The Ticket to the Soviet Soul: Science, Religion, and the Spiritual Crisis of Late Soviet Atheism

Abstract

This article examines the confrontation of Soviet scientific atheism with religion as it played out on the pages and in the editorial rooms of the country's primary atheist periodical, Nauka i religiia (Science and Religion). It follows a story that begins in the 1960s, when the journal tried to change its title to Mir cheloveka (The World of Man) to reorient itself from the battle against religion towards the battle for Soviet (and therefore atheist) spiritual life. I argue that while the Khrushchev era is the point of origin for much of late Soviet policy on religion and atheism, it is only with the Brezhnev era that we see understandings of religion move beyond ideological stereotypes. New conceptions of religion, however, forced atheists to consider Communist ideology in unexpected (and often troubling) ways, and led to revealing discussions the Soviet state's role in providing spiritual fullness. The story of Nauka i religiia is a microcosm of Soviet ideology in that it reveals the boundaries and contradictions of the material and the spiritual in the Soviet project.