With Putin talking about the orthodox church being holy and using to justify some conservative bullshit, all I can remember was the bolsheviks going around the country proudly declaring that cities were now "officially godless" and redistributing the church's gold amongst the people and using it to pay for electrification projects.
People need a positive light to guide them. "Decide for yourself" is, literally, too hard for many of them. They need some kind of higher purpose, and "get the tractor factory running on time" ain't it. One of the Soviet Union's major failings was neglecting the people's spirituality, or worse, attempting to crush it.