19th century German philosopher Karl Marx, the founder and primary theorist of Marxism viewed religion as "the soul of soulless conditions" or the "opium of the people".
At the same time, Marx saw religion as a form of protest by the working
classes against their poor economic conditions and their alienation. In the Marxist–Leninist
interpretation, all modern religions and churches are considered as
"organs of bourgeois reaction" used for "the exploitation and the
stupefaction of the working class". Due to this, a number of
Marxist–Leninist governments in the 20th century, such as the Soviet Union after Vladimir Lenin and the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, implemented rules introducing state atheism.
Marxist political theorists and revolutionaries on religion
Karl 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:
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
According to Howard Zinn,
Marx "saw religion, not just negatively as 'the opium of the people,'
but positively as the 'sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions.' This helps us
understand the mass appeal of the religious charlatans of the television
screen, as well as the work of Liberation Theology in joining the
soulfulness of religion to the energy of revolutionary movements in
miserably poor countries".
Some recent scholarship has suggested that "opium of the people" is
itself a dialectical metaphor, a "protest" and an "expression" of
suffering.
Certainly, Marx did not object to a spiritual life. Rather, he
thought it was necessary. In the "Wages of Labour" (1844), Marx wrote:
"To develop in greater spiritual freedom, a people must break their
bondage to their bodily needs—they must cease to be the slaves of the
body. They must, above all, have time at their disposal for spiritual
creative activity and spiritual enjoyment."
Vladimir 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.
In The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to 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.
However, while Lenin was critical of religion, he also specifically made a point to not include it in Our Programme or his ideological goals by saying:
But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an “intellectual” question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.
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. "Communism is incompatible with religious faith", they wrote.
However, importance was placed on secularism and non-violence towards the religious:
But the campaign against the backwardness of the masses in this matter of religion, must be conducted with patience and considerateness, as well as with energy and perseverance. The credulous crowd is extremely sensitive to anything which hurts its feelings. To thrust atheism upon the masses, and in conjunction therewith to interfere forcibly with religious practices and to make mock of the objects of popular reverence, would not assist but would hinder the campaign against religion. If the church were to be persecuted, it would win sympathy among the masses, for persecution would remind them of the almost forgotten days when there was an association between religion and the defence of national freedom; it would strengthen the antisemitic movement; and in general it would mobilize all the vestiges of an ideology which is already beginning to die out.
In Marxist–Leninist states
Religion in the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was an atheist state in which religion was largely discouraged and at times heavily persecuted. According to various Soviet and Western sources, over one-third of the country's people still 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 other Protestant denominations. The majority of the Islamic faithful were Sunni (with a notable Shia minority, mainly in Azerbaijan), while Judaism also had many followers. Other religions, which were practiced by a relatively small number of believers, included Buddhism and Shamanism.
However after 1941 in the Stalin era, religious persecution was
greatly reduced. To gather support from the masses during World War II,
the Stalin government re-opened thousands of temples and extinguished
the league of militant atheists. Atheist propaganda returned to a lesser
extent during the Khrushchev government, and continued in a less strict
way during the Brezhnev years.
The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied
greatly, but two-thirds of the Soviet population 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, 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.
Religion in the Socialist People's Republic of Albania
Albania was declared an atheist state by Enver Hoxha. Religion in Albania was subordinated in the interest of nationalism
during periods of national revival, when it was identified as foreign
predation to Albanian culture. During the late 19th century and also
when Albania became a state, religions were suppressed in order to
better unify Albanians. This nationalism was also used to justify the
communist stance of state atheism between 1967 and 1991. This policy was mainly applied and felt within the borders of the present Albanian state, thus producing a nonreligious majority in the population.
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. However, this
attitude 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. However, the Communist Party of China
still remains explicitly atheist and religion is heavily regulated,
with only specific state-operated churches, mosques and temples being
allowed for worship.
Religion in Cambodia
Democratic Kampuchea
Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, suppressed Cambodia’s
Buddhist religion as monks were defrocked; temples and artifacts,
including statues of the 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 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.
People's Republic of Kampuchea
After the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, a socialist state more reflective of the values shared by Vietnam and allies of the Soviet Union
was established. Oppression of religious groups was nearly totally
ended and relations between religious groups and the People's Republic
of Kampuchea were much more neutral throughout its existence until the
restoration of the monarchy a decade later.
Religion in Laos
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.
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. 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.
Communism and the Baha'i Faith
There
are many similarities and differences between the schools of thought,
but one of the most common things they share are the time frame within
which both ideologies were founded as well as some social and economic
perspective. A book by the Association for Bahai Studies was written as a dialogue between the two schools of thought. Analysis reveals that the Bahá'í Faith
as both a doctrinal manifest and as a present-day emerging organised
community is highly cooperative in nature with elements that correspond
to various threads of Marxist thought, anarchist thought and more recent
liberational thought innovations. Such elements include, for example,
no clergy and themes that relate to mutualism, libertarian socialism and democratic confederalism.
Communism and Abrahamic religions
Communism and Christianity
Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.
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.
Liberation theology
In the 1950s and the 1960s, liberation theology was the political praxis of Latin American theologians, such as Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay and Jon Sobrino of Spain, who made popular the phrase the "Preferential option for the poor". Consisting of a synthesis of Christian theology
and Marxist socioeconomic analyses, liberation theology stresses social
concern for the poor and advocates for liberation for oppressed
peoples. In addition to being a theological matter, liberation theology
was often tied to concrete political practice.
While liberation theology was most influential in Latin America, it has also been developed in other parts of the world such as black theology in the United States and South Africa, Palestinian liberation theology, Dalit theology in India and Minjung theology in South Korea.
Communism and Islam
From the 1940s through the 1960s, communists, socialists, and Islamists sometimes joined forces in opposing colonialism and seeking national independence. The communist Tudeh Party of Iran was allied with the Islamists in their ultimately successful rebellion against the Shah Pahlavi in 1979, although after the Shah was overthrown the Islamists turned on their one-time allies. The People's Mujahedin of Iran, an exiled political party which opposes the Islamic Republic, once advocated communist ideals, but has since abandoned them.
Communist philosopher Mir-Said (Mirza) Sultan-Galiev, Joseph Stalin's protégé at the People's Commissariat for Nationalities (Narkomnats), wrote in The Life of Nationalities, the Narkomnats' journal.
Communism and Judaism
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". On the other hand, some orthodox Jews, including a number of prominent religious figures, actively supported either anarchist or Marxist versions of communism. Examples include Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, an outspoken libertarian communist, Russian revolutionary and territorialist leader Isaac Steinberg and Rabbi Abraham Bik, an American communist activist.
Communism and Buddhism
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. Regardless, Buddhists have still been persecuted in some Communist states, notably China, Mongolia and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
Many supporters of the Viet Cong were Buddhists, strongly believing in the unification of Vietnam, with many opposing South Vietnam due to former President Ngo Dinh Diem's persecution of Buddhism during the early 1960s.
The current Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso speaks positively of Marxism despite the heavy persecution of the Tibetan people by the post-Mao Zedong and post-Cultural Revolution Chinese government.
Religious criticism of communism
Because of the perceived atheistic nature of communism, some have accused communism of persecuting religion. In addition, another criticism is that communism is in itself a religion.
"Godless communism"
Throughout the Second Red Scare, the fear of the "Godless communist" rooted itself as an epithet
and a warning to the United States in a changing global environment. As
the perceived threat of the "Godless communist" and materialism to the
American way of life grew, "the choice between Americanism and Communism
was vital, without room for compromise".
