After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Christianity became illegal and hundreds of churches were closed, burned, violated and turned into secular institutions. St. Basil's was not spared this fate, although services were offered there until 1929 because Vladimir Lenin had an unexplained personal attraction to the complex. Though the government turned most of the complex into a museum of atheism in 1923, one sanctuary was kept functional at Lenin's command.
When Lenin died in 1924, the entire Cathedral was nearly razed only several weeks later, at the command of Joseph Stalin. Stalin had grandiose visions of an urbanized, restructured Moscow, and to that end he fought vigorously for the demolition of St. Basil's so its land could be used for Communist projects. He dreamed of huge, impressive parades in the Red Square, and felt that knocking down St. Basil's would be an easy way to clear more space for these.
However, encountered considerable resistance from preservationists who were reticent to destroy such an important, historical building. Even some of Stalin's own contractors were horrified at the prospect; he fired them and hired men who would not resist his radical ideas. In 1933, he ordered that St. Basil's be removed from the national register of historic places and sent Pyotr Baranovsky, a noted preservationist, to inspect the buildings before they were knocked down. Baranovsky was scandalized at Stalin's plans and objected by sending a blunt telegram back to the Kremlin. He protested so vociferously that Stalin threw him in the Gulag, where he spent five years.
But Baranovsky's resistance emboldened other top party officials who were also reluctant to get rid of the Cathedral. They stalled its destruction for four years, during which time the general sentiment of the Russian people regarding the Cathedral became known. Their love for St. Basil's was so great that the government canceled plans to raze it for fear of an uprising. A second demolition attempt was scheduled in 1939: the church was locked up and boarded, but never destroyed.