The catastrophic experiment forcibly to impose 'state atheism' (gosateizm) in the Soviet Union lasted just 70 years. Until Lenin's first decree on the Separation of Church and State of January 1918,1 no government in history had sought to impose a system which rejected all forms of religion. The Roman Empire debased the gods of mythology by decreeing that the ruler should be worshipped, but they never abolished the pantheon. The French Revolution was strongly anticlerical, but Christian worship continued. 'State atheism' had its ups and downs throughout the Soviet period, but continued as the dominant policy in one form or other until 1988. The advent of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party put an end to it three years into his rule. It is possible to put a precise date on this: 29 April 1988, the day on which Gorbachev received a group of leading bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Kremlin, the first such meeting since Stalin received Metropolitan Sergi in September 1943 and only the second in history. Gorbachev's words truly marked the beginning of a new era:
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Michael Bourdeaux (2000) studied this question.