Lukachevsky Alexander (1893–1937) – historian of religion and atheism, public activist, one of the leaders of the atheist movement in the U.S.S.R.
He was born in Petrozavodsk. Father - a retired soldier, ‘ranked among the little bourgeoisie’, Timofey Nikitich Lukachevsky, mother - Maria Mikhailovna, nee. Vasilyeva, a daughter of a tradesman from craftsmen, was 26 years younger than her husband. The family had three children. From his youth, L. took part in the revolutionary movement, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Party (Bolshevik) in 1920.
In 1920-1923, the Head of the Gubpolitprosveta in the city of Vladimir, from where he was sent to receive higher education in Moscow, at the Institute of Red Professors (1923-1926). After graduating from the Institute, from 1926, he worked in the apparatus of the Central Council of the Union of Militant Atheists of the U.S.S.R.; and, from 1926 until his arrest, he was the Deputy Chairman of that Union (Chairman was E.M. Yaroslavsky). Represented the Union in the World Union of Free-Thinking (created in 1880) and in the International of Free-Thinking Proletarians (created in 1925 on the basis of the unions of free-thinking proletarians of a number of European countries that have existed since the early twentieth century)/
Working closely with E.M. Yaroslavsky, since 1926, he was Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the magazine ‘Antireligiosnik’, which published research articles as well as materials for propagandists of atheism. Since 1926, L. made lectures on the history of religion and atheism, philosophy of Marxism at various universities in Moscow. In 1930, he was elected the Head of the Department of the History of Religion of the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the Moscow State University.
After the death of M.A. Reisner in 1928, he headed the Commission on the History of Religion at the Communist Academy (since 1930 - the Anti-Religious Section of the Institute of Philosophy of the Communist Academy), which he created.
He wrote a number of works on the history of religion: on the origin of religion and its early forms, on the history of Christianity. He prepared a large work on the history of atheistic thought, published in several issues of the ‘Antireligiosnik’. L. participated in the preparation of several textbooks and anthologies.
As Deputy Chairman of the Union of Militant Atheists, L., was a member of editorial boards of many atheistic publications and tried to maintain a scientific approach, both in the publication of historical documents, primarily the works of the classics of Marxism, and in the study of religion, opposed ignorance and anarchist attacks on religion and believers. In this regard, he was repeatedly criticized by radical anti-religious groups (F.M. Putintseva, E.F. Muravyova, and others).
At the beginning of 1937, he was subjected to a ‘working through’ at the Institute of Philosophy with the participation of E F. Muravyov and P.N. Fedoseev, after which, on March 20, 1937, he was transferred from member to candidate member of the CPSU (B). On August 10, 1937, he was arrested on charges of espionage and participation in the anti-Soviet Trotskist terrorist organization. Sentenced to death on November 25, 1937 by the Military Collegium of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Court, the next day the sentence was carried out. He was buried at the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow, along with other repressed. Rehabilitated on November 27, 1958 by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court.