This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
A mass organization established by the Soviet Communist Party to promote atheism and coordinate anti-religious propaganda and enforcement across the Union grew out of Yemelyan Yaroslavsky's Bezbozhnik newspaper, begun in 1922, and was formally constituted as the Union of Atheists at its first congress in April 1925. It was renamed the Union of the Militant Godless, commonly rendered in English as the League of Militant Atheists, in 1929 as its activity intensified. Nominally an independent voluntary society, it operated under direct Party control throughout its life, chaired by Yaroslavsky himself from founding to dissolution.
The League ran a network of local cells that removed religious images from homes, staged anti-religious demonstrations and lectures and published newspapers and journals in dozens of languages. Its campaigns are credited with a major share of the fall in registered religious communities of every faith across the Union, from about 50,000 in 1930 to 30,000 by 1938 and 8,000 by 1941, achieved through combined pressure on congregations, mass literature distribution and organized demonstrations rather than through direct police powers, which rested with the state itself rather than the League.