Why Stalin Tried to Stamp Out Religion in the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin led a uniquely brutal campaign against religion and religious leaders. Author: Joseph Stalin led a uniquely brutal campaign against religion and religious leaders. When the era of Communist rule began in Russia in 1917, religion was seen as a hindrance to a thriving socialist society. As Karl Marx, coauthor of the Joseph Stalin, as the second leader of the Soviet Union, tried to enforce militant atheism on the republic. The new “socialist man,” Stalin argued, was an atheist one, free of the religious chains that had helped to bind him to class oppression. From 1928 until World War II, when some restrictions were relaxed, the totalitarian dictator shuttered churches, synagogues and mosques and ordered the killing and imprisonment of thousands of religious leaders in an effort to eliminate even the