Question

What did Stalin do with religious groups? What did the communists support and promote instead of religion?

Answer 1

Stalin introduced a fierce persecution of religious groups except during WWII. Communists promoted what they called "historical materialism".

Explanation:

Stalin persecuted religious people in the Soviet Union especially the Orthodox Chuch which had been the main religious trend in Russia since the tenth century, he had one of the main cathedrals in Moscow destroyed. "Historical materialism" pictures religion as an alieantion meant to justify the hegemony of the rulers in any society, it was thus called "the opiate of the masses" by Karl Marx. Marx's vision of history is the precise substitute that communsits had to replace religion. It can be found in some of his most famous books such as "The German Ideology" or the "Communist Manifesto".