In 1920, 63 fake holy relics were exposed. In February 1922 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee created the decree of “nationalization of the assets of the church for the compensation of the poor”. The opposition to this decree by the church disappointed many believers.

The newspaper “Bezbozhnik” (The Godless) written by Yaroslavskiy was crucial for the development of mass atheism. Its circulation rose from 62,000 copies in 1927 to 500,000 in 1931. According to Yaroslavskiy, by 1937, 1/3 of the peasants and > 2/3 of the urbanites were atheists.

The anti religious movement reached all the different peoples of the Soviet Union, though not uniformly, due to their different stages of socio-economic and cultural development, national particularities and the level of influence of religion in social, daily and family life.

The next stage of the propagation of atheism occurred in a very different context, due to the achievements of the socialist system, e.g. the Ind and Agr development, the scientific progress that led to the formation of a materialistic culture and the foundation of Leninist values

The CPSU acknowledged the need to form a worldview from a materialistic perspective. In 1964, it took measures to strengthen the laic education, but without interfering with the right of people to practice their own religions. Article 52 of the Constitution of the USSR dictates:

Find the extended version, along with the references and further reading suggestions in my Wordpress article: https://oktyabrvperedi.wordpress.com/2020/07/28/religion-and-mass-atheism-in-the-ussr/