Did Marxism/Communism/Socialism ever really outlawReligion? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14807489
Hi my question is did Marxism/Communism/Socialism ever really outlaw Religion or is this just a Capitalist Myth I have read that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels never called for Religion to be banned not Lenin either even if Religion was banned a Christian Jew or Muslim could just lie and pretend to be an Atheist like the Communist Party of China I read wants Atheists only members but they could pretend to be Atheists or Agnostics to join since Marx said economic exploitation caused people to turn to religion does this mean under Marxism Socialism and Communism if there is a famine or black death or a economic collapse that people will turn to religion again thank for your time ?


Either they decreed reforms which the republican bourgeoisie had failed to pass solely out of cowardice, but which provided a necessary basis for the free activity of the working class – such as the realization of the principle that in relation to the state, religion is a purely private matter


1891 Introduction by Frederick Engels
On the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Commune

[Historical Background &
Overview of the Civil War]




Marx was, but Marxism is not explicitly atheist (although it does hint at such a
conclusion by using materialist analysis). Marx viewed religion as being the
"opium of the people," in that it provides a metaphysical retreat from their
hardship and exploitation and distracts them from the class struggle. However,
he devoted much of "On the Jewish Question" to arguing that freedom and religion
were not incompatible within a secular nation, and held the view that with the
advent of socialism, religion will disappear on its own.

Marx's staunch atheism hasn't stopped Marxists from being theistic, most notably
Eugebe V. Debs, the famous American socialist and trade union organizer who was
very religious. Even in the modern day, the Dalai Lama has described himself as
Marxist on multiple occasions.

Do Marxists support suppression of religion?[edit]
Marx branded the notion that religion should be violently suppressed as
"ridiculous"[1], and Engels criticized the Blanquists' support for the legal
suppression of religion and legal enforcement of atheism.[2][3]
#14807516
Marxists are radically opposed to religion being mixed in with the state and forced upon anybody:

Marx wrote:But, the attitude of the state, and of the republic [free state] in particular, to religion is, after all, only the attitude to religion of the men who compose the state. It follows from this that man frees himself through the medium of the state, that he frees himself politically from a limitation when, in contradiction with himself, he raises himself above this limitation in an abstract, limited, and partial way. It follows further that, by freeing himself politically, man frees himself in a roundabout way, through an intermediary, although an essential intermediary. It follows, finally, that man, even if he proclaims himself an atheist through the medium of the state – that is, if he proclaims the state to be atheist – still remains in the grip of religion, precisely because he acknowledges himself only by a roundabout route, only through an intermediary. Religion is precisely the recognition of man in a roundabout way, through an intermediary. The state is the intermediary between man and man’s freedom.


But this goes even further; to tacitly acknowledge that the state has that power over you, to decide that the citizen has the right to have any religion (and thus the state has the right--even if not excercized--of enforcing a religious dogma) is not acceptable.

This is why Lenin, while being quite plain that all religious persecution must not exist, wanted his party to be made up of atheists:

Lenin wrote:Religion must be declared a private affair. In these words socialists usually express their attitude towards religion. But the meaning of these words should be accurately defined to prevent any misunderstanding. We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our Party is concerned. Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to ecclesiastical and religious societies. These should become absolutely free associations of like-minded citizens, associations independent of the state. Only the complete fulfilment of these demands can put an end to the shameful and accursed past when the church lived in feudal dependence on the state, and Russian citizens lived in feudal dependence on the established church, when medieval, inquisitorial laws (to this day remaining in our criminal codes and on our statute-books) were in existence and were applied, persecuting men for their belief or disbelief, violating men’s consciences, and linking cosy government jobs and government-derived incomes with the dispensation of this or that dope by the established church. Complete separation of Church and State is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church.


This is also a reflection of the time and place. It is easy to forget (and they do their damnest to tell us likes) that the Russian Czar was an autocratic force that forced religion on people and regularly preformed pogroms in order to eliminate Jews from society.

Lenin, in fact, was very reluctant to clamp down on the press. But after the people put the Bolsheviks in power, a lot of newspapers encouraged people to kill all the Jews they could find. When bodies started turning up in St. Petersburg of murdered Jews, the press was stifled to prevent the kind of reactions the Czar had encouraged for a thousand years previous.

In places that were less draconian with religion in the 19th century, and Ireland isn't the best example of it, Marxists were a little more forgiving in their rhetoric, but the message remained the same:

James Connolly wrote:Perhaps upon no point are the doctrines of Socialism so much misunderstood, and so much misrepresented, as in their relation to Religion. When driven into a corner upon every other point at issue; when from the point of view of economics, of politics, or of morality, he is worsted in argument, this question of Religion invariably forms the final entrenchment of the enemy of Socialism – especially in Ireland.

“But it is opposed to Religion,” constitutes the last words, the ultimate shift, of the supporters of capitalism, driven from every other line of defence but stubbornly refusing to yield. “Socialism is Atheism, and all Socialists are Atheists,” or “Your Socialism is but a fine name to cover your Atheism in its attack upon the Church;” all these phrases are so commonly heard in the course of every dispute upon the merits or demerits of the Socialist doctrine that we require no apology for introducing them here in order to point their illogical character. So far from it being true that Socialism and Atheism are synonymous terms, it is a curious and instructive fact that almost all the prominent propagandists of Freethought in our generation have been, and are, most determined enemies of Socialism. The late Charles Bradlaugh, in his time the most aggressive Freethinker in England, was to the last resolute and uncompromising in his hatred of Socialism; G.W. Foote, the present editor of the Freethinker, the national organ of English Secularism, is a bitter enemy of Socialism, and the late Colonel Bob Ingersoll, the chief apostle of Freethought doctrine in the United States, was well known as an apologist of capitalism.

On the continent of Europe many other quite similar cases might he recorded, but those already quoted will suffice, as being those most easily verified by our readers. It is a suggestive and amusing fact that in the motley ranks of the defenders of Capitalism the professional propagandists of Freethought are comrades-in-arms of His Holiness the Pope; the ill-reasoned and inconclusive Encyclicals lately issued against Socialism make of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church belated camp followers in the armies marching under the banners raised by the agnostic exponents of the individualist philosophy. Obviously, even the meanest intelligence can see that there need be no identity of thought between the Freethinker as such, and the Socialist as a Socialist. From what then does the popular misconception arise? In the first instance from the interested attempt of the propertied classes to create such a prejudice against Socialism as might deter the working class giving ear to its doctrines – an attempt too often successful; and in the second instance, from a misconception of the attitude of the Socialist party towards the theological dogma in general. The Socialist Party of Ireland prohibits the discussion, of theological or anti-theological questions at its meetings, public or private. This is in conformity with the practice of the chief Socialist parties of the world, which have frequently, in Germany for example, declared Religion to be a private matter, and outside the scope of Socialist action. Modern Socialism, in fact, as it exists in the minds of its leading exponents, and as it is held and worked for by an increasing number of enthusiastic adherents throughout the civilised world, has an essentially material, matter-of-fact foundation. We do not mean that its supporters are necessarily materialists in the vulgar, and merely anti-theological, sense of the term, but that they do not base their Socialism upon any interpretation of the language or meaning of Scripture, nor upon the real or supposed intentions of a beneficent Deity. They as a party neither affirm or deny those things, but leave it to the individual conscience of each member to determine what beliefs on such questions they shall hold. As a political party they wisely prefer to take their stand upon the actual phenomena of social life as they can be observed in operation amongst us to-day, or as they can be traced in the recorded facts of history. If any special interpretation of the meanings of Scripture tends to influence human thought in the direction of Socialism, or is found to be on a plane with the postulates of Socialist doctrine, then the scientific Socialist considers that the said interpretation is stronger because of its identity with the teachings of Socialism, but he does not necessarily believe that Socialism is stronger, or its position more impregnable, because of its theological ally. He realises that the facts upon which his Socialist faith are based are strong enough in themselves to withstand every shock, and attacks from every quarter, and therefore while he is at all times willing to accept help from every extraneous source, he will only accept it on one condition, viz., that he is not to be required in return to identify his cause with any other whose discomfiture might also involve Socialism in discredit. This is the main reason why Socialists fight shy of theological dogmas and religions generally: because we feel that Socialism is based upon a series of facts requiring only unassisted human reason to grasp and master all their details, whereas Religion of every kind is admittedly based upon ‘faith’ in the occurrence in past ages of a series of phenomena inexplicable by any process of mere human reasoning. Obviously, therefore, to identify Socialism with Religion would be to abandon at once that universal, non-sectarian character which to-day we find indispensable to working-class unity, as it would mean that our members would be required to conform to one religious creed, as well as to one specific economic faith – a course of action we have no intention of entering upon as it would inevitably entangle us in the disputes of the warring sects of the world, and thus lead to the disintegration of the Socialist Party.

Socialism, as a party, bases itself upon its knowledge of facts, of economic truths, and leaves the building up of religious ideals or faiths to the outside public, or to its individual members if they so will. It is neither Freethinker nor Christian, Turk nor Jew, Buddhist nor Idolator, Mahommedan nor Parsee – it is only human.
#14807836
Another two useful sources might be the interpretation by Cyril Smith.
1. Marx Myths and Legends. Cyril Smith, Karl Marx and Religion
&
2. Karl Marx and Human Self-creation, Cyril Smith (2002), 5. Feuerbach
The latter is more to supplement the former as it ties into how Marx was influenced by Feuerbach but went beyond him.

The basic impression I take from it is the idea that religion is the alienated essence of humanity. So it touches on the notion that religion is the result of capitalist exploitation but this is something based within the sort of relations of an entire society rather than suffering in general.
Suffering prior to capitalist production and its shaping of human relations didn't break the sense of local gods. And the notion of God in a communist society likely loses it's basis if it's correct that human nature in it's social form is alienated from people. So I don't think what ever suffering would entail under a truly achieved communism could lead to a reversion back to religion. But that's just speculation based on the premise that religion finds its support on this basis. It's probably a bit trickier considering how many are atheists in capitalist economies, but might wonder what extent that does relate to the productive development and wealth of a country as well.

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