Religion in the Soviet Union

Religion in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was dominated by the fact that it became the first state to have as one objective of its official ideology the elimination of existing religion, and the prevention of future implanting of religious belief, with the goal of establishing state atheism (gosateizm). However, the main religions of pre-revolutionary Russia persisted throughout the entire Soviet period. Christians belonged to various denominations: Orthodox (which had the largest number of followers), Catholic, Baptist and various other Protestant denominations. The majority of the Muslims in the Soviet Union were Sunni, with the notable exception of Azerbaijan, which was majority Shia. Judaism also had many followers. Other religions, practiced by a small number of believers, included Buddhism and Shamanism.

The vast majority of people in the Russian Empire were, at the time of the revolution, religious believers. After the October Revolution saw the Bolsheviks overthrow the Russian Provisional Government and establish the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the communists aimed to break the power of all religious institutions and eventually replace religious belief with atheism. As part of the campaign, churches and other places of worship were systematically destroyed, and there was a "government-sponsored program of conversion to atheism" conducted by communists. "Science" was counterposed to "religious superstition" in the media and in academic writing. The communist government targeted religions based on state interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools. In 1925, the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution.