Yeah. So many Russians told me how the Church was repressed right up until the USSR fell. Although they tolerated little old ladies attending services, teachers would stand outside of churches on Sundays taking note of any child who accompanied grandma to church, and then cruelly shaming those children in front of the class on Monday. I don’t think they were lying to me.
In schools they would tell children to pray to God for candy. And nothing happened. Then they told the children to ask Comrade Stalin for candy, and candy rained down from the ceiling.
They were not lying about communism.