Stalin was Russian Orthodox until he adopted the atheism prescribed by communism.? Interestingly enough, Stalin depended on the mobilization and moral inspiration generated by the Orthodox Church to help defeat the Nazi Wehrmacht.? After the war though, Stalin once again began to suppress the Church.? Throughout Russian history the Church has played an integral role in the Duchies of Muscovy and Imperial Russia.? We've all heard about Rasputin and how he advised the czars.? Stalin was very culturally aware of the close relationship the Church had with the Russian state.? One of the things that kept the Church so close to the reins of power was the fact that the Russian clergy was the most educated class in Russian society and very astute at the art of censorship.? It can be argued that the censorship practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as an extension of the state led to the communist practices of censorship of the zamzidat (underground) literature that sprang up during the Soviet Union.? In other words the NKVD and later the KGB could say they continued the long standing chore of censoring Russian literature and media outlets in the tradition once done by the Church.
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