On December 30, 1922, the world’s largest atheist state (at that time), The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR], was officially established, born from the Russian Soviet Republic.

The USSR ruled from 1922-1991. On December 26, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR met to officially end the Soviet Union. The Russian experiment with atheist communist rule began in 1917, lasting for just 74 years but it killed or starved over 35 million people and supported the killing of another 65 million in other Communist countries.

David Satter, who has published three books on the USSR and its aftermath, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on November 6, 2017:

“Martyn Latsis, an official of the Cheka, Lenin’s secret police, in a 1918 instruction to interrogators, wrote: We are not waging war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. . . . Do not look for evidence that the accused acted in word or deed against Soviet power. The first question should be to what class does he belong. . . . It is this that should determine his fate.’

Such convictions set the stage for decades of murder on an industrial scale. In total, no fewer than 20 million Soviet citizens were put to death by the regime or died as a direct result of its repressive policies. This does not include the millions who died in the wars, epidemics, and famines that were predictable consequences of Bolshevik policies, if not directly caused by them.

The victims include 200,000 killed during the Red Terror (1918-22); 11 million dead from famine and dekulakization; 700,000 executed during the Great Terror (1937-38); 400,000 more executed between 1929 and 1953; 1.6 million dead during forced population transfers; and a minimum 2.7 million dead in the Gulag, labor colonies and special settlements.

To this list should be added nearly a million Gulag prisoners released during World War II into Red Army penal battalions, where they faced almost certain death; the partisans and civilians killed in the postwar revolts against Soviet rule in Ukraine and the Baltics, and dying Gulag inmates freed so that their deaths would not count in official statistics.

If we add to this list the deaths caused by communist regimes that the Soviet Union created and supported—including those in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia—the total number of victims is closer to 100 million. That makes communism the greatest catastrophe in human history.”

My colleagues and I did surveys in the USSR in June 1991 that indicated a marked rise in a belief in God, even among the security forces. Atheism left many Soviets empty and aimless. Underground Christians, Jews, and some atheists, too, prepared the way for the fall of the Soviet state. If there is one thing that a hundred million deaths taught us is that without recognizing a God or morals transcending power politics ordaining moral restraint and compassion, then any ideological savagery can be justified without appeal.

“Retro Flashes” are Journey’s quick takes on moments of history that have made New York City what it is, what New Yorkers are, and, maybe, what it will be.