Ordinary Death in the Soviet Union: the Material and Spiritual in Atheist Cosmology

The paper deals with the problem of death as approached by the Soviet atheist ideologists. In particular, it explores the attempts by Party ideologists to substitute religious death rituals by new “socialist rituals.” The author draws upon the work of a special Commission on the study and introduction of “socialist rituals” created in 1969 under the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The paper shows the failure of this policy, which reflects a major flaw in the whole construction of Soviet atheist ideology — its misunderstanding of spiritual needs of ordinary Soviet citizens, in both existential and material aspects.