An image from Godless magazine in 1934 depicting the Pope as a spider
Marx said religion was the opium of the people – and in the Soviet Union, atheism became government policy, enforced by the state and encouraged by anti-religious posters and magazines. These have been collected in Roland Elliott Brown’s new book from Fuel called Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda
Godless at the Machine magazine, 1923 Godless at the Machine was one of two anti-religious propaganda magazines distributed by the Soviet state, which included satirical images and articles taking aim at the faithful. This image, called Red Flood, depicts the holy family assailed by the might of the state
Godless at the Machine magazine, 1924
Titled The Imperishable Ones, this image shows God saying: ‘You’ve let me down, my minions. I’m ashamed to be seen on Earth now!’ to a group of skeletons dressed in religious garb
Undated poster
The words on this anti-religious propaganda poster, which would have been posted on walls around the USSR, read: ‘A prison for heart and mind’
Poster, 1975
The most prominent cosmonaut atheist was Gherman Titov, whose flight in August 1961 followed Yuri Gagarin’s that April. In 1962, he told an audience at the Seattle world’s fair that he had seen no gods or angels in space, and that he believed in mankind’s strength and reason. This poster – titled There Is No God! –commemorates him
Cover of the poster collection In True Light, 1962
The cover of this collection of anti-religious posters shown in a Leningrad exhibition includes a fighting pencil and the light beam of truth exposing a babushka holding a bottle of holy water, a praying man with the Jehovah’s Witness magazine The Watchtower, a vodka-sipping priest, a man on his knees with a bottle of ‘holy tincture’ and a bottle of cognac
Godless magazine, 1934
Titled The True Face of the Catholic Church, this depicts a skeletal spider-pope overseeing the burning of books by Marx, Lenin and Darwin
Poster, 1930
This image depicts a priest climbing on a slumbering drunk in order to saw an electricity pylon with a crucifix. The slogan says: ‘Everybody understands that where work is being done – the priest and the drunk are both doing harm’
Poster, 1977
In this poster, the radio is broadcasting Ave, Maria, Slander of the USSR, Anti-Sovietism and Our Father – conflating religion with political attack. The caption reads: ‘Another gullible sectarian is glad to hear prayers from “over there”. They are, as a rule, stained with outright anti-Sovietism!’
Poster, 1981
The cover of a 1981 poster collection called Light Against Darkness shows a boy trying to wrest himself away from a babushka pulling him to a shadowy church
Kingdom of Jehovah Poster from the collection In True Light, 1962
The Soviets regarded Jehovah’s Witnesses as subversive agents. Newspaper Izvestia described them as an ‘international political organisation … deployed against communism … the sect of the Jehovists … carries out espionage activities on the directives of the USA.’ This poster depicts a witness with spying equipment in his eyes and ears, and whose caption reads: ‘Don’t believe in his meekness, he doesn’t care about the soul. Such a witness of Jehovah is a traitor to the motherland, a spy!’
Poster from the collection In True Light, 1962
Titled In ‘Holy’ Blinkers, this poster depicts two crafty figures leading an innocent third, using their Bible to prevent him looking right or left. As Izvestia put it: ‘The Soviet people are, with all determination, exposing the anti-people nature of the sectarians, no matter what god they may hide behind. For reasons of their own, sectarian preachers and their acolytes, cowering in remote and fetid holes, morally and physically deform people, tear them away from working and social life, and corrupt the youth’
Godless magazine, 1940
This image contrasts ‘God’s slaves’ on their knees and in the dark with the Soviet ‘masters of life’
Cultural Goods Poster, 1984
This poster depicts Jesus as a capitalist hawking his wares. The caption reads, ‘Under the shop window this weasel has set himself up nicely. There’s a foolish fashion that means they’ll snap his junk right up’
Women’s Emancipation Poster, 1977
It wasn’t only Christianity the Soviets attacked. This poster takes aim at Islam, depicting a Muslim man and his donkey riding on the back of a downtrodden woman. The caption reads: ‘The essence of his character is clear: it operates on two levels. Up above, he’s showing off his paper, down below, he’s true to Muhammad’
Planetarium Poster, undated
Here, the creepy man’s shadow becomes a cross with ‘religion’ written across it. In his pocket is a Bible. The caption reads: ‘Step across the ominous shadow and join the crowd in the joyful bustle of the day!’
The Age of Blasphemy 