Combating religious beliefs was considered an absolute duty by Lenin.[46] The campaigns involved extensive amounts of antireligious propaganda, antireligious legislation, atheistic education, antireligious discrimination, harassment, arrests and also campaigns of violent terror.[47] Soviet leaders, propagandists and other militant atheists debated for years over the question of what approach was most pragmatic in order to eliminate religion. The state recruited millions of people, spent billions of roubles, and made incredible efforts towards this end, although it ultimately failed to achieve their goal. In fact, in 1959, a course titled Fundamentals of Scientific Atheism was "introduced into the curriculum of all higher educational institutions" and in 1964, it was made compulsory for all pupils after a "paucity of student response".[48]