A reference work on the persecutions suffered by the russian orthodox Church in the period preceding Stalin's coming to power. The author carefully reconstructs the events that characterize the merciless struggle of the Bolsheviks against the Church and analyzes the historiography on the subject, which at first sees the Soviet authors on opposing positions, committed to reaffirming the official theses of the State and denying the persecution of the Church, and the Russian emigrated historians, flanked by the Western ones. With the implosion of the Soviet system we are witnessing a fruitful collaboration of the two schools of thought, no longer antithetical, but committed to collaborating for a careful reconstruction of the events of that tragic historical period.