religious worship continued to be grudgingly allowed.

The Soviets also used the Orthodox church as a form of soft power projection, instead of repressing it in its entirety like the Chinese do, which has created a whole collection of underground churches with contacts in the West that move resources and people in and out of China under the Party's nose. The Soviets simply co-opted the Orthodox leadership, and used the lines of communication between the Patriarchate in Russia and expat churches all over the West for everything from espionage to propaganda.