The U.S.S.R was religious.

[Aegrus]

I've heard a thousand times that Stalin was an atheist, so I looked into his life at depth. He was not. People who claim that the former Soviet Union is the result of Atheist power are misinformed, but understandably so.
I will explain.

Vladimir Lenin, not Stalin, is actually responsible for most of the evidence that the Soviets were pro-atheism. You see, back in those days, Russia was starving. Communists under Lenin were quite pissed at the church because it refused to sell church artifacts in exchange for food.

Of course, it is the church's right to keep their property. It is also understandable, however, that the working class was pretty pissed off.

Lenin's role in this is dubious, but his followers raided churches and assaulted the clergy out of desparation. They also demolished several historic holy-sites. Lenin carried this embittered view towards religion throughout his reign, and was a documented atheist. Still, he committed nowhere near the crimes of the religious figures from the same time period. (Such as Hitler)

Stalin, now, was perhaps actually religious. He was a communist, so he could not openly admit it, but look at the facts-

He was raised in a strictly religious home.

He attended a bible-school in Georgia (not the state), funded by the Russian Orthodox church, and graduated top of his class.

He funded and supported the Russian Orthodox church during WWII as a way to drum up support. After the war, all the churches EXCEPT the Russian Orthodox church were persecuted.

The people he stuck in gulags were enemies of the state, which yes, often did include the religious. But this was not, in my opinion, an assault on the theistic. It was church in-fighting.

So why does everyone think that Stalin was an atheist and killed 60+ million catholics and christians? (More than Hitler)

During the cold war, the U.S.A labeled America as Christian saints, and labeled the commies as dangerous Atheists. It was propaganda. Us versus them in the most extreme, purest way. Also note that around the cold war era, Christian fanaticism was at a high. Hence the "under god" in the pledge and "in god we trust" on the coins.

If you want even more evidence of this, consider that the U.S was so opposed to Communism (not saying that communism is good, it actually usually fails in practice), consider that we recruited ex-nazis from Germany to work with our military to combat the threat of the cold war. And shortly after WWII, Germany (formerly the evil ghoul of the world after the holocaust) got American aid and sympathy when compared to the Soviets. The U.S was willing to do almost anything to unite civilians against the communists, and were so afraid that they suspended rational criticism for the most part.

The fact that Stalin and his church eliminated many smaller churches made for seemingly convincing evidence that he was an Atheist, which was simply not true. Of course, like other world history myths such as the lie that Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag or that the Persians were evil and the Greeks were awesome, the winner writes the history.

Also, one last thing, Stalin is at least indicative that religious upbringing causes mental damage, even if you deny that he carried religion into his later life.

As for sources, here is one. The others are the result of research spread out over several years, and sadly, I did not record most of my sources, so people who want to deny this have good ammunition to do so. Even if I provided them, I get the feeling that the theists wouldn't accept them.

http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/stal...tion1.html