Russian Revolution — Communist Persecution Begins
1917 AD
📂 REVOLUTION
📖 About This Event
The Bolshevik Revolution of November 7, 1917, brought Vladimir Lenin and the communist party to power in Russia, beginning one of the most brutal persecutions of religion in human history. The Soviet regime declared atheism as state ideology and launched a systematic campaign to eradicate religion. Churches were closed, desecrated, or dynamited; priests and bishops were arrested, tortured, and executed; religious education was banned; and the faithful were subjected to propaganda, intimidation, and imprisonment.
The Russian Orthodox Church suffered most severely, but the Catholic Church in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine (all of which came under Soviet control) also faced intense persecution. An estimated 12 million Christians died in communist gulags, executions, and forced labor camps between 1917 and 1991. Pope John Paul II declared that 'the twentieth century was the century of martyrs.'
The Soviet persecution of religion would continue for 74 years, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Key Sources: Pope John Paul II, Address to the UN (1979); Father Dmitri Solovyov, The Church and the Revolution; Martin Gilbert, The Righteous
📜 Key Facts
Date
1917 AD
Category
Revolution
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