The Study of the History of Religions in the Communist Academy: from the Cabinet Religious Ideology to Anti-Religious Section

Abstract

The author considers the history of the study of religions at Communist Academy from the point of view of evolution of its basic institutions. Using archival documents and published materials, the author identifies three phases in the institutional design of religious studies at this institution. The first phase (1926–1928s) was connected with the activities of M. A. Reisner and suggested the creation of the Cabinet (Commission) of religious ideology with a very broad research program. However, the result of its activity was only the creation of the library, focused on religion. In the second stage (1928–1930), instead of the Cabinet was formed the Commission on the history of religions that expanded a lot of work in several main directions: research, organization of educational activities and popularization of the obtained results. The results of Commission's work were not as impressive as the original plans proposed: in 1928– 1930s the members of the Commission dealt mainly with the study of the religiosity’s degree of the Moscow workers. The third stage of the institutionalized religious studies in the Communist Academy (1931–1936) was associated with the activities of the anti-religious section of the Institute of philosophy, which members worked on the development of Marxist-Leninist doctrine about religion. Large-scale section’s plans have not been fully implemented as well. Despite the fact that in 1936 the Communist Academy was eliminated, she contributed to the development of Soviet religious studies, affecting the development of individual research schemes and approaches.

Keywords

• The Communist Academy
• antireligious work in URSS
• Marxist-Leninist theory of religion
• the Marxist-Leninist scientific research institutions