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Comment by galieos_ghost | Hacker News Reader

For an authoritarian government to work long term they have to be the highest power. This is why the Soviets worked so hard to destroy the church as well as the concept of family, people who value god or family above the government are a threat. In effect the government has to become god.

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> For an authoritarian government to work long term they have to be the highest power. This is why the Soviets worked so hard to destroy the church as well as the concept of family, people who value god or family above the government are a threat.

The Soviets did that largely because that's part of Marxist doctrine that Lenin didn't explicitly abandon, not because it is objectively useful for authoritarian regimes’ longevity (as evidenced by the fact that authoritarian regimes where the state was unified or allied with religious authority and promoted the value of family have done quite well, and were long the norm.)

Is this true? I always found it strange that the Kremlin literally has five churches inside of it... I mean Communism and Christianity have a surprising amount of commonality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism

Kremlin was first built in 1485, most churches were built well before the soviet era.

As for persecution of clergy is true, I suppose it depends if you count mass murder, torture, and shutting down churches as persecution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-religious_campaign_during...

Exactly, and we see similar currents in the United States over the past 50 years as well.

Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs is an essential read on this.

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