You were the one who wanted to play the evidence game.
But seriously, how do you know he didn't wish to wipe out religion by wiping out the religious? I'm not saying that he did, I just want to know why you are so certain.
Jan.
It can be argued that there is plenty of evidence of wanting to wipe out religion in the Soviet regime. The religious were just collateral damages. The creation of the Society of the Godless or the League of the Militant Godless for instance, was almost entirely a party effort, supported by party funding, with many members having no idea what they had signed up for. It collapsed when party funds were withdrawn, showing that the ideology of bringing people into a scientific mindset as they said, was driven entirely by the communist party regime.. Moreover, it was supported by Freethinkers [as atheists defined themselves at the time] all over the world.
Guided by Bolshevik principles of antireligious propaganda and party's orders with regards to religion, S.o.G. aimed at fighting religion in all its manifestations and forming scientific mindset among the workers. It popularized atheism and scientific achievements, conducted individual work with religious people, prepared propagandists and atheistic campaigners, published scientific literature and periodicals, organized museums and exhibitions, conducted scientific research in the field of atheism and critics of religion. S.o.G.'s slogan was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism", which was meant to tie in their atheist views with economy, politics, and culture. S.o.G. had vast international connections; it was part of the International of Proletarian Freethinkers and later of the Worldwide Freethinkers Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless
If political expediency is the excuse, then lets look at why some Muslims believe in the death sentence for apostacy, given that its not defined in the religion.
Classical Hanafi doctrine holds that the capital punishment of the apostate serves mainly political aims. I quote two famous Hanafi jurists from Central Asia on this matter. The first is the eleventh-century Transoxanian jurist Sarakhsi, one of the major authorities of the Hanafi school. He says:
The change of religion and the original form of unbelief
belong to the most abominable of crimes. But [their judgment]
is a matter between God and his servant and the punishment
[of this crime] is postponed until the hereafter.
The measures advanced in this base world [and which thus
precede God's judgment] are matters of political expediency
[siyasat mashru'a] ordained by the law in order to protect
human interests" (Sarakhsi, n.d., vol. 10: 110).
In the same vein, the twelfth-century Hanafi jurist Marghinani, whose book al-Hidaya exerted a lasting influence on the Hanafi jurists of the Near East, states his position with the following words:
In principle, punishments are postponed to the hereafter
and the fact that they are advanced [so that they precede
the hereafter] violates the sense of probation [as the sense
of human life in this world]. One deviates from this principle
in order to defy a present evil and that is warfare
[against the Muslims] ('Ayni, vol. VI: 702-703). (2)
Both authors argue that the apostate's punishment is not due to his belief but to the military and political danger that this belief may cause. They use this argument to show that women, even if they abandon Islam, should never be condemned to death because they are, according to Hanafi doctrine, physically not able to lead war on the Muslim community. The jurists conclude from this that capital punishment is not imposed for disbelief and apostasy but as a means to prevent the military and political dangers connected with it.
One could argue then, that Stalins aims were not different from those of the Hanafi jurists in this regard. In fact, come to think of it, Stalin is the kind of apostate that they referred to.
