Obviously, the attitude of the Russians to church was neither respectful nor palpitating, because of extreme popularity of obscene fairy tales about priests, songs (e.g. "Brothers, you, brothers..."), proverbs, and sayings; although, probably , blasphemy helped overcome taboos and limitations, and become free.

Professional artists drew caricatures devoted to religion ( e.g. A Orlovsky "Caricature of Roman-Catholic priest Savinsky", M. Znamensky " Fight for Uglich Bell"), but for certain censorial reasons they were not published.

During the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907) caricatures, which exposed obscurantism and reactionary character of church, were published.

Just after the October coup atheism had become the official politics of the state, so numerous cathedrals and churches were ruined, the Clergy was persecuted. Anti-religious caricature was highly praised and approved. In 1919 V. Deni painted a poster using the image of the Virgin Mary, but the characters were the enemies of the Soviet power. Russian Press Agency (Okna ROSTA) issued thousands of posters mocking priests as the enemies of the Soviet Russia. A great number of atheistic magazines were published in several cities during the 20s and 30s. On the cover of the first issue of "Bezbozhnik" ("Without God") magazine in 1925 a caricature by

D. Moor was printed. A worker with a hammer, standing high on the ladder, threatened the God, devils, and angels ( "we have overthrown the tzar on the earth, now it is high time to put an end to tzars in Heaven"). At the same time N. Bukharin gave instruction "... to remove God from churches and cathedrals to cellars, clergy who resist - to concentration camps".

Long before J. Effel, D. Moor made up the satirical image of God: it was a mixed portrait with L.Tolstoy, P. Kropotkin, and Jesus features. Effel also satirically illustrated New Testament. In one of his drawings God blew the human spirit into Adam's body through a clyster pipe. His series "Eve's Diary" is wonderful (see "Adam's Diary" by Mark Twain).

The British Parliament could no stand the anti-religious attacks of Soviet caricaturists and banned the distribution of Soviet atheistic magazines all round the country. In 1932 "Anti-Religious ABC" came out, it contained 28 coloured prints by M. Tcheremnikh with 2-lined rhymes for each letter of the alphabet . At the same time a number of anti-religious books

(A. Bukhov, D. Bedny) illustrated by caricaturists were published. In the middle of the 50s a new wave of anti-religious propaganda rose on the initiative of the Communist Party. It claimed the Western church as well as the Russian Orthodoxy "the assistant of imperialists". The "Krokodil" and "Nauka and Religia" ("Science and Religion") magazines, and some other publishers took an active part in that campaign: a lot of anti-church caricatures appeared on their pages (E. Gurov "Out of the Corner", 1962; Y. Fyodorov "Ignorance", 1962; E. Vedernikov "Patron Saint's Chime", 1964, etc.).