The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization [Paperback]

Paul Froese (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 6, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0520255291 | ISBN-13: 978-0520255296 | Edition: 1

Paul Froese explores the nature of religious faith in a provocative examination of the most massive atheism campaign in human history. That campaign occurred after the 1917 Russian Revolution, when Soviet plans for a new Marxist utopia included the total eradication of all religion. Even though the Soviet Union's attempt to secularize its society was quite successful at crushing the institutional and ritual manifestations of religion, its leaders were surprised at the persistence of religious belief. Froese's account reveals how atheism, when taken to its extreme, can become as dogmatic and oppressive as any religious faith and illuminates the struggle for individual expression in the face of social repression.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Readers seeking . . . debates on scientific atheism and social science critiques of religion will find ample food for thought here."--Russian Review

"Provide[s] some valuable insights."--Jrnl of World History

From the Inside Flap

"The story of the survival of religion in the Soviet Union is one of the great surprises of the end of the twentieth century. Indeed, it is so surprising that many social scientists write it off, attribute it to cultural nationalism, or ignore it. It is assumed that religion simply was given a temporary reprieve and would shortly succumb to 'secularization.' Professor Froese demolishes this assumption."--Andrew Greeley, author of The Catholic Imagination

"The Plot to Kill God is refreshingly creative in bringing evidence from a neglected but hugely important case to bear on thinking through social scientific theories of religion. This is an important contribution to a field greatly in need of just this kind of solid historical case analysis."--Christian Smith, University of Notre Dame

"A wonderful book that will break the hearts of Richard Dawkins and all the other angry atheists. After more than 70 years of intensive educational efforts and brutal persecution of religion, there were no fewer believers in Russia than in the United States."--Rodney Stark

"'Scientific' socialism in communist countries turned out to be a hollow faith incapable of replacing more traditional religions. Paul Froese beautifully shows why, and how this provides us with useful lessons about the continuing power of religion today."--Daniel Chirot, University of Washington

"Froese compellingly tests many theories about the causes of religious belief, strength, and resurgence. The Plot to Kill God highlights the close link between human nature and religious faith, thus making a broad argument about the anthropological foundation of religion while also using the tools of social science to advance our knowledge, concepts and theories about religion and society."--Margarita Mooney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (August 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520255291
• ISBN-13: 978-0520255296
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Froese is a professor of sociology and a research fellow for the Institute for Studies of Religion. He has been teaching and researching at Baylor University since 2002. A tenacious author of books and articles, his research interests include the sociology of religion, comparative historical sociology, political sociology and ideology.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Soviet assualt on religion in all its brutal ugliness, September 2, 2008

By 

Phil Zuckerman (Claremont, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization (Paperback)

The Totalitarian Communism of the former USSR was a nightmare -- a brutal destruction of democracy, liberty, freedom of speech, and -- as this book details -- freedom of religion. The Soviet Communists were ruthless in their ideological zealotry -- as atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell was so good at pointing out.

This book analyzes the specific Soviet assault on religion. What a fiasco, what a sham, what a joke. What a bloody, brutal process. Hundreds of thousands were arrested, executed, tortured, starved, etc. -- all because of their religion. This was not really and truly an experiment at secularization, per se, but rather, a hostile experiment in totalitarian oppression and ruthless fascistic religion-hating and persecution.

Although quite repetitive in places, this book is well-presented, well-developed, and manifestly interesting and engaging. While I disagreed with many of the theoretical conclusions that the author raises, I found the discussion generally even-handed, fair, intellectually satisfying, and non-dogmatic -- unlike Stark's work, which often feels Stalinist in its ideological hardness/sneering smugness.

For anyone interested in religion in the former USSR, this is a must-read -- as well as for anyone with a general interest in religion the modern world.

That said, I did have some nit-picky disagreements or criticisms:

1. Nowhere does the author actually show us what rates of God-belief were in the USSR over the many decades under consideration. Religious identity can often have nationalistic, ethnic, or political cores (as the author recognizes). But what about God-belief, specifically? Isn't this the heart of the matter -- as the author himself states time and again? Yet no hard data is presented here. So we actually never truly learn just what the Soviet experiment did on people's core God-beliefs, before, during, or after. Perhaps the data simply isn't there -- but then the author should be up front about this lacuna. And Stark's glowing review states that this book shows that "belief" stayed the same rate in the USA as in the USSR -- yet nowhere is this ever shown, argued, or proved. What book did Stark read? Certainly not this one...

2. The author does show in places what percentage of former Soviets identify as "atheist." It is generally quite low. But that is to be expected; most non-believers in God eschew or reject the self-designation of "atheist" as too strong, too condemning, too angry. So just because 5% of a given population self-describes as "atheist" in a given survey, that most definitely does not mean that the remaining 95% are theists. Not at all. Andrew Greeley's recent survey research on religion in Europe illustrates this quite nicely. The author should know this -- but he avoids this discussion, perhaps because it would take away from his ultimate theoretical goals (one of which is that God-belief is innate, universal, unchangeable,etc.).

3. As stated above, the author argues again and again that theistic religious beliefs are universal, unchangeable, essential, innate, and an unalterable element of the human spirit. Yet this is never proven; just constantly asserted. We know that millions and millions of people do not hold religious or theistic beliefs (some estimates put non-belief in God as high as 750,000,000 humans!), and we know that some societies do not have God-belief as a main or even minor element of their cultures (Japan, and Sweden come first to mind). Religion is certainly widespread and ubiquitous, but that does not in any way mean it is universal. The Soviet experiment in secularization did not necessarily fail because humans just naturally love God so much -- it more obviously failed because it was non-democratic in nature: ruthless, bloody, totalitarian, top-down, dogmatic, etc. (hello?)

4. On page 128 the author states that less than 1% of the world is atheist. This is quite an important statistic. And yet NO SOURCE is provided. What survey(s) did the author use here? Nothing is cited. How odd, how troubling. One senses here the desire to further a theoretical perspective at the expense of sound data that points to the contrary conclusion...

5. The author claims on page 139 that the world's most popular theologies assert "almost exclusively" nonempirical claims." What is he talking about, specifically? Christianity is based exclusively on the empirical, historical claim of the resurrection of Jesus. If this didn't happen, there is no Christianity (as St. Paul declares himself). Judaism is predicated on the actual, historical event of God giving the Jews the Torah on Mt. Sinai. If this didn't happen, no Judaism. Islam claims that Muhammed heard directly from God -- These are very much empirical claims which lay at the very root/core of these religions.

6. This is a work presumably engaged in sociological discussions. And yet there is no real sociological methodology here. It is essentially a work of historical research and interpretation. I kept asking myself why the author didn't do any interviews? I mean, why not interview people who actually lived through this nightmare? Wouldn't their insights be valuable -- not to say essential? The author talks about the League of Militant Atheism -- why not interview some former members? Or at least their kids? The author talks about Muslim Communists in Uzbekiztan -- why not interview some of them? The author talks about so many interesting groups -- religious groups and communist groups -- yet there is not a single interview with anyone actually engaged in this chapter of Soviet history. Their insights are a major hole in this book.

7. The underlying theme of this book -- what seems to be the main theoretical goal -- is that this Great Experiment in secularization failed, and this somehow is yet another blow to secularization theory. Yet this is quite disingenuous, to say the least. No social scientist has ever predicted (and surely no social scientist would ever expect) secularization to come about in such a fashion -- via ideological fascists terrorizing an oppressed public. Please. Secularization theory has many weaknesses, but story of the Soviet attempt to stamp it out doesn't really work theoretically in the way this author seems to want it to...

Well - -as you can see -- this book provoked a lot of reactions in me. I have a lot to say about it. You will, too. Enjoy.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN IMPORTANT BOOK! HOW ATHEISTS TRIED TO DESTROY RELIGION,, May 9, 2010

By 

Jeri Nevermind "loves to read" (Idaho) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization (Paperback)

In this valuable and wonderfully detailed book, Froese shows how atheists attempted to destroy religion in the Soviet Union.

Why did religious groups become "the victims of extreme violence immediately following the 1917 Russian Revolution" (p 48)? Why did Stalin unleash a bloody orgy of death against believers late "in the mid thirties" (p 48)? Essentially, these were "vicious attacks on nonthreatening individuals" (p 48).

We are not even talking about plain murder, just simply shooting Christians. The "Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev was mutilated, castrated, and shot, and his corpse was left naked for the public to desecrate" (p 49) and the "Archbishop Andronnik of Perm...was buried alive. Archbishop Vasily was crucified and burned" (p 49).

"More than 100,000 religious leaders were executed between 1937 and 1941" (p 49) in an unrelenting and savage campaign to destroy Christianity. Hundreds of thousands more were sent to the death by starvation and cold in the gulag.

This is overkill on a massive scale, and it implies a burning hatred by atheists against religion.

Nor did the savagery stop with Stalin. Even in the 1980s "Amnesty International examined a sample of 210 psychiatric patients" (p 52) and found religious believers locked in madhouses, told they were insane, and fed powerful drugs simply because they continued to proclaim their Christianity.

In a effort to eradicate religion the Communists formed the "League of Militant Atheists, a propaganda arms of the Communist Party...(it) distributed atheist newspapers, gave atheist lectures" (p 33) and saw to it that atheism was taught in all the schools. Children were told to spy on their parents and relay any religious practices to authorities.

To give an instance of sheer desperation, there is Lenin's body. It was preserved through scientific methods, so that it would rival in those bodies of Catholic saints, like Bernadette, who look as fresh today as when they died.

Froese provides invaluable research into what happened to the populations of the Soviet Union after decades of unrelenting persecution of Christianity.

By 1970 "slightly less than a fifth of Soviet citizens claimed to be atheists" (p 124). As soon as Communism collapsed, "these percentages fell precipitously" (p 126) and it is fascinating to note that "both Communists and non-Communists were equally likely to have switched from nonaffiliation to affiliation" (p 126) with a religion.

Funny thing how atheist Communism held all the power. Yet Christianity survived, not Communism.

Anyone interested in this book will also want to read "The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin through Stalin", a stunning book telling how Communism murdered, tortured, and imprisoned Christians. If you are curious to see pictures of Catholic saints whose intact bodies seemed so much of a threat to Communists, get the book by Joan Cruz called "The Incorruptibles".