adherents of a Christian Protestant sect whose basic dogma is the expectation of the “second coming of Christ” and “the thousand-year kingdom.”
Adventism arose in the USA in the 1830’s among the petite bourgeoisie. Its founder was a Baptist, W. Miller (1782–1849), who predicted the “coming of Christ” around 1843–44. Contemporary Adventists do not indicate definite times for the “advent” but maintain that it will be soon. In 1863 the most powerful group, the Seventh-day Adventists, split off from Adventists; they celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday, and recognize the authority of the American “prophetess” E. White (1827–1915). Preaching the establishment of the “thousand-year kingdom of Christ” only for themselves, the Seventh-day Adventists predict that the “sinners” (that is, all those believing differently) will soon perish by fire. The dogma of the Seventh-day Adventists is permeated with pessimism and leads the workers away from solving the burning issues of the day.
In 1966 there were more than 1.6 million Seventh-day Adventists. Their ruling body, the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists, is located in Washington. In 1966 there were approximately 381,000 Seventh-day Adventists in the USA. The Adventists are an active organization with members in 190 countries—for example, there are 150,000 Seventh-day Adventists in the Congo (Kinshasa; since 1971, Zaire); 100,000 in Brazil, 90,000 in the Federal Republic of Germany, 65,000 in Kenya, and 11,000 in Great Britain. The other Adventist branches are not large.
In Russia, Adventists, mostly subbotniki (Seventh-day Adventists), appeared during the 1880’s among the German colonists of the former Tavrida Province and among the land-starved peasantry of the southern Ukraine, the Don, the northern Caucasus, the Volga Region, the Baltic Region, and in Siberia. In 1908 the Adventists created an independent union. They opposed the October Socialist Revolution of 1917 and during the Civil War fought with the counterrevolutionaries. For a long time they did not accept Soviet power and tried to sabotage its policies. But in 1924 the fifth all-Union meeting of the Seventh-day Adventists adopted an address to the Central Executive Committee of the USSR with a declaration of loyalty to the Soviet system. There are approximately 21,000 adherents of the sect, as well as reform Adventists and Christians of the Seventh Day who have split off from the Seventh-day Adventists, in the USSR.