Communism
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[edit] Communism and religion
Karl Marx famously said that religion was "the opiate of the people". Or, in full:
Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. 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.
Of course, this is simply Marx's beliefs, and thus religious socialism still exists, as the system of communism is not opposed to religion in any way. Marx does not advocate the banning of religion, and instead says that it is simply a way to cope, and a way to see something bright at the end of the tunnel when one is faced with the injustices of feudal and capitalist society, and says that the criticism of religion is thus the criticism of the conditions that breed it. In an interview later on, Marx dismissed violent measures against religion as "nonsense", and stated the opinion (he specified that it was an opinion) that, "as socialism grows, religion will disappear. Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which education must play a part."
As for the phrase itself, opium in Marx's time was an important painkiller, a source of extraordinary visions for 'opium eaters', the cause of important conflicts such as the Opium Wars, and also used by parents to keep their children quiet. It is likely that Marx was alluding to all of these.
Despite Marx's view that religion could co-exist with communism many communist states have cracked down on religious groups. For example the Russian Orthodox Church had for hundreds of years been a powerful institution in Russia and had many ties to the former czarist regime. Hence, in the mind of the Soviet leaders the church formed an institutional threat to its existence and had to be controlled.
[edit] What communism "actually is"
Be careful reading this, because just the simple fact of knowing what actual communism is is treason in the United States of America. And "godlessness" is really only a very small part of it.
First, we must mention Karl Marx and the idea that human society develops from primitive communism to feudalism, and then, after feudalism ceases to be productive, to capitalism. He claimed that capitalism can only lead into socialism, and once it is developed enough, the workers will be an organized force capable of revolution. There was also a chance that the bourgeoisie may implement fascism in order to put down this revolution. A workers' revolution would (Marx was not deterministic, though he does occasionally seem as such, though he believed that socialists would have to actively help educate the workers, and fight for a revolution, rather than it just happening automatically, though crises and such would aid it) lead to socialism, a classless, and thus stateless according to Marx's definition, society, with the state being defined as a tool of class rule; the Communist Manifesto[1] was his statement of purpose, though he later called parts of it (especially the ten planks) antiquated. It was mainly a propaganda document, and thus did not go into detail in terms of economic theory. Vladimir Lenin, leading the Russian Revolution, paid large amounts of lip service to Marx, while instead taking more ideas from Blanquism (even though Marx hadn't thought too highly of the chances of revolution from a feudalistic society, and had coined the term 'dictatorship of the proletariat' in order for differentiate from the Blanquist minority dictatorship) and declared open class warfare on the bourgeoisie (and that he would bring 'Bread, Peace and Land!'), in an attempt to take power. Lenin jumped the gun by leading a communist revolution with a small group of intellectuals without waiting for a significant working class to develop, trying to jump start a socialist state by skipping an entire step in the process Marx had described. This would become know as Leninism, a sort of backwards Marxism, in which a small group of enlightened leaders, known as a vanguard, took over the state first, and industry and a large working class were developed afterwards. In Leninism, the initial leaders of the revolution were to be caretakers of the communist state until the workers caught up and society could be transformed into "communism" (as the beginning of the idea of socialism and communism being different stages of a revolution originated mainly from Lenin).
It is true that Lenin's ideas (especially applying planned economy principles to agriculture) didn't really work, but though some reforms were suggested, Lenin and Trotsky killed most of those suggesting them, and then Lenin died, and Stalin took over the Soviet Union and converted a brutal and repressive autocracy (as Lenin had abolished democracy and implemented Party dictatorship) into an extremely brutal and repressive autocracy, ruling by fear and paying only lip service to the thoughts of Marx. So not only was the great Soviet experiment not working, Stalin stepped in and insured it never would, which was more than enough to carry the crazy red-baiters of the 1920s into the 50s with McCarthyism, throwing the adjective "godless"[2] in just to give it a bit more emotional sting. Of interest is the fact that the US had helped anti-Bolshevik (and largely pro-Tsarist, though occasionally peasant-based in the case of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who were more popular than the Bolsheviks in Russia) forces during the Russian Civil War, and never seem to mention it.
To summarize, communism is a classless, democratic (Marx called for 'self-government of the commune' in response to Bakunin's accusations that he wished for a minority dictatorship) and international society. There are different theories to how it should be organized, for example, the anarcho-syndicalists and De Leonists wish for a Socialist Industrial Union, while mutualists (inspired by the ideas of Proudhon) wish for a non-capitalist free market (often claiming that the capitalist market can never have anything to do with 'freedom'), other socialists wish for a system of workers' councils (though these can often be compared to the syndicalist unions), etc.
[edit] Christian communism in North America
The Hutterites describe themselves as "a communal people".[3] They "believe in sharing their possessions in common as demonstrated by Christ and His Apostles and as later further refined and described in the Book of Acts".[4] The Hutterites have been practicing Christian communism for about 500 years.
A Hutterite colony usually has 60 to 160 members. The colonies are scattered "throughout the prairies in North America" and contain more than 40,000 people. The Hutterite website includes sections about their religion, structure, education, recreation, livelihood, and other topics.[5]
[edit] Conservapedia on communism
They don't even begin to tell you what it is until they're finished telling you how bad it was (see the parody at the beginning of this article). Shows how much they really care about accuracy...
[edit] See also
- Socialism
- Moral panic
- Marxism
- Equality -- The general basis of the projected communist society, in which all permanent hierarchies are abolished, including that of class.
- John Birch Society -- the United States' most prominent anti-Communist organization. (They didn't get the memo.) A common figure of fun, even back then.
- John Ball -- an early priest who favored a then-unnamed communism.
[edit] External links
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ The Communist Manifesto at Project Gutenberg
- ↑ Around this time, the United States adopted the motto "In God we Trust" to differentiate themselves from their nemesistical superpower and empire.
- ↑ Hutterites: a communal people.
- ↑ Hutterite History.
- ↑ Hutterites website.
