The Soviet government's attitude to religion in theory and practice is shown in this wide-ranging collection of annotated texts from the newly-opened archives. Included are documents from the KGB, the Central Committee, the Council for Religious Affairs and numerous other official bodies. For the first time in English we see the bureaucrats' own view of how religious believers should be controlled, following the story from the persecutions of the early Soviet years to the openness instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Comprehensive survey of the situation of various religious groups in the U.S.S.R., including Christian, Moslem, Buddhist, Jewish, with contemporary developments under the Khrushchev regime.

Provides a systematic and accessible overview of church-state relations in the Soviet Union. This text explores the shaping of Soviet religious policy from the death of Stalin until the collapse of communism, and considers the place of religion in the post

This bookexamines in depth the conflict between Lenin''s logic-driven efforts to stamp out religion and the churches'' passionate attempts to save themselves from obliteration. It looks at both sides objectively and admits that they both presented strong cases. In this thoroughly researched yet accessible study, historian Paul Gabel offers a new understanding of the only effort in world history to upset the universality of religion. Besides the main conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the atheist state, Gabel also considers the tensions that this campaign against religion caused within the Communist Party. In addition, he discusses the bitter hatred dividing the Orthodox factions that refused cooperation with the government from those that tried to adapt the church to communism. Was the failure of Soviet communism to eradicate religion simply a matter of practical miscalculation, or was this effort, in light of the persistence of religion throughout history, ultimately unrealistic and doomed from the start? This is the key question that Gabel''s fascinating, insightful narrative attempts to answer.