The Soviet Ordeal Ep. 4 Stalin and the New Religion of Socialism

They say nature abhors a vacuum. By the late 1920's everything remotely traditional in Russian culture had been all but atomized. Churches had been dynamited, clergy were either dead, imprisoned or so marginalized that they were no longer relevant. A whole way of life had abruptly ended. But what now? The Soviets were not afraid to tell you how to act in public or even what to think in private. Under the draconian Article 58 of the legal code even your private feelings could make you a criminal. But was this justified? Was it moral? Of course it was. It was "science." Lenin had taken the writings of Marx and Engels and turned them into an all encompassing regimen for how society was to function all the way down to the thoughts of the smallest child. It was called "scientific socialism" and to even doubt this doctrine as infallible truth could make one into a dangerous heretic worthy of denunciation, arrest, imprisonment or death. But attempts to impliment socialism during Revolution and Civil War had proven to be noting short of a national self immolation for the Russian people. By 1920 the regime was teetering on the abyss. Cannibalism was widespread. Reluctantly, Lenin decided to allow elements of capitalism to exist in order to save the state from complete implosion.... and it worked. The Soviet Union was saved and everyone lived happily ever after..... Lol... not quite. Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin would impliment a plan to end this deal with the devil of capitalism an impose socialism by force from above. Millions of peasants would die but the worker's paradise would be just around the  corner. Was it the right thing to do? Of course it was. It was "science." You believe in "science" don't you?