Question by When HARRY Met GINNY: How were atheists treated in Saint Petersburg (Russia) during the Great Purge ?
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(BBC) In 1937, Stalin launched his Great Purge, intensifying his campaign against anyone he saw as a threat to his regime. Those included political opponents, but also the army, the intelligentsia, members of the clergy and peasants.
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Answer by Jay
Being atheists was possibly a help as the Soviet regime was secular, but of more concern was whether you were considered a threat to the regime, whether someone who disliked you had informed on you to the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB) or whether you had accidentally said something derogatory about Stalin or the Soviet Union. During the purges even the suspicion that you might be a threat was enough, and even being known to be a friend of a suspect could land you in the Gulags.
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Lenny says
During Great Purge young angry atheists Communists were killing the older atheists Communists and took their management jobs. Later comrade Stalin purged them as well.
Speed°Madness&am says
If you're referring to the "great purge" of Josef Stalin, atheists were not prosecuted at all, as the communist state was an atheist one. There was propaganda about being free to believe in what one wanted, but those going to churches were on lists watched by the state,except for ancient old women, who had known nothing more-and had scarcely a few more weeks left in the newly formed Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics before succumbing to the demands of a difficult life.
There have been many purges in Russia. If the one you are mentioning does not reflect Stalin (I notice you used St.Petersburg instead of the then "Leningrad" (City of Lenin), let us know more precisely on what timeline you are operating on. Russia is ANCIENT.