Page 165 - Communism in Ambush

Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya)
163

. . . Collectivization 'usually involved the closure of the local church as
well'. Icons were confiscated as a matter of routine and burned along with
other objects of religious worship. A confidential letter from the Western
Provincial Committee on 20 February 1930 speaks of drunken soldiers and
Komsomols [members of the Communist youth organization] who 'with-
out mass preparation' were 'arbitrarily closing village churches, breaking
icons, and threatening the peasants'.
The closures applied to all religions. . . .
. . . Moreover when churches were closed, this did not mean that religious
work was permitted outside them. The closure of nine major churches in
Kharkov was accompanied by a decision 'to take proper steps to prevent
prayer meetings in private homes now that the churches are closed'.
The Kazan Cathedral in Leningrad was turned into an anti-religious mu-
seum. . . .
. . . The St Sophia Cathedral and other churches in Kiev were turned into
museums or anti-religious centres. In Kharkov, St. Andrey's was turned
into a cinema; another into a radio station; another into a machine-parts
store. In Poltava, two were turned into granaries, another into a machine
repair shop. . . .
. . . These measures applied to all religions. 'Churches and synagogues' is
often the phrasing in official decrees in the European part of the USSR.
Elsewhere Islam was equally persecuted. . .
. . . In the collectivization evangelical leaders in the villages were excluded
from the kolkhozes and denounced as kulaks; and most of them were de-
ported. 115
After the Bolshevik revolution, Lenin's tactic of "being moderate to-
wards religion" turned into fanatical hostility. As we saw earlier, to
Lenin, the famine of 1920-21 that cost millions of lives would weaken
people's faith in God.
The following are some of the statements of Lenin that express his
hatred and enmity against religion (we hold Almighty God above such
statements):
… any religious idea, any idea of any god at all, any flirtation even with a
god, is the most inexpressible foulness, … for that very reason it is the most
dangerous foulness, the most shameful 'infection'." 116