After the October Revolution of November 7, 1917 (October 25 Old Calendar) there was a movement within the Soviet Union to unite all of the people of the world under Communist rule (see Communist International). This included the Eastern bloc countries as well as the Balkan States. Communism as interpreted by Vladimir Lenin and his successors in the Soviet government required the abolition of religion and to this effect the Soviet government launched a long-running campaign to eliminate religion from society. Since some of these Slavic states tied their ethnic heritage to their ethnic churches, both the peoples and their churches were targeted by the Soviets.
Across Eastern Europe following World War II, parts of the former Nazi Germany liberated by the Soviet Red Army and Yugoslav Partisans became one-party communist states and the project of coercive conversion to atheism continued. The Soviet Union ended its war time truce against the Russian Orthodox Church, and extended its persecutions to the newly Communist Eastern bloc: "In Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and other Eastern European countries, Catholic leaders who were unwilling to be silent were denounced, publicly humiliated or imprisoned by the Communists. Leaders of the national Orthodox Churches in Romania and Bulgaria had to be cautious and submissive", wrote Geoffrey Blainey. While the churches were generally not as severely treated as they had been in the Soviet Union, nearly all their schools and many of their churches were closed, and they lost their formally prominent roles in public life. Children were taught atheism, and clergy were imprisoned by the thousands. In the Eastern Bloc, Christian churches, along with Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques were forcibly "converted into museums of atheism." According to some sources, the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million.
Treatment of Christians
Soviet Union
Very soon after the October Revolution, the campaign to end religion – and more specifically, Christianity, Judaism and Islam – began. In 1920, the White Sea camp was opened on the grounds of a once Russian Orthodox Monastery. At this camp, which took mainly Orthodox and Catholic priests, the prototype for other Soviet camps was revealed. The camp began to exterminate those who would not bend to state.
Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there was a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism" conducted by Communists. The Communist Party destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and introduced a belief system called "scientific atheism", with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers. Many priests were killed and imprisoned, and thousands of churches were closed. In 1925, the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution. The League of Militant Atheists was a "nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism".
The state established atheism as the only scientific truth. Soviet authorities forbade the criticism of atheism and agnosticism or of the state's anti-religious policies, until 1936; such criticism could lead to forced retirement. Militant atheism became central to the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a high priority policy of all Soviet leaders. Christopher Marsh, a professor at Baylor University, writes that "Tracing the social nature of religion from Schleiermacher and Feuerbach to Marx, Engels, and Lenin...the idea of religion as a social product evolved to the point of policies aimed at the forced conversion of believers to atheism."
A few years later, in 1929, priests were not considered workers; thus, they were given higher taxes. Priests also could not serve in the military because they were ineligible. The priests, because of their ineligibility, were given non-service taxes, which was calculated to be more than 100% of their income. Priests also were ineligible to join collective farms. Because of this, they were given no health care, pensions, or social security. By 1939, only 500 out of 50,000 churches remained open.