Atrocities of Atheism: Episode V -- The Evil Empire Strikes Back

Introduced in Atrocities of Atheism: Episode I -- The Atheist Menace, I set forth the facts on how Atheism is the bloodiest religion in the world in the 20th Century. I did not go into detail of exact examples. That is why I will show some practicle examples of the horrors of militant Atheist governments. In this "Episode" we will look at how the Atheist Russian government viciously strikes down all religions besides Atheism.

Russian Atheist Government Atrocities:

"The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. ...The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. By 1939 only about 500 of over 50,000 churches remained open" (from Anti-Religious Campaigns). "For over 70 years the Communist Party attempted to eradicate Christianity from Russia. Brainwashing, propaganda, infiltration of the Church, imprisonment, torture, concentration camps and executions failed to destroy people's faith in God and hunger for the Bible. Yet Communism continued to export not only its ideology of Atheism, Materialism and Economic Determinism, but its violent revolutionary methods, and its hatred of God, the Bible and the Christian Church. In the 1980's, 224 million Christians lived under severe state persecution, with another 70 million 'Crypto-Christians', who secretly worshipped God in 'underground' churches" (from Communist Liberation: Myth & Reality). "Soviet Communism was committed by its fundamental principles to an aggressive and militant atheism. It could not rest satisfied merely with a neutral separation between Church and State, but sought by every means, direct and indirect, to overthrow all organized Church life and to eliminate all religious belief"(from The Assault Upon Heaven). "The totalitarian Communist State employed to the full all forms of anti-religious propaganda, while denying the Church any right of reply. There was, first of all, the atheist instruction that was given systematically in every school. Teachers received such injunctions as these: A Soviet teacher must be guided by the principle of the Party spirit of science; he is obliged not only to be an unbeliever himself, but also to be an active propagandist of godlessness among others, to be the bearer of the ideas of militant proletarian atheism. Skillfully and calmly, tactfully and persistently, the Soviet teacher must expose and overcome religious prejudices in the course of his activity in school and out of school, day in and day out"(from The Assault Upon Heaven). Thousands of Christians were slaughtered by the atheist regime and it decimated the Orthodox Christian community. An incomplete list of names of Bishops alone that were slaughtered are listed here (then click "proceed"). "'The more representatives from the reactionary clergy and the recalcitrant bourgeoisie we shoot,' Lenin wrote in March of 1922, 'the better it will be for us. We must teach these people a lesson as quickly as possible, so that the thought of protesting again doesn't occur to them for decades to come.' When Lenin and his progeny were unable to teach the clergy a lesson, they simply murdered them. In 1922 alone, more than 8,000 priests, monks, and nuns were executed in the Soviet Union. Nearly a decade after the Revolution, however, 20,000 churches and mosques were still in operation. By 1941, that number shrank to less than 1,000" (from Ideas Have Consequences... Like Murder, Tyranny, and Repression). Even as late as 1971, there are reports of the Communist oppression of Christianity. The Atheistic government has been reported engaging in sentencing Christians to mental hospitals to get rid of their "sickness" of having faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. "As the decades of Soviet rule passed, many Christians were sent to psychiatric hospitals because religion was categorized as mental illness". "'Special Psychiatric Hospitals' are known to exist in Kazan, Sychevka (Smolensk region), Leningrad, Cherniahovsk, Minsk, Dniepropetrovsk, Orel. It is very likely that they are also to be found in other regions. In many psychiatric hospitals special wards have been set aside for 'treatment' against dissidents of all complexions. The names of 60 victims of such 'treatment' have been published abroad. The Moscow Patriarchate, recognized by the atheistic government of the USSR, and kept under its control, maintains a stony silence".

The Russian Atheist Government ruthlessly removed Muslims from their homeland in inhumane conditions, killing hundreds of thousands. "Fearful of a pan-Islamic movement, the Soviet regime systematically suppressed Islam by force". "The Imperial Russian government was involved in all these mass expulsions. In the 20th century, the government of the Soviet Union perfected the crime of ethnic cleansing. During World War II, the Stalin regime used the resources of a highly organized state with a modern rail system to rapidly exile entire nations from their ancestral homelands. The Soviet government targeted the Muslim nationalities of the Caucasus and Crimea for deportation in their entirety. The Soviet political police, NKVD (Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs) exiled the [Muslim] Karachays, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian Turks to Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Siberia, and other remote areas of the USSR in 1943 and 1944. These brutal forced relocations to desolate areas with poor material conditions resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths" (from Deportation and Fate of Crimean Tatars). For the Muslim Crimean Tatars alone, this religious cleansing process killed almost a hundred thousand. "Called the 'Surgun' (mass deportation) by survivors, nearly half (46%) of of 180,000 persons deported to 'Special Settlement Camps' in Uzbekistan, Siberia, and the Urals perished." (from 60th Anniversary of the Deportation of Crimean Tatars).

The Russian Atheist Government not only targeted Muslims and Christians for destruction, but this atheist government then turned it's attention to target the Jews. "Attacks on Judaism were endemic throughout the Soviet period, and the organized practice of Judaism became almost impossible"(from Anti-Religious Campaigns). "Millions of people in the Soviet Union became un-persons during [Stalin's Atheist] quarter-century rule. While the Georgian-born Stalin didn't particularly favor one nationality over another during his reign of terror, he was a 'breaker of nations,' as in Robert Conquest's book title — and he had a particular hatred for Soviet Jews." (from How Stalin Murdered Jews).

To view the atrocities of other Atheistic Governments please read:
Atrocities of Atheism: Episode II -- Attack of the Chinese .
Atrocities of Atheism: Episode III .
Atrocities of Atheism: Episode IV -- A New 'Killing-Field'

And don't miss the exciting purposeful conclusion in:
Atrocities of Atheism: Episode VI -- Return of the Believers