OK since you asked, re. paradigm smashing:

One of the Early Soviet doctirnes was to eliminate religion altogether. The idea was that the state would replace it with science, technology, higher education, and use any moral fervor to make people more patriotic for the communist ideal. This back-fired, because people did not want to give up their precious (gold-leaf embossed) icons, customs, and of course there were clandestine meetings with similarly-minded folks - i.e. their neighbours and relations.

Anyway with the fall of the Soviets, there were several countries that reclaimed their religion, because it was deemed necessary. And guess what? It was very popular. So, even as Westerners were flooding their countries with Big Macs and Jeans, and rainbow dildoes, in a chaotic world of collapse, people realized they needed a compass. And this is at the core of my argument. It means the leaders now openly say that they are Religious. They reject anything that is anti-human that they see coming from the West. And they have good reason to be suspicous of the West, since hundreds of years, at the cost of millions of lives. For example, Larry Johnson mentioned very recently, that St Petersburg, where he is right now, lost 800 000 people because Hitler starved them in a siege. But the ugly raids from the West stretch back hundreds of years, as Putin pointed out to Tucker. So, that memory induces self-preservation.

Now compare this with Trump, and Q, and the Great Awakening which, in the past would be called a Revival. USA has seen revivals before. But I'll warrant this revival will be a big one, because that MArxist/Maoist idea of killing religion? Well that was done softly in the West, from the top down (Yeah I remember those edgy guys wearing berets with stars on them at university). And now there will be a popular backlash. People refuse to accept atheism, or agnosticism or whatever they prefer to label themselves as. (It is foolish to debate them because they DO have a religion). Anyway, It is wrong to kill innocents. It says Thou shalt not kill for a reason - and that first principles approach, without all the medieval stuff of indoctrination and coercion, has worked for thousands of years. When an atheist starts talking they come across as stupid and selfish.

But there is that other thread: Even as they rejected the church, Soviet Communism modelled itself on Christianity. There's that meme that declares that Jesus was the original communist. That is because the Soviets were trying to replace Christianity, so they had to use the 'useful' bits, such as workers being housed; very cheap medical care, bomb shelters underneath low-rise buildings, high employment, clean streets and advancement opportunities through the military-related industries etc. And guess what? Patriotism is much higher now. In the end the country found it better to just have religion back with all it's pomp and rituals.

In Russia there are now intellectuals who espouse communism, for all the good things it brought to a feudal society - and those that despise it for its repressions. But there is no argument about the benefit of people going to church. The tables have turned and the paradigm has been smashed.