. It (religion) is an outcome, a product of certain economic and social relations. Because of that is the method of our fight against church and clerical influences different to the method employed by the anticlerical bourgeois parties.51

Although FTM asserted that socialism and free thinking are mutually compatible, the rupture between the FTM and more radical vision of Czech social democrats led to the foundation of concurrent social democratic atheist organizations in 1913. Another split from the FTM performed the other left-wing organization, the Czech anarchists, already in 1912. Superficial liberalism and bourgeois attitude of the FTM were the main reasons why Bohuslav Vrbenský, later  a leading politician of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Čeněk Körber, and Michael Kácha (both anarchists and later sympathizers with socialism) left the FTM . In 1913 was formed “Svaz socialistických monistů” (The Union of Socialist Monists) with Jaroslav Štych as its leader. This organization relied on ideas formulated by German biologist Ernst Haeckel. Drawing on Darwinism and materialism, Haeckel denied all dualist concepts and proposed monism as a form of pantheism oppositional to traditional religions, based on strict materialist determinism and unity of the cosmos and society. The Czech monists were inspired not only by Haeckel but by Marx and Engels as well embraced the ideas that mass education, promoted by free thinkers, is not enough. Czech monists also concurred with Engels that if atheism is but a negation of religion then it is itself still a form of religion. Therefore, the Czech monists propagated a positive materialist worldview, and many of them found themselves in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC from now on) after the First World War.52 even though in 1917 was completed the first crematorium in Reichenberg (now Liberec), a regional center at the north of Czech lands (part of Sudetenland) with a significant German population. 50 See Hudečková, Viera: Antiklerikálné a ateistické tradície v našom revolučnom robotnickom hnutí (1918–1938). Prešov 1979, 39 f. 51 Cit. Šmeral, Bohumír: Naše stanovisko k náboženství, církvi, klerikalismu  a “Volné Myšlence,” in: Právo lidu 17 from 31 May 1908. 52 See Hudečková: Antiklerikálné a ateistické tradície, 41–43.

54  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period The politics of the FTM to be an umbrella organization, which was trying to accommodate all the different streams of antireligious and atheist thinking, proved to be increasingly dysfunctional in the last years before the First World War. Especially for the left-wing parties were the activities of the FTM seen as too tame and conciliatory towards religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. Whereas the dictum of the FTM was based on a compromise which consisted in the anticlericalism that did not deny religion the right to exist, the social democrats and anarchists inspired by Marx and Engels advocated a more radical attitude, claiming that religion had been overcome as a viable worldview. Nevertheless, the FTM remained the strongest anticlerical and atheist organization in the prewar Austria-Hungary in terms of membership until it was suspended by the police in 1915. Although atheist radicals were not satisfied with the FTM’s course of action, it never lost its appeal for bourgeois intelligentsia, which formed the majority of its ranks. Surely, a part of its appeal was in non-violent, pluralistic democratic discussion which was not curtailed by any other political party or, of course, religious dogmatism. Furthermore, its methods of influence, public education via lectures or journal Free Thought, set up an example which was used even by their most virulent critics from the post-Stalinist scientific atheist circles. 1.2.2 The Socio-Political Context On 28 October 1918 Czechoslovakia’s independence from Austria-Hungary was proclaimed. The new country was in fact a secular state. However, the separation of the church from the state was not realized, and the Catholic Church retained some of its influence, particularly in the sphere of education and culture. The debate concerning the separation of church and state occasionally became  a hot political topic that was taken up by the left-wing parties and by apolitical organizations. However, any potential breakthrough on this question was always successfully opposed by the Christian political parties, which had  a strong constituency in Moravia and Slovakia. A significant step forward in relation to all religious societies was the freedom of conscience paragraph in the 1920 Czechoslovakian constitution, which proclaimed the formal recognition of confessional equality that covered all recognized religions. Furthermore, the possibility of godlessness was also supported by the law.53 Although freethinkers were unable to persuade the leading politicians to accept the separation of the church from the state, they achieved their goal regarding cremation, which was permitted by the law in 1919. 53 See paragraphs 106, 121–125 of the Czechoslovak constitution. Ninth-of-May Constitution. In: Poslanecká sněmovna parlamentu České republiky, URL : http://www.psp.cz/docs/ texts/constitution_1920.html (on 29 June 2016).

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Nevertheless, the latent anticlericalism of the population in the Czech lands led to a massive decrease in the number of Catholic believers, who no longer felt obliged to exhibit  a formal adherence to the institution that was strongly linked to the old order in their minds. The official statistics from the 1921 general census of the population indicated that the Catholic Church had lost one sixth of its believers (approximately 1,25 million people). However, the fact that many people left the Catholic Church did not automatically mean that they had become agnostics or atheists. In fact, many of them only changed their creed from Catholicism to that of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, which was formed in 1920. In doing so, they were able to pursue their religious convictions while also linking them to their national identity, which resulted in the creation of  a stronger bond with the state.54 This means that anticlericalism was not similar to atheism in the First Czechoslovak Republic. Nevertheless, there were 724 507 out of 13 613 172 (5.3 percent) people without any creed at the time of the 1921 census.55 The 1930 national census indicated a further increase in the absolute number of people without a creed category and also a slight increase in the relative number. Out of a total number of 14 729 536, the census found that 854 638 (5.8 percent) were without any creed.56 Although  a considerable proportion of people in Czechoslovakia left the Catholic Church, it remained the organization with the most believers. The 1921 universal census estimated that 75 percent of the population were (formal) Catholics.57 There was also  a large difference between the number of Catholic believers in the Czech Lands and in Slovakia. The Slovaks remained practically untouched by the anticlerical campaign that had been carried out in the Czech lands during the last decades of Austria-Hungary. Furthermore, the rural character of Slovakian society and its adherence to tradition facilitated the strengthening of a national and religious identity that was based on Catholicism. Therefore, about 99 percent of Slovaks were religious believers during the interwar period, according to the post-war estimates of scientific-atheist experts.58 1.2.3 The Freethinkers’ Movement The FTM resumed its activity shortly after the formation of the new state. There was a strong continuity with the pre-war period, which consisted in the similarity of tasks, the leading figures, and the social background of the members. Even 54 See Kudláč: Příběh(y), 50. 55 See Statistická příručka republiky Československé. Díl 3. Praha 1928, 293. 56 See Statistická ročenka republiky Československé. Praha 1934, 12. 57 See Klimek, Antonín: Velké dějiny Zemí Koruny české. Díl 13 (1918–1929). Praha, Litomyšl 2000, 150–161. 58 See Sivák, Lubomír: Sekularizace a vývoj religiosity na Slovensku v letech 1968–1986, in: Ateizmus 17/4 (1989) 394–403, here 396.

56  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period before the war, the FTM did not subscribe to a single atheist philosophy. Instead, it declared that free thinking was a method, rather than a discipline or ideology. Furthermore, the movement declared its main goal to be education in the sense of the Enlightenment tradition coupled with modernist and humanist ideas. This struggle for the minds of people was opposed to all dogmas, superstitions, and prejudices. On the political level, the FTM advocated for the separation of church and state and of church and schools. Its policy was intended to loosen religion’s grip on the masses and to help to create a secular state in which all types of thought could flourish. The secularization of the public sphere and, primarily, the weakening of the Catholic Church’s influence in political matters formed the main goal of their practical agenda, which was not dissimilar from the demands of pre-revolutionary Bolsheviks in the tsarist Russia. The official formation of the Czechoslovak freethinkers in the interwar context followed after the World Congress held in Prague in 1920 during which the founding congress of the Czechoslovakian branch took place. In two years, the membership rose to 8  200 members, who were attracted to the organization either through the specialized press, by means of leaflets, or by the mass gatherings organized by the FTM members. Although the official number of members, which was published in the FTM’s journal The Free Thought in the 1920s, boasted that the FTM had 201 000 both official and unofficial members, Antonín Kudláč argues that this number should not be trusted. According to his estimations, the highest number of adherents was almost ten times smaller. Based on membership fees paid, the Czech historian states that there were only 22 621 members organized in 539 cells in 1923. However, the membership fell rapidly in 1924 and declined even further in the following years. In 1925 the FTM only had 12 014 members in 482 cells, which would amount to just 25 members per cell provided the membership was distributed equally.59 There were at least two reasons for the rapid decline of membership. Firstly, members who did not pay their fees were crossed off the organization’s lists in 1924. Secondly, the split in the antireligious movement made by the more radical members, mainly the Marxist godless, in the middle of 1920s led many social democratic and communist members to leave the FTM for more radical organization. In the first half of the 1920s the FTM was still able to contain its internal struggles which were based on differences of opinion regarding the movement’s goals and how to reach them. However, in 1925 the central issue emerged that would eventually lead to the split of Czechoslovak freethinkers. This issue was whether the FTM should remain apolitical or whether it should seek more support from political parties on the left of the political spectrum. While Jaroslav Motyčka and Julius Myslík defended the apolitical approach, Theodor Bartošek

59 See Kudláč: Příběh(y), 66 f.

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and Otakar Kunstovný argued that a closer collaboration with the godless social democrats and communists was an absolute necessity. The FTM’s annual general assembly in November 1925 favored Motyčka and Myslík’s position. However, the defeated pro-leftist freethinkers continued their opposition against the newly elected apolitical central committee. The situation escalated in 1926 when Bartošek and his followers left the FTM and formed their own organization called “Spolek volných myslitelů Augustin Smetana” (The Association of Free Thinkers Augustin Smetana). The name referred to the first anticlerical group from the end of the 19th century. In 1927, Bartošek’s organization joined the “Liga proletářských bezvěrců” (The League of the Proletarian Godless, LPG henceforth) and confirmed its affinity to Marxist ideology. Although the FTM rejected Marxist and communist ideas as guiding principles, its relationship to socialism was ambivalent. While they refused to make the revolutionary class struggle the condition of the antireligious cause, Rudolf Kopecký, the chief ideologue of the FTM , admitted that “if socialism is an effort to create social morality, then in this sense we are socialists.”60 However, socialism diminished as a source of the FTM’s thinking after Bartošek’s group seceded from the organization in 1926. The rift in the FTM in the middle of 1920s caused a rethinking of its program in the upcoming year. The scientific truth was to be pursued, as opposed to any form of religious faith. However, its relationship to religion became radicalized. Lubomír Milde, a member of the FTM central committee in the second half of 1920s, compared religion to a dead corpse that “has to be exhumed and all signs of its death and ongoing decay exposed.”61 A new addition to the FTM’s eclectic ideology was emphasized by Rudolf Kopecký in his programmatic book, namely, that the freethinkers’ ideals can only be achieved within the political framework of the republic. Any other forms of polity, including dictatorship of the proletariat, were explicitly rejected.62 Although the FTM was the largest and the most visible anticlerical or antireligious organization in the 1920s, it was not the only one. In 1919 two other groups were formed, namely, “Sdružení sociálnědemokratických bezvěrců” (the Association of the Social Democratic Godless) and “Svaz socialistických bezvěrců” (the League of the Socialist Godless). Further to the left, the first communist godless organization, “Federace komunistických osvětových jednot” (the Federation of Communist Public Education Unions, FKOJ henceforth) was created in 1921. All three organizations were Marxist and opposed collaboration with the FTM , which they accused of being a “bourgeois” organization. The Marxist godless organizations moved towards unification 60 Cit. ibid., 82. 61 Cit. Milde, Lubomír: Volná myšlenka a náboženství. Praha 1929, 27. 62 See Kopecký, Rudolf: Ideový základ Volné Myšlenky. Nástin Programu. Praha 1926, 7–24.

58  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period throughout the 1920s, and the task was completed in 1927 when the LPG was formed and its main press organ “Maják” (The Watchtower) began to be published. Its membership rose steadily, partially at the expense of the FTM . While there were only 9 017 members in 130 cells in 1924, there were already 20 413 members in 440 cells in 1928. Therefore, by the end of 1920s the FTM no longer represented the strongest antireligious movement in Czechoslovakia.63 The LPG accepted the program that had been adopted by the leftist godless in Vienna. Its main point was that the anticlerical and antireligious struggle formed part of the revolutionary class struggle. The other program points were also close to the communist ideology, and the administration had close personal ties to the CPC .64 However, ideological unification occurred in the LPG only in 1929. This development coincided with the V Congress of the CPC at which Klement Gottwald and his group of revolutionary radicals defeated the group of moderate communists led by Bohumil Jílek and Václav Bolen.65 It involved separating the LPG from other secular worldviews, namely, anarchism and social democratic ideas, which were still strong in the second half of 1920s. This so-called “bolshevization” led to an ideological radicalization and also had implications for the future of the LPG . During the LPG ’s second congress in April 1929 the so-called “opportunists” were immediately removed from the LPG ’s leading positions, and the new communist cadres, such as Bartošek, an earlier chief freethinker turned CPC member, ensured that the antireligious struggle was under the control of the party.66 As a result, the LPG propaganda was subordinated to the strategy of the CPC after 1929, and its main concerns were anticlericalism and antifascism. Religion was only attacked as an opposing force in the class struggle. The imperative for the LPG at this time was that the fight against religion should not be seen as the most important matter. Rather, it was the revolution itself that was the priority. From this perspective, it was the Catholic Church, rather than religion in general, that was exposed in the LPG press. According to the post-war Marxist atheists, the goal in 1933 was to “forge a unitary front against fascism and cultural reaction.” In this struggle, the proletarian godless “did not stress moments which separate the believers from unbelievers but, on the contrary, they emphasized what united them and showed Christian and class-conscious workers the inevitability of a unified class course of action.”67 63 See Prusák, Peter: Proletárske bezverecké hnutie v podmínkach buržoaznej ČSR , in: Ateizmus 9/6 (1981) 592–618, here 604. 64 About the Wien program of the leftist godless in Wien see Hartwig, Theodor: Sozialismus und Freidenkertum. Bodenbach 1925. 65 See Vévoda, Rudolf: “Sedm našich kamarádů.” Ke konfliktu mezi levicovými intelektuály v době bolševizace, in: Kalous, Jan / Kocian, Jiří (eds.): Český a slovenský komunismus (1921–2011). Praha 2012, 24–31. 66 See Hudečková: Antiklerikálne a ateistické tradície, 108. 67 Cit. Prusák: Proletárske bezvierecke hnutie 614.

Czechoslovakian Freethinkers and the Communist Godless  59

Therefore, the main strategic goal was not to stir unrest among the working class on the basis of religious identity, but rather to bring the masses to communism and to persuade them to join the fight against  a common enemy that was personified by fascism and the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the LPG carried out positive propaganda that focused on the USSR , which was seen as the biggest ally of Czechoslovakian proletariat, even though it was not officially recognized by Czechoslovakian government until 1935. The LPG established contact with the LMG in 1925. Bartošek and Procházka visited the USSR as members of a delegation sent by the communist “Association for Economic and Cultural Rapprochement with the New Russia.” After their return, they wrote in Maják about the Soviet decree on separation and the forms of Bolshevik atheist agitation. The contact between the Czechoslovak and Soviet godless persisted in the 1920s. In 1927 the Czech communist godless Bartošek, Čeněk Körber, Zdeněk Lahůlek-Faltys, and Božena Lišková spent  a month in the Soviet Union in order to consult the main antireligious propagandists such as Lukachevski, Mikhail Sheinman, and Iaroslavski. The Czechoslovakian delegation also visited antireligious museums and observed the LMG propaganda activities in action. Their reports concerning the study visit appeared in the Soviet Bezbozhnik as well as in the Czechoslovak communist press. The other contacts between the Soviet and Czechoslovakian godless took place in 193068 and 193269. Moreover, the journal Maják regularly published translations of Marx and Lenin, together with reprints of contemporary Soviet antireligious articles.70 Thus, the Czechoslovakian godless maintained contact with the ideological development in the USSR and provided Czechoslovak readers with information concerning current developments in Soviet godless thinking. The editors of Maják did not conceal the fact that they found the Soviet development a source of inspiration and a model to be followed.71 However, due to radicalization of the CPC and LPG in the context of the republic viewed the state authorities such proclamations as increasingly suspicious and potentially dangerous. The LPG meetings were disrupted by the Czechoslovakian police from 1932, its lectures were banned, and its periodicals confiscated. The tone and goals of the communist godless propaganda did not 68 See Hudečková: Antiklerikálne a ateistické tradície, 104 f. 69 See Mudruňka, Adolf: K otázce vlivu sovětské církevní politiky na proces formování marxisticko-leninského ateismu u nás, in: Ateizmus 3/1 (1975) 38–46, here 42. 70 In 1932 were published thematic volumes of selected works of the “classics” such as “Lenin on Religion” and “Marx and Engels on Religion” one year later. 71 See Hudečková: Antiklerikálne a ateistické tradície, 100–103. The Czechoslovak Marxism was represented by authors such as Julius Choráz, who wrote the book “Darkness of Anticlericalism in Czechoslovakia” in 1929 and Leopold Grünwald “Marxism and Religion,” published in 1932.

60  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period change under these circumstances, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs was left with no choice but to dissolve the League of the Proletarian Godless in 1933. The former members of the LPG were then forced to pursue their activities under the cover of the CPC . The party provided the necessary means and organizational structure and even allowed an underground publication and distribution of the former LPG periodical “Proletářský bezvěrec” (The Proletarian Godless).72 The FTM continued its anticlerical and antireligious work during the 1930s. The peak of its activity occurred in 1936 when its International Congress once again took place in Prague. The Czechoslovaks were represented by Milde and Myslík, who represented the FTM , and also by communist godless such as Bartošek, Zdeněk Nejedlý, and Laco Novomeský who came from Slovakia. The rapprochement of the “bourgeois” FTM and the communist godless was indicated by the presence of Lukachevski, one of the leaders of the LMG in the 1930s. The “League of Progressive Free Thinkers” was formed in the aftermath of the congress in an attempt to unite all the godless in Czechoslovakia under the banner of anti-Nazism and anticlericalism. The willingness of the communist godless to cooperate with a “class enemy” in a single organization was conditioned by the LPG ’s dissolution in 1934. The communist presence in the League of Progressive Freethinkers was probably very strong as its chairman was Bartošek.73 However, the overall impact of this organization in the public sphere was most probably very limited. In September 1938 the Munich Treaty was signed, which led to Sudetenland’s secession in October. The ensuing political turmoil in Czechoslovak politics brought about changes that affected the form of governance, with a shift from a democratic to an authoritarian course.74 One of the consequences was the rise of the Catholic fundamentalism amongst the new ruling elites. The program of “Strana národní jednoty” (the Party of National Unity) contained  a paragraph calling for the abolition of all “anti-Christian activity.” The last congress of the Czechoslovakian freethinkers was convened in March 1939, just  a few days before the occupation of the remaining Czechoslovakian territories by the Wehrmacht forces. The League of Progressive Free Thinkers disappeared in the first days of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the last remnants of the freethinkers in the public sphere were crushed by Protectorate censorship in 1943.75

72 See Prusák: Proletárske bezvierecke hnutie, 616, and Hudečková, Viera: Tradice našeho pokrokového ateistického hnutí a současnost, in: Ateizmus 3/2 (1975) 134–142, here 141. 73 See Hudečková: Antiklerikálne a ateistické tradície, 123. 74 See Gebhart, Jan / Kuklík, Jan: Druhá republika 1938–1939. Svár demokracie a totality v politickém, společenském a kulturním životě. Praha 2014. 75 See Kudláč: Příběh(y), 136–139.

Czechoslovakian Freethinkers and the Communist Godless  61

1.2.4 The Emergence of the First Godless in Slovakia Although both the bourgeois and the communist godless movements should have worked at the level of the republic, their main activities took place in the Czech lands. What was the situation regarding the development of antireligious institutions and thinking specifically in Slovakia? The majority of Slovaks according to national census remained believing Catholics during the interwar period. Therefore, the conditions of anticlerical and antireligious activity were determined by this fact from the outset. Even the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) could not hold too tightly to its principles regarding the religious identity of its members. While around eighty percent of the members of the CPC were godless or areligious, in the CPS this was only three to four percent.76 Despite such unfavorable facts, both the freethinkers and the proletarian godless established organizations in Slovakia and sought to facilitate social change. An absence of scholarship regarding the FTM’s Slovak branches means that the following account focuses on the communist godless organizations. According to the Marxist author Viera Hudečková, the fact that there was virtually no previous anticlerical tradition in Slovakia in the pre-war and interwar period helped the reception of Marxist ideas, which were allegedly unencumbered by the positivist and other “bourgeois” traditions of the freethinkers. As a consequence, the Slovak godless were able to form their ideas directly from the original source as they did not have to combat competing traditions, mainly free-thought and social democracy, in order to assert the veracity of Marxism.77 However, much more important in this regard was the prevalent tradition of the Catholic Church. It should be emphasized that its position was shaken neither by the bourgeois nor by the communist godless during the interwar period. If some urban dwellers became more susceptible to antireligious propaganda in the Czech lands, the same cannot be said about their Slovak counterparts. Even the most favorable accounts of the Slovak Marxist atheists, who were desperate to discover the roots of scientific atheism in Slovakia, were unable to present any traces of sustained, systematic atheist activity that was comparable to its development in the Czech lands. While the FKOJ and later the LPG existed parallel to the CPC in the Czech lands, and had a certain amount of autonomy until 1929, the Slovak organizations were under party control from the very beginning. The godless activity was initially directed from Ostrava, a city on the border between Moravia and Slovakia. During the second half of the 1920s internal centers of the Slovakian communist antireligious movement were created in the towns of Trnava and Ružomberok. The first Slovak articles in the LPG journal Maják appeared in 76 See Hudečková: Antiklerikálne a ateistické tradície, 73. 77 See ibid., 75.

62  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period 1926. However, while the Czech atheist activities were more or less financially self-sufficient, the antireligious activity in Slovakia would have been impossible without substantial financial help from the CPC . The most decisive form of help was the publication of leaflets and brochures in Slovakia, such as the “Anticlerical Textbook” in 1923.78 It is clear that the LPG cells in Slovakia fought an uphill battle against religiosity, and that they were unable to attract the masses beyond the influence of the CP. The publication effort was insufficient, the journal Maják was difficult to acquire, and the majority of the antireligious propaganda was mainly delivered by the central (that is Czech) communist newspapers. Specialized literature could not be obtained. Moreover, the Slovak antireligious cadres lacked guidance and experience and were unable to focus on the antireligious work itself. Therefore, it could be said that the Leninist rule “not to place the question of religion in the first place” applied to Slovakia even more than to the Czech lands. But such state of affairs was rather an unintentional byproduct than a result of conscious adherence to Leninist principles in this case. Stated differently, the Slovakian godless were too weak and too few in numbers to be able to face a much more conservative and traditional Slovak society, and even the direct support of the CPC was unable to change that in the interwar period. Although there was an upsurge in the LPG activity in Slovakia at the end of 1920s, including a mass demonstration for a unified anticlerical front in Košice with approximately 700 attendees79, this was not an indication of an existing antireligious movement with institutional structure and a stable membership, but rather the desperate outcry of proletarianized urban dwellers. In conclusion, although groups of the Czech godless were able to expand during the 1920s, they were unable to create mass support for their cause. This was partly because the godless were themselves divided into multiple groups that adhered to different worldviews, and this internal struggle cost them much of their energy. It was also partly because the social change they proposed was unable to attract enough people on the free market of ideas. As rational, just, and scientific as their arguments were for their supporters, they failed to persuade the population that godlessness is a better alternative than religious faith. Even the CPC , which had the potential to mobilize its members to pursue antireligious propaganda, chose to attack anticlericalism and avoided spreading hatred among its potentially religious voters. As  a result, the communist godless had very limited political support, while the FTM had none. This meant that the godless remained a marginal group of intellectuals and activists on the outskirts of the Czechoslovakian public sphere. Without strong political support and legislative

78 See ibid., 79 f. 79 See ibid., 118.

Czechoslovakian Freethinkers and the Communist Godless  63

change, their vision of social change and a modern civilization without god were to remain unfulfilled. 1.2.5 Freethinkers’ Organization and Method of Thinking After 1918 the Czechoslovak freethinkers continued to believe that freethinking was not a discipline, but rather a method. In addition to positivist rationalism, which had also been a heritage from the Habsburg period, they developed a specific ethic, which was intended to lead to the moral unification of the humanity. Their goal was to create  a “new civilization” which was neither antireligious nor areligious but which was rather beyond religion.80 According to its chief ideologue and a long-time freethinker Otakar T. Kunstovný, the FTM’s mission was to place people’s lives in accordance with their “advancement.” By that he meant that they ought to use reason rather than faith. According to Kunstovný, the latter inhibited “complete liberation and universal progress.” He also argued that the level of education led to a situation in which the “idea of god has outlived its lifespan.” Therefore, positivism and rationalism were the cornerstones of the freethinkers’ thinking. Kunstovný also described the main difference between religious and freethinking morality. While the former was oriented to the afterlife, the latter places the emphasis on real life in the here and now. According to Kunstovný, the freethinkers’ morality should be an end in itself and it should continue to develop itself towards incessant moral progress.81 As the following chapters demonstrate, many of these ideas were irreconcilable with the scientific atheism of the Czechoslovak communists during the post-war period. However, it is interesting to note that their moral implications shared considerable common ground. As already noted, the Czechoslovak FTM was in fact an umbrella organization with multiple worldviews and philosophical perspectives. There was  a strong anti-clerical and antireligious group based on positivist thinking. There were initially also some Marxist atheists who harbored even more radical ideas concerning religion than their bourgeois colleagues. Finally, there was a group of Czechoslovak “god-builders,” represented by aforementioned Kunstovný, who believed that the freethinkers should evolve into a form of a “lay church.” This lay church was in fact a non-dogmatic, non-church religion of humanity and solidarity, with its own secular rituals that had a great deal in common with the ideas of Feuerbach and early Lunacharskii.82 80 See Volná Myšlenka československá. Praha 1921, 6–17. 81 See Kunstovný, Otakar: Co jsme a co chceme? Zásady a cíle Volné Myšlenky Českoslo­ venské. Praha 1920, 7–45. 82 See Milde, Lubomír: Zápasy  a práce Volné Myšlenky. Praha 1930, 108. More on lay religion see Kunstovný, Otakar: Náboženství dnešního člověka. Praha 1924, and Kudláč: Příběh(y), 69–71.

64  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period While the FTM was relatively united in its opposition to the Catholic Church, its relationship to other churches in Czechoslovakia, such as the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren and the Czechoslovak Church, was more ambivalent. While the freethinkers collaborated with these churches in their anticlerical propaganda and supported their fight for freedom of conscience, the freethinkers were (obviously) unable to identify themselves with the worldview of these Christian believers. Therefore, while the non-Catholic churches were valued allies in the struggle against the strongest opponent on the practical level, they remained opponents on the level of ideology and worldview.83 As already noted, the main purpose of the Czechoslovak freethinkers was mass education and the popularization of fundamental philosophical, cosmological, scientific, and, above all, religious questions. An indispensable role in this endeavor was played by the specialized publishing house, which not only published the main journals, but also leaflets, pamphlets, books, and other materials. In 1921 the range of publications and topics was extended in order to attract more potential readers and achieve financial profitability. The freethinkers’ publishing house produced popular scientific books on topics of religion, church history, psychology, and sociology of religion, which were written from  a “progressive perspective.” Furthermore, books on the natural sciences that supported  a non-religious worldview and treatises on humanist morality and other anticlerical literature also formed part of the editorial plan. In short, the publishing house supported publication of all books that served the freethinkers’ ideological cause, provided that these books were not written from the perspective of a particular political ideology. This rule, of course, excluded Marxist or communist books on religion and related topics. The line-up of Czechoslovak authors was complemented by the publication of leading international free thinkers, such as Bertrand Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian,” published in 1928, and selected works by Robert Green Ingersoll entitled “Religion is the Opium of Nations” and published in 1933). However, it did not include Marx or Lenin. The greatest print runs were for the pocket-sized propaganda brochures issued as a part of the anticlerical campaign against the Catholic Church, and included “Klerikalismus hrozí” (Clericalism Threatens) published in 1933 and “Občané bez vyznání — braňte se!” (Citizens without Confession — defend yourselves!) written by Milde in 1934. The print runs of such brochures reached hundreds of thousands of copies. Published lectures that addressed topics such as school reform and cremation also formed part of the discourse.84 The uncompromising 83 See Kudláč: Příběh(y), 73. 84 See for example Novák, Vladimír / Meisner, Josef / Pertold, Otakar: Základy mravní výchovy pro bezkonfesní mládež. Praha 1936, or Mencl, František: Pohřeb ohněm. Praha 1922.

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nature of the opinions concerning the Catholic Church in Free Thought led to many interventions by the Czechoslovak censors. During the years 1920–1928 nine issues of the journal were confiscated and the problems with censorship also continued into the 1930s.85 The intervention of censorship together with its perpetual financial problems and the ongoing search for new topics that would attract a new readership and the decreasing number of the FTM membership, indicates that the written production of exoteric thought style represented by the FTM intellectuals was not successful in creating ardent followers of the FTMs ideas on a larger scale. Nevertheless, the fact that the overall circulation of its periodicals, books, and pamphlets was more than ten times higher than the number of its paid-up members suggests that the circle of its sympathizers was considerably larger. However, it was most probably far less than the number of people who could be defined as silently areligious.

1.3 Summary While the revolutionary situation in post-Imperial Russia enabled radical political action against religious organizations in the form of the decree of separation, the democratic nature of the revolution that ended Austria-Hungary and led to the creation of the Czechoslovakian Republic inhibited such radical political action with regard to the relationship between state and church. The outcome of such legislative changes made potential antireligious propaganda in Soviet Russia much easier as many spaces, that had previously been occupied by religious institutions were now secularized. Nevertheless, the religious freedoms paragraph of the first Czechoslovak constitution enabled “bezkonfesijnost” (an individual identity without any religious creed), which de facto legalized agnosticism and atheism as one of possible and legal identities. This legal background provided previously banned organizations such as the FTM with official permission to resume their activities. The administrative measures and violent interventions of the Soviet regime during both the revolutionary period and during Stalin’s great terror should be interpreted as excessive, and extraordinary measures that were employed by politicians in the futile hope of quickly resolving the problem by removing the source of the threat could not accomplish the task. Antireligious propaganda, by contrast, represented  a policy that, if executed properly, had the potential of people’s continual influence. Moreover, in contrast to the administrative measures, it was able to solve the question of what to do with the believers. While the administrative measures were always seen as temporary and many atheist 85 See Kudláč: Příběh(y), 100.

66  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period specialists argued against them, the 1920s-1930s gave birth to a wider consensus concerning the need for permanent antireligious propaganda in the Soviet context. Although this was not implemented, this notion became embedded in the Soviet atheists’ collective thinking. As the following chapter demonstrates, it would resurface again in the completely different socio-political context of the 1950s. In 1920s and 1930s both antireligious thought collectives — The LMG and FTM — underwent an analogous process of emergence. Relatively long if marginal traditions of grassroots anticlericalism and antireligiosity had existed in both countries since 19th century and had sometimes developed into various forms of atheism. However, while this development was essentially a bottom-up process in Austria-Hungary and in Czechoslovakia during the interwar period, in the Russian Empire and the USSR this initially bottom-up process was abruptly interrupted by Lenin’s top-down initiative which was practically initiated in 1922. This change in a hitherto more or less organic development played a decisive role in the construction of the thought collective’s institutional structure in the interwar USSR . The formation of the Marxist thought collective in the USSR occurred in the 1920s. The dispute in 1925–1926 indicates that there was initially no preconceived consensus concerning the group’s fundamental questions, and that it was far from coherent. For example, it was unclear how the antireligious propaganda should be conducted. However, it should also be stressed that the atheism of this initial thought collective was historically unique because there had been virtually no discussion about the theoretical basis of atheism in the USSR . The Czechoslovak freethinkers, who were able to profit directly from the rich yet eclectic tradition of the 19th century western European freethinkers, were more preoccupied with theoretical questions in comparison to their Soviet counterparts, who were primarily concerned with the practical aspects of propaganda during this period. This was presumably because virtually no stream of antireligious or atheist thought was automatically discarded by freethinkers for ideological or political reasons. The inevitable eclecticism prevented the unification of the whole movement under a few slogans, which would have made it more comprehensible and accessible for the society. As a result, in contrast to the relatively quickly unified LMG , the Czechoslovakian antireligious thought collective remained ideologically and organizationally fragmented during the interwar period. This is also why the later relationship of the Czechoslovakian scientific atheists to this time period was much more ambivalent than the relationship of the Soviet scientific atheists to their recent past. The relationship of the Soviet thought collective to political power was complex. While the Czechoslovak antireligious or atheist thought collective (i. e. mainly the freethinkers) was either strictly apolitical (as in the case of the FTM) or opposed to the republican political establishment (as in the case of the LPG),

Summary  67

the Soviet thought collective depended from the outset on the willingness of the party leaders to support their cause to a certain degree. While the first dispute within the ranks of freethinkers was resolved by the members of the collective, who possessed the necessary authority to do so, the dispute between the Soviet “antireligiozniki” had to be decided not within the group itself but on the qualitatively different level of the party. Even more importantly, after initiating antireligious propaganda on the Union level in 1922, Lenin as the political leader refrained from further interventions into the content of religious and atheist propaganda, and Stalin essentially continued this policy. Therefore, after the proverbial Pandora’s box had been (re-) opened by someone at the top of a political structure, the thought collective was practically free to fill the box of Marxist atheism with whatever themes, topics, concepts, and theories they deemed necessary, provided that they were able to fit them inside the box. This means that they had to either adhere to consensually accepted ideological presuppositions, or else successfully argue that the knowledge they were presenting was in accordance with the broader ideological framework. The process of selecting and systematizing the objects that would be put into the box depended on the members of the thought collective, as long as there was no serious argument between them. Only in the event of such an argument would the political power, as a patron of the thought collective, have broken into the argument and decided which sub-group of the thought collective had the right to dispose with the superior epistemological position officially sanctioned by the party. This model of tacit political support for the atheist thought collective from the top, and the reciprocal creation of the “relevant content” from the bottom and middle levels of the power pyramid, was first applied in the context of the antireligious propaganda developed in the Soviet Union during the 1920–1930s. As will be apparent from the following chapters, this has been one of the most fundamental organizational principles of Marxist atheism since this time, and this model was even adopted by other socialist countries such as Czechoslovakia during the post-war period. With regard to the features of the emerging thought styles, it should be noted that for both the Marxist “antireligiozniki” and the Czechoslovakian freethinkers the antireligious activity was only a means of reaching their goal of the modernization of society which they intended to base on rationalism and scientifically inferred forms of human cohabitation. Firstly, atheism was not an end in itself for either thought collective. It was precisely this inherently enlightened faith in reason and the rational progress of humanity that was shared by both bourgeois and Marxist atheists in the interwar period, although the similarity was later vehemently denied. This is also why both thought collectives emphasized the popularization of the natural sciences as positivist knowledge which they saw as the most decisive factor contributing

68  Forms of Atheism in the Interwar Period to the re-education of the masses who remained in the clutches of religious superstition. The emotional aspect of religious belief was also characteristically downplayed or simply ignored during this period, particularly by the freethinkers. The difference between the “antireligiozniki” and the freethinkers in this regard during the pre-war period was that the former denied any possibility of “humanistic religion,” while the latter felt free to explore such possibilities. Secondly, in both countries the thought style was defined almost exclusively as “antireligious” propaganda. As such, it focused on two broad themes, namely, the critique of religious organizations and the clergy, and the rationalist popularization of the natural sciences, such as biology and astronomy. The Czechoslovakian freethinkers also thematized atheist morality in contrast to religious morality, and the Soviet “antireligiozniki” constructed the theme of the criminal activity of the clergy, which was totally absent in the former thought style. Thirdly, both exoteric thought styles lacked a scientific, that is an esoteric, dimension during the interwar period. In both national contexts religious studies existed outside of the sphere of influence of antireligious or atheist thought styles and upheld their own epistemological perspectives.86 This epistemological perspective was based on the contemporary scientific traditions of the discipline itself and of those disciplines that contributed to the formation of independent religious studies. The same can be said of the “ancillary disciplines” such as history, ethnography or anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. Simply put, in the 1920–1930s atheism (regardless whether freethinking or Marxist) did not form part of an identity that was a part of a specific worldview. Rather, it was a tool that could help to make sense of an individual’s existence. It was an intellectual map of sorts, but it did not yet have a compass, i. e. an instrument for discovering completely new islands and continents of atheist knowledge. Finally, it is characteristic of both countries that the content of Marxist atheism was defined by its negative function, i. e. by its ability to unmask or critically deconstruct and explain away all religious phenomena. The explanatory framework that saw religion as superstition and associated it with long obsolete faith in intellectually unsustainable myths was very common. Science, by contrast, was seen as the only way to successfully achieve human progress. Moreover, the status of human progress was elevated to the position of an ultimate value. The thought style was largely set in stone for Marxist atheists in the interwar period. As a result, the emphasis was placed on attempting to change the society in order to fit it into the picture painted by a preconceived Marxist knowledge, which was centered on the withering away of religion thesis. Because the atheist 86 See Nešpor: Ne / náboženské naděje, 147–210, and Bubík: České bádání, 73–128. For the Soviet context see Smirnov: Religiia, 151–171 and Antonov, Konstantin, Mikhailovich: Ot dorevoliutsionnoi nauki o religii k sovetskomu religiovedeniiu: stanovlenie “sovetskoi” formatsii diskursa o religii, in: Antonov: “Nauka o religii,” 27–58.

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practice in the USSR was not continual and ceased completely in 1941, the need to revise the thought style was not as pressing as it was in the context of Czechoslovak interwar thought collective. Nevertheless, the change in the Soviet Union came as early as antireligious propaganda became a part of the public discussion in the 1950s.

2. The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collectivein the Post-war Years (1954–1958) 2.1 The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in the Soviet Union 2.1.1 The Socio-Political Context The question of whether Stalin would have resumed his aggressive bureaucratic and institutional interventions against religion in the Soviet Union had he lived longer will remain unanswered. However, the fact remains that both the propagandist and the research apparatus of the post-war Soviet Union remained extremely cautious to religious and atheist topics. Atheist propaganda was virtually non-existent in the post-war Stalinist Soviet Union. Likewise, the exhibition at the reopened Museum of History of Religion and Atheism in Leningrad (MIRA henceforth) did not excessively emphasize its antireligious nature. Furthermore, the atheist journals and other publishing outlets of the interwar period were not resumed, and there were initially no special departments of scientific-atheist propaganda at the KS , the newly-formed chief propaganda institution. However, the modus vivendi reached between the gensek Stalin and the ROC could not be expected to last as the country gradually recovered from the destruction of war.1 Given this context, questions arise concerning the circumstances under which Marxist atheism was reborn as part of official propaganda, and how it was later transformed into a Marxist scholarly discipline. The death of Stalin formed the pivotal moment in the development of postwar Marxist atheism in the USSR . In April 1953, Bonch-Bruevich2 wrote to a co-worker that the way now appeared open for action. By this statement he meant that the political situation allowed a change of approach towards scientific atheism. In his letter, he expressed his certainty that many scholars around the 1 See Chumachenko: Church, 122–125, and Smolkin-Rothrock: ‘A Sacred Space’, 54 f. 2 Bonch-Bruevich was the director of the MIRA since its reopening in 1947 and one of the leading post-war atheists, who also contributed to the creation of the Sector of the History of Religion and Atheism of the SAS and became its head. In 1950 the sector produced the first volume of “Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma” (Issues of Religious and Atheist’s History). The second volume followed only after Stalin’s death in 1954.

72  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  country were working on the problems of atheism and were ready and willing to cooperate in joint undertakings. In other words, Bonch-Bruevich was contemplating the idea of a scientific-atheist research center.3 According to Joan Delaney Grossman, it was Bonch-Bruevich who shaped not only the initial plan of atheist research, but the entire structure of the antireligious propaganda program that led to the 7 July 1954 decree. However, Pospielovsky questions his level of involvement in the wording of the first antireligious decree since Stalin’s death and points towards another important professional atheist, Fiodor Oleshchuk, as the main figure behind the vigorous change of policy. This opinion is supported by the aggressive tone of his article published in the second issue of “Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma” (Issues of Religious and Atheist’s History, 1954), an annual journal edited by the MIRA .4 Furthermore, Bonch-Bruevich was more concerned with long-term strategy, which makes his involvement in this particular case unlikely. He focused on the personal association with Lenin and identified with his principles in order to gain both academic and party support for a program of more nuanced antireligious propaganda. The essential point of his strategy was focused not on immediate results, but rather on long-term benefits.5 Therefore, he was against short-term campaigns and an unsystematic approach to atheist policies, and rather advocated a system that would be able to produce sustainable results. In other words, he argued for a more defined institutional framework and opposed the so-called administrative measures. Although the degree of involvement of these important esoteric experts in the formulation of the 7 July 1954 degree remains unclear, the two figures illustrate a difference of expert approach towards scientific-atheist education and propaganda, which is reminiscent of the situation in 1925. Bociurkiw asserts that, despite the impossibility of fully explaining the regime’s motives for abandoning Stalin’s “new religious policy,” from the Kremlin’s perspective, the policy’s tactical advantages had become less important with the strengthening of the USSR’s international position. The consolidation of Soviet control over the areas temporarily lost during the war, together with newly annexed territories in the West, may also have played a significant role. Another motive for policy change was the emphasis on ideological conformity and mass indoctrination as a principal method of social control. Such an emphasis opened the way for the post-Stalinist political representatives to reinvent the socialist

3 See Grossman, Joan, Delaney: Leadership of Antireligious Propaganda in the Soviet Union, in: Studies in Soviet Thought 12/3 (1972) 213–230, here 217. 4 See Pospielovsky: A History, 73. About rather moderate, even cautious approach of BonchBruevich see also Shakhnovich, Marianna, Mikhailovna / Chumakova, Tatiana, Vitautasovna: Muzei istorii religii Akademii nauk SSSR i rossijskoe religiovedenie (1932–1961). Sankt Petersburg 2014, 84 f. 5 See Pospielovsky: A History, 226.

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society’s raison d’être after the death of its leader, who had appeared to prefer a policy of concessions to religion since the outbreak of the war.6 A 1954 campaign initiated by the CC ’s decree “On Great Insufficiencies in the Propagating of Scientific Atheism and on Measures for its Improvement,” which was issued on 7 July, was ground-breaking for several reasons. The CPSU had not put forward such a detailed program for propagating and researching atheism since the 1930s.7 It is highly plausible that Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev and his ideological advisors, including Mikhail Suslov, Dmitrii Shepilov, and Aleksandr Shelepin, wanted to emphasize their truly Leninist ideological tenets, and that the antireligious campaign was seen as an ideal symbolic means for achieving this. Furthermore, the idea of continuing with Marxist atheism after a pause of more than twelve years may point to an insecurity among the party leaders, who had struggled to reclaim legitimacy after Stalin’s death. The decree therefore sought to rally all the party members under the banner of atheism, correct the mistakes in the conduct of antireligious propaganda in the recent past, and reconnect them with their ideologically pure, i. e. Leninist origins.8 The decree emphasized that the actual motivation for rejuvenating the atheist campaign lay in the revival of religiosity which had been contradictory to the development foretold by Marx: “there has been a rise in the number of citizens observing religious holy days […] as well as an increase in pilgrimages to holy places.”9 Furthermore, it criticized the passivity of communist organizations. According to the authors, such organizations relied too readily on the “objective causes” and expected the change in socio-economic structure brought by socialism to play the decisive role in the withering away of religion. The decree argued that the passivity of the propagandists and ideological workers had worked against the desired goal of an atheist society, and that their leniency had hindered the historical progress. Although the objective causes would work against religion in the long run, the need for decisive and active atheist propaganda and education was justified by the need to combat the “subjective causes.” These were the cultural remnants of religion that continued to influence individual believers and keep them “in the darkness of religious superstitions.” Moreover, the religious institutions formed the other part of the problem. Unlike the propagandists of Marxist atheism, they continued to actively spread and 6 See Bociurkiw: De-Stalinization, 329. 7 See O Religii i tserkvi: sbornik vyskazyvanii klassikov Marksizma-Leninizma, dokumentov KPSS i Sovetskogo gosudarstva. Moskva 1981, 69–75. 8 A similar interpretation is presented by Chausov, Aleksandr, Igorevich: Evoliutsiia sovetskoi ateisticheskoi propagandy s serediny 50-kh po nachalo 80-kh gg. 20 veka. (Po materialam Novgorodskoj oblasti). Unpublished candidate dissertation. Velikii Novgorod 2010, 29. 9 See O krupnykh nedostatkakh v nauchno-ateisticheskoi propagande i merakh eio uluchsheniia, in: Voprosy ideologicheskoi raboty. Moskva 1961, 61–65.

74  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  nurture the gnoseological roots of religion. The decree argued that the remedy lay in  a vast array of propagandistic measures, including the foundation of  a specialized journal, “Nauka i Religiia” (Science and Religion), individual work with believers, and the extensive publication of various kinds of atheist materials. It is important to note that the fact that all these initiatives had to be explicitly enumerated suggests that none of them were commonly practiced in 1954 and did not become a part of the social reality until 1960s.10 The plan may have gone too far for some members of the central committee who were not prepared for such  a radical change of perspective. According to Smolkin-Rothrock, “the signal issued from the party to produce results on the antireligious front was interpreted by many local officials as  a call to put administrative pressure on local clergy and believers.”11 Moreover, the outburst of administrative activity alienated the believers and stirred unnecessary unrest and protests. As Mikhail Shakhnovich, the deputy director at the MIRA and a close fellow worker of Bonch-Bruevich, reported on 10 October 1954, the atheist activities of the scientific-atheist campaign that ensued after the 7 July degree were not free of errors. This “could harm and discredit scientific-atheist propaganda by making it a ‘crash campaign’ instead of the systematic, patient, and well-versed propaganda of scientific atheism.” Shakhnovich then continued to decry the common practice of atheist propaganda: Very harmful are attempts to “unmask” believers in newspapers just because they still believe in relics of darkness and ignorance. […] Especially wrong are articles about the reactionary essence of sectarianism. […] What is the point of such unmasking that in fact does not contribute to the re-education of believers, contributes nothing to our understanding of religion’s falsity, and only makes people angry?12

A number of reports were produced, particularly by the CAROC and other specialists, and then handed over to the CC . These presumably played a decisive role in instigating a prompt change of policy regarding scientific-atheist education and propaganda. These reports not only exposed the extent to which the decree had backfired, but they also made it clear that this type of aggressive, uncompromising propaganda was counterproductive. Such reports stressed that social division and harmful unrest simply encouraged opposition to Khrushchev at the CC , as the international image of the USSR was damaged by reports of the abuse of religious freedom, which were published in the West.13 The weight of the 10 Compare with Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 57f, Thrower: Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism, 140, and Powell, David: Antireligious Propaganda in the Soviet Union: A Study of Mass Persuasion. London 1978, 131–158. 11 Cit. Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 64. 12 Cit. Kratkaia spravka ob oshibkakh v nauchno-ateisticheskoi propagande, 10 October 1954, in: Shakhnovich / Chumakova: Muzei, 350 f. 13 See Chausov: Evoliutsiia, 31.

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arguments presented by concerned specialists, together with imminent political threats, served to cool down the hot headed-advocates of the aggressive approach initially endorsed by Khrushchev and his ideological think-tank. Instead, they swung the dominant opinion of the CPSU elite towards the adherents of a more moderate approach regarding the nature of atheist education and propaganda.14 Consequently, the campaign was ended on 10 November 1954 by the party resolution “On Errors in Scientific-Atheist Propaganda among the People.”15 However, as Van den Bercken points out, the recognition of past mistakes should not have led to any weakening of the scientific-atheist struggle against religion, which formed an integral part of the communist education of the people.16 Nevertheless, the actual extent and forms of scientific-atheist propaganda were open to question. The most tangible achievements of the post-November period were the renewed publication of the anthology “Problems of the History of Religion and Atheism” and the publication of “The Yearbook of the Leningrad Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism.” These two highly specialized journals, with a marginal print run that amounted to just a couple of thousand copies, were the work of the only two atheist research units in the Soviet Union during years 1954–1958. In other words, the scholarship was virtually non-existent, the institutional support was minimal, and the esoteric thought collective was isolated due to its neglect by the heteronomous force. Nevertheless, as James Thrower pointed out, the November 1954 decree was significant because it led the historical actors to rethink the very essence of scientific atheism within the framework of Marxism-Leninism because “in it can be discerned, for the first time, a shift from an ideological to a philosophical presentation of atheism.”17 The occasional pamphlets on scientific-atheist education also testify that the propaganda was effectively put on hold by the central party institutions and by the KS . After the brief blossoming of atheist topics and the re-opening of certain atheist themes during the 100-day campaign from July to the November 1954 decree, the field of knowledge remained stale and barren for more than four years. However, this was nevertheless a considerable step forward in comparison to the Stalinist period, and these years were not completely sterile. According to the atheist specialists, the problem was that this step was insufficient and that a great deal remained to be desired. A massive quantitative change ensued in 1959 and 1960, and a qualitative leap followed in the second half of 1960s, as will be demonstrated in the chapter 3.  Political support, or the lack thereof, proved to be a vital aspect that determined the extent and distribution of the scientific-atheist thought style between 14 See Chumachenko: Church, 131–133, and Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 67 f. 15 See O religii i tserkvi, 75–81. 16 Van den Bercken: Ideology, 108–111. 17 Cit. Thrower: Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism, 141.

76  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  the propagandist (exoteric) and scholarly (esoteric) fields. The general scientific-­ atheist discourse supported by the CPSU was remarkably dense, although the specialists themselves questioned its quality and depth. However, when political support was withdrawn, the field of scientific atheism was not strong enough to support itself independently as an “indivisible part” of Marxism-Leninism. In other words, the historical actors at the core of scientific atheism’s rejuvenation in 1954 were unable to convince others of the indispensability and universal usefulness of the knowledge they represented, nor of its role in the successful development of the Soviet society. The small handful of scientific-atheists was therefore once again marginalized within their own dominant framework of Marxism-Leninism. They had to rework their realm of knowledge and wait for another opportunity that would allow them to demonstrate their indispensability to the party leaders. Only they were in position to bestow a veneer of authenticity and orthodoxy on various realms of knowledge, dispense the necessary resources, and elevate them to a position of status in the dominant discourse, all within the context of hegemonically controlled spheres of propaganda and scholarship. It is intriguing that the infamous XX Party Congress in 1956 did not actually intend any decisive change regarding the global position of scientific atheism in the Soviet Union, although Khrushchev did indeed say that “it would be wrong to think that the relics of capitalism in the minds of people had already been wiped out.”18 Rather, the disconcerting November 1954 decree that cautioned against scientific-atheist propaganda that was “too harsh” remained valid, and no other directives were given by the party’s upper echelons. Therefore, the atheists received no signal, and the beginnings of de-Stalinization did not bring them any more assurances concerning their own position in the newly constructed ideological framework. In fact, the years 1954–1958 resembled the post-war years, with an almost total absence of scientific-atheist propaganda, meagre research that was confined to the outskirts of the core discussions, and an increase in the activities of the church and of believers.19 The delay in the scientific-­ atheist campaign was presumably caused by the struggle for power in the CC . Although the XX Party Congress marked a decisive victory for the group around Khrushchev, a majority was not secured until the autumn of 1957 when the first secretary of the CPSU disposed of the last remnants of opposition, namely, Georgi Malenkov, Viacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, and Georgi Zhukov.20 18 Cit. Gruliow, Leo / Saikowski, Charlotte (eds.): Current Soviet Policies IV. Vol. 2, 54, cited in: Thrower: Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism, 142. 19 See Powell: Antireligious Propaganda, 40, Pospielovsky: A History, 74, and SmolkinRothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 77–80. 20 See Aksiutin, Iurii, Vasilevich: Khrushchevskaia “ottepel” i obshchestvennye nastroeniia v SSSR v 1953–1964gg. Moskva 2010, 279–301 and Zubov, Andrej (ed.): Dějiny Ruska 20. století, díl 2., 1939–2007. Praha 2015, 341.

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With his political opponents out of the picture, Khrushchev was finally able to initiate changes in the ideological sphere. Such change came at the end of the 1950s. In order to gain a better understanding of the situation, the party elite began with an assessment of the current state of affairs. The initial overview was provided by a special conference in April 1958, which led to the subsequent “Report by the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CSPU for Union Republics on Shortcomings in Scientific-Atheistic Propaganda.” The report was predominantly compiled by the scientific-atheist specialists and contributed to further antireligious decrees and the re-introduction of scientific-atheist education in subsequent years.21 The decisive moment for the development of scientific atheism in the Soviet Union came after the XXI Party Congress in 1959. During the Congress, it was emphasized that scientific-atheist education and propaganda needed to be more persuasive and penetrating in order to achieve the goal of ideologically convincing society.22 Consequently, the years 1959–1960 saw correspondingly greater party control and a much larger allocation of resources to the field of scientific atheism. This impacted the institutional structure, development and the thought style of the collective.23 2.1.2 Institutional Development It has been pointed out that the most important institutions in charge of the dissemination of scientific atheism during the 1954–1958 years were the special branches and departments of the KS . Furthermore, it should be noted that it is only possible to speak of the systematic advancement of scientific atheism from 1959. As Mark Persits, a well-known scientific-atheist propagandist, said during a seminar on scientific-atheist propaganda in April 1959, “we did not conduct systematic antireligious propaganda, or regular, incessant propaganda for 17 years.”24 Practically the only institution openly devoted to the advancement of scientific atheism after the November 1954 decree was the MIRA as the activity of KS was also reduced.25 Therefore, the two main pillars of scientific-atheist knowledge in years 1954–1958 were the central propagandist and mass education institution called the Knowledge Society and the individual scholars who were able to persuade their faculty deans of the necessity for  a specialized department of scientific 21 See Chumachenko: Church, 159 f. 22 See Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation, GARF henceforth), f. A-561, op. 1, d. 375, ll. 35–38. 23 See Grosmann: Leadership, 227. 24 Cit. GARF, f. A-561, op. 1, d. 281, l. 44. 25 See Chausov: Evoliutsiia, 31.

78  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  atheism.26 These two pillars of scientific-atheist knowledge were, of course, supervised by the ideological organs of the party. Both theoretically and practically, the final word on the form and content of the scientific-atheist propaganda and education belonged at this time to the members of both the propaganda and agitation commissions and the ideological commissions of the CPSU.27 In 1958 many special commissions faced the question of how to organize scientific-atheist propaganda and education in order to maximize its effects. Although the majority of Soviet administrative units had had some previous experience with organizing scientific-atheist propaganda, it soon became apparent that in many cases it had to be organized from scratch at the end of the 1950s.28 Given that lectures remained the main agent of persuasion and the main means for eliciting social change among the believing population, the first step in increasing their effectiveness was to educate the future atheist specialists. The number and intensity of the seminars involved indicates the dire need for atheist specialists in the Soviet Union at this time. The previous negligence of the party organs meant that the social group of active and educated advocates of scientific atheism was virtually non-existent at the end of 1950s. As the example from Novgorod oblast shows, the cadres had to be built from scratch here as late as in 1958. By organizing both extraordinary and permanent seminars for atheist lecturers, the party activists sought to solve the pertinent problem of the low quantity and quality of their atheist cadres.29 The upsurge of activity was visible also at the level of RSFSR , where the branch of the KS reported that it had coordinated three republican and 154 regional seminars for atheist lecturers in 1958. Therefore, an upward trend was once more visible at the end of 1950s, especially when compared to the pre-1953 period. However, their self-appointed goals prevented the atheist specialists from viewing developments during the second half of the 1950s too optimistically.30 The other instrument of the scientific-atheist training of new cadres was that of the so-called evening classes on scientific atheism. Although they were seen by the party ideologues as a mere instrument of training necessary to reach the masses who were still religious, for those who were already susceptible to the scientific worldview, the night classes provided the main institution in which they 26 The single most important research center of this period was undoubtedly MIRA in Leningrad, where was also located the editorial board of the Yearbook. 27 See Powell: Antireligious Propaganda, 47–51. 28 One of the first special commissions dealing with scientific-atheist propaganda has been organized in Odessa. The atheist activists took the initiative and founded a dedicated institution, exclusively devoted to scientific-atheist activity called The House of Atheism, See Anufriev, Lev, Aleksandrovich: Iz opyta nauchno ateisticheskoi propagandy, in: Partiinaia zhizn’ 24 (1957) 50. 29 See Chausov: Evoliutsiia, 105. 30 See Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 109.

The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in the Soviet Union   79

became acquainted with the elements of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style. Moreover, there was no other institution at which an eager or would be atheist activist could receive adequate scholarly training and become a highly trained cadre. Therefore, night classes retained their importance as no university in the USSR offered a specialization in scientific atheism until 1959. It was only when the party ideologues took the initiative that led to the organization and institutionalization of scientific-atheist courses and seminars that more individuals were exposed to scientific atheism over an extended period. Previously,  a typical acquaintance with scientific atheism had been confined to single lectures, or to the individual reading of scarce and difficult to obtain antireligious literature. By contrast, the evening classes enabled the presentation of all the main themes of scientific-atheist knowledge in a systematized manner. Therefore, together with the revitalized publication of relevant literature, the atheist seminars and night classes were the direct cause of the creation of a mass of scientific-atheist specialists. Thus, the educational process practically created an exoteric circle for the scientific-atheist thought collective. These were people who understood what the adoption of scientific atheism entailed and they were, at least theoretically, able to think and act as true scientific atheists. In other words, only the training of suitable candidates produced the scientific atheists who, according to Marxist-Leninist theory, ought to have been the result of the construction of socialism. Therefore, the unexpected result of the institutionalization of scientific atheism on the lowest level of the knowledge pyramid was the creation of these atheist adherents. They not only understood and appropriated the contemporary thought style but were also able to reproduce it and thereby keep it alive. Right until the end of the Soviet Union, there were never enough atheist cadres. As Boris Konovalov, one of the scientific-atheist scholars associated with the “Institute of Scientific Atheism” (ISA henceforth) in Moscow, wrote as late as in 1971, “the research experience about the efficiency of atheist propagandist lectures […] shows that we lose an immense amount of power and means on the training of mass atheist cadres which, however, conduct the atheist work only in thirty to fifty percent of cases.”31 Moreover, even fewer atheist specialists were able to conduct scientific-atheist propaganda and education in the long-term, and even fewer were able to do so in republics such as Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, where the majority of the population adhered to Islam.32 Therefore, not only was the number of cadres insufficient to start with, but the group itself was continually drying out due to a high fluctuation in scientific-atheist propagandists. Nevertheless, despite the continual problems with cadres, the number of scientific-atheist lectures given by the newly trained propagandists increased 31 Cit. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsiaľnoi i politicheskoi istorii (Russian State Archive of the Socio-Political History, RGASPI henceforth), f. 606, op. 4, d. 105, l. 13. 32 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 180, ll. 45–46.

80  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  steadily, as the Figure 1 indicates. However, if one only considers the years 1954–1958, then the number of lectures stagnated or even decreased. Although the lectures only seldom met the expectations of either the audience or the leading scientific-atheist specialists, it remained the most important genre and was also the most widespread instrument in the institutional framework of mass persuasion from the end of the 1950s onwards.33 Although the numbers presented in Figure 1 may appear overwhelming at first, they need to be contextualized in order to reconstruct the position of scientific atheism within the structure of Soviet propaganda. Of the total number of lectures produced over the years by the KS , the scientific-atheist lectures only comprised about five percent during the second half of the 1950s, and only four percent since the 1960s. The only visible exception is the year 1954 in which they amounted to nine percent of the total 1.3 million atheist lectures organized by the Knowledge Society. However, although there was a notable increase in the total number of lectures during the second half of the 1950s, this trend was not reflected in the same way in the scientific-atheist lectures. Furthermore, it has to be kept in mind that the vast majority of the lectures were delivered in cities and towns, and that very few lecturers reached the countryside. Therefore, the occasional reports by local atheist activists and party officials that they had not heard an atheist lecture for years in certain areas represents the normal situation rather than an exception to the rule.34 In other words, the coverage of atheist propaganda was spatially uneven from the start, and the situation remained unchanged until the end of the USSR . This was partially due to the problem with cadres discussed above. In addition, the geography of the Soviet Union also played an important role. In many cases, the permanent presence of religious authorities also negated the sporadic and temporary atheist efforts. However, the main reason why the countryside remained virtually untouched by the scientific-atheist propaganda was that scientific atheism was not  a top priority for the party elites in regions, even during the most favorable period in the first half of the 1960s.35

33 Whereas in 1954 was the final number of lectures on atheist themes 120 000, it rose to 303 000 in 1958 and 400 000 in 1959 until it reached 660 000 atheist lectures in 1963. This number should be considered in relation to the size and population of the Soviet Union to get a better understanding of its actual reach. The fact that there were 209 million inhabitants in the Soviet Union in 1959 means that every atheist lecture should have been attended by approximately 522 people in order to reach all Soviet citizens at least once, which was clearly utopian prospect given the fact that the audience only seldom exceeded 30 people, especially in the countryside. See Powell: Antireligious Propaganda, 105–110, and Theodorowitsch, Nadeshda: Religion und Atheismus in der UdSSR . München 1970, 88 f. 34 See Chausov: Evoliutsiia, 37–39. 35 See Stone, Andrew: “Overcoming Peasant Backwardness”: The Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union, in: The Russian Review 67/2 (2008) 296–320.

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Simply put, the only historical actors who really cared about scientific atheism were a)  the die-hard Marxist atheist activists, who sought to free the masses from the shackles of religion within the framework of the KS ; and b) those who wanted to study religion and atheism from a scholarly perspective within the framework of a Marxist-Leninist philosophical and epistemological paradigm. It is important to note that neither of these two groups, which comprised the vast majority of scientific-atheist specialists, was politically significant. Crucially, the scientific-atheist specialists had to persuade the party officials, who oversaw the decision-making processes at all levels of the Soviet administrative establishment, to pay more attention to levels of religiosity. If the scientific atheists were successful in presenting their argument, then the political establishment generally provided the necessary funds to organize a score of atheist activities for a certain period of time in order to enhance the region’s “objectively ongoing secularization process.”36 However, such atheist work was only seldom an initiative of the local party officials themselves because they simply lacked the necessary knowledge to even see the problem. This means that the local political plenipotentiaries most of the times only reacted on the situation pointed out to them by the members of the scientific-atheist thought collective. Consequently, the political elites in regions were almost never the harbingers of change but rather more or less obedient executors of the ideas elicited by the scientific-­ atheist experts. Far from being an intrinsic and, therefore, omnipresent part of MarxismLeninism, from the very beginning of the 1950s the presence of scientific atheism in the Soviet Union had to be negotiated by its supporters in order to receive at least some attention and funding by the local political elites. At the level of the “raikom” (district committee), “gorkom” (city committee), and “obkom” (regional committee), it was these local elites that collectively decided on the allunion impact of the scientific-atheist endeavor as the CC did not create a body with the necessary executive power for controlling and guiding the atheization process on the all-union scale. The central scientific-atheist institutions created in the 1950s illustrate the ambiguous approach of the CC to the issue. For example, the autonomous branches of the KS had neither the power nor the means to influence religious believers without the continuous support of the party officials. However, the latter had always seen levels of religiosity as a political issue, rather than as a matter of a fundamental ideological struggle. Therefore, in contrast to the minority of scientific-atheist specialists, their approach to religiosity was rather utilitarian and sometimes plainly administrative. Of course, they were aware that a high percentage or an increasing number of religious believers in their administrative domain could have been castigated 36 Such was the case for example in the City of Odessa, as Anufriev reported. See Anufriev: Iz opyta, 51 f.

82  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  as an example of imprecise or perfunctory leadership by higher ranking officials. Thus, they were willing to cooperate with the scientific-atheist specialists of various ranks when they thought that religion could be a political issue. However, when the immediate threat symbolized by the rise of religiosity abated, or when the number of religious believers in a given administrative domain was under the all-Union or “Oblast’” (regional) average, the political officials had no incentive for cooperating with the scientific atheists. As  a result, they did not support seemingly unnecessary atheist lectures or other forms of propaganda activity.37 This does not mean that the scientific-atheist specialists were completely powerless. Rather, their ability to point out possibly politically dangerous levels of religiosity was one of their greatest strengths and it contributed immensely to their negotiating power and leverage. However, their field of action and potential range of influence depended on their ability to communicate the core problematic of scientific atheism to the often technocratically oriented party officials. While there were “obkom” and “gorkom” secretaries who were themselves scientific-atheist activists, it is safer to assume that such sympathetic officials were the exception rather than the rule. This assertion is based on the fact that various reports emphasized that the party officials neglected scientific-­ atheist propaganda, although they provided no further tangible evidence. By contrast, the few examples of local party officials sympathetic to the scientific-­ atheist education and propaganda effort were always held up as examples to be followed.38 Although such evidence is only circumstantial, it supports the above interpretation.

2.2 The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in Czechoslovakia 2.2.1 The Socio-Political Context The five-year Stalinist period in Czechoslovakia left a legacy of many antireligious administrative measures. These political acts (mainly against the Catholic Church) cannot be directly associated with scientific atheism which back then did not exist as  a compact epistemological paradigm or realm of knowledge. Nevertheless, these measures formed an important prologue as they weakened church’s powers in society and reduced its options for entering debates in the public sphere. 37 Shakhnovich, a deputy chair of the scientific-atheist section of the Knowledge Society in Leningrad region concluded: “the reduction of realized lectures can be clarified by undervaluation of scientific-atheist propaganda by the local (party) organizations.” Cit. Iz opyta nauchno-ateisticheskoi propagandy. Moskva 1956, 13.  38 The establishment of the Odessa House of Atheism mentioned above is a case in point in this regard.

The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in Czechoslovakia  83

The public discourse on churches and religion from this period (1948–1953) can be characterized as antireligious in the sense of the Soviet interwar propaganda. The press and the other media predominantly reflected the treacherous and reactionary policies of the Catholic Church in general, and the “Vatican” in particular. The attacks were mainly aimed at the Catholic Church because it was seen as the single most important remaining political enemy in Czechoslovakia. The other scientific-atheist topics and themes of the interwar period were peculiarly absent in this context. In fact, apart from denouncing the Catholic Church, the press was completely silent on religious and atheist matters. However, this served a practical political purpose at the time, and no connection was made between scientific atheism and the Catholic Church. Furthermore, virtually no scientific-atheist propaganda was conducted, and there were only a few scientificatheist books published during the period of 1948–1953.39 During this period, the amoral and subversive activities of various church dignitaries (e.g. Archbishop Josef Beran) and priests were regularly condemned. One example of this was the case of the so-called “Číhošť Miracle,” which occurred in December 1949. In this case, the priest Josef Toufar allegedly fabricated a miracle in order to promote the Christian faith and then died at the hands of the Czechoslovakian State Security. Party propagandists made a documentary entitled “Beware Those through Which Comes Indignation,” which “exposed” the fabrication of the miracle.40 In addition, the press often framed selected clergymen, monks, and members of the hierarchy as enemies of the people. The propaganda effort conducted during the court trials by the CPC showed no mercy and was intended to denigrate the church dignitaries at the time of political processes in order to further undermine any sympathy with the accused. In April 1950, during  a process involving monastic dignitaries, “Rudé právo” (The Red Justice), the main newspaper at the time, wrote that “high ranking church dignitaries had subverted the people’s democracy, tried to elicit state secrets and give them away to foreign powers, and had thus committed crimes of high treason and espionage.” Their guilt was further proved by “machine guns hidden in the monastery in case of an uprising against the state.”41 After 39 One of the rare exceptions was Nejedlý, Zdeněk: Slovo o náboženství. Praha 1949, and rather academic treatise written by an internationally well-known scholar Otakar Pertold, who embraced Marxism after 1948 coup-d’état. Pertold, Otakar: Úvod do vědy náboženské. Praha 1947. One of the most significant translated books was written by western Marxist Roger Garaudy, who was condemned by Soviet atheists in 1960s as a “renegade of Marxism” because of his later attempts to facilitate a rapprochement between Marxist philosophy and Christian theology. See Garaudy, Roger: Církev, komunismus a křesťané. Praha 1950. 40 More on this case Doležal, Miloš: Jak bychom dnes zemřít měli: drama života, kněžství a mučednické smrti číhošťského faráře P. Josefa Toufara. Pelhřimov 2012. 41 Cit. Církevní hodnostáři v čele skupiny velezrádců a vyzvědačů. In: Rudé právo, 1 April 1950, 3.

84  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  the court sentence had sent the abbots and other dignitaries to jail for ten years, Rudé právo commented that, among other things, the process had shown that espionage and treachery are more important for the Vatican than religious activity. If [the dignitaries, JT] had only fulfilled their religious and sacerdotal obligations, they would never have been accused. They were accused because of their criminal activities. […] It is not about religion, and it is not about the Church.42

By contrast, the rank-and-file believers were only seldom persecuted for their faith. Although so-called cadre questionnaires were used in assessing candidates for certain positions many believers retained their jobs. Some were even members of the communist party, such as Gustáv Husák, who officially remained in the Catholic Church.43 Moreover, religious education remained  a common practice, which around ninety percent of pupils attended.44 Indeed, the masses were skillfully used in the propaganda campaign against the Catholic Church, and the ordinary believers’ disgust cemented the guilt and moral insufficiency of the dignitaries charged. For example, Tomáš Smelík, a milling machine operator from Otrokovice, wrote that “they received a just verdict. I had expected it. It is right. We have to act remorselessly against high-ranking clergymen who are trying to lead ordinary clergymen into the anti-state spirit under the veil of religion.”45 This is not to say that the believers remained completely untouched by the repressions of the early 1950s. Lay catholic intellectuals were particularly persecuted for their faith, and the writers Jan Zahradníček and František Křelina were sentenced in a show trial in 1952. However, the system did not generally involve mass purges of ordinary believers and their elimination from public posts. Rather, religious faith may have been used as a pretext for softer social pressure, such as removing a particular individual from a position that was desired for a committed communist or atheist. Following the example of the post-war Soviet Union, the Czechoslovak communists were wary of orchestrating  a full-blown atheist campaign. The first attempt to raise the question occurred on 11 July 1955, just three months after the first congress of the “Společnost pro šíření politických  a vědeckých znalostí” (The Society for the Dispersal of Political and Scientific Knowledge, SPŠPVZ henceforth). A team of workers from the CC ’s third department of the CPC , led by the ideologue Václav Slavík, prepared a draft resolution entitled “O soustavném rozvíjení vědecko-atheistické propagandy” (On the Continuous 42 Cit. Spravedlivý trest za špionáž a velezradu, in: Rudé právo, 6 April 1950, 1. 43 See Macháček, Michal: Cesta Gustáva Husáka ke komunistickému hnutí, in: Český časopis historický 112/2 (2014) 227–260, here 240. 44 See Balík / Hanuš: Katolická církev, 212–220. 45 Cit. Souhlasné projevy s potrestáním agentů Vatikánu, in: Rudé právo, 7 April 1950, 1.

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Development of Scientific-Atheist Propaganda). Although no explicit connection to the 1954 resolutions concerned with scientific-atheist propaganda and education approved by the CPSU can be found in archives, it is highly likely that the draft was inspired by the measures adopted by Khrushchev’s administration in the Soviet Union. However, the immediate cause for formulating the draft was the unsettling news that the number of believers had risen by twenty percent in some regions in comparison to 1950, notably in Moravia and Slovakia. This was based on the observation of participation in church rituals, such as Sunday mass and religious rites of passage.46 Apart from the heightened activity of Catholic believers, it was also reported that sectarians were attracting new members. In other words, neither the administrative measures nor the plain anticlerical campaign had facilitated the desired outcome of overcoming religion. The fact that the CPC turned its attention to this aspect of ideology suggests that a) the great changes in the economic structure had already been completed from the perspective of the party theoreticians, and b) that the time had come to address other issues of the superstructure. While these were dependent on the changes in the economic structure, it became clear from the social practice that they could not be left unattended by the party. To remind the Central Committee of the nature of religion, the draft’s introduction described the general need to fight all anachronisms of the past, in order to be able to construct socialism. It is striking how vague and general the definition of religion’s downsides and dangers was. The draft provided neither specific examples of how faith hampered the economy, nor details on the specific ills of religion. This was presumably because there were virtually no specialists who were able to form a body of knowledge representative enough to facilitate a general change of public understanding of the phenomena related to religion. The draft therefore lacked a detailed study and scientifically informed critiques of religion from a Marxist perspective were unable to provide the necessary level of detail. Slavík also argued that not a single component of the system was effective and that atheist propaganda had been neglected by the party. In his critique, he explicitly stated that “the scientific-atheist propaganda has not become  a mandatory part of the work of party organizations.”47 Moreover, some party members had become passive because they had taken the “withering away” thesis for granted and, as a result, saw no point in intervening against religion 46 See Návrh usnesení ÚV KSČ o soustavném rozvíjení vědecko-atheistické propagandy, Národní archiv České republiky (National Archives of the Czech Republic, NA ČR henceforth), fond KSČ ÚV 02/4, ÚV 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 79, aj. 72, b. 7, f. 11. 47 Cit. ibid.

86  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  and promoting scientific atheism. This assertion meant that the institutional structure of atheist propaganda was virtually non-existent in Czechoslovakia at the time of the draft’s composition. No one had been made responsible for it and; therefore, until 1955, no one was concerned that it had not been carried out. The draft is one of the first postwar traces of Czechoslovak atheist thinking and it represents the approach of party elites. As such, it attests the thesis that the atheist thought collective was virtually non-existent in Czechoslovakia as late as in 1955. The draft was supposed to change this. As such, it had the potential (symbolic) power to (re)define the dormant field of knowledge. What measures did Slavík’s draft propose in order to accelerate social change? Firstly, he advocated integrating atheist propaganda into the core of the party’s systematic, long-term propaganda. Secondly, the CPC ’s liberalism regarding its members’ religious beliefs would need to be changed to a more rigorous approach. Once the party was ideologically united, mass propaganda efforts were expected to ensue in order to ensure that atheism would reach the workers and the peasants. This propaganda was expected to popularize science, but the atheist interpretation was to become more pronounced. At the same time, vulgar attacks on religion were to be eliminated in order to prevent hurting the believers’ feelings. Thirdly, local nuances and religious traditions would need to be taken into consideration, and the topics of the lectures were expected to differ according to the audience. On the institutional level, the propaganda was to be carried out by the SPŠPVZ . The draft suggested the formation of special scientific-atheist groups at the higher organizational levels of the SPŠPVZ , which were to have overseen and controlled the scientific-atheist propaganda in the regions. In addition to direct propaganda, the draft called for a change in publication politics. The number of available “classics,” together with newly-written atheist pamphlets, books, and posters, were to be greatly extended and distributed to the problematic regions. The same applied to press articles and television production.48 The draft also noted the need to establish scientific institutions on the basis of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, which would unite all scientific-atheist scholars and provide them with the means for undertaking research on religion and atheism. Changes were also to be made in higher education. The primary concern was the ideological purity of the future school teachers. Therefore, it was proposed that courses on scientific atheism and religion should form part of the curriculum of the faculties of pedagogy and arts. Furthermore, prospective students for the faculties of pedagogy were to be chosen primarily from “progressive families” and existing teachers were to be subjected to “re-examination of the cadre occupation” in relation to their suspected religiosity. While administrative measures were strongly opposed for rank-and-file believers, it was

48 See ibid., ff. 16–19.

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another matter when it came to the domain of the state controlled by the party. The draft made it clear that religion should not be regarded as a private matter for the party and its members. Likewise, it was not a private matter for certain state employees, such as teachers.49 This section of the draft described the control of knowledge in practical terms, that is, how, by whom, and in what ways it was to be produced and consumed. Despite appearing comprehensive, Slavík’s draft was rejected in June 1955 at the CC meeting. Bruno Köhler, a CC secretary, and Antonín Novotný, the first secretary of the CC at the time, both objected to it. Köhler began his criticism with accusations that the draft promoted sectarianism. However, the main reason for opposing it was that neither Köhler nor Novotný wanted to “engage in antireligious politics on a wide forum” or “undertake antireligious struggle.”50 In other words, they preferred the existing state of affairs and the relative stability of society after Gottwald’s death. Conservative pragmatism probably played a key role in their decision-making process. Therefore, they did not see the ideological ramifications and potential danger of religious belief as a serious threat as long as the believers continued to support the construction of socialism and the party regime, as they had done up until that point. They were not prepared to exchange their social consensus for the potential unrest that would be caused by a full-blown atheist campaign. The example of the Soviet Union after the first atheist resolution in June 1954 probably served to deter them. The first attempt to create a field of scientific-atheist propaganda in Czechoslovakia from the center ended in failure. The party leaders did not feel strong or prepared enough to face the challenges that the proposed scientific-atheist propaganda campaign would bring on the state level, nor did they have the full support of the party. In other words, they were rather skeptical about claims that the benefits of such a campaign would outweigh its costs. Furthermore, they saw no need to strengthen the Marxist identity of the party members by adding an atheist component to the core values of Marxism-Leninism at that point. Therefore, both scientific atheism and religious belief remained a private matter for the CPC members, although the former was officially welcomed and the latter could potentially cause problems. The pressure on the non-party populace to refrain from their religious faith was even weaker. Believing teachers were generally able to keep their jobs and overzealous school directors who discouraged parents from sending their children to classes about religion remained the exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless, Slavík’s draft also indicates that not all party members were so negligent of the ideological questions. The fact that the draft appeared at all demonstrates that there was a growing demand to act against the “last remaining 49 See ibid., ff. 19–21. 50 Cit. ibid., f. 2.

88  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  foe” and eliminate it once and for all. In contrast to the party leaders, who were rather inexperienced in matters of religion and atheism, the adherents of scientific-atheist propaganda activists, who were the only remaining specialists on religion and atheism in the middle of 1950s, saw it as a real threat to their civilizing mission and to the social change that they proposed. Although they presented hard facts concerning the rejuvenation of religious belief in Czechoslovakia after the destruction of the economic and social bases of religion, people like Slavík were unable to persuade Novotný and his group to take the action to counter this trend. As a result, the attempt by the scientific-atheist propagandists to create more space for their own action, win some cultural capital, and elevate their status and importance in the party structure, was unsuccessful. After the failure to push through the resolution on scientific-atheist propaganda, the issue was not raised again at the CC level for another two years. In February 1957 the CPC secretariat approved an inter-regional meeting on the issue. This meeting was called on behalf of the “krajský výbor” (regional committee)  of the CPC in Ostrava. In addition to the party officials of the regional ideological departments, other institutions such as the SPŠPVZ , and the Ministry of Culture and Education, local officials of culture were also expected to participate.51 Although the meeting’s minutes are not available, the fact that regional party officials in some parts of the republic perceived religion as a detrimental factor indicates that the support for more comprehensive atheist propaganda was not limited to  a few members of the CC ’s third department. Rather, it had  a larger base of supporters, particularly in the more religious regions such as Moravia and Slovakia. The cautious approach to atheism changed in June 1958 when the XI Congress of the CPC occurred. The Congress made the pronouncement that hailed the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. According to Jiří Hendrych, the main author of this part of the program, the Cultural Revolution was a decisive step that would lead to the completion of socialism in Czechoslovakia. In order to complete this step, certain ideological goals needed to be met. Interestingly, some of these goals were directly related to the goals of the scientific-atheist propaganda formulated by Slavík in his 1955 draft. More specifically, the goals of the Cultural Revolution included “education in communist morality, fighting to overcome the influence of bourgeois ideology, and the spreading of communist ideas to the widest social strata.”52 Why did Novotný’s administration decide to bring ideological questions to the fore? This was partially due to the implications of de-Stalinization, which had shaken up the Eastern Bloc’s political landscape, although the ensuing debates 51 See NA ČR , fond KSČ ÚV 02/4, Ústřední výbor 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 115, aj. 159, b. 4. 52 Cit. Usnesení XI . sjezdu KSČ , in: Nová mysl, 1958, 237.

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in Czechoslovakia were not as virulent and dangerous for the CPC as they had been in Poland and Hungary, where the Destalinization process grew into the uprising in the fall of 1956.53 Nevertheless, the ideological structures were shaken up even in Czechoslovakia, and the debates between “revisionist” and conservative intelligentsia both inside and outside of the party placed the CPC ’s ideological monopoly in question.54 The Cultural Revolution in Czechoslovakia was therefore an answer to the debates that occurred in the aftermath of the CPSU ’s XX Congress. It was also an attempt by the CPC to regain control over ideology and to demonstrate that it was maintaining the true course of Marxism-­ Leninism. At this point, the question again arose concerning what exactly should constitute the canon of socialist identity in Czechoslovakia. While the attitudes towards social reforms and the post-February political establishment had previously been seen as the important point, irrespective of membership of the communist party, at the end of 1950s the depth and degree of loyalty to the Marxist-Leninist philosophical worldview and the internalization of its epistemological presuppositions also became important. Scientific atheism was not seen as an indispensable part of Marxism-Leninism until 1958. Instead, it was seen as a less important ideological facet that was not required to be implemented as vigorously as other aspects of the doctrine. However, the debates concerning its integral place in Czechoslovakia now entered a context in which it was much more difficult to ignore it. In December 1958, five months after the XI Congress of the CPC , Slavík prepared another draft entitled “On Some Pressing Questions Regarding the Development of Scientific-­Atheist Education.” This resolution, which shared more than a passing similarity with the previous draft, was approved by the CC in January 1959.55 With this decision, the party gave the go-ahead for the organization of scientific-atheist propaganda in Czechoslovakia, which is discussed in the third chapter. 2.2.2 Institutional Development Although the SPŠPVZ in Czechoslovakia was founded in 1952, the first dedicated scientific-atheist departments within the organization were only formed during the years 1954–1958. The existence of these scientific-atheist departments ensured some form of atheist propaganda in years 1954–1958, but its content and reach were strictly limited. In the 1956 Report of the Presidium of the SPŠPVZ 53 See Kaplan, Karel: Kronika komunistického Československa. Kořeny reformy 1956– 1968: společnost a moc. Praha 2008, 8–23, and Pernes, Jiří: Krize komunistického režimu v Československu v 50. letech 20. století. Brno 2008, 128–178. 54 See Kopeček:, Michal, 85–95. 55 See NA ČR , fond KSČ ÚV 02/4, Ústřední výbor 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 157, aj. 243, b.7.

90  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  concerning the XX Congress of the CPSU, the chairman, František Šorm, stated that the very slow development of atheist activities is a serious deficiency in the area, and it should be one of the main pillars of our educational work. In the four months of the current year, there has only been one such lecture in the Hradec Králové region, two in the Liberec region, three in the Ústí nad Labem region, four in the Gottwaldov region, and five in the Jihlava region. At the same time, the lectures were not well attended. The topics are not specific, […] one can barely see lectures in which the atheist conclusions are based on facts from the natural sciences. The number of lecturers is small. […] In some regions, the whole theme is ensured by only two lecturers.56

A similar statement concerning the underdevelopment of the atheist lectures was made by Ivan Sviták, who stated: “in the second trimester of 1955 only 52 such public lectures took place in all the Czech regions.”57 The main substitute for explicit scientific-atheist lectures was largely the popularization of science, which was centered on topics such as astronomy, biology, and physics. The occasional lectures on the history of religion in general, and the role of the Vatican in international politics in particular, were limited to a few events per year. The same can be said about the lectures on socialist morality, which started to appear under the title “The Purpose of Life” in the last third of the 1950s. In comparison to 1958, and especially 1959, the relatively low number of lectures and propaganda materials openly discussing the origins of religion, and the virtual absence of lectures on the positive features of scientific atheism, suggests that the overall understanding of atheist propaganda by its perpetrators prior to the December 1958 resolution was substantially different than afterwards.58 However, the rejection of Slavík’s 1955 draft had not cancelled out atheist propaganda entirely. Rather, it had helped to strengthen the perception of antireligious propaganda as a part of the natural sciences propaganda in the regions. This was problematic for two reasons. Firstly, the propagandists of these sciences were not usually in favor of openly merging their topics with atheism. Therefore, lectures such as “The Journey to the Depths of Space” and “What Do We Know about the Origins of Life?” almost never drew explicit conclusions in such a way that would satisfy the atheist specialists. Secondly, the SPŠVZV lecturers were themselves only rarely convinced Marxist atheists at this point.

56 Cit. Zpravodaj, Informativní materiál o práci Československé společnosti pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí 2/5 (1956) 6. 57 Cit. Sviták, Ivan: Cesty překonávání náboženství. Praha 1957, 219. 58 See Slezský zemský archiv Opava (Silesian Land Archive, SZA henceforth), Fond Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí, inv. číslo 103, karton 34, 1956, SZA , Fond Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí, inv. číslo 59, karton 23, 1960–1961.

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As the secretary of the SPŠPVZ branch in the Jihlava region, Jan Kasal, wrote on 11 October 1955: it is our specific goal in the current time to help our lecturer-members in the astronomic, biological, medical, and agronomical sections to dispose of the relics of religious obscurantism. It is  a basic requirement that “I,” who want to disseminate knowledge, must above all comprehend it myself, believe in it, and act accordingly.59

As a result, the second half of the 1950s witnessed a clash in the largest propaganda institution, the SPŠPVZ , concerning the boundaries of atheist propaganda. The specific feature of this clash was the lack of guidance from above. In the core of the struggle, as it was expressed by the SPŠPVZ ’s leaders, lay a need to include as many branches of natural science as possible in the atheist explanatory framework. The historian Josef Macek, who was the chairman of the organization in 1957, reiterated the goals of atheist propaganda in his annual speech on the activities of the SPŠPVZ in 1957: I am sure that no one reacts peacefully to the flocks of believers in churches and chapels. […] The goals of atheist propaganda cannot be understood departmentally. All the regional committees and central sections should continually track how atheist propaganda penetrates the thematic plans and orientation of the social science and natural science sections. […] We must strive for an adoption of convictions based on verified facts instead of erratic and wrong convictions.60

The atheist specialists saw the other sciences mentioned above as the main vehicles of indirect atheist propaganda and continually saw particular topics as having potential for a successful atheist effort. However, in the absence of the direct backing of their discursive claims by a CC resolution, they did not have the leverage to make the lecturers of other departments implement elements of the atheist thought style into their presentations. To their dismay, the potential they saw for their cause was not shared by the majority of their colleagues and their dream concerning the intersection of the atheist thought style with all other thought styles remained unfulfilled. Therefore, the impact on the direct atheization of society was minimal, as the atheist specialists grudgingly conceded in November 1958: If we analyze the work of the natural science sections, we come to the conclusion that an opinion prevails that the sole explanation of natural science’s basic facts is 59 Cit. Moravský zemský archiv Brno (Moravian Land Archive, MZA henceforth), fond G 310, Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí — k rajský výbor Jihlava, karton 1, Návrh na usnesení krajského výboru Společnosti, kraj. odbočky v Jihlavě, 11.10.1957, f. 3. 60 Cit Zpravodaj. Informativní materiál o práci Československé společnosti pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí 3/2 (1957) 21. 

92  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  by itself effective atheist propaganda. As a result, they think that there is no need to concentrate specifically on atheist questions in their lectures on the natural sciences. Yet the practice has shown that such a presentation of facts is not always persuasive enough. Above all, it does not give the audience the possibility for making their own philosophical conclusions.61

In other words, the Marxist atheist propaganda discourse in Czechoslovakia in the second half of the 1950s was open to negotiation and was far from set in stone. Neither the exoteric nor the esoteric scientific-atheist thought style had been developed yet, although the process of its establishment had begun. While the negative elements of the thought style, such as the scientifically founded critique of religion, were relatively clear, its positive content remained open. Some topics, such as socialist morality and the purpose of life, appeared to be logical options to include to the emerging atheist realm of knowledge. Others, by contrast, found their way into atheist thinking due to their pertinence in daily life, e.g. the conceptualization and theorization of scientific-atheist propaganda. However, the question of the usefulness of natural sciences was more complicated. The SPŠPVZ ’s institutional development directly influenced the outlook and form of the atheist thought style. This was predominantly exoteric in nature because the SPŠPVZ was first and foremost an institution that dealt with ideologically conscious mass education. As  a result, the early atheist thought style in Czechoslovakia was based on and structured around already firmly established facts and the popularization of new discoveries made within other thought styles. It was not the primary goal of the propagandists to produce original and innovative research, or to create new knowledge, although some of its best lecturers were scholars and academics. Other realms of knowledge, such as astronomy or biology, did not have problems with  a split between an expert, esoteric knowledge, produced predominantly by the research institutes and located at the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences (CSAS henceforth), and popularized, simplified exoteric knowledge used by propagandists and intended for the masses. However, this dichotomy posed a significant problem for those disciplines that did not have an established research center within the institutional structures of Czechoslovakian science, such as scientific atheism. Scientific atheism in the Czechoslovakia of the 1950s is therefore  a prime example of a discipline that was unable to draw on freshly produced scientific knowledge and to adjust it for the propaganda purposes of the SPŠPVZ . This was simply because there was virtually no-one who could produce such expert knowledge. As early as 1956, Otakar Nahodil, the chairman of the central atheist 61 Cit. Moravský zemský archiv v Brně (MZA) Brno, fond G 310, Československá společnost pro šíření politických  a vědeckých znalostí — k rajský výbor Jihlava, Karton 2, Práce Čs. Společnosti pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí v Jihlavě na úseku atheistické výchovy, 18.11.1958, f. 1.

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section of the SPŠPVZ and one of the most renowned atheist scholars in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, pointed out that “the central section, to  a great extent, substitutes the activity of the, so far, non-existent scientific research center for the study of religion and atheism, [which, JT] is a serious shortcoming.”62 The consequence of an insufficient supply of fresh, new, scientific-atheist knowledge was the repetitiveness of the lectures, which became increasingly formal and less interesting to the audience. As Milan Zubek, another member of the central atheist section in Prague, reported, the “principal deficiencies in atheist propaganda, e.g. its unsystematic nature, spasmodic character, bad coordination of lectures, low attendance, low qualification of lecturers, are a huge impediment to the further development of atheist propaganda.”63 2.2.2.1 The Beginnings of Scientific Atheism in the Jihlava Region: A Case Study This case study is based on the archival research concerning the SPŠPVZ branch in Jihlava. It demonstrates that the early understanding of the atheist realm of knowledge of the atheist exoteric specialists of the time was strongly linked to the natural sciences. Because they were not trained astronomers or enthusiastic Darwinists, but were rather propagandists of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, they were unable to create the atheist interpretation of the natural sciences themselves. Contrary to the perception of Marxist atheism shared by other ideologues, such as Slavík, the propagators of natural sciences did not share their point of view, and the atheist specialists were unable to persuade them to change their stance. As a result, the atheist idea of creating a binding and overarching explanatory framework with which to promote the other sciences was not accepted as the dominant view in the significant reference groups that were represented by the the other SPŠPVZ branches, probably due to  a lack of political backing. Therefore, although the atheist specialists never relinquished the idea of the potential usefulness of the natural sciences for their cause, until December 1958 they remained isolated and neglected by the rest of the community of lecturers. However, the atheist specialists also promoted direct atheist propaganda. In 1955 Jan Kasal, deputy director of the high school in Jihlava, František Bělka, and other member of the Marxist-Leninist Philosophy section, were the most active propagandists of atheism in Jihlava region. Each of them delivered six lectures on the topic “Science on the Essence and Development of Religion” during 1955, which comprised almost half of the total number of 27 explicitly atheist lectures 62 Cit. Zpravodaj. Informativní materiál o práci Československé společnosti pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí 2/10 (1956) 17. 63 Cit. Zpravodaj. Informativní materiál o práci Československé společnosti pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí 2/6 (1956) 14.

94  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  that year. When compared to other potentially atheist lectures, such as those on astronomy, this already small number rises exponentially. If one only counts the 75 lectures on astronomy, together with a handful of lectures on the “Purpose of Life,” this would amount to approximately 150 “atheist” lectures, with one to six ratio of explicitly atheist to indirectly atheist lectures. If one only counted the explicitly atheist lectures, then these would comprise only around two percent of the total number of approximately 1200 lectures delivered by the Jihlava branch of the SPŠPVZ in 1955.64 However, if all the lectures with atheist potential were added, then the total share of these lectures to the total number of lectures would be around twelve percent. The possibility to enhance popularization lectures from other scientific disciplines with atheist meaning and thus enlarge the potential impact of scientific-atheist ideas was undoubtedly very attractive to many scientific atheists. Not only would the audience be exposed to scientific atheism through other scientific contexts, but scientific atheism as a realm of knowledge would appear as much more significant in the eyes of the party plenipotentiaries. These considerations undoubtedly formed another motivation for encouraging atheist specialists to breach the fortress of natural sciences with atheist content. The development of the “direct” and unquestionably atheist propaganda in Jihlava region in the years 1953–1959 is indicated by Figure 2.65 Although there are no data for 1954, two trends are discernible. Firstly, there was an upsurge of atheist lectures in 1955, followed by  a downfall in 1956 and 1957. This relative decrease could be explained by the rejection of Slavík’s draft which effectively put Marxist atheism’s further development in the following years on hold and shifted attention to so-called indirect atheist propaganda. This type of propaganda was viewed as highly problematic by the atheist specialists and consisted of the popularization of the natural sciences as the main agent of atheization. However, the subsequent increase in direct atheist propaganda, was 64 Because the total number of all lectures delivered by the regional branch of SPŠPVZ in Jihlava 1955 is unkown, the realistic estimate of 1200 lectures is based on the number of lectures in 1954 (913) and 1956 (1434). See MZA Brno, fond G 310, Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí — k rajský výbor Jihlava, karton 2.  65 The data for both Figure 2 and Figure 3 are based on the survey of all lectures delivered by the regional branch of the SPŠPVZ in Jihlava, see MZA Brno, fond G 310, Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí — k rajský výbor Jihlava, kartony 4–6. The lectures had to be counted manually because the records about atheist lectures were not kept. The selection of lectures was based on two criteria. The first criterion was topical. Therefore, only such lectures, whose name conveyed explicitly atheist connotations, were chosen. The second criterion was based on the inscription of  a lecture as being related to atheism. Because atheism became distinguished from Marxist-Leninist philosophy only in 1958 in Jihlava branch of the SPŠPVZ , this criterion could not be applied to prior lectures. However, a retrospective check was made to make sure that no lectures, which would have been in 1959 described as atheist, did fall out from the survey.

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undoubtedly linked to the XI Party Congress, and to the ideological offensive represented by the announcement of the Cultural Revolution and the resolution on scientific-atheist propaganda. In 1959 the number of explicitly atheist lectures reached a total of 123, which was more than the overall number of such lectures in the previous six years. As Figure 3 indicates, the same can be said concerning the potential reach of the atheist lectures. Although the break in the quantity of atheist lectures clearly occurred in 1959, there was a substantial increase of such lectures in 1958, in comparison to the previous years. This development was probably the outcome of a paper delivered by the CPC ’s chief ideologue, Jiří Hendrych, to a meeting of the Central Committee on 13 June 1957. A subsequent burst of organizational activity followed in the central atheist section of the SPŠPVZ in Prague, which led to an increase of atheist lectures in the regions.66 In December 1957 the central section in Prague organized  a four-day conference entitled “Contemporary Problems of Atheist Education.” Two delegates from Jihlava, namely, Bělka and Němec, also participated in this. The conference focused primarily on the Vatican, the Catholic Church, and atheist education, and did not cover the topic of indirect atheist propaganda at all.67 This suggests that, at least among the specialists, the initial understanding of atheist propaganda was shifting towards direct propaganda and the promotion of the specialized sections, rather than relying on the indirect influence of propaganda based on the natural sciences. It also indicates that there may have been  a discrepancy between the party’s interpretation of scientific atheism, which continued to rely heavily on disseminating popular facts from natural sciences, and, as Hendrych’s presentation indicates, the interpretation of the atheist specialists, who may have tended to emphasize the themes and topics controlled solely by them. However, Hendrych’s paper not only resulted in a higher number of lectures. Until 1956 the topics of the direct atheist lectures were mainly concerned with 66 Hendrych explicitly stated that “we have to ensure a broad development of scientific-­ atheist propaganda. We have to carry it out not in isolation but in  a close relation to the whole political, educational and cultural activity. […] The basis of scientific-atheist propaganda must be a popular explaining of the most important phenomena in the development of nature and human society, elucidation of questions about the content of Space, about the origins of human, and clarification of social importance of discoveries in the field of astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry and other sciences which confirm correctness of the materialist perspective on the development of nature and human society. At the same time, scientific clarification of origins, social function, and historical role of religion cannot be underestimated.” Cit. Některé současné otázky ideologické práce naší strany. Referát soudruha Jiřího Hendrycha na zasedání Ústředního výboru KSČ dne 13. června 1957  a rezoluce Ústředního výboru KSČ . Praha 1957, 66. 67 See MZA Brno, fond G 310, Československá společnost pro šíření politických  a vědeckých znalostí — k rajský výbor Jihlava, carton 2, A letter of invitation to the conference “Současné problémy atheistické výchovy,“ 9.11.1957.

96  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  the origins and essence of religion and of its functions. But since 1957 there was a timid but steady increase in the variety of topics addressed, which points in turn to the progressive development of the atheist propaganda discourse and its evolution. In December 1957 the first lecture entitled “Atheism” was given since the establishment of the SPŠPVZ ’s branch in Jihlava. In 1958 lectures with similar names became increasingly common, presumably due to the outcome of the XI Party Congress. In addition, the first lecture entitled “Morality and Religion” appeared at the end of 1957, and the propagandists of medical science responded to the plea of the atheist specialists and delivered some lectures entitled “Medical Science and Superstitions” in 1958. The appearance of a lecture openly entitled Atheism, together with the first lecture dealing with moral questions from atheist and religious perspectives, indicates that a shift occurred in the years 1957–1958, as the case study on Jihlava’s branch of the SPŠVZ demonstrates. Firstly, atheist propaganda slowly began to be understood as much more than simply a critique of religion and the church. Secondly, the thought collective started to consider the positive meaning of the scientific-atheist identity within the framework of emerging thought styles, even in the regional centers. Thirdly, a shift in atheist thought styles initiated by a greater emphasis placed on the realm of knowledge by the heteronomous force raised questions about Marxist morality and imposed an explicitly atheist explanatory framework on it. Fourthly, in 1958 atheism effectively penetrated the realm of knowledge of another discipline, namely medicine, and was able to establish a working connection with it. An important fact in this context is that all of this occurred before the December 1958 resolution of the CC , which practically only confirmed the developments that were already occurring in the regions under the guidance of the central section in Prague. Therefore, it did not initiate anything from scratch. Rather, the resolution enhanced the means and the authority at the disposal of the concerned experts. In other words, although the party resolution did provide decisive aid to the further development and potential sustainability of atheist education in Czechoslovakia, it did not impose the burden of atheist propaganda on the SPŠPVZ because the atheist specialists had already done a great deal themselves. Therefore, the resolution provided the already existing structures with more power, authority, and leverage with which to pursue their goals. 2.2.2.2 Atheist Cadres in the Regions Before turning our attention to the description and analysis of the scientific-­ atheist thought style in the 1950s, this subsection discusses the issue of cadres. Although there is no exact information concerning the number of active atheist propagandists, one can extrapolate an approximate estimate, with some qualifications, based on the case study of the Jihlava region. This will help us to infer

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how many individuals were active in the field, and how the field was structured on the social level. Table 1 provides an overview of all the individuals who delivered at least one atheist lecture during the years 1953–1959. It also shows that over six years only 28 lecturers (i. e. 29 percent of the total) delivered more than two lectures per year in the Jihlava region. In order to filter out those who had been assigned to conduct atheist propaganda but had ceased to do so at the first possible moment, the number of lecturers who spoke on atheist topics over more than two consecutive years was also established. As the Table 2 clearly indicates, the vast majority of the lecturers did not pursue atheist propaganda in a systematic way, which corroborates the reports of a high fluctuation rate of propagandists of atheism and the unsystematic nature of the atheist propaganda. Only 13 propagandists delivered atheist lectures over two years and only five lecturers could be described as experienced regional atheist specialists. It comes as no surprise that the five people who consecutively delivered lectures for three or four years were also the most active atheist propagandists in terms of the quantity of their lectures and their attendance at regional and other seminars organized by the SPŠPVZ .68 If one only counts the number of lectures of the five most experienced regional atheists, then one sees that they were responsible for approximately thirty percent of all the atheist lectures delivered in the Jihlava region during the years 1953–1959. Returning to the question of the number of active propagandists of atheism in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, if the situation in the other regions was similar to the Jihlava region, which most certainly was not the case, then one could estimate that if there had been an atheist section in each of the 14 administrative regions of Czechoslovakia in 1959, there would have been around seventy experienced atheists.69 However, if one counts all the atheist activists who appeared before an 68 Amongst those, who were active for at least three years were Riedel, Němec, and Hromádko. Atheist propaganda was pursued for four years in the 1953–1959 period by Bělka and Kasal. Bělka delivered during his atheist career at least 18 lectures in Jihlava region, whereas Kasal was responsible for 16 lectures. Although Němec was active in atheist propaganda only for three years, he was able to present to the audience 17 lectures. The other two lagged behind: Hromádko with seven and Riedel with just six lectures in three years. 69 A probe to a regional archive in Most, a mining town in north-west part of Czechoslovakia, showed that the local branch of SPŠPVZ did not contain scientific-atheist section at all, and the atheist propaganda itself was non-existent throughout the whole period of 1950s. The reason for absence of scientific atheism in the popular propaganda was probably pragmatic. There was historically a low number of believers in this part of Czechoslovakia and the socio-cultural changes after the second world war further contributed to agnosticism or at least non-public display of religious belief in the region. The atheist section in the regional branch of SPŠPVZ (Severočeského kraje)  was founded only in 1961. In years 1961–1963 it was able to deliver 403 lectures (one per cent of the total number of lectures delivered by the branch in three years), See Státní okresní archiv Most (State Regional Archive Most, SOkA M henceforth), fond Čsl. Společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí — K rajský výbor Ústí nad Labem, karton 1, Krajská konference 26.10.1963.

98  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  audience at least once, then the estimate of potentially propagandistically active Marxist atheists would be around 1400. Although our estimate is based on only one case study, it allows us to gain at least some idea of the cadre situation with regard to atheist propaganda in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. One should also bear in mind that only a few historical actors, possibly around ten to twenty in all the Czech lands, would have been able to devote their entire professional life to the cause of scientific atheism in the 1950s. These professional atheists were usually members of the central section of the SPŠPVZ in Prague, but their main responsibility was research. Those few people played a crucial role in shaping the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist discourse of the 1950s. Unlike other atheist specialists, they had the advantage that they did not have to prepare their atheist lectures in their free time, as the regional specialists did, as scientific atheism was in fact their career. Therefore, the privileged few, such as Otakar Nahodil, Ivan Sviták, and Otakar Pertold, had the time, resources, and institutional backing that allowed them to produce new knowledge about scientific atheism, even in a trying era in which no institution existed that would be exclusively devoted to atheist research. It is now time to answer the question regarding what the atheist thought style looked like, what it tried to say, the means it used, and how it did this.

2.3 The Thought Style in the 1950s It is a difficult task to find a metaphorical birth certificate for a thought style and many scholars would agree that this is indeed impossible. Although the exact origin of post-war scientific-atheist method of thinking cannot be determined, the interval during which it emerged can be discerned. It has been pointed out that the years 1958–1959 played a decisive role for both Czechoslovakia and the USSR . Although the most decisive qualitative and quantitative changes to the esoteric thought style occurred at the end of the 1950s and during the first half of the 1960s, it is worth examining the origins of Marxist atheism since 1953. This undertaking will shed some light on the origins of the thought style and it will enable us to see the mental horizons which codetermined the utterances and their meaning in the given context. Reexamination of some key topics and concepts which circulated within the emerging scientific-atheist thought collective will greatly enhance our understanding of the initial state of affairs. Moreover, such analysis is indispensable for the understanding of the subsequent thought style evolution, which occurred in the later decades. The first books published on atheist topics in post-February Czechoslovakia appeared in the 1948–1953 period and included books on religion and on the Catholic Church. However, the number of books published during the first five years of CPC rule was so low that it was unable to produce  a unified

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scientific-atheist thought style (see Figure 5). If one abstracts from the absolute numbers, one sees that the situation in the Soviet Union was analogous, as the diagram indicates (see Figure 6).70 Furthermore, the vast majority of atheist books published during this period were not the product of contemporary Czechoslovakian atheist thinking but were rather a compilation of Soviet treatises on the topic, or re-editions of atheist works from the pre-Marxist era, such as John Helvetius and Denis Diderot. A remarkable fact that indicates the virtual non-existence of a domestic atheist thought style in Gottwald’s Czechoslovakia, is that not even the most fundamental classics of Marxist-Leninist thinking on religion (i. e. the theses of Marx, Engels, and Lenin) were published during this time. Therefore, it safe to say that a scientific-atheist thought style within the Marxist-Leninist paradigm only began to be shaped by Czechoslovakian authors from 1954. The relative lack of atheist literature in the 1950s was noted by the specialists themselves and the momentum gradually increased.71 The appearance of the two resolutions discussed above meant that the year 1954 played an even more decisive role for the Soviet atheist specialists than it did for their Czechoslovakian counterparts. Although the extent and reach of the propaganda were restrained by the party after the November resolution, the 70 Whereas the Figure 6 was manually compiled with the help of many available bibliographies which accompanied some of the published brochures and books, Figure 4 was exported from the most extensive bibliography of the Yearbook, published in years 1957–1963. See Ezhegodnik muzeia istorii religii i ateizma, vol. 1–7, 1957–1963. The main difference between both charts consists in the fact that whereas the Soviet case contains even relatively marginal, two pages long articles published in regional press as a single “unit,” the Czechoslovakian chart contains only more substantial contributions. It is not to say that such short scientific-­ atheist articles in regional press did not exist in Czechoslovakia but merely to stipulate that there is no available tool for Czechoslovakia which would be able to track the published discourse in the way Soviet atheist specialists did. Therefore, in order to find out how many atheist articles there were in Czechoslovakia, one had to go through all the main and regional newspapers as well as main political journals page by page in order to get data on par with already available Soviet source. Even if someone went through such an arduous task, another methodological problem would immediately arise. Because Soviet atheist specialists in the 1950s and at the beginning of 1960s had a certain concept of scientific atheism, they included into the bibliography also such contributions which would from our today’s perception of this propaganda branch not be “obvious” additions. Therefore, it would be very difficult, or almost impossible to adopt the same rationale and produce similar results. Therefore, whereas the Soviet chart represents very near approximation of the actual state of atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union, although it might be a little bit too eager to grant such status to publications which in fact had very weak relation to the core aspects of scientific atheism, the Czechoslovakian chart, on the other hand, significantly downplays the actual number of publications. For such reasons, Figures 5 and 6 should be interpreted not as exact calculations but rather as an approximation of a certain trend which took place in the second half of 1950s. 71 Ivan Sviták lamented in 1957 that “aside of  a few original and translated brochures is an extensive, conclusive scientific analysis of religion and atheism an exception. […] Scientific-atheist propaganda is overlooked also in popular journals which almost completely exclude the thematic of scientific atheism.” Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 232 f.

100  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  quality and quantity of the articles, brochures, and books published greatly surpassed those of the pre-1953 context. Therefore, the initial stage of scientific atheism’s formation in the post-war period involved the attempt to delineate the type of knowledge to be considered, as Marxist (or scientific)  atheism, and what it meant in that socio-historical context. One can observe in the 1950s that the initial heavy influence of the propaganda of the natural sciences as an intrinsic part of scientific-atheist propaganda gradually diminished in favor of explicitly atheist type of knowledge (see Figure 4).72 In general, the thought style was predominantly influenced by the exoteric thought collective, and the production of esoteric knowledge was neither a top priority nor a feasible possibility at this stage. Although the last two statements are based mainly on an analysis of Soviet sources, it is highly probable that a similar development also occurred in Czechoslovakia. The principal question in the context of this book is the extent to which the two fields of knowledge were similar to one another in terms of themes and topics. We will also investigate whether the argumentation strategy differed in the two national groups of scientific atheists. Furthermore, it is also important to ask if the two formally independent groups in fact represented a closely-knit community with  a unitary perspective. Finally, it must be investigated what phenomena, concepts, and topics were appropriated by the emerging scientific-­ atheist thought collective. With what ideas have themselves the historical actors associated? In addition to the questions, the following subsections explore the main topics and themes that were appropriated by the early scientific-atheist thought style and fixed in the form of published books and pamphlets. The main aim is to identify the first scientific-atheist specialists, namely those people who published substantial articles or books on the topic, and to clarify how their thinking was structured. Therefore, the primary focus is the analysis of the larger, recurring topics that emerged over the course of four years. On the basis of the topics and themes in the publications, an attempt is made to reconstruct the scientific-atheist thought style of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in the 1950s.73 72 The diagram’s source is the same as for the Figure 5. Because Mariia Dmitrievna Zakharova, who was in charge of bibliography’s creation, also categorized the entries along broader topics and themes, it is possible to track down the quantitative change of emphasis over time. As in the case of figure 5, the same qualifications apply. 73 While it is was possible to analyze almost all the published sources available from the period 1954–1958 in the Czechoslovakian case, it was not possible to adopt the same approach in the Soviet case due to the overwhelming amount of the published material. Therefore, the following analysis of the main topics is by no means complete. Rather, it is centered on the Czechoslovakian themes and topics as these sources were much more suitable for delineating the main recurring topics. The Soviet sources were chosen in order to examine how the same topics were treated in a different national context.

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A desired outcome of this analysis is an interpretation of scientific atheism in the 1950s and an explanation that elucidates why the Marxist atheists thought in the way they did. To put it differently, the goal is to establish the mental horizons of the historical actors by means of the published sources and thus establish where the borders of expression lay. 2.3.1 What is Religion? One of the most pertinent questions for the post-war scientific-atheist specialists was: What is religion? From the perspective of Marxism-Leninism, there are fixed answers to such questions, as Marx’s theses on religion created a foundational paradigm for interpretation. For example, in his book “How Did Religious Superstitions Originate?” answered Nahodil the question what is religion? as follows: “Religion is one of the forms of human social consciousness. Since ancient times, fantastic, perverted, and wrong ideas concerning the surrounding nature and human society have formed in people’s heads.”74 This definition is almost identical to Marx’s famous thesis, according to which is religion an “opium of the masses.”75 It should not come as a surprise that this thesis formed one of the most important parts of the atheist discourse in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.76 In the same way, it formed an indispensable part of the explanation adopted by the Soviet scientific atheists in the same period.77 The fact that almost every brochure or article had to repeatedly answer this question indicates the central role that this idea played in the atheist thought style of the time. Marx’s thesis was perceived as a given and had an axiomatic value. For the atheist specialists, it was simply one of the objective truths of Marxist-Leninist epistemology which, once and for all, had penetrated the true nature of the phenomenon studied. Precisely because the “opium of the masses” thesis was accepted as one of the foundational blocks of scientific atheism, it could be neither questioned nor doubted. It was both an indispensable condition and the main point of legitimation for the entire atheist endeavor in the socialist context of the 1950s. Differently stated, it was the shared perspective that enabled those who adhered to it to see certain phenomena in a certain way. It was there 74 Cit. Nahodil, Otakar: Jak vznikly náboženské pověry? Prague 1954, 13. 75 See Marx, Karl: Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Vol. 3. New York 1976. 76 See Cvekl, Jiří: O protikladu vědeckého a náboženského světového názoru. Praha 1954, 17, Sviták, Ivan: Klasikové Marxismu-Leninismu o boji s  náboženstvím. Praha 1955, 12, Sviták: Cesty, 48. 77 See Gerasimov, Vasilii, Petrovich: Nauchno-ateisticheskaia propaganda v massovykh lektsiiakh po estestvoznaniiu. Moskva 1953, 14, Gurev, Grigorii, Abramovich: MarksizmLeninizm o proiskhozhdenii religii. Moskva 1953, 5, Kolonitskii, Petr, Fedotovich: Chto takoe religiia? Moskva 1955, 7, Khudiakov, Semen, Nikolaevich: Chto takoe religiia? Moskva 1956, Nauka i religiia neprimirimy. Saratov 1954, 22.

102  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  fore of paramount importance to assert the validity of this thesis and to repeat it when important or authoritative discursive claims were made. Moreover, it also served to separate “our” identity from “their” identity and to distinguish a “friend” from a “foe.” It also endowed the Marxist atheists with a special mission of cleansing or “redeeming” the believers from their harmful delusion. Another important notion can be found in a book by Czech atheist specialist Jiří Cvekl. According to him, the biggest flaw of religion is that “as one of the historical, temporary forms of social consciousness […] it spreads passivity in people in the face of the uncontrolled forces of nature and society.”78 The atheist specialists interpreted this to mean that religion is one of the ideological weapons that is exploited in the hands of capitalists, which was in congruence with Marx.79 The passivity and inactivity advocated by “retrograde” religious doctrines, largely but not exclusively by Catholicism, was the main argument that justified “progressive” atheist education in order to create a more effective society of self-confident, strong individuals. Sviták argued along the same lines that “the specifically religious opium is precisely the concentration of human beings’ interests in their interior world, (which is) the anti-humanistic essence of religion that carries the meaning of human life beyond the real human life.”80 The same argument, which enumerated the “objective” flaws of religious consciousness, was also a common feature of the Soviet brochures. For example, in 1955 Petr Kolonitskii wrote that religion is harmful not only because it is incommensurable with reason but also because of its moral rules and norms. These moral rules and norms do not help but actually stand in the way of the fight for a new life. They turn people away from this fight and deliberately direct the strivings of believers to the false path.81

Therefore, the evidence presented in the books of the Czechoslovakian and Soviet atheist specialists not only corroborated the axiomatic claims of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, which laid the basis of scientific atheism in the 1950s, but it also provided arguments for the active struggle against religion. Moreover, it is crucial to emphasize that the theses of Marx and the other founding fathers received the status of axiom only as a result of repetition, which was a conscious 78 Cit. Cvekl: O protikladu, 16. 79 See Kolonitskii: Chto takoe religiia?, 9–13, Gurev, Marksizm-Leninizm, 6. 80 Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 139. 81 Cit. Kolonitskii: Chto takoe religiia? 22, see also Sbornik statei i materialov po propagande nauchno-ateisticheskikh znanii. Molotov 1954, 3, and Bulavkin, Aleksandr, Grigorevich: Chto takoe religiia? Novosibirsk 1954, 20, Sidorov, Dmitrii, Ivanovich: O vrede religioznykh sueverii i predrassudkov. Moskva 1954, 48. Some authors also underlined the allegedly unequal position of women in relation to men. Khudiakov writes that “the effort of priests of all religions to humiliate her, to decline her the right to human dignity have crossed from religion into the daily practice.” Cit. Khudiakov: Chto takoe religiia? 24. See also Bulavkin: Chto takoe religiia? 12.

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exercise on the part of the individuals who were forging the main pillars of the emerging thought style. In fact, there would have been no scientific-atheist thought style in 1960s if the emerging community had not attested to its unity through the repetition of the underlying epistemological framework. The assertion concerning the opium of the masses, which was in fact a consequence of Marx’s fundamental claim regarding the primacy of matter in relation to ideas, provided an epistemological key for the further revelations described by Engels and appropriated by his followers in the second half of the twentieth century. The Soviet authors agreed that religion is a mere projection of earthly powers onto an idealistic image of supernatural forces.82 Therefore, for the purposes of his argument, Nahodil also reiterates the thesis concerning the deformed understanding of material relations that led to the origin of the idealist (that is fundamentally wrong) worldview. In addition to a manifestation of perverted consciousness, religion was further defined as a belief in the existence of various supernatural forces, a belief in fantastic, imaginary creatures and phenomena, a belief in the existence of good and bad ghosts, angels, souls, and other unreal phenomena, made in the feverish fantasies of the ancient ancestors of contemporary humans.83

Although Nahodil’s explication was not questioned by the atheist specialists in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, there were attempts to open up other topics dealing with religious faith, which would be hotly debated in the following decade. One of these fundamentally new topics, which was already voiced in 1957 but not properly explored until the middle of 1960s, was the question of the meaning of life. According to Sviták, it was crucial for atheists to examine such an important issue precisely because religion (as opposed to Marxist-Leninist philosophy) was apparently able to provide satisfactory answers. He wrote: religious self-understanding is at least a type of understanding that gives the believer a certain metaphysical embeddedness that becomes, due to irrational feelings, a deep safety net for the believer that is pictured as god’s arms. […] It is a great mistake of our philosophical literature that these fundamental questions concerning the meaning of life are almost never elucidated. Therefore, many believers maintain that Marxism does not deal with such problems.84

82 See Kryvelev, Iosif, Aronovich: Ob osnovnom opredeliaiushchem priznake poniatia religiia, in: Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma 4 (1956) 27, 44. See also Sbornik, 22 f. 83 Cit. Nahodil: Jak vznikly náboženské pověry, 14. 84 Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 160.

104  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  2.3.2 The Roots of Religion According to Marx and his followers in the second half of the 20th century, the main roots of religion were economic and social. Cvekl attests to this type of thinking by writing that, Marxism-Leninism stands on the assertion that exploitation is the main agent in contemporary society that forces a part of the working masses to use religious opium and that also forces the exploiters to use religion against the interests of the people. Exploitation […] is the matrix that is beneficial for the acceptance of religious opium. […] Equally solid are the economic foundations of the fight against exploitation and, therefore, against religious superstitions.85

This belief was widely held by responsible party cadres and had profound implications for the nature of scientific-atheist education and propaganda in the 1950s. In particular, the Leninist thesis that atheist propaganda “cannot play the decisive role in the process of overcoming religious superstitions”86 helped many regional party officials to justify their complete disregard for atheist propaganda. Therefore, the belief of the scientific atheists in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in the 1950s was that the main role in the process of atheization is played by the objective forces of the economic base. It is these forces that determine the social structure and the ideological superstructure that unintentionally compromises their position by rendering their efforts superfluous. One of the greatest achievements of the atheist experts in the late 1950s and early 1960s was to produce sufficient arguments to persuade the representatives of the heteronomous force that such a stance was fundamentally flawed. This change of perspective brought about a massive change in the perception of atheism by other significant reference groups within socialist society. This, in turn, influenced the width and breadth of the scientific-atheist realm of knowledge in the following decades. In addition to these fundamental, or, in Marxist terminology, “objective causes” for the existence of religion, the atheist specialists of the 1950s also emphasized other, “subjective” roots, including “gnoseological” and “cultural” ones. Kolonitskii wrote that, in addition to the consequences of the Great Patriotic War and capitalist encirclement, “one of the causes that helps to maintain religion is the power of habit,  a centuries-old tradition, [and, JT] finally, one cannot forget the deficiencies of the scientific-atheist propaganda.”87 Similarly, Cvekl maintained that “the ideological work is of primary importance wherever the objective conditions for the overcoming of religious superstitions were cre 85 Cit. Cvekl: O protikladu, 17. 86 Cit. ibid., 49. 87 Cit. Kolonitskii: Chto takoe religiia? 16.

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ated.”88 With this statement, Cvekl responds to earlier discursive claims about the nature of the process of overcoming religion, which had stipulated that “it is […] a process of the violent abolition of religion, or a process of its automatic withering away.”89 Judging by the need to address this issue, it appears that there were many competing opinions concerning the nature of the atheization process around the middle of the 1950s, which certainly had their own repercussions in the social practice of the party workers. In order to change the party’s attitude towards atheism, the scientific-atheist specialists had to first change the discourse about it. The developments in the second half of 1950s indicates that this is what occurred. Elaborating on Marx’s theses, Cvekl and the other scientific-atheist specialists pushed through their own vision of the gradual atheization process which they described as the goal of the whole transitional epoch, from capitalism to communism. This is a goal of many decades of systematic and meticulous work which includes the gradual removal of all superstitions that have persisted in the class society for thousands of years. […] The linear secession from religion, or, on the other hand, succumbing to feelings of self-complacency or presumption that the process of the construction of socialism itself will overcome religious superstitions without systematic and deliberate atheist education is equally wrong.90

Significantly, Semen Khudiakov expressed himself in almost identical terms when he said that religious superstitions cannot be abolished by administrative decrees or by the abolition of religion in general. These superstitions can be overcome only by the systematic ideational education of the workers, an unwavering battle for the betterment of the cultural level of the masses, and the further growth of the communist consciousness.91

With regard to the nature of the atheization process, the thinking that developed in the 1954–1958(9) period rejected both extremes that had previously circulated in the free-floating space of atheist knowledge. It advocated neither passive waiting, which was promoted by some proponents of the “withering away” thesis, nor a full-blown administrative and propagandistic campaign that would attack religious superstitions in  a head-on struggle. From 1954 onwards, both these extreme definitions of the atheization process were incessantly criticized by the scientific atheists in both contexts.92 By contrast, the approach of the “gradual 88 Cit. Cvekl: O protikladu, 49. 89 Cit. ibid. 90 Cit. ibid., p. 50. 91 Cit. Khudiakov: Chto takoe religiia? 70. 92 In a sort of bulk review of seventy atheist treatises in the USSR , Kryvelev asserts that “one can find a calm tone in all the books and no remarks which could offend the believers’

106  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  atheization process” was presented as the most reasonable and moderate one in the given circumstances. Sviták remarked that atheism cannot be decreed as a dogmatic article of faith. It is only sensible if it is a firm part of a materialist worldview. It cannot be established by the administrative liquidation of religion but only by a much more difficult way of mass re-education. […] This is very topical if we look at the practice of our public education work. […] The overcoming of the bourgeois, freethinkers’ way of fighting with religion, the prevention of the administrative bullying of believers, and the imperative of further developing the persuasive work is the chief lesson.93

Equally significant is that no one dared to defend the concepts produced by the “older thinking” in the materials published. Thus, they were removed from the realm of possibility, and the concept of “gradual atheization” replaced them as the only viable option, which was supported by the correct interpretation of Marx and Lenin. The discovery of the “subjective causes” of religion’s existence during the process of overcoming it in the construction of socialism phase also made the atheist specialists aware of the fact that the level, extent, quality, and quantity of atheist propaganda was far from satisfactory. During the years 1954–1958, both the inward and the outward critique of the current state of affairs became one of the ways for raising awareness of the other significant reference groups and a means for opening the discussion concerning pressing questions related to atheist practice. The outward critique implicitly targeted the party officials on the regional level and, after 1956, it also targeted the Stalinist regime: The post-war years had markedly weakened the work with believers, who should have overcome their religious views. In many places this important part of the ideological work was totally underdeveloped. Neutral relations to religion were widespread. […] And it was during such times that the clergy activated their propaganda.94

The main outcome of the almost incessant criticism present in the majority of the written materials in both national contexts was the formulation of a systematic approach to scientific-atheist propaganda by the atheist specialists. Although such an approach had already been proposed in the November 1954 resolution feelings were found.” Cit. Kryvelev, Iosif, Aronovich: Massovaia nauchno-ateisticheskaia literatura, in: Partiinaia zhizn’ 13 (1956) 67. See also Uzkov, Ivan, Nikiforovich: O besedakh s religioznymi liudmi, in: Bloknot agitatora, no. 24, 1954, 37, and Iz opyta, 45. 93 Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 24. 94 Cit. Kolonitskii: Chto takoe religiia, 18. During the conference of the central scientific-atheist section of KS in 1956 had Khudiakov, the chairman of the section, remarked, that “there still exist sections in which they look at the scientific-atheist propaganda as at something temporary.” For similar critical remarks from Czechoslovakian scientific atheists see Sviták: Cesty, 219.

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of the CPSU, the resulting weakening of atheist activities had resulted in  a continuous debate about the form of a systematic approach to scientific-atheist propaganda. The situation in Czechoslovakia was similar, although there was no resolution concerning scientific-atheist propaganda in force until 1958. Therefore, the wider reception of such arguments by the significant reference groups led to  a major re-examination of the party’s ideology at the end of 1950s. The atheist specialists had been occasionally reminding the wider society, particularly the responsible party officials, that, as important as the objective causes of religion may be, the fight against it could not be won unless more effort was invested in the scientific-atheist propaganda itself. Since 1954 the scientific-atheist specialists had sought to dominate the debate on the atheization process in both countries. They had achieved a substantial success in 1958–1959 in the form of the Resolution in Czechoslovakia and in the aftermath of the XXI Congress of the CPSU. It was undoubtedly the change in the wider ideological framework that enabled the subsequent official approval of the atheist specialists’ perspective. It should also be stressed that, in the context of 1950s, the atheist specialists increasingly emphasized the relative significance of the gnoseological roots of religion. This was because they were reacting to a newly discovered social fact, which was significant for two reasons. Firstly, the possibility of religion’s continuation in the context of socialism had not been foreseen and was therefore theoretically untreated by the classics such as Marx or Engels. Secondly, a theoretical clarification was expected from the emerging scientific-atheist thought collectives, together with a proposal to arrange possible and effective solutions in congruence with the existing Marxist-Leninist theoretical doctrine. For such collectives, who found themselves in the formative period, a creative solution induced by an unexpected social phenomenon involved a potential source of recognition. The thought collectives in both countries needed to tackle the problem without the help of ready-made theses. This presented a challenge for them as they came from the depths of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. While the phenomenon had to be explained without distortion, it could not violate the already-established laws of historical and dialectical materialism. The outcome of this endeavor was a presentation of the thesis by scientific atheists concerning the social law regarding the delay of social consciousness after social being. Precisely because the scholars were convinced that people’s consciousness developed more slowly than the materialistic base, the need to influence the minds of the people arose, and this need also justified systematic scientific-atheist propaganda. In any case, this should be understood as one of the first products of the scientific-atheist specialists’ post-war thought collective. The fact that religion is a historical phenomenon rather than an anthropological constant that is intrinsic to human nature was another axiom that was fully embraced by both the Czechoslovak and the Soviet scientific-atheist experts

108  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  during this period. The belief that religion had an origin and will inevitably reach its demise with the arrival of communism represents one of the core theories of scientific atheism. 2.3.3 Old and New Atheism It is no coincidence that the majority of topics developed at the beginning of the scientific-atheist thought style were centered on religion, rather than atheism. Nevertheless, the question of what Marxist atheism is remained in the background and sometimes came to the surface. One of the first authors who tried to define atheism from a Marxist perspective in Czechoslovakia was Cvekl. In his 1956 book “On the Opposition between Scientific and Religious Worldviews,” he provides the following definition: atheism is the scientifically justified denial of religion. To be an atheist means to not believe in religious fantasies and, therefore, to oppose such actions that form a religious cult. […] Atheism is above all a manifestation of ideational and social progress. It is a declaration of the achievements that humanity has won for itself in the field of worldviews against fantastic superstitions.95

Sviták on the other hand defined atheism in relation to a broader philosophical framework. He wrote: Atheism cannot be understood as a mere critique of religion. Such a conception of atheism unintentionally goes over to the position of theology. An efficacious atheism is possible only as  a natural feature of dialectical materialism and the social and natural sciences. To understand it as a radical, popularized form of religious studies is completely out of the question.96

However, such definitions were insufficient for providing the necessary distinction between specifically Marxist atheism and other forms of atheism, such as the so-called “bourgeois atheism of the freethinkers.” Therefore, Cvekl emphasizes in his book the fundamental difference that delineates scientific atheism from other historical forms of atheism. He writes: the most important features of Marxist atheism do not rest on the similarities between contemporary atheism and the old atheism but on the fundamental differences between them. […] A hard line must be drawn between all formations of the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois approach to the question of religion and the Marxist-Leninist approach to this topic.97 95 Cit. Cvekl: O protikladu, 3. See also Gerasimov: Nauchno-ateisticheskaia propaganda, 15–20. 96 Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 239. 97 Cit. Cvekl: O protikadu, 9.

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Cvekl practically reiterated the stance of the interwar Marxist atheists of the LPG when he wrote that Marxist atheism differs from the old atheism in two senses. On the theoretical level, it is based on dialectical and historical materialism, […] i. e. on a unitary worldview that does not allow any possibility for preserving idealism and superstition and which is, therefore, completely independent of idealist religious ideas. […] Secondly, the even more important difference between the Marxist-Leninist and old approach is the incorporation of the question concerning the relationship towards religion and churches to the system of questions linked to the class struggle, the socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the construction of communist society by the former and its negligence by the latter.98

In other words, dialectical and historical materialism form the theoretical background of Marxist atheism which has to a) deny religion on scientific grounds, and b) oppose the religious cult. It should be noted at this point that Cvekl’s very first definition of Marxist atheism in the Czechoslovakian post-war public sphere was based on a double negation and did not provide any positive content, nor did it provide a theoretical background for an a-religious ethical system. Sviták explicitly stated in 1957 that “the term atheism only has a negative content.”99 He also does not speak about the later understanding of the practice of atheist propaganda, which was based on the popularization of scientific knowledge. Such omissions indicate that there were different sentiments regarding the category’s content. In Czechoslovakia, at least at the level of the SPŠPVZ lecturers of the scientific-atheist sections, it was widely accepted that the propagandistic use of the natural science to reach atheist conclusions formed an intrinsic part of scientific atheism itself. Such ideas originally came from the Soviet Union, which also supplied the Czechoslovakian propagandists with many exemplary lectures of this type of scientific-atheist propaganda.100 The Soviet atheist specialists 98 Cit. ibid., 10. Ivan Sviták also shared Cvekl’s convictions about the bourgeois atheism: “bourgeois conception puts religious question abstractly, idealistically, and, therefore, without regard to social roots of religion. It puts this question apolitically, disregarding the interests of class struggle, and rationalistically but only from the perspective of abstract reason which criticizes irrationality of superstition. Thirdly, bourgeois atheism overemphasizes the religious question and forgets that it is mainly the economic development what destroys religious ideas. […] Finally, bourgeois atheism is founded on an idealistic description of social phenomena and, therefore, it is not consistent, especially in morals, where it intervenes in favor of ‘eternal’ principles of gospel.” Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 49 f. 99 Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 240. 100 The typical examples are Oleščuk, Fedor, Nestorovič: Otázky atheistické propagandy v díle V. I.  Lenina “O významu bojovného materialismu.” Praha 1958, Oparin, Aleksandr, ­Ivanovič: Věda a náboženství o vzniku života a člověka. Praha 1953, Pavelkin, Petr, Artemjevič: Náboženské pověry  a jejich škodlivost. Praha 1953, Prokofjev, Vasilij, Ivanovič: Velcí ruští přírodovědci v boji s idealismem a náboženstvím. Praha 1954.

110  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  almost always linked scientific atheism not only to the critique of religion but also to scientific knowledge. They emphasized that scientific-atheist propaganda has to be done by persuasion and the patient explanation of religion’s harm to believers on the grounds of popular explications of questions concerning the construction and development of the Cosmos, the origins of life on Earth, the origins of humanity, and the laws of nature and society.101

Although there were some individual attempts in Czechoslovakia to demarcate the category based on its relationship with religion, the majority of the thought collective did not incorporate this conceptual claim into the structure of the 1950s thought style. Therefore, the quotations above represent the initial part of the permitted but not internally accepted discourse concerning Marxist atheism prior to  a change that also endowed it with a positive meaning, and, therefore, enlarged its potential field of action. To restate this, Cvekl and Sviták thought that the sole goal of Marxist atheism was to provide arguments against religion and, at the same time, to promote a so-called “scientific worldview” by which they meant Marxism-Leninism. It needs to be stressed that Marxist atheism is not conceptualized in their books as  a relatively independent set,  a system, or  a realm of knowledge based on Marxism-Leninism but has a certain autonomy and the possibility of changing certain axioms. Rather, it is understood simply as a totally dependent part of Marxism-Leninism. Its only role was to apply atheist knowledge to certain phenomena, namely religion and superstition, in order to dispose of them by means of a devastating criticism. The Soviet outlook was similar in this respect. Already in 1953, Vasilii Gerasimov wrote that we have to remember that scientific-atheist propaganda can never be an end in itself. It should be viewed as one of the means of the struggle for communism, as an ideological weapon in the struggle for communist education of the workers.102

It was universally accepted by the atheist specialists at this time that the goal of Marxist atheism was to explain the intrinsically harmful nature of all religious phenomena and then to criticize them. The critique was not concerned with the careful assessment of the key elements or functions of religion in general and the churches in particular but rather with excoriation and denial. For example, Otakar Pertold wrote “that superstitiousness as a permanent condition of  a human must be treated as  a serious moral and social illness.”103 Simply 101 Cit. Iz opyta, 46. 102 Cit. Gerasimov: Nauchno-ateisticheskaia propaganda, 17. 103 Cit. Pertold, Otakar: Pověra  a pověrčivost. Praha 1956, 127. Also Ivan Sviták has occasionally used clinical terminology, especially when he discussed psychological causes of religion: “in this relation is interesting the fact, that in an exalted religious environment is much more neurotics or psychopaths.” Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 206.

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put, religion was to be unmasked and repudiated, rather than understood and accepted as a part of European thinking and as a possible, if somehow wrongfooted, source of inspiration. A medical metaphor was pursued in  a similar manner also by Soviet propagandists such as Viktor Virganskii: “to speculate on illness, on the fear of death, and to be a parasite on human misfortunes is the way that religion creates ‘comfort’. This religious ‘comfort’ brings, as always, nothing but harm.”104 The believers were viewed as patients who had fallen ill with a dangerous infection. The main goal of atheist education was to save those patients from the social disease of religious belief and superstition. This fact only further attests how similarly both national thought collectives conceptualized the subject of their interest. According to Nahodil, “socialist society copes with the religious question not by pressure but by systematic and patient help in the overcoming of religious superstition.”105 Therefore, the believers themselves were not to be criticized by the atheist propaganda but rather to be pitied. Therefore, Marxist atheism formed part of the “scientific worldview” and was to be understood as an adherence to dialectical and historical materialism. Together with pieces of knowledge from the natural sciences, this also formed the positive content of this category in the 1950s. The main function of Marxist atheism was to ensure that the positive content of the “scientific worldview” remained uncorrupted by the idealism of religious origin. Therefore, atheism’s role and purpose in this context was to prepare the way for the inculcation of a “scientific worldview.” Once this was completed, it was to help to guard it against corrupting ideologies by means of an effective critique. In other words, due to the state of thought style and composition of the thought collective it was unthinkable for Marxist atheism to have an independent or idiosyncratic positive content in the 1950s because the thought collective lacked the necessary expertise which would enable creative thinking and discovery of new concepts, theories and approaches. Marxist atheism in 1950s was a tool rather than an end in itself. Above all it lacked conditions for development of new knowledge. 2.3.4 The Role of the Catholic Church The scientific-atheist specialists never stopped examining at the organization of the Catholic Church through a political lens. It was seen as the initial enemy who had sought to subvert socialism and work against all the principles of Marxism. The basic interpretative framework was set forth in the anti-clerical pamphlets of the 19th century freethinkers. The Marxist atheists of the 1950s added their own reasoning and explanations which further charged the Catholic

104 Cit. Virganskii, Viktor, Nikolaevich: Chto takoe religiia. Kostroma 1955, 28. 105 Cit. Nahodil: Jak vznikly náboženské pověry, 108.

112  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  Church with anti-social and anti-state activities. They also brought many proofs that strengthened their critical interpretation. The critical analyses of the leading atheist specialists differed from those of the rank-and-file propagandists in both style and depth of analysis, although not in the outcomes of their interpretation. Given that the most experienced atheist specialists in the 1950s had a university training, they were able to work with historical sources that bestowed the veneer of a scientific approach on their work. In fact, the historical method was the main method of scientific-atheist inquiry used in the 1950s, and the majority of church-related topics described old grudges and events rather than focusing on the contemporary situation. The interpretive framework for the assessment of the assembled sources was firmly anchored in Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, a monograph supported by hundreds of references to carefully chosen archival sources sought to unwaveringly demonstrate that the Czechoslovakian bourgeoisie had allowed the Catholic Church in Slovakia to abuse religion for the dispersion of the clerical-fascist ideology in order to prepare an imperialist attack on the USSR . […] The clerical hierarchy of the Catholic Church […] had made use of the situation […] to prepare for the Czechoslovakian republic’s destruction in the name of the empowerment of the fascist forces of the world.106

The main arguments, which were repeatedly used in order to prove the validity of the thesis cited, were centered on the fact that the Vatican was the administrative center of the Catholic Church, and that it had allegedly not only supported the rise of fascism in the interwar period but had also fought against the communist party, which represented social progress. Such claims were found in both the Czechoslovakian and the Soviet contexts.107 The economic connections of the Vatican were exposed, with all their forms of imperialism, in order to underline the fact that the Catholic Church as an institution was one of the largest capital 106 Cit. Vašečka, Félix: Buržoázny štát a církev. Typické formy spolupráce buržoazného štátu s  náboženskými organizáciami so zvláštnym zreteľom na církevnopolitickú prax predmníchovskej ČSR . Bratislava 1957, 9. See also Sviták: Cesty, 93–95. Similar claim was used already in the brochure published by Khudiakov in 1956: “In the years of civil war in our country, Vatican had actively helped foreign interventionists and White Guards (belogvardei­ shchina). It had organized ‘crusades’ against the Soviet state. In the years of the Second World War, the Vatican cooperated with fascist regimes of Mussolini and Hitler and with Gestapo.” Cit. Khudiakov: Chto takoe religiia, 27. 107 For example, Mikhail Sheinman wrote in 1954 that “the political course of the Vatican is determined by its hatred of the whole democratic camp, of the progressive science and indisputable support of the capitalist structure.” Cit. Sheinman, Mikhail, Markovich: Vatikan na sluzhbe imperializma, in: Sbornik Statei, 93. The overall impression of the brochure can be approximated by enumeration of subchapters: Participation of Vatican in Conspiracies against Countries of the Socialist Camp, Vatican — t he Support of the American Imperialism, and Reactionary Ideology of Catholicism. See ibid. See also Sidorov, O vrede, 10–19.

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owners in the world. Moreover, multiple encyclicals and decrees (such as an excommunication decree from 13 July 1949) were cited as a tangible testimony of the church hierarchy’s hatred of communists.108 The fact that Jozef Tiso, the president of the independent Slovak state during years 1939–1945 with fascistic inclinations, was a former Catholic priest was then used by the Czechoslovak atheists as proof that the Vatican and the fascists were pulling the strings behind the scenes in order to secure their position of power in the region at the expense of the state’s sovereignty. Exactly this explanatory framework is used by Felix Vašečka: in Slovakia the HSĽS [Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party, JT] fulfilled the Vatican’s program. The protectorate of German Nazism was in Slovakia and created a temporary clerical-fascist state which sought to be a herald of the Habsburg monarchy under the Vatican’s leadership.109

According to the argument of the 1950s, the bourgeois political regime was too weak and too self-obsessed with the capitalistic exploitation of the working class to notice that the Vatican was plotting against the state.110 The fact that Tiso was tried and executed as a war criminal in April 1947 gave the arguments concerning the Catholic Church’s collaboration with fascism further gravity. Thus, the Czechoslovakian scientific atheists of the 1950s helped to cement the impression that the Catholic Church in general and its hierarchy in particular were inherently anti-social and were intrinsically inimical to socialism. The emphasis on the inherently negative features of the Catholic Church in the atheist interpretation was in stark contrast to the communist party. The Marxist atheists were able to see the Catholic Church through such  a lens precisely because it was a product and, therefore, also a part of the essentially inimical bourgeois establishment. Moreover, its origins in the class society made it the chief representative of a biased class morality and ethics. Not only were the Marxist atheists unable to see that Tiso’s regime and his collaboration with fascism was an exception rather than a norm, but they were also unable to see that the Church in the Czech lands behaved any differently. Moreover, they readily believed the prosecution when they charged some of the Czech Catholic ordinaries with acts of espionage and high treason.111 The point is that both indisputable and constructed facts were used by the Marxist atheists to complete the mosaic about the Catholic Church. However, instead of using all the pieces to provide a coherent representation of the religious institution for the 108 See Sviták: Cesty, 123–125. 109 Cit. Vašečka: Buržoázny štát, 266. 110 See Vašečka: Buržoázny štát, 232–238, and Sviták: Cesty, 101. 111 Sviták in his monograph writes that “the trial with church dignitaries has shown that the charged […] have striven to destruct people’s democracy, joined the war plans of the Vatican, organized anti-state plot, and exploited religious feelings.” Cit. Sviták: Cesty, 128.

114  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  Czechoslovakian public sphere, the atheist specialists selected only those pieces that were available from their epistemological standpoint and that simultaneously strengthened their convictions and supported the theoretical doctrine of Marx and Lenin. The discreditation of the Catholic hierarchy and the role of the Vatican had formed part of the modern atheist discourse since the very beginning. By contrast, portraying the church ordinaries and the Vatican as political enemies that incessantly plotted (and sometimes also acted)  against the interests of people was a new development in the post-war period and was appropriated by the atheist specialists in the 1950s. The attempt that they constructed to create boundaries between the binary concepts of “our” community and “their” foreign centers also entered the atheist thinking in this period. The Catholic Church was a far more important enemy within the Czechoslovakian context than in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, it was also a frequent propaganda object for the Soviet atheists. Firstly, it provided direct proof that the relationship between religion and the capitalist exploiters still existed in the world. According to the atheist logic, which placed the magical practices of the ancient pagans in the same category as the Christian tradition, all religious superstitions were essentially identical.112 Therefore, an argument against  a particular type of religion was in fact an argument against religion in general. At least, this was how the atheists approached the religious critique in the 1950s.113 However, Catholicism was not seen as a primary threat in the multi-confessional Soviet Union. It seems logical that the Soviet atheists would choose the Orthodox Church as the main target of their critique. But to what extent was the ROC conceptualized by the Soviet thought collective in the 1950s? The most widespread criticism was probably centered on the historical argumentation against the ROC . A common practice was to invoke the collaboration of the patriarchs and priests with the Tsarist regime of the 19th century. Another highly frequented topic was to describe the role of the ROC during the 1905 revolution. Less frequent criticism was made of the ROC ’s role during the civil war period.114 The reality is that there were very few books or articles published during the years 1954–1959 that dealt with the contemporary deeds of the ROC . In fact, during the 1950s, the ROC did not even form the most frequent topic of 112 Tuchkov explained, that “to superstitions are connected, e.g., belief in ‘faith‘, prophecies, omens, and religious belief and rituals.” Cit. Tuchkov, Evgenii, Aleksandrovich: O vrede sueverii, in: Propagandist i agitator, no. 4, 1954, 101. 113 Highly esteemed atheist scholar Kryvelev asserted in 1956 that “magic is inseparably connected to religion, and it could neither emerge, nor exist, if certain religious ideas did not exist. There is no magic without religion and there is no religion without magic.” Cit. Kryvelev: Ob osnovnom opredeliaiushchem priznake, 40. 114 See Virganskii: Chto takoe religiia, 24f, Khudiakov: Chto takoe religiia, 31–33, Bulavkin: Chto takoe religiia, 14–16.

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conversation in comparison to other religious organizations (see Figure 7). It would appear that many atheist specialists were still under the impression of the Stalinist modus vivendi between the ROC and the Soviet state, especially after the November 1954 decree. Some propagandists were even convinced that the ROC did not pose any threat because it had become loyal to the Soviet regime during the Second World War. Although some atheist specialists argued that this obvious lacuna in atheist thinking had to be filled, no one really started focusing on the current state of the ROC until the 1960s.115 2.3.5 Scientific-Atheist Education in Schools From the very beginning, the topic of scientific-atheist education in schools in Czechoslovakia was strongly influenced by the Soviet atheist specialists who were considered more experienced in this matter. This is why the first brochure published on the topic of scientific-atheist education in Czechoslovakia was not written by domestic authors but was translated from the Russian original. Moreover, the Russian publication was not immediately translated into the Czech and Slovak languages. It appears that 1958 was the breaking point for Czechoslovakia, as virtually nothing was published on the topic before this, although the Soviet discussion already begun in 1955, and the translated brochure was itself published in 1956.116 The sudden entry of this topic into Czechoslovakian atheist thinking was undoubtedly related to Hendrych’s programmatic speech at the CC of the CPC in the middle of 1957. In order to establish their point of departure, the Soviet authors noted the November 1954 party resolution. They saw this as the most decisive moment that had helped to turn the tide of negligence. They wrote: “In the years prior to the publication of the aforementioned CC CPSU resolution, scientific-atheist education was either neglected or underappreciated at most schools.”117 By

115 The chair of the scientific-atheist section of the KS in Novossibirsk, Feodora Ivanovna Ovsiannikova, observed, that: “in recent years have emerged other mistakes. Some say that if the [Russian Orthodox, JT] Church does not stand on counterrevolutionary position in our country right now, (…) then, according to some members of the Society, religion does not do any harm and church is necessary.” Cit. Iz opyta, 18. 116 See Jefremov, Alexej, Nikolajevič / Kosolapov, Venjamin, Ivanovič: Vedecko-ateistická výchova žiakov. Bratislava 1958. The first Czechoslovak treatise about the topic appeared in the same year. It was heavily inspired by the Soviet text widely known in Czechoslovakia. Comp. with Lihocký, Julius: Vedecko-ateistická výchova  a práca našich učiteľov. Bratislava 1958. The next Soviet contribution in the Czechoslovakian context was a brochure written by an atheist specialist and school director in the USSR , Mikhail Pavlovich Alekseev. Originally written in 1958, it was translated and published in Czechoslovakia in 1960 in completely different context (See chapter 3). 117 Cit. Jefremov / Kosolapov: Vedecko-ateistická výchova, 14.

116  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  contrast, the Czechoslovak authors emphasized the second half of the 1950s as the point when change started, and said: if we drew  a chart delineating the efforts put into scientific-atheist propaganda in our country, this would be a line that goes up to 1952, 1953. It then falls rapidly until 1956 when it begins to slowly rise again. […] Scientific-atheist education has been undertaken unsystematically and unmethodically until this point and has quite often only existed formally.118

It was important for the atheist specialists to underline the party’s relatively recent change of approach towards scientific-atheist education as this helped to explain why many schools and teachers still did not pay the required amount of attention to this educational goal. It also helped them to fend off critics who sought to challenge the efficacy of scientific-atheist propaganda in the schools. The other difference between the Soviet and the Czechoslovak contexts, as Ján Kotoč noted, was that the Czechoslovak schools gave the pupils the option of attending voluntary lessons on religion. This was obviously interpreted as an objective drawback which “influences the character of the pupils and makes them lag behind in their development.”119 However, apart from this systemic hindrance, which made the ideological work of Czechoslovak teachers comparatively more challenging, their starting positions and ultimate tasks were similar. Furthermore, the far from satisfactory situation of the school system also called for much wider reforms and changes, and it was argued that scientific atheism should form a systematic part of communist education. In this case, the atheist specialists’ educational goals were twofold: a)  that the teachers should point out the incompatibility of certain religious dogmas with scientific conclusions in their respective subjects, and b) that the school should have banished the remnants of religious morality in exchange for the foundations of communist morality.120 The content of the scientific-atheist education corresponded to the set of themes and topics established in both countries during the 1950s. For example, Lihocký maintains that “the content of atheist education is made up of facts from the natural and social sciences. Furthermore, it involves the critique of the reactionary nature of religious ideology and politics, e.g. of the Vatican and other religious centers.”121

118 Cit. Lihocký: Vedecko-ateistická výchova, 10. 119 Cit. Jefremov / Kosolapov: Vedecko-ateistická výchova, 6. 120 See ibid., 16f, 30, Alexeev, Michail, Pavlovič: Ateistická výchova ve škole. Praha 1960, 13–20, Lihocký: Vedecko-ateistická výchova, 12 f. 121 Cit. Lihocký: Vedecko-ateistická výchova, 22. Jefremov and Kosolapov discuss an example of atheist content for almost every school subject. See Jefremov / Kosolapov: Vedeckoateistická výchova, 56–76. Especially biology played an important role because it helped to establish Darwinist perspective on the question about the origins of man, which “falsifies

Summary  117

The other significant finding was that scientific-atheist education in schools was tightly associated with moral education. In other words, the atheist specialists were convinced that an atheist education was able to provide an indispensable help not only in the rationalist critique of religion but also as  a concept that could successfully grasp the intrinsically atheist nuances of communist education. In this respect, the main task of atheist knowledge in the 1950s was simply to explain why communist and religious morality were incompatible with one another, and why communist morality was superior to other types of morality.122 Moreover, the fact that the atheist experts were invited to contribute on the topic of communist morality opened the door to a further exploration of the topic. It was precisely these questions that were posed by religion but had not yet been answered by “The Moral Codex of the Builder of Communism.”

2.4 Summary This chapter has established that the end of Stalinism was the main political precondition for the resumption of scientific-atheist propaganda in both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. In the USSR , the first atheist decree since the 1930s was discussed with atheist specialists and issued in July 1954. This was a bold programmatic statement, but it had to immediately be toned down in November of the same year due to the overzealousness of some regional party officials and propagandists, who mistook it for the return of the highly politicized form of militant atheism that they had known in the interwar period. This incident demonstrates how profoundly changed the socio-political landscape of the USSR had become the beginning of the Second World War. It was to take the atheist specialists and their political supporters another four years before the time was ripe for the initiation of another phase of scientific-atheist propaganda. The circumstances were different in Czechoslovakia, mainly due to the fact that the Church had retained a relatively strong position in the public sphere until the CPC overthrow in February 1948. Drawing on the example of the early Soviet state, the party leaders in Czechoslovakia adopted an aggressive stance against the most powerful religious organization in the people’s democratic republic. They stripped the Catholic Church of almost all of its prerogatives in the first five “Stalinist” years that followed the “Victorious” February 1948. The land reform that stripped the Church of all of its estates, and the subsequent show trials of the Catholic hierarchy and monks, bore more than  a passing religious fabrication that the first man on the Earth, Adam, was created from ‘the Earth’s dust’ by god and Eva from Adam’s rib.” Cit. ibid., 59. 122 See Nauka i religiia neprimirimy (sbornik statei). Saratov 1954, 11–13.

118  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  resemblance to the Soviet administrative measures at the beginning of their rule. The most notable difference in legislation was that the church was not separated from the state or from the schools in post-1948 Czechoslovakia. Although the public image of the Catholic Church was devastated, and its ability to appear in public debates was considerably curtailed, it still retained some of its influence, predominantly in education. The November 1954 resolution placed the atheist specialists in both countries into approximately similar positions, although the Soviet thought collective may have felt a little more secure because the November resolution did not entirely revoke the atheist propaganda. Nevertheless, it was seen by party officials as a clear signal that its importance had decreased in the eyes of the CC of the CPSU. By contrast, the Czechoslovakian atheist specialists did not have any security because the Slavik’s resolution of 1955 was rejected by the CC of the CPC . In terms of the party’s support, the Czechoslovakian atheists were in an uncertain position until 1959. Strictly speaking, no one in Czechoslovakia was made responsible for this type of activity, or was obliged to conduct it, as the CPC had not indicated that it was something indispensable. Therefore, the atheist initiative during this time-period needs to be understood independently of the political whims of party leaders at the CPCC . Practically the only assistance Czechoslovakian atheist specialists received until 1959 came from their Soviet colleagues who, once again, started to play a decisive role for the Czechoslovakian thought collective. They provided a source of inspiration and a confirmation of the narrative’s validity. Although the contact between these two emerging thought collectives was almost exclusively indirect and one sided until 1959, this did not prevent the Czechoslovakian specialists from becoming acquainted with the outcomes of the Soviet exoteric thought collective. The sporadic but relatively regular appearance of Czechoslovakian contributions in highly specialized Soviet periodicals attests to the fact that the indirect communication was not totally one-sided, and that at least some members of the emerging thought collective in the Soviet Union were able to become acquainted with samples of the Czechoslovakian thought style. Both thought collectives were disregarded by their respective party elites at this stage. Nevertheless, these four years were a crucial time for both thought collectives as they were forced to rely on themselves if they were to survive as a distinct part of the public sphere. From this perspective, the principal goal of the collective was to find appropriate arguments for persuading their significant reference groups of the need for and efficacy of atheist propaganda. One of the ways of doing this was to develop themes and topics that could be presented as phenomena exclusively under the control of the atheist specialists. Therefore, the atheist specialists in both countries had to clearly delineate their realm of knowledge in order to gain legitimation for their existence in the ideological environment of the late 1950s.

Summary  119

In practice, the thought collectives combined three discursive strategies. The first was the re-appropriation of the classics of Marxism and Leninism which were also able to draw on more recent atheist campaigns (in the case of the Soviet atheist specialists) or exploit the critique of bourgeois atheism in order to accentuate their own relevance (in the case of the Czechoslovakian atheist specialists). The second strategy was concerned with opening new topics based on the observation of contemporary practice. This strategy proved to be more fruitful in the long-run as it provided the atheist specialists with the possibility of almost infinitely stretching the borders of their realm of knowledge. Examples of such new topics were that of scientific-atheist education in schools and the question of the continuation of religious superstition during the construction of socialism. Thirdly, it could be observed in both contexts that the thought collective successfully changed the perception of scientific atheism in the 1950s. The main change was that it became less dependent on the external argumentation provided by  a propaganda based on the natural sciences. The dissociation of scientific atheism from its auxiliary disciplines, which was under way during the 1950s, helped to accentuate the core of scientific atheism, which could not be replaced by any other type of knowledge. This negative delimitation helped to re-define the self-awareness and self-identity of the atheist specialists who dealt with atheist propaganda. The process of the re-definition of scientific atheism went hand in hand with the restructuring of the atheist cadres. It is extremely difficult to speak of the existence of atheist cadres prior to 1954. There were remnants of atheist loci from the interwar period which proved to be so resilient that they even survived during the period of atheism’s disfavor during Stalin’s patriotic course. These loci played an important role in the reconstruction of the exoteric thought collective, which emerged as a result of the political support of the heteronomous force. The collective’s constitution in the 1950s was therefore not a spontaneous and organic result of a social demand but rather the controlled outcome of a process at the top. The consequence was the creation of a very thin layer of semi-­ professional atheist agitators who, at least on the surface, behaved as convinced supporters of the scientific-atheist epistemological paradigm. The appearance of such an exoteric thought collective, which was at least theoretically able to consume and comprehend more demanding esoteric knowledge, provided an important impulse for the individual scientific-atheist scholars who were consequently tasked with enhancing the quality of their knowledge production by the heteronomous force. Thus, the fact that there was a scientific-atheist thought collective in 1958 is self-evident. The crucial role in the creation of the first building block (i. e. the exoteric thought collective) of the thought collective in both countries therefore belongs to the KS (or the SPŠPVZ), which was the only institution responsible for the preparation of the cadres. It has to be stressed again that the preparation

120  The Emergence of the Scientific-Atheist Exoteric Thought Collective  of the new cadres, who were in fact prototypes closely resembling the ideal scientific atheist, received very limited support from the party. Instead, most of the work had been done by genuinely enthusiast regional atheists, who were the true agents of atheization in this period. The lack of party support was not only indicated by the individual complaints of the atheists, but it was also indicated by structural negligence. It was no co-incidence that it was impossible to study the subject of scientific atheism at the university level in either Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union until 1959. Moreover, the research itself was marginalized in a few compartments, and the only center of scholarly activity dealing with scientific atheism was located in the MIRA . In Czechoslovakia, atheist research was virtually non-existent. In this regard, the situation changed due to the demands of the exoteric circle, which wanted to have access to the production of new knowledge that could only be provided by a fully established and well-supported esoteric circle of atheist specialists. It was therefore the demand of atheist lecturers and propagandists that created the space for a more refined and complex knowledge that could only be provided by specialist research.

3.

The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective(1959–1971)

The goal of this chapter is to continue the description of the two Czechoslovakian and Soviet cases that serve as a basis for a historical analysis of a qualitatively different stage of scientific atheism in the period starting after 1959. While the years 1954–1959 were characterized by the (re)emergence of atheist propaganda in the given social-political contexts, the years 1959–1971 delineate the extension of the scientific-atheist propaganda into the sphere of scholarship. One can further distinguish the period prior to the foundation of the ISA in Moscow (1959–1964) as it delineates the organic and non-centralized phase of initial research in the Soviet Union. By contrast, the years 1964–1971 should be understood as a new phase in which scientific-atheist knowledge was further institutionalized, centralized, and structured. In comparison to the previous state of affairs, research on scientific-atheist phenomena was conducted at an unprecedented level in the Soviet Union during these years. Developments were notably different in the Czechoslovakian case for several reasons that will be discussed in the course of this chapter. This needs to be noted as it points to the important fact that even such a potentially ideologically laden “orthodox” realm of knowledge as scientific atheism was susceptible to change and regional “anomalies.” These were influenced by many local processes inherent to the scientific-atheist field and also by certain socio-political developments in both national contexts. Therefore, it is not possible to distinguish similar sub-phases in the formation of the scientific thought collective and the esoteric thought style in both national contexts. In the Soviet Union, the qualitative development occurred predominantly on the institutional level, which facilitated qualitative and quantitative change at the level of knowledge production, particularly its form and level of expertise. However, qualitative change occurred largely at the level of content and without corresponding institutional development in Czechoslovakia. Therefore, in the Czechoslovakian case, one can distinguish between the rather traditional and conservative initial years of 1959–1963 and the more liberal, independent, and comparatively more controversial years of 1963–1969. The following Czechoslovakian period of 1969–1971 was characterized by a substantial rethinking of boundaries, which delimited the heterogeneous, idiosyncratic, and almost pluralistic scientific-atheist thought style. The process observed in this chapter occurred on at least two interdependent levels. From a structural perspective, the institutional development of scientific

122  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  atheism was crucial. In this respect, this chapter’s task is to describe this development in both countries and to compare the ways in which governance impacted both the process as well as its products. To what extent did the party, understood as a heteronomous force, determine the form and content of such presumably ideologically laden knowledge? What were the consequences of fundamental institutional change for the nature of scientific atheism? How did the changes in institutional structure influence the hierarchy, relative positions, and mental horizons of the atheist specialists, both within their relatively closed group and in the broader social context? In what ways did institutional development contribute to (trans)national unity or, on the contrary, to differences in the scientific-­atheist thought collective? How did this development differ in both national contexts? And, crucially, how did the scientific-atheist thought collective evolve in the new institutional and political contexts? The second level of analysis focuses on meaning. It is concerned with select elements of esoteric thought style production by atheists in the Soviet Union and in socialist Czechoslovakia in 1960s. The second chapter identified a considerable unity within exoteric atheist thought style in both countries during the 1953–1959 period. For various reasons, the 1960s were  a period in which the emerging esoteric thought styles developed largely independently of one another in both countries. In this respect, this chapter’s task is to document the ways in which the esoteric thought styles remained analogous in both countries, and the extent to which they developed in contrast to one another. At the same time, the chapter explores the question of the internal and external boundaries of the atheist realm of knowledge in the 1960s. Furthermore, it scrutinizes the atheist thought style’s power to structure and create social reality in the given social contexts. It should be noted that an analysis of all the streams of atheism that continued to develop in both countries in the 1960s is beyond the scope of this thesis. Furthermore, such  a thorough content analysis would simply partially repeat the descriptions and results already discussed in the previous chapter, which is why it was not undertaken. Therefore, the material presented in this chapter is a representative selection of two broad themes, which were highly relevant to both thought collectives and characteristic of the development of thought styles in that period. Firstly, the discussion of atheism’s self-perception exemplifies the meta-theoretical level of debates concerning the internal structure and meaning of scientific atheism in the context of the esoteric thought collectives in both countries. Secondly, the establishing of a Marxist sociology of religion demonstrates how the atheist specialists approached more “tangible” research themes, and how they accommodated new epistemological principles in the emerging esoteric thought style. The emergence of scientific-atheist scholarship as  a virtually new quality of the existing thought style during the 1960s is, in many respects, the single

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most important process in our context. Therefore, it is also the main theme of this chapter. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the atheist propaganda did not disappear. If anything, it increased during the 1960s, both in terms of quantity and quality. However, given that it has already been described in the existing secondary literature, it does not form the primary focus of the chapter, not are all its modalities and categories outlined.1

3.1 The Beginnings of the Esoteric Thought Collective in the Soviet Union 3.1.1 The Socio-Political Context Religion was  a natural part of the equation conceived and developed by Khrushchev and like-minded members of the ideological committee. The first hint of their approach towards this social phenomenon was revealed in 1954, although the circumstances did not permit them to maintain the course set out by the July 1954 resolution. From this perspective, the late 1950s can be understood as a continuation of earlier efforts to combat religion both ideologically and administratively. The years 1959–1964 stand out as a period in which the CPSU understood scientific atheism as a form of propaganda and, increasingly, as an autonomous field of knowledge. In particular, the years 1959–1961 were marked by the party structures’ continual attention to the scientific-atheist education of the population. From 1959 onwards, the KS organized atheist education and propaganda with a new-found rigor. Sections, centers, and houses of atheism were founded within the framework of the KS , and these acted as independent branches that governed and disseminated the growing body of exoteric knowledge within a regional context. They were run by assigned propagandists who became the chief local scientific-atheist specialists. They were expected to create a plan of atheist activities in the given area in order to systematize scientific-atheist education and propaganda. The main methodological council of scientific atheism was formed at the central level. This assembly of leading scientific-atheist propagandists gathered 1 For further reference see Powell: Antireligious Propaganda, 85–118, Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 159–183, Olšáková, Doubravka: Věda jde k lidu! Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí a popularizace věd v Československu ve 20. století. Praha 2014, 410–450, Ioshkin, Mikhail, Viktorovich: Vliianie religii i ateizma na molodezh v 1958–1964gg (na materialakh Tambovskoi oblasti). Unpublished candidate dissertation. Tambov 2015, Chausov: Evoliutsiia, 84–124, Theodorowitsch, Religion, 59–87, Groth: Sowjetischer Atheismus, Adler, Erwin: Grundlinien der atheistischen Propagandaliteratur im Ostblock, in: Concilium 3 (1967) 231–243.

124  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  in Moscow and was responsible for both the centralization of applied knowledge concerning methods of persuasion and the dissemination of the most successful techniques in the regions.2 Moreover, the editorial office of the newlycreated press organ for the coordination, education, and propaganda of scientific atheism was since 1959 also located in Moscow. Its journal Science and Religion was initially aimed at propagandistically active scientific-atheist cadres. However, the editorial team’s intention was to reach both waverers and believers. Therefore, the journal’s content sought to cater for the needs of two distinct types of readers, which accounts for its relatively schizophrenic nature. It should be noted that it was by no means a scientific journal.3 The need for a system of scientific-atheist education was expressed during the XXII Party Congress in 1961, together with other far reaching ideological claims and revelations. These included a statement on the moral code of the builder of communism and the beginning of the communist construction. In his speech, Khrushchev asserted that “we need a well thought-out, comprehensive system of scientific-atheist education which is capable of reaching all the classes and groups of the population, and which would be able to prevent the dissemination of religious worldviews, especially among children and youths.”4 Although the driving force in the sphere of scientific atheism was the central branch of the KS , which coordinated the propaganda and education efforts, the speech’s demands also helped to shape the sphere of academic scientific atheism. In the following years, various propaganda organizations repeatedly pointed to the lack of collaboration and the insufficient quantity and quality of scientificatheist scholarship that was hindering the process of atheization.5 It became increasingly clear to party officials that the fragmentation of scientific-atheist research was contributing neither to its quality nor its quantity, much less to the impact of the research.6 Therefore, they were convinced that the research needed to be centralized, institutionalized, and systematized in order to improve the outcomes of the propaganda. In June 1963 called the CC ’s Plenum for “all the means of ideological influence” to be concentrated on the “education of a new man and the overcoming of the remnants of the past in people’s consciousness.”7 As a result, the meeting of the party’s ideological commission decided in November 1963 to establish the ISA within the Academy of the Social Sciences (ASS henceforth). Its task was to oversee and co-ordinate all the work in the field of scientific atheism and to pro 2 See GARF, f. A-561, op. 1, d. 676, ll. 131–138. 3 For a more detailed study of the journal’s content in the 1960s see Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 159–183. 4 Cit. Materialy XXII . sjezda KPSS . Moskva 1961, 111 f. 5 See Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 115 f. 6 See Kaariainen: Discussion, 29. 7 See Bociurkiw: De-Stalinization, 320.

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duce vital knowledge that would assist with scientific-atheist propaganda.8 This decision was finalized by the CC CPSU decree “On Measures for Strengthen­ing the Atheist Education of the Population,” which was issued on 2 January 1964.9 The January 1964 decree was the practical outcome of an approximately five-year-long atheist campaign. This had some tangible results but left many questions unanswered. The decree, therefore, represented an attempt on the part of the political leaders to re-evaluate and rethink scientific atheism once more. While in previous years the main emphasis had been placed on scientific-atheist education and propaganda, the focus was now placed on strengthening the scholarly aspect of scientific atheism. As Thrower rightfully observes, the party wanted more and better from those engaged in the business of “scientific atheism” and it wanted more cooperation from those engaged in cognate disciplines. More particularly, it wanted greater emphasis laid on the philosophical refutation of religion and urged those engaged in expounding dialectical and historical materialism, aided by those working in psychology and sociology, to provide detailed and more positive analyses of religion, emphasizing, particularly, contemporary religion.10

The formation and first months of the ISA coincided with Khrushchev’s last months in office. However, those who had expected the party to cease supporting scientific atheism after the change of leadership were in for a surprise. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Khrushchev’s successor as general secretary of the CPSU, did not continue with the fully-fledged antireligious campaign, which had included open administrative measures against religion on part of the local CP dignitaries and secretaries of CAROC branches. However, the status of the ISA was neither debated nor doubted. Furthermore, the system of scientific-atheist propaganda remained untouched and the development of civic rituals continued. Consequently, the process of establishing scientific-atheist scholarship in the Soviet Union was not called into question by the new administration. In fact, Brezhnev indirectly supported the further development of the new scholarly discipline, which proceeded at an unprecedented width and quality. Likewise, the propaganda aspect of scientific atheism was not forgotten. However, the period of feverish struggles for the formation of  a system of scientific-atheist education evolved into a period of the quiet development of the existing structures, which was mirrored by  a relative decrease in scientific-atheist lectures 8 See Kommunist 1 (1964), 36 f. 9 See Partiinaia zhizn’, no. 2, 1964, 22–26. Apart from that Central Committee’s decree, the course Foundations of Scientific Atheism was also made compulsory in that year. Van den Bercken believes that it was due to the general lack of interest by students that since 1964 the subject has been made obligatory. However, this policy could be also understood along the lines of systematization of the scientific atheism as a technology of power. See Van den Bercken: Ideology, 129. 10 Cit. Thrower: Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism, 146.

126  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  in years 1964–1971. In other words, the scientific-atheist propaganda under Brezhnev’s administration continued in a similar fashion to that of the first half of the 1960s. Its main channels of influence, such as the KS and the Science and Religion journal, remained unchanged. However, no new structural aspects were developed that would have led to dramatic changes. If anything, the entire system was streamlined, centralized, and formalized in the second half of the 1960s. This meant that certain propaganda practices were discarded, while others were perfected, but that no new significant features were added. It would almost appear that the political administration under Brezhnev was satisfied with the price / quality ratio of the propaganda system that had been introduced by his predecessor. The main lesson of the years 1959–1964 was probably the realization that religiosity would continue, even in the period of “real socialism,” and that the current system of scientific-atheist propaganda was unable to change that, irrespective of how hard it tried. Therefore, Brezhnev’s administration had to come to terms with the limitations of scientific-atheist propaganda and its influence. Given that the estimated number of believers in the USSR was relatively low during the second half of the 1960s in comparison to earlier periods of the Soviet regime, the further intensification of atheist propaganda seemed neither justifiable nor necessary. As a result, the main goal of scientific-atheist propaganda also shifted during the 1960s. While the main goal in the 1950s had been to achieve conversions from a religious to a scientific worldview, it became increasingly important in the 1960s to cultivate a scientific worldview with the help of scientific-atheist propaganda. Simply put, while the interested specialists considered “preaching to the converted” as an organizational weakness in the 1950s, this became one of the most important aspects of the system of scientific-atheist education in the 1960s and later. This is not to say that religiosity ceased to be a problem for the scientific-atheist specialists of the 1960s. Their ultimate goal did not change, but this was no longer the only issue they were addressing. The increasing quantity of scholarly knowledge, which was quickly amassed by the work of the ISA and by professional atheist scholars from other research institutions, meant that new social categories emerged that required attention, such as those of waverers or indifferent people. Such categories were a typical product of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style, which had itself emerged as a specific manner of scholarly thinking, in contrast to the predominantly propagandistically oriented framework of the 1950s and the first years of 1960s. It is important to emphasize that the scientific-atheist thought collective was unable to work with the thought style undergirding the epistemological paradigm during both Khrushchev and Brezhnev’s tenures. This does not mean that the atheist specialists were unable to develop new questions, theories, and methods. Rather, it means that the general epistemological framework in which they operated, or the thought style’s meta-theory, was unable to exceed its

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narrowly defined limits due to incessant and quite strong heteronomous control. In the terminology of Kuhn and Fleck, the esoteric thought collective was able to achieve shifts within the thought style, which led to the evolution of certain aspects of points of view encapsulated within the realm of knowledge. However, the socio-political context meant that they were unable to breach the epistemological paradigm and perform a scientific revolution. As a case in point, during the 1960s the atheist specialists repeatedly formulated new questions and fields of enquiry. However, they were unable to provide satisfactory answers for these questions because they could not exceed the epistemological boundaries that were imposed as mandatory theoretical and methodological axioms by a heteronomous force. Therefore, both the scientific atheists’ perspective and their assessment and evaluation of the material gathered were largely based on the earlier tradition of Marxist atheist thinking. This tradition was heavily influenced by political control of the party. This meant that the concepts, underlying theories, and new hypotheses were the organic outcome of the thought style that had been developed by the exoteric thought collective in the second half of the 1950s. These were partially refined at the beginning of the 1960s and partially constructed anew by esoteric experts with  a more rigorous scholarly analysis in years 1964–1971 and beyond. As a result, no shift of thought style occurred in the USSR during this period. Neither the party nor the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective was able or willing to find a way out of the epistemological impasse, or to reflect on the need to expand the mental horizons defined by the existing thought style. Consequently, as noted above, many pressing questions remained unanswered because the answers were “unthinkable” within the current thought style. Never­ theless, the epistemologically conditioned shortcomings could certainly not serve as an explanation for the party at the beginning of the 1960s, as the it expected tangible results. The subsequent assessment of overall atheist activity during the 1960s, together with analyses from the regions compiled by concerned party workers, underlined the fact that the results once again did not meet the expectations. Although the scientific research conducted by the ISA provided some insight into the structure and dynamics of religiosity in some regions of the Soviet Union, it was not sufficient, as Smolkin-Rothrock and others rightfully point out.11 The party resolution of 16 July 1971 entitled “On the Intensification of the Atheist Education of the Population,” published just a few months after the XXIV Congress of the CPSU, together with an internal resolution of the Scientific Council of the CPSU ’s ASS on the work of the ISA , not only emphasized that the results of scientific-atheist propaganda were unsatis-

11 See Smolkin-Rothrock, “A Sacred Space,” 225, and Chausov: Evoliutsiia, 55–83.

128  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  factory but openly castigated the work of the leading research institution in the Soviet Union.12 The fact that the scientific-atheist activities of the 1960s were retrospectively assessed as inadequate led to the further transformation of the esoteric scholarly field. This field was represented by both the ISA and by the restructuring of the exoteric collective of atheist propagandists who were predominantly active within the framework of the KS . The purpose of the fourth chapter is to trace how the negative reaction of the party influenced the further development of the field in the 1970s and 1980s. It also analyses to what extent the atheist thought collective was capable of evolving, and whether, and in what ways, it was able to respond to the demands of its most significant reference group. 3.1.2 The Institutionalization Process 3.1.2.1 The Structure of Scientific Research Prior to the ISA’s Foundation The first steps to organize scientific-atheist research outside of the MIRA in Leningrad, which could apparently no longer provide either sufficient resources or researchers to cater for the needs of the atheist propagandists, were taken in 1959. The praesidium of the Soviet Academy of the Sciences (SAS henceforth) adopted the resolution “On the Intensification of Scientific Work in the Realm of Atheism” in 1959. A section on atheism was established in the academy’s institute of philosophy, and groups studying the history of the critique of religion were subsequently established in the academy’s institutes of history and ethnography and at the Institute for the Study of the Peoples of the East.13 This decision on the organizational level had a profound impact on knowledge production. People and resources were assigned to research previously unexplored areas of scientific-atheist doctrine, enabling it to become engrossed within the propaganda discourse of the previous period and align itself with it. Likewise, the organization of atheist research groups at some universities after 1959, such as the departments of scientific atheism at the Moscow State University and the Leningrad State University, contributed to  a qualitative change in knowledge concerning scientific atheism. The first professional scientific-atheist researchers were still individual workers, rather than parts of an interconnected network that would eventually develop into a relatively independent, yet intrinsically unified international scientificatheist thought collective. In this sense, the first organizational wave helped to establish some disciplinary foundations. The scholarly contributions made by members of atheist research groups to the topic facilitated a change of attitude 12 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 103. 13 See Kaariainen: Discussion, 28. 

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to atheism in a long-term perspective. The pioneering studies also included the first sociological enquiries concerning the level and depth of religiosity in some regions.14 Acquaintance with the work of atheists from special departments led the significant reference groups, that is fellow scholars with another disciplinary background and party workers predominantly from the CAROC or the ideological departments, to the crucial conclusion that the specialized study of phenomena in the relatively unclear category of scientific atheism could not be substantiated by means of other, already-existing scientific disciplines. The need for more focused and specialized research in various areas had been explicitly voiced by the enthusiastic yet relatively uninformed propagandists, and it had been accepted by the party laymen. Consequently, the decision was taken to centralize the hitherto haphazardly scattered projects under one roof. The founding of a specialized research center in 1964 was, therefore, a confirmation of the development that had taken place on the institutional level in the years 1959–1964. This decision was motivated by three main factors. Firstly, the sensibilities within the relevant reference groups, which had been shaped by the need to better understand the process of secularization, made the decision possible. Secondly, the existence of competent experts who incessantly pointed out the unsatisfactory nature of their conditions placed pressure on the party decision-makers. Thirdly, the lack of a location where knowledge concerning the secularization process could be produced, assessed, and arranged for the further use by other significant reference groups, including laymen, and the esoteric and exoteric circles, played an important role. The smaller groups, such as the scientific-atheist research group at the SAS ’s institute of history, could serve as disciplinary centers that answered the call for specialized sciences. However, they were unable to provide authoritative treatises that could cover the area holistically, while showing its relevance to the contemporary ideological struggle. The scientific atheism departments’ position at the universities was slightly different. From the outset, they were designed as centers that were intended to integrate different scholarly disciplines under the common aegis of scientific atheism. However, the primary function of such departments was not research but rather the education of new specialists. They 14 The earliest sociological research on Soviet religiosity was organized by the group for scientific-atheist research at the Institute of History of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The survey about the religious life of sectarians in Tambov, Lipetsk and Voronezh regions was led by Aleksandr Klibanov, See Klibanov, Aleksandr, Iliich: Sovremennoe sektantstvo v Tambovskoi oblasti: Po materialam ekspeditsii Instituta istorii AN SSSR v 1959g, in: Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma. Vol. 8. Moskva 1960, 59–100. Another sociologic study was conducted by members of the newly formed department of scientific atheism at the Moscow State University in Orel region. See Zuev, Iurii, Pavlovich: Institut nauchnogo ateizma (1964–1991), in: Voprosy religii i religiovedeniia. Antologiia otechestvennogo religiovedeniia. Vol. 1. Moskva 2009, 19.

130  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  were therefore focused predominantly on the organization of knowledge into well-arranged blocks of “certified knowledge.” This took the form of university textbooks and other publications for students, together with methodical treatises on the pedagogical aspects of teaching atheism. Although research into all the important spheres of knowledge formed an indispensable part of such centers on the regional level, they were unable to formulate a universally effective strategic plan of research, much less the main goals of the new philosophical science. A new facultative university level course entitled “Foundations of Scientific atheism” formed part of this development.15 When the course became part of the curriculum of certain institutions of higher learning, the professional scientific atheists were faced with the problem of what knowledge was to be considered  a “canon.” In other words, they were challenged to consider the systematization, hierarchization, and concise presentation of the most important facts and concepts of scientific-atheist thinking.16 Supported by the party resolution, the textbook entitled “Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma” (The Fundamentals of Scientific Atheism) was published by  a team of leading scientific-atheist scholars from Moscow and Leningrad in 1961. Many of them were members of the Academy of the Sciences of the Soviet Union’s philosophical institute, and this book was expected to replace previous textbooks that had been published to address the immediate need for course materials.17 The new textbook’s goal was therefore to consolidate the elements of the thought style into a coherent system and to eliminate the knowledge that had not been authorized by the scholars or sanctioned by the central ideological organs of the CPSU. The publication of the official textbook in 1961 was a step towards the much-desired unification and effective control of scientific-atheist discourse by scholars from the Moscow and Leningrad research institutions. However, the 1961 textbook was not universally adopted, particularly in the regions. As a result, the first voluntary students of atheism in the Soviet Union were issued with literature of an unequal quality, which had repercussions on both the depth of their own convictions and the degree of their scientific-atheist activities. In June 1965 the scientific-atheist specialists convened a meeting in Moscow to discuss the impact and overall quality of the first generation of textbooks, 15 See Thrower: Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism, 143. 16 The very first attempts to create  a scientific-atheist canon for the students of facultative courses were made immediately after their introduction in 1959. See Tugov, Iurii, Mikhailovich: Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma. Moskva 1959, Pantskhava, Ilia, Diomidovich: Marksistskii ateizm — v ysshaia forma ateizma. Moskva 1960, Rogov, Igor: Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma. Leningrad 1960. 17 See Tsamerian, Ivan, Petrovich / Dolgikh, Filipp, Ivanovich / Kolonitskii, Petr, Fedotovich /  Sheinman, Mikhail, Markovich (eds.): Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma. Moskva 1961. The textbook was re-published two times in the subsequent three years. The first two print runs comprised hundred thousand copies each.

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and their tone was almost unanimously condemnatory towards the production of the local specialists. To illustrate the outcome of the debate, it is worth noting Pavel Kurochkin’s remark on the quality of the regional textbooks for higher learning: “Ocherki po nauchnomu ateizmu [The Outlines of Scientific Atheism, JT] gives very weak clarifications of contemporary questions. The book contains many mistakes, inaccuracies, and employs a gaudy and insulting tone towards clergymen.”18 It is important to note here that in the first half of the 1960s the role assigned to the MIRA in Leningrad changed. While it retained its repository and documentation functions, its focus on research was replaced by a focus on atheist propaganda and education. This change began in 1959 when the museum was strongly criticized for focusing too much on the history of religion and for not contributing sufficiently to the fight against religious superstition. The party made it clear that a greater emphasis had to be placed on exposing and criticizing religion. This demand impacted the institution’s exhibition strategy and overall focus. As a result, some researchers who did not agree with the proposed changes, including Shakhnovich, left the museum in 1960 and continued their work in other research institutions.19 The efforts to reshape the museum from a predominantly research facility into a largely propagandist one continued at the beginning of the 1960s. In order to underline its change in status, the MIRA was exempted from the authority of the SAS and was placed administratively under the Leningrad cultural bureau in 1961. This change went hand in hand with a change in its top management, which also occurred in 1961. Its director had been Sergei Kovalev, one of the leading Soviet specialists in the sphere of classical studies, a specialist in research into early Christianity, who directed the MIRA in the years 1956–1960, although he was not a member of the CPSU. After his death, he was not succeeded by another scholar but by a former party official, namely, Nikolai Krasnikov, who completed the re-purposing of the MIRA in the 1960s.20 The extent of the change can be perceived in the following statement: “I don’t know how to create a new exhibition, but I know quite well how to destroy the old one.”21 The museum continued to publish its main periodical, the Yearbook, until 1963, and it retained some features of a research institution. These included the education of aspirants and the occasional publication of research, such as an 18 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 32, l. 103. 19 For example, Shakhnovich, who was a deputy director of the MIRA in years 1953–1960, continued his academic career as a professor responsible for the specialization course History of Religion and Atheism at the faculty of arts at the Leningrad State University until 1991. See Spravochnik, in: Muzei istorii religii, URL : http://gmir.ru/glossary/?action=show&id=272 (on 23 January 2017). 20 See Shakhnovich / Chumakova: Muzei, 87–94. 21 Cit. ibid., 88.

132  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  in-depth study of the philosophical roots of scientific atheism by Shakhnovich in 1961, which was entitled “Lenin i problemy ateizma” (Lenin and the problems of Atheism). However, because its research output was curtailed compared to the period prior to 1961, it could clearly not aspire to the position of being the leading atheist research center, as had been the case in the 1950s. 3.1.2.2 The Foundation of the ISA and Changes in the Research Organization As already noted, the ISA was founded as a relatively independent research center within the framework of the ASS which was a part of the CPCC structure. It was founded in the first months of 1964 and as a result of the January resolution. The decision not to embed the Institute within the existing structure of the SAS was not arbitrary. Rather, it indicates how the engaged party officials viewed the purposes and tasks of the new research center. The SAS was generally home to traditional scholarly disciplines whereas ideologically significant knowledge was generated by the ASS .22 The ASS , founded in Moscow on 2 August 1946, brought together disciplines that were rather closely connected to the philosophical doctrine of Marxism-­ Leninism. Furthermore, the fact that the ASS was directly under the auspices of the party’s CC played an extremely important role for all the institutes that were added to its structure. Not only was one of the ASS ’s main goals to educate party members in the various fields of the expanding doctrine, but only those with a valid party ID were admitted. Therefore, the ISA found itself in the company of such disciplines as political economy, the history of the CPSU, dialectical and historical materialism, and scientific communism.23 It is not difficult to realize that these realms of knowledge were closely associated with potentially sensitive propaganda issues, which could not be trusted to people without an adequate political training and worldview. The role of the ASS in this regard was to both polish and deepen the qualities of their students, and to advance the fields of knowledge that were seen as crucial to the further development of socialism in the Soviet Union. As Mark Field observed concerning the goals of the ASS just a few years after its foundation, “As an instrument of the Communist Party […] the Academy of the Social Sciences is to play a paramount role in inculcating

22 See Science Policy and Organization of Research in the USSR . Paris 1967, 13–16. For the general distinction between the SAS and ASS at the time of the formation of the latter see: Field, Mark: The Academy of Social Sciences of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in: The Journal of American Sociology 56/2 (1950) 137–141. For the organization of research and broader analysis of the scientific community’s coping mechanism against the pressures of the heteronomous force see Vucinich: Empire, 199–348. 23 See Akademiia obshchestvennykh nauk pri CK KPSS . In: Boľshaia Sovetskaia entsyklopediia, URL : http://bse.sci-lib.com/article005417.html (on 25 January 2017).

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a proper Marxist viewpoint in the Soviet intelligentsia and indirectly in the Soviet people.”24 Therefore, from the outset, the ASS ’s research on both political practice and propaganda activity exemplified the two most important products that had an indispensable value for both the CC and the Department of Propaganda and Agitation. As a result, the predicament of theoretical research was largely determined by its practical usefulness to the current party line. This meant that scholars had to make their research relevant, not only from the epistemological perspectives of their respective disciplines but also by persuading the party plenipotentiaries that their contributions would help them to achieve their political goals. To summarize, the scholars employed by the ASS often found themselves caught up between the Scylla of ideologically based scholarship and the Charybdis of social reality, which tended to resist the former’s explanations. The position of the ISA was no different in this respect. Like any other research center in the Soviet Union, the ISA had  a certain organizational structure that enabled it to manage its tasks in  a certain way. Because many of the members of the various soviets and research groups did not belong to the institute’s staff, it could be argued that the ISA was a relatively open research center. The institute’s directors did exercise a certain power over its internal matters regarding graduate student management and the topics of research carried out by the ISA members. Nevertheless, the overall picture of scientific-atheist scholarship was not defined solely by the ISA scholars but was also worked out in cooperation with scholars from other institutions. Furthermore, outside influence of the party, varied as it were, should also be taken into consideration. Therefore, it would not be accurate to argue that the research was exclusively in the hands of the ISA . Questions can be raised concerning how the different aspects of the institutional structure contributed to research, and in what ways the structure determined both the research and its outcomes. Strictly speaking, the most important body that should have steered the scientific-atheist research was the so-called “Coordination Soviet for Scientific Research in the Field of Atheism and Religion.” It was relevant at the beginning of the 1960s as there was no other institution to bring the compartmentalized research together. However, it simply became a remnant from an earlier time after 1964, as its main functions were taken over by the ISA . The Coordination Soviet was a body of leading scholars, propagandists, and politicians who dealt with religion and scientific atheism. Its potential impact was greatly curtailed by the fact that it was convened on an irregular basis. The soviet had 38 members in 1970. This number, together with other circumstantial evidence, is a useful indicator of the approximate size of the scientific-atheist esoteric group.

24 Cit. Field: The Academy 141.

134  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  In theory, the primary task of the Coordination Soviet was to ensure that the general five-year plan for scientific research in the field of scientific atheism covered all the necessary issues. At the same time, it sought to ensure that the research met the generally desired standards, and that there were no duplicate analyses or repeated interpretations. Although the Coordination Soviet had the theoretical right to remove, change, or add certain topics in the general research plan in order to achieve the desired research goals, it could not (or did not want to) enforce this right in practice. This power was not used even though some members of the soviet repeatedly pointed out that the duplication and repetition of topics were the main weaknesses in the research plan’s structure.25 The power to impose the centrally conceived research plan on other centers of scientific-atheist scholarship was equally limited. Instead of passively accepting the designed outline, the affected institutions applied to have their research proposals added to the plan and were often successful.26 The only reasons for rejection, which were only applied in exception cases, were linked to arguments concerning the insufficient scientific value of the research. It was sometimes pointed out that the topic had already been well researched.27 Consequently, the overall amount of research was relatively impressive, particularly considering the small number of research institutions. However, there was no clear vision or program of the five-year plan to speak of. In general, it was rather a haphazard and convoluted compound, rather than a carefully systematized and well-thought-out structure. Moreover, the Coordination Soviet was  a rather cumbersome and ineffective assembly, which did not have much of an impact on the landscape of scientific atheism in the USSR after the mid-1960s. By contrast, the ISA’s Scientific Soviet was much smaller, more active, and flexible, which was necessary for the life of the esoteric thought collective. While the Scientific Soviet implemented the significant decisions that influenced the form and spheres of the realm of knowledge, the real work was done within the framework of the research groups. The institute assessed the atheist work in these groups, outlined the shortcomings of previous practices, and set about defining the agenda for the future of atheist theory and practice. In addition to conducting actual research, the task of the topical research groups was also to coordinate the application of theory and practice at a Union-wide level.28 25 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d.56, l. 5. 26 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 230, l. 7. 27 See Zuev: Institut, 29. 28 The institute’s research teams investigated broadly defined categories pertinent to atheist education: (1) the character and degree of the religiosity of Soviet believers; (2) features of the battle between science and religion in contemporary conditions; (3) moral progress and religion; (4) tendencies in the development of religious ideology and organizations in capitalist countries; (5) preconditions for and paths towards fully overcoming religion; (6) the effectiveness of various forms of atheist education, later reformulated as forms and methods

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While the Coordination Soviet and the Research Soviet determined the research on the vertical level, it was the so-called local bases that were essential on the horizontal level. Smolkin-Rothrock and Iurii Zuev observed that it was the demand to connect research and policy, ideology and reality, and theory and practice that propelled the creation of local bases which were intended to operate as regional centers for both cadre training and sociological research. These local bases were spread out across the entire Soviet Union. Their primary objective was to study religiosity in the area in order to recommend policies that would increase the effectiveness of the atheist work conducted by the local party and Komsomol organs, together with other educational, social, and cultural organizations.29 Within two years, the institute had established around forty local bases across the Soviet Union, many of which were in major urban centers, as well as in areas with exceptionally high concentrations of religious communities. At the beginning of this process it was possible to organize the bases with the help of multiple organizations, such as regional institutes of higher learning, local branches of the KS , houses of culture, and party committees. However, it proved to be difficult to get the local bases to conduct the research that the ISA in Moscow assigned them. Consequently, the inactivity of the majority of the local bases led to their dissolution and the transfer of most of the remaining bases to the auspices of the local party committee. This decision was intended to ensure better control and the accountability of the local bases. It was also intended to partially solve the financing problem, which was a weakness of certain local bases and the main reason for their inactivity. In a report on the ISA’s activities from the end of the 1970s, only twenty operational bases were mentioned.30 There was  a notable change of approach towards the local bases during 1970s. The ISA started to perceive them as a type of specialized detached bases. Instead of focusing on all types of scholarly inquiry, they only focused on topics that correspond to the bases’ locations.31 The two maps in the appendix show both the institutional and the geographical change during the 1960s and 1970. It should be clear that the local bases were established in regions where  a higher concentration of believers was suspected, where there was a strong reliof atheist propaganda; (7) the atheist education of the emerging generation; and (8) bourgeois atheism and free-thinking at the present stage, added a year later, in 1965. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d.1, ll. 3–8, and RGASPI , f. 606, op.4, d. 4, ll. 18–19. 29 See Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 191, and Zuev: Institut, 19.  30 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 192, ll. 248–256, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 224, ll. 126–128. 31 For example, local base in Voronezh should specialize on problems of scientific atheism in the work of the CPSU and public organizations, local base in Orlov was to carry out sociological research of religious and atheist phenomena in the countryside, whereas local base in Chuvashia had to concentrate on religious syncretism. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 192, ll. 33–34.

136  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  gious tradition, or where the Council of Religious Affairs (CRA henceforth) reported sectarian activities. Although the majority of local bases were located in traditionally Orthodox regions, there was a conscious effort to establish local bases in regions where other so-called “global religions” dominated. This was the case in the Baltic States (Riga, Vilnius), the western parts of Ukraine, and the Muslim territories (Kazan, Makhachkala). The ISA also wanted to study religiously indeterminate regions, where multiple confessions struggled for domination, such as in the Mari republic (Yoskhar Ola). A few local bases were also established in areas that were considered as religiously average and, therefore, representative of the Soviet Union as a whole (Perm, Voronezh). The cadres of the local bases were teachers from institutions of higher learning. They were accompanied by propagandists of scientific atheism affiliated to the KS and sometimes by workers from the obkom’s and gorkom’s ideological departments. The local party organization had to confirm the local base’s foundation, and it therefore had the final say over the local base’s research and the overall thrust of its activities.32 Therefore, although they were formally initiated by the ISA , the local bases were more directly linked to the local party organization. This explains the ISA’s limited influence over “its own” detached research centers. Even the director of a local base had to be confirmed by the party organization, but it was exceptional for someone proposed by the ISA to not be confirmed.33 In addition to material difficulties, the ISA also had another problem with its local bases. Although the ISA theoretically had the leading position among the local bases, it had no mechanism for ensuring obedience in matters of methodology, survey design, and even the underlying theory. As a result, both the raw data gathered by the surveys and their interpretation varied considerably in quality and depth of analysis. It was therefore no surprise that there were multiple opinions regarding such matters as the nature of believers, and what this category denoted (discussed in section Scientific-atheist Sociology). This made the overall value of the research questionable, and it took twenty years until the research guidelines issued from Moscow were taken seriously.34 The local bases contributed to the thought collective’s existence in a substantial way. These clusters of atheist knowledge served above all as a reservoir of atheist specialists. In many cases, they were the only place where an exchange of ideas between the center and the periphery occurred on a regular basis. As such, the local bases helped to maintain the process of educating “true” scientific atheists as they provided them with the necessary institutional anchor for their activities. 32 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 192, ll. 248–256. 33 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 81, ll. 9–12. 34 See Zuev: Institut, 20.

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3.1.2.3 The Formation of the Esoteric Group of Professional Scientific-Atheist Scholars The foundation of the ISA enabled it to concentrate scientific-atheist experts from various disciplines under one roof. Such  a decision not only helped to create  a multidisciplinary research team, which had been  a plea that experts had voiced at the beginning of the 1960s in the journal “Voprosy filosofii” (The Issues of Philosophy), but it also facilitated the creation of a sense of community. One of the first questions that arose was related to cadres. More precisely, a decision had to be made concerning the first director of the institute. The question of the ISA’s leadership was decided during the course of 1964. Iurii Frantsev,35 a renowned scholar of atheism, proposed Aleksandr Okulov36 for the position of director, while Pavel Kurochkin37 and Vladimir Evdokimov, who had 35 Iurii Frantsev was a philosopher, historian of religion and scientific atheist. In 1972 was posthumously published his major synthesis “Nauchnyi ateizm” (Scientific Atheism). His institutional affiliation was also close to scientific-atheist institutions. Born in 1903, he was the deputy director in years 1931–1937 and then the director of the MIRA before Bonch-Bruevich (1937–1945). During his time in the MIRA , he also successfully defended doctoral dissertation called “Fetishism and the Problem of Origins of Religion.” Frantsev was a member of the SAS (1964–1969), and Rector of the ASS (1958–1965). He became the CPSU member in 1940 and during years 1961–1969 was a candidate for membership at the CPSU. As such, he represents one of the most influential scientific-atheist academicians, who played the decisive role in the institutionalization of scientific atheism in the framework of the ASS . See Kogan, Iurii, Iaroslavovich: V. D.  Bonch-Bruevich i nauchno-ateisticheskaia rabota akademii nauk SSSR (1946–1955). Moskva 1956, 11–20, and Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich (1873–1955). Materialy k bibliografii uchenykh SSSR . Moskva 1958, 10–27. 36 The choice of Okulov, an ASS insider, to lead the newly formed institute is less than surprising. At the time of his appointment, Okulov—who began as  a logger in the Kirov region in the late 1920s but quickly moved into the sphere of cultural enlightenment and party work—was, at the time of his appointment, the deputy director of the Institute of Philosophy of the SAS , a position he had held from 1951. He had also joined the faculty of the ASS around the same time. By education, Okulov was  a journalist but, based on his professional biography, his editorial skills were most often applied in the sphere of ideology. Besides extensive party propaganda work over the course of the 1930s and 1940s, Okulov had been the editor of the journal “Issues of Philosophy” between 1959 and 1960. This made him a reliable political choice to be not only the director of the institute but also the editor of the institute’s periodic, Questions of Scientific Atheism, despite the fact that he did not publish any major treatise in the field of scientific atheism before 1964. Nevertheless, Aleksandr Okulov was the ideological filter of the country’s central atheist institution and publication for several decades. See Okulov, Aleksandr, Fedorovich. In: Filosofy Rossii XIX .-XX . stoletii. Biografii, idei, Trudy. Moskva 2012, URL : http://az-libr.ru/index.htm?Persons&0B5/84e77bbb/0001/78​ de01c5 (on 7 May 2015). See also Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 188. 37 Pavel Kurochkin became a party member in 1946, after serving in the Soviet Army (1938–1945) and beginning his studies at Novgorod and Leningrad party schools (1945–1951). His subsequent education at Leningrad State University took a more academic direction and he became  a graduate student in the ASS Philosophy Department in 1959, where he, like Okulov, received  a teaching position upon graduation. His studies in the ten years before

138  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  worked in the CPCC until then,38 were nominated for the positions of deputy directors. This decision was in keeping with the institution’s twofold task as envisaged by both party officials and scientific-atheist specialists. Nevertheless, the choice of Okulov over other scholars with more research experience in the scientific-atheist field suggests that, for the founders, ideological orthodoxy was at least as important as the ability to assess knowledge production according to the scientific standards of the discipline. The scientific expertise and its applicability in the practice of scientific-atheist propaganda was to have been overseen by Kurochkin, who also had the corresponding training. The other core specialists, who worked as either senior or junior researchers, were drawn from three different institutes of the SAS , namely, the institutes of philosophy, history, and ethnography. With this administrative measure, which led to the dissolution of the respective departments, the concentration of the leading scholars under the roof of the ISA was completed.39 The senior researchers were largely recruited in the 1960s and continued to work for the institute until its very end. Some of them even continued their careers in the field of religious studies after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, such as Viktor Garadzha, Iuri Zuev, Remir Lopatkin, and many others.40 The institute was initially allocated 13 employees in order to conduct its work. As already noted, they were transferred from both party organs and academic and research institutions, including the Department of Atheism at the Moscow State University and the institutes of the SAS . The modest number of the institute’s core members rose steadily, and it had 43 people on its payroll in 1978.41 The increasing number of professionals employed directly by the ISA suggests that scientific atheism continued to be relevant to the party during the entire Brezhnev period. In addition to serving as one of the country’s top research centers in the field of scientific atheism, one of the most important functions of the institute was to train top-quality atheist cadres in its graduate program. The institute followed the practices of the ASS in selecting applicants. This meant that the graduate becoming deputy director of the institute focused on antireligious propaganda, and he had already published eight works on religion and atheism by 1964. Moreover, he was at the Methodological Council for the Propaganda of Scientific Atheism of the Knowledge Society which is why he was recommended for the post of the deputy director. 38 See RGASPI f. 606, op. 2, d. 25. See also Shakhnovich, Marianna, Mikhailovna: Otechestvennoe religiovedenie 20–80-x godov XX veka: Ot kakogo nasledstva my otkazyvaemsia, in: Shakhnovich, Marianna, Mikhailovna (ed.): Ocherki po istorii religiovedeniia. Sankt Petersburg 2006, 181–197. On sociological studies of religion, including the work of the institute, see Zuev, Iurii, Pavlovich: Dinamika religioznosti v Rossii v XX veke i ee sotsiologicheskoe izuchenie, in: Garadzha, Viktor, Ivanovich (ed.): Sotsiologiia religii. Moskva 1995, 187–210. 39 See Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 191–194. 40 See Zuev: Institut, 10. 41 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 206, l. 176.

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students were mainly selected out of the regional party organs (obkom, gorkom, raikom), and sometimes out of republic-level party CCs. Prospective candidates were expected to be members of the CPSU in order to pursue the title of “candidate of sciences” at the ISA .42 The work of the institute’s graduate students was partly curated by the CPCC . The students were directed to research topics of interest to the party’s ideological work—such as the psychology of believers, trends in religious ritual observance, and the process of secularization in Soviet conditions. In gathering material for their dissertations, many students served as coordinators of research projects around the country and often worked through the local bases.43 The total number of internal aspirants who successfully defended their candidate theses at the ISA exceeded 120 for the years 1964–1991. The total number, which also included long-distance candidates, was more than two hundred (for a more detailed overview, consult Table 3 in the appendix). The number of successfully defended doctoral dissertations was around forty.44 One of the important side effects of the graduate program was the spread of the ISA’s method of scientific-atheist thinking into other regions of the USSR and beyond. In many cases, the graduates served as senior scholars for other prospective students in remote regions of the USSR and in Eastern Bloc countries. These personal channels enabled the spread of the scientific-atheist thought collective into other places that had previously been weakly represented. As  a result, other scholars came to work in accordance with the thought style, which was predominantly transmitted by means of the written word. The presence of ISA graduates in various local contexts ensured that the thought style, or at least some of its elements, was not only perceived but also appropriated and internalized. However, the thought collective had in reality extremely limited opportunities for expanding in this manner as the options for conducting professional atheist research or tuition at the appropriate level were not attractive enough especially in the regions. What all the successful ISA post-graduates had in common was, firstly, the ability to speak “fluent Bolshevik”45 and, secondly, the ability to apply the socio 42 According to the party resolution from 12 November 1970, only officials from the party apparatus, Komsomol, or teachers from higher political schools (vysschikh politicheskikh schkol) could have been enrolled as full-time students. On the pretext of finishing dissertation, only party members could be temporary assigned to the ISA . See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 25, l. 37. 43 See Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 192 f. 44 See RGASPI , f. 606, op.4, d. 118, l. 32. 45 The concept of “speaking Bolshevik” is more thoroughly discussed in the book by Stephen Kotkin, who interpreted Stalinism as  a special type of civilization. With some caution, the general metaphor can be used for later stages of so called Developed Socialism as well. See Kotkin, Stephen: Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization. London 1997, 198–238.

140  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  logical, psychological, and philosophical concepts and categories of religious or atheist phenomena and to work out their practical applications. The students were frequently required to demonstrate that they were aware of the founding principles of their discipline. Furthermore, they had to show the ability to impeccably emulate the thought style of their teachers. Therefore, the replication of an already existing way of thinking was considered to be a more important asset then the production of innovative research that transcended established theoretical and epistemological boundaries. This approach was cemented by the ISA’s scientific council and was repeated during the research group meetings. The outcome of the approach was that it helped to replicate the existing thought style, but it prevented the next generation of researchers from opening new research topics. The aspirants’ scientific production remained remarkably similar over the years. Some atheist scholars noticed the repetitiveness of the dissertations and the conspicuously low level of added value. However, they were unable to change the mechanism of knowledge production because they were themselves bound to the rigid inculcation of the esoteric thought style through their professional training. These structural constraints meant that the innovation cycle of the scientific-­atheist scholarly discipline was remarkably low, because it was incredibly difficult to breach the already established method of posing questions and the trusted inventory of theoretical concepts and methods. Therefore, there was little incentive to change their approach to the study of old phenomena, or to develop a different perspective. The study of completely new phenomena from an atheist perspective was rarely embraced within the esoteric circle of researchers. They remained trapped in the webs of their own “safe” thinking, which ensured that they did not raise suspicions of being “renegade” or “reactionary,” either among their own peers or by uninitiated party ideologues. Thus, practically the only possibility for initiating a shift in the thought style once it had established itself during the 1960s depended either on an external epistemological or disciplinary crisis within the thought collective from another socio-political context. Such a crisis came in Czechoslovakia during 1960s and in the Soviet Union in 1971 when the entire relevance of scientific-atheist research was put in question. However, academic work was not the only option available to the first ISA graduates and, as Figure 8 indicates, it was not even the most frequent occupation of the certified atheist experts. The ISA post-graduate training was not vocational training to begin with. Therefore, although the schooling the students received was thematically distinct, many of the skills they learned there proved to be compatible with various party expectations and job assignments, which had nothing to do with scientific atheism in the first place. In any case, the fact that the ISA graduates were able to find employment outside their immediate sphere of expertise may have contributed to the increased awareness of scientific atheism within the broader party structures.

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3.1.3 Elements of the Soviet Esoteric Thought Style 3.1.3.1 The Status and Definition of Scientific Atheism Once the party officials had openly expressed the need to re-start scientific-­ atheist propaganda in 1959, the question of scientific-atheist education arose once more. While the party was mainly concerned with the religious population, the atheist experts advocated that their fellow atheist propagandists and other specialist workers should also be provided with  a deeper and more complex atheist knowledge. The establishment of party schooling for the rank and file propagandists, the foundation of specialized faculties at some universities in the years 1959–1964, and the formation of specialized groups for scientific-atheist research at the SAS USSR , which were designed for more advanced atheist experts, were the most visible institutional outcomes of the process initiated by Khrushchev. Soon after multiple facilities had started this tuition, many experts began to ask the fundamental question: “What is scientific atheism?” This question was not openly discussed in the 1950s and many definitions of scientific, Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, and proletarian atheism, together with simply “atheism,” coexisted in the emerging and relatively unorganized field of knowledge. The late 1950s and especially the 1960s were the time when the previous differences of opinion came to be viewed as a problem by the scientific atheists. The debate on the definition and content of “scientific atheism” allows us to discern how the historical actors perceived themselves. Moreover, its analysis can help us to delineate the inner inhibitions of the thought style, what it sought to achieve, and where the members of the thought collective saw strengths and boundaries of their own cognition.46 The “Philosophical Encyclopedia,” an authoritative treatise the first tome of which was published in 1960 under the editor-in-chief Fedor Konstantinov, provides a definition of atheism that forms a suitable point of departure. According to Shakhnovich from Leningrad, the author of the entry, atheism is a consistently materialist worldview that opposes religion, i. e. the belief in supernatural forces (in the existence of gods, spirits, occult forces, a posthumous world, and the immortality of the soul). […] The constituent parts of atheism are philosophical, natural-scientific, and the historical critique of religion. The philosophical critique of religion denies the theological “proofs” of god’s existence. […] The natural-scientific critique of religion explains the questions of the solar system’s origin, the origins of 46 Compare with Smirnov: Religiia, 211, Antonov: “Nauka o religii,“ 11–20, Antonov, Konstantin, Mikhailovich: “Nauchnyi ateizm” i religia v SSSR : issledovanie i / ili konstruirovanie. Ateisticheskaia nauka o religii: mezhdu veruiushchimi, gosudarstvom i naukoi, in: Gefter, URL : http://gefter.ru/archive/16405 (on 2 March 2017).

142  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  life on earth, the origins of humans, and of their psychological activity, etc. [By means of this critique, JT] it disproves the religious doctrines concerning god’s creation of all living creatures, the existence of spirits, and the afterlife. The historical critique of religion shows the origins and development of religious faiths and organizations.47

The citation clearly shows that this 1960 definition of atheism was considerably indebted to the existing Marxist tradition that conceptualized atheism primarily as a part of a materialist worldview. Its objective was to conduct a critique based on three different fields of knowledge. Therefore, its main function at this time was ideological and propagandistic. As Shakhnovich wrote, “We conduct work in the scientific-atheist education of the masses.”48 This was by no means an independent sphere of knowledge or field of research. Moreover, the possibility that atheism could be a basis for the production of new positive knowledge was not even hinted at in this definition. Apart from the Philosophical Encyclopedia, hurriedly published university textbooks for the voluntary courses on Foundations of Scientific Atheism that started in 1959 also addressed the issue of scientific atheism’s definition. A typical example can be found in a book “Outlines of Scientific Atheism” published by Anatolii Karliuk in Minsk in 1961: Marxist atheism cannot be understood only as a cluster of certain theoretical claims. By showing the inconsistence of religion and its social roots, Marxist atheism also contains in itself the scientifically justified forms of struggle against all types of superstition and prejudice. Understood in this way, Marxist atheism reveals itself as the highest form of scientific atheism.49

Rather than defining the concept of atheism from a theoretical and epistemological standpoint, which was often conspicuously omitted as if unnecessary, a lengthy and extremely stereotypically written historiographical description of the history of atheism was given in the discussions of this period. Therefore, the term and its meaning in the current context was not reflected on theoretically. The only specification of scientific atheism was in the general statement that its theoretical basis was found in the Marxist philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism (“diamat” and “histmat” from now on). However, the early conceptualizations of the term do not provide any delineation between the subject matter of dialectical materialism and that of scientific atheism. Therefore, the type of relationship between diamat and histmat on the one hand, and scientific atheism on the other, was not entirely certain. Scientific atheism was described as an amorphous yet chronologically developing phenomenon which follows from the natural course of history. It was itself interpreted through 47 Cit. Filosofskaia entsiklopedia. Tom 1. Moskva 1960, 107 f. 48 Cit. ibid., 111. 49 Cit. Karliuk, Anatolii, Semenovich: Ocherki po nauchnomu ateizmu. Minsk 1961, 54.

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the lens of historical materialism. Very broadly, the term “scientific atheism” was used in order to delineate “our approach to religion,” in contrast to the explicit idealism of “tserkovniki” (clergymen) and the implicit idealism of the bourgeois philosophers.50 Marxist-Leninist atheism was also defined in this very restrictive, negative yet typical way in the textbook published under the guidance of Ivan Tsamerian in 1961: Marxist-Leninist atheism gives  a universal […] critique of religion and shows the real ways and means of its full overcoming. Marxist-Leninist atheism is  a fighting atheism, which is irreconcilable with all types of “popovshina” and fideism. It unveils the fideism of contemporary bourgeois philosophy and its falsification of science in the name of the vindication and defense of religion.51

In order to track the changes of meaning attributed to scientific atheism, it is fruitful to compare the first and second editions of Tsamerian’s textbook. The first edition used the wide-spread definition of atheism that was subsumed under the familiar catchphrase as  a “scientifically founded denial of belief in god, supernatural forces, and all kinds of religion.” However, the second edition included an amendment that suggests a subtle yet significant change in understanding of the scientific-atheist field of knowledge by the historical actors: The objects of scientific atheism (predmet nauchnogo ateizma)  are the critique of religious ideology, the refutation of religious worldviews and their comparison to scientific worldviews, the determination of the sources of religion and its existence, the unveiling of the social roles of religion in the society, and the determination of the means to overcome it.52

This definition of the specific spheres of knowledge addressed by scientific atheism not only expanded on Shakhnovich’s primarily negatively defined concept of atheism, but it also opened new areas that were not explicitly connected to the broadly defined critique of religious phenomena but were rather linked to the understanding of their existence. The same subtle change in the definition of Marxist atheism is also observable in the “Philosophical Dictionary” published in 1963.53 Building on the definition in the second edition of Tsamerian’s textbook, the dictionary emphasizes that it is not only negative critique that forms part of the scientific-atheist spheres of knowledge but also positive knowledge. It should 50 See ibid., 5–52. 51 Cit. Tsamerian, Ivan, Petrovich (ed.): Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma. First Edition. Mos­k va 1961, 56. 52 Cit. Tsamerian, Ivan, Petrovich (ed.): Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma, Second Edition. Moskva 1962, 3. Comp. with Tsamerian, Osnovy, 8 f. 53 See Marxist Atheism. In: Rozental, Mark, Moiseevich / Iudin, Pavel, Federovich (ed.): Filosofskii slovar’. Moskva 1963, 34 f.

144  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  also be stressed that none of the definitions distinguished between the types of scientific-atheist knowledge. In other words, scientific atheism in the years 1959–1964 was still conceptualized predominantly as  a part of the scientific worldview, whose primary propaganda function was the critique of religion. It was only in the years 1962–1963 that the first hesitant attempts were made to argue that the spheres of positive knowledge could also form part of the concept. However,  a broadly accepted and shared perception of scientific atheism as  a scholarly endeavor, and not simply an aspect of propaganda activity, came later. One of the first impulses for fundamentally rethinking the relationship between scientific-atheist knowledge and the propaganda of a scientific world­ view in general, and various scientific disciplines in particular, came just a few days after the party resolution that had led to the foundation of the ISA . On 13 January 1964 a meeting of selected scientific-atheist specialists occurred, who had come together to discuss the subject of scientific atheism.54 Persits, the ISA’s senior researcher, started the debate by recalling earlier discussions. Nikolai Gorbachev, a senior lecturer in the Foundations of Scientific Atheism course of the Institute of Pedagogy in Saratov, and Ilia Pantskhava, the chair of the Department of the History and Theory of Scientific Atheism at the Moscow State University, had taken part in these. The core of previous debates had been the statement that scientific atheism forms part of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.55 Such a statement was by no means new. Persits then proceeded to agree with Gorbachev, who had claimed that “scientific atheism forms part of the philosophical disciplines, such as ethics, aesthetics, and other disciplines of the same type.”56 This was the first time that a definition of scientific atheism determined the relationship of scientific atheism to other types of knowledge. Moreover, it was the first time its status was extended from the purely propagandistic to both the propagandistic and the scholarly. According to Gorbachev, atheism “as science” (kak nauka) deals with “the existence of religion, the causes of its origins, and developing ways of overcoming it.” By contrast, as Persits reported, Pantskhava emphasized that “the subject of scientific atheism are human beings in their being.”57 The subject of the newly declared scholarly discipline therefore oscillated between two extremes from its very beginnings. These were: a) pursuing the older tradition of focusing on religious critique as advocated by Gorbachev, and b)  emphasizing the positive qualities conveyed by the humanistic approach of Pantskhava. Persits’ contribution to the debate was to offer a third approach. He stated: “the subject of research has to be: How can we return to our people the sympathy (ponimanie)  that they transfer to 54 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 12. 55 See ibid., l. 5.  56 Cit. ibid. 57 Cit. ibid.

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the phantom of god.”58 However, he was also opposed to the idea that atheism should be understood solely as  a system of philosophical ideas, which was  a typical understanding of the term in the 1959–1963 period. Instead, he pleaded for an enlargement of the concept in order to include not only philosophical questions regarding religion but also other elements of atheism, which “manifest themselves in the national movement of the masses, and in their intellectual life.”59 Persits therefore acknowledged atheism’s philosophical ancestry, which continued to form the bulk of its research subjects. However, he also argued for the inclusion of new approaches that were not directly linked to Marxist-Leninist philosophy. The overview of the debate from January 1964 shows that the atheist specialists were unable to reach consensus, even regarding the most fundamental questions of the status and main subjects of the new scholarly discipline. While some argued that it should be approached as  a relatively independent philosophical discipline, others maintained that there was no need to separate atheism from its intrinsic ties to Marxist-Leninist philosophy and its critically aligned propaganda. Ivan Ivanov, another ISA participant in the debate, voiced the dissatisfaction of many others who were present. He said that no one was prepared to either analyze the existing definitions of scientific atheism’s subject, or to bring their own definitions that would have the potential for carrying the earlier discussion forward. Summarizing the debate, he stipulated that “generally speaking, there are no issues with the question of what scientific atheism should do. However, the subject of scientific atheism is not clear. We only have questions that we have to answer.”60 Symptomatically, even Okulov was unable to provide either the answer or his opinion on the debate. He was only able to say that “there is an extreme [krainii] perspective that [scientific atheism] is a completely independent science. There is also the perspective that no such thing as the science of atheism exists. I believe that it is important to deal with such questions.”61 Both the multitude of opinions and the indecisiveness or unwillingness of most of the experienced atheist specialists to reach  a working compromise suggests that nothing was set in stone in 1964. The possibility of molding scientific atheism into many different shapes and forms held much promise, as some of the participants in the debate had indicated. However, the relative freedom to define what scientific-atheist scholarship would contain, and how it would approach its subjects of research left many experienced scholars paralyzed. It was almost as if the absence of party guidance left the theoreticians perplexed and disoriented. 58 Cit. ibid., l. 6. 59 Cit. ibid., l. 9. 60 Cit. ibid., l. 33. 61 Cit. ibid., l. 39.

146  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  The issue of the subject of scientific atheism, together with its definition, was brought up again during a session from 24 to 26 November 1964. The ISA’s extended scientific council assembled in order to discuss the state of affairs and the tasks of the institute’s scientific research work.62 However, this debate required at least some idea of atheism as  a form of scholarship. Gorbachev reopened the question again by saying that the question of the subject of atheism as a science is extraordinarily contentious. There is no unity in the atheist literature. We have a unity, but it consists of the opinion, which is shared by the majority of well-known philosophy teachers and personnel at the departments of atheism, that atheism is not a science. So, can we speak about the subject of atheism as a science or not? I believe that life itself answers this question positively. […] There are official positions [vystuplenia] that atheism never was and never will be an independent discipline. I belief that such opinions have a detrimental influence on the process of teaching atheism in general, and on the questions of the further scientific-research endeavor in the field of atheism in particular, because they prevent us from clarifying and defining the sphere of the problems that have not yet been studied.63

Once he had established the potentially disastrous effects of such negligence on atheist meta-theory, he provided his own definition. Not every kind of materialism is atheism. […] It is obvious that materialism and atheism are closely linked and that atheism is one side of philosophical materialism, but it is not materialism. I believe that atheism is a logical deduction from Marxist philosophy, but it is not a solely Marxist philosophy. Atheism has its specific independence, its own history, methods, principals, and subject of research, which is not addressed by any other branch of science.64

Gorbachev had neither the institutional nor the scholarly authority to prescribe his definition of  a scientific-atheist scholarly discipline and to impose it on his peers and other relevant reference groups. He therefore implored those in positions of power in the discourse, such as the ISA and the CPSU ’s ideological department, to write  a programmatic article in which the subject of atheist research and its scientific status was explained.65 Given his personal status, Gorbachev was also not in  a position to draw any theoretical conclusions that would have had the power to significantly re-shape the scientific-atheist field of knowledge. His remarks and contributions were certainly taken seriously, but it was difficult for him to get his message across without the necessary institutional backing. Seen from this perspective, 62 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 10. 63 Cit. ibid., l. 78. 64 Cit. ibid., ll. 79 f. 65 See ibid., ll. 83–84.

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Pantskhava’s proposition may have found much more resonance. Echoing the earlier debate, he continued to maintain that “humans in their existence have to become the subjects of scientific atheism. We have to study their real face (nastoiashcheie litso) in the context of our Soviet reality.”66 However, his rather cryptic definition of the humanistic approach to the subject of atheism provided neither a clear definition nor a detailed outline of the discipline or its program. The inability of the newly-formed group of experts to agree on a definition of the subject of scholarship meant that scientific atheism was in a precarious position. It remained trapped between propaganda and science, and this situation remained unsolved, even in the second half of the 1960s.67 The ISA made a few attempts to address the ambivalent position of scientific atheism in the second half of the 1960s. The first two attempts to shed some light on the position of scientific atheism in the general structure of Marxist knowledge, and to clarify its primary subject, were made in 1966. In the first volume of the institute’s anthology “Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma” (Questions of Scientific Atheism, QSA henceforth), Okulov tackled the issue in  a longawaited programmatic article entitled “On the Deep Scientific Development of Contemporary Atheist Issues.”68 Despite openly stating that “as an inseparable part of Marxist materialism, scientific atheism has its own field of research, and its specific philosophical and historical problematic,”69 Okulov once again shied away from determining atheist scholarship’s subject within the framework of other philosophical sciences. At the end of his article, he partially explains why: in recent years, this field of social science has been somewhat ignored, and there has also been a superficial relationship to the questions of the struggle against religion. In order to start scientific activity, a certain preparation is required, together with a certain knowledge and certain abilities. Unfortunately, these elementary requirements were not met in the field of atheism until very recently.70

66 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 14, l. 33. 67 Kurochkin’s assessment of the theoretical depth of the existing textbooks for the course in the Foundations of Scientific Atheism was particularly worrisome. In his 1965 report, he wrote that the “shallow approach to the determination of the subject of scientific atheism is evidence of insufficient attention being paid to the positive philosophical unveiling of the atheist problematic. The definition of atheism as a science given by the textbooks is disparate. Such a state of affairs considerably impedes the further development of the actual issues of this science.” The core of the problem was that “practically every textbook gives its definition of atheism, but not a single one gives a definition of the theory of scientific atheism. There is no development of the problem regarding the independence of scientific-atheist theory within the framework of a dialectic-materialistic worldview.” Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 32, ll. 108 f. 68 See Okulov, Aleksandr, Fedorovich: Za glubokuiu nauchnuiu razrabotku sovremennykh problem ateizma, in: Voprosy nauchnogo atizma 1 (1966) 7–35. 69 Cit. ibid., 12.  70 Cit. ibid., 34.

148  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  Okulov’s assertion gives the impression that scientific-atheist scholarship started from square one in the middle of the 1960s. At the very beginning, Okulov mentions recent publications that show the positive moments in research on the problems of atheism. This short list provides at least some idea of his perception at the beginning of this new phase in the atheist scholarship. It should be noted that Okulov did not try to establish  a connection between scientific atheism in the ISA period and in the interwar era of the LMG . He mentioned neither Bonch-Bruevich and his efforts in the 1950s nor works of earlier atheist propagandists. Rather, he noted just two books published in 1959, and 17 publications from the years 1961–1965 (nine of which were from the years 1964–1965). Given the list of publications, it is possible to establish the historical beginnings of scientific-atheist scholarship in 1959, at least from the perspective of the historical actors and their self-assessment in the mid-1960s. It should be noted that this reassessment coincides with the party resolutions that initiated the institutionalization process that was completed in January 1964. Although Okulov omitted an explicit definition of the subject of scientific-­ atheist scholarship, he provided an overview of “insufficiently researched topics,” which served practically the same purpose. In a subsection of his article entitled “Scientific Atheism — Indivisible Aspect of Marxist Philosophy,” Okulov defined the first subject of atheist scholarship as follows: in atheist research work, more attention needs to be given to the central philosophical questions because the boundaries between theology and idealist philosophy are becoming increasingly imperceptible. […] Our attention has to be turned to such topics as humanity and society, the human individual and his social relationships, the individual lives of human beings, and the history of humanity.71

The ISA’s director stressed that in this context one of the main questions in need of atheist attention was the topic of life and death. The first research field was thus clearly derived from philosophy. Earlier atheist thinking almost completely disregarded the role of the individual in general, and the structure of individual consciousness in particular, and rather focused on the concepts of class and society in relation to religiosity. By focusing on the individual human being, Okulov also discovered new and previously omitted topics which were linked to perennial existential questions. The atheists began to understand that these were somehow answered by religion, but that they had not been satisfactorily considered by materialist philosophical disciplines. These questions were also linked to other spheres, which suddenly became relevant to the atheists. They included the question of the socio-psychological character of believers, together

71 Cit. ibid., 15–18.

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with older themes connected to understanding the motivations that led to the adoption of religious ethics and morality.72 The second field of research postulated by Okulov concerned the character of religiosity in the Soviet Union. Although this was not a new question, it had not yet been answered, and he argued that it was the goal of scientific-atheist research to discover what groups were religious, what their religiosity looked like, and how it had changed during the seemingly inevitable secularization process.73 In other words, the second subject of atheist scholarship was closely tied to the theory and methodology of the recently resurrected sociology. The focus on themes related to the forms and intensity of religiosity, the effectiveness of atheist propaganda, and the geographical distribution of the believers was sufficient for claiming sociology as an auxiliary discipline of scientific atheism. The third field of research was almost identical to the traditional topics of atheist propaganda and was expected to deal with the scholarly based critique of religion. This field was inspired by Marxist philosophy and history, and the main topics remained similar to those of the 1950s. However, the main difference between the approach adopted by atheist propagandists of the earlier period and the approach of atheist scholars of the post 1964 period lied in the adopted thought style. Simply put, the way of seeing changed tremendously and the atheist propaganda consequently stopped to be perceived as a mere practice and started to be seen as a theoretical issue in need of scholarly analysis and explanation. The central goals in this respect, as Okulov proclaimed, were to shed light on the origins of religion, its historicity, and its specificity. Particular attention had to be paid to changes in religious ideology during the period of its withering-away.74 The final substantial contribution to the meta-theoretical debate on the discipline of scientific atheism in the Soviet Union during the 1960s surprisingly came from abroad, and more precisely from The Peoples Republic of Bulgaria. In 1968 Todor Stoichev, a senior researcher in Sofia, published a piece presenting yet another opinion on the subject of scientific atheism. His article in the fifth volume of the QSA outlined the general development of the debate. In contrast to Okulov, Stoichev maintained that some sciences, although they originated and developed for a certain period of time within the framework of philosophy, became specific (chastnye)  sciences in their essence, rather than philosophical sciences. Scientific atheism […] finds itself in the process of  a separation from philosophy. […] The philosophy of scientific atheism should not be identified with the specific science, that is, with scientific atheism.75 72 See ibid., 18–21. 73 See ibid., 27–29. 74 See ibid., 13 f. 75 Cit. Stoichev, Todor: Otnositeľno predmeta nauchnogo ateizma, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 5 (1968) 301–322, here 303, 305.

150  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  Stoichev was not only even more radical than his predecessors in claiming that scientific atheism had outgrown its initial epistemological framework, but he was also very well aware of the need to draw a line between the different types of knowledge commonly associated with scientific atheism. He therefore stated that atheism as a part and a feature of materialism is one thing, and scientific atheism as science is something different. In the first case, we talk about one of the characteristics of philosophical materialism, which denies the existence of the supernatural and of god. In the second case, we are concerned with a specific science that is in the process of its demarcation (obosobliaiushchuiusia). It is guided by methodological bases of diamat and histmat, and according to the specific rules of the origin, development, and overcoming of religion within concrete socio-historical conditions. It likewise investigates different forms of atheism, and so on.76

The Bulgarian expert also made it clear that the sociology of religion formed an intrinsic part of scientific atheism, but he denied the claim of some colleagues who had argued that scientific atheism is nothing but Marxist sociology of religion. According to Stoichev, such a claim originated from a misapprehension of scientific atheism’s essence, its specificity, and its subject.77 The other meta-theoretical problem was that of the status of critique. Stoichev asked the pertinent question: precisely what kind of critique is the scientific-atheist critique? […] Some readers could come to the conclusion that every critique of religious ideology is a critique within the framework of scientific atheism. Such a thesis leads to the liquidation of the specific character of scientific atheism’s subject. It is hardly possible to include all aspects of the critique of religion from the perspective of specific sciences (natural or social) in scientific atheism. If this was possible, then scientific atheism would not be an independent science with its own subject but rather a science-like (naukopodobnaia) system of the aspects, parts, and arguments of the other sciences.78

Stoichev categorically opposed such  a definition of scientific atheism and explained that the only reason for someone to view the discipline in such a way was connected to an erroneous notion of its type of knowledge. He therefore wrote that the misapprehension of the essence of scientific atheism lay in the fact that the concepts of “scientific atheism” and “atheist propaganda” became confused. […] This [=identification of concepts, JT] usually occurs as  a result of an undifferentiated approach to the concept of the “critique of religion.” If the critique of religion is conducted from certain scientific and theoretical positions or aspects then the 76 Cit. ibid., 303. 77 See ibid., 310. 78 See ibid., 313.

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question arises of whether these positions and aspects are also present in scientific atheism, as some authors believe. However, the concepts of “scientific atheism” and “atheist propaganda” are not the same. Scientific atheism represents a specific social (not sociological) science, while atheist propaganda is the dissemination of specific scientific knowledge that seeks to counter religious belief. At the same time, it also supports the formation of a materialist worldview by means of the press, literature, and the cinema.79

This citation aptly documents the fact that the historical actors had themselves started to differentiate between the two basic forms of thought style during the second half of the 1960s. Thus, Okulov and Stoichev both pointed out that the core of scientific-atheist scholarship had to develop along two main pillars. The first pillar came from the past and could not be disregarded, largely because it played the central role in the legitimation of the entire scholarly endeavor. This was, of course, the critique of religious phenomena. Its further development and refinement ought to occur predominantly within the confines of philosophical and historical methodology, and to be coupled with specifically atheist interpretative concepts and strategies. This was expected to have a great impact on the sphere of propaganda practice which was deteriorating without an adequate scholarly treatment of its phenomena.80 Unlike the older approach that was typical in the 1950s, both theoreticians of scientific atheism agreed that the critique of religious content had to be accompanied by a positive presentation of Marxist alternatives. It was precisely this change of approach that was one of the main outcomes of the 1960s’ debate in the Soviet Union, which gave birth to scientific-atheist scholarship that resembled medicine as an applied science. This approach not only restructured the sensibilities of the historical actors, but it rewired the main principles of the thought style by adding previously non-existent concepts, theories, and methods to the arsenal of the esoteric thought collective. As Stoichev’s article shows, the esoteric thought collective started to distance itself from both the other esoteric thought collectives and from the scientific-atheist exoteric thought collective at this time. Such differentiation occurred largely by manifesting adherence to a web of meanings that were only significant to the other members of the group. One such significant meaning during this constitutive phase was the meta-theoretical debate about scientific-atheist scholarship and its position in the Soviet Union’s 79 Cit. ibid., 315. 80 E.g. Gorbachev clearly stated that “without  a deep study of atheist problematic, we cannot even think about well argued, qualified, specific critique of religion in the process of Marxist philosophical education. [As a consequence, JT] it is impossible to form atheist convictions of youths purposefully.” Cit. Gorbachev, Nikolai, Andreevich: K voprosu o predmete teorii nauchnogo ateizma, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 1 (1966) 68–87, here 87.

152  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  structure of knowledge. In addition to this most general significant meaning, there were other clusters of knowledge that were practically exclusive to the esoteric thought collective of scientific atheists. However, unlike the meta-­theoretical debate, such clusters of knowledge were never relevant (in terms of identity determination) to all the members of the esoteric thought collective. Nevertheless, it is important to analyze at least one such cluster in order to uncover the deeper structures of scientific-atheist thought style in the 1960s. 3.1.3.2 Scientific-Atheist Sociology When the demand for atheist knowledge abruptly increased in 1959, the atheist experts found themselves in an unenviable position. They were unable to provide the party with accurate estimations of the numbers of believers according to their confession, depth of belief, and other sociological categories, such as age, class, and gender. Given that both the statistics of the CRA and those of official church organizations were unreliable, accurate knowledge concerning the extent and types of religiosity was virtually non-existent among the specialists and laymen alike. This became a serious problem for the party’s ideological department, which was politically responsible for the successful atheization of Soviet society. The critical assessment of existing propaganda activities highlighted the inefficacy and the abstract and superficial nature of the traditional antireligious propaganda. It assessed the main reasons for its low impact on the population and established that, in order to fight religion effectively, one has to possess objective — truthful and authentic — and in-depth information concerning be­lievers, together with scientific facts about them. This background impetus led to the first sociological research into religiosity in the post-war Soviet Union. It is significant that from the very start such research was closely linked to the newly-founded research group on scientific atheism at the SAS historical institute. From the perspective of the atheist thought style, this opened a new and previously unexplored field of knowledge. Because it was completely new for scientific atheism to conceptualize its subject with the help of sociological concepts, categories, and research, this new knowledge was initially not as closely delineated by Marxist-Leninist philosophical doctrine as the scientific-philosophical critique of religion. Furthermore, sociological research also provided a different type of scientific facts. The religious critique developed from the diamat and histmat during the 1950s had largely sought further confirmation of already existing theories, a process that had led to the repetition of arguments and the reiteration of well-known theses that were applied to yet another object. As discussed in sections What is Religion? and The Roots of Religion, the origins of religion theory provide a case in point of this deductive approach. The main epistemic feature of such facts was their “unproblematic nature” because they were usually in alignment with the overarching

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theory that had given birth to them in the first place. However, their reach was not unrestrained and they were unable to explain or provide a methodology for the study of other aspects of social reality, notably existential questions, whose solution demanded a philosophical approach. By contrast, the Soviet sociology of religion first gathered primary data through surveys and other heuristic tools and then induced the facts from the material. The outcome was an interpretation of facts that served as a basis for new theories and hypotheses, or for the modification of old ones. This epistemological change of thought style had a profound impact on the self-understanding of the thought collective of scientific atheists and on the further development of the general field of knowledge. The change was not and could not be a revolution in Kuhn’s sense because the governing epistemological paradigm of Marxism-Leninism remained in place, and any timid attempt to disrupt its hegemony in the sphere of the Soviet scientific-atheist scholarly discipline was quickly suppressed, as shown below. However, it is safe to say that the development of Soviet sociology of religion played  a key role in the innovation and evolution of scientific atheism in the 1960s. Although the framework of the research had to abide by the hegemony of the scientific paradigm in the social sciences and humanities, the scientific facts produced by this type of research had the potential to open new areas and topics for research, but to also induce a shift, or rather a gradual change, of theory. The latter potential was ensured by the “problematic nature” of some of these facts. Consequently, the challenge for the scientific-atheist scholars was to explain and understand the “problematic facts” and to make them “unproblematic.” This sometimes went against the grain of the established theoretical explanations. If the process of explanation was successful, that is, if aligning of the new facts with the existing theories and axioms of Marxism-Leninism occurred without glaring discrepancies, then the theory would be further fortified, legitimized, and perceived as truthful. However, if the newly-established scientific facts were in disagreement with the existing theories, then the theories had to either be amended, or else the entire thought style would be at potential risk of being declared suspicious, doubtful, and not in keeping with reality. Although the governing scientific paradigm and its guardians were able to ensure  a certain level of cohesion between the new facts produced by the sociology of religion and the old theories, it was not able to control the process of knowledge production completely. The facts were produced within the paradigm’s framework and logic, but they could behave as “unruly variables” once released into the space of esoteric style. In this respect, sociology of religion’s establishment and development within the framework of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline represented a great opportunity to reconstruct the nature of the knowledge production process within the given thought collective. Thus, its analysis allows us to study how the thought style’s rules were able to influence

154  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  the genesis of scientific facts, and how these facts correlated with theory and facilitated its development in terms of time, width, and depth. One of the first post-war scholars to use sociological methods and concepts in his research was Aleksandr Klibanov. In hindsight, his analysis of contemporary sectarianism in the Tambov region can be understood as a watershed moment. Published in the journal Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma in 1960, it marked a significant widening of the scientific-atheist epistemological perspective. Klibanov was aware of the novelty of his approach in comparison to the older thinking: The lectors-propagandists of scientific-atheist knowledge collect valuable knowledge in their incessant communication with the kolkhoz audience. [This material, JT] contributes to the study of the methods and approaches that are used by the preachers of the diverse religions to disperse their anti-scientific opinions which are inimical to the communist worldview. As important as these data may be for the correct orientation of our propaganda […], they cannot replace the specific systematic analysis of contemporary religious sects and groups. Such study emphasizes the causes and conditions of their existence, together with the characteristics of their ideology.81

In his introduction, Klibanov clearly delineated the traditional and presumably less effective approach which was unable to unveil the true reasons for the existence of sects in the contemporary period. He also revealed his own scientific approach which did not suffer from the subjective and anecdotal nature of the earlier data gathering. As already established, the goals of Klibanov’s research were determined by the previous ignorance of religiosity in general. Moreover, the lack of “objective information” was particularly felt in the context of sects and non-institutional religious groups. With the exception of stereotypical phrases and half-truths, little was known of the contemporary structure and worldview of sects in the Soviet Union. As a result, the members of such unorthodox groups were often the objects of fear, stigmatization, and administrative mishandling. Therefore, from both the practical perspective of the ideological commission and the research perspective of atheist specialists, it made sense to start with an in-depth analysis of this unfamiliar and potentially dangerous phenomena. In this context, is important to articulate what Klibanov intended to discover. He wrote in his article that the goals of his research were to ascertain the following: 1) In which environments and social classes was the influence of religious sects and groups found? 2) What changes occur in these influences, that is, are they rising or falling today? 3) What are the main features and tendencies of the ideology of the religious sects and groups?82

81 Cit. Klibanov: Sovremennoe sektantstvo, 59. 82 Cit. ibid., 63 f.

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Therefore, the main task was to gather basic information about these groups and to describe their worldview from the perspective of scientific atheism. The related questions, exemplified by the citation from Klibanov’s article, were always asked by the atheist scholars conducting this type of research, and they were closely related to one of the axioms of scientific atheism. This postulated that religiosity inevitably declines under socialism and eventually withers away completely under communism. All the data that showed the chronological decline of religiosity were considered as unproblematic facts that further confirmed the theoretical thesis. In the case of the expedition in the Tambov region, the decline in comparison to 1915 was certainly undeniable. From a total number of 13 600 sectarians in 1915, the researchers found only 1 300 people who were identified as sectarians in 1959.83 It should be noted that Klibanov’s research was not concerned with the depth of sectarian faith or with the criteria of religiosity. Rather, it was plainly obvious for him who the believers were. In other words, he did not problematize the degree and intensity of their belief, and his research was satisfied with the mere statement that the number of believers had generally fallen. However, the primal sociological research also sometimes indicated that religiosity was rising rather than falling in certain sectors of the population, and Klibanov’s pioneering study was no exception. Such studies provide classical examples of “problematic facts,” which had to be explained in accordance with the governing theory of the thought style. In the case of Klibanov’s study, the concept of the objective and subjective causes for the existence of religiosity was successfully extended to the current situation. He wrote: “individual and sporadic cases of a sect’s expansion can be explained in each and every case by individual peculiarities in the biographies of particular individual.”84 In other words, individual socio-psychological motivations may have been important enough to manifest themselves in the statistics, but they were not interpreted as significant enough to disprove the social law defined by the thesis on the secularization process postulated by Marxism-Leninism. This is an important observation concerning the rigidity of the epistemological framework in this period. Scientific-atheist researchers such as Klibanov conceptualized the development of society as a process in which it were primarily the forces of the economic base that determined the transformation of the superstructure. This led to the notion that the individual was largely negligible, both as  a significant factor and as an object of scientific analysis. As a result, neither the individual nor his religious consciousness were problematized in terms of research or analytical inquiry at the end of the 1950s. Therefore, the outcome of the analysis of the 83 See ibid., 84. 84 Cit. ibid., 85.

156  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  exoteric group of scientific-atheist propagandists stopped at the level of groups and did not provide any insights into individual religiosity. In his analysis, Klibanov ascertained that various religious streams in the Tambov region not only reacted differently to contemporary social developments but also differed greatly from one another in their ideological perspectives. Given that not all the religious groupings or so-called sects were from the outset inimical to the Soviet political establishment, Klibanov argued that it was unproductive to apply administrative measures against them. Instead, only the openly hostile leaders of the sects were to be dealt with according to the laws of the Soviet Union. The rank and file believers, who were often loyal Soviet citizens, were to be subjected to careful scientific-atheist education.85 The other sociological surveys conducted in the 1959–1964 period show to what extent Klibanov set an example for further research prior to the founda­ tion of the ISA . In 1963 the first results of  a large sociological survey also conducted by the SAS institute of history, but this time in Riazan’ region, were published. Klibanov’s influence showed itself at the level of the subject matter. Two other interpretative articles were published in the same issue of the journal Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma and dealt with unorthodox religious groupings. While the researcher Zoia Iankova discussed the True Orthodox Church, her colleague Vladimir Milovidov devoted his attention to the study of the Old Believers.86 While the main research goals of these surveys were similar to Klibanov’s formulation, there was one significant difference in terms of the conceptualization of the data collected. Because Klibanov’s priority was to distinguish the various religious groups from one another, he did not further delineate between the degrees of believers of a single religious group. As a result, his conceptualization of the individual believer was rather monolithic. Iankova adopted  a different approach and was one of the first scholars who attempted to create what would later be called a typology of religiosity. In the case of Iankova, it was significant that a)  she did not refer to any other typologies; b)  she neither theorized nor explained the logic behind her decision to divide believers into three distinct groups; and c) she did not define what she understood by the term “believer.” Iankova matter-of-factly stipulates that three groups should be discerned among believers: (i) the so-called regular parishion­ ers (prichozhanie); (ii) persons participating in church services and rituals as paid clergymen; (iii) and, finally, “traditional” believers who attend the church only at the 85 See ibid., 85–95. 86 See Iankova, Zoia, Alekseevna: Sovremennoe pravoslavie i antiobshchestvennaia sushchnosť ego ideologii, in: Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma. Vol. 11. Moskva 1963, 67–94, and Milovidov, Vladimir, Fedorovich: Raspad staroobriadnichestva v Riazanskoi oblasti, in: Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma, Vol. 11. Moskva 1963, 126–138.

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main religious festivals and on Sunday, and who participate in some other rituals from time to time.87

This citation serves as an example of how uncomplicated the typology had appeared before the theoretical debate that started in the middle of the 1960s. This, together with Klibanov, represents the state of affairs before the shift in the thought style. The characteristic feature of this initial phase of thinking was that it was clear who the believers were, and where the line between the traditional and the Orthodox believers lay. Thus, regular parishioners are, as  a rule, people of 55–60 years old or older and mainly women who have completed two to three school years and do not form part of the production process. Their church affiliation is explained by their religious upbringing in pre-revolutionary conditions and their comparatively low cultural level.

By contrast, the group of “traditional believers” was comprised of middle-aged people (40–45 years) with some youths. Their overall cultural and qualification level is significantly higher. As a rule, they visit church under the influence of a religious family, because of tradition, or because they are attracted by the extraordinary surroundings and colorfulness of the church service. […] their belief can be subsumed under the laconic: “I believe that god exists.”88

It has been argued that the years 1963–1964 saw several occurrences, including an institutional development, that led to a far-reaching theoretical debate, resulting in the re-examination of scientific atheism’s basic categories. Crucially, Leonid Iliichev, the chair of CC CPSU ’s ideological commission, proclaimed in November 1963 that we have to have  a clear picture concerning the extent and character of religiosity among the population in each and every region of our country, in every inhabited place, collective, house, and flat. We need to know all the believers, their worldview, moods, and the causes of their religiosity.89

Iliichev’s appeal was taken seriously by the scholarly community which is a very important trace indicating the nature of the relationship between the emerging esoteric thought collective and other significant reference groups. As a result, an increasing number of researchers started to study religiosity in order to fulfill the task outlined by the chair of the ideological commission. However, the more research was conducted, the less certain the nature of the scrutinized phenomenon became. Therefore, the researchers started to ask themselves questions such as the following: What does it mean to believe? How 87 See Iankova: Sovremennoe pravoslavie, 74. 88 Cit. ibid., 74, 76. 89 Cit. Kommunist 1 (1964) 35.

158  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  does religious belief manifest itself? How can it be measured? How should the new empirical categories be constructed? Moreover, what significance should this new categorization and conceptualization of faith, believers, and religiosity have within the framework of scientific atheism, a discipline that was itself in a state of searching in the 1960s? In other words, the specialists began to problematize hitherto self-evident spheres of knowledge. This impulse came partially from the social reality or, in this case, the social demand created by a member of the significant reference group, which led to the partial restructuration of the realm of knowledge. Once again, being the heteronomous force in relation to the esoteric thought collective, the party had initiated research into virtually unknown phenomena, and it expected truthful objective knowledge from the experts. In simple terms, the party wanted to become acquainted with all the variations of religious belief. However, it was the professional scientific atheists’ task to define what religious belief was. Religious faith was understood by the scientific atheists of the 1960s as  a category that was subject to chronological change. This change was illustrated by the movement of an imagined religiosity, as if this were a point falling according to the trajectory of a downward spiral, until it reached the rock bottom that was characterized as a-religiosity or atheicity. This version of the secularization thesis represents a heritage of Marxist thinking that can be traced to the founding fathers in the 19th century.90 The new moment that characterized the scientific atheism of the 1960s was represented by the construction of the believer with the help of the sociology of religion. While the Marxist secularization thesis had previously simply been internalized or, as a rule, supported by cursory evidence that the masses were separating themselves from religion, the scholars of the 1960s were bound to create scientific facts that would enable them to ascertain the exact flow of the process, and to devise a theory with the help of empiric material. However, it was still not clear exactly how religious faith had changed over the preceding decades. In order to discover the nature of the change, the scientific-­ atheist scholars decided to construct the category of an ideal believer, which was intended to serve as a mirror for assessing the contemporary believers. This methodological decision largely determined the outcomes of the research. The essentially ideal-typical category in Weber’s sense was constructed according to the standards of the imagined religiosity in an urban environment at the beginning of the 20th century Russian Empire. The imagined nature of the category has to be emphasized because it was presupposed and not empirically ascertained that a typical pre-revolutionary believer had certain features. More specifically, it was presupposed that the typical width and depth of pre-­revolutionary religiosity consisted in a good knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, dogmas, myths, and 90 See Groth: Sowjetischer Atheismus, 52–69 and Frede: Doubt, positions 2368–2737.

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catechism. Furthermore, the imagined believer regularly visited church, prayed at home, fulfilled customs such as fasts and pilgrimages, and participated in festivities and rituals whenever necessary. Moreover, the typical believer was able to assess symbolic performances in an appropriate way, and his religious behavior was deeply meaningful and religiously charged as a result. Finally, it was presupposed that such believers comprised the great majority of officially Orthodox Christians and that those Christians (together with other religious groups) made up almost one hundred percent of the population.91 It is not the task of this book to evaluate the extent to which the ideal-­t ypical category was representative of the pre-revolutionary believer, or authentic according to contemporary western scholarly norms. Suffice it to say that it was a product of the scientific-atheist thought style of the time, which was largely determined by certain axioms and the epistemology of Marxism-Leninism. Nevertheless, the constructed model enabled the scientific atheists in the Soviet Union of the 1960s to view contemporary believers from a particular perspective and to draw conclusions based on the comparison between categories of historical and contemporary believers. This was a normal science in Kuhn’s sense as it was developed within the framework of the hegemonic paradigm, and the results further confirmed the initial theories. Although the ideological aspects of certain presuppositions certainly co-determined the research questions and theoretical standpoints to  a large degree, the approach of the sociologists of religion enabled them to even adhere to Karl Popper’s principles of falsification.92 A typical example of this way of thinking that implicitly used the category of the ideal-typical pre-revolutionary believer as outlined above can be found in Iankova’s study. She wrote: It has to be stressed that believers in our country differ fundamentally from pre-­ revolutionary believers. It is characteristic of our contemporary believer that he is not familiar with dogmas and is completely indifferent to them. His attitude to questions of faith is mainly narrowly utilitarian. For many contemporary Orthodox believers, rituals have lost their religious content and become traditional family customs, which

91 See Kurochkin, Pavel, Konstantinovich: K otsenke processa modernizatsii religii v sovremennykh usloviiakh, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 2 (1966) 5–40, Onishchenko, Aleksei, Semenovich: Tendentsii izmeneniia sovremennykh khristianskikh bogoslovov, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 2 (1966) 110–140, Boiarintsev, Vladimir, Ivanovich: Novye popytki prisposobleniia religii k sovremennomu estestvoznaniiu, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 2 (1966) 141–166, Sytenko, Leonid, Terentievich: O nravstvennom oblike sovremennogo veruiushchego, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 3 (1967) 113–130. 92 In his famous thesis, Popper argued that “A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or refute it.” Cit. Popper: Conjectures, 36.

160  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  is exactly why they exist in the everyday life. Icons in houses are one of these religious anachronisms.93

Aleksandr Onishchenko,  a Ukrainian scientific-atheist specialist, wrote similarly in 1966: there are many Orthodox believers who visit church, have icons at home, participate in the most important religious festivities and rituals, but do not have the slightest clue how to conceive of god. […] Believers quite often say that there is no such god as the one described in the Bible, and instead they say that there is “something else.” Such an answer is characteristic of people who no longer believe in the Christian god, but who have not yet broken with belief in the supernatural.

In conclusion, Onishchenko wrote: Believers and priests unambiguously confirm one thing, namely, that contemporary religiosity is passing from the sphere of consciousness and conviction into the sphere of tradition and habit. It is changing into an external formality that is not particularly important, and that is increasingly only engaged in mechanically.94

It should be clear that the construction of the ideal-typical category of the pre-revolutionary believer helped the scientific atheists of the 1960s to document the extent of the secularization process over the past fifty years. The empirical research conducted by Iankova, Onischenko, and many others throughout the 1960s established that religious faith had become increasingly shallow, inconsequential, and detached in comparison to its initial state. In addition, the survey results repeatedly proved that believers tended to be old, female, uneducated, unemployed, and living in the countryside.95 These findings were used as newly-produced facts that confirmed the Marxist version of the secularization thesis. As such, these new facts were completely unproblematic in terms of their embeddedness in the scientific-atheist thought style. The nature of the constructed category of the pre-revolutionary believer was implicitly used as an evaluation grid to determine the current state of affairs. This led to a successful 93 Cit. Iankova: Sovremennoe pravoslavie, 81. 94 Cit. Onishchenko: Tendentsii, 98,105. 95 Compare Iankova: Sovremennoe pravoslavie, 75, Alekseev, Nikolai, Petrovich: Meto­ dika i rezuľtaty izucheniia religioznosti seľskogo naseleniia (na materialakh Orlovskoi oblasti), in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 3 (1967) 131–150, here 150, Tepliakov, Mitrofan, Kuzmich: Pobeda ateizma v  razlichnykh sloiakh sovetskogo obshchestva (po materialam konkretnykh sotsiologicheskikh issledovanii v Voronezhskoi oblasti), in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 4 (1967) 133–155, Pivovarov, Viktor, Grigorevich / Seregi, Aleksei, Stepanovich: Opyt primenenia kolichestvennykh metodov k  issledovaniu religioznykh iavlenii (po primere empiricheskogo analiza deiateľnosti tserkovnogo prokhoda), in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 5 (1968) 70–83, Duluman, Evgraf, Kalenievich / Lobovik, Boris, Olegovich / Tancher, Vladimir, Karlovich: Sovremennyi veruiushchii. Sotsiaľno-psikhologicheskii ocherk, Moskva 1970, 29–38.

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outcome for the scientific-atheist thought style, because it produced facts in congruence with the theory. The latter was based on the idea that economic and social progress would influence the population’s worldview, with  a shift from idealist religion to materialist atheism. Therefore, the findings confirmed that the main reservoirs of religiosity in the Soviet Union were religious, old, and unemployed women who lived in the countryside. This not only perfectly fitted the theory but was also so “unproblematic” that there was no need for any further explanation. These newly-established facts had a significant influence on the image of religion and its nature during the construction of socialism. However, such facts could have been potentially disruptive for other aspects of scientific atheism, particularly scientific-atheist propaganda and education. For example, Levada maintained that the secularization process was an ongoing objective phenomenon that was governed by greater forces. Consequently, he was opposed to attributing any significant success to human agency and viewed scientific-atheist propaganda as negligible at best and even counterproductive at worst.96 However, Onishchenko’s 1966 paper also indicated that the chronological perspective was not the only sphere of inquiry. If the overall secularization process was important from a theoretical perspective, it was particularly important to discover how the contemporary believers differed from one another. In other words, if the nature of being a believer had changed over the last fifty years, then who could be considered a believer, and who had already stepped over the threshold towards atheism? In order to answer this question, the scientific atheists needed to develop both their theory and their methodology. The secularization thesis had provided suggestions concerning how to construct the initial category of the pre-revolutionary believer because it explained chronological change. However, it was not as useful for the study of believers within one definite time slot. Because the study of religiosity in the contemporary context presupposed a sociological approach more than anything else, it was of paramount importance to assess what, if any, concepts, terminology, and methods the newly-­emerging Marxist discipline could borrow or acquire from the so-called bourgeois sociology of religion. The first serious attempt to adapt Western approaches to a Marxist paradigm was made by the well-known sociologist Iurii Levada. In his book “The Social Nature of Religion,” an extended version of his doctoral dissertation published in 1965, he attempted to reconcile Marxism-Leninism with the approach of Emile Durkheim, as he presented it in his book “Elementary Forms of Religious Life,” originally published in 1912. Importantly, Levada not 96 See Levada, Iurii, Aleksandrovich: Sotsiaľnaia priroda religii (po materialam doktorskoi dissertatsii), in: Levada, Iurii, Aleksandrovich: Sochineniia. Tom 3. Moskva 2011, 295–302.

162  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  only shared Durkheim’s functionalist approach, but he maintained that religiosity must be studied largely from the perspective of social action. The reason for such a rigorous methodological delimitation was that it was impossible to discover and analyze what the so-called religious consciousness was. As Levada wrote: Norman Birnbaum’s notion that “in the sociology of religion, as in science concerning religion in general, an exact and universally recognized definition of the supernatural does not exist,” is entirely justified. […] The same thing occurs if we take an “inadequacy,” i. e. the fantastic nature of reality’s reflection in religious systems, as an indicator [of religiosity, JT]. It all depends on the answer to the following question: How exactly do the forms of “fantastic nature” differ from other, and from scientific, artistic, ethical etc. forms? Where is the specificity of this “inadequacy” in comparison to a logical mistake or a knowingly one-sided logical model etc.?97

Levada’s theoretical standpoint was certainly fresh and unorthodox in the Soviet scholarly context of scientific atheism. However, it had some grave implications which, if properly thought out, could have done serious damage to the Marxist-­ Leninist paradigm and its self-understanding as a purely scientific theory. This danger was linked to one of the core premises of the Marxist sociology of religion, which had been developed as an epistemological alternative to the western theories. Dmitrii Ugrinovich,  a senior researcher at the ISA and the main proponent of the Marxist sociology of religion in the 1960s, clarified what it was that separated the two approaches. He wrote: “the characteristic tendency of the bourgeois sociology of religion from its very beginning was an effort to place a gnoseological analysis in opposition to a sociological analysis of religion.”98 He argued that this was a problem with Weber, Durkheim, and, consequently, with Levada also. But why was it dangerous for Marxists to approach religion from a strictly functionalist perspective? Ugrinovich maintained that if only the sociological roots were analyzed, then there was a danger of losing the borderline that separates the religious from the a-religious. If any kind of ideology or any kind of worldview can be proclaimed as religious, then we can only wonder why we have the term “religion” at all. Integration is neither the main distinctive feature of religion, nor its generic differentiation.99

The potential danger of Durkheim’s theory for Soviet science probably lay not so much in the mistaken conceptualization of religion but rather in its dangerous 97 Cit. ibid., 91 f. 98 Cit. Ugrinovich, Dmitrii, Modestovich: Religiia kak predmet sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia, in: Ugrinovich, Dmitrii, Modestovich (ed.): Ocherki metodologii poznania sotsialnykh iavlenii. Moskva 1970, 125. The cited paper first appeared as a reaction on Levada’s book in journal Voprosy filosofii 8 (1966). 99 Cit. ibid., 130.

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potential for analyzing Marxist-Leninist ideology on the same level as any form of religion. One of the main presuppositions of the scientific atheists was that Marxism certainly did not have anything in common with religion.100 The consistent application of Durkheim’s theory would have disrupted not only their traditional understanding of themselves as the defenders of scientific truths against religious superstition, but it would have questioned the very core of the Marxist-Leninist scientific paradigm and also delineated scientific (that is materialist and “empiric”) knowledge in opposition to idealistic and unprovable religious faith.101 This was why it was impossible to use the bourgeois theories of the sociology of religion in the context of Marxism-Leninism in general and of the scientific-atheist thought style in particular. One of the features of the esoteric thought style established by the Marxist sociologists of religion in the 1960s was that research always had to be conducted in two mutually dependent parts which connected the sociological data with the gnoseological findings. All other research designs were flawed from the very start because they failed to acknowledge indispensable variables in order to produce “representative” and “objective” results. In contrast to Levada, Ugrinovich maintained that “it is not about the fact that the gnoseological characterization of religion is possible. The main thing is that it is necessary for a correct understanding of the social nature of religion and its social functions.”102 Therefore, the outcome of the symptomatic exchange between Levada and Ugrinovich was an axiomatic thesis stating that the only way to study religiosity within the framework of scientific atheism was by the simultaneous analysis of religious behavior and the religious worldview. As Vladimir Ievdokimov aptly declared, “the unity of the consciousness and behavior principles of humans is the axiom of our sociologic work.”103 Levada’s approach represented an attempt to introduce a new element into the existing scientific-atheist thought style. Its dangers for the coherence of the system were not immediately discovered because sociology was still a new field of knowledge with uncertain rules and boundaries at the time his book was published. His ideas were therefore able to co-exist with Ugrinovich’s concept for some time. It is telling that even after Ugrinovich’s publication had condemned Levada’s appropriation of Durkheim as insufficiently scientific, many scientific 100 A typical is statement made by Okulov in 1964: “It is a well-known fact that atheism is not just denial of religion but it emphasizes scientific solution of problems.” Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 4, l. 10.  101 It is no coincidence that functionalist approach was used by western scholars during the cold war and post 1991 era in order to describe Soviet Marxism-Leninism as a form of political, secular, civic religion or, with more or less open negative connotation, as “pseudoreligion.” See introduction for a more detailed discussion of the existing literature. 102 Cit. Ugrinovich: Religiia kak predmet, 139. 103 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 81, l. 33.

164  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  atheists especially from the exoteric circle were unable to tell the difference between the two theoretical standpoints.104 However, these boundaries were set during the course of the 1960s. The outcome of the dispute between Levada and Ugrinovich, together with its possible implications, were reconfirmed in favor of the latter in 1968 in the semi-private space of the ISA . Iosif Kryvelev, the renowned scientific-atheist scholar, wrote: “The approach of Dimitrii Modestovich [Ugrinovich, JT] is fully in accordance with Marxism, while the approach of Levada comes from Durkheim.”105 The reaction of Ugrinovich and of subsequent researchers in the sociology of religion sub-discipline is  a case in point which shows how the thought style reacted on potentially destructive element of theory, represented by Levada. While the theoretical dispute between Levada and Ugrinovich demonstrates how the thought style dealt with alien ideas, the analysis of the typology of believers provides insight into the process of knowledge production. Moreover, the theoretical problems that arose alongside the attempts to elaborate a universal typology of believers help to uncover other important features of the scientific-atheist thought style in the 1960s. In April 1968 the ISA held a special meeting devoted to the criteria of religiosity and the typology of believers. Lev Ulianov, an aspirant at the institute, informed the meeting that he had become acquainted with thirty typologies. He claimed to have discovered that “every researcher and author who is interested in the definition of the criteria of religiosity and the typology of believers has his own approach.”106 This laconic report highlights one important fact. The scientific­atheist thought collective was unable to reach a consensus in this crucial matter regarding the very essence of faith and religiosity. This is particularly striking when the previous rather monolithic and unproblematic development of the scientific-atheist thought style is taken into consideration. Neither the religious critique, nor the history of religion, nor the theory of scientific-atheist propaganda had led to such a profusion of opinions and alternative models. In other words, the thought style had previously been able to maintain an extremely high level of internal cohesion between its theoretical and hypothetical presuppositions and the genesis of the facts. The reason for the disruption of the thought style was related to an upsurge in the number of sociological surveys, which, as noted above, produced different types of facts. Ivan Morozov, a member of the CC CPSU ’s ideological department, had already noticed the change in 1964. He wrote: 104 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 80, l. 77. 105 Cit. ibid. 106 Cit. ibid., l. 65. A similar observation was made by Prokhoshina, who published in the internally distributed Information Bulletin an article enumerating eleven more or less influential typologies published in 1964–1968 time period. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 119, Informatsionnyi biulleten Instituta nauchnogo ateizma 2/6 (1968).

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Now, we cannot solve the problems of scientific atheism in our country if we do not conduct sociological surveys. The time has passed when conclusions were made in separate articles that then migrated from one mass-oriented journal to another, when [the conclusions, JT] were carried from one book into another, from dissertation to dissertation.107

It has already been established that atheist research into religiosity since 1964 was unimaginable without sociological surveys. However, the gathering of the necessary raw data proved to be the easiest part. Problems immediately arose when the atheist scholars tried to define the elements of religiosity, link them to raw data, and construct  a typology. The validity, representativeness, and relevancy of the typology exceeded the material it was based upon, which led to endless debates in the thought collective’s esoteric circle. To illustrate: during the meeting of the ISA’s scientific council in 1964, Onishchenko raised the question of how to describe  a person who answered  a survey questionnaire by saying that he / she is not a believer but also indicated a positive identification with the church’s morality. He concluded that “we have to have a clear division between those who we declare to be believers, nonbelievers, and atheists.”108 In reality, the majority of the researchers would probably have agreed that there were three basic groups. They would even have been able to reach an agreement in determining the opposites, namely, the believers on the one hand, and the atheists on the other. However, it was the decisive category in the middle that caused the trouble. While Onishchenko worked with the category of “non-believers,” Nikolai Alekseev, the head of the ISA’s base in the city of Orel, declared during another ISA meeting in 1964 that his starting point was that “there are three basic worldview groups of kolkhoz workers: believers, waverers, and atheists.”109To add more confusion to an already chaotic typology, Mitrofan Tepliakov, the head of the ISA base in Voronezh, developed a typology in 1965 with not only three but six categories. His typology comprised atheists, convinced unbelievers, unbelievers, waverers, convinced believers, and fanatics. He explained that the main difference between the first two and the last two categories was the degree of active engagement. Simply put, only those who actively fought against religion and propagated atheism could be put into the category of “atheists,” while only those who actively supported and propagated religion could be labelled “fanatics.”110 On another occasion, Tepliakov explained who was understood as a believer in his survey. He argued that the presence of external signs of religiosity (icons, rituals, etc.) cannot serve as the decisive factor for a delineation of the true level of religiosity. […] Only direct communica 107 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 14, l. 52. 108 Cit. ibid., l. 68. 109 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 18, l. 14. 110 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 35, l. 35.

166  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  tion with people during an interview can give us an idea of the real state of their religiosity.111

From time to time, the atheist specialists reflected on the chaotic state of affairs and pleaded for the unification of the criteria. These criteria were essential because they ultimately provided the answer to the question of who was religious and who was not. One of these attempts was made by Alekseev, who opposed Tepliakov’s typology in favor of his own. He argued: “It is possible to find even more than six groups. There are attempts to discover  a few dozen levels of religiosity. I think that we have to cut these groups to a minimum.” When he discussed the criteria of religiosity, he declared that there is a disagreement. Sometimes the conditions put forward for proclaiming someone an atheist or an unbeliever are too high. If a person participated in a christening ritual, or in some other ritual, or if he wanted to participate during the ritual, then they declare him a believer, despite the fact that he believes in neither god nor the devil, and appears to be an unbelieving person. There is also another extreme, namely, when they classify those who actively participate in religious life (i. e. religious fanatics) as unbelievers.112

For Alekseev personally, the main criterion of religiosity was the belief in god. As should be clear by now, this criterion differed slightly from the criterion of religiosity based on belief in the supernatural which was held by other researchers and which enabled them to structure the believers in a different manner. In 1968, almost nine years after the first sociological surveys were conducted by Klibanov, the correct typology was still seen as the missing key to the question concerning the extent and depth of religiosity. Vusia Cherniak stated that effective sociological research is completely impossible to conduct without a scientific typology, because  a scientific typology is  a precondition for the classification of material. […] We do not diverge on the question of the methodological basis necessary for finding the types. We are in agreement that the criteria of religiosity have to mirror the issues of consciousness and behavior and have to be understood in their unity. […] We diverge from one another in the definition of the criteria.113

She offered yet another typology that consisted of a)  those who denied the religious worldview; b) those who were indifferent to the religious worldview; and c) those who agreed with the religious worldview. Each of these main types were comprised of two further sub-categories.114

111 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 41, l. 6. 112 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 56, ll. 28 f. 113 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 80, ll. 6 f. 114 See ibid., ll. 9 f.

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The thought collective was unable to solve the problem that had started as a simple matter of categorization and ended up as  a deeply complex question concerning the relationship between social action and individual consciousness. No survey, presentation, article, or monograph was able to solve all the related questions with the necessary representativeness, validity, and relevancy. Consequently, no overarching theory was created as an outcome of the theoretical and methodological discussions of the 1960s that would be able to explain all the facts and classify them into appropriate types. However, although the members of the esoteric thought collective were unable to formulate a consistent theory of religiosity, they were at least able to identify and partially explain some of the more visible elements of religiosity that were so self-evident from their perspective that it was impossible to dispute them. Such “hard facts” included statistical figures concerning the age, gender, social occupation, and location of the “religious fanatics” on the one hand, and the “atheists” on the other. However, the figures and statistics for the great mass of the population that found itself somewhere in between these two extreme categories remained under a veil of uncertainty. It would be imprecise to maintain that the scientific atheists had not achieved anything after almost ten years of arduous labor devoted to gathering and evaluating the primary sociological data. They certainly knew much more about religiosity in general, and the levels of religiosity in some regions in particular, at the end of the 1960s than they had known at the end of the 1950s. If nothing else, the sociological research made both the local party authorities and the propaganda activists aware of the fact that religiosity remained a matter to be solved. Ivan Kirilenko, the secretary of the party’s regional committee in Perm, confessed in 1968 that it was made clear that before the sociological survey had even the most experienced propagandists of atheism quite an inaccurate insight about the distribution of religious superstitions in different districts of our region. […] We had to repeatedly come to terms with superficial ideas that if no one from the collective of workers was on the list of the sectarians or if he was neither married in church nor baptized his children, then, consequently, there was no religiosity at all.115

However, the deeper problem was that the analyses could neither be compared with one another, nor used to construct the bigger picture, namely,  a map of religiosity of the Soviet Union. The reason for the mutual incompatibility lay partially in the use of different questionnaires. However, the main reason was that the typologies were in fact different, although they looked similar at the first glance. The devil, as Cherniak pointed out, was in the details. In this case, the details were the criteria of religiosity which were neither hierarchized nor 115 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 72, ll. 7 f.

168  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  systematized. The proposition that religiosity was in fact a complex phenomenon, which consisted of multiple intertwined, mutually supportive elements that all had to be present at the same time, led in the reality of the esoteric thought collective to the construction of dozens of religious types. These were all slightly different because each researcher tended to place slightly more emphasis on certain elements (or criteria) of religiosity and disregard others. The category of religiosity in the Soviet Union was unchecked by a governing paradigm and was therefore arbitrary, despite being constructed on the “irrefutable” facts of the sociological surveys. To put it differently, the scientific-atheist thought collective was unable to discover the fabled Archimedean point without the explicit guidance of Marxism-Leninism or the party. Therefore, as the following citation from 1968 suggests, the ultimate arbiter of religiosity within the context of scientific atheism was always the researcher himself. If someone says that he is religious but does not manifest his religiosity, then it does not mean that he is a believer. And, vice versa, if someone participates in religious rituals but says that he does not believe, then this does not indicate his religiosity. […] We have to pay attention to the level of these factors. If someone tells us that he does not believe, but it is known that he regularly prays at home, this means that he is a believer. If someone participates in the ritual of a child’s baptism, is he then an unbeliever? […] In any case, if we discuss the criteria, we have to take into consideration not only religious consciousness and behavior but the regularity of this behavior and the role of religious motives in such behavior.116

The majority of the scientific-atheist experts in the sociology of religion were adamant about the overall benefits of their research, despite its shortcomings. However, as already seen, there were also members of the thought collective who disregarded the positive outcomes of the typology of believers. Frantsev, an old atheist specialist, was rather skeptical about the efficacy of such endeavors. He argued: I would say that they give us very few results but consume a great deal of energy. It is as if someone had really doubted that there are more believers among older people than among the youth, or that the believers are more numerous among uncultured people and less numerous among well educated people. Moreover, the numbers could change from case to case, from one region or district to another. I don’t know what the benefit is in this. I would like to ask: what does the chase of mass scope and mass numbers give us?117 116 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 81, l. 41. Remir Aleksandrovich Lopatkin was defending the same perspective by saying: “we base or perspective on the fact that not all elements of religiosity tell us about the religiosity of a person which would allow us to proclaim the aforementioned person as believing or unbelieving. Consider, for example, the fact of church visit etc. It does not tell us a single thing. It has to be checked out with other motives.” Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 82, l. 61. 117 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 18, l. 7.

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A similarly disenchanted attitude towards a sociological research that was portrayed as a universal remedy capable of answering all the questions concerning religiosity was expressed by Eduard Filimonov. In 1965 he said: the level of research is quite low in the majority of cases. It suffers from empiricism and does not formulate any new theoretical points. In many instances, the surveys only confirm what is generally known […] The research topics are narrow and duplication often occurs in our literature. Issues such as the efficacy and the reality of antireligious propaganda are very weakly reflected.118

Frantsev’s critique and Filimonov’s evaluation certainly did not seek to embellish the reality of the scientific-atheist research. They did not close their eyes to the deficiencies because they were genuinely seeking to discover the best instruments and approaches for studying the phenomena at hand within the framework of the thought style. Because they were members of the thought collective, they could not transgress certain boundaries, but this did not inhibit them from questioning the quality and overall oeuvre of the sociology of religion. Such critique, together with their accumulation of research experience, was both effective and ineffective at the same time. It was ineffective because most of the research suffered from the weaknesses postulated by Filimonov and was also unable to vindicate itself from Frantsev’s critique as a result. However, it was successful because it encouraged an environment that welcomed new research approaches, provided they stayed within the confines of the existing thought style. Another outcome of the decade of sociological research was the discovery that not only religiosity but also atheism requires further scrutiny. The cause of this change of emphasis from the almost exclusive attention to the believers, their worldview, and their practice to a more detailed study of other groups was brought about by the discovery of a group of so-called waverers or indifferent people. As Evdokimov put it in 1968, if we previously studied mainly religious people, then today we devote more and more attention to other categories of the population. More specifically, we study indifferent people, i. e. the category that can serve as  a basis for the rejuvenation of religious communes in certain circumstances.119

As the research indicated, this category was by far the most numerous one. Because they were neither atheist nor religious, it was argued that these people should be subjected to atheist propaganda alongside believers, for they had not yet reached the level of consciously accepting the scientific worldview. Such a perspective greatly enhanced the potential relevance of scientific-atheist education in the long run, as it proved that its influence must be broadened to rather 118 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 34, l. 57. 119 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 81, l. 14.

170  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  diverse social strata. It also disproved the argument against the scientific-atheist propaganda activities as it confirmed the need to constantly educate the masses. This was understood by the esoteric thought collective as an aspect of the social prophylaxis, as the waverers or indifferent people were an especially good target for religious activists, and they were also seen as a potential reservoir for religiosity in the Soviet social context.

3.2 The Beginnings of the Esoteric Thought Collective in Czechoslovakia 3.2.1 The Socio-Political Context The position of scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1950s was similar to its position in the Soviet Union. There was neither a valid party resolution expressing the official point of view, nor any systematic research. It has been also demonstrated in the section about the institutional development in the previous chapter that the level of antireligious and scientific propaganda was not particularly high or intensive. For most of the 1950s, the CPCC plenipotentiaries observed a conspicuous silence on these questions. It is clear that the 1959 resolution brought about an atmosphere in which it was much more difficult to completely ignore the antireligious propaganda. In December 1958, five months after the XI Congress of the CPC , Slavík prepared a second draft entitled “On Some Pressing Questions Regarding the Development of Scientific-Atheist Education.” This time the resolution was approved by the CC in January 1959.120 With this decision, the party gave the go-ahead for the substantial increase of scientific-atheist discourse in Czechoslovakia. The practical measures regarding scientific-atheist propaganda were divided into three areas by the resolution. The first was the mass education of the people. In order to be able to achieve that, the party had to increase the number of scientific-atheist specialists. The resolution acknowledged that and proposed a grand program of party schooling which varied from regional evening classes to special courses at the evening schools of Marxism-Leninism. Moreover, the cycles of lectures, discussions, nights of questions and answers, and film nights, which were organized predominantly but not exclusively by the party lecturers of the SPŠPVZ , were expected to provide the basis for direct propaganda for the rest of the population. The publication department was expected to support this endeavor and to provide the necessary base of knowledge, which was diversified

120 See NA ČR , fond KSČ ÚV 02/4, Ústřední výbor 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 157, aj. 243, b.7.

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according to the target audience, whether religious believers, party members, or a professional agitators.121 However, the knowledge base was far from sufficient. The resolution therefore expressed a need for scholarly institutions that would devote themselves to the production of scientific knowledge on scientific-atheist topics. These highly specialized and trained cadres were expected to form a research base and to provide viable and scientifically correct information for both the propaganda and the party. More specifically, their designated role was to “start working on scientific questions about the history of religion and churches, philosophical questions about the essence of religion, the overcoming of religion in our country, and religious critique.”122 It is significant that there was no explicit mention of the necessity to elaborate on the questions regarding socialist morality, ethics, or the need for a sociology of religion. In other words, the atheist scholarship proposed was expected to be mainly concerned with historical and philosophical research, and with the scholarly grounded critique of current religious developments. It was also remarkable that scientifically obtained atheist knowledge was not viewed in relationship to the outcomes of the natural sciences. Natural science was a viable ally for atheist propaganda because it provided useful arguments against a religious worldview. However, it was not regarded as one of the primary sources of atheist knowledge by the members of the esoteric thought collective. While atheist propaganda continued its ambition to penetrate a relatively broad range of topics with an atheist meaning, atheist “science” or scholarship was an endeavor based on stricter terms. It defined the range of phenomena eligible for atheist research both more systematically and more carefully. On the institutional level, the resolution explicitly referred to three fields in which scientific-atheist education was expected to base itself. Mass propaganda was the domain of the SPŠPVZ , scholarship was to be pursued within the framework of the CSAS , and the practice of atheist rituals was the domain of the Spolek pro občanské záležitosti (Society for Citizen Affairs, SPOZ henceforth). These three institutions with their multiple sub-organizations were given the power to shape the newly structured field of scientific atheism. All these institutions had their own tasks to fulfill, their own strategies, and their own sets of practices. Because scientific atheism was expected to exist within these structures, it had to find the means of asserting and maintaining its legitimacy and indispensability. Although the field’s existence had been secured by the approval given by the CC , it would have to confirm and secure its right to existence in the following years. In other words, the creation of the scientific-atheist field was only the beginning of an empty structure, or an empty box, and it was far from clear what meaning it would be filled with. The resolution provided some guiding 121 See ibid., l. 19. 122 Cit. ibid., l. 18.

172  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  principles, together with the initial expectations. However, both the content and the emphasis placed on certain topics and themes was for the members of the newly constructed thought collective to decide. The first opportunity to evaluate the impact of the January 1959 resolution at the highest echelons of the party structure came in March 1961. In his report The Fulfillment of the CPC ’s Resolution on “Some Pressing Questions Regarding the Development of Scientific-Atheist Education,” Slavík assessed the first steps of atheist activities in Czechoslovakia. His account presents highly valuable insights into the party’s self-understanding in these matters, and it allows to reconstruct the criteria for assessing the policies that ought to have led to a mass atheization of the population. Furthermore, it enables one to infer the place that scientific atheism occupied in the hierarchy of values held by the party elite at the beginning of the 1960s. The report praised the successful organization of the party’s schooling structure at the regional level, which had increased both the number of atheist propagandists and the number of lectures. The party organizations obediently organized commissions for scientific-atheist education, which was the first step for monitoring, controlling, and systematizing the propaganda in the regions. These commissions also oversaw the activities of the SPOZ and dealt with religiosity within the party.123 The second area closely observed by Slavík was that of mass propaganda. This aspect of the January 1959 resolution was also evaluated positively. Slavík noticed that there had been an upsurge of atheist topics in some local newspapers, including both “Večerní Praha” (The Evening Prague) and nationwide ones such as “Mladá Fronta” (Young Front). The other mass media, such as television and radio broadcasts,124 were also positively assessed, although only one new film had been produced since the resolution. However, Slavík conceded that the number of scientific and popular-scientific articles in journals was not satisfactory.125 123 See NA ČR , KSČ ÚV 02/4, Ústřední výbor 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 206, aj. 341, b. 3, ll. 7 f. The same positive outcome regarding party schooling was reported to the CPCC in Slovakia already on 22 January 1960. Moreover, it boasts that “majority of the party organizations started to perceive scientific-atheist education as indivisible and permanent part of the communist education of workers.” Cit. Slovenský národný archív v Bratislave (Slovak National Archive in Bratislava, SNA henceforth), f. ÚV KSS , k. 200, 22.1.1960, l. 15.  124 The most important scientific-atheist radio program was the so called “Radio University.” The overarching topic of the cycle of lectures was Religion in the Life of an Individual and Society and it was broadcasted regularly from September 1959 to January 1960. The silver lining of the Radio University, realized with the help of well-known scholars and atheist specialists such as Otakar Nahodil and Ivan Sviták, was a critique of religion in general and Catholicism in particular. See NA ČR , KSČ ÚV 02/4, Ústřední výbor 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 206, aj. 341, b. 3, l. 9, and Bubík: České bádání, 141 f. 125 The already well-known atheist films were “Stvoření světa” (The Creation of World, 1957), an animated movie created with the help of French artist Gustav Eiffel, “Cesta do

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Slavík’s assessment of scientific-atheist literature was crucially important. He wrote that literature on the topics mentioned was published unsystematically and chaotically until 1958. […] From February 1959 to the end of 1960 the CSSR published 71 titles, with an overall print run of more than half a million copies. It is a positive sign that the first atheist writings have recently been published. The plans for 1961 include 35 atheist publications. Of this number, more than half are devoted to theoretical questions, while the rest are for mass usage.126

This statement once more confirms the thesis concerning the virtual non-­existence of specialist scientific-atheist literature in Czechoslovakia prior to 1958. Further­ more, it also reflects the principal importance of the January resolution for the initiation of  a systematic editorial strategy that contributed to  a considerable consolidation, systemization, and fixation of the scientific-atheist thought style. Since the beginning of 1959, there had been an official demand for atheist literature, which was expected to be published on  a regular basis in order to fill the existing knowledge gap. Finally, the citation implicitly underscores the importance of the Soviet authors in the early stages of the atheist propaganda. While the quantitative indicators caused mild optimism, especially when compared to the meagre state of affairs just a few years before, the evaluation of the content was not as positive. Slavík maintained: Above all, the education for a scientific worldview is narrowed down to solely scientific­atheist education, and it is quite often only scientific-atheist propaganda. Scientificatheist education is often narrowed down to the critique of religious ideas and influences, which weakens the efficacy of our impact on believers.127

This citation is symptomatic for a few reasons. Most notably, it shows how confused the rank and file propagandists in regions were with the party’s demands which amounted in eliciting of a debate about the rather cryptic term of scientific worldview. It was clear that some of these propagandists understood under the party’s demands simply as the need to combat religion. As  a result, they did this with the intellectual resources available, which were chiefly oriented to religious critique. However, such activity, as more theoretically advanced and pravěku” (The Journey into Prehistoric Times, 1955), and the recent film about the origins of religion was named “Po stopách strachu” (On the Trail of Fear, 1959). See NA ČR , KSČ ÚV 02/4, Ústřední výbor 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 206, aj. 341, b. 3, l. 9. See also Olšáková: Věda, 422–424. 126 Cit. NA ČR , KSČ ÚV 02/4, Ústřední výbor 1945–1989, Praha — sekretariát 1954–1962, sv. 206, aj. 341, b. 3, l. 9. The rise and systematization of the publishing strategy of scientific-­ atheist printed materials was noted in Slovakia as well. See SNA , f. ÚV KSS , k. 200, 22.1.1960, Kontrolní zpráva, l. 14. 127 Cit. SNA , f. ÚV KSS , k. 200, 22.1.1960, Kontrolní zpráva, l. 14.

174  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  politically responsible ideologues such as Slavík argued, did not contribute to the actual goal as it did not educate the audience but merely propagated against religion. This is what Slavík meant when he wrote on the difference between scientific-atheist education and propaganda. Unlike some of the practicing scien­tific atheists in Czechoslovakia, Slavík was aware of the fact that the critique of religion, however deep or scientifically grounded it may be, was not enough to facilitate the adoption of a scientific worldview. The scientific-atheist activity in the following years of the 1960s, up until the Prague Spring of 1968, were in theory regulated by the resolution of January 1959. However, the only trace found of it in the archives was as one of the discussion topics during the CPCC meetings. This may indicate that scientific atheism was once more marginalized by the top-ranking party officials in Czechoslovakia, especially after the fall of Khrushchev on 14 October 1964. It would appear that Novotný did not see a reason for continuing the atheist propaganda campaign in Czechoslovakia in a prominent fashion after the Soviet Union’s course had been adjusted under Brezhnev’s administration. The hypothesis that scientific atheism was less present in the Czechoslovakian public sphere can be supported by a drop in the number of scientific-atheist lectures in some regions, and the fact that inculcation of religion in schools was not abolished. Although the available data are far from complete, the circumstantial evidence supports this hypothesis. During the SPŠPVZ ’s regional conference in the Severočeský kraj (NorthCzech Region) on 26 October 1963, it was explicitly stated that the numbers of scientific-­atheist lectures were decreasing in comparison to previous years, and that the number of lectures was approximately fifty percent of the 1961 figure, which had amounted to 211 lectures.128 The downward trend is also clearly visible in the materials for the branch’s 1965 conference. For example, only 42 atheist lectures were delivered in the whole region in 1964.129 The hypothesis on the decrease in the scientific-atheist propaganda activity after 1963 and 1964 is further supported by an overview of the books and brochures published in the 1959–1971 period (see Figure 5). The other external event that influenced the form of the scientific-atheist field in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s was the Second Ecumenical Council of 128 If in 1961 was delivered 211 atheist lectures in the whole North-Czech Region, the figure fell to 124 lectures in 1962 and just 68 lectures in the first six months of 1963. See Státní oblastní archiv Litoměřice (State Regional Archive in Litoměřice, SOA L henceforth), f. Čsl. společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí, krajský výbor Ústí nad Labem 1957–1965, k. 1, Krajská konference 26.10.1963, l. 4.  129 The number of lectures in 1963 was eighty, in 1964 it was 42, and in the first half of 1965 just twelve. See SOA L, f. Čsl. společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí, krajský výbor Ústí nad Labem 1957–1965, k. 1, Krajská konference 2.11.1965, Vývoj přednáškové činnosti Čs. společnosti Severočeského kraje za období 1963 — I. pol. 1965 — podle jednotlivých vědních oborů, (unnumbered file).

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the Vatican, which started on 11 October 1962 under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII and was closed under Pope Paul VI on 8 December 1965. The single most important outcome of the Council for the development of scientific atheism was initiation of a dialogue with both other religions and Marxist atheism. The Catholic Church’s endeavors to discuss the philosophical aspects of faith and its consequences for the contemporary world were particularly visible after the start of Pope Paul VI’s pontificate in 1963. Atheism was also an important topic discussed at the Second Vatican Council, and Pope Paul VI even saw it as “the most serious problem of our time.”130 In any case, the Church’s willingness to talk with atheists about their worldview was a profound change of attitude in comparison to the earlier vociferous condemnations of godlessness. This showed that the Church was prepared to listen carefully and to learn about their ideological counterparts in a relatively open-minded atmosphere that was intended to foster understanding and dialogue between the two sides. The change of attitude in the Catholic Church was like a gauntlet thrown down to the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist specialists. Moreover, the invitations to participate in debates between Christians and Marxists were very difficult if not impossible to refuse in the context of the 1960s. Of course, it should be added that the liberalizing atmosphere in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, and especially around the middle of the 1960s and up until the Prague Spring in 1968, also played a significant role. The New Wave in Czechoslovak cinema, together with the oeuvre of belletristic writers and scholars contributed to the opening of discussions on long forgotten or taboo topics, such as the problems of the youth and the fate of Jews during the Second World War.131 130 See McLellan, David: Christian-Marxist Dialogue, in: New Blackfriars 49/577 (1968) 462–467, here 462. 131 An event occurred in 1963 that greatly influenced the subsequent intellectual atmosphere in Czechoslovakia. This was the so-called Franz Kafka conference in Liblice, where the importance of Prague German literature for Czechoslovakian culture was discussed for the first time since 1948. The mere fact that the hitherto condemned Kafka was a topic for serious debate and possible re-examination is a good indicator of the process that continued until 1968. This was essentially a process of stretching the boundaries of the topics that could be discussed in the public sphere. The Czechoslovakian scholars, exemplified by Karel Kosík’s book “Dialektika konkrétního” (Dialectics of the Concrete) that was published in 1963, were also re-examining the meaning of the socialist project at this time. The party leaders were also facing serious economic problems in the 1960s. They either did not have the power to uphold the “neo-Stalinist” attitude in the sphere of culture and scholarship, or else they may have believed that slight ideological changes would successfully rekindle enthusiasm for socialism among the population. The increasingly defensive stance of the CPC can also be observed in the re-examination of political processes in Gottwald’s era, which culminated in amnesty for some and the revoking of all charges for others. For more detailed discussion about the New Wave in Czechoslovakian cinema, see Hames, Peter: The Czechoslovakian New Wave. London 1985, and Přádná, Stanislava / Škapová, Zdena / Cieslar, Jiří: Démanty všednosti. Český a slovenský film 60. let. Kapitoly o nové vlně. Praha 2002, Kusák, Alexej: Tance kolem Kafky:

176  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  To return to the question of the dialogue between Marxist atheists and Catholic Christians, it can be argued that the intellectual development towards liberalization or the “widening of mental horizons” was a necessary precondition for the realization of such debates. Had the overall intellectual climate been more conservative and heteronomous force more secure in the saddle, as was the case in the Soviet Union, the appeals of the Catholic intellectuals for Marxists to join the dialogue could have been easily ignored or dismissed by the scientific-atheist scholars on the pretext that they were revisionist or simply anti-Marxist and therefore not worthy of serious discussion. Moreover, unlike the situation in the Soviet Union, the 1960s generation of scientific-atheist specialists was also the product of the intellectual debate. The symposia organized by the “Paulusgesellschaft” in years 1965–197 were another events that had a profound impact on scientific-atheist thought style in the second half of the 1960s.132 The most important event of this nature in the Czechoslovakian context occurred in the small spa town of Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad) in April 1967. The conference, which facilitated the rapprochement of Czechoslovakian atheists and Western theologians in the form of dialogue, was co-organized by the Sociological Institute of the CSAS and its title was “Shöpfertum und Freiheit in einer humanen Gesellschaft” (Creativity and Freedom in a Humane Society).133 The liberalization tendencies in the sphere of both intellectual and political life were abruptly interrupted by the invasion of Warsaw Pact forces during the early hours of 21 August 1968. A normalization period then began on multiple levels, which touched various spheres of society, culture, and politics. The highly symbolic act of Jan Palach’s sacrifice at the Wenceslas Square in Prague on 19 January 1969 thus marked not only a protest but also the end of the reform process of the 1960s. The years from 1968 to 1971 were a kind of interim period for liblická konference 1963 — vzpomínky a dokumenty po 40 letech. Praha 2003. For more details about the role of intellectuals, see a case study by a historian of ideas Jan Mervart analyzing the borders of semi-public philosophical discourse, which is exemplified by “Filosofický časopis” (Philosophical Journal). Mervart, Jan: Filosofický časopis mezi stalinismem a normalizací, in: 60 let Filosofického časopisu. Praha 2013, 9–32, and Kopeček: Hledání, 304. For more detailed discussion of the political processes and their revision, see Slabotínský, Radek: Amnestie prezidenta republiky v letech 1960  a 1962  a rehabilitace politických vězňů v 60. Letech. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Brno 2010, 145–241. 132 Paulusgesellschaft was founded already in 1955 in the West Germany. However, its significance for socialist Czechoslovakia became apparent only after the shift of thought style, which is the topic of this and next parts of the chapter. The Paulusgesellschaft was from its inception oriented towards dialogue between Marxists and various Christian confessions. However, until the middle of 1960s, the Marxists were represented mainly by the New Left, most notably by Garaudy, who attended also conferences in Salzburg (1965), Chiemsee (1966), and Marienbad (1967). 133 See Landa, Ivan / Mervart, Jan (eds.): Proměny Marxisticko-křesťanského dialogu v Československu. Praha 2017, 61–105.

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the scientific atheists. Nevertheless, it was obvious that the liberal form of atheist humanism or dialogical atheism, a specifically Czechoslovakian product of the 1960s, would not continue under the new political administration comprised of politicians such as Gustáv Husák, Vasil Biľak, and Lubomír Štrougal. Some of the main proponents of this approach to scientific atheism such as Vítězslav Gardavský, Milan Machovec, and Erika Kadlecová were suppressed and silenced by the party purges that started in 1969 and continued to the beginning of the 1970s, and others, such as Machovec, had to leave the country. Due to massive personal changes was unclear whether scientific atheism would continue as a specific field of knowledge and, if so, how this field would be structured in the socio-political context of the normalized Czechoslovakia. In 1971 the party leaders made the decision to resurrect scientific atheism as a scholarly discipline. Subsequently, two institutes of scientific atheism were created. The creation of both institutes signified a new phase in the development of a scientific-atheist sphere. This ended the “Czechoslovakian deviation” of the 1960s and marked the beginning of scientific atheism as a normal science, which lasted in Czechoslovakia until 1989. This final period of fully institutionalized scholarship is the topic of the Chapter 4. 3.2.2 The Process of Institutionalization As noted in the previous section, the foundation of the departments of scientific atheism at the philosophical and later the sociological institutes of the CSAS and Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV henceforth) was  a direct response of the party to the resolution of January 1959. The department was indeed the main institution that organized scientific-atheist research in Czechoslovakia in the years 1959–1971. Its personnel were greatly influenced by Arnošt (Ernst) Kolman, a well-known scholar and propagandist of atheism, who had been director of the philosophical institute in 1959–1962, and who had also contributed to the relative growth in scientific atheism during those years. He also decided that  a sociologist by training should be put in charge of  a small sociological department and appointed Kadlecová.134 The other members of the department included Eva Sládková who was later joined by Sviták.

134 Erika Kadlecová, born in 1924, started as a clerk at the Agitprop (agitation and propaganda) secretariat of the Regional Committee of the CPC in Brno. She soon left to be an assistant and later  a teacher and department head at the newly founded Higher Political School of the CC CPC (later The Party College of the CC CPC), where she was employed until 1955. In crucial months between December 1947 and July 1948 she was called up by the CC to give her expertise regarding churches and believers. Kadlecová then conducted post-gradual studies at the Moscow’s ASS in years 1952–1955. After her return from the Soviet Union, she started working at the Institute of Philosophy at the CSAS as a research worker. In April 1960,

178  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  While some members of the newly-formed department had previous experience with scientific-atheist topics, others were completely new to the problematic. For example, Sládková had previously worked in the department of dialectical materialism and explicitly stated that she had “not dealt with questions of atheism until then.”135 Thus, the lack of suitable scientific-atheist specialists at the beginning of the 1960s was compensated for by the internal relocation or reassignment of “disposable” or willing researchers to the new field of knowledge. This extraordinary process of assembling the thought collective was accompanied by professional training of the new scholars by means of “aspirantura.” In the case of the department of scientific atheism, there were three aspirants in 1960, namely, Markéta Machovcová, Jaroslav Hranička, and Peluška Bendlová. It is a relatively uncomplicated to distinguish the department’s official research program as it largely mimicked individual research interests. However, the topics had to be discussed and confirmed by the party’s ideological department and the institute’s scientific-methodological council before the work could begin. Therefore, the final program was the outcome of mutual discussions and bargaining strategies between the party officials and researchers. The former demanded more information on certain topics, such as religiosity and the efficacy of atheist propaganda. The latter had their own ideas on the topics and how they should be managed. A sociological study of religiosity, a textbook on scientific atheism, and  a critique of the contemporary ideology of the Christian churches were the three main tasks in the department’s five-year plan. This was confirmed by Kolman in 1960 and was the result of the party’s general ignorance about the actual state of affairs, which was fairly similar to the situation in the Soviet Union. Monographs on the Second Vatican Council,136 neo-Thomism,137 and the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin138 were the rather unexpected outcomes of this research, which was expected to have dealt predominantly with the critique of contemporary ideology. By the same token, the unofficial textbook “Bozi a lidé” (Gods and Men) published in 1966 after an almost six year long period of writing, differed considerably from the initial expectations of the party officials at the ideological department at the beginning of the 1960s.139 In fact, the bargaining process between the scientific-atheist department and she became the head of the scientific-atheist department. See Archiv akademie věd (Archive of the Academy of Sciences, A AV henceforth), fond Ústav pro filosofii a sociologii ČSAV, Sociologická sekce, sign. 012, inv.č. 2, k. 1, hodnocení zaměstanců, (unnumbered pages). 135 Cit. A AV, fond FÚ ČSAV 36, sign. 1.15, 1960–1965, oddělení věd. ateismu (plány práce, zprávy o činnosti), (unnumbered pages). 136 See Hranička, Jaroslav: Ekumenický koncil: Úvaha nad hlavními dokumenty. Praha 1967. 137 See Machovec, Milan: Novotomismus. Praha 1962. 138 See Bendlová, Peluška: Člověk a moderní katolicismus. Praha 1965. 139 See Kadlecová, Erika (ed.): Bozi a lidé. Praha 1966, 423–479.

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the party’s ideological department was probably relatively straightforward as Kadlecová was a member of the ideological commission of the third and fourth departments of the party. As such, she was able to defend her colleagues’ projects and use her leverage to promote the department’s perspective in the face of the possible ideological-conservative objections of the laymen. In any case, the fact that the department of scientific atheism was formed as a part of the Institute of Philosophy at the CSAS was important because it gave its members a certain amount of independence from party structures. This has to be emphasized, particularly in the context of the intellectual atmosphere of the 1960s. However, the relaxation of discursive constraints in the public and semi-public spheres since 1963 was unable to protect all the main protagonists of liberalization in Czechoslovakia. The case in point in the context of the scientific-atheist scholarship of the 1960s was Sviták, who had to be removed from the department in 1964 due to his alleged “revisionism” of the party line.140 The example is important because it demonstrates that since 1963 scientific atheism had increasingly moved from the politically safe waters of the ideological conformity and epistemological rigidity typical of the “long” 1950s — t hat is during the years 1954–1963 — to the dangerous waters of creative thinking on the borders of Marxism. Although this framework had become increasingly relaxed in the course of the 1960s, it still had rules that were guarded by the party. Those like Sviták who disrupted them had to be removed from the collective, and even their alleged scientific-atheist expertise was unable to defend them. In any case, the organizational platform of the CSAS facilitated the careful broadening of scientific-atheist scholarship, which was able to constitute itself in the liberal atmosphere of 1960s Czechoslovakia. In 1965 the Institute of Sociology was founded at the CSAS . The department of scientific atheism, still headed by Kadlecová, was then transferred into the newly-formed center of sociological research. In addition to the ever-present theological critique, the sociological aspect of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline was strengthened by this decision. Within this new organizational framework, the department expected to focus “mainly on the issues of religion in the contemporary (socialist as well as capitalist) society, on its living streams 140 Sviták’s position has been at the knife-edge since 1956. According to his own accounts, he had problems with publications, and even previously commissioned books were not printed for several years. Presumably, his academic career was extended by his pledge to devote himself fully to scientific atheism in 1958. On 12 April 1958, he wrote to the director of the Institute of Philosophy Rieger, where he asked whether he should continue “his devotion to issues of atheism and postpone the solution of issues of the Cultural Revolution.” Cit. A AV, fond FÚ, sign. 12, 1954–1960, Ivan Sviták, (unnumbered pages). Rieger replied that Sviták should continue with scientific-atheist research. In 1964 was finally published Sviták’s candidate dissertation “Otázky současného ateismu” (Questions of Contemporary Atheism). However, even this book did not help to wash away the stain of revisionism.

180  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  of thought, on the critique of the most important philosophical and theological systems which are connected to Catholicism and Protestantism.”141 The department’s research ended in April 1968 due to the fact that its most experienced members, namely, Kadlecová, Hranička, and Ladislav Prokůpek were transferred to positions at the Secretariat for Religious Affairs. Kadlecová and her colleagues were occupied with political work until June 1969 which meant that the department’s research was dormant for more than a year. Given the strong ties of Kadlecová and other former members of the department to the reform course of the Prague Spring of 1968, it was not possible for them to continue their careers under the new political administration that was formed during the first half of 1969. As a result, the department of scientific atheism was virtually destroyed in 1969, and with it was also destroyed the strongest institutional unit that represented scientific atheism as a scholarly discipline. While the professional futures of those who had actively participated on the construction of “socialism with a human face” during the normalization period were largely clear, the further institutional and organizational existence of scientific atheism remained obscure for the moment. In addition to the Prague research center, another department of scientific atheism also existed at the SAV ’s Institute of Philosophy in Bratislava. It was formed in reaction to the 1959 resolution of the CPS which stated that: “The Slovak Academy of Sciences provides weak assistance to scientific-atheist propaganda. This is documented by the fact that no scientific-research department has been founded in the sphere of scientific atheism.”142 Its six core members were Jaroslav Čelko, Jan Bieľčik, Michal Kolárik, Bohumír Kvasnička, Jozef Lamoš, and Peter Prusák, and it resembled the Prague department in terms of size. As the 1963 publication “Za marxistické poňatie ateizmu” (On the Marxist Understanding of Atheism) shows, its research program was also relatively similar to that of the department located in the Czechoslovakian capital.143 Significantly, the structural and research development of the Bratislava department did not mirror that of its Prague counterpart. The department did not become a base for a more liberal and creative approach to religion and atheism, nor were its members part of the Prague spring in 1968. If anything, the Slovakia department’s members represented a rather conservative approach to scientific atheism, with a heavy focus on a standardized critique of the Catholic 141 Cit. A AV, fond ÚFS ČSAV, sekce Sociologická, sign. 012, inv.č. 2, kar. 1, 1970, l. 1. 142 Cit. SNA , fond ÚV KSS , sekretariát ÚV, Karton 200, resolution from 22.1.1960, l. 18. 143 The book collects series of contributions written as a result of a scientific colloquium organized by the Bratislava department. Apart from Slovakian members of the department, Czech scientific atheists, such as Ivan Sviták also contributed to the volume. The structure of the edited volume indicates that sociological research has been conducted in Slovakia as well. The critical contributions attest to still very much actual critical vein of scientific-atheist scholarship. See Kvasnička, Bohumír (ed.): Za marxistické poňatie ateizmu. Bratislava 1963.

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Church and stereotypically interpreted sociological surveys. While the Prague department sought to demonstrate its relevancy not only to the party but also to the ever-growing public sphere, the institutional center of scientific atheism in Bratislava failed to show its relevancy in the 1960s. According to an account written in 1971, the reason for the department’s disintegration was given as follows: It was not the fault of the department members. It is a fact that the department was discriminated against. It was made clear to the workers that they were  a foreign element within the Institute of Philosophy and were only taking positions away from the traditional philosophical disciplines. At the same time, the relevancy and need for special scientific-atheist research was also questioned. […] The question of the department’s leadership then arose, an issue that was combined with the question of the main focus of its research.144

As the account indicated, the department started to disintegrate in 1963 and was closed down completely in 1967, even before the peak of the reform movement in 1968. The conservative nature of the Bratislava department of scientific atheism was also confirmed by its strong continuity of personnel after the normalization period of 1969–1971. Five of the six members of the earlier department became research members of the newly founded Institute of Scientific Atheism at the beginning of the 1970s, and one even assumed an important position in the CC of the CPS . This continuity is an example of the difference between the two departments in the 1960s. While the thought collective that was formed in Prague produced knowledge that was too dangerous in the new “normalized” socio-political context, the Slovakian atheists were so conformist and epistemologically conservative that they formed a valuable addition to the neo-conservative ideology of Husák’s political administration in the 1970s. The fact that the first professional Slovakian atheist scholars were “bullied” in the 1960s by the SAV establishment, as the account indicates, served to their advantage in the later context. Although the two departments of scientific atheism were the main centers of research in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, they were not the only spaces in which scientific-atheist esoteric knowledge was produced. However, this other research was not backed up by a corresponding institutional structure. This meant that these other researchers were not obliged to work on scientific-atheist topics and did not occupy positions explicitly reserved for atheists. The atheist research outside of these two departments of scientific atheism was conducted almost exclusively out of personal interest and within the framework of other disci 144 Cit. Archiv slovenské akadémie vied (Archive of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, A SAV henceforth), fond ÚVA SAV, inv. č. 54, k. 9, K historii vzniku ÚVA SAV (prosinec 1971), unnumbered pages.

182  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  plines, mainly in the confines of institutes of Marxism-Leninism at universities across the republic. The most significant of these relatively incidental clusters of atheism was located at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague. More precisely, it was in the seminar entitled Dialogue between Christians and Marxists, which had been one of the main loci of alternative knowledge production since 1962. The main proponent of this dialogue from the Marxist side was Machovec, a renowned philosopher and professor at the Charles University. Machovec’s personal dedication and desire to promote scientific atheism was based on his vision for creating a genuine and better alternative to religion. This led him to an open and honest dialogue with both Czechoslovakian and European religious thinkers and philosophers. They gathered regularly to discuss issues of religion and atheism on an equal level and in  a relatively safe environment, free of simplistic and vague ideological formulas.145 The main feature of this institutionally anchored and semi-public space was the democratic nature of the dialogue. Both sides had equal opportunities to participate in the debate, and the ideas presented were not condemned but were subjected to discussion and analysis. However, this did not mean that the participants in the seminar did not adhere to a certain epistemological framework. The seminar was frequented by convinced Marxist atheists as well as by Catholic and Protestant Christians. From the perspective of scientific atheism, the main ideological presupposition and novelty of Machovec’s approach in the 1960s was the notion that if religion is to be truly overcome, it has to be understood and appropriated by  a superior doctrine. Therefore, unlike his predecessors and Soviet counterparts, Machovec believed that religion is  a relevant source of inspiration for Marxism. Through the platform of the seminar, he was able to convince many unprejudiced atheist colleagues that in order to understand what atheism means, one has to conduct an honest and empathetic dialogue with the representatives of religion.146 The role of Machovec and his seminar peaked in 1967–1968. In April 1968 he organized a public meeting in the form of  a dialogue, which attracted between 1200 and 3000 people. However, the cluster created by Machovec was unable to withstand the political pressure after 21 August 1968. Machovec himself wrote a protest letter against the occupation which resulted in his dismissal from the Charles University, and the activity of

145 See Šiklová, Jiřina: Dialogický seminář na Filozofické fakultě UK v šedesátých letech, in: Jindrová, Kamila / Tachecí, Pavel / Žďárský, Pavel (eds.): Mistr dialogu Milan Machovec. Sborník k nedožitým osmdesátinám českého filozofa. Praha 2006, 49–59. 146 For more detailed analysis of the seminar’s impact see: Novák, Tomáš: Milan Machovec. Monografie se zaměřením na teologickou problematiku. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Praha 1997. The Impact of Machovec’s ideas on the transformation of scientific-atheist thought style is discussed in the next subchapter.

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other active Marxist participants in the seminar was also terminated soon after August 1968.147 The third cluster of scientific-atheist thinking was formed around another thinker, Gardavský. As a senior lecturer of Marxism-Leninism at the Military Academy in Brno, he certainly was not a professional atheist in same way as the Prague or Bratislava department members. Moreover, although he was located in  a regional center and, as  a result, was somehow distanced from the events of the Czechoslovakian capital, Gardavský was nevertheless one of the main proponents of the stream of scientific atheism that developed under the direct influence of Machovec’s seminar and the Western New Left. The latter influence was most notably exemplified by the French communist and philosopher Roger Garaudy, who had visited Czechoslovakia in 1963 in order to participate in the Franz Kafka conference discussed above. Together with Machovec, Gardavský represents the best example of the Czechoslovakian philosophical re-interpretation of scientific atheism. He was recognized by his peers as one of the leading atheist theoreticians in the republic after the publication of his first book in 1967.148 Gardavský’s affiliation to the nonconformist atheist collective was symbolically demonstrated in April 1968 when he participated in the public discussions organized by Machovec. Moreover, his international acclaim was underlined when he received a series of invitations to lecture abroad on his concept of scientific atheism in the years 1968–1969. However, this tour through the capitalist West was the last possibility to present his ideas in the public sphere because he was dismissed from both the military academy and the party shortly after his return. Unable to continue his academic career, he worked as an unqualified worker until his death in 1978.149 This description of the scientific-atheist research field, together with its main centers and clusters, leads to the conclusion that there was an overwhelming majority of atheist scholars who did not subscribe to the older tradition of Marxist atheist thinking, and who sought to probe deeper in order to solve the issues of scientific atheism from another perspective. Furthermore, the understanding and conceptualization of scientific atheism by these scholars differed from the ideas concerning the essence of atheism that had been held prior to 1961. The 147 The group of Marxist atheists who regularly joined the seminar were apart from Machovec consisted of Kadlecová, Hranička, and Prokůpek. Novák, Tomáš: Životopis Milana Machovce. In: Jindrová / Tachecí / Žďárský: Mistr dialogu, 18. 148 His colleague, Hranička, praised him for  a development of  a “brand new concept” of atheism. See Stenografický zápis semináře o ateismu konaného 9.–10. února 1967 na Živohošti, referáty: Vítězslav Gardavský, Václav Vyšohlíd, Jaroslav Hranička, Praha 1967, 1. 149 See Hlaváček, Libor (ed.): Vítězslav Gardavský. Filosof, dramatik, básník – a voják… Sborník k  nedožitým sedmdesátým narozeninám. Brno 1993, 53 f., and Kdo byl Vítězslav Gardavský. Pedagog filosof voják spisovatel člověk. Sborník k nedožitým 75. narozeninám a 20. výročí úmrtí plukovníka docenta PhDr. Vítězslava Gardavského, Csc. Kroměříž 2000, 10.

184  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  majority of Czechoslovakian atheist scholars who were active during the “short sixties” (i. e. the years 1962–1968) also subscribed to a different perspective in comparison to their colleagues in the Soviet Union and Slovakia. However, as the Slovakian example demonstrated, the dialogical form of scientific atheism did not include all the members of the thought collective. In addition to the conservative Slovakian experts, there was also a few adherents of a rather traditional or Soviet form of scientific atheism in other parts of Czechoslovakia. One such representative of  a competing cluster was the department of Marxism-­ Leninism at the Academy of Musical Arts in Brno, where Loukotka was employed in the 1960s. To summarize, the institutional structure of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s was roughly outlined by the January 1959 resolution. Although the two departments of scientific atheism played a significant role during the 1960s, they did not represent the most important centers of atheist research, particularly with regard to the theoretical and philosophical questions. However, the sociological research into religiosity required a larger research team and a more complex logistical coordination and could therefore only have been accomplished within institutionally confirmed departments of scientific atheism. The main epistemological changes that determined the nature of the shift in the scientific-atheist thought style in the 1960s were not initiated by the two departments but rather by the considerably smaller clusters. These clusters were organically formed bodies comprised of members of the thought collective. The presence of an organizing figure around which the entire cluster formed was characteristic of such informal organizing structure. A cluster could be understood as  a part of the thought collective that was comprised by the members who were physically present during the meeting, as in the case of the Marxist atheists who participated in Machovec’s seminar. In the case of Gardavský, his audience consisted of an imagined community comprised of abstract readers. In the context described, the cluster members were well connected to one another, and also to the institutionally recognized center of research in Prague. This interconnectedness of the esoteric thought collective contributed immensely to the exchange of new ideas that were able to penetrate the majority of the thought collective and facilitate the creation of a relatively distinct thought style. At the same time, the successful circulation of certain ideas that were held by certain individuals, thus competed with other ideas that represented a rival thought style. If the new metamorphosis of the thought style had successfully taken hold of the majority thought collective, it would have meant that the previously dominant explanatory framework (i. e. the older, conservative thought style) would have been rendered unnecessary or outdated.

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3.2.3 Elements of the Esoteric Thought Style 3.2.3.1 Continuity and Break from Established Thinking While the January 1959 resolution changed the official party attitude towards scientific-atheist education and propaganda, it did not automatically change the form and content of the thought style. In this respect, the only structural consequence of the resolution for the thought collective was a clearer distinction between its esoteric and exoteric components. The former comprised the scholarly oriented professional experts, while the latter was made up of practically oriented semi-professional lecturers and propagandists. The two groups were interconnected in the sense that it was possible to move from the esoteric to the exoteric groups and vice versa, and such trespassing was quite common. The most important aspect of the January 1959 resolution was the official approval of the existing thought style and its symbolic elevation into the hierarchy of ideologically important spheres of knowledge. As such, the January 1959 resolution had a tremendous impact on the overall perception of atheist knowledge by other significant reference groups. In other words, since January 1959 the atheists had to be taken seriously. The party officials in particular were obliged to listen attentively to what the specialists had to say. Therefore, the thought collective’s importance and status increased. However, it did not automatically change its ways of thinking or thought style. The implementation of the January resolution by the party organizations led to  a blossoming of atheist discourse and an increased demand for it. However, this did not initially contribute to  a deeper knowledge on scientific-atheist topics. Although some of the issues commissioned by the ideological committee appeared novel, such as the scientific-atheist education of the youth, their description, conceptualization, and analysis relied on well-known abstractions and theories that were repurposed for the new material. The main epistemological feature of this approach conceptualized religion as a negative phenomenon that had to be overcome. By contrast, scientific atheism was seen as the best instrument with which to consciously steer the ongoing and objective secularization process. The initial atheist thinking in Czechoslovakia in the 1959–1963 period still emphasized the rational explanation of nature and the rational critique of religious dogmas. This approach, or style of thinking, was already known in the interwar period. The scientific-atheist specialists also gradually uncovered the emotional causes of religiosity, but this description and analysis did not become as widely known in the printed discourse as the other causes of religion. It is typical of this period that neither the category of religion nor that of scientific atheism were problematized and questioned. In other words, the two basic categories remained largely unchanged and they both retained the meanings that had been assigned to them in the 1950s. Therefore,

186  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  apart from  a quantitative increase in available literature and the widening of both esoteric and the exoteric groups, the only significant change that occurred in the years 1959–1963 was that a greater emphasis was placed on the practice of scientific atheism with regard to the debate about scientific-atheist education. It is striking that there were neither structural, political, nor ideological preconditions for the change that occurred in the scientific-atheist thought style in 1963. In fact, scientific atheism was one of the bastions of conservative thinking in the 1950s, and it partially defined and partially guarded the purity of Marxist identity against other ideological threats. Despite its original rigidity, the atheist sphere of knowledge was capable of development in certain circumstances. It must be emphasized that this shift occurred in the esoteric thought style in 1963 without any direct influence from the party and without previous preparation. Thus, the scientific-atheist thought collective was capable of change that was not entirely dependent on the heteronomous force. Although the intentions of the thought collective that dominated the semi-public sphere in the years 1963–1968 were to reform Marxism in general, and the theory of scientific atheism in particular, their thought style changed so profoundly that it challenged the epistemological paradigm that had given birth to it in the first place. The key word that characterizes the change in the thought style is “dialogue.” Religion had previously been conceptualized in the scientific-atheist thought style predominantly as  a category of weakness. It needed to be exposed and its inferior nature needed to be confirmed. By contrast, the scientific-atheist thought collective in Czechoslovakia in the short 1960s approached religion from a fundamentally different perspective. For them, religion had to be studied in order to understand its strength and to explain why it still attracted  a considerable number of people. While the method of the earlier atheism was to speak over religion and impose its categories on it, the new method consisted of speaking with religion in order to understand its own message. The atheist scholars believed that the added value of this approach was that it would help them to understand atheism’s meaning through its unbiased comparison with religion. Moreover, while the atheists of the 1950s repeated phrases on the superiority of the atheist worldview that obviously followed from the Marxist analysis of the historical process, the atheists of the 1960s problematized this approach. They asked themselves fundamentally new and hitherto unexplored questions. One of the most pertinent questions was: How should we change scientific atheism in order to make it a truly better and more interesting alternative to religion? Their answer was more informed by the unpretentious confrontations with the “other” (that is religious intellectuals) than by uncritical citations of Marx and Lenin. Moreover, the scientific-atheist thought collective of the 1960s was not uncritical of everything that came from Soviet scientific-atheist scholarship. As innovative as it had been on its own terms, Soviet atheist scholarship was not perceived by

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the Czechoslovakian atheist specialists of the 1960s as the main source of their theoretical and methodological inspiration. In addition to the challenge posed by religious philosophers such as Karl Barth and Teilhard de Chardin, they looked for inspiration to the West. Garaudy played a particularly important role as a source of inspiration for the Czechoslovakian atheists of the 1960s. While these atheists remained Marxists in their own eyes, their attempt to reform scientific atheism was seen by many of their Soviet colleagues as verging on heresy, if not already beyond it. Significantly, until the change of administration after 21 August 1968, the “dialogical” approach of the scientific atheists was accepted as the normal or standard approach by other significant reference groups, while the older style of thinking typical of 1959–1963 was labelled as outdated or insufficient. When the political administration tightened its grip on the humanities and social sciences in the years 1969–1971, the hitherto “normal” scientific-atheist scholarship could no longer be pursued. In this case, it was the heteronomous force that determined the further development of the discipline as it prevented the adherents of the “dialogical” approach from publishing their work and cultivating their thought style. Therefore, the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective was forcibly restructured. Because the main proponents of the “dialogical” thought style were silenced, there was virtually no one to continue the tradition in the semi-public written discourse. Therefore, the atheist specialists who resumed their research at the beginning of the 1970s represented yet another thought collective. They had their own thought style which partially continued the overshadowed tradition of the 1959–1963 period and became to great extent affiliated with the Soviet scientific atheism that had been neglected by the dialogical atheists that became dominant in Bohemia in the 1960s. To summarize, the turbulent 1960s in Czechoslovakia were a space in which two significant changes of scientific-atheist thought style occurred. Scientific atheism was still approached along the lines of a rather rigid Marxist-Leninist epistemological paradigm at the beginning of the decade. The rigidity was amended for the purposes of scientific-atheist scholarship which was heavily influenced by the exchange of ideas between the (dominant) Soviet and the (receiving) Czechoslovakian thought collectives. The second period was that of the years 1963–1968 and was characterized by  a fundamental change of approach. This change in the thought style was made possible by multiple factors and was visible in the sphere of the esoteric thought style. In comparison to both the previous Czechoslovakian period and the Soviet developments during the 1960s, the “dialogical” thought style of 1963–1968 can be interpreted as a profound discontinuity. However, its duration was territorially and chronologically insignificant. Therefore, it should be understood as a “Czechoslovakian deviation,” rather than as a “scientific revolution” in Kuhn’s sense.

188  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  3.2.3.2 The Conservative Approach to Scientific-Atheist Education in 1959–1963 One of the most important debates that helped to define scientific-atheist education and propaganda in the context of the January 1959 resolution occurred in December 1959 during  a nationwide colloquium organized jointly by the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Education and Culture and the SPŠPVZ . An edited stenographic record was published in March 1960 which provides an indispensable source for understanding what the historical actors thought about scientific-atheist education and propaganda at the end of the 1950s. More specifically, it allows the reconstruction of the mental horizons of the actors who were practically in charge of defining scientific-atheist propaganda after the CPC had decided to support it as an indispensable part of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. The mere fact that the main theme of the colloquium was scientific-atheist education is significant because it points to a change of emphasis in the scientific-­ atheist thought style as it entered this new phase of its development. In fact, the debates on the methods, impacts, and new approaches in scientific-atheist education were not as stringently constrained by the axioms of Marxism-­Leninism as the discursive strand that was concerned with the critique of religion. Rather, they allowed a much livelier overall debate and offered space for the formulation of hypotheses and new theories. These new theories led to the formation of a sub-discipline that was not totally preordained by the petrified axiomatic teachings of Marxism-Leninism but was rather the product of the creative forces of scientific-atheist thought collective. The sub-disciplinary debate itself occurred on the meta-level because it was more concerned with the methods and techniques of getting the atheist message (or content) across, than with the content itself. The critical tone of all the colloquium’s main participants towards the earlier atheist endeavor, or even to the existing atheist practice, was significant. Josef Macháček,  a member of the central scientific-atheist section of the SPŠPVZ , formulated the general point that according to certain opinions, we should not bother the believing citizens with the critique of religious anachronisms in order to maintain peace in the world and to complete the construction of socialism in our country. […] We are surprised that even now we come across people who do not see a link between scientific-atheist education and the strengthening of the unity of our people in the fight for socialism.150

For Macháček, scientific atheism was a tool for the completion of social change that was beneficial to the entire society. At least for him, the role of scientific atheism in the general context of the construction of socialism was clear. It was 150 Cit. Celostátní seminář o vědeckoateistické výchově a propagandě. Published by Čes­ koslovenská společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí. Praha 1960, 6.

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the “strengthening of the moral-political unity of the workers.”151 However, he was perplexed that this generally positive role was challenged, even by members of the SPŠPVZ and the CPC who favored a cautious neutrality that preferred to silence atheist propaganda. According to his account, one of the most significant mistakes of the existing scientific-atheist propaganda was its rejection of belief in god based on a simple rebuttal. Macháček criticized the atheists’ largely negativistic approach towards religion and the church during the 1950s, which had a great deal in common with the interwar antireligious propaganda described in the first chapter.152 Macháček’s voice represented a novel approach that appeared at the end of the 1950s. This new perspective enabled scholars to think about scientific-atheist propaganda in  a fundamentally different way. While the main emphasis had previously been on scientifically justified critiques of religion, the church, and its dogmas, together with an explanation of the various roots of its origin, the focus in Czechoslovakia after 1959 started to shift towards the positive meaning of scientific atheism. As Macháček and many others maintained, “it is above all important that atheists themselves know that our fight against religion is in fact a fight for a scientific opinion about the world, for a new and really human morality, and for a new socialist man.”153 This change of attitude towards the content of scientific atheism is clearly visible in Sviták’s presentation. He stated: it is time to stop understanding scientific atheism as a problematic of religious critique, religious studies, and ethnography, although we naturally cannot stop doing that. We should understand atheism from the positive side as an approach towards the philosophical problems of human existence, the relationship between humans and the cosmos, the attitude towards the individual and society, and substantial questions regarding the meaning of human life. If we do not do that, it could have such consequences that we would cleanse the consciousness of people from superstition, only to open the gates for a truly deep religion.154

151 Cit. ibid., 8. 152 He argued that, as opposed to the opinion of some existing propagandists of atheism, “a conscious atheist does not merely deny god but, if we may say so, he is in much tighter contact with religious faith than those who believe in god. […] An atheist does not believe in god, yet he knows why and how the religion originated, why it persists until this day, and he also knows what consequences does the religious faith have for the life of believers and for lives of fellow citizens. […] He should not fight with ‘god’ because it is neither ‘god’ nor the faith in god but religious attitude towards this life (and not towards afterlife), towards people (and not towards god), towards scientific facts about this world and our life which is the object of atheist’s interest and atheist’s critique.” Cit. ibid., 11. 153 Cit. ibid., 12. 154 Cit. ibid., 121.

190  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  In other words, the questions that scientific atheism posed to itself had changed. While the main problems had previously been how to explain the existence of religion and how to criticize it effectively, the main concern was now how it should be defined in the scientific worldview and its relationship to the socialist morality and the new socialist man. Kolman asserted at the colloquium: On the place of religion, which is really only  a surrogate, it is necessary that our socialist society gives people the positive, right approach, especially in regard to moral questions, because moral questions are the vacuum that sometimes remains after religion has disappeared. And it is well known that nature cannot stand any vacuum.155

Moreover, he demanded that this positive approach should be provided by the scientific atheists, which indicated a growing self-awareness and a vision of a particular social identity. It should be noted that this was a change of emphasis rather than a complete change of paradigm in the scientific-atheist thinking at the end of 1950s. Moreover, the critical aspect of scientific atheism never disappeared, but it no longer assumed such a prominent position among the topics of scientific-­ atheist discourse that it had done prior to 1959. Furthermore, the change of emphasis to focusing on the positive aspects opened a wide range of questions, which were to productively influence the realm of atheist knowledge in the 1960s. Macháček also pointed out that some propagandists were still under the influence of so-called “bourgeois atheism,” which was also one of the hindrances in the new context. In order to tackle this issue, he advocated a holistic approach to atheism, rather than compartmentalizing it and separating it from everyday life in realms of theoretical explanations. The demand for atheism to be part of a wide variety of mental processes, that is, the truly inherent dimension of the so-called “scientific worldview,” was an ideal state into which all existing Marxist atheists should develop in order to help other members of society to shed the religious shackles by the power of their example.156 The Czechoslovakian atheist specialists were aware of the fact that their most widespread type of their propaganda (that is the scientific-atheist lectures) had actually had an extremely limited impact, and they had been searching for the causes of this. As Macháček conceded, our biggest shortcoming in the process of scientific-atheist education, i. e. our only shortcoming from which all our other mistakes originate, is its autotelic nature. It manifests itself partly when we separate a negative critique of religious fantasies from a positive explanation of nature, society, and the human psyche, and partly when we 155 Cit. ibid., 83. 156 Literally, he maintained that “it is a mistake that we take also a narrow perspective of public education which reduces atheist ‘education’ on a mere doctrine or lecture. […] This bourgeois atheist legacy manifests itself most visibly in the focus of our activity on mere dissemination of knowledge. […] We have to ask ourselves how many believers we individually persuaded about the harmful effects of their faith. […] It is important whether we are atheists everywhere where we work and not only behind the orator’s table.” Cit. ibid., 26 f.

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separate an explanation of nature from an explanation of the morality and feelings of the believers.157

According to Macháček, although the core of the lectures delivered by the atheist sections of the SPŠPVZ was still comprised of “stereotypical types of themes,” the overall situation was improving, and the topics were becoming more diversified. Nevertheless, lectures on the ethics and psyche of the believers, together with topics about women and religion, and the arts and religion were overlooked.158 Although the enumeration of the topics may appear trifling, it shows how wide the field of scientific atheism became after the January 1959 resolution, especially when compared to the 1954–1958 period. The urgent need to depart from the grey theory to the green tree of practice was expressed extremely clearly by Sviták. He first pointed out some theoretical simplifications held by some of his colleagues and offered his own, unorthodox hypothesis. He said: in the factual consciousness of people there is an irreconcilability of two forms of social consciousness, i. e. science and religion. These are positioned quite differently, just as the mind of  a specialist abides in abstract, universally valid systems. This opposition is constantly merged together in the daily practice.

He then explained the complexity of the actual believer’s worldview: A person’s worldview is not a systematic, logically closed, and justified whole. Many parts of it exist in living contradictions which may be theoretically invalid, which may be a crude mistake, yet it does not cease to exist because of that. This is an elementary notion for contemporary atheist propaganda. Getting closer to people with antireligious intention from the position of abstractly seen opposition of science and religion is, I believe, a sign of a certain theoretical misapprehension and practical failure.159

This assertion was based on a field observation of some of the “kolkhoz” (collective farm) members in the Moravian countryside and changed the hitherto rather schematic yet widespread portrayal of a stereotypical believer to a more complex and contradictory one. Furthermore, it implied that only a close and careful study of the “polymorphic system” of people’s worldviews, together with the application of the “new atheist propaganda,” could be defined as a “positive explanation of philosophical problems” that was able to make  a difference. Sviták’s hypothesis also testifies to the shift in emphasis from the general level of theory to the more refined level of individual believers. It was a series of such thought style shifts at the beginning of the 1960s that made it possible to consider 157 Cit. ibid., 28. 158 See ibid., 36. 159 Cit. ibid., 116 f.

192  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  an empirically founded research that would be able to provide a definitive answer to the question of the nature of the religious worldview and the types of believers in the epistemological context of socialist Czechoslovakia. The theory and practice of scientific-atheist education remained one of the most frequently discussed topics in the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist discursive field in the period of 1959–1963. The most widespread topic was the discursive strand that conceptualized scientific-atheist education in the context of school education. Scientific atheism’s point of departure in the school system of socialist Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the 1960s was not promising. The Catholic Church had not been completely separated from the influence on the school education system schools, which meant that voluntary religious tuition had not been abolished. Furthermore, although most teachers did not openly display their religiosity, as had been the case around the middle of the 1950s, they were also not making an effort to promote scientific atheism. In the 1950s the teachers throughout Czechoslovakia were generally unaware of their obligation to foster an atheist worldview in their students as there was virtually no discourse formulating such a need in the first place. Instead, the main problem noted in the 1950s was that a high number of teachers were in fact religious. As one of the members of the 1958 colloquium reminisced, “two years ago the situation with the teachers in our region was such that sixty percent were registered in the church. Now it is about two percent.”160 In contrast to the 1960s, the question in the 1950s was how to re-educate or get rid of those teachers who “did not solve their problem with religion.” As already noted, in the 1960s both prospective and existing teachers were confronted with a new discourse on their role in the construction of the scientific worldview. One of the first texts to describe the new role of  a teacher was published in 1960. It read: “We expect every teacher to be able to raise students to adopt the scientific worldview and communist behavior. […] All teachers should continually improve their qualifications for scientific-atheist education.”161 Not only were teachers responsible for the teaching of facts, but they had to do this in  a manner that led to scientific (i. e. materialist) conclusions. In addition, teachers were expected to inculcate the principles of morality founded on the scientifically proven equality of people, regardless their nationality and race. […] Therefore, scientific-atheist education means revealing the untruthfulness of religious opinions and moral principles. It involves comparing scientific truths with fantastic religious fabrications. In this way, it reveals the true causes and intentions of the propagandists, adherents of religious and idealistic ideologies, churches, and ruling classes in the class society.162 160 Cit. ibid., 86. 161 Cit. Kozel, František: O výchově k vědeckému ateismu. Praha 1960, 58 f. 162 Cit. Sachsová, Hana: Vědeckoateistická výchova v práci školy. Praha 1960, 9 f.

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Although this new approach to scientific-atheist education always mentioned the need to expose religion in a critical way, it also emphasized the need to provide a positive, scientific worldview. Therefore, scientific-atheist education was seen as the main component of education towards a so-called scientific worldview: The goal of (scientific-atheist) education is twofold: first and foremost, to give children  a positive knowledge of the development of nature and society. Secondly, to uproot the relics of religious ideology from their thinking and to make them […] not only immune to any kind of religious propaganda influence but to raise them to become active disseminators of scientific atheism.163

Scientific atheism and the scientific worldview were sometimes seen as a synonym, while in other cases the former facilitated the creation of the latter. In any case, the distinction remained unclear at the beginning of 1960s. The most important conclusion is that scientific atheism was seen as both  a necessary precondition for and as an indivisible part of the wider scientific worldview that had  a positive content. According to Loukotka, “in its content, the education of scientific atheism involves education to the scientific worldview.”164 In  a similar way, Miroslav Cipro maintains that “in the current phase of our society’s development many school children are influenced by the religious worldview of both their parents and surroundings. Therefore, it is correct to characterize scientific-atheist education as worldview education.”165 It is not difficult to find similarities between the “positive” content of scientific-­ atheist education from the second half of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. In both cases, the “positivity” was exemplified by the objective facts of the natural sciences. However, the deeper, intrinsic, positive aspect of scientific atheism itself was not conceptualized at all by those specialists, who were writing within the framework of the “classical” thought style. This is an important observation that highlights the difference between the thought styles prior to and post 1963. The series of raised but unanswered questions and unfulfilled proclamations on the need to focus on the positive aspects of scientific atheism, atheist morality, ethics, emotions, and so on were intrinsic features of the thought style, which paradoxically paved the way for the later epistemological shift of the 1960s. It is important to stress that atheist specialists such as Machovec, Gardavský, and Kadlecová were in fact answering the questions and appeals that had been formulated in the framework of the “traditional” thought style at the end of 1950s. This “hidden” continuity, which co-determined the shift in the thought style around the middle of the 1960s, helps to explain the origins of the

163 Cit. Cipro, Miroslav (ed.): O vědecko-ateistické výchově žáků. Praha 1959, 29. 164 Cit. Loukotka, Jiří: Zkušenosti z vědeckoateistické výchovy žáků. Praha 1961, 22. 165 Cit. Cipro: O vědecko-ateistické výchově, 29.

194  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  Czechoslovakian “deviation,” which also had some of its roots in the domestic conservative tradition. 3.2.3.3 Scientific-atheist Sociology in Czechoslovakia The category of believer underwent  a substantial recasting in the 1960s, in comparison to the rather simplistic imagination of the scientific specialists in the 1950s, who viewed believers as patients in need of help. The first major change of perspective came with the realization that religious belief is  a worldview comprised of several parts. Since the end of 1950s, it had been acknowledged that believers were attached to their religion not primarily because it made rational sense to them, but rather because it uplifted them morally and emotionally. The concept of belief as understood by the scientific atheists then developed from a logical if rather harmful reaction of an individual within the class society to the remnant of an irrational tradition that even persisted in the classless socialist society. The atheists believed that most believers in  a socialist context were substantially different from the believers before the socialist revolution. This was indicated by  a decline in their knowledge of religious dogmas, irregular visits to church, and a focus on external matters, such as rites of passage and other religious festivities. In this case, Macháček’s assertion serves as a typical example: We should not overrate the external indicators of religiosity. A lot of peasants, for example, who regularly visit church services, are completely different to believers from fifteen or twenty years ago. The changes in economic structure influence their psyche. […] We always have to count with the fact that people’s thinking is changing under the influence of their new practice, although their “religious practice” remains seemingly unchanged.166

This approach to religiosity in the Czechoslovakian esoteric thought style at the beginning of 1960s shared more than a passing resemblance to their counterparts in the Soviet Union at the same time frame. Although it was maintained that believers had been changed by the process of socialist construction, the underlying questions remained, particularly regarding exactly how they were changed, and what the nature of belief under socialism was. The methods of acquiring such information were restricted for various reasons. Firstly, the self-identification of  a citizen with  a particular religious belief was not able to be ascertained as the national census had discarded such questions on the basis of the principle that religion is a private matter. Secondly, if the external indicators of religiosity such as church attendance and participation 166 Cit. Macháček, Josef / Machovec, Milan: O smyslu a metodách ateistické výchovy. Praha 1961, 18.

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in religious rites of passage were insufficient for delineating the “true” believers, then other techniques had to be developed to answer the questions formulated above. Consequently, the scientific-atheist specialists in Czechoslovakia started to be concerned not only with how people behaved, but also with what they really thought. The first sociological survey conducted by the scientific-atheist department at the CSAS Institute of Philosophy adopted the system of three categories, namely, atheists, religious believers, and ambivalent respondents. These three main categories were further divided into multiple subcategories.167 Kadlecová and her team of prominent scientific-atheist Czechoslovakian scholars, such as Hranička, Prokůpek, and Sviták defined the main concept (i. e. religiosity) as follows: religion does not exhaust itself by an undefined tuning of feelings nor by a system of theoretical rules, nor possibly by personal opinions or certain acts. It involves the whole person, their thinking, feeling, will, and behavior, and it is only in this totality that they are what they are. […] According to our research, a believer is understood as a citizen who meets at least two conditions: he believes in the existence of higher supernatural forces and, at the same time, he infers that this belief has practical consequences for himself. That is, he wants to get into contact with the supernatural forces.168

It was only such people who were classified as believers. They not only acknowledged belief in all the main aspects of religious dogma, but they also participated in church activities, such as church services, rites, and festivities. If neither of the above criteria were met simultaneously, then was the respondent interpreted as “ambivalent.” Such methodological decision produced statistics which ultimately favored the percentage of atheists. It is worth noting that if a respondent described himself as a believer but admitted that he did not attend church, then he could be placed in the category of ambivalent respondents. It should be clear that such an approach contains essentially the same elements and requires the same epistemological standpoint as the standard Soviet approach to the sociology of religion, such as that of Lazar Velikovich, which prevailed after the short controversy between him and Levada. The main point is that the questionnaire’s design was itself influenced by certain theories concerning the believer. These were not based on the selfdescription of the believers themselves but rather on the preconceptions that the 167 See Kadlecová, Erika: Sociologický výzkum religiozity Severo / moravského kraje. Praha 1967, 15–18. Even though the publication of research was published fully only in 1967, the data were collected in Spring of 1963, and some preliminary results were published in the main Soviet scientific-atheist scholarly journal QSA in 1966. 168 Cit. ibid., 14.

196  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  scholars had about them. It is highly improbable that the data themselves were distorted or falsely interpreted by the researchers, as some contemporary critics suggested. However, the situation was complex and its correct understanding sheds some light on the role of ideology in scientific research in an authoritarian state. In fact, the entire research formed an intrinsic part of the larger scientific paradigm which the authors themselves acknowledged as follows: “theoretically, our research rests on the basic facts formulated by historical materialism. Without them, it would not be possible to determine either the subject or the method of research.”169 Although this may seem like an empty phrase or  a “libation to the political power,” to many scholars who are now operating outside of the scientific-atheist paradigm embedded in Marxism-Leninism, it is highly probable that such words were taken completely seriously by the historical actors in their particular time and space. As such, the artificially constructed category that determined the percentage of believers in the Northern-Moravian region can be regarded as an authoritative statement of their aspiration to define certain aspects of reality. Moreover, for those who adhered to the same mental horizon, this assumed the status of  a “scientific truth.” According to the sociological survey, thirty percent of the respondents were atheists, thirty percent were believers, and forty percent were ambivalent. This meant that it could be used as a testimony to the fact that religiosity was rapidly decreasing in comparison to the last available data from 1947, which indicated about  a twenty percent decrease in believers and  a similar increase in the proportion of atheists.170 This fact was repeatedly used to legitimize the scientific-atheist education and research, and it was also used in official CP reports, even during the normalization period. In addition, the survey effectively dissected the previously monolithic social body according to certain sociological attributes, such as gender, age, occupation, education, residence and so on. As a result, a new image of the believer was constructed in the collective imagination of the scientific atheists which shattered some older stereotypes, constructed new ones, and presented some unsettling outcomes. Firstly, according to the outcomes of the analysis, the typical believer was an older, unemployed woman with elementary education who lived in the countryside.171 This confirmed the older stereotype that the majority of believers lived in the countryside. However, the notion that it was workers who comprised the majority of the atheists was not confirmed by the survey. Likewise, it could not be confirmed that there were a substantial number of religious believers who were defined as “former people,” that is, people with capitalist or anti-­communist

169 Cit. ibid., 10. 170 See ibid., 96. 171 See ibid., 27–45.

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backgrounds.172 Kadlecová interpreted the rather counterintuitive results concerning the high proportion of ambivalent but not atheist workers as follows: this may show that it is not only the process of worldview changes that is in progress. It may also indicate that the departure from religion among workers has a rather spontaneous character, and that an a priori presupposition concerning a self-aware atheism among the working classes somehow demobilized our systematic educational work.173

Being a city-dweller was highlighted as one of the most important contexts that influenced the development of spontaneous atheism. The other main factor contributing to a departure from religion was education: “the proportion of atheists rises with the level of education. The proportion of believing and ambivalent citizens declines.”174 Furthermore, an engagement in social activities contributed to the development of an atheist worldview because “the more  a citizen is involved with ‘secular’ organizations, the less interested he is in religious organizations.”175 Although the highest proportion of believers was predictably found among the oldest members of society, some of the findings concerning the youth raised concern because the youngest generation was described as the most ambivalent towards both religion and Marxism. The survey indicated that both the social and the gnoseological circumstances in socialist Czechoslovakia prevent the youth from attaining a religious worldview. However, it also pointed to the fact that “theoretical Marxism has influenced the formation of their worldview only minimally.”176 In another passage, Kadlecová made it clear that “this fact is a warning that points to the insufficient effectiveness and persuasiveness of our ideological educational work, because they are citizens who have grown up in our society.”177 The first scientific-atheist sociological survey indicated progress in terms of the secularization of Czechoslovakian society, and the carefully interpreted data allowed one to observe a substantial increase in atheists during the reign of the CPC . However, the outcome was much less optimistic with regard to the atheization process, particularly because of the ineffectiveness of the scientific-­ atheist education which was insufficient to transform the relative majority of ambivalent people into self-aware atheists. Kadlecová was extremely cautious when it came to predicting future developments. She underlined that although religion may have lost some of its attractiveness, it had still remained an important institution for a considerable portion of society for a long time. Furthermore, she maintained that the secularization process would not proceed quickly. This 172 See ibid., 37. 173 Cit. ibid., 42. 174 Cit. ibid. 175 Cit. ibid., 57. 176 Cit. ibid., 142. 177 Cit. ibid., 21.

198  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  was because “the need for illusory compensation (the role of religion) cannot be liquidated or removed by any one-time act. It is a lengthy and difficult process that touches on the deepest aspects of a social being.”178 One of the reasons for this was that the “subjective causes” for the existence of religion had still not been eliminated in the socialist society.179 In fact, the survey indicated that religious believers were only one of the two main problems faced by the scientific-atheist scholars and propagandists. As Kadlecová emphasized, “it is not enough to make unbelievers from believers. That is only the negative part of our task. We have to educate self-aware socialists, Marxists, people with a consistent materialist worldview.”180 Therefore, it was not enough to make people stop believing in god. In the long run, the real challenge was how to make Marxism more attractive to the largest portion of the population who remained ambivalent. This was closely related to deliberations such as whether the scientific atheists should concentrate their attention on the remaining believers, or whether they should also cater for the ambivalent (that is undecided people). As will be shown, such questions formed an important part of the debate concerning the nature and content of scientific atheism that occurred in the 1960s. 3.2.3.4 The Status and Definition of Scientific Atheism According to the “Malý ateistický slovník” (The Small Atheist Dictionary) published in 1962, the term Marxist atheism means: 1. The scientific explanation of religion and the ways of overcoming it. It is not the old “science about religion” but a manual for changing society and changing people’s consciousness. 2. As a positive, scientific explanation of the world, the term “Marxist (scientific) atheism” becomes identified with the term “Marxist (scientific) worldview.”181

This definition was introduced by the dictionary’s editorial board which included the most important Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist specialists, such as Macháček, together with young professionals such as Karel Hlavoň and Josef Cetl. It should be seen as an attempt to outline the main broad goals of scientific atheism at the beginning of the decade. Furthermore, the book as  a whole attempted to organize the specific knowledge of scientific atheism and, with the print run of 16 400 copies, to present it to a wider readership as a systematized compilation of fundamental facts. As such, it presented an overview of the dominant concepts and themes, and enabled the reconstruction of both 178 Cit. ibid., 157. 179 See ibid., 153–157. 180 Cit. ibid., 158. 181 Cit. Gabriel, Jiří (ed.): Malý ateistický slovník. Praha 1962, 31.

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the boundaries and the content of scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the 1960s. The “Small Atheist Dictionary” contained around three hundred entries. The vast majority were devoted either to topics from the history of the world religions in general (Lamaism, Koran, Buddhism, Qumran sect) or to the explanation of specialized terminology in the Catholic Church (Chiliasm, neo-Thomism, Modus vivendi, Orders). Only  a small proportion of about five percent or 15 entries in absolute numbers, were devoted to the explanation of atheist concepts and terminology (atheism, atheist education, unbeliever, Communist Party and religion, SPOZ , free thinking). Therefore, on the basis of the structure of entries, it is safe to say that the scientific-atheist thought style in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s was predominantly oriented to religion. The separate entries also indicated the presence of the positive aspects of scientific atheism, but the selection of entries did not emphasize them. For example, there was an entry for “religious morality” but no corresponding entry dealing with Marxist or atheist morality. Entries such as Secularization, The Meaning of Life, and such elementary terms as Materialism, Humanism, and Worldview were also completely missing. In other words, the “Small Atheist Dictionary” indicated that the main role of scientific atheism was indeed to explain and to criticize religion. The book provided an extensive arsenal of arguments against it and provided the proper contextualization of details regarding the various aspects of religious dogma. The definition for the entry Afterlife can serve as an illustration: For the majority of simple believers, belief in the afterlife is identical to religious belief itself. […] Science has persuasive arguments against the religious belief in an eternal soul. Firstly, it (science) has proved that there is no soul. The spiritual life of humans is not a gift from god that we receive at birth but an attribute, a function of our brains.182

A slightly different approach was provided by another book with the rather complicated title, “Sto otázek věřících nevěřícím: O věcech na zemi i na nebi neboli o tom, jaký mít názor na svět a jaké je naše místo v něm” (A Hundred Questions from Believers to Unbelievers: Concerning the Things in the World and in the Heavens, or Concerning the Question of which Worldview We Should Have and Our Place within It). It was published in a print run of 27 400 copies in 1962 and to some extent resembled the dictionary discussed above. This was because it also provided answers to thematically interwoven but separate questions which were originally posed by the audience at the atheist lectures or else sent in a letter.183 182 Cit. ibid., 336–338. 183 See Sto otázek věřících nevěřícím. O věcech na zemi i na nebi neboli také o tom, jaký mít názor na svět a jaké je naše místo v něm. Praha 1962, 5.

200  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  From the perspective of the development of the scientific-atheist thought style, the most intriguing thing in the book was the positive definition of communist morality, which was given by leading atheist specialists, including Machovec and Cvekl. The latter maintained that, the materialist worldview helps human beings and enables them to adopt a brave and fighting stance against the sources of their tribulations and suffering. […] Marxism supports people with the notion of the basically unrestricted discoverability and changeability of the world. […] The morality of communism differs from religious morality above all in its boundless belief in human ability, in the changeability of the world, and in the power of the workers’ solidarity.184

The question of ethics was also addressed by Machovec in this context: it is not about the abolition of faith, but it is about transforming people’s faith in supernatural beings and phenomena into faith in themselves, in their abilities, in the power of the collective, into faith that a human being can be the architect of his own happiness.185

The key role of scientific atheism was to instigate and preserve such faith. Machovec maintained that: It is precisely atheism that does not lead to depression or passivity. It is precisely the awareness that humanity matters and cannot be rectified from “above.” The fact that human life contains objectively a certain amount of “injustice” multiplies in us, communist atheists, the eternal desire for greater justice for all and for everyone.186

Consequently, the realization of human agency and creative ability, coupled with the connotations of progress towards a better future by “changing dreams into reality,” were the key elements of the positive scientific and, therefore, atheist worldview. The specific atheist element of the scientific worldview lay in the conscious realization of godlessness which helped human beings to focus on the real, that is, on material activities. Furthermore, it helped to free all the abilities of a given individual and to enable him to participate in the collective construction of a better future. As such, the atheist aspect of the scientific worldview was indispensable for answering of so-called “existential questions” concerning life and especially death: Only the substance of the materialist worldview discovers the true value and price of human life. It is precisely because this life on earth is unique that it is so priceless and rare. […] To get rid of the fear of death means above all to fight against an empty,

184 Cit. ibid., 19–21. 185 Cit. ibid., 35. 186 Cit. ibid., 50.

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self-indulgent, and hollow life, which sees its goal as the satisfaction of small and egotistic wishes and needs.187

Although it had been repeatedly postulated that scientific atheism could not rely solely on a rationalist critique but must find a way of incorporating emotions and ethics into its sphere of knowledge, it took a considerable time before these calls were taken seriously. The years 1959–1963 were characterized by the formulation of questions that did not receive answers. To illustrate, during one scientificatheist conference in 1961, Vojtěch Jestřáb said that atheists must discover what rockets to shoot into the inner space of a man in order to create more light in him, how to take over human personality for the benefit of reason and science, how to shake up all these hundred years of persisting spiritual faith, church services, reverence for an illusion, prayers, and fear of hell and heaven? Has a dryly rational, albeit strictly logical and accurately reasoned explanation, such power? I do not think so. […] You cannot achieve a shift in the human attitude to religion if its emotional basis remains and is also supported by the dome of theological logic.188

This citation indicates that, even in the first years of the 1960s, the Czechoslovakian thought collective was permeated by the exoteric thought style. The searching for answers and intrinsically scientific esoteric style of thinking was far less present in the Czechoslovakian context than thinking that placed an emphasis on social change and the specific techniques of its achievement. Therefore, it was much more defined by the search for the corresponding application of knowledge within the framework of propagandistic or ideological activity. The accent was not placed on theory and scientific research but rather on its applicability and practical usage within the framework of scientific-atheist education. Jestřáb represented an approach that emphasized one aspect of scientific atheism, namely, the emotional aspect. However, he did not extend his questions to a more theoretical dimension that would also cover the place of emotions in the structure of scientific atheism. Together with many of his contemporaries, he was not yet concerned with the question of whether the status and purpose of scientific atheism changes when it incorporates the emotional aspects that had previously been provided by religion. An early answer to this question was provided by Machovec: We do not want to take people’s faith away (and replace it with skepticism and emptiness of heart). We want to give people’s faith back, the true faith, faith in humanity, in its abilities and future. Marxism wants […] to provide faith in this life, in real people, in the good, in truth, in the beauty of life, and in the creative work in this world. […] 187 Cit. ibid., 76. 188 Cit. Jestřáb, Vojtěch: Úloha umění v ateistické výchově, in: Vodseďálek, Živan / Mackú, Jan (eds.): Věda, víra, pověra. Sborník referátů a diskusních příspěvků z konferencí lékařské fakulty J. E. Purkyně v Brně v letech 1960 a 1961. Brno 1961, 171.

202  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  There is nothing more harmful than to think that the purpose of atheist education is to make people godless and nothing more. […] We want to achieve the universal education of the whole human being on materialist grounds. We want to achieve the education of noble, erudite human beings, who are enthusiastic for the greatest ideals of humanity.189

This citation represented one of the earliest examples of the shift in atheist thinking because it clearly emphasized the positive aspects of atheist education over the negative critique of religion. Although it is unclear whether Machovec understood scientific atheism as only one of many aspects that facilitate educa­ tion towards Marxism, or whether he saw it as a somehow autonomous worldview that exists within the framework of Marxism, he conceptualized it differently than many of his contemporaries. The main change consisted of his understanding of the positive aspects. While the positive aspects of atheist education had previously been seen mainly in the explanation of selected natural scientific phenomena, Machovec formulated another type of positive atheist knowledge which was deeply connected to the effort to regain people’s faith in life itself but without the notion of a god or any supernatural powers. This subtle change of perspective, together with the incessant repetition of questions related to emotion, led to  a gradual shift in the atheist field of knowledge. An observation made by Sviták in 1964 documents the development of the theoretical thinking on atheism within the esoteric thought collective. This went from regarding scientific atheism as  a merely critical appendix of Marxism-Leninism that dealt with questions of atheist education, emotions, and ethics, to viewing scientific atheism as a Marxist philosophy of life. He wrote: We are missing an approach that would have brought the theory and practical propaganda of atheism closer to the level of the people and their everyday life problems. An approach that would have come to the personal problems of man with the same depth and knowledge concerning human life as that provided by a priest in a religious setting. […] We need to say that the objective need for a “philosophy of life” has until now been much better provided for by the religious worldview than by our propagation of atheist theory which has so far not contributed much to the issues of life wisdom and the inner conflicts of man. […] If Marxist atheism wants to avoid Engels’ prediction, it has to evolve into a critique of the living forms of religiosity and provide a living response to the contemporary problems of people, into a scientific anthropology, into a philosophy of humanity and a Marxist theory of religion.190

The citation from Sviták’s book indicates that the thought collective had reflected on the current shift within the scientific-atheist thought style. The multitude of 189 Cit. Machovec, Milan: O metodách ateistické výchovy, in: Macháček / Machovec: O smyslu, 33. 190 Cit. Sviták, Ivan: Otázky současného ateismu. Praha 1964, 59, 63, 215.

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propositions describing the possibilities of Marxist atheism’s evolution indicates that the process of rethinking had run very deep. The thought collective was concerned with the issues of emotions and subsequently of ethics at the end of the 1950s and at the beginning of 1960s. However, it was around 1964 that it questioned the very structure of the field itself. It is symptomatic that Sviták did not regard scientific atheism as a separate discipline but instead viewed it as a “worldview position.” According to him, it is not a scientific discipline with a separate object that has a separate place in the classification of the sciences. It is only the historically and socially shifting aggregate of aspects from various disciplines on the topic of religion. It does not have a binding method, and it is not understood and applied as  a Marxist Religionswissenschaft. Rather, scientific atheism is an aggregate of the findings of various disciplines which are used for the tasks of the mass re-education of the people towards  a scientific worldview.191

The Czechoslovakian debate concerning the epistemological status of scientific atheism in the 1960s was not as controversial as was in the Soviet Union. In practice, the majority of researchers shared Sviták’s opinion that it was primarily a sphere of knowledge closely related to the Marxist-Leninist worldview. Practically no one defended the position that scientific atheism was a relatively independent philosophical discipline, as was the case in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Therefore, as research topics, scientific-atheist questions were always understood within the framework of other already-established scholarly disciplines in Czechoslovakia, such as Marxist-Leninist philosophy, sociology, and history.192 Nevertheless, the status of scientific atheism, understood as a field of knowledge within the framework of the Marxist worldview, shifted in Czechoslovakia during the 1960s. The most important facilitator of this change was Machovec with his dialogical approach. In fact, he was one of the first atheist experts who attempted to answer the questions that had been posed but not answered by his colleagues since 1959. Both the answers he provided and the methods he used in order to find them had a profound impact on this rather short but epistemologically rich and innovative period of 1963–1968. In a programmatic speech delivered in November 1965, Machovec asserted that if the positive content of atheism, i. e. humanity, is not to become an empty phrase, […] it has to be connected with the issues of communism and Marxism in general, 191 Cit. ibid., 222 f. 192 Comp. Sviták’s delineation with Kops, Jaromír: Příprava kádrů pro vědeckoatiestickou propagandu, in: Kvasnička: Za marxistické poňatie, 267, and Halečka, Tibor, K  otázkám podstaty vědeckého ateismu, in: ibid., 89f, and Kadlecová: Bozi, 409–422.

204  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  from economics to aesthetics, from philosophical anthropology to ethics, because only all these things together show the problematic of communist man, the supremacy of whom is the task of our concept of atheism.193

While the appeal to extend atheism to other spheres of knowledge and to social practice was already discernible in Sviták’s book, the understanding of Marxist atheism as humanism was novel. Machovec explained this anthropological turn: It can be said that one of the indispensable moments in the overcoming of religion is  a daring elaboration of Marxism as humanism, as  a philosophy that is able to handle humanity in all its basic situations. […] We should consider this idea more and consider whether passivity in this sphere does not bring us increasing harm. Of course, when someone is dying he does not read “Marxism and Empiriocriticism.” However, it is the general goal of our philosophy and culture to deal with human and to develop a humanistic philosophy for all life situations. […] It is the first thing that has not been completed.

Machovec also explained why the change of emphasis was needed in Marxist humanism. He argued that, superficial believers could be changed by means of superficial atheist methods. But these methods are insufficient for the transformation of believing citizens with more depth. […] In order to promote our atheist work on another level, we need to penetrate the soul of a man […], we have to understand the mechanisms of his spiritual life, the issues involved in maintaining a certain worldview, what is involved in this, rather than a solely superficial confession.194

He not only outlined the different conceptualization of atheism, but he also defined a new method to use in order to arrive at a better understanding of both Marxist atheism and religion. It should be emphasized that this did not mean explaining religion and believers from the epistemologically superior position of Marxism, as was previously the norm. Rather, it meant that both phenomena ought to be understood through a dialogue between the two systems and on the same level. Machovec’s theoretical and methodological emphasis on the dialogue between Marxists and Christians provided an important contribution that greatly influenced the development of the scientific-atheist thought style in Czechoslovakia. Not only did it shift the way in which religion and religiosity was understood, but it opened up new options for the self-understanding of Marxism in general and Marxist atheism in particular. By openly rejecting dogmatism and the 193 Cit. Machovec, Milan: Některé podněty k  dalšímu rozvoji ateistické výchovy, in: Materiály k dálkovému studiu ateismu. Published by Socialistická akademie. Jihlava 1965, 4. 194 Cit. ibid., 8.

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imposition of the earlier ideas on the subject of research, the “dialogical method” also helped to shape the overall intellectual atmosphere in Czechoslovakia, which had originally enabled its inception in the first place. In order to understand the full extent of the shift, an analysis of Machovec’s dialogical approach is necessary. Firstly, he saw dialogue as the highest form of human communication in which all the sides involved strive to be open to one another. As such, Machovec’s dialogue had certain prerequisites. The most important was the courage to open oneself. The opening of oneself, as Machovec asserted, meant to lay on the table not only one’s knowledge and rational abilities, but also one’s entire soul, with its emotional and ethical parts. It is necessary to wholly open oneself, i. e. to show one’s strength but also one’s weakness, not only one’s “certainty” but also one’s doubts, confusions, and fumbling. If I “cross out” all my confusions, my complex feelings and ethical problems in relation to others, if I show them only my “strength,” my certainty, my knowledge, I stand before them as a book or as some other means of gaining information, rather than as a human being.195

This precondition points to the methodological functions of the dialogue. If applied as a method of scientific-atheist research with regard to religiosity, the dialogue enables one to understand religion and religiosity from within, and not as  a composition of stereotypical truisms, ideologically constructed halftruths, and myths. The scientific-atheist conceptualization of religion prior to the dialogical method had been based on indirect, mediated observations from outside, without contact with the members of the collective described (about us but without us). By contrast, the method of Machovec’s dialogue enabled the construction of a refined picture of religion and believers which was based on “inside” knowledge and on an unbiased participation with the members of the other collective (about us and with us). As the practice of Machovec’s seminar indicates, the fact that Marxists elevated Christian believers to the same epistemological level also helped them to understand their own atheist identity better. Therefore, the other function of the dialogue can be understood as the theoretical outcome of debates that occurred at the seminar. In this way, Machovec discovered that dialogue is indispensable for the further development of Marxism. We have to come to terms with the fact that if we could give people everything, if we make human beings “the masters of all things” but close the way to dialogue with the heart of another human being, it would all be in vain. Despite great material security, people would remain half-developed and, therefore, unhappy beings.196

195 Cit. ibid., 10. 196 Cit. ibid., 16.

206  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  The idea that negation of religion’s ideological influence in the population is but the first step towards the education of the new man was in the minds of scientific atheists, who never stopped being social engineers in this respect, for some time. Machovec was no different in this regard, but he was one of the few thinkers who actually tried to develop an original and creative philosophical alternative that rested not solely on a denial of religion, but rather on the dialectical evolution of Marxism so that it would be able to answer the challenge of Christianity precisely where it was strong. It is quite easy for  a modern human being to get rid of “god.” However, it is also important that he did descend under the line of humanity which was represented by prayer (understood as mystified internal dialogue). The human must rise above, i. e. towards the demystified internal dialogue. This is the most difficult objective of atheist humanism.197

It is significant that the dialogical method within the framework of scientific atheism enabled Machovec to deny god but to retain the concept of prayer. Moreover, it was possible for him to identify prayer as an anthropological constant that is indispensable for certain people seeking transcendence. However, he did not see this as necessarily belonging exclusively to religion. His proposition of a demystified internal dialogue as an integral part of Marxism not only broadened the reach of the scientific worldview, but it also solved the religious challenge by creating secular ways of reaching the “extraordinary.” Machovec wrote, atheist humanism in this sense can truly “overpower” (not only “defeat,” which can also mean “negate,” and throw humans below the level of their progress) religion only when believers understand that no one “deprives” them of their “faith.” More precisely, when no one deprives them of the elements of their faith, which are fundamentally valuable to them. On the contrary, the point is to show them that the important thing is how to better use these elements in their lives. To suppress the religiosity of superficial people was easy […] the true religiosity can be overcome only when atheist humanism develops an “internal dialogue” with the human “self” that is deeper than the believer’s prayer.198

The positive function of atheist humanism was to provide  a demystified but equally deep and meaningful content that would not only be  a substitute for religion but truly overcome religion. In other words, Marxist atheism should become a Marxist humanist philosophy of life. The extent of the popularity of Machovec’s ideas can be inferred from the success of his seminar. It can also be traced in the written discourse of other members of the esoteric thought collective who either explicitly mention him as 197 Cit. ibid., 20. 198 Cit. ibid., 22.

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their chief inspirational source or use the concept of dialogue and the ideas of atheist humanism in their own books. Bendlová’s book on modern Catholicism is a good example of the appropriation of the new method in the Marxist critique of religion, which had traditionally been an extremely conservative sphere of atheist knowledge. In fact, she dissociates herself from the old approach to the atheist critique of religion at the very beginning of her treatise.199 She argues that her own approach does not rest on “limited ‘disproving’ or superficial ‘atheism’ but on strengthening humanism instead of religion. Theoretical credit has to be given above all to Milan Machovec.”200 The theoretical impacts of Machovec’s proposition are also mirrored by the possibilities for comparing two systems of thought without any preconceptions or bias, which would exclude any kind of positive appraisal from the very beginning.201 Although Marxist humanism triumphs in the comparison with the Catholic anthropology of Teilhard de Chardin, Bendlová does not assess the two concepts as mutually exclusive and incommensurable. In contrast to the earlier explanatory frameworks of the scientific-atheist thought style, the dialogical approach allowed a more nuanced and perceptive evaluation of competing ideologies. Therefore, it was not only the discrepancies, but also the similarities that could be highlighted.202 The apex of the dialogical approach to scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia is represented by Gardavský. In typical fashion, he also sought to develop the idea of atheist humanism that had been coined by Machovec in the Czechoslovakian context. The other inspirational source was Garaudy. It is undeniable that Garaudy’s ideas had been keenly discussed and appropriated by the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist experts since at least the beginning of the 1960s. His books were almost immediately translated into the Czech language, and he visited Czechoslovakia multiple times during the 1960s. The traces of Garaudy’s think 199 “It would be possible to approach the critique of catholic humanism also from such perspective that this ‘humanism’ was understood according to cursory knowledge about Catholicism in general and its worst aspects in particular. The next step would be a conduction of an easy, short and efficacious fight against this caricature model. A great many of mass produced, superficial, atheist brochures from not-too-distant past ‘fought’ precisely like that. However, such victories were in fact of Pyrrhic nature.” Cit. Bendlová: Člověk, 10.  200 Cit. ibid., 11.  201 “It is  a breach of earlier, narrow-minded atheism that the object of our research is human and that we can compare what place he has in the contemporary civilizational and secularization changes of the catholic anthropology and ethic with the authentic needs and interests which are expressed by scientific, i. e. Marxist human philosophy.” Cit. ibid., 13. 202 “it is symptomatic that when Teilhard de Chardin deviates from the Catholic and Christian tradition, it is possible to find out in his philosophy strong humanistic values. It is above all his belief in self-messianic future of mankind, in which is Christianity sacrificed at the altar of evolution, and where Christianity loses its nature of opiate. The price of this evolution is that Christianity ceases to be itself, such as liquor ceases to be liquor without alcohol.” Cit. ibid., 91.

208  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  ing, particularly his emphasis on the positive aspects of the dialogue between Christians and Marxists, can easily be discerned in Machovec’s theory. The final phase of “dialogical atheism” in Czechoslovakia, represented by Gardavský, was particularly influenced by Garaudy’s book “From Anathema to Dialogue: A Marxist Challenge to the Christian Churches.”203 He inspired Czechoslovakian atheist specialists, particularly by his creative interpretation of Marx that allowed him to go beyond the thesis of opium for the people.204 The second point that resonated with the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist thought style in the second half of the 1960s was an unanswered question or plea posed by Garaudy. He saw this as a pressing matter that Marxists needed to answer and stated it as follows: A living Marxism that attests its fertility and historical efficacy in the political economy and the revolutionary struggle for the building of socialism owes to philosophy a deeper elaboration of a theory of subjectivity that is not subjectivist, and a theory of transcendence that cannot be alienated.205

Building on the aforementioned ideas and concepts, Gardavský wrote in 1967: “the product of our work cannot be a type of soulless, practical, un-ideological atheist. We cannot be content with the fact that this or that person does not believe in God.”206 In other words, like Machovec, Gardavský emphasized that scientific atheism was not just about the negation of religion resulting in total unbelief, that is, a state of mind devoid of any higher ideological values. Instead, the goal was to provide more authentic and more attractive values that were able to form the spiritual core of the freed human being. He wrote: “we must reach the level of cultivated atheism, where the core of an atheist is not an empty sounding drum, but where it is full of ideas capable of opening new, important questions about the boundaries of his life.”207 Gardavský was also connected to the other “dialogical” atheists, who also pleaded for a positive content for scientific atheism, by the realization that the 203 The book was originally published in France already in 1965. The Czech translation then appeared in 1967. See Garaudy, Roger: Od klatby k  dialogu. Praha 1967. It is highly probable that the leading atheist specialists such as Machovec and Gardavský were familiar with the original. 204 “If we work on the assumption that religion is always opium for the people, it follows that we strive to find the most effective measures of its termination. However, if Marxists want to be heirs of the values, the religious grounds of which had been used for the human action and thinking in history, and if Marxists expect from the dialogue with Christians mutual enrichment, the persecution turns in their [Marxist, JT] eyes into condemned factor which would for Marxism mean only impoverishment and mutilation,” wrote he in his book. Cit. ibid., 63. 205 Cit. ibid., 48 f. 206 Cit. Stenografický zápis, 8. 207 Cit. ibid., 16.

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real problem for the building of socialism did not lie in the believers, “who can collaborate with atheists-Marxists on the cultivation of soullessness, on education to values.”208 Rather, in contrast to the earlier thought style, Gardavský maintained that the main problem of scientific atheism was the “practicing atheist,” who “does not have a notion of God but, at the same time, is totally unconcerned about the ideological (ideový) atheism that accepts supra-­individual values and even stands on them.”209 He proposed that, in order to counter this trend in which scientific-atheist propaganda and education mainly produced such soulless or “practicing” atheists, the entire concept of scientific atheism should be remodeled as “communist humanism,”  a concept quite similar to Machovec’s approach.210 This meant that in order to fulfill the functions of a system of ideas and values that touch the vital need of humanity, Marxist atheism had to become more contemporary.211 Gardavský was basically trying to argue that the time had come to dispose of the typical elements of scientific atheism, which consisted in a negativist critique of selected and largely outdated religious phenomena, and to rather focus on the pressing questions of the contemporary socialist society. He maintained that such a rejuvenation of scientific atheism would turn the tide of the misguided secularization process started by the earlier phase of scientific-­ atheist propaganda and education, as well as by other “objective processes.” Although Gardavský never openly criticized the earlier scientific-atheist thought style, it was clear that he did blame it for the diffusion of soullessness in society. The writings of the earlier scientific atheists had maintained that the positive aspects of scientific-atheist education should be provided by means of a presentation of contemporary scientific progress that showed the reality of the construction of socialism. However, Gardavský argued that this was insufficient because such positive content would not give people what they need. Instead, he considered it extremely difficult if not impossible for citizens who had been exposed to atheist education in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s and 1960s to become “right” or truly Marxist atheists. In that case, what kind of Marxist atheism did Gardavský propose, and how did he further develop dialogical atheism? In his book “Bůh není zcela mrtev” 208 Cit. ibid., 15. 209 Cit. ibid., 9. 210 See Gardavský, Vítězslav: Bůh a nevěřící svět. K problematice církví a marxistického ateismu. Praha 1967, 29. 211 “Problems of contemporary Marxist atheism are today much more complex than to be exhausted by revelation of political clericalism or by zeal against religious fantasies in the minds of believers. Industrially advanced socialist society, aside from its overall progress, has quite a lot of so called civilizational difficulties. […] The social relations are disrupted; […] citizens often have feelings of meaninglessness, absurdity, abnormality of the surrounding processes. They try to cope with that, but they are still less capable of doing so.” Cit. ibid., 27.

210  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  (God is not Quite Dead), he defined contemporary, advanced Marxist atheism in contrast to its earlier and erroneous manifestation in the first half of the 1950s. Gardavský exposed as flawed the fact that an administrative, political, and ideological frontal attack against religion occurred as a part of the broader political “theory” of the class struggle’s intensification. Certain atheist stereotypes originated at this time. […] This period was characterized by the fact that religion was understood as  a “bourgeois anachronism of consciousness” which was reinforced by the activity of the church by which it is frequently abused against socialism.212

He continued with the positive definition of this first type of Marxist atheism and effectively distanced himself from its key parts, which had themselves been overcome by historical developments. The significant aspect was how he rethought the recent past, and how he re-interpreted the achievements of scientific atheism until that point. He wrote: at least in its most typical form, it was a militant atheism with good intentions. If we have to state that this optimistic, engaged, unyielding, and pedagogic atheism belongs irretrievably to the past, do we have to mourn it? […] What is remarkable about this particular historical atheism is that its greatest and most immediately effective powers are illusions, simplifications, and mistakes. […] It does not at all question what the sense or idea or vision of god is.213

After explaining at great length what Marxist atheism had previously been, and how it differed from religion and from other types of atheism, Gardavský finally argued that Marxist atheism is more than anticlericalism, more than enlightened rationalism. It knows that churches cannot be overcome by the stressing of vocal chords, and that religious belief cannot be surpassed by the self-important might of Reason. It finds its spiritual dimension in the movement that has understood that human beings are creatures that are not secured by anyone, that depend only on themselves, and are full of open potential. […] Atheism is fundamentally the dimension in which a Marxist thinks, a way of asking and answering. In this sense, it can be understood as the first philosophy of Marxism.214

This citation provides one of the most striking examples of the change in thought style that occurred within the Czechoslovakian esoteric circle in the 1960s. It highlights the extent to which the discipline’s understanding and its role within the context of Marxism-Leninism had evolved. While it was difficult to imagine 212 Cit. Gardavský, Vítězslav: Bůh není zcela mrtev. 2. vydání. Praha 1970, 144 f. 213 Cit. ibid., 147. 214 Cit. ibid., 169, 190.

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scientific atheism outside of the context of religious critique in the 1950s, it was repeatedly noted throughout the 1960s that Marxist atheism could form part of  a much larger project that dealt with the completion of the Cultural Revolution. The first sociological surveys conducted by professional Marxist atheist scholars indicated that it was not only the believers who were a concern for the future. Indeed, the increasing number of “ambivalent” citizens who were totally indifferent to either worldview system also posed a threat to the project of building communism, which meant that the role of scientific atheism had to be recast once more. This time, as the example of Gardavský demonstrated, atheism was understood as the main foundational block of the Marxist worldview itself. He answered the plea formulated by Garaudy in the following words: “atheism, as the metaphysics of Marxism, is an attempt to create a theory of subjectivity that would not be subjectivist and an attempt to create a theory of transcendence that would not be objectivistic.”215 Although the shift in the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist thought style was not pursued further, it testifies to the width and breadth of the field of knowledge that it represented. Its uniqueness only comes to the fore when it is compared to earlier and subsequent developments. It was unique on the chronological scale of the mental horizons regarding scientific-atheist thinking especially compared to 1950s, as well as to its spatial dimension defined by the borders of socialist Czechoslovakia and the USSR . Unlike their Soviet counterparts, the Czechoslovakian atheist specialists were able to find a new place for the atheist field of knowledge. Through patient and relatively unbiased dialogue with Western Marxism and Christian intellectuals, they were able to delineate what may be a distinctive sphere of knowledge and action for Marxist atheism. Their answer was fully concentrated on recasting atheism as socialist or communist humanism. Experts such as Machovec and Gardavský argued that this concept would be able to fill the void of Marxist philosophy that had previously been inattentive to existential questions. The shift in thought style in the Czechoslovakian context is discernible in the change of perspective towards religion, which had been enabled by the appropriation of the dialogical method. The willingness to learn from religion and believers, together with the ability to appreciate the strong aspects of religion, were the direct consequences of the dialogical method. The change of meaning attributed to the positive content of scientific atheism represented the second major shift in the thought style during the 1960s. The explicit emphasis on the positive content was innately derived from the subject matter described as atheist knowledge. This subject matter was characterized mainly by the categories of socialist humanism and demystified internal dialogue. It should be noted that scholars like Gardavský and Machovec understood these categories as fundamentally

215 Cit. ibid., 192.

212  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  changed from the prior and relatively shallow understanding of the positive aspects of atheism seen only in explanation of natural science facts. The presence of “dialogical” atheists in the public and semi-public sphere was another sign that strengthened the thesis concerning the shift in thought style in the 1963–1968 period. In reality, the proponents of the traditional way of thinking about scientific atheism did not disappear. They retained their positions in academia especially in Slovakia and also remained active in the SPŠPVZ . However, in terms of the publication of books or articles in specialized journals, they were almost completely silent during these years. Although the paradigm shift was rather cursory, it nevertheless showed its strength. The strength of “dialogical” atheism in Czechoslovakia manifested itself above all in the ability to hegemonize the esoteric thought style. It set the agenda in the field of knowledge in a relaxed atmosphere in which possible competition was able to thrive in relatively free environment. Therefore, the hypothesis can be formed that the reason for the “dialogical” thought style’s hegemonization of the atheist field of knowledge was the higher epistemological value of its approach in the Czechoslovakian intellectual context, in comparison to the traditional approach to Marxist atheism that had still been prevalent at the beginning of the 1960s. It is symptomatic that the thought collective formed in the years 1963–1968 was comprised of deeply convinced Marxists. These people were genuinely invested in the constructivist project and the re-education of the population towards the ideal of a new socialist man was always their ultimate task. The need to improve Marxism and make it fit for the goals of the twentieth century was the main driving force that inspired them to approach the hitherto untouchable doctrine creatively. It must be emphasized that the epistemological framework provided by Marxism was not disavowed by the Czechoslovakian experts. They remained embedded in it, although they did not shy away from certain modifications of structure in order to enhance its theoretical capabilities and align it with the “problematic facts” that were presented by the religious challenge and that reached their full strength as a result of the dialogue. In other words, Marxism as an epistemological theory was not yet discredited. In this, the decisive role was played by the relaxation of the stringent heteronomous force that shaped and controlled the thought collective externally, that is, the effective inability of the party in general and the ideological committee in particular to steer the research process in the years 1963–1968.

3.3 Summary The “long 1960s” were delineated by the years 1959–1971, which were the same for both national contexts. During this period, a new thought collective emerged with  a qualitatively new type of thinking. Building on the theory of Fleck, it

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was established that the qualitative change occurred along the lines of thought collective formation. It is crucial to stress that the esoteric thought collective emerged in both countries in this period. In contrast to the exoteric thought collective, which was largely comprised of propagandists and lecturers, the esoteric thought collective was the product of the need for deeper, more specialized, and “objectively” acquired scientific facts. One of the important outcomes of the analysis conducted in this chapter is the thesis that the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style originated as a result of its prior institutional anchoring. If the process of institutionalization had not been initiated by the party, the branching of the exoteric thought collective into the esoteric thought collective would have occurred much slower. The institutional backing of the new knowledge became the single most important factor that indirectly co-determined the thought style’s form in an authoritarian society. This was especially true for such types of knowledge that were not driven by a universal popular support. Once institutionalized by the heteronomous force, the thought collective and the thought style entered an uneasy relationship with it. This relationship was logically mainly external, but it also exerted an internal influence. This meant that the legitimacy of the institutionalized thought style then came to be determined mainly by its usefulness to the heteronomous force, which is why it was the thought collective’s most significant referential group. However, the thought collective was not entirely dependent on the heteronomous force as it was not identical with it. The relative and always changing autonomy of the thought collective was assured as an outcome of the institutionalization process. It is important to stress that such autonomy, however small it is in reality, imparts to the thought collective the ability of autonomous activity. In our context, this amounts to knowledge production within the framework of a certain thought style. The production of knowledge always involved a process of bargaining between the esoteric thought collective and other significant reference groups. The relationship between the heteronomous force, represented by the CP, and the relatively autonomous esoteric thought collective, represented by the scientific-atheist scholars during the 1960s, was never one-sided. While the atheist scholars were dependent on the party because it was practically the sole guarantor of their legitimacy, the party was dependent on the esoteric thought collective because the knowledge it required would have been inaccessible without the thought collective. Thus, the party could not completely control the nature of the knowledge it received. Therefore, it had to rely on the atheist specialists in many respects regarding religious and atheist phenomena. Because party plenipotentiaries were not atheist experts themselves, they had no other choice but to rely on the facts provided by the esoteric thought collective. Acquaintance with these facts was a process which contained the possibility to transform the opinion of the whole referential group, i. e. of the party officials, about such phenomena. Had it been successful, this opinion change showed

214  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  itself on the level of policy changes. To conclude, it could be argued that esoteric thought style could influence the heteronomous force through the genesis of scientific facts. In both cases, the comparative approach enabled the delineation of the way in which the heteronomous force influenced the relatively autonomous field of scientific-atheist knowledge. While Soviet scientific atheism was more directly under the auspices of the party laymen, the Czechoslovakian specialists were less constrained by the effects of the heteronomous force due to the different political situation. Nevertheless, in both cases the creation of the esoteric thought collective led to a great widening of the atheist field of knowledge and to subsequent shifts in the thought style. This widening and consequent transformation of the thought style was  a largely internal process that occurred within the esoteric thought collectives. It was partly the product of a confrontation between certain epistemological prerequisites and the raw material or data. It has been postulated that if the raw material does not go against the theory, then it is transformed into “unproblematic facts” that are then systematized in order to support certain aspects of the theory. The sociology of religion represented a sphere of knowledge that was theoretically not as epistemologically tied to Marxist-Leninist doctrine as the critique of religion. Therefore, it provided a chance for the esoteric thought collective to create theories and concepts to explain the data derived from the sociological surveys from a Marxist-Leninist perspective that was not dogmatically biased or axiomatically preordained. However, the Soviet atheist specialists were unable to go beyond the framework of the existing thought style, nor could they attempt its substantial shift. Instead, they constructed theoretical concepts and categories that would allow them to create scientific facts from the material gathered without the need to push the epistemological boundaries further and eventually breach the carapace of traditional thinking. At the same time, the indecisiveness of the esoteric thought collective regarding the factors of religiosity and the constructive nature of the whole endeavor suggests that no member of this collective had the authority, boldness, or strength to carry through theoretically “correct” and epistemologically sound typology of religiosity in the Soviet Union. The situation of the atheist specialists in socialist Czechoslovakia was quite different. Although the esoteric thought collective was created in  a similar manner to the Soviet one, the professional atheist scholars’ dependence on the party officials, their needs, and expectations did not last for the entire period analyzed but only for the first few years. The loosening of the heteronomous force’s grip on the esoteric thought collective enabled it to develop relatively autonomously. Since 1963 the overall intellectual atmosphere in Czechoslovakia had allowed unorthodox and outside-the-box thinking, which meant that the atheist specialists were able to develop their ideas without fear of persecution by the heteronomous force. The difference in strength between the heteronomous

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forces in the two contexts should be emphasized. While the CPSU did not experience an identity crisis and remained the chief distributor of legitimacy and validity with regard to the Marxist-Leninist epistemological legacy, the CPC had experienced precisely such a crisis. As a result, the scientific atheists in Czechoslovakia did not feel the external constraints as strongly as their Soviet counterparts. Moreover, the more liberal social context of the 1960s enabled them to seek confirmation of the legitimacy and validity of their knowledge not only from the heteronomous force but also from other significant reference groups. The Czechoslovakian deviation can be explained as an alternative answer to similar questions. It has been pointed out that the challenges the party set for the esoteric thought collective upon its formation were roughly the same in both social contexts. However, the socio-political factors discussed in the relevant parts of this chapter led to fundamentally different answers to these questions. Most notably, the analysis revealed how scientific atheism’s self-perception by the esoteric thought collective developed, the kind of questions it enabled, and how it generally influenced the thought style. Scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia came to be understood differently in the course of the 1960s. The unfinished institutionalization, which led to the formation of separate departments of scientific atheism within the existing structure of already-established humanities and social sciences departments, did not result in the need to define the subject of the discipline vis-à-vis its possible competitors. The main reason for the absence of a debate that would have explicitly delineated scientific atheism as a relatively independent scholarly discipline in Czechoslovakia was determined by the fact that there was no need to explicitly state the uniqueness of the scientific-atheist research identity because there was no institution specifically devoted to such research. Because the Czechoslovakian members of the esoteric thought collective defined themselves primarily as philosophers, historians, and sociologists who specialized in scientific atheism, they did not face the same problems regarding the specificity of their knowledge. Instead, they could focus on the specific issues of scientific atheism within the broadly defined disciplines. Together with the socio-political factors mentioned, including the identity crisis of the heteronomous force with all its repercussions, the situation enabled the thought collective in Czechoslovakia after 1963 to identify scientific atheism as a qualitatively new phenomenon in relation to the Marxist-Leninist worldview, rather than within the classical framework that viewed it as an aspect of the scientific worldview or as a tool for the re-education of masses. Moreover, the internal development of the thought collective enabled a qualitatively new conceptualization of scientific atheism. The exchange of ideas with the exponents of the New Left, which enabled the appropriation and further elaboration of the dialogical approach towards religion in the domestic context, changed both the purpose and the central methods and perspectives of scientific atheism.

216  The Beginnings of the Scientific-Atheist Esoteric Thought Collective  Dialogue in Czechoslovakia was defined as an epistemological maxim and enabled the thought collective to perceive religion on the same level as atheism. Furthermore, it opened the possibility for defining scientific atheism not merely as a denial of religion but rather as its cultural and spiritual successor, which is better than its archetype in all its key characteristics. Therefore, in order to develop  a better and deeper philosophical system, atheism needed to become acquainted with the strong features of religion. In other words, while the Soviet thought collective still studied religion in order to discover its weak aspects and use them for its negation and denial, the Czechoslovakian thought collective was studying religion in order to pinpoint its strong aspects and to discover a way of using them in the secular context of the Marxist worldview, which it perceived as automatically deeper and more advanced. It has to be emphasized in this context that, while it was possible to discern a relatively high level of transnational unity between the Soviet and Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist thought styles in terms of conceptualization, self-­perception, and overarching theory until 1963, their later development proved to be comparatively discontinuous. The Marxist sociology of religion had a great deal in common in both countries, and there were no substantial methodological or theoretical rifts in this respect. However, their fundamentally different approach to the essence of scientific atheism underlined how far apart these two previously highly unified thought styles had become. The epistemological polyphony in both contexts had become so glaring by around 1967 that it was difficult to conceptualize the relationship between the thought styles as transnationally united. The shift in the Czechoslovakian esoteric thought style also influenced the perception of scientific atheism’s positive features. The Soviet thought collective, on the contrary, did not go beyond asking questions about the nature of such features and did not provide a single model to describe them within the framework of scientific atheism. Instead, many members of the Soviet esoteric thought collective still believed that scientific atheism was largely defined by its critique of religion, and the only positive aspects represented in the scientific-atheist propaganda were facts of the natural sciences. The existential questions, such as the meaning of life and death, ethics, morality, and so on, were frequently mentioned but never answered by the thought collective. Moreover, its only outcome was linked to the sphere of practice, that is, it was a theoretical justification and recommendation of new a-religious Soviet rituals in general and rites of passage in particular. Unsurprisingly, this inability to provide answers was one of the heteronomous force’s points of critique in 1971. The dialogue between atheists and Christians in Czechoslovakia led to the elaboration of a scientific-atheist life philosophy, which fundamentally changed the perception of the positive content of scientific atheism. The so-called atheist humanism was therefore the Czechoslovakian answer to the questions asked by the exoteric thought collective and the heteronomous force at the end of

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the 1950s. Moreover, as  a “metaphysic of Marxism” it provided  a substantial supplement to the axioms of the Marxist-Leninist epistemological framework. It was an original product that was derived from scientific-atheist thinking and inspired by Marxism but was not entirely dependent on it. The Soviet atheists during the 1960s were still struggling with the void, or the emptiness that was left after the denial of religion. This was precisely because they had been forced to act according to the relatively closed traditional thought style. By contrast, the Czechoslovakian atheist experts were able to fill the infamous “vacuum” only because they were able to tread over the threshold of the traditional thought style. It would be superfluous to theorize on what would have happened with dialogical atheism if the Prague Spring had not ended as a result of Warsaw Pact invasion. In our context, it is far more important to emphasize that the change in political administration led to the complete restructuration of the scientific-­ atheist thought collective. The thought style also changed subsequently. The fact that the restructured field of scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia closely resembled the Soviet prototype as it developed during the 1960s only underlines the fact that the years 1963–1968 had been a deviation and not the other way around. This also allows the formulation of  a hypothesis that different types of institutionalization, together with diversely applied heteronomous forces, lead to different dynamics within the thought collective, which subsequently determines the development of the thought style’s structure, especially in regard to the older or classical thinking. If the institutional structure is completed and the field of knowledge is both horizontally and vertically structured, and if the heteronomous force repeatedly exerts its influence on the thought style, then the changes within the structure of the thought style are rather minimal in comparison to the earlier, “classical” thought style because they do not touch the basic epistemological presuppositions. However, if the institutional structure of the field of knowledge is not completed and the heteronomous force exerts its influence unsystematically, or if its influence is altogether absent, then the thought style is susceptible to more radical changes, which can even reach the underlying epistemological presuppositions on which the general theory and many of its axioms are based.

4.

Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science ( 1971–1989)

The development of the scientific-atheist field of knowledge in the 1960s has indicated that it was not bound to a specific, that is, Khrushchevian, political administration. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the esoteric thought style continued to grow during the first years of Brezhnev’s tenure. In other words, expert esoteric knowledge was continually considered important for heteronomous force. At the same time, the legitimacy bestowed by the party on the thought collective enabled the latter to constitute itself as such. Thus, in retrospect, the 1960s were important as a period during which the esoteric thought collective was constituted and consolidated. Its institutional anchoring at universities and ASS as well as the internally conditioned reproduction of cadres were necessary preconditions which contributed to the overall stabilization of the esoteric field vis-a-vis other significant reference groups. In this chapter, the institutional structure of the esoteric field in its most highly developed form is analyzed with special attention accorded to the features delineating the continuity of the thought collective as well as intimations referring to its possible shifts during the 1970s and 1980s. If the 1960s were marked by  a particular uncertainty about the functions, width, and depth of scientific-atheist esoteric knowledge, the ensuing decade in the Soviet Union can be characterized as a period of normal science in Kuhn’s sense. It will be the main task of the present chapter to delineate the main features of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style within these circumstances. The structure of the esoteric thought style evolved in both aforementioned national contexts. On the one hand, part of the 1960s heritage was the notion of the “core disciplines” of scientific atheism, such as the religious critique, the theory of scientific-atheist education, and the sociology of religion. On the other hand, the unfinished debate concerning the essence of scientific atheism, regarded as a relatively independent philosophical scholarly discipline, left much space available for the potential inclusion of other specialist auxiliary disciplines into the epistemological framework of the scientific-atheist paradigm. Even the core of the esoteric scientific-atheist knowledge was questioned from time to time, and attempts were made to extract spheres of knowledge from the ruling interpretative theory of scientific atheism and subjugate it to another epistemological paradigm. Examples of this include the psychology of religion, the theory of ethics and the theory of rituals.

220  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  In any case, in the 1970s, the self-awareness of atheist specialists increased to such an extent that they were able to demarcate canonical or textbook knowledge representing the discipline in general and the thought style in particular to the exoteric thought collective. The publication of the so called “stable textbook” by  a team headed by Okulov in 1973 at least symbolically indicated the existence of a certain consensus amongst the experts that the most important and indisputable facts had been reached.1 The publication of the official textbook was the culmination of a longer process which included the codification, hierarchization, and systemization of specialized knowledge. The most important outcome of the earlier phase of this process was the publication of “The Short Scientific-atheist Dictionary” in 1964.2 Together with the aforementioned Okulov’s textbook, which replaced the majority of older provisionary textbooks which had started to appear as early as 1959, the dictionary, published under editor-in-chief Tsamerian, marks the beginning and end of the first attempt to systematically organize esoteric knowledge and make it readily available for the exoteric collectives and students of the compulsory courses. The task of the present chapter in this respect is to analyze the structure of the normalized science and the way in which it was shaped by the esoteric thought collective on the one hand, and the heteronomous force on the other throughout the 1970s and 1980s in both national contexts. Due to the chronological presentation of the material, the Czechoslovakian section of this chapter is partially structured in a similar manner to the section of the previous chapter devoted to the description and analysis of the foundation, organization, functions and tasks of the ISA in Moscow and its relationship with the heteronomous force. This approach allows the subsequent assessment of both thought collectives which were created under different circumstances but should have served similar tasks. The process of the normalization of the thought style by the thought collective, the description and analysis of which is the main task of the Soviet portion of this chapter, will then also be scrutinized in the Czechoslovakian context. Apart from the socio-political circumstances which co-determined the qualitative change in the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist esoteric thought style as well as the institutional anchoring of the thought collective, the elements of the thought style will be analyzed. Given that, as will be demonstrated in the appropriate sub-chapter, the Czechoslovakian and Soviet thought styles were the result of highly homogenized normalization in this period, the analysis of 1 See Okulov, Aleksandr, Fedorovich (ed.): Nauchnyi ateizm. Moskva 1973. The textbook was so popular and widespread during 1970s that its original print run of one hundred thousand copies had to be repeated in subsequent editions in 1974, 1976, and 1978. 2 See Tsamerian, Ivan, Petrovich (ed.): Kratkii nauchno ateisticheskii slovar’. Moskva 1964. The second edition was then published in 1969.

Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science   221

these elements will not be conducted separately, as was the case in the previous chapter, but together as in the second chapter, which discussed the beginnings of the scientific-atheist field of knowledge in the post-Stalinist context. In order to show the development of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style in a broader chronological perspective, those spheres of knowledge identified in the previous chapter will be further pursued. Firstly, therefore, questions regarding the self-perception and self-evaluation of the discipline and its place in the greater epistemological and discursive framework will be traced. Secondly, the problems revolving around the issue of an appropriate typology of religiosity will be reviewed so as to determine either the establishing or shifting of certain basic categories and the underlying ideas which played  a crucial role in the categorization of Soviet and Czechoslovakian societies with regard to certain features of a complex religious characteristic within the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style. The third element of thought style analyzed in the framework of this chapter could be labeled either “revisionism in atheism” or “falsification theories.” This topic appeared as a new distinct sphere of knowledge during the 1970s in order to make sense of the Czechoslovakian “deviation.” Revisionism in atheist terms refers to  a different, unorthodox, and inherently partisan type of knowledge which ought to be identified as fundamentally “unscientific” in contrast to the “scientific” approach of the thought collective. Such  a demarcation of “our” authentic knowledge and “their” biased knowledge is an important aspect of the thought style which, in retrospect, allows the reconstruction of the esoteric thought collective’s identity as well as the limitations of the thought style in the given time frame. Furthermore, it sheds some light on the actual proportions of the shift in the thought style in the post-Prague Spring context of socialist Czechoslovakia. In  a more general sense, the nature and argument structure of the critique of what was formerly “our” knowledge allows the tracking of the general change in the intellectual sphere in a post-1968 context. Furthermore, debates about revisionism in scientific atheism and its comparison with similar discussions regarding the “falsification” of scientific atheism by “renegades of Marxism” or other biased thinkers, which were conducted by the esoteric thought collective in the Soviet Union, make it possible to determine whether Czechoslovakian scientific atheism followed  a similar path to Soviet “traditional” thinking or whether the atheist specialists of the normalization period in Czechoslovakia tried to create their own version of “unbiased” knowledge. Apart from the institutional, organizational and socio-political contexts which co-determined the historical forms of the scientific-atheist thought collectives and thought styles in the 1970s and 1980s, an analysis of the formation and existence of the international scientific-atheist thought collective forms part of the present chapter. However, due to the inherent complexity of such an inquiry, the investigation will not attempt to reconstruct the dense net of international

222  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  connections which manifested itself not only on the level of the thought collective but on the elusive level of the thought style as well. Such a reconstruction would require  a special analysis of multiple national contexts which would greatly exceed the framework and goals of the present work. Instead, the mutual relationship between the Soviet and Czechoslovakian esoteric thought collectives will be reconstructed in order to ascertain to what extent the two thought collectives were alike, and how they influenced one another. Although the chapter is presented from  a chronological perspective and demarcated by the years 1971–1989, the mutual relations are traced from the beginning of the 1960s. Such  a methodological decision allows to describe the international field of knowledge, peculiarities of its genesis and rules of its operation. In this context, the main questions are related to the process of the creation and maintenance of the transnational thought collective and thought style, the ways in which this process was influenced, what its main products were, and where the limitations of its efficacy rested. The amount of influence, avenues of knowledge transfer and general efficacy of the direct and indirect communication with regard to other questions will also be discussed in this context. While the 1970s were a remarkably quiet period in both national contexts, the 1980s were a comparatively more turbulent decade when it came to socio-­ political changes. The relative leniency of political leaders in the Soviet Union as well as in the Czechoslovakian Federation to re-shape the field of scientificatheist knowledge from the outside played a positive role in the internal develop­ ment of the field, as will be demonstrated. The demise of Brezhnev and his successors paved the way for a more radical leader in the Soviet Union, but the overall economic and political development demanded  a substantial change of policy. While in other fields of knowledge Mikhail Gorbachev’s “glasnost” (transparency and openness) brought a hitherto unprecedented degree of liberalization, the extent to which the liberal approach also influenced the esoteric thought collective of scientific-atheist experts in the Soviet Union has yet to be analyzed. For this reason, special attention will be devoted to the analysis of the period of “perestroika” and “glasnost” in order to ascertain whether the overall liberalization led to the liberalization of the scientific-atheist thought style as was the case in 1960s Czechoslovakia. The second half of the 1980s will also be closely examined in the Czechoslovakian case for similar reasons. From a chronological perspective, the political events of November 1989 in Czechoslovakia and of August 1991 in the Soviet Union represent the moment when the heteronomous force abruptly ceased to exist. This had obvious implications for all the spheres of knowledge which were somehow dependent on it, and the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style was no exception. Although the subsequent, that is, post-1989 and post-1991 respectively, development will not be analyzed in any great detail, the deconstruction of the thought collective and

The Context of Scientific Atheism in the Era of “Developed Socialism”  223

the subsequent change in thought style will be discussed in order to elucidate the final significant transformation of the field of knowledge which led to its virtual destruction. As in the previous chapter, the scientific-atheist propaganda and education understood as a sphere of the exoteric thought collective will not be described in detail in the framework of this chapter. Instead, it will serve as an indispensable social context which, along with the heteronomous force, ensured the legitimacy and purpose of the esoteric thought collective. Analysis of the selected, mainly structural, features of the exoteric thought collective will serve as the basis for the contextualization of both the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective and thought style in the broader social framework. The pertinent question in this context touches upon the overall relevance and importance of scientific atheism in the era of developed socialism for the society on one hand and for significant reference groups on the other.

4.1 The Socio-political Context of Scientific Atheism in the Era of “Developed Socialism”in the Soviet Union It has been argued that 1971 represented  a change of expectations regarding the scientific-atheist propaganda and education expressed by the CPCC in the form of an unpublished resolution confirmed on 16 July 1971 which also had an impact on the further organization and functioning of the scientific-atheist thought collective. Smolkin-Rothrock places the decision of the heteronomous force to review scientific-atheist politics in the context of a more general development such as the impact of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, the emergence of the dissident movement, or the need to correct the timeline for the construction of communism which was proposed by Khrushchev during the XXII Party Congress. Although these “collateral” factors undoubtedly played a role as phenomena which set the broader framework of action for the party leaders, the most pressing problem contributing to the re-opening of the question of scientific atheism by Brezhnev’s administration was the fact that many Soviet citizens showed signs of ideological fatigue resulting in an overall passivity. This passivity towards the official ideology was often coupled with positive attitudes towards various forms of religiosity which was equally unsettling for the party plenipotentiaries, especially if the believers were not the typical old women from the countryside but young men from the urban environment.3 3 See Smolkin-Rothrock: “A Sacred Space,” 221, Anderson, John: Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor States. New York 1994, 110, Volkov, Anatolii, Pavlovich /  Galdobina, Svetlana, Vladimirovna: Molodezh i sovetskoe gosudarstvo v  60-e — 80-e gg. XX stoletiia: nekotorye problemy effektivnosti vospitania i vzaimnootnoshenii, in: Vestnik Ekaterinskogo instituta 36/4 (2016) here 12. 

224  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  The Soviet intelligentsia were castigated by the 1971 party resolution as being passive in their attitude towards religion. This attitude in the eyes of the heteronomous force not only hampered and decelerated the atheization project but also helped to keep religion alive. Typical examples of such ideologically inconsistent and potentially pro-religious intellectuals from the second half of 1960s were writers such as Vladimir Soloukhin, the former star of atheist prose Vladimir Tendriakov, and some editors of the literary journal “Novyj mir” (The New World).4 The reason for the critique of these intellectuals, as the 16 July 1971 resolution maintained, was that they still possessed “the incorrect opinion that religion will naturally die out in the process of the construction of communism.”5 With this formulation, Brezhnev’s administration displayed its continuous support for the scientific-atheist education and research which had been started by Khrushchev. Moreover, by the implicit critique of the passive intelligentsia, it emphasized that scientific atheism was still a part of the party agenda, even though it was not propagated as openly as was the case at the end of the 1950s. At the same time, the party formally distanced itself from the administrative measures and emphasized the exclusively ideological nature of the atheization process. In sum, the party leaders were far from satisfied with the state of affairs regarding the religiosity of the population at the beginning of the 1970s. Even though the main institutions charged with the production and distribution of the atheist knowledge, that is, the KS and the ISA in Moscow, were blamed for the unsettling indicators regarding the level of religiosity amongst the youth and for the fact that religion continued to exist despite multiple policies and measures against it during the preceding decade, these institutions were indispensable to the future work. Thus, probably the most important outcome of the July 1971 resolution for the whole field of scientific-atheist knowledge in the Soviet Union was not the critique delivered by the heteronomous force but the fact that the party continued to believe that the upholding of scientific atheism was necessary even in the framework of the latest ideological restructuration which was later labeled “developed socialism.”6 As paradoxical as it may sound, the Soviet scientific-atheist thought collective entered a period of peaceful activity in approximately 1971, that is, a few months after the resolution. Above all, it was important that other significant reference groups had not questioned its general epistemological status in the greater ideological framework of Marxism-Leninism even though some practical objections 4 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 98, ll. 14–18. 5 Cit. Rossiiskii Arkhiv noveishei istorii (Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, RGANI henceforth), f. 4, op. 22, d. 779, ll. 18–19. 6 The concept of developed socialism and its implementation as  a substitution for Khrush­chev’s model of communism’s construction in 1970s is discussed in: Bacon, Edwin /  Sandle, Mark (eds.): Brezhnev Reconsidered. New York 2002, 165–187.

The Context of Scientific Atheism in the Era of “Developed Socialism”  225

regarding the tangible outcomes of the whole atheist endeavor were raised from time to time. It is important to stress that these practical objections did not have the power to place the scientific-atheist field in existential danger which is documented in the practical outcome of the July 1971 resolution concerning the actual structure, organization and authority of the esoteric thought collective in the Soviet Union. The next opportunity for the heteronomous force to discuss potential changes in the scientific-atheist field of knowledge came in September 1981 when the CPCC approved the resolution “About the Improvement of Atheist Education.”7 Similarly to the resolution approved ten years before, the most important outcome was the fact that the party still regarded scientific atheism as a viable means of influence and a source of information, that is, it still relied upon both the exoteric and esoteric thought collectives. Moreover, it represented the continuous will of the late Brezhnev’s administration to tie scientific atheism even closer to the party organizations of the regions. If the resolution had been fulfilled, atheist councils with professional atheist specialists responsible for the atheist education in the framework of each and every regional party committee would have existed.8 However, the changes in the upper echelons of the political administration and the unwillingness to change old customs in each region prevented the distributing of atheist councils in significant numbers during the 1980s. Nevertheless, scientific atheism became extremely emblematic for party officials during Brezhnev’s era of the developed socialism with phrases referencing internationalism and the maintenance of world peace. Even though atheist education and propaganda were essentially the heritage of Brezhnev’s predecessor, whose main ideas in the sphere of ideology were tacitly abandoned during the 1970s, the continuation of the scientific-atheist exoteric and esoteric thought collectives indicates that this field of knowledge remained important for Brezhnev. Consequently, the extensive continuity that exists between the two Soviet leaders in this particular sphere is observable, although the relative importance and amount of invested means as well as the severity of the infamous “administrative measures” highlighted especially by Khrushchev’s critics, differed over the years. The greatest success of esoteric and exoteric scientific-atheist thought collectives in this respect was the ability to produce a thought style which was authentic enough to persuade the significant reference groups that it was an indispensable component of the whole socialist project. This was despite the fact that it was unable to generate rapid success in terms of a social change which would neutralize their main ideological rivals. As a result, the notion that scientific atheism



7 See Shkvarovskii: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov, 398. 8 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 230, l. 6.

226  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  represented an intrinsic part of the proper and authentic Soviet worldview was shared by the decisive figures at the CC for as long as Brezhnev lived. Thus, the cultivation of the scientific-atheist thought style in the 1970s and its translation to the masses and appropriation by them at the beginning of the 1980s was still one of the priorities of the party leaders and not only because it represented the highly sought-after continuity and invariance of certain aspects of Marxist-Leninist ideology. This unbroken continuity may have been a potential source of legitimacy for the party due to the fact that Marxist atheism’s rightfulness and the ideological justification for its dispersion had never been questioned by the party leaders as one of the preconditions for the construction of communism. The potential rallying power of the scientific-atheist identity was another asset in the field of knowledge in their eyes. In addition, the national revival and tensions between the ethnically heterogeneous groups of the Soviet population were already a cause of distress for the party during the 1970s and more so during the 1980s. Therefore, the emphasis on the construction of socialist internationalism in Brezhnev’s tenure was one of the ways of dealing with the problem.9 For, as Soviet experts and party leaders believed, there was a strong correlation between certain types of nationalism and religiosity. The successful dispersion of scientific atheism should have contributed not only to the weakening of nationalist emotions due to the separation of ethnic and religious convictions from one another but to the strengthening of the homogenous Soviet identity which, due to its atheist nature, did not construct false obstacles between nations. Whilst the short tenures of Iurii Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko revolved around other more pressing issues than continuation and the potential further rejuvenation of scientific atheism, the last Soviet general secretary of the party, Gorbachev, decided to reconsider not only the relationship between the church and the state but the position of scientific atheism in the framework of the fundamentally reformed Soviet Union. The last six years of the Soviet Union thus represent a new socio-political context in the scientific-atheist field of knowledge. Initially, major changes in the course of scientific-atheist education were not visible. The program confirmed by the XXVII Congress of the CPSU in February 1986 lent its traditional support and Gorbachev declared in his speech that “stagnation in such major dynamic issues as moral and atheist education is simply impossible.”10 However, the two major processes initiated by the last general secretary of the Soviet Union, that is, the economic reform labeled “perestroika” and the initially institutional and political reform “glasnost,” together 9 See Smith, Jeremy: Red Nations. The Nationalities Experience in and after the USSR . Cambridge 2013, 216–255. 10 Cit. Skhvarovskii: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov, 399.

The Context of Scientific Atheism in the Era of “Developed Socialism”  227

with some accidental yet crucial events such as the nuclear reactor catastrophe in Chernobyl in April 1986 developed conditions for major change in the public sphere as well as recognition of the boundaries of what it was possible to voice and write. Consequently, from 1987, the public space was able to be penetrated by long forbidden authors such as Evgenii Zamiatin, Boris Pasternak, Vasilii Grossman and Vladimir Dudintsev who unpacked explosive topics regarding the Stalinist past. Furthermore, the Soviet public sphere was able to officially acquaint itself with the religious philosophy of Nikolai Berdiaev, Ivan Iliin and Nikolai Losskii as well. The peak of “glasnost” in this context was the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago” in 1990.11 Although the books by the aforementioned authors, together with other forbidden works of art and literature, circulated in the Soviet Union much earlier thanks to the existence of the dissident movement and samizdat networks; official approval to publish, read and comment upon the content of the books without the threat of punishment marks the environment for of the existence of the scientific-atheist epistemological paradigm. From 1987, the ROC , as well as other churches within the Soviet Union, used the opportunity presented by the relaxed control of the party over the public sphere to strengthen its public position. While as late as autumn 1986 the centralized press still contained the standard amount of antireligious propaganda, by 1987 a more conciliatory and forthcoming tone was evident. It is still too early, however, to answer the question regarding whether Gorbachev and his closest collaborators such as Egor Ligachev followed a long-term strategy which sought to rehabilitate the ROC in the context of the Soviet Union and, thus, strengthen the bond of the party leaders with the population. Or, as some contemporary scholars maintain, whether the general secretary rather was forced to ongoingly make concessions to religion if he wanted to maintain at least some hope of gaining the political support of the voters in the increasingly volatile political atmosphere of the second half of the 1980s.12 In any case, 1988 seems to have been a decisive turning point — at least in the relationship between the Soviet State and the ROC . Not only was Gorbachev the first general secretary of the CPSU in history to state in that year that “we are going to ‘celebrate’ [emphasis JT] one thousand years of Christendom in Russia” but more than one thousand churches were re-opened. The general secretary continued his politics of rapprochement with religious organizations by organizing a meeting with the Patriarch Pimen in April 1988.13 The millen­nial celebrations of the christening of Kievan Rus then received the status of state 11 See Zubov, Andrej (ed.): Dějiny Ruska 20. Století — 1939–2007. Díl 2. Praha 2015, 494. 12 See Skhvarovskii: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov, 401–403, and Zubov, Dějiny. Díl 2., 501 f. 13 Cit. Skhvarovskii: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov, 402.

228  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  wide importance. As many observers noted the long victimized and ostracized ROC re-entered the late Soviet public sphere that year. However, critique of the church as well as of atheist education and propaganda did not cease to be an officially supported endeavor until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The most decisive change resided in the fact that, whereas, until 1988 the scientific-atheist voice was practically the only available official type of discourse about religion in the public sphere, it has become just one of the many available conceptualizations of religion in the increasingly free and democratic market of ideas since 1988. Ultimately, the hegemonic position of scientific atheism, its paradigm as well as its claim of ordering things pertaining to religion disintegrated as rapidly as other axioms of Marxism-Leninism which were seemingly set in stone but which were, in fact, preserved only by their incessant legitimation which radiated from the CPSU as the source of  a heteronomous force. The most important outcome of the crisis in scientific-atheist epistemology, which eventually culminated in its almost total destruction in the post-Soviet society, was the dissolution of the exoteric collective. In other words, the circle of active lay supporters and non-academic specialists diminished under the pressure of the market of ideas in the years 1988–1991 to such an extent that the number of exoteric thought collective members, who had emerged after the downfall of the Soviet Union, could no longer determine the nature of the public debate about religion and atheism. In other words, the hierarchical position of this group changed from almost total hegemony to the minority opinion of a relatively unimportant, marginalized and quite exotic group.14 The scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective also reacted to the changes during the second half of 1980s. At first, the ISA in Moscow and other centers of Soviet scientific-atheist scholarship maintained  a rather conservative course which mirrored the theses of the XXVII Party Congress. The first visible attempts to substantially rethink the position of religion and its relationship to Marxist atheism in the framework of the discipline came in 1988 and continued until 1991.15 However, the textbook “Foundations of Scientific Atheism” written by Nikolai Gordienko in 1988, as well as the last volume of QSA issued in 1989 under the editor-in-chief Garadzha, did not yet indicate a change of paradigm. 14 The process of exoteric thought collective’s dissolution and re-invention of former professional scientific-atheist agitators and propagandists in regional context is described from an anthropological perspective by Sonja Luehrmann. See Luehrmann: Secularism, location 4270–4377. 15 See Saprykin, Vladimir, Aleksandrovich: Trudovoi kollektiv — ateisty i veruiushchie. Moskva 1990, Maslova, Irina, Ivanovna: Veroispovednaia politika v  SSSR : povorot kursa (1985–1991). Moskva 2005, Odintsov, Mikhail, Ivanovich: Gosudarstvo i tserkov v  XX veke: evoliutsiia vzaimootnoshenii, politicheskii i sotsiokulturnyi aspekty. Opyt Rossii i Evropy. Moskva 2011.

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Therefore, it is possible to formulate the following hypothesis. Whereas the majority of professional scientific-atheist researchers, who were simultaneously members of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective, continued to think within the earlier thought style, the still growing minority of scholars tried to tailor the theory to the changed socio-political circumstances. However, the growing discrepancies between the Marxist-Leninist doctrine in the process of its dismantling and the pluralism of available epistemologies led to the abandonment of the scientific-atheist thought style by the esoteric thought collective altogether at the end of 1991. It is significant that even though the scientific-atheist thought style proved unviable in the post-Soviet socio-political, cultural and research contexts, the former members of the esoteric thought collective were able to continue their professional occupations, provided they openly declared their total disavowal of the former thought style. Such was the case in the Russian Federation of the 1990s, where the ISA in Moscow was dissolved almost immediately after the dissolution of the USSR only to be re-formed a few years later under a different label. This continuity of former scientific-atheist cadres in the new post-Soviet institutional context demonstrates the incessant need of the new state for specialists on religion. As the post-Soviet institutions, religious research centers included, could not initially be filled with experts who had not received their professional training and work experience within the framework of the former, and suddenly outdated, thought style, there was no other choice but to continue with those experts who were willing to change their vocabulary, and theoretical and methodological framework of thinking. In other words, only those who were able to abandon or forget their scientific-atheist legacy could participate in the foundations of the new thought style in the Russian Federation which can be characterized as Western-style “Religionswissenschaft.” Whereas the period of “perestroika” began and ended in the 1980s, the re-structuration and re-­ construction of science concerning religion occurred in the 1990s as the almost total denial of the tradition of the last thirty years. It took almost twenty more years until the members of the new esoteric thought collective could re-open the issue of their own identity and question to what extent scientific atheism was a deviation, or “discontinuity” and to what extent its highly idiosyncratic tradition could be incorporated into the existing narrative as a part of the disciplinary continuity of contemporary religious science in Russia. 

4.2 Institutional Development This section of the chapter opens with the question of the number of scienti­f icatheist specialists within the exoteric and esoteric thought collectives. Although the presented data are only a rough approximation based on the combination of

230  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  reliable data and educated guesses, they provide a hitherto unavailable insight into the quantitative aspect of scientific atheism during the period of normal science. The subchapter also outlines the main organizational changes within the structure of the ISA and highlights its continuities as well as shifts and explains their importance in the development of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective. In this regard, special attention is paid to the tracking of the influence exerted on the esoteric thought collective by the heteronomous force and other significant reference groups. Given that other components of the institutional structure and organization such as the reproduction of cadres, and the net of local bases have already been described in the previous chapter, they will not be further thematized in order to avoid repetition. Lastly, this section of the chapter will scrutinize the channels through which the ISA in Moscow exerted its influence on other significant reference groups during the years 1971–1986. From the perspective of institutional development represent the 1970s and 1980s a timeframe characterized by stability. On the one hand, by 1971 the structure of exoteric as well as esoteric institutions had been completed, and the basic network of responsible organizations had already been created. On the other hand, no new functional elements were introduced into the already existing system which structured the scientific-atheist field of knowledge until 1988. The dissemination of exoteric knowledge was under the auspices of the KS and its main press organ, the journal Science and Religion. On the regional party level, committees for scientific-atheist propaganda and houses of atheism controlled the systematic organization and the training of propagandists. However, it has to be pointed out that not all regional or local CP organizations made use of such committees, and there were never enough active propagandists of atheism. Yet, what place did scientific atheism occupy in the hierarchy of party priorities in the 1970s and 1980s? How present was atheist propaganda in the daily routine of the Soviet cultural institutions? In this regard, the number of lectures delivered by all branches of the KS is a telling factor. As the Table 4 demonstrates, the dynamic of scientific-atheist lectures evinces a steady increase during the 1970s. The year 1972 represents an interesting figure because it indicates how the party resolution of 1971 influenced the number of lectures in the following year. Moreover, in 1972 the number of scientific-atheist lectures registered by the KS exceeded the figures produced as  a result of the late phase of Khrushchev’s atheist campaign in 1964. The absolute number of scientific-atheist lectures also reveals that towards the end of Brezhnev’s tenure the number of lectures reached more than a million per year which was approximately twice as many compared to 1960 (564 600 lectures, 7,71 percent of the total number of lectures), which was a year of full-blown atheist propaganda in the Khrushchev epoch. As impressive as these figures may be at first glance, the broader perspective shows that the overall role of the scientific-atheist propaganda, exemplified by

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the lecture statistics compiled by the KS , was in fact rather marginal. Even in the year 1960, which was one of the most successful in terms of atheist lectures in relation to the total amount of the lectures delivered by the Society, the proportion of atheist lectures in regard to the overall number of lectures did not exceed eight percent. Moreover, the proportion of atheist lectures was steadily below four percent during the 1970s. This kind of contextualization is crucial because it creates an image of the overall context of scientific-atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union and places it into a wider perspective. Based on these statistics, it can be deduced that scientific-atheist propaganda remained one of the important components of the inculcation process in the 1970s, but it was never actually the top priority of the largest Soviet propaganda organization. The print run of its most important specialized journal Science and Religion, which fluctuated between 390 000–440 000, only underscores this fact. The print run of Science and Religion also allows the establishment of a rough estimation regarding the number of members belonging to the exoteric thought collective. If every issue was read by only three or four active semi-professional propagandists of atheism (which was most likely not the case because the journal was bought by many believers as a source of information as well), the overall number of scientific atheists in the Soviet Union would be somewhere between 1.2–2 million. This figure is based on an educated guess because there are no reliable statistics on the number of readers per copy. Nevertheless, it may serve as an approximation of the lowest estimate of the exoteric thought collective members during the 1980s. The maximal figure can be derived from the sociological survey of religiosity conducted in 1990. This survey indicated that there were around five percent of active atheists. If there were around 288.6 million people in the USSR in 1990, then the exoteric thought collective would be comprised of 14.43 million potential members.16 Given that the statistics produced by the ISA and other specialists during the 1970s and 1980s cannot be used as a reliable source of information regarding the membership numbers of the exoteric thought collective, the figures presented above are the first indication that allows the formulation of at least some conclusions concerning the presence of scientific atheism within Soviet society. Therefore, the probable number of exoteric thought collective members in the 1970s and 1980s was somewhere between 1.2 and 14.4 million. To conclude, it is highly probable that the former figure can be interpreted as an approximation of the number of active semi-professional propagandists whereas the latter figure most likely denotes the total number of various kinds of atheists and agnostics in the Soviet Union at that time. If the total membership of the exoteric thought collective did not exceed 1.2 million in the 1970s and 1980s, the number in the esoteric thought collective 16 See Kaariainen, Kimmo / Furman, Dmitrii, Efimovich: Veruiushchie, ateisty i prochie (evoliutsiia rossiiskoi religioznosti), in: Voprosy filosofii 6 (1997) 35–52.

232  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  was lesser still. Firstly, the print run of the specialist journal QSA oscillated between 17 000 and 25 000 over the years 1971–1989. Furthermore, the number of copies was not determined by relative demand and popularity but rather by an administrative decision which was based on the notion that certain institutions such as ideological committees of the party, branches of the KS , libraries and other cultural institutions should receive  a compulsory copy of the journal. As it was not in open distribution, interested persons found it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain copies for further study.17 Therefore, the esoteric thought collective comprised of the scientific-atheist scholars was much smaller. Even if a working department of scientific atheism existed within each and every institute of higher learning and at each and every Republican Academy of Sciences, as had theoretically been the case since the 1960s, then the overall number of specialists would be unlikely to exceed one thousand. The number of the most active scholars who actually shaped the thought style at this time was likely to have been much smaller and the number and location of these all-important centers had not changed since the 1960s. Therefore, it is quite probable that the inner esoteric circle was comprised of no more than fifty or hundred scientific atheists located either in the ISA in Moscow and Kiev, or in the largest departments of scientific atheism at the universities in Moscow, Leningrad, or Perm.18 These were the leading scholars responsible for writing the textbooks of scientific atheism, the scientific-atheist dictionaries and comprehensive monographs. More specifically, this was the position of Gordienko, Persits, Okulov and others in the esoteric thought collective. In the previous chapter the kinds of personalities at the helm of the institute were described. The ways in which the ISA shaped the first generation of professional atheists was also thematized along with the number of members of the esoteric thought collective it was able to produce in the initial eight years of its existence. Whilst Okulov, as the director of the ISA , certainly played an important role in terms of agenda setting and confirmation of the main direction of the research, he was far from being independent of the opinions of the other significant reference groups, that is, the party structures. Nevertheless, he was the most visible face of the ISA for thirteen years. As such, he was the man who was responsible for all the major sociological surveys conducted in the years 1964–1977 and was perhaps the key figure who ensured the exchange of information with the CPCC on the ISA’s behalf.

17 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 113, ll. 86–87 and RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 213, ll. 141–143. 18 According to Okulov, there were around fifty scientific atheists with the highest academic degree “doctor of science” in the Soviet Union at the beginning of 1970’s. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 103, l. 12.

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When Okulov reached his 70th birthday in 1977, it was decided that he would not continue as the ISA’s director. Instead, he received the post of a senior researcher in the framework of the institute’s structure and actively participated in research until the dissolution of the ISA . The post of director was then assigned to the erstwhile deputy director (1964–1971) and then to the head of the Department of Theory and Methodology of the Ideological Work at the ASS (1971–1977) Pavel Kurochkin, whilst Garadzha and Viktor Timofeev remained deputy directors. Whereas Okulov had created and maintained quite an extensive network of local bases, Kurochkin oversaw the beginning of the institute’s further expansion. Even though it is not possible to fully credit him with this, he certainly contributed to the foundation of the first branch of the ISA in Kiev in 1978.19 On the one hand, the new branch with the director Onishchenko was a testament to the possibility of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective growing within regions. While many other local bases struggled with insufficient activity and were closed down as  a result, the Ukrainian local base displayed an opposite tendency. On the other hand, the Kiev ISA was granted much more autonomy along with the institutional promotion which made it harder for the Moscow center to exert its leading role within the esoteric thought collective. In any case, the appearance of the ISA branch in Kiev supports the interpretation that scientific atheism was not a phenomenon which was totally dependent on one or two central groups of scholars, but that it was able to reproduce and replicate itself even within the local context of the Soviet republics. The most significant, although unfinished, project of the ISA’s second director was undoubtedly the capital synthesis called “Socialism and Atheism — Society of the Dominant Scientific-Materialist Worldview.” The four tome-long treatise should have been the foundational stone of the discipline which would finally fulfill the 1972 demands of the ASS Scientific Council. The dimensions and potential significance of the work for the esoteric thought collective can be reckoned by the fact that Kurochkin wanted to devote tent to twelve years to the preparation of the collective project.20 The preparatory work determined the day-to-day activities within the institute’s departments. As the statement from 1978 attests, all the “problem groups” were obliged to create planned schedules, main hypotheses, and source bases regarding the topic of the synthesis.21 However, the whole project was abandoned after Kurochkin’s unexpected passing in 1981. Whereas Kurochkin was not directly affiliated to the ISA at the time of his appointment though he shared much of its history during the first years, the third director was chosen from within the ISA . Garadzha was selected 19 See Zuev, Institut, 30. 20 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, l. 163. 21 See ibid., l. 185.

234  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  for the post after eleven years as deputy director.22 During his nine-year tenure, he was responsible for the restructuration of the ISA in 1981. Furthermore, he initially held  a relatively conservative theoretical position until Gorbachev’s shift in 1987. However, after the sudden change in religious policies by the general secretary, Garadzha attempted to react to the situation by a proposed change in thought style from a single-paradigmatic scientific atheism to multi-­ paradigmatic religious studies. He also assisted in the further expansion of the ISA’s branches. In the years 1981–1982, two relatively autonomous ISA branches in Tashkent and Vilnius were created from former local bases. The promotion was linked to the further specialization of all filial ISAs. While the branch in the capital of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR henceforth) ought to have specialized in Islamic research and religiosity in the countryside, the Kievan branch should have studied the new socialist rituals and the efficacy of the atheist propaganda. In Vilnius, the ISA’s filial work should predominantly have been the critique of the Catholic Church and issues of anticlerical propaganda.23 The need to rethink the role of scientific atheism in the new context was symbolized by a round table entitled “The Issues of the Freedom of Conscience in the Framework of the Democratization of the Soviet Society” which was organized by the ISA in 1988 and by active participation in the draft of a new bill about the freedom of conscience throughout the year.24 Another example is  a paradigmatic article penned by Garadzha about the further existence of scientific atheism from 1989 and published in Science and Religion. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Garadzha’s demise from the director’s post during the tempestuous end of the 1980s remain unclear. His successor, Eduard Filimonov, was also a hardboiled scientific-atheist scholar.25 His tenure 22 Born in 1929, Garadzha studied philosophy at the Moscow State University. He defended his candidate dissertation called “The Fight of Materialism and Idealism in the Process of Making of Organic World’s Development Theory” in 1955. He then stayed at the university, where he gave lectures about scientific atheism since the end of 1950s and until his transfer into the ISA at the end of 1960s. In 1969 he managed to defend doctoral dissertation on the openly scientific-atheist topic “Neo-Thomism and Scientific Knowledge: The Critique of Neo-Thomistic Conception of Science.” In years 1970–1981 Garadzha occupied the post of deputy director at the ISA . As a scholar, he devoted his attention to the Marxist critique of protestant theology. After the fall of the USSR , Garadzha was able to continue as a scholar of religion. Already in 1993 he became the professor of religious studies at the Moscow State University, and he became a member of the Russian Academy of Education. He wrote many textbooks about sociology of religion and religious studies. Garadzha’s most recent textbook was published in 1995. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 214, l. 78. See also Zuev, Institut, 10. 23 See Zuev, Institut, 30. 24 See ibid., 32. 25 Filimonov was born in 1934. Similarly to Garadzha, he also graduated at the Moscow State University in 1960. He continued his academic occupation at the Academy of Sciences where he became a junior researcher of the Sector of Scientific Atheism at the Institute of Philosophy. In 1964 he defended his candidate dissertation there with the title The Critique

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was marked by the gradual disassembling of the ASS which was the framework of the ISA . Furthermore, the changed socio-political circumstances after the transforming year of 1988 made the whole single-paradigm orientation increasingly questionable. The main task of the last director of the ISA was to withstand the transformation and prepare the institute and its members for existence in the new context. This symbolic step was undertaken on July 4 1991 when the name of the ISA changed from the Institute of Scientific Atheism to the “Institut religiovedeniia” (Institute of Religious Science).26 However, it transpired that the reformed institution was only able to exist until 1992. The main reason for its termination was the complete deconstruction of the ASS and the fact that the Russian Academy of Administration (later Russian Academy of State Service), which was the de facto successor of the ASS , originally did not presuppose to form an analogue to the Institute of Religious Science. Only in 1994 was the Department of State-Confessional Relationship founded, where many of the former scholars from the ISA were subsequently employed.27 To draw a conclusion, it is remarkable how smoothly the changes of leadership in the ISA occurred. Not only were all subsequent directors drawn from the relatively close-knit collective of the ISA , but not  a single one of them came from outside it, that is, from the other centers of scientific atheism. Even though certain changes of policy are observable, which can be more or less tracked to the change in the ISA’s leadership, it must be underlined that there were neither sharp shifts in the institute’s direction, nor great personal machinations within the study groups which would have indicated potential change in the thought collective. The only substantial change, which actually led to the subsequent destruction of the thought collective, occurred during Garadzha’s tenure as director in 1988–1989. Seen from this perspective, Filimonov’s attempts were only  a consequence of the prior decision which had been induced by greater changes within Soviet society in the times of late “glasnost.” Therefore, the leadership changes indicate that the 1971–1988 period was remarkably stable and without perceptible shifts which would have influenced the established functioning of the thought collective or the thought style. In other words, the analysis supports the thesis that, at least from an institutional and organizational point of view, this time period can be interpreted as one of normal science. of Baptists’ Christian Humanism. Then he continued as  a senior researcher and later a scientific secretary at the ISA in Moscow. He occupied the office of the deputy director in years 1977–1989. Filimonov was also able to continue his academic career in the post-Soviet context. He worked at the Russian Academy of Federal Security Service until his death in 2000. 26 See RGASPI , f. 606, e. kh. 2386, l. 10. 27 See Vasileva, Olga, Iurievna / Lopatkin, Remir, Aleksandrovich / Zuev, Iurii, Pavlovich /  Shmidt, Vasilii, Vladimirovich: Kafedra gosudarstvenno-konfessionaľnykh otnoshenii, in: Voprosy religii i religiovedenia 1/4 (2009) 7–40.

236  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  Having briefly discussed the changes of leadership during years 1971–1992, attention should now be turned to the reproduction of the esoteric thought collective within the ISA in Moscow. A more detailed analysis of the successful post-graduates indicates that the total number of graduates were susceptible to changes of leadership at the ISA which coincided with the changes within the party. Such oscillation is perceptible especially during the years 1981–1982 when the number of graduates fell below the average of 8.5 to just two per year. The opposite tendency is observable during the last years of the Soviet Union, where 1988 marks the beginning of the anomaly which lasted until the ISA’s dissolution. Thus, in the years 1988–1991, a total of 67 dissertations were defended which amounts to a yearly average of approximately 17 graduates (see the Table 5 for a more detailed overview). In order to contextualize the magnitude of the graduate program at the ISA within the esoteric thought collective, it should be added that in the years 1964–1981 in the whole USSR around 1150 candidates of the sciences graduated in topics linked to the scientific-atheist realm of knowledge. At the same time, there were approximately one hundred doctors of science. This means that the ISA was responsible for the professional scientific qualification of 11.5 percent of the cadres in the Soviet Union concerning candidates of the sciences and 26 percent of the professional cadres of the highest scientific degree.28 Whilst it is possible to discern certain anomalies within the contingent of candidate graduates and associate them with the broader institutional and socio-political context, the same cannot be said about the defense of the doctoral dissertations. For the reason that the preparation of defenses of such advanced work took considerably more time and resources than the preparation of  a candidate dissertation, and the esoteric thought collective was always in great need of such highly trained experts, the sudden changes did not impact the process of doctoral defense at all. Moreover, the successful defense of a doctoral dissertation in the discipline of scientific atheism was sometimes linked to the internal struggle of the esoteric thought collective for  a position within the collective rather than to the general quotas of graduates which may have been the subject of a political struggle within the ASS and the structure of the CPSU. The account of the Leningrad-based scientific-atheist specialist, Gordienko, is a case in point which illustrates what kind of behind-the-scenes politics and personal favors may have played a role in the process. I [i. e. Gordienko, JT] have prepared a doctoral dissertation; I have introduced it at my home department [the Department of Scientific Atheism, Ethics and Esthetics in Leningrad, JT]. They held it for two weeks and returned it with the comment that they do not have enough specialists of this level, who would be able to assess it. I had to take 28 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 231, l. 4.

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it to Moscow. […] As a result, I brought the dissertation to the Institute of Scientific Atheism. They looked at it and said: “Your dissertation is very good, but our deputy director [Kurochkin, JT] conducts research on  a similar topic.” […] They told me: “First of all, you have to give the title ‘Evolution of Contemporary Orthodoxy’ to him [i. e. to Kurochkin, JT]. You can come up with something else. Secondly, you know, if you successfully defended your dissertation, then he would not be able to endure after you. You wrote such a ‘brick’ with archival documents etc. and he wrote a thin popular booklet. You will defend your thesis after him with ease. What is the difference? You’ll wait a year and then everything will be all right.”29

In fact, Gordienko had to wait until 1970, and his defense was conducted neither in Leningrad, nor in Moscow, but in Minsk. The analysis of the development of the inner organizational structure is one method of approaching the question regarding the immediate context of the field of knowledge. While it is impossible to discern the more nuanced changes in the thought style, which took place predominantly on the textual level, it is possible to delineate the main shifts of the thought collective, exemplified in this case by the ISA , and place them into a context of other important factors such as the impacts of the heteronomous force. Hence, the departmental structure indirectly indicates the main spheres of knowledge under the hegemonic influence of the thought collective. As already pointed out, the 1971 party resolution produced  a considerable amount of criticism of the ISA . Although the partial projects and theoretical outcomes of research were called into question, the status as well as intrinsic need to conduct studies within the scientific-atheist field of knowledge rendered the ISA and other research centers indispensable to the party. Therefore, the discipline, that is, the esoteric thought collective as such, was not placed in serious existential peril by the resolution. Another, potentially far more harmful resolution was written by the Scientific Council of the ASS . Its goal was to evaluate the work of the ISA and position it within the greater context of the social sciences. In short, the resolution was rather critical. Apart from other critical points, it openly stated that many publications of the institute do not possess the necessary scientific depth. Too many topics in the programs of scientific research have led to a dispersion of available resources which has subsequently led to an absence of fundamental research in the institute in which many of its research workers have not written a monograph and the majority of work is presented in the form of a compilation of research articles.30

29 Cit. Smirnov, Mikhail, Iurievich (ed.): Nasha zadacha — poniať (poslednee interviiu s 17 iulia 2011g), in: Vestnik leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta imeni A. S. Pushkina 4/2 (2011) 275–284, here 282 f. 30 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 197, l. 2 f.

238  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  Commenting on the critical resolution regarding the ISA sent to the CPCC by the Scientific Council of the ASS in 1971, Okulov admitted that “there are serious shortcomings in the work of the ISA .”31 Mainly, the institute was not able to fulfill the leading role in the sphere of scientific-atheist scholarship. In other words, it could not enforce a research plan which would prevent the rinse and repeat method of writing candidate dissertations which quite often dealt with similar topics. Moreover, quality control also lagged behind in many cases which resulted in the successful defense of dissertations which suffered from “empiricism” and “unoriginal research outcomes.” Whereas the first criticism was difficult to eliminate because neither the ISA nor the Scientific Council of Scientific Atheism had the power to impose decisions on other research centers; such as MIRA in Leningrad, ISAs within the structure of the republican academies of sciences, and departments of scientific atheism within the system of higher education; the second criticism touched upon the inner disciplinary standards set by the ISA itself. The fact that a considerable amount of research carried out by the ISA did not correspond to the internal standards of Soviet science was potentially a very serious reprimand because it might place into question the overall importance of the ISA to the party. The impending yet unasked question was inevitably: do we really need such a large specialized institute which is unable to produce reliable and high-quality research? Okulov had to address the potentially damaging criticism carefully because the future of the ISA and the further existence of the esoteric thought collective could be in jeopardy. By explaining the past mistakes, he also shed some light on the strategy of knowledge production in the first years of the institute’s existence. Furthermore, his defense could serve as a strategy of legitimation for the new approaches: A good half of our works are of a bare empiricist nature, whilst the deep processes which take place in religious questions are, unfortunately, not touched upon by such works. […] We have to seriously think now if we should stop using quantitative criteria based on the fact that we have published a certain amount of books, that our production is almost one quarter of the whole production made by the Academy (of Social Sciences). The main criterion should be what issues we study, what new knowledge we give to science, which research questions we solve, and what we can recommend to the scientific-atheist practice.32

The unobserved internal endeavor of the esoteric thought collective had been to fill the sphere of knowledge and multiply the numbers of the collective as quickly as possible. However, this effort was carried out at the expense of quality. 31 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 103, l. 3. 32 See ibid., ll. 6 f.

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Only the external circumstances, that is, the evaluation conducted by the ASS ’s Scientific Council, forced, at least, a rhetorical change in this strategy. However, because the evaluation from 1971 was not followed up by other external checkups there was no one outside the esoteric circle who could question the quality control and challenge the validity of its work. As  a result, little had changed in terms of internal quality control at the ISA . In other words, the strategy of knowledge production described by Okulov in the aforementioned citation was the Soviet mode of operation until 1987. However, the feedback received by the ISA from the ASS was not completely ignored. In particular, the notion that great monographs and collective works should be at the center of the institute’s attention in the future created some resonance within the esoteric thought collective. Hence, some internal mechanisms of auto-regulation were triggered by the evaluation. The textbook “The Fundamentals of Scientific Atheism,” published in 1974, preparation of the three volumes of “The Short Atheist Encyclopedia”33, and the capital synthetic work “Socialism and Atheism — Society of the Dominant Scientific-Materialist Worldview” are some results of this change of orientation.34 It should be noted that neither “The Short Atheist Encyclopedia” nor the synthesis of “Socialism and Atheism” were ultimately published. In any case, the preparatory work absorbed many researchers within and outside the ISA for many years. The subsequent reduction of study groups or departments documents the process of the conceptual clarification of the content of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline on the one hand, and the influence of the heteronomous force on the other. The departments’ names indicate three distinct themes and approaches that epitomized scientific atheism at the end of Brezhnev’s tenure. The critique of religion, prevalent in Marxist atheism since the beginning, was encompassed by the second and third departments. The positive content and theory of atheist education was subsumed under the first department, whereas the most “empiric” section, the sociology of religious / atheist phenomena, was carried out by the laboratory. The other auxiliary disciplines, such as Marxist ethics and morals, or the psychology of believers were still present, yet they did not receive as much support in terms of resources and treatment as the main spheres of scientific-atheist knowledge. The organizational changes within the ISA during the 1971–1981 decade reveal that the change was always initiated by the heteronomous force. The esoteric collective was forced to react to the external demands which were often presented in the form of potentially dangerous criticisms. These were likely to place the thought collective into existential peril if not addressed properly. The internal restructuration was an outcome of the negotiation process by the 33 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 209, l. 18–21. 34 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, l. 163.

240  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  thought collective which strove to preserve itself and continue its tasks. It is striking that the esoteric thought collective was able to attract the continual support of the heteronomous force notwithstanding the fact that its production of scientific facts was rather frugal. Even though it may seem that some spheres of knowledge had to be abandoned or sidelined in the negotiation process, a simple examination of the bibliography of the QSA in the years 1966–1986 demonstrates that the thought style was remarkably resilient in this matter. Simply put, once a topic was initiated and gripped by the thought collective, it was hard to completely pry it from its clutches. However, it has to be emphasized that whereas certain spheres of knowledge, such as the psychology of believers, did not become founding spheres of the scientific-atheist field of knowledge, the sociology of religion had been regarded as one of the intrinsic components of scientific atheism since its establishment in the 1960s. Therefore, as the analysis of the departmental development suggests, during the 1970s the core spheres of scientific-atheist esoteric knowledge were established and fixed. Apart from the sociology of religiosity, these included research regarding religious institutions and practice of an applied science to prove theoretical questions and hypotheses of scientific-atheist education. It must be emphasized in this context that the institutional development during the 1970s had contributed to the attainment of the sociology of religiosity within the orbit of scientific-atheist esoteric knowledge. In other words, whereas during the 1960s the status and disciplinary determination of this sphere of knowledge was still relatively uncertain, the organizational framework together with its theoretical justification led to the normalization of the sociology of religiosity within the framework of the scientific-atheist thought style in the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1970s and 1980s, the ISA continued to exist within a web of relations with other significant reference groups. These relations were never a matter of one-sided communication. Therefore, the influence exerted either by the ISA on the other significant reference groups or vice versa often resulted in a subtle change in the realm of knowledge within which both the spheres of knowledge of the esoteric and exoteric thought styles were then structured. Having admitted the mutual nature of their relations, it is possible to outline where the “strategic initiative” lay and through which organizational channels the transfer of knowledge between individual significant reference groups was attempted. In the 1971–1991 time period, the mutual relationship between the esoteric thought collective and the heteronomous force obviously continued. The CPSU and its general ideological line remained the main outward source of inspiration and the framework for the epistemological possibilities of the scientific atheists. A typical example from the 1970s is the previously neglected emphasis on the relationship between national and religious identities. The turning of research to such topics is discernible for the first time at the end of

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the 1960s.35 The need to address the issue rose within the party as a result of the Czechoslovakian crisis in August 1968. As the real nature of the relationship between both identities had not been previously studied by the esoteric experts, the party leaders once again suffered from  a deficit of information. The first overview of the situation provided by the experts from the ISA was delivered to the CPCC towards the end of 1968 under the title “The National Question and Religion.” Unfortunately, the full text was not retained in the archives, but it is possible to extract at least the main topics of concern from later descriptions: 1) theoretical problems of nationalism and religion within the conditions of socialist society; 2) forms and manifestations of national-religious relics; and 3) the abuse of nationalism by the church.36 It can be inferred that the CC CPSU and related agencies, such as the CRA , took the expert report from 1968 seriously because the national question and religion was one of the topics which were explicitly alluded to by the 1971 resolution regarding scientific-atheist education. It must be added that the July 1971 resolution was issued after the XXIV Congress of the CPSU which officially proclaimed the Soviet version of socialist internationalism. These two events were the main impetus for initiating in-depth research upon the implications of scientific atheism for the new doctrine in the Soviet Union, and they also propelled further investigation into the negative aspects of the union between religion and nationalism, analysis of its forms and potential dangers. The updated research program of the ISA explicitly reacted to the outcomes of the XXIV Congress by restructuring the topics in the following way: 1) the ways of overcoming religiosity in the socialist society; 2) problems of ideological struggle between scientific and religious worldviews; and 3) the national question and the place of religion and atheism in the history of social thought and culture.37 The next step taken by the ISA was the publication of the first monograph by Iakov Minkiaevichus in 1971.38 In order to introduce the fresh data, Vladimir Pivovarov was assigned to conduct sociological research regarding the topic in the multi-cultural region of Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR henceforth).39 To facilitate the further production of knowledge on the desired topic, the ISA called a Union-wide conference with 35 See Andrianov, Nikolai, Pavlovich / Pavliuk, Vladimir, Vasilevich: Kuľturnaia revoliutsia v natsionaľnykh respublikakh i razvitie ateizma mass, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 4 (1967) 157–181, Sharveskaia, Berta, Isaakovna: Natsionaľno-osvoboditeľnoe dvizhenie i religiia v tropicheskoi Afrike, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 5 (1968) 213–231, Nishanov, Rafik, Nishanovich: Razreshenie natsionaľnogo voprosa v SSSR i preodolenie religii v svete leninskogo ucheniia (Na primere Uzbekskoi SSR), in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 10 (1970) 167–187. 36 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 206, l. 13. 37 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 197, l. 4. 38 See Minkiaevichus, Iakov, Vasilevich: Katolitsizm i natsiia. Moskva 1971. 39 The full title of the survey was “Everyday Life (byt), Culture, National Traditions and Beliefs of the Population in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR ,” See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 194, l. 3. 

242  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  the title “The Question of Nationalism and Religion” in 1972.40 Afterwards the first semi-public article appeared in the QSA published in the same year.41 The first entry was followed by subsequent articles in the QSA in 1975 and 1978.42 Another organizational step by the ISA was an increase in the number of available specialists. There were two ISA aspirants, admitted in the academic year 1976/1977, who were assigned topics closely connected to the issues of nationalism and religion.43 While the middle of the 1970s can be interpreted as the peak of the research regarding this sphere of knowledge, the end of the 1970s marks a subsequent decrease in the activity and the sidelining of these topics. The decrease of interest in the topic in the 1980s can be externally as well as internally explained. Firstly, the Brezhnev administration after the beginning of the Afghan War did not accent the internationalist aspect of the doctrine as much as it had during the course of the 1970s. As a result, there was a much weaker demand for research dealing precisely with these kinds of topics by the heteronomous force. Secondly, the new leadership of the ISA could see that the topic could not be investigated any further in the given circumstances which was reflected also in the restructuration of the institute at the beginning of the 1980s. The question regarding the issues of religion and nationalism was briefly taken up by the ISA members at the time of the christening of the Kievan Rus celebration in 1988. However, the whole socio-political context was quite different at this time. It is remarkable in this respect that the QSA still published articles in the scientific-atheist thought style, even though the public sphere became broader and broader, and the action radius as well as mental horizon of 40 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 198, l. 11. 41 See Dzhegutanov, Eduard, Khamidovich: Edinstvo internatsionaľnogo i ateistichesko­go vospitania, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 13 (1972) 79–100. 42 For the main articles published during 1975 see Pivovarov, Viktor, Grigorevich: Sotsiologicheskoe issledovanie problem byta, kuľtury, natsionaľnykh traditsii i verovanii v Checheno-Ingushskoi ASSR , in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 14 (1975) 310–319, Osipov, Oleg, Petrovich: Protiv falsifikatsii roli religii v  razvitii natsionaľnykh othnoshenii, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 18 (1975) 57–72, and Konovalov, Boris, Nikolaevich, Iz istorii internatsionaľnykh sviazei sovietskikh ateistov, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 18 (1975) 329–353. In 1978 continued the publication of articles regarding the topic. See Kocharli, Firuddin, ­Kasumirovich  / Dashdamirov, Afrand, Fridunovich: Internatsionaľnye faktory razvitiia massovogo ateizma, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 22 (1978) 40–49, Osipov, Oleg, Petrovich: Razvitie natsionaľnykh otnoshenii i stanovlenie ateisticheskogo soznania, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 22 (1978) 67–75, Anderson, Imant, Avgustovich: Vazhnyi aspekt internatsionalizatsii dukhovnoi zhizni naroda, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 22 (1978) 76–84, Veshchikov, Aleksandr, Trofimovich: Edinstvo internatsionalistskogo i ateisticheskogo vospitania, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 22 (1978) 178–189. 43 Aspirant F. N. Beschastnaia worked on the topic called Problems of Atheist Education in the Conditions of Multi-national Work-collective, and M. G. Mustafaeva dealt with Interrelation of the Internationalist and Atheist Education of the Youth in a Multi-national Region, See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 213, ll. 83–90.

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the esoteric thought collective was potentially less and less constrained by the Marxist-Leninist epistemological paradigm.44 To sum up, the interplay of the heteronomous force and scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective from 1971–1987 can be interpreted as mutually advantageous. Firstly, the CPCC requested first-hand information about certain spheres of knowledge, that is, about the relationship between nationalism and religiosity. Hence, the initiation of research came not from the inner logic of the thought style but from external demand. The ISA then typically prepared a short introductory report which delineated the main areas of further research. It should be stressed that such reports, sent directly to the CPCC , were the main channel of ISA’s direct influence on the heteronomous force.45 The other channels, such as individual consultations or meetings are highly probable but unfortunately not fixed by the sources. It is significant that neither the Scientific Council, nor the leadership of the institute emphasized the researching of these topics. Only the explicit promulgation of the party line at the XXIV Congress of the CPSU, together with the complementary resolution about scientific-atheist propaganda, prompted Okulov to update the ISA’s research plan and make the necessary organizational changes which greatly enhanced the subsequent production of esoteric knowledge during the 1970s. It is also telling that practically as soon as the demand abated further investigation of this particular sphere of knowledge was ceased by the institute. 44 See Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 37 (1988). 45 Apart from the aforementioned report, the report about the influence of religious organizations on the youth was sent to the CPCC at the end of 1960s. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 59, l. 28. During 1970s were prepared the following reports: 1) On The Increase of Efficacy of the Students’ Atheist Education (1973); 2) About The Results of the Sociological Survey “Everyday Life of a Nation, Culture and Religion” in Chechen-Ingush ASSR (1973), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 198, l. 61; 3) On The New Tendencies in Ideology and Activity of Religious Sectarians (1977); 4) Issues of Atheism in Republican and Regional Newspapers (1977), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 216, l. 11; 5) On The Strengthening of the Scientific-­materialist, Atheist Education of The School Youths (1977), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, l. 169; 6) On The Clerical Anticommunism (1979), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 223, l. 37. In the 1980s were available records about the reports to the CC CPSU concerning the following issues: 1) On the Realization of Party Officials’ Training in Questions of Atheist Education (1980); 2) On The Strengthening of the Scientific-materialist, Atheist Education of The School Youths (1980), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 198, l. 56, 3) The Main Aspects of Sharia’s Modernization (1981–1985); 4) Recommendations on The Establishment of Political Work with Believing Muslims in Afghanistan (1981–1985), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 214, ll. 66f; 5) Secret Report about the Structure and Number of Workers of the ISA at the ASS by the CC CPSU (1981), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 214, ll. 73–75; 6) On The Ideological and Political Activities of Vatican, see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 225, l. 15; 7) On The Strengthening of Counteraction against the Enemy’s Attempts to Use Islamic Factor in Actions Inimical to the Soviet Union (1982); 8) Catholic Church in The Contemporary political situation in the People’s Republic of Poland (1982), see RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 233, l. 28.

244  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  The relationship between the ISA and the branches of scientific atheism within the KS can be conceptualized as the relationship between esoteric and exoteric thought collectives. Yet through which channels did the esoteric thought collective influence the much larger and territorially dispersed group of (semi) professional propagandists of atheism? Which channels were used to homogenize and structure the field of knowledge by the esoteric thought collective and to what extent was it possible to influence the presumably inert exoteric thought collective which was tasked with the scientific-atheist education of the masses? Firstly, many members of the esoteric thought collective were simultaneously also propagandists of atheism within the framework of the KS .46 Therefore, they could actively influence other scientific-atheist propagandists who found themselves in the same branch. Such was the case with the Moscow House of Scientific Atheism, where were during the 1960s active such specialists as K ­ libanov, Sheinman, Liutsian Klimovich, Persits, Kryvelev and Nikolai G ­ ubanov.47 Alongside these people, who were primarily professional scientific-atheist scholars, professional propagandists such as G. V. Tsypliakov, A. V. Belorussov, L. V. Afanaseva, B. B. Levin, and V. I. Murasheva delivered lectures.48 Another, and perhaps most important, personal influence on the esoteric thought collective was exerted through the official authority of the “Scientific-­ Methodological Council on the Propaganda of Scientific Atheism at the AllUnion Knowledge Society.” Members of this executive body not only assessed the qualities of materials but also decided questions regarding the direction of the propaganda as well as which topics should receive the greatest amount of attention.49 It is no surprise that the majority of this important organ was composed of scholars and academicians, that is, people who were primarily members of the esoteric thought collective. In 1968, the Council body had 63 members. Four of them were also members of the ISA , namely Velikovich, Gubanov, Kurochkin, and Persits. Other members were either from university departments, museums such as MIRA , ideological departments of the party, CRA and so on. It is significant that during the 1970s the chairman of the Scientific-Methodical Committee was none other than Kurochkin.50 Remarkably enough, the rankand-file propagandists were a relatively small minority.51 46 For example in the academic year 1971/1972 delivered ISA members five hundred lectures and presentations in more than sixty towns and cities. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 100, l. 13. 47 See TsAGM , f. 1782, op. 1, d. 106, ll. 11–15. 48 See TsAGM , f. 1782, op. 1, d. 48, l. 21. 49 See GARF, f. a-561, op. 1, d. 1059, ll. 1–6, GARF, f. a-561, op. 1, d. 1116, ll. 1–5, and GARF, f. a-561, op. 1, d. 1057, ll. 1–17. 50 See Pamiati Pavla Konstantinovicha Kurochkina, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 28 (1981) 330. 51 See TsAGM , f. 1782, op. 1, d. 144, ll. 7–10.

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The other communication channel which served as a homogenization device for the exoteric and esoteric spheres were seminars and Union-wide conferences organized mostly by either the KS , the ISA or, as a joint venture by both organizations. In considering the ways of reaching other scientific atheists in the Soviet Union, conferences were the most direct, immediate and efficient tool not only for the spreading of knowledge and building of networks but for the eliciting of discussion. Apart from participating in numerous local seminars, workshops and conferences, organised by the local party organizations and other institutions such as the KS , the ISA held their own research conferences twice a year (see Table 6 for an overview of the topics in 1964–1989). The overall attendance varied from a few dozen, if the conference was on a rather specific topic, to a few hundred participants if it was dealing with a signi­ ficant issue such as atheist upbringings. Who attended the conferences? The list of the participants of the conference “Contemporary Problems of the Atheist Education of Workers” indicates that of the twenty speakers, five were ISA members or affiliates, five were executive party officials, four were party members working in the field of propaganda and agitation, two were university-level teachers, two were journalists, and two papers were without the speaker’s name and affiliation. The rest of the attendees were made up of various propagandists and party activists.52 Sometimes, All-union conferences were followed by regional conferences on the same topic which indicates the chain of knowledge distribution from the center to the peripheries. Summaries of the conference papers and the discussion that followed were regularly printed in the ISA’s bulletin, and the most important papers were published either in the subsequent volume of the ISA or as a part of a stand-alone anthology. Therefore, there was a strong connection between conferences and subsequent publication and such events served as a catalyst for the formation and production of atheist knowledge. The seminal role of the QSA , which served as a principal channel of communication, should be obvious. Arguably, there was no other device better able to facilitate the influence of the esoteric thought style on the sphere of knowledge than this periodical. Its indispensable role was acknowledged also by Aleksandr Kozhevnikov, who had already in 1968 proclaimed that “in the theoretical training of atheists, the journal Questions of Scientific Atheism represents a great help,” and he went on to say that “many materials in the volumes are genuine guidance for atheist work amongst the population.”53 It has been established that the scientific-atheist sphere of knowledge was influenced by the esoteric thought collective through various channels. However, the question remains how effective was this influence? Were the rank-and-file 52 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 6, ll. 2 f. 53 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 79, l. 100.

246  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  atheist propagandists in different regions capable of change in terms of the quality and depth of knowledge they presented to the audience? In short, were they capable of learning the elements of the esoteric thought style and extracting the old propagandistic clichés? When assessing the rights and wrongs of the current situation, Okulov in 1972 proclaimed: “our atheist propaganda is sometimes quite outdated because it is based on the fact that the contemporary believer is not well informed about the recent scientific facts and believes in naïve fairytales.”54 A similar point was made by the director of the joint scientific-atheist Scientific Council of the SAS USSR and ASS CPCC , Bonifatsii Kedrov, who stated, “When we conduct atheist propaganda by proving that there is no god, we find ourselves in the distant past. We do not need this kind of propaganda anymore.”55 The problem of using outdated clichés was linked to the relatively low level of the specialized education of certain propagandists, that is, insufficient acquaintance with esoteric knowledge. Such was the observation of Okulov and others in Volume 19 of the QSA .56 The problem with the inadequate presentation of the atheist knowledge remained until the end of the 1970s: “Elementary propaganda which counts on the vanishing type of the semiliterate believer is absolutely ineffective as well as  a narrow antireligious propaganda. Moreover, it only discredits scientific atheism,” wrote the new director of the ISA , Kurochkin, in 1979.57 Therefore, the focus on an old argument together with the disproving of God’s existence or simply an inadequate amount of knowledge was a relatively common problem of rank-and-file scientific-atheist propagandists in different regions. To sum up, it is possible to infer that the dispersion of esoteric knowledge to the exoteric thought collective was not as unproblematic and straightforward as it might appear from the analysis of the communication channels. However, more detailed analysis of the causes is impossible because the members of 54 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 112, l. 103. 55 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 116, l. 7. 56 “The propaganda is sometimes conducted by people, who do not have necessary knowledge, and who do not possess the required personal traits.” Cit. Povyshat’ ideino-­teoreticheskuiu uroven’ i effektivnos’ nauchno-ateisticheskogo vospitaniia, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 19 (1976) 14. Similar was the observation of Iurii Fishevskii, who asserted that “first of all, we have found insufficient scientific level and low efficiency of many atheist activities.” The further account made clear that the recent publications of the ISA and other centers of esoteric knowledge were ignored in many cases: “In regions are often prevalent outdated lectures which do not correspond to actual and serious issues such as 1) the place of religion in contemporary ideological struggle; 2) scientific-technical revolution and religion; 3) the mutual relationship of atheist and internationalist education; […] 4) the role of art in the formation of atheist worldview.” Cit. Fishevskii, Iurii, Konstantinovich: Obshchestvo “Znanie” i propaganda nauchnogo mirovozzrenia, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 19 (1976) 73–81, here 74. 57 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 224, l. 64.

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the esoteric thought collective themselves were not able to establish universal criteria with which it would be possible to measure the efficacy of the lectures and quality of the lecturers.58 Therefore, when tasked with the evaluation of the scientific-atheist propaganda in certain regions, they kept to the rule of thumb in the best-case scenario and to stereotypical general phrases of praise and critique in the worst-case scenario. The latter case was far more common due to the Soviet culture of semi-public communication which placed more emphasis on positive recommendations than on constructive criticism.

4.3 The Socio-political Context of Scientific Atheism during the Era of Normalizationin CSSR The end of Prague Spring on 21 August 1968 meant not only political and personal changes in the elites of the CPC . The entering of the Warsaw Pact forces into Czechoslovakia led to subsequent adjustments in other spheres as well. Therefore, the effects of the so called normalization, which began as soon as the reform clique of communists such as Ota Šik, Alexander Dubček, and Josef Smrkovský, had been replaced by  a pro-Brezhnev group of pragmatists such as Husák and Štrougal during 1968–1969, also influenced the development of scientific atheism. Firstly, those scientific-atheist specialists who had been known as pro-reform, and who supported an extended dialogue between scientific atheists and Catholic believers, were expunged from the party and lost their jobs in the academic sphere. Accordingly, the main proponents of change or adherents to  a novel approach towards both religious and atheist phenomena, such as Gardavský, Kadlecová, Hranička, and Machovec were isolated from publication opportunities and the institutional framework of scientific atheism. Thus,  a great portion of the esoteric thought collective of scientific-atheist scholars, which was formed in the more liberal social context of the 1960s, was silenced due to their entanglements with the reforms of Prague Spring, and the thought style they represented and actively fashioned was thwarted as well. Even though the situation for scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia as a sphere of knowledge looked bleak at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, it soon eventuated that the new conservative political elite was not able to depart from this specific facet of Marxism-Leninism. In fact, Husák’s political establishment was desperate to find a mixture of Marxist-Leninist ideology which would lend at 58 For example Lopatkin in 1969 proclaimed that “we still do not have criteria for evaluation of lecture propaganda’s efficacy.” Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 93, l. 57. See also Koltuniuk, Stanislav, Vasilievich: K  probleme effektivnosti nauchno-ateisticheskogo vospitaniia, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 12 (1971) 137–147.

248  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  least some legitimacy to the normalization project. Given that his ascendency was explained as a way of returning to true Marxism after the dangerous and hazardous deviation of the 1960s, Husák mobilized all the parts of the doctrine which would either support his legitimation narrative or create new spaces for legitimation.59 The heteronomous force openly demonstrated its support of scientific atheism during the XIV Congress of the CPC in 1971 and during a subsequent meeting of the CPCC on 26 October, 1972, where the main tasks of the party’s ideological work were discussed. Biľak in his report stated: “socialist man is an active conscious builder of the new society, who has to be freed from all relics and obscurantism.” Religion was qualified by Biľak as part of both categories. He went on to say: The liberation of man from religious relics cannot be solved within the time frame of one generation because it is  a long and complicated process. Therefore, atheist propaganda and education have to be exceptionally good. Their purpose is to break believers free from spiritual pressure [duchovní útlak, JT] and awaken awareness of their own power, abilities, and reason in them.60

In the eyes of political leaders, scientific atheism could serve both causes, provided it was defined and administered accordingly. Even though it is highly doubtful that the Czechoslovakian political elite, with their existing experience of relatively low effectivity and the potentially treacherous nature of scientific-­ atheist propaganda, had high hopes for scientific atheism after an overall ideological disenchantment, it was not in the position to deny its potential altogether. Furthermore, in spite of relatively cautious and not-too-optimistic reports about the development of religiosity, the scientific-atheist scholars may have successfully persuaded the new political elites that only further support of scientific-atheist propaganda and research could lead to the inhibition, or at least atonement, of the forthcoming religious renaissance. Therefore, it was probably the fear of the potentially rising numbers of believers rather than a belief in the real capabilities of scientific-atheist propaganda which led to the continuation of support for scientific atheism. Furthermore, the possibility of continuing with the atheization of Czechoslovakia gave atheists a strong argument for the further backing of them. Not only was every scientific atheist automatically a Marxist but the inculcation of new individuals, and especially of the youth, guaranteed that the scientific atheists would also be the “right” Marxists because the decisive positions in the scientific-atheist organizations were conferred on those who supported the normalization narrative. 59 See Slouka, Tomáš (ed.): Poučení z krizového vývoje ve straně  a společnosti po XIII . Sjezdu KSČ . Praha 1972, 29. 60 Cit. Aktuální problémy teorie a praxe vědeckého ateismu, in: Ateizmus 2/1 (1973) 45.

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There were also other factors which played a role in the resumption of scientific atheism after August 1968. It is highly likely that the idea to create a new Institute of Scientific Atheism at the CSAS and SAV at the beginning of the 1970s was copied from the Soviet institutional organization of scientific atheism. However, a direct Soviet influence should not be overestimated in this regard. Rather, the decision of the new party leader, Husák, and his administration to first conduct a purge within scientific atheism and then support it further may have been a signal to the Soviets that the ideology was firmly in the hands of the new leadership. The symbolic elevation of scientific atheism to the status of a structurally independent scholarly discipline, formally attested by the foundation of the ISA in Brno and Bratislava, only underscored such efforts. Consequently, after the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective was weakened by the dismissal of its leading figures, it was then almost immediately rejuvenated in order to carry out various tasks for the new political establishment. The amount of resources and attention which were given to the re-structuring of scientific-atheist scholarship points to the fact that the relative importance of this type of knowledge for the party elite had risen compared to its meagre beginnings in the 1950s and the orientation to scientific-atheist propaganda and education at the beginning of the 1960s. Therefore, even though the scientific-atheist propaganda carried out by the Socialist Academy, which was a successor organization of the SPŠPVZ , did not completely perish, the emphasis in the 1970s and 1980s was on scientific-atheist research. In addition, the two Institutes of Scientific Atheism were the foundations of atheist scholarship which then expanded onto the university level. Again, the decision to create a specialization out of scientific atheism in the faculty of Arts of the Pavel Josef Šafárik University in Prešov and the introduction of obligatory courses of scientific atheism at some other universities and selected high schools indicates the role of the Soviet example in these matters as well as a change of emphasis regarding the training of specialized cadres who afterwards sought to continue their professional occupations as members of the exoteric thought collective. The first academic year of instruction in the discipline of scientific atheism was 1973/1974.61 The students of the combination including civics, philosophy, and scientific atheism could “be employed as researchers or workers in various educational and cultural institutions, i. e. in the ideological and cultural-political work in general and in the sphere of worldview and atheist education in particular.”62 Since its foundation, the Department of Scientific

61 See Leško, Marián: Dvě výročí Katedry Marxisticko-Leninské filosofie  a vědeckého ateismu Filosofické fakulty UPJŠ v Prešově, in: Ateizmus 11/6 (1983) 586–589, here 586. 62 Cit. Katová, Zdena: Vědecký ateismus jako obor vysokoškolského studia na FF UPJŠ v Prešově, in: Ateizmus, 3/1 (1975) 47–49, here 47.

250  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  Atheism has annually produced between 15–20 graduates specializing in scientific atheism. According to the anniversary report published in commemoration of ten years since the foundation of the Department of Scientific Atheism, the total number of graduates over the years exceeded two hundred. The majority of graduates were Slovaks and almost all of them continued their professional careers as scientific-atheist specialists in Slovakia, be it either in the academic sphere in the position of an “aspirant,” in the bureaucratic apparatus of the party (such as the commission for religious affairs), as members of the SPOZ or at the Ministry of Culture.63 The possibility of continuing scientific-atheist studies on a post-gradual level greatly enhanced the reproduction of the esoteric thought collective. In other words, if direct mass education provided by a lecturer of the SPŠPVZ was earlier favored, the approach of party officials during normalization favored the less visible but potentially more effective inculcation of pre-selected individuals as a part of the university curriculum. This change of emphasis also helped to normalize scientific atheism in the framework of other academic disciplines. As scientific-atheist knowledge was made compulsory in the course of the 1970s, it lost much of its alien or external veneer which had been typical of the atheist lectures in the framework of the SPŠPVZ in former decades. Undoubtedly, the macro political changes in Czechoslovakia during 1968–1969 influenced the micro level of scientific atheism. It is almost certain that if the invasion of the Warsaw Pact forces had not occurred, then the scientific-atheist realm of knowledge would have looked completely different. On the other hand, it seems highly unlikely that its status and institutional framework would have expanded as greatly as it did at the beginning of the 1970s, if the liberalization course of “socialism with a human face” had gone further. To put it differently, the Czechoslovakian crisis of 1968 opened a way of elevating scientific atheism’s status. The change was so profound that it allows an interpretation of the 1970s and 1980s as the golden age of scientific-atheist scholarship in Czechoslovakia, although these years were not the most innovative or original in terms of the formulation of theories or evaluation of research outcomes, at least by today’s standards according to some critics.64 The CPC in the 1970s and 1980s continued to manifest its continuous support for the thought collective through speeches. Such was the case with Biľak, who in March 1980 reported the outcomes of the 15th ideological plenum of the 63 See Leško: Dvě výročí 588 f. Comp. with A SAV, fond IVA , karton 22–26. The boxes 22–26 of the ISA SAV ’s archival fond contain personal information about internal and external aspirants and students, who carried out their practice at the ISA since its formation. A brief prosopographical research confirms the statement written in the official report published in the journal Ateizmus in 1983. 64 Comp. with Nešpor: Ne / náboženské naděje, 66–85.

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CPCC 65 and XVI Party Congress in 1981, during which Husák proclaimed that “the fundamental fight against rightist opportunism, all kinds of revisionism, against various exhibitions of petit bourgeois attitudes and relics in people’s consciousness is our continual goal. An important role of worldview education is scientific-atheist education.”66 Such support by the heteronomous force was also evident during and after the XVII Party Congress in March 1986. As the overview of the delivered scientific-atheist lectures during the end of 1970s and at the beginning of 1980s indicates, the symbolic support for scientific atheism expressed by the party leaders was also accompanied by tangible results. Table 7 depicts not only the absolute numbers but also the relative proportion of scientific-atheist propaganda compared to the whole propaganda effort by the Socialist Academy. Although the data are not as extensive as in the case of the Soviet KS , the statistical probe enables the inference to be made that scientific-atheist lecture propaganda was actually much less prominent in Czechoslovakia than in the Soviet Union. Therefore, the thesis that scientific-atheist education was one of the ideological priorities of the party has to be corrected also in the case of Czechoslovakia. In other words, it cannot be denied that scientific atheism was in the post-1968 Czechoslovakia understood by responsible historical actors as an indispensable part of Marxist-Leninist theory. Consequently, the scientific-­ atheist realm of knowledge deserved a right to exist. On the other hand, it was by no means one of the decisive spheres of knowledge, at least for the Czechoslovakian party elites. If this had been the case, the overall number of scientificatheist lectures would be likely to exceed the level of two percent which is also likely to have been a highly favorable statistic presented by the atheist branch of Socialist Academy. Due to the conservative CP leadership the Czechoslovakian “glasnost” was not as powerful as the Soviet one in terms of launching new questions and topics into the public sphere. Therefore, an atmosphere similar to that of the 1960s thaw came to the Czechoslovakian Socialist Republic (CSSR henceforth) much later than to the USSR . This is why the great celebration of St. Methodius’ death anniversary in 1985 was regarded by scientific atheists not as an opportunity to integrate the Cyrillo-Methodian religious tradition into the Czechoslovakian historical narrative but as an occasion to demonstrate the true secular meaning of the two saints for the Slavic culture. As a result, the religious and missionary dimension of the anniversary was downplayed and marginalized by atheist specialists in favor of the secular fact that Cyrill and Methodius had brought an 65 He repeated that “atheist education is one of the prominent tasks of propaganda work which is under constant attention of the party.” Cit. Zasedání Ústředního výboru Komunistické strany Československa ve dnech 25. a 26. Března. Praha 1980, 44. 66 Cit. XVI . Sjezd KSČ . Praha 1981, 44.

252  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  alphabet and thus facilitated the beginnings of written culture in the territory of the CSSR .67 Whereas great social support for the analogous anniversary in the USSR in 1988 has hastened the change in the relationship between the state and the ROC , which subsequently led to the paradigm change within the esoteric thought collective, the social support for the Cyrillo-Methodian anniversary, which reached its pinnacle during the pilgrimage to Velehrad on 6–7 July 1985, was not yet able to instigate such changes in Czechoslovakia.68 In other words, the scientific-atheist realm of knowledge existed in its form of normal science throughout the whole normalization period which ended in 1989. Although there were a few signs of reform which came from within the esoteric thought collective in the two years before the Velvet Revolution, the majority of specialists still wrote within the framework of the scientific-atheist thought style.69 The impossibility of a timely change in the epistemological paradigm and the fact that there was no time to re-adjust the thought style to the new socio-­political context which dominated the public sphere in the second half of 1989 and at the beginning of the 1990s were two important factors which precluded further professional engagement by the esoteric thought collective members within the new epistemological context of the 1990s. Moreover, whereas in the Soviet Union the dissident tradition was relatively weak in this particular field of knowledge due to the fact that there were no renowned renegades in scientific atheism, in CSSR at the beginning of the 1990s some atheist specialists who were removed after 21 August, 1968, were still alive and continuing their work as a part of the dissident movement. In addition to that, the dissident movement in post-1989 Czechoslovakia served as  a reservoir of intellectuals who then replaced the ideologically discredited scientific atheists. The almost complete elimination of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective and its partial replacement with former dissident and highly anti-socialist intellectuals significantly influenced not only the perception (or rather lack thereof) of the scientific-atheist past but its critical denial on the grounds that it was not a proper science. This denial then allowed the construction of the new disciplinary identity of religious studies in the Czech and Slovak Republics.70 Therefore, the new esoteric thought collective created its own thought style which embraced the multi-paradigmatic epistemology typical of Western scholar­ 67 See Lukáčová, Zora: Celostátní seminář Socialistické akademie ČSSR , in: Ateizmus 13/4 (1985) 435–439, here 438, Zouhar, Jan: Ke kritice klerikálního pojetí cyrilometodějské traduce, in: Ateizmus 13/2 (1985) 189–200, Karola, Josef: Cyrilometodějství v koncepcích velehradského unionismu, in: Ateizmus 13/4 (1985) 361–373. 68 See Cuhra, Jaroslav: KSČ , stát a římskokatolická církev (1948–1989), in: Soudobé dějiny 8/2–3 (2001) 267–290. 69 See Bubík: České bádání, 171, 213. 70 See Štampach, Ivan: Jan Heller při obnově české religionistiky, in: Dingir 11/1 (2008) 29 f.

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ship. However, the sworn denial of the scientific-atheist thought style was able to produce only a one-sided critique of the recent past which effectively ruled out its historical appraisal without anger and fondness. Such an appraisal would have been based on the relevance and validity of the thought style for the other significant reference groups in the given socio-political and historical context and not on the presuppositions and value-laden conceptions which predetermine the outcome of such analysis. 

4.4 Institutional Development As already mentioned, the basis of academic research in the sphere of scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia was created anew at the beginning of the 1970s. Due to the federalization of Czechoslovakia the main institutions were doubled and the academy of sciences institutes were no exception. This is also why not just one but two Institutes of Scientific Atheism were founded — each within the respective Republican Academy of Sciences. The “Ústav vedeckého ateizmu” (Institute of Scientific Atheism) at the SAV in Bratislava was already formed in April 1971.71 It was not an abrupt decision but rather the outcome of a longer creation process. This process began in December 1970 when the Presidium of the CPCC decided that a cabinet of scientific atheism should be formed at the philosophical institute of the SAV in order to continue the work of the first such organization which was dissolved in 1967 after three years of gradual disintegration. The independent institute with its own hierarchy, six positions, and the possibility of research initiatives was an outcome of the decision made by the presidium of the SAV.72 The design of ISA’s research and personal development thought out by the institute’s leadership was then approved by the ideological commission and, subsequently, by the secretariat and presidium of the CPCC .73 However, the specific content as well as the nuances of the research themes and the choice of personnel (with the exception of the institute’s leadership) were a product of the expertise of the existing scientific-atheist specialists. In order to receive party support, they had to create a plan which would create a space for autonomous research and, at the same time, satisfy the party elites, 71 The regular XIV Congress of the CPC took place just one month later, in May 1971. The XIV Congress of the CPC confirmed the personal changes made by neo-conservative political representation which, with Brezhnev’s backing, gradually strengthened its positions in the party establishment. During XIV Congress of the CPC was Gustáv Husák elected as the party’s general secretary. This symbolic act can be regarded as the beginning of normalization proper in Czechoslovakia. 72 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n.28, Zpráva o současném stavu a koncepci rozvoje ÚVA SAV v 7. pětiletce. 73 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 55, karton 9, Zpráva o výsledcích činnosti za rok 1972.

254  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  who had the ultimate power to reject the submitted project of the new institute. The members of the ISA in Bratislava were from the very beginning placed in power relations which were determined by the regulative powers of the party’s ideological committee and by their own creative initiative based on the internal rules of the scientific-atheist scholarship. As already observed in the Soviet context, the creative initiative was empowering and legitimizing the scientific-­ atheist scholarly discipline because scientific-atheist specialists were, after all, the only true experts in the area, and it was difficult to contradict their statements from “outside.” The only way of delegitimizing scientific atheism once it had been established as an autonomous scholarly discipline was to negate the realm of knowledge it represented which is precisely what happened in Czechoslovakia after 1989. From  a structural point of view, the ISA in Bratislava was initially  a small institute. With just six academic positions its organizational as well as research capabilities were rather limited. The number of personnel grew during the normalization years, even though problems with cadres and especially with insufficient office space continued to haunt the institute throughout the first half of the 1970s. In 1973 the director of ISA , Vašečka, lamented “if the provision of cadres will not change qualitatively and quantitatively, then the institute degrades into a dummy and provisional decoration,”74 In the “Report about the Activities from 1974” it was written that “the institute has stagnated in the area of personnel building. The main cause was  a critical shortage of workspace, unsatisfactory conditions for qualified cadres (system of short-term contracts), and low interest of this year’s graduates.”75 In 1981 the reports mention nineteen members of staff and the cadre crisis is no longer mentioned.76 In the last year of its existence the number of academic positions increased to twenty-six and the future expansion of the institute was calculated with fourteen more positions.77 The initial structure of the ISA was hierarchical but not further compartmentalized. The director was responsible for the fulfillment of the research plan of the institute in general and was a chair of the institute board. The board confirmed the individual plans of all other academic workers and also controlled their progress. The editorial board of the journal “Ateizmus” (Atheism) also operated within the institute’s structure, although not all members of the full editorial board were core members of the ISA in Bratislava. According to some members of the ISA , the lack of further organization had a detrimental effect 74 Cit. A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 22, karton 5, Úkoly ústavu (1973). 75 Cit. A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 57, karton 9, Zpráva o činnosti z roku 1974. 76 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 33, karton 6, Podklad pro komplexní material Společenské vědy v 7 5LP. 77 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 72, karton 13, Zpráva o dosavadní činnosti ÚVA a úkoly na následující období 1989.

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on the quality of research. They argued that the lack of direction and feedback manifested itself particularly in work with junior researchers.78 The ISA researchers formed the main body of scientific-atheist specialists in Slovakia, although they did not represent the only center of the esoteric thought collective in the country. The other notable center was at the university in Prešov. Nevertheless, the majority of significant articles in specialized periodicals as well as conference contributions and monographs were written by the members of the ISA in Bratislava. If the candidates of the sciences comprised the majority of the esoteric thought collective in Slovakia, then at the top of the pyramid of scientific expertise were holders of the highest academic degree “DrSc.” It is symptomatic that in the history of the ISA in Bratislava, only one employee, namely Jaroslav Čelko, who has been the second director since 1985, received this academic title in 1981 while even the first director, Vašečka, was not able to obtain it.79 Scientific-atheist specialists since the end of the 1950s maintained that every true member of the CP was a materialist and at the same time a scientific atheist. However, as the records of adherence to the CPS indicate, not every scientific atheist was automatically  a communist. Moreover, the party initially did not care much about the fact that this seemingly ideologically laden institute was not composed entirely of “orthodox” members of the party. In 1972 only four out of seven of the institute’s scientific workers were party members, two were struck off due to their activities in the 1968–1969 period, and one was completely unaffiliated.80 A few years later, the ISA in Bratislava had only nine party members and one candidate of the party (38 percent), but 16 of the institute employees (62 percent) were completely without political adherence in 1978.81 It should be noted that being struck off the party was not an obstacle for acquiring a senior research position. The case in point is Bohumír Kvasnička, who, as an expert sociologist, headed the Department of Sociology and its later mutations until 1989 even though his party membership was revoked in 1970.82 Such personal policy represents a great structural difference between both national contexts because in the Soviet Union only CPSU members could study and work at the ISA in Moscow. The admission rules for entering the institute grew stricter over time. In 1981, a report on the institute’s basic organization of the CPS entitled the Selection and Education of Scientific Employees in the ISA SAV mentioned that 78 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 25, karton 5, Ústavní rada 1.6.1976, and A SAV, fond IVA , i. n. 26, karton 5, Ústavní rada 8.2.1977. 79 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 123, karton 18, Osobní spisy zaměstanců. 80 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 41, karton 8, Koncepce výzkumné činnosti a formulování výzkumných úkolů ÚVA SAV. 81 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 18, karton 5, Zpráva o současném stavu a koncepci rozvoje ÚVA SAV v 7 pětiletce. 82 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 123, karton 18, Osobní spisy zaměstanců.

256  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  alongside professional requirements the candidate for study visit or intern research assistantship [aspirantura, JT] should fulfill the professional-political criteria of being a member or at least a candidate of CPC . Alternatively, he should possess the prerequisites for admission as a candidate of the party.83

The percentage of employees established in the party also increased. As another report from 1981 indicates, there were 13 members of the CPC (69 percent) to six non-party affiliated employees (31 percent).84 Due to its importance within the development of the esoteric thought collective, the question of ISA’s leadership deserves special attention. The first director of the ISA in Bratislava was Vašečka,  a well-known scientific-atheist specialist. Born in 1915, he was already associated with the CP before the Second World War, when he was a member of the Committee of Socialist Academicians. He continued to work as an active politician during the days of the Slovak National Uprising and became the chairman of the National Restoration Fund in Bratislava in the years 1945–1949. Following the communist overthrow in February 1948 he established himself as a Marxist expert on religion.85 From 1951–1953 he worked as the head of the Slovakian Office for Religious Affairs. It is highly probable that his scientific-atheist worldview was solidified during these years.86 Vašečka’s bureaucratic career ended abruptly in 1953 when he was imprisoned due to the ensuing political struggle following Gottwald’s death. As were many well-known Slovak Communists, Vašečka was also accused of so-called “bourgeois nationalism.” As such, he was held in custody and interrogated together with other defendants, such as Novomeský and Husák, with whom he had been acquainted since 1940.87 However, unlike the cases of Husák, Novomeský and others, the accusations regarding Vašečka’s alleged wrongdoings were not confirmed, the charges were dropped, and he was released from custody in 1954. His new occupation was with the Institute of State and Law at the newly formed SAV, where he worked until 1968.88 As a scholar, he continued to develop his atheist thinking and occasionally published  a book or an article on the relationship between the state and church, or Slovak clericalism. His book 83 Cit A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 131, karton 20, Zpráva o výběru a výchově vědeckých pracovníků v ÚVA SAV. 84 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.n. 33, karton 6, Podklad pro komplexní material Společenské vědy v 7 5LP. 85 See Čelko, Jaroslav / Kvasnička, Bohumír: Felix Vašečka, in: Prometheus. Časopis pre občiansku spoločnosť a humanizmus 2 (2011) 44–46. 86 See Nešpor: Ne / náboženské naděje, 271 f. 87 See Macháček, Michal: Gustáv Husák (do roku 1951) se zvláštním zřetelem k sloven­ skému buržoaznímu nacionalismu. Unpublished bc. Thesis. Praha 2009, 18. 88 See A SAV, fond IVA , i.č. 126, Felix Vašečka.

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“Buržoazní stát  a církev” (Bourgeois State and the Church) published in the 1950s even received an award in 1958. However, his main research focus from 1955–1968 was in the sphere of the philosophy of law.89 Following a relatively quiet academic life, Vašečka entered the turmoil of high-level politics after 21 August 1968. In Prague on 26–28 August 1968, a protest took place at the XIV (extraordinary) Congress of the CPC , later called the “Vysočanský Congress,” while in Bratislava a Congress of the CPS took place in which Husák was elected to the post of the first secretary. It was the latter congress which denied the outcomes of the “Vysočanský Congress” and adhered to the Moscow protocols in which Vašečka took part, lending his support to Husák.90 As Husák’s trusted colleague and specialist, Vašečka served as the Slovak Socialist Republic as the minister of justice from 1969–1970. He also held the post of deputy of the Federal Assembly from 1969–1971, until he resigned on the pretext of his selection as the head of the newly created ISA in Bratislava. Vašečka remained the ISA’s director until 1985. He subsequently resigned from the post due to his age. Vašečka’s scientific-atheist stance remained unchanged for the whole of his professional career. With his various books critiquing clericalism and explaining the relationship between the state and the church, he represented a conservative approach to scientific atheism which was typical of the second half and end of the 1950s.91 He never questioned the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style of the 1960s which in the Czechoslovakian context emphasized the role of atheist education and the irrevocability of the Marxist theses regarding the nature of religion. Moreover, he never advocated the need to initiate a dialogue with believers or re-think scientific atheism as “metaphysics of Marxism.”92 The case of Vašečka’s successor, Čelko, was slightly different. Čelko, born in 1923, actively participated in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 and had been  a member of the CPC since 1946. After completing his studies at the university in Brno in 1950, he was appointed to the Slovakian Department for Religious Affairs. During this time, he became acquainted with the department’s director, Vašečka. However, unlike Vašečka, Čelko progressed up the career ladder after the process with “bourgeois nationalists” had been closed. From 1954–1956 he had worked in the apparatus of the CPCC and studied in Moscow at the ASS from 1956–1960. Čelko returned to Czechoslovakia in 1960 where he was made the head of the scientific-atheist department which was being formed in the first half of the 89 See Pavlík, Ondrej: K sedmdesátce Felixe Vašečky, in: Ateizmus 13/1 (1985) 64–65. 90 About the role of the Congress of the Slovak Communist Party in the initiation of the normalization in Czechoslovakia as well as about Husák’s role in it see Rychlík, Jan: Češi a Slováci ve 20. století. Česko-slovenské vztahy 1945–1992. Praha 1997, 248–257. 91 See Vašečka, Felix: Funkcia církví v spoločnosti. Bratislava 1960. 92 See Vašečka, Felix: Životný príklad materialistov — činiteľ prevýchovy veriacich, in: Kvasnička (ed.): Za marxistické poňatie, 93–106.

258  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  1960s but eventually dissolved in 1965. After that, he worked as the director of multiple institutes of Marxist philosophy at various universities in Slovakia from 1967–1971. After being a curator of the “Matice Slovenská” (Slovak Foundation) from 1971–1973, he worked as a special advisor at the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Socialist Republic. From the beginning of the 1950s, he was also a lector of scientific atheism at the CC of the CPS and CPC . Accordingly, despite his relatively early and long-lasting involvement with scientific atheism since the beginning of the 1950s, he only returned to the ISA in Bratislava in 1977.93 His fields of expertise at the ISA SAV were predominantly the sociological research of secularization and religiosity in Slovakia and the theory of the church’s politics. After four years at the ISA , Čelko defended his doctoral thesis called “Struggles for Social Progress and the Ideological Activity of Churches.” In 1982, he became a deputy director of the ISA SAV. When Vašečka left the institute in 1985, Čelko was not only the employee with the highest academic degree but one of the most experienced scientific-atheist scholars and managers of science available. His unproblematic attitude towards the post-1968 regime, which he actively endorsed, his unproblematic relationship with Vašečka and with Soviet scientific atheists also played a role in the decision-­ making process regarding Vašečka’s replacement.94 Although Čelko did not have much time to make visible changes in the ISA or its publication production in the four remaining years, it appears that Vašečka’s shadow loomed over ISA in Bratislava much more intensively than in Brno after Loukotka’s demise. The foundation of the ISA at the CSAS occurred soon after the formation of the Slovakian ISA . The decision must have been made in 1970–1971 because the proposal from December, 1969, to create an Institute for Philosophy and Sociology at the CSAS did mention neither the existence of the separate institute of scientific atheism nor a department of scientific atheism within the framework of the proposed institute.95 The first extant deliberations about  a specialized scientific-atheist department are dated in April 1971, that is, only after the Slovakian ISA was already formed. The location of the Czech scientific-atheist research center was chosen based on its relative vicinity to the researched phenomena. Moreover, the trend of 93 Čelko published his first short book in 1953 with the title “Úloha církví při vykořisťování pracujících” (The Task of Churches in the Process of Workers’ Exploitation). He continued to write about scientific-atheist topics when he worked at the scientific-atheist department at the beginning of 1960s. See e.g. Čelko, Jaroslav: Společnost, mládež a náboženství. Bratislava 1962. 94 See A SAV, fond ÚVA , karton 17, i.č. 123, osobní spisy zaměstnanců — Jaroslav Čelko, and A SAV, fond ÚVA , karton 23, Jaroslav Čelko, obhajoba doktorské disertační práce, 5.11.1981. 95 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 3, sign. 11, Návrh na vytvoření Ústavu pro filosofii a sociologii ČSAV, l. 18.

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relegating research centers to cities other than the capital in order to boost regional intellectual capacities could also have been a factor.96 Brno, the heart of Moravia and also the second largest and most important city in the Czech Socialist Republic (CSR henceforth) was ideal for such research because this part of the republic was considered to be much more religious than the rest of it.97 However, the intentions to re-purpose the already existing philosophical cabinet of the CSAS as a center of atheistically oriented research were met with genuine disapproval by the existing academic workers. Although they could not deny the proposal from the Moravian regional committee of the CPC altogether, they highlighted that “it would not be felicitous if the new department exclusively pursued the research of religiosity.” The existing employees objected further: “in the next period some employees will probably switch to other politically important goals. The sole research of religiosity would be too fragmentary.”98 It is clear that the defensive tone of the existing staff of the philosophic cabinet aimed to minimize the necessary evil and tried to uphold the general philosophic orientation of the cabinet and, at the same time, downplay the importance and efficacy of the atheist research. Therefore, they also took issue with the proposed change of the name: as the name of the new department “the Cabinet (or Institute)  for Philosophy and Sociology” can be taken into consideration. To state the problems of religiosity directly in the name would not be proper for tactical reasons for work in the terrain could be made more difficult.99

The heteronomous force had the upper hand in the struggle for the future conception of the Philosophical Cabinet at the CSAS in Brno, and the academic employees had to accept the changes that were made on the political level. In August 1971 it was clear that the Philosophical Cabinet would be restructured and their main activity related to the research of worldviews.100 Once the purpose

96 One of the best examples of this trend in the Soviet context is of course the foundation, construction and exploitation of “akademgorodok” in Novosibirsk initiated in 1957 by Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentiev. 97 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 3, sign. 11, Návrh na reorganizaci pracoviště ČSAV v Brně, l. 1. 98 Cit. A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 3, sign. 11, Zpráva o perspektivách filo­ sofického pracoviště v Brně, l. 2. 99 Cit. ibid., l.3. 100 The main goal was to “concentrate research on the actual forms of religion and atheism. […] It is an imperative to find out optimal forms of complex influencing of these attitudes in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism. A special attention must be paid to the youth, especially in the question of the origins and development of supra-individual goals of various youth groups.” Cit. A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 3, sign. 11, Návrh na reorganizaci pracoviště ČSAV v Brně, l. 2.

260  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  of the new center was confirmed, the formation of the ISA within the structure of the CSAS could follow in January 1972.101 The ISA in Brno initially had just four employees.102 However, the number grew over the years. According to  a report from 1980, there were eighteen employees on the payroll of the ISA in Brno, students on study visits and intern aspirants included.103 The number of employees in ISA CSAS was thus comparable to its Slovakian counterpart. Even though the sources regarding the personal development of the institute from the late 1980s are missing, there is no indication that the number of employees in Brno differed greatly from Bratislava around 1989. From the perspective of the political organization in 1982, ten out of nineteen employees were members of the CPC , which was only 52 percent. However, amongst the highest rank of research workers six out of eight of them, that is, 75 percent were party members.104 Furthermore, the leading positions in scientific organizations based in Brno, such as the director of the institute or department heads, since 1976 had been part of the local party organization’s nomenclature. This effectively disqualified any non-party affiliated research-worker from obtaining  a leading position in the academic sphere. Even though cancelled party membership closed the door to career advancement within the ISA in Brno, it was not a determining factor regarding dismissal, as the case of Miroslav Daňhel demonstrates.105 Therefore, on the political level the cadre politics at both Czechoslovakian institutes were analogous. The internal structure of the ISA in Brno also saw a few changes over time. At the vertical level the changes had a personal character. The first director of the ISA in Brno, Loukotka, assumed the position in 1972. Until his appointment, he had been a conservative atheist thinker. He was influenced mainly by the ideas 101 See Václavík: Český ateismus 480, and Sekot, Aleš: Deset let ústavu vědeckého ateismu

ČSAV, in: Filosofický časopis 4 (1982) 673. 102 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 3, sign. 11, Podkladová zpráva pro pracovní skupinu pro vědu a výzkum vysokoškolské komise KV KSČ v Brně. David Václavík in his article maintains that the ÚVA in Brno had twelve employees in 1972. Thes data do not find

any support in sources. It is possible that Václavík meant the number of employees in 1977 comp. with Václavík: Český ateismus 480. 103 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 5, sign. 412, i.č. 35, Seznamy pracovníků ústavu. 104 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 5, sign. 40, i.č. 32, The letter from 22 October 1982, “K rozboru kádrové struktury společenskovědních ústavů ČSAV.” 105 In a report from 1979 was Daňhel evaluated positively, even though he was not politically organized. The main reason behind such  a good evaluation was his engagement in propagandistic work within the structure of the Socialist Academy. However, despite overall good impression, the verdict was that “he is unfit for leading positions.” See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER ČSAV, karton 5, sign. 40, i.č. 32, Podklad pro zprávu pro předsednictvo Jm KV KSČ , 26.1.1979.

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of Kolman and other Soviet atheists from the end of the 1950s.106 As such, he can be placed into the same category of professional atheists as Vašečka, although his professional occupation was not as stellar (and potentially dangerous) as the career of the first director of the ISA in Bratislava. Loukotka, born in 1925, began as a teacher and then continued to pursue a vocation in the sphere of education. In the 1950s, he had been a headmaster at a secondary school in Moravia and then worked as an assistant in the Department of Scientific Communism at the university in Brno. His first publications were shorter scientific-atheist articles from 1959. Loukotka’s specialization was scientific-atheist education, a popular topic during the first half of the 1960s in Czechoslovakia.107 Loukotka’s habilitation work, defended in 1964, was called “Three Studies about the Scientific-­ Atheist Education of Workers during the Construction of Socialism.” Loukotka rose through the ranks into the post of deputy vice-chancellor at the Academy of Musical Arts in Brno in the 1960s. He also published more scientific-atheist articles and books in this time. However, his new occupation influenced the scope of his expertise which now also included arts and aesthetics.108 The important factor for the party workers, who trusted Loukotka in the position of the director, was his strong disapproval of scientific atheism’s conceptual and theoretical development in Czechoslovakia in the second half of the 1960s and support for the normalization from the very beginning.109 Moreover, he “was active against manifestations of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism.”110 Until his death in November 1981, he represented scientific atheism which was not completely closed to new development, provided it had come from the Soviet Union. As his own research in 1970s indicates, he was able to address new questions as well but only within the existing theoretical and methodological framework. The fact that the party elites in both parts of the CSSR at the beginning of the 1970s chose two typologically similar personae to be at the helm of scientific-atheist scholarship was no coincidence. It reveals the extent to which the “revisionist” ideas of the second half of the 1960s were still perceived as dangerous. Furthermore, the traditional views of scientific-atheist scholarship, which were shared by both Vašečka and Loukotka, were a guarantee that the newly organized and centralized discipline would not fall into the hands of such people again. 106 See Bubík: České bádání, 166, Václavík: Český ateismus 481, and Nešpor: Ne / náboženské naděje, 318. 107 See Za profesorem Jiřím Loukotkou, in: Ateizmus 10/2 (1982) 203–213, here 203 f., Nešpor: Ne / náboženské naděje, 270 f. 108 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , karton 6, sing. 42, i.č. 36, Ceny, odměny a vyznamenání. 109 See Hodovský, Ivan / Karola, Josef / Křenek, František: Nad odkazem Jiřího Loukotky, in: Ateizmus 13/3 (1985) 261–269, here 262. 110 Cit. A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , karton 6, sign. 42, i.č. 36, Ceny, odměny a vyznamenání.

262  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  The replacements for Loukotka in 1981 and for Vašečka in 1985 for the post of the director of the institute hinted at the desired direction of scientific-atheist scholarship by both thought collectives in Czechoslovakia. The successor of Loukotka, Hodovský, born in 1938, received university education in philosophy and history at the university in Brno from 1956 to 1961. He continued his studies in the 1960s and spent the 1968 academic year studying German philosophy in the Federal Republic of Germany at the Faculty of Pedagogy at Darmstadt University. His first academic position was in the newly formed ISA in Brno, where he received the “CSc” title in 1976. Despite his relatively young age, Hodovský was a party member with no black spots on his political biography and, thus, preordained for the leading position at the institute which he had occasionally fulfilled due to the chronic illness from which Loukotka suffered at the end of the 1970s. Therefore, Hodovský’s ascendency in 1981, when he was just 43 years old, did not come as a surprise. The institute itself was modernized after Hodovský became the director, and the research emphasis was a little more in the direction of religious science as opposed to earlier, more atheistically oriented religious critiques.111 Furthermore, the name of the institute was changed in 1983 from ISA to the Institute for Research of Social Consciousness and Scientific Atheism (IRSCSA henceforth) in order to reflect the change of research emphasis. It is significant that some employees of the former ISA underlined that “the name of the new institute should retain ‘scientific atheism’ in it because it exemplifies a scholarly discipline [vědní obor, JT].”112 However, the change was rather subtle and could have only been recognized on the level of individual “candidate” 111 See Nešpor: Ne / náboženské naděje, 319. Nešpor rightly writes about Hodovský’s less dogmatic approach to scientific-atheist scholarship. However, his claim that during 1980s had the “theory of scientific atheism slowly become just a barely tolerable makeweight of history of philosophy or descriptive sociology” sees the development from the hindsight perspective, cit. ibid. Nešpor’s opinion does not account for the extensive scientific-atheist publication production, frequency of academic events, or the development of scientific atheism in Slovakia in general. Instead he bases his assertion on later accounts which were susceptible for distortion or reimagining of the past in order to match the changed collective memory of the normalization period. When implanting later claims into the historical reality of 1980s, one should be always aware of the Aleksei Iurchak’s central thesis which claims that the demise of socialism and of the overarching epistemological background was for those who were imbedded in it surprising and perplexing. See Iurchak, Aleksei: Eto bylo navsegda, poka ne konchilos. Poslednee sovetskoe pokolenie. Moskva 2016. Furthermore, the classical studies about the development of the collective and historical memory give an insight into the re-imagination and reinvention of the past events by the collective during every retelling of the memory and to the constraints which imposes the social context of the society and of the group onto the remembering subjects. See Halbwachs, Maurice: On Collective Memory. Chicago 1992, and Assmann, Jan: Communicative and Cultural Memory, in: Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Berlin / New York 2008, 109–118. 112 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , karton 1, i.č. 18, zápis ze schůze vedení ÚVA ČSAV v Brně z 2.5.1983.

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projects towards the end of the 1980s.113 At the same time, the legacy created by Loukotka during the almost ten years of his scientific management was by no means forgotten. Although it is not possible to trace all the seminars, colloquia, symposia, and conferences organized by the scientific-atheist specialists for other involved activists, it is important to reconstruct at least the most important events in order to better understand the whole process of knowledge creation and dispersion, and in particular, where and when it took place, and with whom. Furthermore, the reconstruction of realized events is a clue which helps to establish the width and breadth of the scientific-atheist esoteric and exoteric thought collectives in Czechoslovakia. Even though the event organization was often the responsibility of just one institute, the reconstruction will not delineate which institute organized which event. The following account also omits purely propagandistic events organized by the Socialist Academy for the general public because they do not help to map out the inner structure of the field of knowledge but only the dispersion of exoteric knowledge to the audience.114 Firstly, scientific-atheist events were distinguished from each other by qualitative and quantitative features. The most common event organized by various institutions, such as the local branch of the Socialist Academy, the Ministry of Culture, or by the Department of Propaganda and Agitation, was a seminar. This type of event was one of the ways of communicating the latest developments in the scholarship and propaganda of scientific atheism (see Table 8). The purpose of a seminar was predominantly practical and the lectures and debates should have had an impact on the future practice of the participants. The scholarly aspects of atheist knowledge, especially the theoretical deliberations, were sidelined during such seminars in favour of practical advice especially regarding the process of scientific-atheist education and “hard facts” about prominent scientific-atheist topics, such as, clerical anti-communism, or the anniversary of St. Methodius’ death. During the years 1971–1989 there were at least seventeen such seminars and twelve (70 percent) were themed around either scientific-atheist or more general (scientific)  “worldview” education. Moreover, 14 (82 percent) were conducted 113 See Bubík: České bádání, 172. The timid attempt to perform a paradigmatic shift of the esoteric thought style is also exemplified in Hodovský’s doctoral dissertation entitled “The Problems of World in the Christian Philosophy and Theology,” defended in 1988. Moreover, Hodovský was able to continue his academic career even after the dissolution of scientific-atheist epistemological paradigm. His separation from the discredited thought style was of course the most important precondition. This is why Hodovský re-oriented himself from Marxist-atheist scholar to an expert on ethics. See e.g. Hodovský, Ivan: Úvod do etiky. Olomouc 1992. 114 The following data and statistics are based on multiple sources. Apart from archival sources of both institutes of scientific atheism were used published sources such as the journal Ateizmus, Filosofický časopis, and Život Strany.

264  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  during the years 1971–1980 and only three in the next decade. What was the role of scientific-atheist scholars during such events? The members of both ISA’s, together with Soviet scholars were invited as guests to seminars on scientific atheism in order to deliver the main keynote speech. For example, Kvasnička was one of the three keynote speakers during the seminar organized by the Central Committee of the Slovak Socialist Academy called Scientific-atheist Education as  a Part of the Worldview Education which took place in Trenčín on 16–17 May 1974. Apart from Kvasnička, whose lecture was entitled About the Main Methodological Aspects of the Worldview Education,  a Soviet scholar, Valerii Brianov, and the deputy-chairman of the Main Scientific-Methodological Committee of the Socialist Academy of the SSR , Rudolf Margetin, also gave speeches.115 A situation in which a Soviet expert, a representative of either an organizing institution or an ideological party worker, and either a member of the Department of Scientific Atheism at the University in Prešov, or a member of the ISA delivered a keynote speech during an event organized by other institutions, was a typical pattern of these events. For example, in April 1977, the Regional Committee of the CPC in Zvolen organized a seminar entitled “About the Formation of the Scientific-Atheist Consciousness of the Youth.” During this event, a Soviet scientific-atheist expert, Kolonitskii, a senior researcher of the ISA in Brno, Aleš Sekot, and a lecturer from the Regional Committee of the Socialist Academy in Zvolen, Gašpar Petrovič, all gave speeches.116 Whereas the role of Soviet experts, who were an optional but always welcomed addition to the seminar’s agenda, and Czechoslovakian scholars during such events was to authoritatively inform the audience about the latest developments in research, the role of the other participants was to communicate their immediate concerns and experiences of scientific-atheist “fieldwork” or place scientific atheism within the general ideological framework of the party. A slightly different pattern is observable in May 1983 when the Czech Ministry of Culture’s Department of Marxism-Leninism organized  a seminar in Prague called “Clerical Anticommunism and Current Questions of Scientific Atheism.” Unlike regional seminars covering similar topics, the 1983 seminar in Prague was a high-profile event which attracted corresponding attention abroad. 115 See Kvasnička, Bohumír: Semináre Socialistickej akadémie, in: Ateizmus 2/5 (1974) 453 f. 116 See Sekot, Aleš: Zvolenský seminář k formování vědeckoateistického vědomí mládeže, in: Ateizmus 5/5 (1977) 486–488. Many other seminars adhered to the presented pattern which in fact reflects the hierarchization of scientific-atheist knowledge. See also Kvasnička, Bohumír: O svetonázorovej výchove mládeže, in: Ateizmus 3/5 (1975) 453, Sisáková, Olga: Celostátní seminář o teoreticko-metodologických otázkách ateistické výchovy, in: Ateizmus 7/2 (1979) 198–200, Fiačanová, Zdenka: Humanistický a mravní obsah vědeckého ateismu v socialismu, in: Ateizmus 7/3 (1979) 307–310.

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Hence, neither the active participants, nor the audience were made up of rankand-file atheist propagandists of the Socialist Academy or regional party workers from the ideological departments. Rather, the participants of the seminar were handpicked and, as a result, academic workers were accompanied by teachers of scientific atheism at the university level. The Czechoslovakian specialists from both Czechoslovakian ISAs, such as Josef Karola, Ján Poliach, Miroslav Sidor, and Mária Podveská were supplemented by renowned Soviet scholars Mikhail Novikov, Matvei Pismanik, and Mikhail Lensu. Scientific atheists from Poland and the German Democratic Republic (GDR henceforth), such as Olaf Klohr, also took part. However, the number of participants from the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia did not meet the initial demand of the Czech organizers due to organizational discrepancies.117 Moreover, the prominent position of academicians during seminars was observable even in 1983, although the presence of the teachers of atheism at the university level did not separate the scholars from the Academy of Sciences from other active participants. Therefore, it was more an exchange of experience between peers from the esoteric thought collective in this case than a top-down presentation of completed research to the exoteric audience. The same situation occurred with the Soviet delegation who presented their contributions in the same hierarchical manner as the other participants. In fact, the seminar in May 1983 closely resembled another type of event which was organized almost exclusively by scientific-atheist scholars in order to facilitate an exchange of knowledge between the members of the esoteric thought collective. Such events were sometimes called  a symposium and sometimes  a colloquium. However, the purpose remained the same, although a symposium may have been a larger and more organizationally demanding event, whereas the colloquium was intended for a more intimate knowledge exchange. From 1971–1989, both Czechoslovakian academic institutes and the Department of Scientific Atheism in Prešov organized at least twenty-three such events, while eleven were organized between 1971–1980 and twelve between 1982–1989. Only rarely were these events organized solely by the institute or Department of Scientific Atheism. Therefore, symposia and colloquia were mostly  a joint venture which brought together multiple institutions such as the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy of the CPCC , or the ISA in Moscow. Furthermore, such events were quite often designed as international from the outset. As such, they played an important role in the internationalization of the Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist scholarly discipline. In fact, twelve such events were international and eleven were intended for the domestic scientific-atheist specialists only. Last but not least, the symposia and colloquia differed from seminars in the variety of themes and topics they addressed.

117 See Schwarzová, Jarmila: Mezinárodní setkání v Praze, in: Ateizmus 11/6 (1983) 619–622.

266  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  A significant difference between a scientific-atheist seminar and a symposium was not the audience which was comprised of scholars, propagandists and ideological party workers but rather in the authority to speak which was delegated almost exclusively to professional scientific-atheist scholars, that is, to the esoteric thought collective. This assertion can be confirmed by closer examination of the international symposium “Atheism in an Advanced Socialist Society,” an event which was initially considered a joint Soviet-Czechoslovakian project by the director of the ISA in Moscow, Kurochkin, at the end of the 1970s. Despite the symposium was belated due to an alleged busyness of the Czechoslovakian organizers, it was one of the most important events organized by the ISA in Brno.118 In addition, as the letter by Loukotka to the deputy chair of the CSAS , Zdeněk Snítil, indicates, the event planned at the end of September, 1982, was, in fact, the first of such magnitude and to have such an impact in the ten years of the institute’s existence.119 The event was seen by Czechoslovakian atheists as groundbreaking not only because it was the first of its kind, but because it was a joint venture with the most important scientific-atheist research center, that is, the ISA in Moscow, and it attracted other international researchers as well. In fact, out of ninety participants, ten were from abroad, and also included were four researchers from the Soviet Union, four from the GDR , and one from Hungary. Among other attendees were the deputy director of the ISA in Moscow, Timofeev, and its scientific secretary, Zuev. It is also significant that although there were 24 participants from the Socialist Academy, six party workers, and 19 participants from “other institutions” which is more than a half of the total participants, the main oral presentations as well as the discussions were conducted almost exclusively by scientific-atheist scholars.120 It is no coincidence that all fifteen papers and twelve out of fourteen discussion remarks were also delivered by members of the esoteric thought collective. In other words, the propagandists of scientific atheism outside of academia were present, but their attendance was redeemed by silence during the most important procedural parts of the symposium.121 Consequently, whereas during seminars the active participation of the propagandists was condoned and desired, the same cannot be said of the more demanding and qualitatively higher form of professional communication during the symposia and colloquia. The hierarchy of knowledge, which delineated the 118 See A SAV, fond ÚVA , karton 6, i.č. 28, Ústavní rada 11.10.1979. 119 About the institutional affiliation of participants see A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , sign. 6.3, i.č. 80, Mezinárodní akce — příprava  a účast 1980–1989, Žádost o podpoření akce s  mezi­ národní účastí připravované zdejším ústavem v r. 1982. 120 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , sign. 6.3, i.č. 80, Mezinárodní akce — příprava  a účast 1980–1989, Zápis ze závěrečného jednání komise prop přípravu mezinárodního symposia Ateismus ve společnosti rozvinutého socialismu. 121 See ibid.

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esoteric thought collective from the exoteric one, was symbolically represented by the authority to speak during the event. It was even more pronounced during symposia than during seminars, where, from time to time, even the non-­ academic affiliated participants were given a voice. On the other hand, the right to speak within the framework of scientific-atheist scholarship was comparably more equal, even though a subtle hierarchy based on individual research status and prestige existed here as well. To illustrate, the keynote speakers at the 1982 symposium can be mentioned: the director of the ISA in Brno, Hodovský, and the deputy chairman of the ISA at the ASS in Moscow, Timofeev, who was  a co-organizer of the event. The choice of both keynote speakers is not surprising, but it is important to note that it underlines a pattern which on a symbolic level indicates which foreign research center had the greatest importance in the eyes of Czechoslovakian atheist scholars.122 This international symposium, organized by the ISA in Brno and ISA in Moscow in 1982, should be recognized as an outstanding example of a high-profile international academic event organized in Czechoslovakia. Even though many colloquia and symposia were organized as international events, the institutes of scientific atheism also organized strictly domestic events without international participation. Domestic colloquia and symposia did not differ greatly from the international events in terms of the communication of new knowledge. The top tier specialists, who were also responsible for the organization, gave a programmatic presentation and the rest of the active participants communicated with one another on an equal level. The rest of the audience, comprised of selected members of the exoteric thought collective, were there to listen attentively and absorb the discourse of the experts. Although the events were, by design, predominantly intended for the advancement of academic knowledge, the participation of non-scholars was not completely impossible. While domestic colloquia and symposia were not primarily a place where scien­ tific atheists enlightened members of the exoteric thought collective, the larger international events, as the example of the 1982 symposium in Brno demonstrates, did also fulfill this goal.

122 The same pattern is observable during other symposia with international participation. See e.g. Tomečková, Lenka: Mezinárodní symposium o náboženství  a církvích v  socialistickém státě, in: Ateizmus, 11/6 (1983) 614–617, Cehelník, Marián: Mezinárodní symposium o náboženství a ateismu jako o předmětu sociologického výzkumu, in: Ateizmus 15/3 (1987) 305–307.

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4.5 International Relations between theSoviet and Czechoslovakian Esoteric Thought Collectives The contact between the Soviet and Czechoslovakian esoteric thought collectives can be subsumed under two basic categories which highlight the main features of the international collaboration. The first category could be labeled “personal contacts.” It emphasizes the fact that both sides met during face-to-face meetings or through the channels of personal correspondence. The second category incorporates “textual contacts”, and it emphasizes the impersonal communication which took place mainly in the footnotes of esoteric texts. The implications regarding the migration, appropriation or rejection of certain ideas within one research context and their migration to another one is one of the main features of textual contacts and as such it has been explored in other parts of the present work. Although earlier contacts between Soviet and Czechoslovakian scientific atheists cannot be denied, one of the first cases of recorded communication between both collectives occurred at the beginning of the 1960s.123 It is characteristic that such  a meeting was not yet the beginning of  a systematic collaboration between groups. Although there was occasional correspondence between both collectives, especially after the institutional establishment of research centers in both countries in the first half of the 1960s, the unsystematic nature of the relationship could not facilitate the sense of an interconnected transnational community. Moreover, as was demonstrated in the previous chapter, Czechoslovakian specialists strove to establish contacts with research centers in the West, rather than continuing to pay attention to anecdotal contact with the thought collective in the Soviet Union. In other words, while the Soviet atheists wanted to firstly establish themselves as  a research collective within the confines of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakian experts wanted to develop scientific atheism in their own way, neither side was particularly vested in the idea of systematic, continuous communication during the 1960s. This is why there was only sporadic correspondence between Kadlecová, Okulov, Pivovarov, and Lopatkin in 1965–1967.124 It is symptomatic that Soviet experts from the ISA in Moscow were primarily interested in the survey regarding the sociology of religiosity in the Moravian region conducted by Kadlecová and others in the first half of the 1960s because 123 Apart from Čelko, who made  a personal experience with the Soviet thought style already in 1950s, Arnošt Kolman was one of the first and also one of the most important persons which had mediated contact between both groups before formal international collaboration was established at the beginning of 1970s. 124 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 24, ll. 53–64, and RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 119, l. 48.

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it could help them answer their own questions regarding the new sphere of the thought style (see the subchapter Scienific-Atheist Sociology ). To share and disperse her work was potentially fruitful also for Kadlecová, who accepted the invitation to discuss her research design and outcomes in greater detail in Moscow. The subsequent week-long stay in the Soviet capital had one more tangible result, as she was the first Czechoslovakian author to publish her work in the first volume of the QSA .125 It is also telling that the Czechoslovakian director of the Department of Scientific Atheism was not particularly eager to receive the latest news about the developments of scientific-atheist research theory and methodology, and the only aspect in which she was interested concerned the subject of the dialogue between Marxists and Christians in the framework of the Paulusgesellschaft.126 However, to attend such a symposium and contribute to the 1960s debate could have had unpredictable consequences for the relationship between the Soviet scientific atheists and the heteronomous force. Thus, although it was highly praised by their Czechoslovakian colleagues and Western Marxists, Okulov declined the participation of Soviet atheists in Marienbad under the potentially dubious yet factually unquestionable pretext that “all institute members are fully occupied at the moment with the preparations for the 50th anniversary of the Great October Revolution.”127 Therefore, the communication between both esoteric thought collectives during the 1960s was characterized by selectivity and  a considerable amount of coldness bordering on polite apathy. The transnational collaboration was by no means an expected characteristic of the direct communication. Even though both collectives were not actively working in opposition to mutual networking and the subsequent flow of ideas within the thought style, neither were they particularly open and welcoming. If anything, the relationship between both research collectives seemed more equal, and the Czechoslovakian position towards the Soviet scientific-atheist scholarship seemed to be relatively assertive and not as adulatory as in the previous decade. Crucially, the infrequent communication and irregular visits between both national thought collectives during the 1960s was mirrored by relatively low levels of awareness at the level of the textual contacts, which were established in the previous chapter. The aftermath of the post-1968 restructuration of the scientific-atheist field also changed conceptions regarding the international collaboration of the Czechoslovakian esoteric thought collective with other research centers. As the orientation of the scientific-atheist stream of Western Marxism and Western 125 See KADLECOVA , Erika, Nekotorye rezuľtaty sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia religioznosti v  Severo-moravskoi oblasti Chekhoslovakii, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 1 (1966) 240–272. 126 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 24, ll. 118–122. 127 Cit. ibid., l. 122.

270  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  Religionswissenschaft was discredited and abolished by the new generation of Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist scholars who appeared at the top of the thought collective’s hierarchy at the beginning of the 1970s, the Soviet alternative, together with other partner centers from within the Eastern Bloc, rose as practically the only option for  a transnational collaboration. Furthermore, because the home-grown tradition of scientific-atheist thinking represented by the 1960s generation was accused of not being Marxist, materialist, and, therefore, of being intrinsically false, it was also discarded by the new atheist scholars. Loukotka leaves no doubt about the role of Soviet science in the particular case of scientific atheism: As a result of right-wing activities our scientific, atheist, theoretical and ideological front was effectively dismantled and destroyed. […] Scientific-atheist production, if it was even published, was greatly impacted by revisionism and opportunism. Instead of the principal critiquing of religion and religious relics within the conditions of our society, an unprincipled liberalism and  a false revisionist dialogue has taken over which allowed the entering of right-wing tendencies into both the scientific research as well as the propaganda of scientific atheism. […] Under such circumstances the professional and personal contacts with scientific-atheist research centers in the USSR were  a great help which contributed to the consolidation of our theoretical and ideological front. […] The Institute of Scientific Atheism in Moscow has provided us with great methodological help and its research agenda has played a decisive role during the establishment of our scientific research goals.128

The Soviet scholarship, thus, suddenly began to represent an untainted source of knowledge which had to be followed and emulated. Consequently, whereas the Czechoslovakian scholars of the 1960s did not feel any incentive to cooperate with their Soviet counterparts, the members of the esoteric thought collective in the post-1968 context saw it as the point of departure. The approach of the Soviet thought collective to their colleagues behind borders also changed at the end of the 1960s. The lack of international relations formed a part of the critique of the ISA at the beginning of the 1970s, and the unsystematic nature of international relationships was an issue as late as 1975.129 Therefore, it can be argued that to reinforce the international impact of Soviet scientific atheism and to intensify the bilateral and multilateral cooperation 128 Cit. A AV, f. ÚVA-ÚER , sign. 6.2, i.č. 79, Zprávy o zahraničních stycích, Spolupráce v oblasti vědeckého ateismu, l. 1. Slovakian scholars expressed similar degree of devotion in 1982. In her article published in the journal Ateizmus, Olga Sisáková wrote: “Progress made by scientific atheism [in our country, JT] since 1972 would not be possible if it could not rely on methodological standpoint and theoretical sources of the Soviet scientific-atheist production which precisely at the beginning of 1970s reached a broad ideational synthesis of theoretical and philosophical research and empirical surveys from the 1960s.” Cit. Sisáková, Olga: Deset let časopisu pro otázky vědeckého ateizmu, in: Ateizmus 10/6 (1982) 580–592, here 582. 129 See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, l. 122.

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was  a long standing strategic objective especially for the members of the ISA in Moscow, who strove to represent themselves as the leading center of the discipline — not only within the Soviet borders but in general. In other words, from the beginning of the 1970s both analyzed collectives were in a position which was more than conducive to the development of transnational relations. Both esoteric thought collectives began to open up in order to receive guests from abroad more systematically and frequently. The ISA in Moscow and the Moscow State University’s Department of Scientific Atheism developed from mainly national educational centers to international hubs of training also accessible for postgraduates from the Eastern bloc. Thus, the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style could be emulated through the systematic training of the new cadres who returned to their home countries after the successful defenses of their candidate dissertations. There were 15 Czechoslovakian specialists who, at least, partially received their professional scientific-atheist training in the Soviet Union from 1972–1982.130 To compare this figure with the previous decade, there were just two Czechoslovakian scholars who studied in the USSR prior to 1972, namely Čelko and Kadlecová. Although control over the professional training of many scientific atheists facilitated the homogenization of the scientific-atheist international community of scholars into one unified thought collective which shared the Soviet scientific-atheist paradigm, it was not the only factor which contributed to the hegemonization of the Soviet thought style within the Czechoslovakian thought collective. The main instruments, which created and structured the dominant trends on the level of direct communication within the esoteric thought collective, were international conferences and symposia (see Tables 7 and 8). It is crucial in this context to delineate the role which these events played in the development of the esoteric thought collective’s self-perceptions. The decisive moment that initiated a systematic transnational collaboration between the Soviet and Czechoslovakian scientific-atheist scholars was the symposium called “Atheism and Religion in the Contemporary Ideological Struggle,” convened in Moscow in 1975. While the Soviet thought collective praised it as “tangible evidence testifying to the rise of the scientific research level in countries of socialist partnership,”131the Czechoslovakian collective interpreted this event as “the foundation stone of systematic international cooperation in the sphere of scientific atheism.”132 In any case, it is symptomatic that both collectives explicitly admitted the leading role of the Soviet collective in the international context 130 See A SAV, k. 8, i.č. 43, plány 1979, koncepce rozvoje vědní disciplíny — vědecký ateismus — na Slovensku, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, ll. 83, 173, 189, and RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 229, l. 95. 131 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, l. 153. 132 Cit. A SAV, f. ÚVA , k. 8, i.č. 43, plány 1979, Koncepce rozvoje vědní disciplíny — vědecký ateismus — na Slovensku, l. 3.

272  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  and of high importance to the event. Therefore, the international collaboration in the sphere of scientific atheism during the 1970s and 1980s, at least in the case of the bilateral relationship between the Czechoslovakian and Soviet members of the esoteric thought collective, was determined by the complete and also fully accepted and unchallenged Soviet hegemony. Soviet hegemony was often maintained through the control of agenda setting which was typically exposed during academic events in Moscow but also had implications for the Czechoslovakian research plan. A case in point is the aftermath of the 1984 conference “Religion in Contemporary Ideological Struggles.” When the Czechoslovakian delegation returned to Bratislava, the first outcome mentioned in the report sent to Brno was the notion that “we have to think about the research of the church’s activities in the conditions of real socialism.”133 The appeal raised by the Soviet scientific atheists in Moscow was taken up by the Slovakian ISA . When the Department of Religious Politics’ Theory outlined the plan for further research at the end of 1984, the projects concerning the church’s activities in the contemporary context of socialist Czechoslovakia found their way into the overall research plan.134 This short example illustrates how the transnational influence between Soviet and Czechoslovakian atheist experts could be used to the epistemological benefit of the latter. This paternalistic approach is observable even in the case of the organization and execution of the first international symposium organized by the ISA in Brno. The event titled “Atheism in the Society of Developed Socialism” took place in 1982, that is, ten years after the foundation of the ISA itself. It must be mentioned that the organization of the symposium preceded a bilateral agreement between the Soviet and Czechoslovakian atheist centers which stated that the Czechoslovakian side was going to participate in an international research project called “The Long-term Program of Scientific-atheist Worldview Formation in the Developed Socialist Society, initiated by the Soviet scholars.”135 It is important to note that from the outset the organization, planning, and content of the symposium were a collaborative venture featuring significant Soviet participation. Therefore, not only the form but the topics of presentation and discussion corresponded to Soviet wishes and the whole program was thoroughly discussed 133 Cit. A AV, sign. 1.31, i.č. 46, 1975–1987, Zprávy o plnění DÚ a SPZV, dopis z 19. června 1984. 134 One of such projects was called The Main Streams of Contemporary Political Activities of Clericalism against CSSR , whereas the other was entitled Bearers, Forms, Methods, and Means of Contemporary Activities of Clericalism against CSSR . See A SAV, k. 6, i.č. 33, Oddělení teorie církevní politiky 1984, Záznam z porady Oddělení teorie církevní politiky ze dne 26.12.1984. 135 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , k. 9, sign. 6, i.č. 78, Zpráva o plnění dlouhodobého programu mnohostranné spolupráce socialistických zemí ve společenských vědách na zdejším pracovišti v období 1982–1983.

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by both sides beforehand. The subsequent Soviet and Czechoslovakian joint publication of essays based on the conference presentation was also a part of the preliminary negotiations which were conducted by Lopatkin and Timofeev on the Soviet side and Hodovský on the Czechoslovakian side.136 Apart from the active participation and overseeing of the international academic events, the Soviet members of the esoteric thought collective forged the transnational network with their Czechoslovakian colleagues through personal study visits. As  a rule, such visits were reciprocal and their frequency and regularity supports the thesis that, among all the socialist countries, the Soviet Union was the most important partner of Czechoslovakian scientific atheists. For example, from 1972–1982, Soviet scientific-atheist scholars visited either ISA in Brno or Bratislava at least thirteen times. Visits from other socialist countries were far less frequent, for example, atheist scholars from the GDR visited Czechoslovakia only twice and colleagues from Poland came just three times. Czechoslovakian atheist scholars, on the other hand, visited their colleagues in the Soviet Union twelve times during the ten-year period, whereas they travelled to GDR and Bulgaria only twice. Moreover, study visits to the capitalist West were much less frequent.137 Of particular importance were consultations conducted in the first half of the 1970s, when both institutes in Czechoslovakia were organized in terms of structure as well as research. On the other hand, the Soviet experts granted almost equal attention to researchers from other socialist countries, such as Poland, GDR , Bulgaria, and CSSR .138 In other words, whereas for the Czechoslovakian collective the Soviet scientific atheists were vitally important partners, for the Soviets the Czechoslovakian atheists were only one of many roughly equal collectives they supervised and nurtured. The web of this transnational relationship, which was continuously spun mainly by the ISA in Moscow in order to create an integral and unified international esoteric collective during the 1970s and 1980s, was an effective tool which facilitated the transition of ideas coming from the Soviet scientific-atheist scholarship to other national contexts. The hegemonic position of the Soviet collective together with the paternalistic approach of Soviet atheists to their colleagues from other socialist countries played  a significant role in creating the sense of a particularly tightly knit community. On the other hand, the soft 136 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , sign. 6.30, i.č. 80, 1980–1989, mezinárodní akce — příprava a účast, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 233, l. 35, and A SAV, k. 16, i.č. 83, spolupráce 1982, Materiály mezinárodního symposia ÚVA ČSAV, Ateismus ve společnosti rozvinutého socialismu. 137 See A AV, fond ÚVA-ÚER , k. 9, sign. 6, i.č. 78–88, 1970–1995, zahraniční styky, A SAV, f. ÚVA , k. 5, i.č. 22–28, Vedení ústavu, A SAV, f. ÚVA , k.6, i.č. 29–31, Vedení ústavu, A SAV, f. ÚVA , k. 10, i.č. 60–65, Zprávy, and RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, l. 120, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 205, l. 19, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 233, l. 35. 138 See Zuev: Institut, 31.

274  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  control exerted through the multiple consultations either in Moscow or in the centers of the individual socialist states influenced not only the international image of scientific atheism but also the national research plans. The experience of the production of alternative knowledge within the scientific-atheist thought style, which took place in 1960s Czechoslovakia, was alarming for the Soviet scholars because it demonstrated how knowledge may develop without close observation from outside. As such, the Czechoslovakian “deviation” was an important incentive which reminded Soviets what could have happened if they had not provided their colleagues with the necessary consultation. The question remains as to the degree to which the national collectives of scientific atheists were independent of their Soviet overseers. The short answer is: as long as they adhered to the paradigm negotiated within the inner esoteric circle of predominantly (but not exclusively) Soviet scholars, they could research practically any topic which was deemed important in the national socio-political context. Furthermore, they could even contribute to the general debate regarding the fundamental epistemological questions of scientific atheism. However, the authority and relevance of the research was, in most cases, limited only to the national context of atheist research because the majority of treatises were not translated into Russian which was, undoubtedly, a lingua franca not only during academic events but in the case of the secondary literature as well. The disciplinary autonomy was, therefore, regionally and linguistically determined which meant that it was largely unknown to the international esoteric thought collective. As the willingness to keep the international collective together came mainly from the centers in the Soviet Union, it was not possible to maintain it without the presence of the hegemon. In other words, there was no international esoteric thought collective without the Soviet presence. The decrease in bilateral exchanges between the Czechoslovakian and Soviet thought collectives is observable from the middle of the 1980s, that is, from the beginning of “perestroika.” Although the two-sided collaboration continued until the end of 1989, the frequency and desire for participation by the Soviet side abated as the local thought collective descended into a struggle over the formulation of a new paradigm which would be able to persist in the changed socio-political circumstances of the late-Gorbachevian Soviet Union.

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4.6 Elements of the Scientific-Atheist Thought Style 4.6.1 The Theological Revisionism of Scientific Atheism Although it had a relatively short lifespan, the change in the scientific-atheist thought style within the esoteric thought collective in Czechoslovakia during the 1960s left a lasting impression on the self-perception of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline in the forthcoming decades. In hindsight, the 1960s for atheist scholars in the Soviet Union as well as in post-1968 Czechoslovakia were a memento of false thinking which should never be repeated. In order to rebuilt and consolidate the scientific-atheist thought style, it was, therefore, necessary to create new concepts and terminology which would first be able to delineate and then adequately analyze and assess the “falsification of scientific atheism” and separate it effectively from the authentic scientific atheism, represented by the Soviet thought style. The existing dichotomy between “them” and “us,” which was relatively easily developed by the Soviet experts during the 1960s, was insufficient for these purposes because it conceptualized “our” Marxist-Leninist scientific atheism as authentic and truly scientific, whilst “their” bourgeois atheism or theological construction of atheism was, from the outset, built on false assumptions. Therefore, the line between the two thought collectives who adhered to two completely different and mutually exclusive thought styles was functional as long as there were no partisan modifications of the thought style on the part of members of “our” thought collective.139 The need to construct a new analytical category within the existing Soviet scientific-atheist thought style was motivated by an urgent need to dissociate “us” from potentially quite dangerous deviations which, as was almost immediately established by the esoteric thought collective in Moscow, had two main sources; one of them in France and the other one in socialist Czechoslovakia. The first criticism of Garaudy in the Soviet context appeared in July 1968, that is, in the middle of the Prague Spring. Among other objections against the French Marxist, Miran Mchedlov, during the defense of his doctoral thesis at the ISA in Moscow, mentioned that “he [Garaudy, JT] understands religion as a kind of 139 It is important to note in this context that those ideas and authors who will be later re-interpreted and re-signified as “renegades of Marxism” or “revisionists” were during 1960s by far and large accepted as “our” thinkers, i. e. as members of “our” thought collective. The case in point represents either Garaudy or Kadlecová whose work was published not only in 1960s Czechoslovakia but in the Soviet Union as well. Therefore, the emergence of nominally Marxist, but intrinsically false streams of thought, represented by the term “revisionism” which in the context of scientific atheism appears first at the beginning of 1970s, was  a relatively new phenomenon which complicated hitherto simple dichotomy between “them” and “us.”

276  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  ferment which acts as a spontaneously revolutionizing factor. Here, I believe, he is mistaken.”140 Although such commentary could be disregarded as insignificant, it indicates the beginning of a change within the thought collective. The political reaction of the heteronomous force against the Prague Spring just a few months later inspired an even more radical demarcation of the thought style which suddenly appeared in potential danger of being tainted by the French and Czechoslovakian “deviation.” Consequently, the appearance of the term “revisionism” in the scientificatheist thought style was likely to have been related to the sudden need to guard “our” knowledge and “our” perspective, that is, “our” thought style, from politically, ideologically and epistemologically discredited former members of the esoteric thought collective. This need was far more pressing in the Czechoslovakian than in the Soviet context. Whereas for Soviet scientific atheists the revisionism within the discipline was understood as something external because the overwhelming majority of the Soviet esoteric thought collective members neither participated in the research networks nor elaborated on revisionist ideas, it was a completely different matter for their Czechoslovakian counterparts. For the post-1968 thought collective in Czechoslovakia it was particularly important to clarify what kind of scientific atheism they rejected and, subsequently, what constituted their epistemological paradigm. Given that the professional identity of Soviet scientific atheists was not put into question by the recently discredited thought style, revisionism within scientific atheism as a topic of Soviet research enquiry remained sidelined during the 1970s and 1980s. If it was discussed at all, it was typically described as one of the falsifications of scientific atheism and placed on a similar level to bourgeois atheism and western theology.141 It was not completely forgotten by the Soviet thought collective, but it was not picked up as one of the constitutive topics which would significantly influence the thought style, and the Soviet experts were certainly not the leaders of the debate on revisionism in the context of the international thought collective.142 The situation in the Soviet context was even assessed as unsatisfactory in this respect at the beginning of the 1970s: co-workers at the institute do not always come up with timely and Leninistically oriented press statements against the revision of Marxist-Leninist interpretations on the essence of religion from Garaudy, Fisher and other renegades’ points of view against 140 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 74, l. 20. 141 See Okulov, Aleksandr, Fedorovich (ed.): Nauchnyi ateizm. Uchebnik dlia VUZov. Moskva 1978, 10–13. 142 Probably one of the biggest Soviet experts on revisionism within scientific atheism was Vilma Kuveneva, who successfully defended a candidate dissertation on the topic in 1973. See RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 208, ll. 41–49. She later published a book on the same topic. See Kuveneva, Vilma, Mikhailovna: Kritika revizionistskoi falsifikatsii nauchnogo ateizma. Kiev 1983.

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conciliatory tendencies regarding the relationship towards religion and the church, against a false interpretation of the dialogue between Marxists and representatives of religion.143

On the other hand, the Czechoslovakian thought collective during the 1970s and 1980s was in a fundamentally different position. It should be clear that only a thorough rejection of the 1960s thought style and simultaneous embrace of the Soviet one was the main precondition for the existence of scientific atheism in the normalization context. Therefore, if, for Soviet atheists, the revisionism within scientific atheism was just one of the many topics which could be used to demonstrate how their ideological and epistemological enemies attempted to use the politically motivated falsification of both the scientific-atheist worldview and scholarly discipline, for the Czechoslovakian members of the atheist-thought collective the “right” treatment of revisionism within scientific atheism had a truly existential importance. It comes as no surprise that revisionism was one of the official topics of research delineated by the five-year plan of the ISA in Bratislava and, thus, published articles and books were appraised as great accomplishments of the new institution. An external assessor,  a correspondent member of the SAV, Ján Bodnár, wrote in his report regarding the activities of the ISA in Bratislava during 1975 that the outcomes [of the institute, JT] are a significant contribution which helps not only the formation of scientific atheism as a scholarly discipline but also facilitates social as well as party organizations, their program of scientific-atheist worldview formation, and the critique of revisionist and opportunistic deformations of scientific atheism.144

It should also be emphasized that the main publications on revisionism within ­scientific atheism were written by Czechoslovakian authors, mainly Tibor Halečka. It is significant that Halečka’s studies and monographs on revisionism were some of the most important Czechoslovakian contributions to the international scientific-atheist thought style. Not only were his works translated into Russian and Hungarian, but his work was repeatedly cited by other Czechoslovakian and Soviet members of the esoteric thought collective as well.145 143 Cit. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 196, l. 15. 144 Cit. A SAV, k. 9, i.č. 58, Zprávy 1975, ÚVA SAV posudek zprávy o činnosti za 1975. 145 See Galechka, Tibor: Teologiziruiushchii revizionizm na sluzhbe reakcii, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 21 (1977) 202–209, and Galechka, Tibor: Ateizm, Teologia, revizionizm. Kiev 1980. His work was cited in: Gaidis, Antanas, Antanovitch: Kriticheskii analiz filosofskomirovozzrencheskikh osnov katolicheskogo klerikalnogo antikomunizma. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Vilnius 1984, 8, Tomashevska, Danuta: Otnoshenie studencheskoi molodezi v Polskoi narodnoi respublike k religii i ateizmu (na materialakh konkretno-sotsiologicheskikh issledovanii. Unpublished candidate dissertation. Moskva 1984, 6, 10, 19, Maternova, Elishka:

278  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  Given that the concept of revisionism within scientific atheism was new for both national thought collectives, it was the task of individual scholars to construct not only the meaning of the concept but its relationship to the other, already existing, categories of the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style. In other words, those who wanted to deal with the topic of revisionism had to determine what kind of ideas could be classified as revisionist, what this meant in the context of the “normalized” scientific atheism within Czechoslovakian borders and behind them and what implications the definitions of revisionism and the content of the concept had for the future development of the scientific-atheist thought style. This endeavor was of great importance to the whole esoteric thought collective because it delineated what was outside the grasp of the ruling epistemological paradigm, that is, what was “unthinkable” or “unimaginable” within the thought style of that time. By setting the boundaries regarding what scientific atheism in the context of that time was not, the theoretical thinking regarding the positive definition of scientific atheism was also greatly influenced. The first treatise on 1960s revisionism within the context of Soviet and Czechoslovakian scientific atheism was written by Vilma Kuveneva, who was an aspirant at the ISA in Moscow. In her article from 1973, she delineated the main features of the revisionist’s deformations by analyzing the thinking of a well-known representative, the aforementioned Garaudy. Firstly, it was important to establish that his perspective was at odds with the fundamental rules of disciplinary inquiry.146 However, Garaudy’s gravest theoretical blunder was his attempt to re-assess one of the main theses of Soviet scientific atheism because, according to Kuveneva, he tries to establish a thesis about the progressive role of religion in the contemporary epoch and appears to reassess Marx’s formula that religion is the opium of the people.147 Furthermore, the outcomes of R. Garaudy regarding a principal change in the Christian religion’s essence are a consequence of a one-sided approach to the interpretation of restorative tendencies within Christianity. It is an inevitable result of the substitution of the dialectic-materialistic analysis with a metaphysical one, a concession to idealism in key questions connected to the history of the first Christians.148 Borba protiv klerikaľnogo antikomunizma — vazhnoe napravlenie ideino-politicheskogo vospitania studencheskoi molodezhi CSSR . Unpublished candidate dissertation. Moskva 1984, 7, 10, Kolodnyi, Anatolii, Nikolaevich: Ateizm kak forma mirovozrencheskogo znania i samosoznania lichnosti. Unpublished candidate dissertation. Kiev 1984, 18. 146 “Garaudy ignores the main principles of Marxist-Leninist analysis and prefers to use methods of bourgeois and clerical ideologists in order to interpret new features in the life of religious institutions.” Cit. Kuveneva, Vilma, Mikhailovna: Revizionistskaia falsifikatsia R.  Garodi Marksistsko-Leninskoi kontseptsii religii, in: Gapochka, Marlen, Pavlovich /  Filimonov, Eduard, Gennadievich (eds.): Nauchnyi ateizm: problemy teorii i praktiky. Moskva 1973, 34. 147 See ibid., 35. 148 Cit. bid., 56.

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Such theoretical and methodological mistakes, argues Kuveneva, have led Garaudy to fundamentally false conclusions about the nature of religion as  a phenomenon and his role in the life of the society.149 Thus, Garaudy’s theoretical and methodological inconsistency and epistemological willfulness contributed to his inability to evenly see and then assess the objective facts which were obvious to anyone who was equipped with the “scientific methods” developed by the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style. In other words, what separated Garaudy from the other members of the esoteric thought collective was his thought style which did not adhere to the framework negotiated and agreed upon by the Soviet thought collective in the previous decades. The key problem of Garaudy was that he emphasized different segments of the scientific-atheist paradigm. This slightly different yet fundamentally significant epistemological divergence from the established framework allowed him to arrive at completely opposite conclusions. In other words, adherence to a different thought style allowed him to see the objects of his inquiry differently, generate other facts and interpret them accordingly. As Garaudy more or less intentionally stepped outside the agreed “rules of the game” as they crystallized within the esoteric thought collective in the Soviet Union during the 1960s, or, to put it differently, subscribed to a different thought style than his Soviet counterparts, his theories became incompatible with the Soviet thought collective because they challenged the epistemological fundaments of Soviet scientific-atheist esoteric knowledge. This fact by itself would not be so dangerous for the Soviet thought collective because there were hundreds of Western scholars who did the same thing for several decades. What made revisionists, in general, and Garaudy, in particular, an important target for the hegemonic thought collective in the Soviet Union was his self-proclaimed goal of reforming Marxism. Had he succeeded, that is, if his thought style had become the dominant thought style, then the majority of the accumulated scientific-atheist esoteric knowledge to date as well as its proponents would have been discredited because they would no longer have adhered to the current epistemological paradigm. Moreover, because the theory of scientific atheism was connected to the practical goal of scientific-atheist education, such a change in the epistemological paradigm would most certainly have far reaching implications — not only for everyday religious practice but in the sphere of religious policy as well. As previously stated, because esoteric and exoteric thought collectives were dependent on the heteronomous force represented by certain party structures, such a change could not be initiated without the prior agreement of the thought collective with 149 “Garaudy puts aside even such important question as the ability of religion to create illusory fulfillment of the human’s weakness in the face of natural and social forces.” Cit. ibid., 38.

280  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  the external political power. Since the Brezhnevian political doctrine was, in general, not susceptible to substantial changes, it was highly unlikely that the scientific-atheist thought collective would be able to elicit or even successfully argue for such a change of paradigm in the first place. Therefore, for structural as well as ideational reasons Soviet scientific atheism at the beginning of the 1970s was inaccessible to such fundamental changes in its underlying paradigm as well as the structure of the thought style. For the same reasons the reaction against revisionism was so fierce and unforgiving. The Czechoslovakian members of the esoteric thought collective formed their condemnation of revisionism on similar grounds. Due to the internal development within the thought collective during the 1960s, their main target was not only the thinking of Garaudy but also of Gardavský, Machovec, Kadlecová and others. A more focused attention to the topic of revisionism within scientific atheism was paid in the Czechoslovakian context in 1975, when a symposium entitled “The Issues of  a Marxist Critique of Revisionist and Opportunist Deformations of the Marxist Atheism” was organized.150 In fact, it was the first academic event in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union which accentuated revisionism as such. The joint organization of the event on behalf of the ISA in Bratislava and the Department of Scientific Atheism at the University in Prešov was, due to a recent and close experience with the phenomenon, no coincidence. The Czechoslovakian construction and interpretation of revisionism within scientific atheism was based on an understanding which was similar to the preliminary handling of the subject by Kuveneva. It has already been mentioned that the adherence to the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style was also a prerequisite which made the phenomenon visible in the first place. Accordingly, an analysis of Halečka’s works should testify to the level of adherence to the hegemonic thought style as well as help to understand the phenomenon within the context of the 1970s and 1980s international thought collective in general and the Czechoslovakian thought collective in particular. Halečka conceptualized revisionism within scientific atheism as a far more complex phenomenon when compared to Kuveneva. Firstly, he divided revisionism into two subcategories. The first was inspired by scientism and positivist philosophy, whereas the second borrowed from Western bourgeois anthropological philosophy. According to Halečka, whereas the former variation of revisionism demanded de-ideologization and the “scientification” of Marxist-Leninist philosophy which should have led to the “development” of Marxism without historical materialism and to the rejection of the active overcoming of religion, the latter variation replaced scientific atheism with metaphysics or theology.151 150 See A SAV, f. ÚVA , k. 3, i.č. 24, Vedení ústavu, ústavní rada 7.1.1975. 151 See Halečka, Tibor: Ke kritice revizionistických deformací marxisticko-leninského ateismu, in: Ateizmus 4/1 (1976) 3–18, here 6, 12.

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For the hegemonic thought style, which was established in Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the 1970s, the latter variation, which stemmed from Western anthropological philosophy, was far more dangerous because it was more widespread in 1960s Czechoslovakia. Halečka openly rejected all attempts by the 1960s atheists to approximate the two competing ideologies, that is, Christian religion and Marxism-Leninism. Thus, he practically re-confirmed one of the lines which could not be crossed by the scientific-atheist thought style in the 1970s and 1980s. In other words, he stated what topics were not worthy of further research, and what kinds of inquiry or methodologies were not feasible because of the ruling paradigm. A typical example is his attitude towards Machovec’s chief methodological innovation, that is, the dialogue. Owing to its intrinsically religious nature, argued Halečka, its true sense was not “a purposeful effort towards scientific-atheist education but enrichment with ‘Christian values.’”152 In fact, because Halečka was strongly embedded in the dominant scientific-­ atheist thought style, he was able to discover ideological and political implications in seemingly innocent methods: the clerical concept of the dialogue counts on the fact that “dialogical encounters” will be a place for a propaganda of religion, a critique of Marxism-Leninism, atheism, and socialism, and that it will create a space for the unraveling of the ideological concept which will facilitate the misinterpretation of Marxism-Leninism as eschatology and pseudo-religion in order to be able to demand the ideological alliance of the de-atheized Marxism and Christianity.153

Furthermore, Halečka was the first scholar to coin the term “theologizing revisionists” in 1976 in order to describe the common features of the opposing thought collective, personified by Garaudy and the Czechoslovakian atheists of the 1960s. His terminology then became a part of the Czechoslovakian thought style and, moreover, it was one of the few domestic concepts which travelled to the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style. For example, Ján Bilas, a member of the Czechoslovakian esoteric thought collective, wrote that “theologizing revisionists, mainly those, who were members of the editorial board of the Neues Forum, such as Ernst Bloch, Milan Machovec, Ileana Marculesco, Milan Průcha, Roger Garaudy, Vítězslav Gardavský […] have trodden the path of god-builders and god-seekers.”154 In the Soviet context the term was used in 1982 by an aspirant of the ISA in Moscow in the following way:

152 Cit. ibid., 9. 153 Cit. Halečka, Tibor: Dialog Marxistů s věřícími a jeho revizionistická deformace, in: Ateizmus 5/1 (1977) 3–16, here 4. 154 Cit. Bilas, Jan: Garaudyho revizionistická propagace teologie a náboženské filosofie, in: Ateizmus 4/1 (1976) 19–28, here 20.

282  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  although the “dialogue” between believers and communists was in the program classified as “unfinished,” clericals hypocritically [fariseiski, JT] declared its necessity as a “path towards mutual understanding.” However, it should be noted that the “dialogue” was understood by clericals as a transition on the position of religion by theologizing revisionists such as Garaudy, Gardavský, Machovec, and Kadlecová, who thought that such a variation of revisionism was in fact “creative” Marxism.155

Most notably, Halečka argued that scientific atheism is indeed neither a metaphysics nor a theology of Marxism: Gardavský demanded that Marxist atheism should be developed as the “metaphysics of Marxism,” a “theory of subjectivity,” or a “theory of transcendence.” As if it is possible to establish the values of Marxist-Leninist atheism by itself, isolated from positive worldview values of dialectical and historical materialism or scientific communism, out of which it raises and with which it is organically linked and without which it loses its quality and changes into the metaphysical philosophy of man or into a hollow negation of religion, theology or vice versa.156

By such statements, Halečka not only confirmed the adherence of the thought collective to a certain thought style but also clearly distanced the new esoteric thought collective from the old one. Furthermore, Halečka on multiple occasions defended the worldview dimension of scientific atheism. Owing to the earlier activities of the revisionists, such status was in danger due to the fact that many of them confused scientific atheism with either religion or pseudo-religion: they (revisionists, JT) denote Marxism-Leninism as faith and, simultaneously, as religion. However, there is a difference between a faith which rests on phantasies, illusions, and imaginary suppositions, a mystified conception of man and world, i. e. religious faith which is in fact  a psychological component of religious consciousness, and  a faith which is not a faith in the traditional religious sense but a rationally justified and scientifically founded conviction which is a component of the whole structure of the Marxist-Leninist worldview. Marxist-Leninist atheism is not a theo-centrism or a theology in reverse because it is not a simple substitution of the fiction of god with the fiction of the abstract on the level of god elevated man, or a mere negation of god which loses the actual human as a fundamental sense of human endeavor. Marxist-Leninist atheism is not like that because it is not a metaphysics.157 155 Cit. Matushka, Miloslav: Osobennosti borby KPTs protiv klerikaľnogo antikommunizma, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 29 (1982) 181. 156 Cit. Halečka, Ke kritice 14. 157 Cit. ibid., 14 f. For Halečka’s reasoning about the differences between communism and religion see Halečka, Tibor: Ateizmus, teológia a revizionizmus (ku kritike revizionistických deformácií marxisticko-leninského ateizmu)- Bratislava 1977, 179. Halečka also used similar arguments to assert that Marxism and its atheism are not  a pseudo-religion. See Halečka, Tibor: Základné otázky vedeckoateistickej výchovy. Bratislava 1980, 50. The most succinct

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In their defense of scientific atheism from the alternative thinking of the revisionists, the members of the dominant esoteric thought collective were working under many assumptions which they subsequently reiterated in their contributions on the topic. One of these assumptions was that scientific atheism was indeed not a religion. The other one was that scientific atheism is a part of the Marxist-Leninist worldview as well as a relatively independent philosophical discipline. When delineating the latter, Tibor Halečka contrasted the discipline with its revisionist deformation: scientific atheism is neither  a speculative philosophy of religion nor an abstract philosophical critique of religion. […] An illustrative deformation which may cause a reduction of scientific atheism to a philosophically abstract attitude towards religion is theologizing revisionism. Its proponents have managed to substitute dialectical and historical materialism as a basis of scientific atheism by bourgeois philosophy. In the end, they propagated to change scientific atheism to a “metaphysics of Marxism,” a metaphysical “theory of transcendence.” So, scientific atheism was just a term if they used it at all.158

The need to delineate the Soviet scientific-atheist theory of the 1970s from the Czechoslovakian theory of the 1960s was a great desire especially for the Czechoslovakian “normalized” thought collective. The conditions at the beginning of the 1970s were ideal for an in-depth study of the revisionism within scientific atheism, and the fact that this stream of thought was particularly strong in 1960s Czechoslovakia made the conditions even more hospitable. The fact that one of the members of the thought collective (Tibor Halečka) created a special “niche” for himself, that is, an almost personal but widely perceived sphere of knowledge within the framework of the dominant thought style, was a natural outcome of the circumstances in which the Czechoslovakian thought collective found itself in the first half of the 1970s. Despite the usefulness of the negative delineation and careful examination of the thought style’s deformations and its consequences for the formation of new knowledge and scientific facts, it was not enough to distance the new collective from the old one. For the community and its professional identity, it was equally important to agree on the positive content of the thought style.

reiteration of the whole issue with the pseudo-religion thesis can be found in: Halečka, Tibor: Podstata ateizmu. Bratislava 1985, 193 f. 158 Cit. Halečka, Tibor: Vědecký ateismus jako filosofická věda, in: Ateizmus 10/6 (1982) 539–552, here 550.

284  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  4.6.2 Definitions of Scientific Atheism The debate regarding the essence of scientific atheism moved into a new phase at the beginning of the 1970s. Whereas in the 1960s the debate in the Soviet Union was partially shaped by a need to defend the thought collective from the attempts to question the epistemological status of the specialized knowledge, in the 1970s the esoteric thought collective in the USSR was much more confident. Thus, Novikov wrote in a summary article, entitled On the Subject of Scientific Atheism and published in the QSA , that scientific atheism has all the signs of  a science: systematic nature, provability, the presence of scientific categories and terminology, the usage of laws which are based on the empirical observation of practice. It researches issues which are not in the focus of attention of other philosophical disciplines.159

After such a general yet telling assertion which unmistakably places scientific atheism alongside other disciplines resting on the epistemological paradigm of Marxism-Leninism, Novikov defines the content of atheism. In this context, it is particularly important to note how he approaches the recent past of the meta-theoretical debate because it demonstrates how the Soviet thought style evolved in comparison to the 1960s: until relatively recently we thought that the subject of scientific atheism consisted of the philosophical, natural-scientific and historical critique of religion. […] Apart from the study of religion as a social phenomenon, scientific atheism has to research the social psychology of religion, the character of the contemporary religious worldview, the main direction of contemporary religious philosophy and the bourgeois philosophy of religion. A significant place should be devoted to the sociological analysis of religion and religiosity.160

Novikov also categorically denied the possibility of exempting certain spheres of knowledge from the holistically understood thought style which comprised both esoteric as well as exoteric knowledge, thought collectives, and, last but not least, scientific facts as well as the ideological dimension of scientific atheism. Therefore, he criticized the suggestions of Stoichev, and other theoreticians of the 1960s, who attempted to enact a streamlined version of the scientific-atheist discipline: to exempt Marxist religionswissenschaft [religiovedenie, JT] as a separate discipline from scientific atheism would, in fact, mean that the involvement of scientific atheism would remain only in general methodological principles. In such  a case scientific 159 Cit. Novikov, Mikhail, Petrovich: O predmete nauchnogo ateizma, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 15 (1973) 25–37, here 26. 160 Cit. ibid., 30.

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atheism would be understood only as an attribute of the materialist worldview, of materialist philosophy. Everything else would be the domain of religionswissenschaft [religioviedenie, JT]. But all this (issues regarding the origins of religion, its structure, social nature, conditions of its overcoming) actually makes up the subject of scientific atheism. To exempt all these issues from scientific atheism would mean to cut it off from its fundamental problems [it tries to solve, JT].161

As is clear from the citation, the emphasis is almost exclusively upon the study of religion and religious phenomena. It is paradoxical that the positive aspects of atheism, that is, the atheist identity, atheist values and ethics were virtually non-existent topics within the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style for a relatively long time. In fact, the focus of scientific atheists on such issues and peculiar negligence regarding the analysis of phenomena commonly associated with atheism and an atheist worldview was a feature of the thought style typical of the 1960s and 1970s Soviet Union with some notable exceptions such as Iablokov’s determination of the disciplinary structure (see below). However, towards the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, more and more experts emphasized the need to focus on the atheist aspects of scientific atheism. At least, such an observation was made by Ugrinovich in 1985: “we first made attempts to study the role of atheist convictions in the individual life, and we also began to study the beneficial aspects of atheism on the development of the individual as well as society.”162 A slightly different observation was made by Tibor Halečka in 1985 regarding the Czechoslovakian thought style. In his book “The Essence of Atheism,” he explicitly wrote: we have certain deficiencies when it comes to the explanation of certain basic questions which are important for the formation of a conscious atheist conviction. Above all it is important to note that in the theoretical framework of scientific atheism […] the religionswissenschaft dimension of the theory, i. e. explanation of the essence of religion, its history, structure, social functions, etc., has been far more developed, whereas, in comparison to the social need, the analysis of a theological dimension of scientific atheism has been lagging behind.163

The effort to re-wire the thought style in order to incorporate positive knowledge about atheist phenomena into the existing realm of knowledge represents one of the developments which occurred during the analyzed period in both thought 161 Cit. ibid., 29. 162 Cit. Ugrinovich, Dmitrii, Modestovich: Vvedenie v religiovedenie. Moskva 1985, 5. The other books which exemplify  a relative shift within the thought style at the end of 1970s were: Popova, Marta, Anatolievna / Filippova, Evgheniia, Ivanovna: Dukhovnyi mir lichnosti i ateizm. Moskva 1979, Soloviev, Viktor, Sergeevich: Ateizm i formirovanie novogo cheloveka. Yoshkhar-Ola 1979, Tazhurizina, Zulfiia, Abdulkhakovna: Tvorcheskaia sushchnost ateizma. Moskva 1981. 163 Cit. Halečka: Podstata, 6 f.

286  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  collectives. Before introducing other aspects of the meta-theory, which were still part of the debate in the 1970s and 1980s, the ways in which the Soviet thought collective initiated the meta-theoretical debate about the structure of scientific atheism in Czechoslovakia have to be investigated. In this context, the article written by Iablokov is  a suitable starting point. In his meta-theoretical paper on scientific-atheist theory from 1973, he wrote that as an academic discipline scientific atheism researches the essence and rules of atheism’s development in its struggle against the religious worldview, cult and organization. It also investigates the rules of the scientific-atheist worldview’s inception. […] On the one hand, it criticizes the religious worldview, the religious philosophy of life and rituals. That is a negative function of the discipline. […] Its important task is also the implementation of scientific opinions and the inculcation of a positive philosophy of life into the people’s psyche. […] The strengthening of correct convictions is the positive side of scientific atheism.164

It is important to note that Iablokov’s article was written exclusively for the then new journal Atheism, and the role of the paper was to provide a concise résumé of the current state of affairs in the Soviet esoteric thought style. The year 1973 has an important symbolic meaning for both national thought collectives because it demonstrated the epistemological rapprochement between the newly formed Czechoslovakian thought collective and the already established and generally more experienced and stable Soviet thought collective. The rapprochement of thought styles ran so deep that it is possible to argue that during the beginning of the 1970s a transnationally united thought style was formed which is empirically observable in the examples of the Czechoslovakian and Soviet thought styles. From the perspective of intellectual history it is important to ascertain how the self-perception and definition of the esoteric thought collective members regarding their own discipline changed following the end of the 1960s. Firstly, the citation from Iablokov’s 1973 paper demonstrated that the knowledge horizon within the scientific-atheist thought style at the beginning of the 1970s was delineated by the production of scientific facts about phenomena linked to the fundamental categories of atheism and religion. Moreover, these facts were observable and graspable only through the prism of Marxist philosophy and its core methods, that is, dialectical and historical materialism. This fundamental paradigm also remained relevant for the esoteric thought collective during the 1980s: “the scientific character of Marxist-Leninist philosophy is in this context [of scientific-atheist research, JT] the decisive basis of the consistent

164 Cit. Iablokov, Igor, Nikolaevich: Předmět vědeckého ateismu, in: Ateizmus 2/2 (1973) 126–130, here 129.

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scientific character of Marxist-Leninist atheism.”165 As such it is an important document disclosing the particular continuity of the Soviet esoteric thought style. However, Iablokov’s definition also indicates progress in the thinking regarding the content of the discipline in comparison to the end of the 1950s. The main sign of  a thought style change, which occurred during the 1960s in the Soviet Union and was subsequently distributed to the newly formed Czechoslovakian thought collective, was the incorporation of positive aspects of scientific atheism into the scholarly discipline. Accordingly, the thought style picked up the threads of the unfinished meta-theoretical debate which, on the one hand, did not place into question the fact that the positive aspects formed an indispensable part of the thought style anymore but, on the other hand, neither was it clear what exactly the contents of the general category delineating the positive aspects of scientific atheism should be. It should also be noted that the critical aspect of the thought style remained largely intact during 1970s and 1980s. It comes as no surprise that it became a part of the textbook knowledge. In the most widespread textbook written under the auspices of the Moscow ISA’s director Okulov, the section entitled “The Object of Scientific Atheism” contained the following information: By explaining the causes of the origins and for the existence of religious beliefs, by determining the ways and methods of their overcoming, scientific atheism subjects the complexity of religious notions to critical analysis. […] From consistently materialist positions, it gives philosophical, natural-scientific, historical and psychological justification for religion’s groundlessness.166

Significantly, the Czechoslovakian members of the esoteric thought collective concurred with their Soviet counterparts on the constitutive role of the religious critique within the scientific-atheist thought style: “Scientific atheism always has something to do with religion. It is very important to mention that not directly but indirectly, through the critique of theism, through the philosophical critique of preconditions and possibilities which consist in religion.”167 In fact, together with the adherence to historical and dialectical materialism as the general theoretical and methodological guidelines, the critical stance towards religious phenomena was the most important prerequisite which delineated members of the thought collective from the other esoteric thought collectives and from the rest of the society. As a result, not a single member dared to question the critical aspects of the scientific-atheist discipline because it was

165 Cit. Halečka: Vědecký ateismus, 540. 166 Cit. Okulov: Nauchnyi ateizm, 4 f. 167 Cit. Loukotka, Jiří: K otázce předmětu a metody vědeckého ateismu, in: Ateizmus 8/2 (1980) 120–135, here 125.

288  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  one of the fundaments of the thought style as well as the professional identity of the thought collective. The consistency of the scientific-atheist thought style during this period is observable, for example, in the second edition of the book entitled “Introduction to Religious Science,” published by Ugrinovich in 1985. Firstly, he maintained in the meta-theoretical section that the discussion about new issues within scientific atheism, as well as an increase of publications about these issues, opens the question about the structure of scientific atheism as  a special discipline as well as about the content and relationship of its constitutive sections with particular urgency. Despite  a universally shared general approach conceptual and terminological discrepancies still exist. Above all, these discrepancies are observable in the relationship of the critical and positive sides of scientific atheism.168

Along with his colleagues, Ugrinovich made a fundamental distinction between the so-called critical and positive sides of scientific atheism. Furthermore, although he admitted the indispensability of the former, he argued that “with the artificial restriction of scientific atheism to its positive aspect, we actually pulverize it in other Marxist disciplines (dialectical and historical materialism, ethic and esthetic), we liquidate it as an independent scholarly discipline.”169 Ugrinovich delineated the four main complex themes of scientific atheism.170 Although the details of Ugrinovich’s structure of the field of knowledge differs slightly from some of his colleagues, who did not separate the critique of religious worldviews from the study of religion (see below); the overall notion is quite similar to the majority of earlier conceptualizations (see Section 3.1.3.1). Moreover, it should be emphasized that the need to maintain the critical as well as the positive aspects of scientific atheism in order to retain its uniqueness vis-à-vis other “rival” fields of knowledge was equally significant for the scholars throughout the 1970s-1980s. The citations regarding the structure of the scientific-atheist discipline also make it clear that there was  a relatively high degree of consensus within the esoteric thought collective about the structure and content of scientific atheism. Even though there were some partisan voices from time to time who challenged the disciplinary structure negotiated by the majority in order to include or

168 Cit. Ugrinovich: Vvedenie, 5. 169 Cit. ibid., 6. 170 “firstly, religionswissenschaft, i. e. study of religion from the Marxist, scientific positions; secondly, history of atheist thinking; thirdly, critique of religious worldviews, i. e. religious worldview perspectives on man and society, from the positions of contemporary science and dialectical-materialist philosophy; finally, issues related to the overcoming of religion and strengthening of scientific worldview in the socialist society.” Cit. ibid.

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exclude certain spheres of knowledge from the dominant thought style, these initiatives were as a rule not successful, that is, they did not achieve a significant change in the thought style. As identified in the previous chapter, one of the significant phases of restructuration of the Soviet scientific-atheist field of knowledge occurred at the end of the 1960s, when the field was extended in order to accommodate the themes introduced by the application of social and individual Marxist psychology on religious identity. The other restructuration occurred in approximately the first half of the 1980s and manifested itself in an emphasis on the atheist aspects of the scientific-atheist field of knowledge. The issue as to whether certain knowledge should be kept, added to or removed from the scientific-atheist realm of knowledge was far from clear, as the debate regarding the status of scientific-atheist education demonstrates. The epistemological consensus about it was, in fact, an outcome of an incessant negotiation process between the esoteric thought style members rather than a preordained “common knowledge.” To begin with, Loukotka maintained that scientific atheism and scientific-atheist education were two disciplines of a different character. Scientific atheism is a philosophical discipline, whereas the theory of scientific-atheist education is  a pedagogical one. Therefore, both disciplines have a different subject of inquiry and use different methods. Scientific atheism does not deal with tasks of scientific-atheist education because it researches other subjects than the education process — t he outcome of which is an atheist conviction.171

By such  a delineation, Loukotka was trying to establish borders between the Marxist “science about religion” which was based on the empirical investigations of religious phenomena and the sociological aspects of religion and atheism on the one hand, and “applied science about worldview education” which should have incorporated a theory regarding eliciting psychological change in the individual’s consciousness. Contrary to Loukotka, the Soviet expert Onischenko argued that “in the structure of scientific atheism are three main parts — (1) science about religion; (2) history and the theory of atheism; and (3) atheist education.”172 Onishchenko did not support his disciplinary classification with further arguments. Instead he referred to the fact that such a classification is the most widespread in the Soviet Union which emphasizes the interconnectedness of the spheres of knowledge and the relevance of each sphere within the whole thought style. The comparison of Loukotka’s and Onishchenko’s attitudes to the inner structure of the scientific-atheist thought style indicates that the hegemonic knowledge, 171 Cit. Loukotka: K otázce 132. 172 Cit. Oniščenko, Alexandr, Semjonovič: Vztah pozitivního  a kritického ve vědeckém ateismu, in: Ateizmus 11/2 (1983) 143–152, here 144.

290  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  represented by the Soviet scientific-atheist expert, could be challenged in terms of details, but the boundaries of different opinions within the thought collective were fixed relatively strictly. Nevertheless, whilst for Loukotka the disciplinary structure was still a subject for debate and refinement, Onishchenko exemplified the outcomes of the already settled Soviet debate which took the above cited classification for granted. The fact that Loukotka’s opinions did not receive any support in the subsequent literature indicates the actual strength of the hegemonic thought collective. Thus far, the analysis of the meta-theoretical debate during the 1970s and 1980s has established that there were two main issues which were the subject of continuous discussion within the esoteric thought collective. The first issue was linked to efforts to finally settle and stabilize the field of knowledge and its respective spheres. The majority of theoreticians shared a notion that there were three main constitutive elements of scientific atheism: a) religionswissenschaft; b)  the history and theory of atheism; and c)  the theory of atheist education. In other words, it can be asserted that there was  a transnational consensus regarding the main spheres of scientific-atheist knowledge and its structure at the beginning of the 1980s. This is not to say that there were no dissenting voices who tried to establish their own alternative disciplinary structures. However, as the selection of citations from various published sources discloses, these individual voices were unable to alter the situation. Probably the most successful attempt to change the familiar structure was linked to the effort of certain esoteric thought collective members to re-introduce atheist phenomena as the main objects of research inquiry into the framework of the discipline. On the other hand, the consensus slowly disintegrated as soon as other fundamental structural delineations were discussed. Although almost no-one dared to deny the double-sided nature of scientific atheism, which was a source of positive as well as negative knowledge with the majority of scholars even praising the critical aspect of the discipline due to the fact that it made scientific atheism distinctive, opinions regarding whether the scholarship should focus predominantly on either of the two aspects were remarkably disparate. As a result, the question of whether scientific atheism should predominantly be occupied with Marxist religionswissenschaft, which was essentially understood by the majority as  a scientific-atheist critique of religion, or with positive knowledge, that is, sociological surveys of religiosity, or with questions linked to the theory of scientific-atheist education, remained unresolved. Only from the beginning of the 1980s was a stream of thinking discernible which emphasized the need to focus more on the positive aspects which were linked not with the sociology of religion and positive knowledge about religious phenomena but with atheism. Thus, the attempt to reintroduce new spheres of knowledge into the existing thought style had its consequences for the understanding of atheism as a composite of positive and critical facts about religion.

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The selection of citations from both the Czechoslovakian and Soviet collectives documents how intertwined the meta-theoretical debate about the content of scientific atheism during the 1970s and 1980s was. However, whereas in Czechoslovakia the tone and style of the contributions on the topic due to the subdued perception of “perestroika” and “glasnost” in Czechoslovakia remained susceptible to the hitherto dominant Soviet atheist thought style until 1989, the Soviet thought style had remained under fevered reconstruction since 1987. To underline how far the Soviet thought collective departed from the relatively stable epistemological paradigm and disciplinary structure of the 1970s and 1980s in comparison to the surprisingly stable esoteric thought style in Czechoslovakia during the last five years of the Soviet Union, two contributions from these last years are compared. In the Czechoslovakian case, the last meta-theoretical article about scientific atheism was published in 1988. The essay entitled “Recent Questions Regarding the Theory of Scientific Atheism’s Development” was written by Miloslav Tříska and published in the Atheism journal in order to summarize the state of affairs once more. Echoing the subtle shift of emphasis within the scientific-atheist thought style, Tříska maintained that due to the development of secularization in socialist society, the phenomenon of mass atheism has become the object of main importance for scientific-atheist theory. […] The secondary object of interest is religion as  a socio-historical occurrence during the development of human society. […] The main subject of scientific atheism should become above all specific laws of formation, development, and the effect of mass atheism in socialist society and the formation of an atheist conviction of its citizens as an indivisible part of the scientific-materialistic worldview.173

According to Tříska, scientific atheism had matured to the phase in which was not only commendable but necessary to ask new questions in order to keep up with the pace of social reality. In fact, he asked for nothing less than a change of epistemological perspective. The proposal which was explicitly formulated as a plea to “overcome the rather narrow understanding of atheist activity which focused predominantly on the critique of religion and re-education of believers” and emphasized the “positive program of scientific atheism” delineated the extent as well as theoretical background of the change.174 Whereas the hitherto dominant epistemological paradigm discussed at the beginning of the section remained intact, the change involved the emphasis on certain spheres of knowledge before others which had been preferred in the recent past, that is, as late as the beginning of the 1980s. 173 Cit. Tříska, Miloslav: Aktuální otázky rozvoje teorie vědeckého ateismu, in: Ateizmus 16/5 (1988) 450–466, here 454. 174 See ibid., 456.

292  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  The key finding here is that the article was clearly written in the same style as its predecessors from the 1970s and early 1980s. Tříska cited mostly the same sources which have been used throughout this section in order to track the development (or rather a particular stability) of the meta-theoretical debate in this time period, for instance, Kurochkin, Novikov, and Halečka.175 Moreover, he neither challenged nor denied his colleagues but appraised their contributions to the improvement of the scientific-atheist theory and methodology. The following citation regarding the justification of the disciplinary structure illustrates the point: the requirement of the internal stratification of scientific atheism [which was pointed out by his colleagues mentioned above, JT] documents that scientific-atheist theory has entered a qualitatively higher level. […] The deeper knowledge inevitably leads to a differentiation of science, to its further stratification into more and more specialized spheres of knowledge [oblasti poznatků, JT]. The internal structure of the atheist theory corresponds to the existence of real phenomena which are objects of the applied research in contemporary socialist society.176

Whilst the Czechoslovakian member of the esoteric thought collective wrote his paper in accord with the thought style which was established as a Soviet phenomenon during the 1960s and fortified, cosmetically improved, and transferred under the incessant Soviet patronage to the other thought collectives during the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, the essay written by the director of the ISA in Moscow, Garadzha, entitled Reassessment and published in the first issue of Science and Religion in 1989 was fundamentally different. Whereas Tříska wanted to continue the existing intellectual tradition, Garadzha strove to achieve a fundamental change of perspective motivated by the recent socio-political development subsumed under the term “perestroika”: the complex processes of political, economic, and social perestroika put new tasks before us. The solution of these tasks generally depends on the reassessment of our atheist theory and practice because the manner of contemporary atheist work is not only ineffective, but it is heavy with serious moral, spiritual, and political burdens.177

Furthermore, in his article, Garadzha practically denied the validity and truthfulness of the whole atheist endeavor since the 1920s. In other words, his article 175 See ibid., 456–458. 176 Cit. ibid., 458. Other articles and books published in late 1980s also do not step out of line demarcated by the hegemonic thought style. See Hodovský, Ivan: Ateistická výchova v etapě společenské přestavby. Praha 1988 and Aktuální otázky ateistické výchovy a propagandy v současném ideologickém zápase: Sborník příspěvků z celostátního semináře ÚV SAK ČSSR , Brno květen 1987. Díl 2. Published by Socialistická akademie. Praha 1988. 177 Cit. Garadzha, Viktor, Ivanovich: Pereosmyslenie, in: Nauka i religiia 1 (1989) 2–5, here 2.

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is a demonstration that testifies remarkably clearly to the process of paradigm change which, on the one hand, negates almost all knowledge produced in the older and already neglected or at least contested thought style and which, on the other hand, has not yet come up with an alternative. It marks the transitional period when old truths, facts and old concepts do not apply anymore, but the new rules of the game and the new way of seeing have not yet been negotiated and confirmed by the newly emerging thought collective. The following citation represents this tone and style quite accurately: it is clear that the changes in understanding of the essence and meaning of atheism, and its relationship to religion are difficult and cannot be accepted straight away. Alas, we became used to ancient (davnim) but not really truthful stereotypes of thought. To renounce them is like a confession that all efforts of the previous phase of social life were pointless and useless. […] However, the life itself has changed. The perestroika has touched above all our consciousness. The style of a new thought [emphasis JT] demands  a denial of obsolete dogmas, of worn-out stereotypes. It demands  a re-examination of such (facts) which only yesterday seemed to be unchangeable, fundamental.178

It is remarkable that a former member of the esoteric thought collective which was established during the 1960s and which further expanded and fortified itself during the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s was also one of the main proponents of such a fundamental change in thought style which eventually led to the total destruction of the scientific-atheist epistemological paradigm and significant restructuration of the thought collective in the Soviet Union and its successor states. Although Garadzha’s decision to write this article could be classified as a merely opportunistic and unscrupulous recoloring of identity motivated by a basic need to retain his hard-won position within academia, it would not explain why his Czechoslovakian counterparts did not do the same thing when there still was time to “clear one’s name.” Garadzha’s reassessment should be understood in the context of the failing heteronomous force. Whereas in Czechoslovakia the party, even in the first half of 1989, was comparatively strong and the signs of apparent crisis were not as obvious, the party’s loosening grip on power in the Soviet Union had profound impacts on all fields of knowledge whose legitimation was dependent on the sanction of the heteronomous force. As a result, the hitherto unfailing mutual support between the esoteric knowledge and the external confirmation of this knowledge’s validity and authenticity, that is, its truthfulness, perceived by the other significant reference groups, was placed into question as rapidly as the overall paradigm, also maintained by the political power of the party, was losing its cohesive power. 178 Cit. ibid., 4. 

294  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  The thought collective, represented by Garadzha in this case, reacted to such profound changes which unexpectedly led to the total reorganization of the truth system in the Soviet Union. The rejection of an already dead epistemological paradigm and the initiation of an immediate search for a new one was practically the only opportunity for the maintaining of at least some members of the esoteric thought style, provided they were able to deny the suddenly obsolete thought style and begin  a process of negotiation which would eventually lead to the adoption of the new one. In any case, Garadzha was aware of the fact that the socio-political circumstances would never be the same when he wrote the article: The situation of atheism today could be compared to the situation of a vessel which has found itself in a swell [zyb, JT]. The waves reach nine points, the vessel is tossed from one side to the other and the crew cannot decide to do anything in order to get into safety because it waits for the instructions from above.179

Unlike its Soviet counterpart, the Czechoslovakian esoteric thought collective did not have a chance to reject the suddenly problematic epistemological paradigm and begin the process of reorientation towards a newly negotiated thought style. As a result, the thought collective in Czechoslovakia was almost eliminated by  a competing group of young and, therefore, untainted specialists (such as David Václavík, Zdeněk Nešpor) or those who had been partially forced out of academia (such as Machovec and Bendlová) and partially unable to receive  a professional education due to their ties with dissent. Therefore, the successive thought collective which was established at the beginning of the 1990s bore a minimal continuity with the scientific-atheist one (exceptions which confirm the rule are Břetislav Horyna, Helena Pavlincová, and Hodovský). The same can be said of almost all the scientific-atheist knowledge accumulated during the 1972–1989 period. 4.6.3 The Marxist Sociology of Religion Whereas during the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s the emphasis of the Soviet esoteric thought collective was upon the sociological surveys whose task was to determine the level of religiosity in the Soviet Union, the later research, associated approximately with years 1972–1989, reflected a shift of perspective. This is not to say that religiosity and other closely connected issues, such as the typology of believers and atheists, who stood at the heart of the debate during the 1960s, disappeared completely from the scientific-atheist field of knowledge. Rather, the hitherto prominent sphere of knowledge, represented by specific sociological surveys (konkretno-sotsiologicheskie issledovania), which were  a great source of new facts for the discipline of scientific atheism as  a whole, 179 Cit. ibid., 5.

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became one of many established spheres with  a relatively closely determined field of activity. Therefore, the Marxist sociology of religion in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s progressively enlarged the spheres of knowledge at the expense of a quantity of large-scale sociological surveys on the levels of religiosity in a given region. As a result, the main strategic goal, that is, the completion of the map of religiosity of the Soviet Union, was abandoned approximately in the middle of 1970s. The resources and expertise of the atheist scholars were then reoriented to answering questions which were discovered during the interpretation of the first wave of research. The situation in 1970s and 1980s Czechoslovakia was different in this case. Due to the fact that the only sociological research of religiosity was disqualified as epistemologically wrong because it was conducted by so-called revisionists, who designed their research and interpreted the data on fundamentally inadequate premises, the scholars who formed the new esoteric thought collective in Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the normalization period could not rely on the outcomes of the previous domestic research.180 As a result, they had to start from scratch. Whereas the first relatively small sociological surveys regarding the levels of religiosity were inspired by the earlier Soviet projects and, as a result, were epistemologically analogous to the Soviet enquiries conducted during the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s, the later projects of the Czechoslovakian scientific atheists corresponded to the shift in the thought style during the decade of the 1970s, although the influence of the Soviet surveys carried out until 1972 retained its relevance with regard to the formulation of research questions as well.181 In other words, the Czechoslovakian sociologists of religion and atheism during the 1970s and 1980s fully embraced the Soviet tradition which was established during the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s and was further developed and specified in the forthcoming decades. The Czechoslovakian thought collective absorbed the new trends and concepts coming from the Soviet Union through the aforementioned communication channels and integrated the new concepts into the existing thought style.

180 See Několik pohledů na problém příčinnosti religiozity přechodného období od kapitalismu k socialismu na Slovensku, in: Ateizmus 1/2 (1973) 103–109. 181 See Prusák, Peter: Sekularizace  a religiozita na Slovensku, in: Ateizmus 3/2 (1975) 87–97, Kahan, Koloman / Barabásová, Alexandra: Dynamika světonázorových přeměn vysokoškolských posluchačů, in: Ateizmus 5/3 (1977) 177–190, and Maňková, Darina: K některým sociologickým stránkám faktorů přechodu od náboženství k ateismu, in: Ateizmus 7/3 (1979) 272–278, Sekot, Aleš: Sociologické problémy náboženství a sekularizace. Praha 1980, Křenek, František: Od náboženství k ateismu v zemědělských kolektivech. Praha 1980, Foret, Miroslav: Životní cíle a smysl života ve výzkumu religiozity mládeže, in: Ateizmus 12/1 (1984) 76–82.

296  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  Returning to the Soviet thought style, the scientific-atheist sociological research accomplished in the previous decade stood as a basis of facts for further improvement of the specific theory of the Marxist sociology of religion which during the 1970s developed into the Marxist sociology of religion and atheism. It has been established that in the 1970s a shift occurred within the scientific-­atheist thought style which manifested itself in the change of research emphasis from religion and religiosity to atheism and the atheist worldview. A similar shift is observable also in the Marxist sociology of religion. A very early example of this gradual shift of perspective is represented by Viktor Soloviev, who in his article, “About the Influence of Atheism on the Spiritual Development of Personality,” published in the 1973 issue of the QSA as one of the first members of the esoteric thought collective in the Soviet Union, introduced a typology which was focused not on the concept of religiosity but on the concept of atheism.182 The citation indicates not only the beginning of the change in approach but also the persistence of a long-standing issue regarding multiple typologies which were discussed in the previous chapter. Although some members of the Soviet scientific-atheist thought collective attempted on multiple occasions to introduce one binding typology which would allow an in-depth comparison of gathered data, the formulation of a far-reaching theory of the secularization process and the completion of the map of religiosity, their activity was ultimately unsuccessful. As Filimonov from the ISA in Moscow remarked in an article from 1974: The issue regarding the criteria of religiosity is one of the unresolved methodolo­ gical problems. The inability to determine the meaning of the term “believer” with a sufficient flexibility leads to adding to the category of those, whose consciousness or actual behavior is not religious. This approach sometimes leads to an artificial increase (or decrease) of the level of religiosity. […] The absence of a universal, scientifically grounded typology makes the comparative analysis of sociological surveys in different regions of our country far more difficult.183

Significantly, the middle of the 1970s appears to have been a turning point for the Soviet sociology of religion in one important aspect. Not only was the emphasis on the specific sociological surveys throughout the community continually 182 “In order to determine the level of individual secularization, we have introduced the following scale which shows the relationship of a person to religion and atheism: a) convinced atheist; b) non-believer, who is indifferent to both religion and atheism; c) a person which vacillates between religious belief and godlessness; d) a believer.” Cit. Soloviev, Viktor, Sergeevich: O vliianii ateizma na dukhovnoe razvitie lichnosti (opyt sotsiologicheskogo issledovania), in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 14 (1973) 186–195, here 188. 183 Cit. Filimonov, Eduard, Gennadievich: Sotsiologicheskie issledovania protsessa pre­ odoleniia religii v selskoi mestnosti: itogi, problemy, perspektivy, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 16 (1974) 71–88, here 84.

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weakened, but the issue regarding multiple typologies ceased to be a large epistemological problem for the community. It is as though the thought collective as a whole accepted the fact that it was unable to produce and distribute a unified typology of religiosity. Therefore, from approximately the middle of the 1970s the existing multitude of typologies was absorbed as one of the methodological peculiarities of the thought style. Moreover, although the debates about the adequacy of certain typologies in comparison to others continued until the end of the 1980s, no member of the esoteric thought collective actively attempted to establish a unifying typology of religiosity and atheism any longer. Therefore, the inability of the thought collective to negotiate a unified concept of the typology of religiosity and incorporate it as another “black box”184 into the existing thought style created a space for the factual pluralism of perspectives which was based on the actual possibility of defining religiosity and “atheicity” as well as their levels. This epistemological pluralism within the relatively rigidly defined paradigm of scientific atheism was an outcome of the interpretation of sociological surveys which were, due to their initial epistemological perspective, unable to pinpoint one main determining factor of religiosity. It was precisely the scientific fact that religiosity is a complex phenomenon which is related not only to the self-understanding of the individual but simultaneously to its behavior and embeddedness within the context of religious institutions, which was at first established by the esoteric thought collective and then incorporated into the scientific-atheist thought style, that played the decisive role because it inherently supported a pluralist approach to the typology of religiosity and atheism. Consequently, the moment when the esoteric thought collective ceased arguing about the need to produce a single all-encompassing universal typology was the moment when epistemological pluralism regarding the typology of religiosity and atheism became one of the underlining principles of the scientific-atheist thought style. There are sound reasons for arguing that this important shift within the esoteric thought style occurred in the second half of the 1970s because Filimonov in 1974 still problematizes the absence of a unified typology, whereas, Iablokov in 1979 only asserts that Soviet researchers have come up with many different variations of religiosity patterns. The most widespread pattern categorizes people according to their relationship to religion and atheism. Such typology includes religious as well as a-religious populations. […] There are the following worldview types: 1) atheists; 2) convinced non-believers; 3) a-religious people; 4) vacillating people; and 5) convinced believers (included fanatics).185

184 See Latour, Bruno: Nauka v deistvii. Sankt-Petersburg 2015, 21–35. 185 Cit Iablokov, Igor, Nikolaevich: Sotsiologiia religii. Moskva 1979, 127.

298  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  It is significant that Iablokov does not criticize other scientific-atheist typologies and even mentions authors of the most significant alternatives with the commentary that scholars approach the issue from different perspectives. He then emphasizes that the decisive factor determining successful research is not a unified typology, but a complex approach which takes into consideration multiple features, such as faith, behavior, social context, and the activities of the individual.186 The Czechoslovakian thought collective in the 1970s and 1980s absorbed the outcomes of the Soviet development in this case. Therefore, there were no attempts to establish a universally valid typology. The form of the sociology of religion and atheism in Czechoslovakia was further determined by the fact that it took a relatively long time to re-wire the thought style after the rejection of earlier research at the beginning of the 1970s. The important projects were, thus, conducted only at the end of the 1970s and data interpretation as well as conclusions and theoretical implications were published at the beginning of the 1980s. Apart from the pluralism of typologies, which was a rather unwanted addition to the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style, the Czechoslovakian sociology of religion and atheism followed the shift of scientific atheism’s inquiries from religion to atheism. The main proponent of the change of perspective was Czech expert František Křenek, an employee of the ISA in Brno. His Soviet and Czechoslovakian colleagues subscribed to the definition of the sociology of religion and atheism which was a part of scientific atheism and which as a specific sub-discipline should uncover not only the social conditions which facilitated the origins of religion but also its place and role in the functioning and development of a particular social system, and the social laws of its development, its structure and the mutual relationship of its elements.187

Křenek, on the other hand, maintained that the Marxist sociology of religion should be supplemented by a relatively independent Marxist sociology of atheism. On a general level he reasoned that “alongside the critical side of scientific atheism, we have to intensively develop its positive side.”188 On the level of scientific-atheist sociology, he maintained that 186 See ibid., 128 f. A similar approach is observable in another treatise about Marxist sociology of religion from Ugrinovich. In the second end partially re-worked and extended edition of the seminal contribution to the sub-discipline, he wrote that “the mentioned typology is not the only possible one in the sociological research of religiosity and atheicity. The specific typological variations can be delineated by specific tasks of the research.” Cit. Ugrinovich: Vvedenie, 141. 187 Cit. Iablokov: Sotsiologia, 14.  188 Cit. Křenek, František: Sociologické výzkumy, náboženství  a vědecký ateismus, in: Směry, formy a metody ateistické výchovy v podmínkách rozvinuté socialistické společnosti. Praha 1979, 101.

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the sociology of religion […] cannot capture and explain the content, course, and outcomes of religion’s negation because it is one way or another a theory of religion (albeit it is a scientific-atheist theory). It cannot, and it is not even the subject of its research, explain the content, essence, and social functions of scientific atheism and its place in the social mechanism. […] Only the sociology of atheism can discover (and generalize), how the individual elements of the positive side of atheism manifest themselves in the social consciousness and behavior of groups in social formations and relationships.189

This exclusive focus on the sociology of atheism could have helped to turn the attention of specialists in the desired direction and also influence the perspective on the construction of scientific classifications which could have had a potentially profound impact on the interpretation of the raw sociological data in general. In other words, Křenek’s approach attests to how a subtle change of thought style could influence the approach towards hitherto unquestioned concepts: it manifests itself that the more the secularization process continues in the direction of higher levels, the more we have to pay attention to the research of non-believers and atheists’ typology. […] In the past the “typology” was applied more or less only to believers. At the very beginning citizens were usually characterized according to their faith and attendance of the religious cult: a fanatic, a convinced believer, a traditional believer, a vacillating believer. All others were (mistakenly) regarded as atheists. […] As atheists were also regarded non-believers, who did not have any significant atheist features whatsoever.190

Křenek’s typology of atheists from 1980 then contained four subcategories: 1) an atheist with religious and a-religious elements; 2) an atheist with a-religious elements; 3) an inconsistent atheist; and 4) a consistent, active atheist. Even though Křenek’s appeal to establish a new sub-discipline of scientific atheism was not successful, that is, his approach found significant support ­neither in the Czechoslovakian nor the Soviet thought collective and, as a result, his ideas did not become  a part of the collectively shared thought style, an account from 1981 shows that  a shift in the thought style was, nonetheless, under way.191 The extended and, in comparison to the 1960s, far more elaborate typology of non-believers and atheists is one type of tangible evidence which attests to this fact. The shift within the Soviet scientific-atheist thought style is observable not only on the level of typology but on the level of conceptualization and terminology. Once again, the scientific facts, constructed with the help of sociological 189 Cit. Křenek: Od náboženství, 46 f. 190 Cit, Křenek: Sociologické výzkumy, 53, 109. 191 See Sekot, Aleš: Marxistická sociologie náboženství v ČSSR , in: Ateizmus 9/4 (1981) 348–360, here 352.

300  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  research, which determined the steady decline of religiosity over the past decades, served as a basis for the formulation of further theories which then facilitated an evolutionary shift in the Soviet esoteric thought style. The most significant new concept which had been a part of the thought style since the 1960s but became one of the analytical and interpretative focal points only during the 1970s and 1980s is “secularization.” The first traces of the usage of this concept by the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective in the Soviet Union emerge from the second half of the 1960s, and the Czechoslovakian thought collective became acquainted with the Marxist interpretation of the concept in approximately the same time frame because the “Small Atheist Dictionary,” published in Prague in 1962 by local experts, mentions it only in the specifically historical context of the entry describing reformation. It is significant that the later, that is, scientific-atheist content of the concept was unknown to the authors of the dictionary, who used the term “secularization” with its historical meaning which was related to the change of church property status.192 Scientific atheists thus developed the meaning of the concept much later. One of the first newly understood usages of the secularization concept in the Soviet context is linked to the sociological analysis conducted in the Penza region in 1968, where the goal of the study was to research the process of secularization.193 The first theoretical anchoring of the concept on the horizon of the scientific-atheist field of knowledge was written by Lopatkin, who was one of the chief scholars overseeing the Penza survey and who was in charge of the interpretation of the data. His assessment was published in the collective monograph “Towards a Society Free from Religion” in 1970.194 In his contribution, Lopatkin defined secularization as a process of liberation from all kinds of religious influence on all levels of social and individual activity. [This process, JT] also delineates the strengthening of the social and individual consciousness which is based on a materialist worldview and on the system of norms and values which are indispensable conditions for the functioning and progressive development of society and individual.195

Furthermore, Lopatkin understood secularization as a structural element and factor of social progress. The final goal of secularization is human, his spiritual freedom, universal development of his abilities and interests, 192 See Gabriel: Malý ateistický slovník, 381. 193 See RGASPI , f. 606, op.4, d. 76, ll. 9–10. 194 See the reprint of the original article in: Lopatkin, Remir, Aleksandrovich: Vozmozhnosti sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia protsessa sekuliarizatsii, in: Zuev, Iurii, Pavlovich / Shmidt, Vasilii, Vladimirovich (eds.): Antologiia otechestvennogo religiovedeniia. Vol. 1. Moskva 2009, 377–386. 195 Cit. ibid., 383.

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fulfillment of his materialistic and spiritual needs. It does not mean that secularization will lead to this goal in its fullness, but it means that secularization is the indispensable precondition for the fulfillment of the goal.196

The definition of the secularization process from 1970 is a suitable starting point which delineates the meaning of the concept in the time of its introduction into the esoteric thought style. Firstly, Lopatkin’s definition still takes for granted that atheist identity is essentially an absence of, or liberation from, religious influences. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear how the strengthening of the materialist worldview takes place and if there is, from the point of view of the secularization process, any difference between a simply a-religious person and scientific atheists. Finally, the process of secularization is regarded as a generally positive phenomenon which facilitates the transition between religious and atheist worldviews.197 As the debate of esoteric thought collective members about the need to focus on the atheist aspects of scientific-atheist scholarly discipline during the 1970s progressed, understanding of the secularization process also changed. First and foremost, the concept’s positive aspects were problematized as the data gathered from the surveys indicated that the secularization process did not always produce the desired results but in many cases led to worldview indifferentism which was evaluated by atheist experts as an undesirable result. Thus, in 1977, Slovak members of the esoteric thought collective wrote in the QSA that the wild form of secularization does not automatically lead to an adoption of higher spiritual values and a materialist worldview. The manifestation of wildness is world­ view indifferentism, ideological passivity which is often represented by  a nihilist relationship to the society and its values in general.198

The positive aspects of secularization, which were generally accepted at the beginning of the 1970s, were also problematized by Iablokov in his already cited monograph from 1979.199 According to Iablokov, whereas secularization was a process which was inherently related to religion, an “atheization” was a completely different process which could have but did not necessarily have to 196 Cit. ibid., 385 f. 197 See also Ugrinovich, Vvedenie, 177. 198 Cit. Prusák, Peter / Filler, Julius: Protsess sekuliarizatsii i aktuaľnye problemy ateisti­ cheskogo vospitaniia, in: Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 21 (1977) 148–158, here 155. 199 “Of course, secularization and atheization [ateizatsia, JT] processes in socialist society are related to one another. However, it is not fruitful to interpret adoption of atheist principles as a positive side of secularization. It is a well-known fact that formation of scientific-atheist worldview is not always linked to the liberation from religious feelings and point of view. In the conditions of socialism is majority of people, who are adopting scientific-atheist worldview, not religious to begin with. This is why it is not right to talk about ‘secularization’ of consciousness.” Cit. Iablokov: Sotsiologia, 160.

302  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  be linked to religion and its abandonment by an individual. By this differentiation between secularization and atheization, Iablokov drew  a line between the process of liberalization from religion and the process of the adoption of the scientific-atheist worldview. Whereas the latter process was assessed as  a generally positive change in individual consciousness towards a socially desired, actively atheist identity; the assessment of the former process was far more ambiguous because it only seldom led to the desired results.200 The Czechoslovakian sociologists of religion and atheism at the beginning of the 1980s also discerned new facets of the secularization process. Informed by the Soviet debate, Křenek in 1980 defined the secularization process as “liberation from the influence of religion” which has been the core of the concept since Lopatkin’s definition. However, he continues, “it is only one phase, one of the steps of the long-term secularization process. It is neither its goal, nor its completion.”201 Therefore, Křenek also understood secularization as a complex phenomenon which had its negative as well as positive aspects and, similarly to Iablokov, he was also convinced that the secularization process automatically led to self-conscious atheism. But, unlike Iablokov, Křenek did not discern atheization as  a fundamentally different process. He understood it as  a qualitatively different yet final phase of the secularization process instead: from the perspective of the process of secularization’s content, it is possible to delineate three main levels. The religious level, the a-religious level, and the atheist level which is communist in its content. […] Without the communist aspect the secularization process is unfinished.202

This definition of the secularization process was also shared by Sekot, who wrote about the Marxist sociology of religion in 1985. Namely, he maintained that the final level of secularization in our conditions is not and cannot be a mere ­a-religiosity [odnáboženštění, JT] but  a full, complex, humanely accentuated atheization of an individual and society in all dimensions of its worldview and value orientation.203

To sum up, whereas at the beginning of the 1970s it seemed to be clear that the process of secularization inevitably led to the development of a scientific-­ atheist worldview, further investigations conducted within the framework of the scientific-­atheist thought style led to a re-interpretation of certain features of 200 “The conflict with religion or an absence of relationship with it is not always a sign of atheization. Not always is the disruption of religious faith followed by adoption of atheist worldviews. […] To put it differently, if the self-perception is not linked to the denial of religion, then the process of atheization, the process of atheist worldview formation did not happen.” Cit. ibid., 160 f. 201 Cit. Křenek: Od náboženství, 17. 202 Cit. ibid., 19–21. 203 Cit. Sekot, Aleš: Sociologie náboženství. Praha 1985, 315.

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the concept. The key role in this negotiation was played by new scientific facts, that is, facts generated within the existing epistemological paradigm which were recognized and shared as such by the thought collective. It is significant that the general aspects of the secularization concept remained virtually untouched because to problematize the inherently progressive nature of the process would mean to question one of the fundaments of the discipline’s paradigm, that is, the foundations of the thought style itself. However, the empirical surveys conducted during the 1970s indicated that the secularization process was not as simple as previously thought. More precisely, the newly constructed scientific facts were at odds with the existing version of the secularization concept which could not adequately explain the existence of indifferent people. The collision of facts produced within the existing thought style by a concept which should have explained these facts led to the rethinking of the latter, that is, to the process of the renegotiation of the concept’s meaning in the given epistemological context. It should be underlined that one of the most important effects of the new facts’ genesis was the problematization of  a hitherto unproblematic element of the thought style. The outcome of this process was an updated version of the secularization concept which a) maintained its coherency with the other concepts which formed the structure of the thought style at the given time period; and b) integrated the new facts into the existing epistemological paradigm. As a result, the secularization process after this rewiring contained three distinct categories and made a positive as well as negative understanding of the phenomenon possible. This change had an impact upon the thought style in general because it made it possible to think about secularization in a more nuanced and heuristically more complex way. Furthermore, a brand new term called “atheization” was developed in order to underline the aspect which, according to the majority of esoteric thought collective members, was a logical and desirable although not automatic outcome of the secularization process in the socialist context. Through the introduction of this specific term, the atheist experts emphasized the previously downplayed notion according to which the liberalization from religion did not automatically mean the beginning of atheization. Taking into consideration the relationship of the scientific-atheist thought style and its main epistemological units, the analysis of the Marxist sociology of religion and (atheism’s) development indicates that the new facts played a significant role in the evolution of the thought style. Whereas the part of the chapter which indicated a meta-theoretical change of emphasis in the “positive aspects” of scientific atheism without obvious connections to the newly constructed facts, this part of the chapter places the meta-theoretical development into the context of knowledge production from below. It thus answers the question, what motivated the esoteric thought collective to change its research emphasis from one set of problems to another. The key outcome of the analysis in this regard is the notion that the scientific-atheist thought style, at least in certain spheres of

304  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  knowledge, worked as a “system of mirrors” which enabled certain objects to be seen in a certain way. Moreover, although the thought style was relatively rigid in its axiomatic preconditions, that is, it did not allow a change of underlying presuppositions because such  a change would have distorted the “system of mirrors,” it was flexible enough to incorporate new facts which brought about an evolution, that is, a slight shift in the existing thought style.

4.7 Summary The 1970s and most of the 1980s were a period which can be described in the context of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought style in Czechoslovakia and in the Soviet Union as a period of normal science in Kuhn’s sense. Not only was the epistemological paradigm, that is, the framework of knowledge and the internal rules of the game by far and large established but important structural and organizational steps were taken by the thought collectives in both national contexts as well. Whereas in the Soviet case this description with some qualifications could be used also for the second half of the 1960s, the practically non-existent systematic transnational relationship with other thought collectives in these years speaks against such an understanding of scientific atheism. Nevertheless, both the Soviet thought style and thought collective in the 1970s and 1980s evince much more organizational, institutional and paradigmatic continuity with the 1960s than their Czechoslovakian counterpart. The main reason for this structural and epistemological discrepancy in the Czechoslovakian thought style and thought collective is the influence of the heteronomous force which was far more penetrating in post-1968 Czechoslovakia than in the Brezhnevian Soviet Union. Soviet continuity and relatively low levels of heteronomous force interventions into the structure of the thought style and institutional design of the thought collective from 1971 contributed to its transnational status which was, at least by Czechoslovakian specialists, perceived as the most advanced in terms of organization and research. The stability of the Soviet thought style, its impenetrability by revisionist thinking and ability to develop in the given socio-political framework demonstrated  a much-desired integrity which was further supported by the organizational structure. The Soviet example was so strong in this regard that it served as a guiding ideal for the restructuring of the Czechoslovakian esoteric thought style at the beginning of the 1970s. The Sovietization of Czechoslovakian scientific-­atheist thought style, that is, the adoption of the Soviet epistemological paradigm and research questions, paradoxically helped to stabilize the status of scientific atheism in the structure of knowledge in the Czechoslovakian context. Only the full institutionalization, regular reproduction of cadres, engagement in international academic events as well as the full opening of communication

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channels (the foundation of the journal Atheism) occurred in the so-called normalization period. It must be stressed that this paradigmatic shift which occurred at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s was, in the case of Czechoslovakia, comparable to a scientific revolution, coined as an analytical model by Kuhn. Moreover, it is crucial to add that the main initiator of the scientific revolution in this case was the heteronomous force, that is, the CP, not the esoteric thought collective itself. In other words, the thought collective effectively carried out the revolution in 1970s Czechoslovakia through the discursive compromising of the 1960s research on the pretext of false epistemological presuppositions. Their open disavowal of the previous thinking on the one hand, and embracing of the Soviet thought style on the other, marks the beginning and end of this scientific revolution which occurred in the socio-political context of an authoritative regime. Whereas the heteronomous force played an all-important role in the Czechoslovakian case in the years 1968–1972, the same cannot be said of the heteronomous force in the Soviet context in the period of “glasnost.” The liberalization of the public sphere and loosening of the knowledge horizons opened the hitherto unchallenged esoteric thought style to ideas and concepts which placed into question the thought style in general. The withdrawal of the official support of the heteronomous force, which had endowed the esoteric thought collective with a decisive amount of its legitimacy, led to a serious epistemological crisis which culminated in the disintegration of the scientific-atheist thought style. Similarly, as in the Czechoslovakian context, the heteronomous force played the decisive role in the initiation of  a scientific revolution in the context of the scientific-­atheist scholarly discipline. Unlike the Czechoslovakian development, the esoteric thought collective was not automatically discredited when the ­hitherto existing dominant thought style began to disintegrate. As a result, the individual members of the Soviet esoteric thought collective were able to re-orient themselves and facilitate the construction of the new epistemological paradigm which negated almost all the scientific facts established since the end of the 1950s but which was acceptable in the changed socio-political circumstances of the late “glasnost” and early years of the Russian Federation. The opportunity to deconstruct the previous thought style and, at the same time, participate in the construction of the new one led to the preservation and continuity of the thought collective between two distinct thought styles. The situation in Czechoslovakia at the end of 1980s was completely different. The rather abrupt end of Husák’s regime during the Velvet Revolution, the fact that there were many marginalized intellectuals as a result of party purges after 1968, many returned emigrants and many young but ideologically “untainted” students led to  a different outcome for the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective. When the heteronomous power ceased to lend its legitimacy to the hitherto hegemonic epistemological paradigm in 1989, the whole thought style

306  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  disintegrated, and the thought collective also broke apart. The post-1989 construction of a new thought style was thus marked in the Czechoslovakian case by a personal discontinuity. In other words, whereas in Czechoslovakia the scientific revolution of the 1960s and 1980s was in both cases associated with a large degree of personal discontinuity because almost a complete change in the thought collective occurred, the Soviet scientific revolution in the context of scientific atheism at the end of the 1980s was an anomaly because it retained almost all the members of the previous esoteric thought collective. In addition to the inter-relations of the esoteric thought collective with other significant reference groups and the consequences of the heteronomous force’s impact on the esoteric thought style, this chapter has also explored to what extent the thought collective was able to influence the realm of knowledge from within. The main tasks were to ascertain whether the seemingly rigid thought style was capable of intrinsic development, how such an evolution was conditioned, and what kind of change it would bring to the thought style. These questions were analyzed in detail with regard to the three spheres of knowledge which constituted significant aspects of the dominant esoteric thought style during the 1970s and most of the 1980s. The analysis of the selected thought style elements confirmed its far-reaching continuity. Generally speaking, this continuity is an indispensable precondition for every thought style because without the stability and integrity of the internal “rules of the game” no new knowledge would have been possible. Secondly, the dominant thought style acquired a transnational quality and a certain amount of permeability which was governed by the intrinsically paternalistic and hegemonic nature of the Soviet thought style during the observed time period. The distribution of knowledge was thus no longer predominantly dependent on the national esoteric thought collectives. This dimension of the thought style increased its significance for the other significant reference groups because the fundamental epistemological paradigm was shared across relatively broad and numerous socio-political contexts. On the other hand, it must be added that the transnational scientific-atheist community thrived only in those countries which were able to support the thought style with the necessary legitimacy by means of the heteronomous force. Thirdly, the analysis of the meta-theoretical debate together with the study of sociological approaches informed by the scientific-atheist theory attest to the ways in which the internally constructed scientific facts influenced the higher structures of theory and methodology. Once a fact was recognized and confirmed, the process of its adaptation to general theory began. However, in such cases when the fact resisted adaptation to the existing theory because it was at odds with the existing narrative, the theory itself had to be amended in order to incorporate the fact. Such was the case with the concept of “secular-

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ization” which was further problematized during the 1980s until the concept of “atheization” was introduced in order to explain the outcomes of the sociological surveys which, unlike the analogous research from the 1960s, explicitly tried to accentuate the atheist aspects of the individual’s identity. This turn towards the researching of atheist phenomena within the scientific-­ atheist thought style of the 1970s and 1980s is one of the most visible shifts within the dominant thought style in both national contexts. This shift was established within two analyzed elements of the thought style and indicates the ability of the thought style to evolve. The main difference between evolutionary shifts and revolutionary rifts in the context of scientific atheism is that the former was initiated and took place exclusively within the confines of the esoteric thought collective whereas the latter was motivated by external occurrences which were, to a certain degree, carried out despite the resistance of the thought collective which associated itself with the hitherto dominant thought style. A brief exploration of scientific-atheist revisionism played a critical role in understanding the professional identity of the thought collectives’ members as well as the inherent fluidity of the negotiation process which determined what knowledge would be preserved within the dominant thought style and which ideas were condemned and discarded. Not only was the real core of the thought style restated in the process, that is, what constituted the main parts of the epistemological paradigm, but the knowledge that could not be qualified as scientific by the thought collective was also determined. It is significant that the argument did not remain on the ideological level but mainly on the level of epistemology. This approach created self-assurance in the esoteric thought style members in relation to the adherents to the other thought styles which were, by definition, neither scientific nor capable of  a constructive dialogue with the dominant scientific-atheist esoteric thought style. In this sense the thought style was totalitarian and monolithic. As long as it had the support of the heteronomous force, it excluded all individuals who dared to challenge its axiomatic presuppositions and introduce alternative interpretations of certain phenomena. In other words, there was a particular “core knowledge” which was indisputable. To dispute such knowledge thus indicated that the individual had stepped outside of the esoteric thought collective and, therefore, away from the only “truly” scientific community. However, within the boundaries of the thinkable it was possible to think differently. As the debate concerning typology attests, the esoteric thought style did not have problems with plurality as long as it did not overstep the boundaries that determined the core knowledge. Therefore, the scientific-atheist thought style in the 1970s and 1980s was not just a quasi-system of ideologically preordained knowledge in which all answers were predetermined by the uncompromising logic stemming from undeniable dogmas. Rather, it was a system governed by a certain number of rules which directed the process of knowledge production. It

308  Scientific Atheism as a Normal Science  was not a ready-made structure but a way of seeing things. Therefore, it was a normal science because in the given socio-political framework, no other science could have existed. Its normality was conditioned not only by the perception and self-identity of the esoteric thought style members but also by the relationship of the realm of knowledge to other significant reference groups. Hence, it was also this mutually supportive relationship which conditioned the extent of the thought style’s normality and legitimized the claims of verisimilitude within individual utterances which aspired to grasp the social reality and explain it in a meaningful way.

5. Conclusion One of the main questions posed at the beginning of the present work asked of what scientific atheism in both national contexts consisted. Whereas the first chapter described the initial state of affairs without entering into too much detail, the ensuing three chapters analyzed many aspects of the complex and multi-layered phenomenon in the course of approximately four decades, beginning in 1954 and ending in 1989, or 1991 respectively. The “short answer” to the aforementioned question is that scientific atheism had different meanings for various groups of people in different times and places. While for some historical actors it symbolized a way of life, for others, it was a way of thinking. The third approach understood the term as a complex of strategies and technologies through which social change can be reached. The pivotal conclusion is that scientific atheism cannot be approached as  a closed category with a fixed meaning in the context of the 1954–1991 time period. In other words, multiple meanings were always part of the definition. Moreover, most of the time these definitions co-existed simultaneously, and it depended on each respective group of actors as to which definition they favored and which, for various reasons, were less important to them. Thus, the history of scientific atheism is a history of constant adjustment, discussion, and bargaining over meaning. This conclusion is particularly striking with regard to the established scholarly thinking positing the sterility or rigidity of ideas in the context of developed socialism. The history of scientific atheism is thus a story about the almost incessant process of re-thinking, re-writing or re-imagining of the concept which itself was so indispensable for certain groups of intellectuals, encultured in the framework of a socialist state, that they could neither dispense with it nor replace it with other concepts. At the same time, even though some spheres of knowledge were subject to change, others showed  a surprising endurance despite the outward and inward influences. However, this short answer does not do justice to the many processes and presuppositions which enabled the historical development of the phenomenon in two discrete national contexts that shared the same type of polity, namely the post-Stalinist form of socialism which was characterized by an authoritarian regime under the hegemonic influence of the CP. It has been posited in the introduction that the role of the party in the process of knowledge production has to be taken into consideration and its actual influence on the process inves-

310 Conclusion tigated. Therefore, the “long answer” problematized the role of the party as one significant precondition for the existence of scientific atheism. In the 1920s, the party’s support was already a decisive factor for the organization and existence of the LMG . Although it was not the first iteration of the exoteric thought collective, its creation enabled the emergence of the first loci of atheist thinking which later contributed to the formation of the thought collective after Stalin’s death. The analysis showed that the situation in interwar Czechoslovakia was markedly different because the first atheist or antireligious groupings found themselves to be not a branch of a monolithic authoritative regime but a part of the debate on the essentially pluralistic market of ideas. Not only were Marxist atheists in Czechoslovakia initially much weaker in numbers than their bourgeois atheist counterparts from the FTM , but there was also quite strong competition embodied by various Christian churches. It has been formulated that the socio-political context as well as the relative organizational and ideational weakness of the loci of scientific-atheist thinking prevented the formation of esoteric thought collectives in both national contexts in the interwar period. Moreover, the construction of facts by the groupings in both cases was weak or non-existent, and the significant reference groups, that is, the political elites, were not ready to receive and understand the information coming from these channels as authoritative and highly relevant “truth” statements about the social reality. From the point of view of thought style formation, the 1920s and 1930s were important as  a period in which  a certain interpretive tradition was initiated which tended to regard certain phenomena in a certain way. Even though the term “scientific atheism” was not a common denominator in such thinking, the first categories which will later be used or re-signified by the scientific-atheist exoteric and esoteric thought styles were agreed upon by the “antireligiozniki” from the interwar period. Whereas the Soviet recipients of the interwar tradition from the post-Stalinist period could practically begin where the Militant Godless stopped, their Czechoslovakian counterparts, who separated themselves from the FTM under Bartošek’s leadership, had to be very careful with the adoption of earlier concepts because many were tainted with a repudiated, that is, bourgeois way of thinking. It has been documented that in both contexts, the party, conceptualized during the analysis as the heteronomous force and simultaneously the most significant reference group, played the decisive role of initiator. The various party resolutions, especially in the 1950s and in the first half of the 1960s, thus made possible the emergence of a compact thought collective and, subsequently, of a coherent thought style. It must be highlighted in this context that party executives at first adopted various resolutions about scientific-atheist propaganda in order to elicit social change. This is also why the first resolutions in both national contexts were devoted almost exclusively to the improvement of antireligious or scientific-atheist propaganda.

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It should be emphasized that the primary objective of the CC in both countries was to begin the “mechanism” of the change which was motivated by the specific demands of the day. It is crucial to emphasize that the majority of decision makers, who accepted the relevant CP resolutions in this time, did not possess expert knowledge about the phenomenon they wanted to regulate. The representatives of the heteronomous force were, thus, from the very beginning at a considerable deficit in terms of knowledge. One of the main changes which occurred as the result of the resolution’s approval was the creation of a specific space within the galaxy of the Marxist-Leninist epistemological paradigm which would devote itself to the production of knowledge of scientific-­ atheist phenomena. Paradoxically, the party decision-makers had an idea about the content of the newly created realm of knowledge, that is, they designed some of the spheres of knowledge but, and this should be emphasized, not all of them. The first resolution from July 1954 should be understood within this context. However, it has been documented that the second resolution from November 1954 mirrors  a different dynamic. Therefore, it should be interpreted as one of the first successful efforts by the exoteric thought collective to influence the heteronomous force because the November resolution rejected a direct bureaucratic approach which was loudly criticized, mainly by the experts at the time. It is symptomatic of this time period that the core of the resolution did not concern scientific-atheist research at all. Its focus was instead upon the antireligious propaganda and education. In this context it is crucial that this understanding of scientific atheism was initially closely connected to antireligious campaigns of the interwar period because it operated almost exclusively with already established knowledge and facts about religion, which were coined by Marx, Engels, and Lenin. The first scientific-atheist experts were thus mere propagandists whose goal was to repeat the unproblematized knowledge in such a way that would be accessible for a mass audience. Even the facts from other, mainly natural, sciences should have documented already well-known conclusions drawn by the “founding fathers.” As the emerging scientific-atheist realm of knowledge at this time, that is, the 1950s, was not primarily oriented towards the production of new knowledge, which would be motivated by a distinctive set of epistemological rules co-determining the framework of the construction of facts, it can be described as the emergence of the exoteric thought style. The main features of the scientific-atheist exoteric thought style in both national contexts include large amounts of theses with de facto axiomatic value, simplified content and explication strategies, the unproblematized presentation of facts recycled from other scientific disciplines, an absence of theoretical and epistemological debates, and an absence of research questions. Repetition was an important means of ensuring that a certain thesis was indisputable. Furthermore,

312 Conclusion the theses analyzed in the second part of the present work received their axiomatic status also as a result of a conscious repetition by the exoteric thought style members. By incessant repetition these small pieces of the mosaic were forged into the main pillars of the emerging thought style. Only after the established groups of atheist propagandists, together with other coercive, or “bureaucratic” measures did not reach the desired outcome, was the understanding of scientific atheism by the party executives fundamentally rethought. This process of rethinking began in both national contexts in 1959 and took approximately five years until 1964. The outcome of this process in the Soviet case was the foundation of the ISA in Moscow which was thoroughly discussed in the third part of the present work. The heteronomous force once again played an indispensable role in this context because it practically bestowed part of its authority and legitimacy on the newly created collective which had a fundamentally different function than the earlier collectives of scientific-atheist propagandists. Whereas the years 1959–1964 can be defined as an attempt to organize an esoteric thought collective without  a proper institutional background, 1964 entailed a qualitative change because it delineated the formation of the esoteric thought collective proper. It should be stressed that the main motivation of the heteronomous force for facilitating such qualitative change within the thought collective’s structure stemmed from the need to perceive the political task of social change through the lens of scholarship. In other words, the political leaders understood that merely propaganda and haphazard bureaucratic measures do not lead to desired results. To sum up, the first metamorphosis of scientific atheism in the post-war context was closely connected to the propaganda of natural-scientific facts and the repetition of the critique of religion voiced by the founding fathers of Marxism-Leninism. In the 1950s, scientific atheism was thus associated with scientific-atheist propaganda and education which was organized and delivered by  a centralized propaganda institution in both national contexts. The main agents of this variation of scientific atheism were individual semi-professional propagandists who commanded a canonical type of knowledge which was far more dependent on faith, that is, on the internalization of axiomatic theses about religion and religiosity, than on  a careful analysis and rational study within a more or less coherent epistemological framework. The second metamorphosis of scientific atheism is characterized by the construction and stabilization of the esoteric thought collective which led to the emergence and eventual delineation of the esoteric thought style in both national contexts. This process had at least three main sources that contributed to its final success. Firstly, there were sufficient individuals, who were persuaded that the scientific study of the pertaining phenomena was a possible and necessary precondition for the political task outlined by the party elites during the course of the 1950s.

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Secondly, the main difference between the old exoteric thought collective and the new esoteric thought collective was in the shared point of view. Whereas for the members of the exoteric thought collective scientific atheism was a box full of preordained and already completed facts and spheres of knowledge, for the newly emerging esoteric thought collective the same facts and spheres of knowledge posed only as points of departure or the beginnings of questioning which aimed to reach more conclusive, deeper and universally valid and hitherto unknown facts, or knowledge. Thirdly, the specific point of view, or perspective, that is, the epistemological standpoint and readiness to construct new theories and elaborate on working hypotheses in order to produce new knowledge were the main aspects which structurally differentiated the members of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective from other significant reference groups such as the still existing and far more numerous exoteric thought collective or the representatives of the heteronomous force in the party apparatus on various levels of bureaucracy. However, the unified epistemological standpoint was not the only precondition for the existence of the esoteric thought collective. The other necessary preconditions were mainly structural. In other words, without the necessary institutional backing, which had been ensured by the heteronomous force through the foundation of the specialized institute in 1964, the emerging collective would have lacked the necessary center of gravity. Such a center provided the whole collective with a much needed sense of stability and also a vision of the future in the larger institutional framework of the other institutionalized sciences in the Soviet Union because it was able to ensure the specialized training of professional cadres which, in turn, was the most important precondition for the replenishment of the esoteric thought collective in the next generation. Without such a center the whole thought style would be put at risk because if there were no organizations in charge of knowledge transfer to the prospective esoteric thought collective members, then there would be no continuation of the thought collective to speak of. The other necessary step, which helped to anchor the thought collective in the Soviet landscape, was the foundation of a specialized journal which served as the main means of communication and which was also the most important channel through which the esoteric thought style was dispersed to other centers of research in the Soviet Union and abroad. It was demonstrated in the third and fourth parts of the present work how deeply the institutionalization and organization of the esoteric thought collective, embedded in the framework of a centralized structure with the respective ISAs at its top, influenced the emphasis of certain spheres of knowledge over others. It follows from the analysis that the whole institutional structure and process of the “departmentalization“ of scientific atheism would not have been possible without the ongoing consent of the heteronomous force representatives. It is an important finding that through

314 Conclusion such indirect channels the heteronomous force in both social contexts also exerted influence on the final form of knowledge production. Once such  a distinctive group of individuals was established, the question immediately arose as to what phenomena should be observed through the scientific-­atheist interpretive lens. In other words, the content of the scientificatheist realm of knowledge as well as individual spheres of knowledge were for the first time problematized as such. Whereas some spheres of knowledge formed core elements due to their traditional presence in atheist discourse, others became part of the social reality which was only gradually interpreted exclusively by the scientific-atheist experts. The case in point, which was analyzed in greater detail, was the sociology of religion. Although it was not a component of the spheres of knowledge which were inherited by the esoteric thought collective from the era in which scientific-atheist propaganda dominated, it was quickly internalized by the thought collective and added as one of the central spheres of knowledge. Apart from new spheres of knowledge, it was crucial for the emergence of the esoteric thought style to determine the epistemology, purpose and methods of knowledge production and the genesis of scientific facts. It is symptomatic that the debate regarding the meta-theoretical issues of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline was ended not by the thought collective but by the external influences of the socio-political context. Nevertheless, the fragments of the debate indicate that its participants were convinced of the cognitive potential of their epistemological paradigm which rested on the universally shared philosophical assumptions postulated by Marxism-Leninism. Precisely the adherence to certain assumptions, axioms and theories, that is, to a certain epistemological paradigm, enabled members of the esoteric thought style to construct the system of rules governing the production of knowledge which made the foundation and existence of the discipline itself possible. Although considerable attention in the third part of the book was devoted to the explanation of shifts within the esoteric thought style, it must be emphasized that the atheist realm of knowledge in the Soviet Union was also remarkably stable. The reason for this predicament stemmed from the mechanism of the esoteric thought collective’s replication which rested not on the drive for innovation and elaboration of hitherto unknown theories and approaches but almost exclusively on the further perfecting of the existing way of thinking. The consequence of this approach for professional training was the recycling of well-known facts, the confirmation of existing theories once again and the production of unproblematic facts. The drawback of the approach, which was acknowledged even by some historical actors, was almost non-existent research on any subject that would have pushed the existing boundaries of the epistemological paradigm. Furthermore, and this finding has to be especially underscored, the given epistemological presuppositions, that is, the rules of the game which determined

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the framework, such as viable research questions, the methods as well as the plausibility and verisimilitude of achieved interpretations or analyses, empowered an individual member of the esoteric thought collective to create facts, or knowledge in congruence with the expectations of the rest of the thought collective as well as with the expectations of the other significant reference groups. However, not all facts which were established within the esoteric thought style could have been incorporated into the existing epistemological framework unproblematically. In other words, there were always facts which by their very existence disrupted the thought style because they had the potential to disprove the axioms or key presuppositions on which the thought style rested. It has been demonstrated that sometimes such problematic facts inspired the creation of hitherto non-existing spheres of knowledge which should have helped to apprehend the problematic facts and render them comprehensible within the existing thought style. The analysis also showed that there were cases when the problematic fact elicited a change in the thought style itself. Given that in the context of the Soviet scientific-atheist esoteric thought style of the 1960s and 1970s such cases were relatively minor and inconsequential, their importance was interpreted in terms of an organic evolution of the thought style from within which is a characteristic process for the period of normal science in Kuhn’s sense. In other words,  a strong continuity of the traditional Marxist-Leninist approach towards religion and its critique within the Soviet esoteric thought style was typical. In this case new knowledge represented  a special challenge because the specialists were not able to return to the classics, which did not provide any guidance regarding the interpretation of newly constructed facts. The implicit need to adhere to epistemological purity which, in fact, meant a large amount of interpretive rigidity quite narrowly delineated their mental horizons. This is why it was so difficult for the members of the esoteric thought collective to go behind the stable but somehow rigid epistemological and interpretive framework which was closely guarded by the party ideologues. The outcome of this impasse was the considerably reduced possibility for innovations which were from the outset circumscribed by the “objective truths,” that is, by the axiomatic theses of the founding fathers but also the great possibility of deepening existing approaches and extending the validity of existing theories which became a part of the thought style. Another important aspect of the knowledge production is its relationship to the heteronomous force. The analysis of selected material has demonstrated that the party quite often stood behind the opening of a new sphere of knowledge in the framework of the thought collective. Nevertheless, the results of research could not have been preordained from the outside by the heteronomous force. Moreover, if the outcomes of research produced unexpected results, the subsequent follow-up research projects were carried out as the result of an initiative from within. Thus, independent knowledge and new facts originated to a large

316 Conclusion degree outside of the heteronomous force’s sphere of influence. This notion is important in discussions about the degree of knowledge production autonomy and the degree of its influence on the heteronomous force and other significant reference groups such as the exoteric thought collective. The main influence of the thought style on the party elites was ensured by its ability to construct facts and concepts which were previously unknown or without precise definition. This aspect was thoroughly investigated in the example of religiosity and atheicity which over the course of the 1960s-1980s led to a change in the party’s approach to the concepts of belief, atheism, and the necessity of its propaganda in the Soviet national context. In particular, the introduction of the category of “ambiguous” people who were neither religious nor atheists helped to modify the party’s attention from its propagandistic focus on the category of the religious to this category of people instead. On the other hand, the heteronomous force was the most important reference group because it ultimately determined to what extent the esoteric thought style, that is, specialist scientific-atheist research, was successful. The continuous support of the party in terms of resources and institutional anchoring sanctioned the existence of the thought collective and confirmed its importance for the party. This relative importance was further attested to by the slow yet continuous expansion of the esoteric thought collective in terms of quantity as well as geography. The development of the ISA’s bases and foundation of specialized departments at institutions of higher learning represent a case in point. The development of the scientific-atheist thought style in 1960s Czechoslovakia serves as an important counterweight which provided an important insight into the development of the thought collective and production of knowledge in a completely different socio-political context. It has been demonstrated that the main cause of the Czechoslovakian deviation in terms of scientific-atheist knowledge production in the approximate years 1963–1968 resided in the weakening of the heteronomous force’s influence on the public sphere in general and on the thought collective in particular. Besides the observation that even within the context of allegedly ideologically rigid socialist countries two considerably different epistemological approaches developed which were understood as scientific-atheist research by their adherents, the most important outcome in this respect is the fact that scientific atheism, understood as an esoteric thought style, was capable of internal change to such  a degree that it brings to mind  a scientific revolution. Furthermore, in contrast to Kuhn’s findings, the case study regarding the Czechoslovakian development attests that  a fundamental change of approach towards certain phenomena does not have to be necessarily motivated by a revolutionary discovery but by a change in the broader epistemological climate. Given that with the political liberalization the limits placed on the mental horizons of the historical actors were also loosened, it was suddenly possible to extend the number of

Conclusion  317

hypotheses and even discard some hitherto untouchable axioms. The contrast represented by Gardavský’s proposal of approaching scientific atheism as the metaphysics of Marxism, Machovec’s fundamentally different attitude towards religion and his groundbreaking methodological innovations in the case of the Czechoslovakian thought collective and close adherence to the principles introduced by the founding fathers echoed in the debate regarding the subject matter of the scientific-atheist scholarly discipline in the Soviet thought collective during the 1960s illustrate the extent of the rift between the two previously epistemologically close thought collectives. To recapitulate, the second metamorphosis of scientific atheism which, due to unique historical development in both national contexts, manifested itself in the 1960s and had two variations. For both contexts that the realm of knowledge ceased to be understood just as a reservoir of completed ideas and began to be approached as a research problem, that is, as a box which had to be filled with new knowledge was similar. This substantial change of emphasis led to the emergence of the specific social group which was called the esoteric thought collective. It must be stressed that for the Soviet politicians and members of other significant reference groups scientific atheism was still understood primarily as a type of worldview, the specifically Marxist way of life. This interpretation of scientific atheism played an important role in the further development of socialist morals and ethics as well as in the construction of specific socialist rites, festivities and celebrations. The focus of the present work has been on the other modality of scientific atheism which emerged in the 1960s. Namely, the understanding of scientific atheism as a scholarly discipline has been analyzed as a specific realm of knowledge which was able to produce new facts and authoritative statements about social reality. It is crucial to underscore that whereas the Soviet esoteric thought collective was mainly oriented towards the scholarly aspect of the realm of knowledge, the Czechoslovakian thought collective balanced on the edge between this understanding and a more philosophical and ethical definition of the realm of knowledge during the 1960s. In the case of the Soviet esoteric thought style, considerable continuity with the previous exoteric thought style and, also, with the elder interwar and even classical tradition of the founding fathers is discernible. Therefore, the development of the Soviet esoteric thought style was of an evolutionary nature and resembles the model coined by Fleck. In the Czechoslovakian case, on the other hand, the evolutionary and imitative nature of the exoteric thought style of the 1950s was supplanted by the revolutionary approach which redefined the majority of fundamental thought structures and thought style concepts. Consequently, whereas scientific atheism was in the Soviet Union newly understood not just as a part of a scientific worldview and socialist ethic but as one of the pillars of Marxist scholarship closely associated with the party line, the realm of knowledge in 1960s Czechoslovakia came to be associated with socialism

318 Conclusion with a human face which was one of the core principles of the reform movement. The constituent role of the heteronomous force in both cases has already been highlighted. The post-1968 development of the Czechoslovakian thought collective or rather the personal and ideational discontinuity in relation to the 1960s situation is further evidence attesting to the subordination of the thought collective to the heteronomous force in the context of an authoritarian political regime. Consequently, the thought style was also deeply influenced by the change in the socio-political context. In the Soviet Union, on the other hand, any glaring interventions of the heteronomous force into the personal structure of the thought collective as well as to the overall form of the thought style were not discernible. Therefore, as has been revealed by the analysis conducted in the fourth part, the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s were  a period of normal science in Kuhn’s sense, and the normal science developed gradually according to the model presented by Fleck. The same conclusion applies to the Czechoslovakian case following the obliteration of the 1960s generation of scientific atheists completed by the normalization CP elite. One of the new key developments of the esoteric thought collectives during the 1970s discovered during research was the internationalization and unification of the thought style. As opposed to earlier bilateral contacts, the Soviet and Czechoslovakian atheist experts began systematically visiting one another from the beginning of the 1970s. An important outcome of the analysis is the claim that the Soviet thought collective united the international thought collective under one thought style and exercised a position of epistemological hegemony. Although there were also spheres of knowledge which did not evince the considerable superiority of the Soviet thought collective, such as the sphere of knowledge which accentuated revisionism in scientific atheism, the most important theoretical debates, such as the ongoing meta-theoretical debate, were governed by Soviet experts, as the content analysis clearly showed. The second half of the 1980s was the time period during which, for the first time, the public sphere was liberalized to such an extent that it allowed the relaxation of the rigidly positioned borders of the esoteric thought style’s epistemological paradigm. The socio-political situation as well as the position of the heteronomous force vis-à-vis the esoteric thought collective shared a structural resemblance with the situation in 1963–1968 Czechoslovakia. However, the relaxation of the heteronomous force’s grip on the production of knowledge in the Soviet Union did not initiate a process of creative thinking, as was the case in Czechoslovakia, but placed the thought collective in a turmoil of insecurity which resulted in an epistemological crisis tellingly described by one historical actor himself, Garadzha. The withdrawal of the heteronomous force’s support did not lead to the rejuvenation of the thought style but to its complete demise in 1991. It is significant that the thought collective which found itself in the

Conclusion  319

completely new socio-political context of federalized Russia outlived its original thought style, or rather smoothly metamorphosed into  a brand new thought collective which was unified under a totally different thought style. This new thought style was characterized by the utter rejection of the hitherto unquestionable foundations of all scientific research in this area and the embracing of the Western epistemological paradigm which is characterized by a plurality of approaches, the relativity of truth statements, and the conditioned validity of facts. The Czechoslovakian part of the analysis evinced that the heteronomous force was in this case relatively firmly in control until its unexpected seizure and dissolution in the wake of the keys chiming in Wenceslas Square which heralded the culmination of the Velvet Revolution. It has been surmised that the unpreparedness of the thought collective for the abrupt change, which did not leave any time for adjustment as was the case in the time of the Soviet “perestroika,” resulted in the almost total ousting of the scientific-atheist esoteric thought collective from the successive thought collective which has been structured analogically to the Western research tradition of multi-paradigmatic religious studies. The change of perspectives in both post-socialist national contexts has been so thorough that  a dispassionate characterization of scientific atheism in the 1954–1989 time period in the contemporary Czech and Slovakian context is still unimaginable, whereas in the Russian context the reconsideration of the recent past entered the disciplinary debate only a short time ago. At the same time, those who try to re-embrace at least some legacy of the scientific-atheist thought style in contemporary Russia collide with the strong opposition of ardent defenders of the total rejection of fundamentally erroneous knowledge. Thus, the journey of understanding the scientific-atheist thought style rather than the pre-emptive condemnation of it as something totally alien to our way of thinking, that is, to our perspective or “epistemological standpoint” has just begun. The present work is a contribution to this endeavor.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to all of those with whom I have had the pleasure to work during this project. The work would not have been possible without the financial and administrative support of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. Each of the members of the Graduate School has provided me extensive personal and professional guidance and taught me a great deal about both scientific research and life in general. I would especially like to thank professor Martin Schulze-Wessel. As my teacher and mentor, he has taught me more than I could ever give him credit for here. The thesis would never be completed without stimulating, challenging, and enriching debates and commentaries concerning theoretical, methodological or topical aspects of the researched topic. Apart many others who helped me in various stages of the research, I am especially indebted to professor Ulf Brunnbauer from the University of Regensburg, professor Miloš Havelka from the Faculty of Humanities at the Charles University in Prague, Dr. Michal Kopeček from the Department of Czech History at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Dr. Jan Randák from the Department of Czech History at the Charles University in Prague, Dr. Irina Maksimovna Savel’eva from the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Dr. Helena Tóth from the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg, and Todd Weir from the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. Nobody has been more important to me in the pursuit of this project than the members of my family. I would like to thank my parents, whose love and guidance are with me in whatever I pursue. They are the ultimate role models. Most importantly, I wish to thank my loving and supportive wife, Marina, and my little son Mikhail.

List of Abbreviations A AV A SAV APRF ASS ASSR AUCP (b) CAROC CC CP CPC CPCC CPS CPSU CRA CSAS

Csc. CSR

CSSR

Diamat DrSc. FKOJ FTM GARF GDR Histmat ISA Komsomol KS LMG LPG MIRA MZA NA ČR NEP RGANI RGASPI ROC RSDP RSFSR SAS SAV SNA SOA L

Archiv akademie věd (Archive of the Academy of Sciences) Archiv slovenské akadémie vied (Archive of the Slovak Academy of Sciences) Arkhiv prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Archive of the President of the Russian Federation) Academy of the Social Sciences Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic All Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church Central committee communist party Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Communist Party’s Central Committee Communist Party of Slovakia Communist Party of the Soviet Union Council for religious affairs Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences candidate of sciences Czech Socialist Republic Czechoslovakian Socialist Republic dialectical materialism doctor of sciences Federation of Communist Public Education Unions Hnutí volné myšlenky (Free Thinkers Movement) State Archive of the Russian Federation German Democratic Republic historical materialism Institute of Scientific Atheism kommunisticheskii soiuz molodezhi Knowledge Society League of Militant Godless League of the Militant Godless Museum of History of Religion and Atheism in Leningrad Moravský zemský archiv National Archives of the Czech Republic New Economic Policy Russian State Archive of Contemporary History Russian State Archive of the Socio-Political History Russian Orthodox Church Russian Social Democratic Party Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Soviet Academy of Sciences Slovenská akadémia vied (Slovak Academy of Sciences) Slovenský národný archív v Bratislave (Slovak National Archive in Bratislava Státní oblastní archiv Litoměřice (State Regional Archive in Litoměřice

324  List of Abbreviations SOkA M SPOZ SPŠPVZ SSR SZA USSR

Státní okresní archiv Most Spolek pro občanské záležitosti (Society for Citizen Affairs) Společnost pro šíření vědeckých a politických znalostí (The Society for Dispersion of Scientific Knowledge) Soviet Socialist Republic Slezský zemský archiv Union of the Soviet Socialist Repub

Note on Transliteration Russian names and titles were transliterated according to simplified translitera­ tion table used by the Library of Congress.1 The simplification consists in omitting special linguistic symbols for transliteration of Russian symbols for diphthongs such as ю, я. Therefore, instead of using ͡iu for “ю” and ͡ia for “я”, letters “iu” are used in the former case, whereas “ia” in the latter case. Similarly, Russian “ц” is transcribed as “ts” and “й” simply as “I”.



1 See https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/russian.pdf (on 12 December 2017).

Appendix

328 Appendix a) Figures 30000

25000

20000

15000

10000

5000

80

81

19

19

78

79

19

19

76

77

19

19

74

75

19

19

72

73

19

19

70

71

19

19

68

69

19

Number of Scientific-Atheist Lectures (in thousands)

19

66

67

19

19

64

65

19

19

62

63

19

19

60

61

19

19

58

59

19

19

56

57

19

19

54 19

19

55

0

Total Number of Lectures Delivered by the “Knowledge Society” (in thousands)

Figure 1a. Overview of Lectures in the USSR Organized by the “Knowledge Society” 1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0

54 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

19

Figure 1b. Number of Scientific-Atheist Lectures (in thousands)

Figures   329

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

1959

Figure 2. The Number of Direct Atheist Lectures Delivered by the Branch of SPŠPVZ in Jihlava

5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0

1953

1954

1955

1956

Figure 3. Potential Reach of Direct Atheist Lectures

1957

1958

1959

330 Appendix 300

number of publications

250

200

150

100

50

0

19

52

19

53

19

54

19

55

science and religion (general treatises, astronomy, geology, biology, antropology, medicine) main religions (ROC, Catholic Church, Protestantism, Judaism, Buddhism, and sectarians) origins of religion

19

56

19

57

19

58

19

59

19

60

history of atheism (general questions, history of Russian atheism, atheism of the people of the USSR, freethought and atheism in socialist countries and in the Western Europe) scientific atheist propaganda and overcoming of religious superstitions

Figure 4. The Main Themes and Topics of Scientific-atheist Propaganda in the Soviet Union in Years 1952–1960

60

50

40

30

20

10

0 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19

Figure 5. The Number of Scientific-Atheist Publications in the CSSR

Figures   331 1400

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0

1952

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

1959

1960

number of scientific-atheist publications

Figure 6.  The Number of Scientific-Atheist Publications in the USSR in years 1952–1960

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

1952

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

the Catholic Church, Vatican, and religion in capitalist countries

1959

1960

the ROC

Figure 7. The Number of Soviet Publications Concerning the ROC and the Catholic Church

332 Appendix 25

20

15

10

5

0

the KPSS apparatus

the Soviet structures

tertiary education

scientific centers

diplomatic corps

other type of work

Figure 8. The Breakdown of the INA Graduates According to Their Professional Occupation in 1960s

Tables   333

b) Tables Table 1: Individuals and the Number of Lectures Delivered by Them Year

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

1959

total

at least one lecture

3

n / a

9

3

10

16

55

96

three or more lectures

2

n / a

4

1

1

4

16

28

Table 2: The Duration of the Atheist Propaganda Activity in the Jihlava Region in 1954–1959 Interval

number of propagandists

one year

two years

three years

four years

five years

76

8

3

2

0

Table 3: An Overview of Dissertations Defended in the ISA in the Years 1964–1974* 1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

total

Year Can. diss. defended.

0

3

7

9

13

9

15

7

11

7

5

86

Doctoral diss. defended.

0

0

0

1

3

0

3

1

1

1

0

10

* See RGASPI , f. 606, op.4, d. 118, ll. 28–29.

334 Appendix Table 4: Number of Scientific-Atheist Lectures in the Soviet Union in Years 1954–1981* Year 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981

Number of Scientific-Atheist Lectures (in thousands) 120,2 100,3 84 186,9 303,4 400 564,6     660 759,1 738,2 670,9 649,2 666,3 666,6 679,1 719,8 795,4 840,6 897,3 930,2 950 966,7 971,3 1002,5 1011,2 1022

Proportion of Scientific-Atheist Lectures to the Total Number of Lectures Delivered by the KS 9 % 5 % 5 % 4,90 % 5,40 % 5,40 % 5,60 %     4,90 % 5,20 % 4,81 % 4,31 % 3,94 % 3,92 % 3,80 % 3,67 % 3,71 % 3,89 % 3,95 % 4,05 % 3,99 % 3,90 % 3,78 % 3,73 % 3,82 % 3,78 % 3,75 %

* For the overview of lectures delivered by the KS in years 1954–1972 see Kratkie statisticheskie svedeniia o deiatelnosti vsesoiuznogo obshchestva “Znanie” (za 1968–1971 gody). Published by “Znanie”. Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo. Moskva 1972, 6. For years 1973–1981 see Kratkie statisticheskie svedeniia o deiatelnosti vsesoiuznogo obshchestva “Znanie” (za 1977–1981 gody). Published by “Znanie”. Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo. Moskva 1982, 31. The number of atheist lectures was compiled from the already mentioned and the following statistical yearbooks. For years 1954–1960 see Kratkie statisticheskie svedeniia o deiatelnosti vsesoiuznogo obshchestva “Znanie” (za 1954–1959 gody). Published by “Znanie”. Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo. Moskva 1960, 48. The statistics for years 1964–1968 were found in Kratkie statisticheskie svedeniia o deiatelnosti vsesoiuznogo obshchestva “Znanie” (za 1964–1967 gody). Published by “Znanie”. Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo. Moskva 1968, 31. The numbers were consulted with the data published by Powell and Theodorowitsch. See Powell: Antireligious Propaganda, 105–110, and Theodorowitsch, Nadeshda: Religion und Atheismus in der UdSSR . München 1970, 88 f.

Tables   335

Table 5: An Overview of the Defended Candidate and Doctoral Dissertations at the ISA in Moscow*  

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

total

defended candidate diss.

11

7

5

8

9

7

7

10

11

2

77

defended doctoral diss.

1

1

0

1

4

2

3

1

4

1

18

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

total

defended candidate diss.

 

2

7

5

7

5

9

18

13

12

24

102

defended doctoral diss.

3

1

0

2

3

1

2

1

4

1

18

* The overview is based on multiple sources. Even though tables of graduates compiled directly by the employees of the ISA exist, they are not always conclusive and sometimes even contradict one another. The reason for such differentiation of such basic data stems from the different approaches to the statistics compilation. Whereas sometimes were counted only the graduates from the group of internal aspirants, other times were the statistics based on internal, external and international graduates who undertook the defense at the ISA that year. Yet another statistic can be derived from the list of ISA graduates presented by Zuev. Therefore, the statistics for years 1972–1982 are based on the sources produced by the ISA whereas the last nine years are based on the list made by Zuev. Comp. RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 118, ll. 28–29, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 193, l. 145, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 223, l. 15, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 231, l. 1, and Zuev, Shmidt: Dissertatsii zashchishchennye v INA — I R AON pri CK KPSS  — Kafedre GKO RAGS (1957–2009), in: Antologia otechestvennogo religiovedeniia, chasť 3: Institut Nauchnogo ateizma — Institut religiovedeniia AON pri TsK KPSS . Moskva 2009, 497–514.

336 Appendix Table 6: A List of Conferences Organised by the INA from 1964–1989* Year

Name of the Conference

1964

National Liberation Movement and Religion

1965

Outcomes of the Second Vatican Council Some Problems of the Origin of Religion

1966

Problems of the Bible Critique The System of Atheist Upbringing

1967

On Criteria and Types of Religiosity The Development of Atheism in the USSR during 50 Years of Soviet Rule

1968

50th Anniversary of Lenin’s Decree “On Separation of Church and State and School and Church” Problems of Researching Islam in the USSR and Abroad

1969

Psychology of Religion Lenin’s Atheist Heritage and the Present Time

1970

Problems of the Contemporary Critique of Catholicism

1971

On the State and Main Course of the Contemporary Critique of Protestantism Problems of Atheism and Religion in Belletristic Literature

1972

On the Role of Religion and Church in the Historical Process The National Question and Religion

1973

Atheism in the System of the Ideological Work of the Party Organizations Scientific-Technical Revolution and the Secularization Process in the Contemporary World

1974

Contemporary Issues of Religion and Atheism’s History in the Light of MarxistLeninist Science

1975

Religion and Atheism in the Contemporary Ideological Struggle

1976

The Teaching of Scientific Atheism and its Methods

1978

Socialist Rituals

1981

Socialist Rituals in the System of Communist Education

1982

Contemporary Goals of Atheist Education in the Light of the XXVI Congress of the CPSU

1983

New Rituals and the Socialist Way of Life Contemporary Problems of the Atheist Education of Workers in the Light of the June CC CPSU Plenum’s Resolution

1984

Religion and Contemporary Ideological Struggle

1989

Religion, Atheism, and Panhuman Values

* The table serves as an illustration of range and breadth of topics as well as their frequency. It is not a full overview of all conferences and seminars organized by the ISA because such information is not obtainable either from the archival or from the published sources. The table is therefore a compilation of data from various sources such as QSA , vol. 19, Slovakian journal Ateizmus, and, of course archival sources of the ISA in Moscow. See especially RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 6, s. 20, RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 198, l. 11, and RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 223, ll. 15–16.

Tables   337

Table 7: Overview of Scientific-Atheist Lectures Delivered by the Socialist Academy of the Czech Socialist Republic in Years 1978–1987* Year

Number of Atheist Lectures

1978

4463

1,7

 

 

1979

4842

2,2

 

 

1980

4659

2

 

 

1981

4018

1,6

 

 

1,7

1982

4449

1983

 

1984

4332

1985

 

1986

 

1987

4000

Proportion of the Overall Amount of Lectures (percentage)



Number of Registered Lectors

Number of Atheist Lectures in Slovakia

 

 

 

646

 

1,7

616

3489

 

707

 

 

730

 

1,4

685

3883

* See ČESKÁ organizace socialistické akademie ČSSR 1983–1988, Praha 1988, p. 13, SOCIALISTICKÁ akademie ČSSR od III . Do IV. Sjezdu, IV. Sjezd Socialistické akademie Praha 26.–27.11.1988, Praha 1988, p. 24, SOCIALISTICKÁ akademie ČSSR v ČSR , mezi sjezdy 1978–1983, Praha 1983, pp. 33 and 37.

338 Appendix Table 8: An Overview of Scientific-Atheist Specialist Seminars in Years 1971–1989 Year

Organization

Title

1973

City Committee of the CPS Bratislava

Questions of Education Towards ­Scientific Worldview

1973

Central Committee of the Slovak Socialist Academy

Current Problems of Scientific-atheist Education

1974

Central Committee of the Slovak Socialist Academy

Atheist Education as a Part of the Worldview Education

1975

Ministry of Culture of the SSR and Slovak Committee of SPOZ

About the Work of SPOZ

1975

Central Committee of the Slovak Socialist Academy

Worldview Education of Youths

1975

Slovak Socialist Youth Union (SYU)

Methods and Forms of Worldview Education’s Realisation in the Conditions of the SYU

1976

Regional Pedagogic Center of the Regional National Committee

Work Methods at Atheist and Astronomic Clubs

1976

Slovak Socialist Academy (SSA)

Theory, Methodology and Practice of Atheist Propaganda

1977

Central Committee of the CPS

Atheism and Religion in a Contemporary Struggle of Ideas

1977

Regional Committee of the CPS and Regional Committee of the SSA

Formation of Scientific-atheist Consciousness of Youths

1978

Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the CC CPC

The Manifestation and Causes of Religion’s Survival in the Socialist Society and Ways of Overcoming it

1978

Ministry of Education and Faculty of Art at the University in Prešov

Teachers of Scientific Atheism at the University

1979

SSA

Humanist and Moral Content of Scientific Atheism in Socialism

1983

Ministry of Education

Clerical Anticommunism and Contemporary Questions of Scientific Atheism

1985

Socialist Academy of the ČSSR

1100th Anniversary of Methodius’ Death

1989

CC CPS

Scientific-atheist Education and Propaganda in the Process of Reconstruction

Layout of the ISA’s local bases in 1966(9)–1979    339

c) Layout of the ISA’s local bases in 1966(9)–1979

Map 1. The Local Bases in the Second Half of the 1960s (RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 192, ll. 248–256)

Map 2. The Local Bases in 1979 (RGASPI , f. 606, op. 4, d. 224, ll. 126–128)

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Index Aleksandr I (tsar)  34 Aleksandr II (tsar)  35 Alekseev, Nikolai Petrovich  115, 160, 165 f. Antonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich  25 f. Aron, Raymond  20 Austin, John Langshaw  25 Barth, Karl  187 Bartošek, Theodor  56–60, 310 Bělka, František  93, 95 Bendlová, Peluška  178, 207, 294 Beran, Josef  83 Bieľčik, Jan  180 Biľak, Vasil  177, 248, 250 Birnbaum, Norman  162 Bociurkiw, Bohdan  19 f., 72 Bogdanov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich  36 Bolen, Václav  58 Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir Dmitrievich  40, 71 f., 74, 148 Borovský, Karel, Havlíček  50 Braude, Dmitrii  42 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich  25, 125 f., 138, 174, 219, 222–226, 230, 239, 242, 247, 253 Bubík, Tomáš  27 Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich  38 Cetl, Josef  198 Cherniak, Vusia  166 f. Chernyshevskii, Nikolai Gavrilovich  35 Cvekl, Jiří  101 f., 104 f., 108–110, 200 Čelko, Jaroslav  180, 255–258, 268, 271 Diderot, Denis  99 Durkheim, Emile  161–164 Engels, Friedrich  22, 35, 37, 53 f., 59, 99, 102 f., 107, 202, 311 Evdokimov, Vladimir  137, 169 Feuerbach, Ludwig  28, 35 f., 50, 63 Field, Mark  132 f. Filimonov, Eduard Gennadievich  169, 234 f., 278, 296 f.

Fleck, Ludwik  9, 12, 15–17, 127, 212, 317 f. Foucault, Michel  17 f. Frantsev, Iurii Pavlovich  137, 168 f. Frede, Victoria  28, 34 f. Garaudy, Roger  83, 176, 183, 187, 207 f., 211, 275 f., 278–282 Gardavský, Vítězslav  177, 183 f., 193, 207–211, 247, 280–282, 317 Gerasimov, Vasilii Petrovich  110 Gorbachev, Nikolai Andreevich  144, 146 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich  222, 226 f., 234 Gordin, Michael  10 Gorkii, Maxim  36 Gottwald, Klement  58, 87, 99, 175, 256 Grossman, Joan Delaney  72 Grossman, Vasilii Semenovich  227 Groth, Bernd  23 Haeckel, Ernst  53 Helvetius, John  99 Hendrych, Jiří  88, 95, 115 Hlavoň, Karel  198 Hodovský, Ivan  10, 261–263, 267, 273, 292, 294 Hranička, Jaroslav  178, 180, 183, 195, 247 Hudečková, Viera  53, 58–61 Husák, Gustáv  84, 177, 181, 247–249, 251, 253, 256 f., 305 Iablokov, Igor Nikolaevich  10, 285–287, 297, 298, 301 f. Iankova, Zoia Alekseevna  156 f., 159 f. Iaroslavski, Emelian Mikhailovich  40 f., 44–47, 59 Ievdokimov, Vladimir  163 Iliichev, Leonid Fedorovich  157 Ingersoll, Robert  64 Ivanov, Ivan  145 Jílek, Bohumil  58 John XXIII 175

354 Index Kaariainen, Kimmo  23, 124, 128, 231 Kadlecová, Erika  177–180, 183, 193, 195, 197 f., 203, 247, 268 f., 271, 275, 280, 282 Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseevich  76 Kácha, Michael  53 Karliuk, Anatolii Semenovich  142 Kasal, Jan  91, 93, 97 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich  11, 25, 73–77, 80, 85, 123–126, 141, 174, 223–225, 230 Khudiakov, Semen  101 f., 105 f., 112, 114 Kirilenko, Ivan  167 Klibanov, Aleksandr Iliich  129, 154–157, 166, 244 Kocka, Jürgen  13 Köhler, Bruno  87 Kolárik, Michal  180 Kolman, Arnošt (Ernst)  42, 177 f., 190, 261, 268 Kolonitskii, Petr Fedotovich  101 f., 104, 106, 130, 264 Konovalov, Boris Nikolaevich  79, 242 Konstantinov, Fedor  141 Kopecký, Rudolf  57 Körber, Čeněk  53, 59 Kostelovskaia, Mariia Mikhailovna  40, 45–47 Kotkin, Stephen  21 Kotoč, Ján  116 Kovalev, Sergei Ivanovich  131 Krasikov, Pavel Ananievich  38, 40, 44 Krasnikov, Nikolai Petrovich  131 Krupskaia, Nadezhda Konstantinovna  40 Kryvelev, Iosif Aronovich  103, 105 f., 114, 164 Křelina, František  84 Kudláč, Antonín  56 Kuhn, Thomas  31, 127, 153, 159, 187, 219, 304 f., 315 f., 318 Kunstovný, Otakar  57, 63 Kurochkin, Pavel Konstantinovich  131, 137 f., 147, 159, 233, 237, 244, 246, 266, 292 Kvasnička, Bohumír  180, 203, 255–257, 264 Lahůlek-Faltys, Zdeněk  59 Lamoš, Jozef  180 Lawrence, John  19–21 Lenin, Vladimir Iliich  21, 35–39, 43, 45, 48 f., 51, 59, 64, 66 f., 72, 99, 102, 106, 114, 132, 186, 311

Levada, Iurii Aleksandrovich  161–164, 195 Lihocký, Julius  115 f. Lišková, Božena  59 Lopatkin, Remir Aleksandrovich  138, 168, 235, 247, 268, 273, 300, 302 Loukotka, Jiří  10, 184, 193, 258, 260–263, 266, 270, 287, 289 f. Luehrmann, Sonja  17, 24 f. Lukachevski, Aleksandr Timofeevich  59 f. Lunacharskii, Anatolii Vasilevich  36 f., 40, 63 Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich  17 Macek, Josef  91 Macháček, Josef  84, 188–191, 194, 198, 202, 256 Machovcová, Markéta  178 Machovec, Milan  177 f., 182–184, 193 f., 200–209, 211, 247, 280–282, 294, 317 Malenkov, Georgii Maksimilianovich  76 Marx, Karl  21 f., 35–37, 53 f., 59, 64, 73, 99, 101–107, 114, 186, 208, 278, 311 Milde, Lubomír  57, 60, 63 f. Milovidov, Vladimir Fedorovich  156 Molotov, Viacheslav Mikhailovich  76, 102 Morozov, Ivan  164 Motyčka, Jaroslav  56 f. Myslík, Julius  56 f., 60 Nahodil, Otakar  92, 98, 101, 103, 111, 172 Nejedlý, Zdeněk  60, 83 Nešpor, Zdeněk  26 f., 294 Novomeský, Laco  60, 256 Novotný, Antonín  87 f., 174 Okulov, Aleksandr Fedorovich  10, 137 f., 145, 147–149, 151, 163, 220, 232 f., 238 f., 243, 246, 268 f., 276, 287 Oleshchuk, Fiodor Nestorovich  72 Onishchenko, Aleksei Semenovich  159– 161, 165, 233, 289 f. Pankhurst, Jerry  20 Pantskhava, Ilia Diomidovich  130, 144, 147 Paul VI 175 Peris, Daniel  28, 37, 41 f., 44, 46, 48 f. Persits, Mark Medeleevich  77, 144 f., 232, 244 Pertold, Otakar  64, 83, 98, 110 Pisarev, Dmitri Ivanovich  35

Index  355 Plekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich  35 Popper, Karl  17, 159 Pospielovsky, Dimitry  37–39, 72 Powell, David  24 Preobrazhenskii, Evghenii  38 Prokůpek, Ladislav  180, 183, 195 Prusák, Peter  58, 60, 180, 295, 301 Russell, Bertrand  64 Semashko, Nikolai  45 Shakhnovich, Mikhail Iosifovich  74, 82, 131 f., 141–143 Sheinman, Mikhail Markovich  59, 112, 130, 244 Shelepin, Aleksandr Nikolaevich  73 Shepilov, Dmitri Trofimovich  73 Skvortsov-Stepanov, Ivan Ivanovich  40, 45, 47 Sládková, Eva  177 f. Slavík, Václav  84–90, 93 f., 170, 172–174 Smelík, Tomáš  84 Smetana, Augustin  50–52, 57 Smirnov, Mikhail Iurievich  25 f. Smolkin-Rothrock, Victoria  24, 74, 127, 135, 223 Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovich  9, 19, 36, 41, 44, 48, 65, 67, 71–73, 119, 310 Stoichev, Todor  149–151, 284 Suslov, Mikhail Andreevich  73 Sviták, Ivan  33, 90, 98 f., 101–103, 106, 108–110, 112 f., 172, 177, 179 f., 189, 191, 195, 202–204 Šmeral, Bohumír  53

Šorm, František  90 Šťastný, Alfons  51 Štrougal, Lubomír  177, 247 Štych, Jaroslav  53 Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre  187, 207 Tepliakov, Mitrofan Kuzmich  160, 165 f. Thrower, James  22 f., 36, 75, 125 Tikhon (patriarch)  37 f. Tiso, Jozef  113 Toufar, Josef  83 Trotskii, Lev Davidovich  37 Tsamerian, Ivan Petrovich  130, 143, 220 Ugrinovich, Dmitrii Modestovich  162–164, 285, 288, 298, 301 Ulianov, Lev  164 Uvarov, Sergei Semenovich  34 Václavík, David  27, 294 Van den Bercken, William  21 f., 75 Vašečka, Felix  33, 112 f., 254–258, 261 f. Velikovich, Lazar  195, 244 Velikovsky, Immanuel  10 Virganskii, Viktor Nikolaevich  111, 114 Voegelin, Eric  20 Vrbenský, Bohuslav  53 Weber, Max  158, 162 Zahradníček, Jan  84 Zhukov, Georgii Konstantinovich  76 Zubek, Milan  93 Zuev, Iurii Pavlovich  135, 138