Stalin didn't act in the name of atheism, he didn't do anything politically because of his atheist beliefs.
“The World has never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin and at the heart of their psychology, HATRED OF GOD is the principle driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends, Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails a destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly put them into practice.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn, former Marxist, Nobel Prize winner
‘’The Party cannot be neutral towards religious prejudices and it will continue to carry on propaganda against these prejudices because this is one of the best means of undermining the influence of the reactionary clergy who support the exploiting classes and who preach submission to these classes. The Party cannot be neutral towards the bearers of religious prejudices, towards the reactionary clergy who poison the minds of the toiling masses. Have we suppressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated. Anti-religious propaganda is a means by which the complete liquidation of the reactionary clergy must be brought about.’’
J. Stalin.
Religion+Is+the+Enemy+of+Industrialization+.jpg (image)
Religion is the enemy of industralization.
Stalin’s industralisation:
Gulag, Industrialization
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. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.
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.
The financial foundation of the Russian Orthodoxy was destroyed merely two years after the revolution. The government confiscated all church property and capital, as it was nationalized, in 1918 by the decree, On the Separation of the Church from the State and Schools from the Church. This decree condemned the Church, financially crippling the institution, as well as putting the clergy and believers in danger. Through the first five years of the Soviet Union, twenty-eight Russian Orthodox Bishops and over 1,200 priests were executed, all seminaries closed, and the publications of most religious texts was prohibited. Repression of the Russian Orthodox Church continued in the Soviet Union for the next decade during the infamous period of the Great Purges of the 1930s.
‘’ Lenin "added" no "new principles" to Marxism nor did Lenin abolish any of the "old" principles of Marxism. Lenin always was and remained a loyal and consistent pupil of Marx and Engels, and wholly and entirely based himself on the principles of Marxism. ‘’
J. Stalin.
‘’So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class…. we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.
Our Program is based entirely on the scientific, and moreover the materialist, world-outlook. An explanation of our Program, therefore, necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism. We shall now probably have to follow the advice Engels once gave to the German Socialists: to translate and widely disseminate the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.’’
Socialism and Religion
V. I. Lenin
''We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary... The instructions must come down to this, that in Shuia he must arrest more if possible but not less than several dozen representatives of the local clergy, the local petty bourgeoisie, and the local bourgeoisie on suspicion of direct or indirect participation in the forcible resistance to the decree of the VTsIK on the removal of property of value from churches. Immediately upon completion of this task, he must return to Moscow and personally deliver a report to the full session of the Politburo or to two specially authorized members of the Politburo. On the basis of this report, the Politburo will give a detailed directive to the judicial authorities, also verbal, that the trial of the insurrectionists from Shuia, should be carried out in utmost haste and should end not other than with the shooting of the very largest number of the most influential and dangerous of the Black Hundreds in Shuia, and, if possible, not only in this city but even in Moscow and several other ecclesiastical centers ''
V. I. Lenin
Letter from Lenin
