Was atheism strictly enforced? Could you be killed for professing to be a Christian?
Well it depends on what time period during Stalin's rule. He was obviously a strong atheist. Earlier in his rule he had anti-relgeous movement and tried to push people away from their faith. He had a majority clergy and many believes, of the Christian faith, killed or sent to labor camps. He pushed the amount of churches from 50,000 to around 500 by 1939. But during WW2 he used the Orthodox Church to help in creating patriotism within the Russian people. And by the end of the war the church had basicly become accepted by the soviet government, until 1957 when Khrushchev started the attacks on the church again.