High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Soviet Union had the elimination of religion and its replacement with state atheism as a fundamental ideological goal of the state. While religion was never officially made illegal, the state nevertheless made great efforts towards the goal of eliminating religion. To this end throughout its history it engaged in anti-religious persecutions of varying intensity and methodology. Believers were never officially attacked for being believers, but they were officially attacked for perceived or invented resistance to the state and its policies. These attacks, however, in the broader ideological context were ultimately meant to serve the ultimate goal of eliminating religion and replacing it with atheism, and the perceived resistance acted as a legal pretext to carry this out. Through this method believers were effectively widely attacked for being believers and promoting religion, but officially they were only attacked for disobedience to the...