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→Atheist indoctrination in the Soviet Union and its limited effectiveness
*Gonzales, Kevin (January 29, 2013 or bef.). [http://martyredintheussr.com/ "Martyred in the USSR Militant Atheism in the former Soviet Union, Russian Orthodox church, religious persecution, atheist"] Martyred in the USSR website. See [[Martyred in the USSR: Militant Atheism in the former Soviet Union]].
*Gonzales, Kevin (January 29, 2013 or bef.). [http://martyredintheussr.com/ "Martyred in the USSR Militant Atheism in the former Soviet Union, Russian Orthodox church, religious persecution, atheist"] Martyred in the USSR website. See [[Martyred in the USSR: Militant Atheism in the former Soviet Union]].
*Hoover, Peter with Petrov, Serguei V. (2005). [http://www.anabaptists.org/books/russians/trs-1.html "Anabaptists: The Russians' Secret -- Speaking without a Tongue".] ''The Russians' Secret: What Christians Today Would Survive Persecution?'' Anabaptists.org website/books/Russians (Shippensburg, PA: Benchmark Press, 1999), ch. 1, pp. 1-3.</ref> See: [[Atheistic communism and torture]] ]]
*Hoover, Peter with Petrov, Serguei V. (2005). [http://www.anabaptists.org/books/russians/trs-1.html "Anabaptists: The Russians' Secret -- Speaking without a Tongue".] ''The Russians' Secret: What Christians Today Would Survive Persecution?'' Anabaptists.org website/books/Russians (Shippensburg, PA: Benchmark Press, 1999), ch. 1, pp. 1-3.</ref> See: [[Atheistic communism and torture]] ]]
The [[persecution of Christians in the USSR|persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union]] was the result of the violently [[Atheism|atheist]] [[Soviet]] regime. In the first five years after the [[October Revolution]], 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were murdered, many on the orders of [[Leon Trotsky]]. When [[Joseph Stalin]] came to power in 1927, he ordered his secret police, under [[Genrikh Yagoda]] to intensify persecution of Christians. In the next few years, 50,000 clergy were murdered, many were [[torture]]d, including [[crucifixion]]. "Russia turned red with the blood of martyrs", said Father Gleb Yakunin of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]].<ref>Ostling, Richard N. (December 4, 1989). [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html "Cross meets Kremlin: Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II"]. ''Time''. Time magazine website.</ref> According to Orthodox Church sources, as many as fifty million Orthodox believers may have died in the twentieth century, mainly from persecution by [[Communists]].<ref>Moore, Rev. Fr. Raphael (October 1999). [http://www.serfes.org/printerVersion2.asp?URL=/orthodox/memoryof.htm "In memory of the 50 million victims of the Orthodox Christian Holocaust"], Spiritual Nourishment for the Soul, Serfes, Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios, compiler.</ref>
In addition, in the atheistic and Communist Soviet Union, 44 anti-religious museums were opened and the largest was the 'The Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism' in [[Leningrad]]’s Kazan cathedral.<ref>Humphrey (December 16, 2008). [http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-anti-christmas.html "Merry Anti-Christmas!"] Quodlibeta.</ref> Despite intense effort by the atheistic leaders of the Soviet Union, their efforts were not effective in converting the masses to atheism.<ref>Multiple references:
*Humphrey (December 16, 2008). [http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-anti-christmas.html "Merry Anti-Christmas!"] Quodlibeta.
*Froese, Paul (March 2004). [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jssr/2004/00000043/00000001/art00003?crawler=true "Forced secularization in Soviet Russia: why an atheistic monopoly failed" [abstract]]. ''Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion'', vol. 43, 1, pp. 35-50. Abstract: Ingentaconnect</ref>
Paul Froese in the ''Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion'' indicated:
Paul Froese in the ''Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion'' indicated:
{{Cquote|Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky set out to demonstrate the League’s achievements by including a religious question in the 1937 Soviet census. The results were disastrous to the future of the League of Militant Atheists, which was disbanded in 1941, and religious survey questions never reappeared in subsequent Soviet censuses. Although no detailed results from the 1937 census can be reported because data analysis was quickly aborted, Soviet documents indicate that just over 56 percent of the population admitted to being religious believers (Corley 1996:76; Fletcher 1981:211). Yaroslavsky also ambiguously maintained that most (around two-thirds) of the religious believers resided in rural areas (Pospielovsky 1987:65). These crude results indicate a dramatic drop in religiosity when one considers that in 1900 nearly 100 percent of the people that lived in regions that would eventually constitute the Soviet Union were religious believers (see Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 1980). Regardless, Yaroslavsky and Stalin viewed the number of atheist converts (even with probable inflation) as unsuccessful (Pospielovsky 1987:65).
{{Cquote|Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky set out to demonstrate the League’s achievements by including a religious question in the 1937 Soviet census. The results were disastrous to the future of the League of Militant Atheists, which was disbanded in 1941, and religious survey questions never reappeared in subsequent Soviet censuses. Although no detailed results from the 1937 census can be reported because data analysis was quickly aborted, Soviet documents indicate that just over 56 percent of the population admitted to being religious believers (Corley 1996:76; Fletcher 1981:211). Yaroslavsky also ambiguously maintained that most (around two-thirds) of the religious believers resided in rural areas (Pospielovsky 1987:65). These crude results indicate a dramatic drop in religiosity when one considers that in 1900 nearly 100 percent of the people that lived in regions that would eventually constitute the Soviet Union were religious believers (see Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 1980). Regardless, Yaroslavsky and Stalin viewed the number of atheist converts (even with probable inflation) as unsuccessful (Pospielovsky 1987:65).