In its internal policy, the Soviet authorities considered terror to be the basis for maintaining

the imposed system. The murder and forced emigration of the exploitative classes, hostile to

the proletariat, was accompanied by the ruthless suppression of any manifestation of

resistance to the implementation of the Marxist economy. Thus, the power, which also called

itself peasant, bloodily dealt with the peasant uprisings, which erupted because of the

catastrophic economic situation of devastated Russia. One of the biggest peasant uprisings of

that time, the Tambov Rebellion, was stifled by all available means, including artillery,

aviation, and combat gases. During the pacification operation alone, 70,000 peasants were

killed and a further 170,000 died of hunger, which was used as an effective weapon to break

resistance, even afterwards. In retaliation for the failed attack on Lenin in August 1918, the

Cheka, headed by Feliks Dzerzhinsky, carried out a large-scale pacification operation.

Between 1918 and 1921, 400,000 people were arrested, half of whom were murdered. The

dark tradition of the Cheka was continued later by the State Political Administration (SPS)

that replaced the Cheka and was subordinated to the People's Commissariat for Internal

Affairs (NKVD). Churches and religious associations in Russia, the Orthodox Church in

particular, also became the main targets of the repressive apparatus. Since 1919, communists

who adhere to the principle of militant atheism were carrying out the so-called fight against

superstition, sanctioned by decrees in subsequent years. The monastery complexes were

nationalized, Orthodox churches and icons were systematically destroyed as part of the fight

against the darkness, and since 1921 sermons and public speeches by clergy were censored.

Until 1920 alone, 37 bishops and a thousand priests died often as martyrs at the hands of the

Bolsheviks and nearly 12 thousand believers were murdered because of their attachment to

the faith. However, it was not until 1922 that the repression reached its peak. As a pretext, a

broad campaign of aiding the clergy of the Orthodox Church was used to help the victims of

the famine. The Bolsheviks, with their own perversity, grasped the slogans of the aid but

directed it against the Orthodox Church by organizing mass requisitions and confiscations of

liturgical equipment, the sale of which was to cover the aid of the starving. This activity took

the form of actual pillaging and destruction of church property, sometimes resulting in forms

of armed resistance. This, however, was an additional argument for the authorities, which, in

response, proceeded to mass repression against the clergy and the faithful. A significant

example of these actions is the fate of the inhabitants of Shuya near Włodzimierz, whose

inhabitants took action against the Bolsheviks who stole from local churches. The brutal and

ruthless pacification of resistance was supposed to be both an example and an announcement

of actions taken in other parts of the country. In order to strengthen the propaganda message,

in 1922 demonstrations of the trial of priests and monks were organized in Moscow, which

ended with the death sentence and the execution of nearly 60 clergies. In total, in 1922 alone,

nearly 3 thousand priests, 2 thousand monks, and 3.5 thousand nuns were victims of

repression. 66 bishops were arrested, most of them murdered. According to archival

documents, after 1917 about 40 thousand churches and Orthodox churches were demolished

or reconstructed in Russia, as well as half of all mosques and synagogues. By 1985,

approximately 200,000 clergies of all faiths had been murdered under Communist rule and

approximately 300,000 interned.