Destruction of Christ the Savior Cathedral, 1931

Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, the USSR's official state atheism resulted in the 1921-1928 anti-religious campaign, during which many "church institution[s] at [the] local, diocesan or national level were systematically destroyed." Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin chose the prominent site of the cathedral as the proposed site for a monument to socialism known as the Palace of the Soviets. It was to have modernistic, buttressed tiers to support a gigantic statue of Lenin perched on top of a dome with his arm raised in the air. The state advocated the destruction of religion, and to achieve this goal, it officially denounced religious beliefs as superstitious and backward. The Communist Party destroyed churches, and mosques, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and it introduced a belief system called "scientific atheism," with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers