 Soviet astrophysicist Vitaly Ginzburg said that ideologically the "Bolshevik communists were not merely atheists, but, according to Lenin's terminology, militant atheists" in excluding religion from the social mainstream, from education and from government.Marxism–Leninism has been widely criticised due to its relations with Stalinism, the Soviet Union and state repression in Marxist–Leninist states.Classical and orthodox Marxists were critical of Stalin's political economy and single-party government in the Soviet Union.