That's a good point about outside pressures. Still, if you lay out the ideology of communism and lay it side by side with the teachings of Jesus, Christianity is capable of doing well under a communist system and Christ himself would have supported giving communism a try.

Again, based solely off the ideology.

The application of that ideology ... how it actually turned out would have earned Christ's harshest rebukes, as much or more than the Jewish temple leadership if his time. He couldn't abide the hypocrisy.

I'm sure I've kicked a hornet's nest saying that and our discussion here will get trolled. Should be fun.

Your question about Stalin in equally intriguing. It's hard to say. Men like Stalin tend to come to power with socioeconomic upheaval and political corruption during times of wide wealth disparity. Under such strained conditions, religion usually adds to the woe rather than alleviate it. Look how evangelicals have excused, elevated, and protected Trump. The man is little more than corruption and filth (another hornet's nest). There's a world of difference between faith as an act of spirituality and faith as an act of religion. Faith as an act of spirituality would never allow one to support a tyrant because doing so violates the tenants of the ideology.