Okay, history isn't his field. But to make the utterly false claim that communism didn't kill in the name of atheism, Dawkins has had to avoid every history book published in the last twenty years.
Two of the best books on the subject are "The Plot to Kill God" and "The Forgotten: Catholics under the Soviet Union".
Here is a snip of my review from "The Forgotten":
A stated goal of the Communists was to "liberate the toiling masses from" religion (p 106), which is why they formed the League of Militant Atheists and set out to drive religion from the country. In November 1918 Lenin wrote out a secret order calling for the "mass execution of priests" (p 111).
The murders began.
Nor were the killings of unarmed, frequently elderly, nuns and priests simple gun shots to the head. Some were crucified. Or tortured. Father Johannes, for example, was "dismembered...and left ...for the wild animals" (p 123). The cruelty and viciousness of the Communists knew no bounds.
"Literally thousands of Orthodox bishops, priests, monks and nuns" (p 124) were butchered.
As the Communists gained control of the country, believers were under fierce attack. Many ended up in the Gulag.
"Catholics were forced to watch...their devoted priests being publicly tortured and strung up...by 1930 not a single urban church was left and all of the priests were dead or imprisoned" (p 251) in the Caucasus.
To give you an idea of the scale of the killings, "One grave found in 1989) in mines near Chelyabinsk yielded the remains of 300,000 people...A grave in Volhynia holds 15,000 bodies found in October, 1997" (p 258). The dead died during the mid 1930s.
And then came what became known as the 'final blow' for believers during the time of Stalin when fanatical Communists set up show trials for the few remaining clergy.
Even in an official Russian government report published in 1995, they estimate that ""200,000 Russian Orthodox priests, monks, and nuns had been slain and another 500,000 imprisoned " (p 277). And in the same report "in the time before World War II an estimated 1,000 Roman Catholic priests had been killed outright...614 parishes closed...Of those priests arrested and interred a grand total of twelve would survive the Gulag (p 277).
May I repeat that? Twelve would survive.
Children were told in school to report any action that suggested a parent was religious. It was illegal to preach Christianity. All children were taught only atheism. All church hospitals, colleges, schools, agencies, newspapers, and magazines were against the law. Churches were torn down or turned into stables or dance halls or museums of atheism. Centuries old priceless religious objects were destroyed. All books about religion were banned or burned.
After World War II, the Soviets occupied vast new territories, and the terror began for believers in such countries as Estonia.
In Estonia alone all the clergy were arrested and, significantly, "None of the clergymen returned" (p 331).
The Vatican was almost alone in spreading news of the holocaust. Pope Pius XII "threatened excommunication for Catholics who belonged to the Communist Party" (p 387).
But President Roosevelt made no protest as the Soviets took over the small nations and even declared "that he believed religious freedom would be restored in the USSR after World War II" (p 372).
Funny how, instead, during "1949-1951 nearly 80 percent of the Catholic clergy were jailed" or killed (p 403) in the new Soviet nations.
Right up until the collapse of the Soviet Union Christians were declared 'insane' and sent to mental institutions were they were alternately tortured, drugged, and deprived of sleep or food unless they rejected God.
Get more detail about The God Delusion.
