According to historian Michael Burleigh, antireligion found its first mass expression of barbarity in revolutionary France as "organised ... irreligion...an 'anti-clerical' and self-styled 'non-religious' state" responded violently to religious influence over society.
[6] The Soviet Union adopted the political ideology of Marxism–Leninism and by extension the policy of state atheism, which opposed the growth of religions.
[8] Less violent attempts to reduce or eliminate the influence of religion in society were also carried out at other times in Soviet history.
[13] The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic targeted numerous clergy for arrest and interrogation as enemies of the state,[14] and many churches, mosques, and synagogues were converted to secular uses.
All foreign Roman Catholic clergy were expelled in 1946, [citation needed] and Albania officially tried to eradicate religion.
[17] Authorities in the People's Republic of Romania aimed to move towards an atheistic society, in which religion would be considered as the ideology of the bourgeoisie; the régime also set to propagate among the laboring masses in science, politics and culture to help them fight superstition and mysticism, and initiated an anti-religious campaign aimed at reducing the influence of religion in society.