«Indispensable for the Work in Terms of the Decree of Separation of Church and State»: documentary portrait of M.V. Galkin (1885–1948)

• Main Authors: Mihail Yu. Krapivin, Yury N. Makarov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sochi State University 2014-12-01
• Series: Bylye Gody
• Subjects: M.V. Galkin; priest; the Russian Orthodox Church; decree on the separation of church and state; VIII Department of People's Commissariat of Justice; confiscation of church values; schism; Antireligious Commission of the Central Committee of the RCP-CPSU (b); Union of Soviet Atheists
• Online Access: http://bg.sutr.ru/journals_n/1417271174.pdf

The article attempts to reconstruct the life journey of one of the most prominent functionaries of the "Union of Soviet Atheists" M.V. Galkin (1885-1948). He was the author of the working draft of the decree on the separation of church and state and school, published in December 1917 within the pages of the party semi-official newspaper ‘Pravda’. Being employed as a full-time «expert» of VIII («Church») department of the People's Commissariat of Justice, Galkin (member of the Bolshevik Party since 1919) took a distinct position of militant atheism. He was among the most active participants in the campaign of the opening of graves with the remains of Orthodox Saints (1919-1920s) and of the confiscation of church values from churches and monasteries (1921-1922s). The State Political Directorate engaged Galkin in the preparation and organization of the split in the Orthodox Church. The authorities made extensive use of pre-revolutionary publishing experience of Galkin when editing antireligious periodicals: magazines ‘Revolyutsiya I Tserkov’ ("Revolution and the Church"), ‘Nauka I Religiya’ ("Science and Religion"), ‘Bezbozhnik’ ("Atheist"). Until 1926 Galkin was a member of management of the so-called "atheistic" movement. But after the conflict with Em. Yaroslavsky he lost all his administrative posts (at the national level) and all his political clout (in the governing party and government circles). Under these conditions, Galkin decided to shift his permanent residence for Ukraine. His residency away from the capital seems to be so invisibly that Moscow and Leningrad аntireligionists wrongly believed that the life of the former priest passed away, aged 45. In 1930 he supposedly went to Ukraine to give a set of atheistic lectures and disappeared there under mysterious circumstances without a trace.