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Communism and religion have had a changing relationship since the idea of communism first appeared, and especially since the creation of Marxism by Karl Marx. In the Marxist-Leninist interpretation, communism was completely atheistic and explicitly antireligious.

Its implementation under Communist states generally included the institution of state atheism. However, several religious communist groups exist, and Christian communism was important in the early development of communism.

Contents 1 Communists on religion 1.1 Marx on religion 1.2 Lenin on religion 1.3 Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky on religion 2 Religion under communist regimes 2.1 Religion in the Soviet Union 2.2 Religion in communist Albania 2.3 Religion in the People's Republic of China 2.4 Religion in Khmer Rouge Cambodia 2.5 Buddhism and the Pathet Lao 2.6 Religion in Communist Afghanistan 3 Communism and Christianity 4 Communism and Islam 5 Judaism and communism 6 Buddhism and communism 7 Religious criticism of communism 8 See also 9 References

[edit] Communists on religion

[edit] Marx on religion

Karl Marx's religious views have been the subject of much interpretation. He famously stated in Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right that

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.^{[1][unreliable source?]}

The esoteric nature of the quote has led to some confusion among historians, who are divided as to whether Marx was speaking in favor of or against organized religion. Though Marx does state that religion is "the heart of a heartless world," and that "the demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions" (which could be taken to mean that religion is a necessary component of society, true or false), the quote is often used by atheists.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Lenin on religion

Vladimir Lenin was highly critical of religion, saying in his book Religion

Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism.^[2]

In About the attitude of the working party toward the religion, he wrote

Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.^[3]

[edit] Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky on religion

In their influential book The ABC of Communism, Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky spoke out strongly against religion. "[C]ommunism is incompatible with religious faith", they wrote.^[4]

[edit] Religion under communist regimes

[edit] Religion in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was an atheist state, in which religion was largely discouraged and heavily persecuted. According to various Soviet and Western sources, however, over one-third of the country's people professed religious belief. Christianity and Islam had the most believers. Christians belonged to various churches: Orthodox, which had the largest number of followers; Catholic; and Baptist and various other Protestant sects. The majority of the Islamic faithful were Sunni. Judaism also had many followers. Other religions, which were practiced by a relatively small number of believers, included Buddhism and Shamanism.

The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly. Two-thirds of the Soviet population, however, were irreligious. About half the people, including members of the ruling Communist Party and high-level government officials, professed atheism. For the majority of Soviet citizens, therefore, religion seemed irrelevant.

Prior to its collapse in late 1991, official figures on religion in the Soviet Union were not available.

State atheism in the Soviet Union was known as "gosateizm"^[5]

[edit] Religion in communist Albania

Albania was declared an atheist state by Enver Hoxha,^[6] and remained so from 1967 until 1991.^[7] The trend toward state atheism in Albania was taken to an extreme during the regime, when religions, identified as imports foreign to Albanian culture, were banned altogether.^[7] This policy was mainly applied and felt within the borders of the present Albanian state, thus producing a nonreligious majority in the population.

[edit] Religion in the People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China was established in 1949 and for much of its early history maintained a hostile attitude toward religion which was seen as emblematic of feudalism and foreign colonialism. Houses of worship, including temples, mosques, and churches, were converted into non-religious buildings for secular use.

This attitude, however, relaxed considerably in the late 1970s, with the end of the Cultural Revolution. The 1978 Constitution of the People's Republic of China guaranteed "freedom of religion" with a number of restrictions. Since the mid-1990s there has been a massive program to rebuild Buddhist and Taoist temples that were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.

[edit] Religion in Khmer Rouge Cambodia

Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, suppressed Cambodia’s Buddhist religion: monks were defrocked; temples and artifacts, including statues of Buddha, were destroyed; and people praying or expressing other religious sentiments were often killed. The Christian and Muslim communities were among the most persecuted, as well. The Roman Catholic cathedral of Phnom Penh was completely razed. The Khmer Rouge forced Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as an abomination. Many of those who refused were killed. Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed.^[8][9] Forty-eight percent of Cambodia's Christians were killed because of their religion.^[10]

[edit] Buddhism and the Pathet Lao

In contrast with the brutal repression of the sangha undertaken in Cambodia, the communist government of Laos has not sought to oppose or suppress Buddhism in Laos to any great degree. Rather, since the early days of the Pathet Lao, communist officials have sought to use the influence and respect afforded to Buddhist clergy to achieve political goals, while discouraging religious practices seen as detrimental to Marxist aims.^[11]

Starting as early as the late 1950s, members of the Pathet Lao sought to encourage support for the Communist cause by aligning members of the Lao sangha with the Communist opposition.^[11] Though resisted by the Royal Lao Government, these efforts were fairly successful, and resulted in increased support for the Pathet Lao, particularly in rural communities.^[11]

[edit] Religion in Communist Afghanistan

Once it came to power in Afghanistan, from the period it ruled for, 1978 to 1992, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan aggressively implemented state atheism.^[12]

[edit] Communism and Christianity

Christian communism can be seen as a radical form of Christian socialism. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support communism as the ideal social system. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact date when Christian communism was founded, many Christian communists assert that evidence from the Bible suggests that the first Christians, including the Apostles, created their own small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection. As such, many advocates of Christian communism argue that it was taught by Jesus and practiced by the Apostles themselves.

In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific Friedrich Engels draws a certain analogy between the sort of utopian communalism of some of the early Christian communities and the modern-day communist movement, the scientific communist movement representing the proletariat in this era and its world historic transformation of society. Engels noted both certain similarities and certain contrasts.^[13]

[edit] Communism and Islam

From the 1940s through the 1960s, Communists and Islamists sometimes joined forces in opposing colonialism and seeking national independence.^[14] The Tudeh (Iranian Communist party) was allied with the Islamists in their untimately successful rebellion against the Shah in 1979, although after the Shah was overthrown, the Islamists turned on their one-time allies.

Communist thinker Bob Avakian has argued that Islamic fundamentalism is the Muslim proletariat leading a communist revolution.^[15] "[I]t is legitimate to say that the national liberation movement in Muslim countries has the character of a socialist revolution," communist philosopher Mir-Said (Mirza) Sultan-Galiev, Stalin's protégé at the Commissariat of Nationalities (Narkomnats), wrote in The Life of Nationalities, the Narkomnats' journal.^[16]

[edit] Judaism and communism

During the Russian Civil War, Jews were seen as communist sympathizers and thousands were murdered in pogroms by the White Army. During the Red Scare in the United States in the 1950s, a representative of the American Jewish Committee assured the powerful House Committee on Un-American Activities that "Judaism and communism are utterly incompatible."^[17]

[edit] Buddhism and communism

Buddhism has been said to be compatible with communism given that both can be interpreted as atheistic and arguably share some similarities regarding their views of the world of nature and the relationship between matter and mind.^[18]

[edit] Religious criticism of communism

Because of communism's atheism, some have accused communism of persecuting religion.^[19] In addition, a more recent criticism is that communism is, in itself, a religion^[20][21].

[edit] See also

• Anarchism and religion

[edit] References