The Soviet Union was established by the Bolsheviks in 1922, in place of the Russian Empire. At the time of the 1917 Revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church is deeply integrated into the autocratic state, enjoying atheist official status. This is a significant factor that contributed to the Bolshevik attitude to religion and the steps they took to control it. Thus the Soviet Union became the first state to have as one objective of its official ideology use of existing religion, and the prevention of future implanting of religious belief, with the goal of establishing state atheism (gosateizm). Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there are a "government-sponsored program of conversion to atheism" conducted by Communists. The Communist government targeted religions based on State interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools. In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution. Accordingly, personal expressions of religious faith were not in any way privately banned, but a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the official government structures and secular mass media, and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain government professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious and anti-secular. The vast majority of people in the Russian Empire were, at the time of the revolution, religious believers, whereas the communists aimed to break the power of all religious institutions and eventually replace religious belief with atheism. "Science" was counterposed to "religious superstition" in the media and in academic writing. The main religions of pre-revolutionary Russia persisted throughout the entire Soviet period, but they were only tolerated within certain limits. Generally, this meant that believers were free to worship in private and in their respective religious buildings (churches, mosques, synagogues etc.), but public displays of religion outside of such designations were prohibited. In addition, religious institutions were not allowed to express their views in any type of mass media, and many religious buildings were demolished or used for other purposes. In the long run, state atheism failed to convert many people. Religion strengthened underground and was revived to help fight the Second World War. It flourished after the fall of Communism. Christians belongs to various denominations: Orthodox (which had the largest number of followers), Catholic, Baptist and various