And God Created Lenin. Marxism vs Religion In Russia, 1917-1929

When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in November 1917, they used a wide range of techniques-some subtle, some violent-to eradicate religion in areas under their control. The new Soviet government arrested priests, closed church buildings, exposed fraudulent monastic relics, forbade the printing of religious literature, and denied religious education to the young-all the while proclaiming abroad that there was no religious persecution in Russia. They set out to crush not only all organized religion but even the likelihood of religious thought.

And God Created Lenin examines 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.
Acknowledgments 11 (4)
Introduction 15 (12)
Part I: PRELUDE 27 (70)
Chapter 1. A Fourth There Will Never Be: A Brief History of Russian Orthodoxy
29 (12)
Chapter 2. They Resign Their Lives to Providence: Weaknesses in Church and Culture
41 (22)
Chapter 3. Reflections in the Minds of Men: An Introduction to Marxists on Religion
63 (20)
Chapter 4. The Fog of Religion: Marxists on Christianity and Theories of Revolutionary Timing
83 (14)
Part II: CONFLICT 97 (340)
Chapter 5. We Have a Tsar No More: The Importance of the First Church Sobor
99 (20)
Chapter 6. Shedding Tears of My Suffering Soul: The Civil War, Emigre, and Ukrainian Churches
119 (16)
Chapter 7. A Stone Instead of Bread: Separation of Church and State
135 (24)
Chapter 8. How, Then, about Elijah?: Religion and the Schools
159 (9)
Chapter 9. Parades Moving along Empty Streets: Bolshevik Attempts to Socially Undermine the Clergy
168 (18)
Chapter 10. Who Knows That I'm Married?: Reinventing the Religious Calendar
186 (14)
Chapter 11. The Mountain Brings Forth a Mouse: Bolshevik Uses of the 1922 Famine
200 (18)
Chapter 12. The Foulest, Blackest Foe of the Working People: Trials of the Orthodox Clergy
218 (13)
Chapter 13. An Unfortunate Misunderstanding: The Emergence of the Living Church Movement
231 (18)
Chapter 14. A Christian by Nature: The Second (Renovationist) Sobor
249 (19)
Chapter 15. The Night Will Be Long and Very Dark: Patriarch Tikhon's Confession, Release, Death, and Will
268 (22)
Chapter 16. Our Joys and Successes: The Decline of the Living Church and the Rise of the Soviet Church
290 (23)
Chapter 17. The Abyss of Condemnation: Antireligious Organizations, a New Crackdown, and the Catacombs
313 (20)
Chapter 18. Abolishing God: Reassessing Propaganda
333 (13)
Chapter 19. A Bandage over the Eyes of Man: Propaganda Vehicles and Techniques
346 (23)
Chapter 20. The Black International: The Catholic Church and Alleged Conspiracies
369 (22)
Chapter 21. A Statesman of the Catholic Counterrevolution: Trials of the Catholic Clergy
391 (21)
Chapter 22. The Greatest Menace: Sectarians
412 (25)
Part III: MEANING 437 (63)
Chapter 23. Yes, A Miracle!: Religious Persistence
439 (22)
Chapter 24. A Picture Badly out of Focus: Proximate Causes of Failure
461 (22)
Chapter 25. An Elemental Impulse: Ultimate Causes of Failure
483 (17)
Timeline 500 (1)
Glossary of People 501 (10)
Glossary of Terms 511 (8)
Notes 519 (72)
Bibliography 591 (18)
Index 609