Is religion cause of most wars?

[Minimalist]

It had to go.

Until Hitler invaded.

After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. On September 4, 1943, Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexius (Simansky) and Nicholas (Yarushevich) were officially received by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. They received a permission to convene a council on September 8, 1943, that elected Sergius Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'. A new patriarch was elected, theological schools were opened, and thousands of churches began to function. The Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary which had been closed since 1918 was re-opened.

Wiki

The church was merely a means to an end.  Stalin even after the war allowed them to continue as by then they owed their renaissance and even their existence to him.  It was Khrushchev who initiated the next great purge, not Stalin.

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The History of Stalin's Forced Collectivization

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory...stalin.htm

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming area, known as the breadbasket of Europe, with the people deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands.

The Ukrainian independence movement actually predated the Stalin era. Ukraine, which measures about the size of France, had been under the domination of the Imperial Czars of Russia for 200 years. With the collapse of the Czarist rule in March 1917, it seemed the long-awaited opportunity for independence had finally arrived. Optimistic Ukrainians declared their country to be an independent People's Republic and re-established the ancient capital city of Kiev as the seat of government.

Not much in here about religion.