State atheism

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State atheism has been defined as the official promotion of atheism by a government, typically by active suppression of religious freedom and practice.^[1] As a strict rule, only Marxist governments have ever sought to promote atheism as a public norm, and as a rule in accordance with the doctrine of dialectical materialism. Nonetheless marxism may not be the only ideology to have ever rejected religion altogether; the laissez-faire capitalism of Ayn Rand, although a nearly diametric opposite of Marxism, also recognizes religion as pre-modern superstition.^[2] State atheism has been implemented in communist countries, such as the former Soviet Union,^[3] China, Cuba, Communist Albania, and Communist Mongolia under communist rule also promoted state atheism and attempted to suppress religion.^[3][4] State atheism in these countries may include active opposition to religion, and persecution of religious institutions, leaders and believers. However, whether such persecution was truly motivated by atheism is disputed by others.^[5][6] The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism,^[7] in which social success largely required individuals to proclaim atheism and stay away from churches; this attitude was especially militant under Stalin.^[8][9][10] The Soviet Union attempted to impose atheism over wide areas of its influence, including places like central Asia.^[11] The Socialist People's Republic of Albania under Enver Hoxha went so far as to officially ban the practice of every religion. ^[12]

[edit] Religion under Communist regimes

Some, such as Christian writer Dinesh D'Souza, argue that the communist ideology explicitly advocates state atheism and the abolition of religion.^{[13] [14]} According to Karl Marx the founder of the communist ideology, religion is a tool utilized by the ruling classes whereby the masses can briefly relieve their suffering via the act of experiencing religious emotions. It is in the interest of the ruling classes to instill in the masses the religious conviction that their current suffering will lead to eventual happiness. Therefore as long as the public believes in religion, they will not attempt to make any genuine effort to understand and overcome the real source of their suffering, which in Marx's opinion was their non-Communist economic system.^[15] Marx saw religion as the "opium of the people" in the sense that it was used to control the masses. Critics argue that this has motivated certain communist regimes to curtail religious freedom or seek to suppress religion because they considered it a suppressive, subversive set of guidelines, and thereby attached the charge of sedition to certain religions.

However, Richard Dawkins argues that Stalin's atrocities were influenced not by atheism but by their dogmatic Marxism,^[5] saying that while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds in the name of atheism. ^[6] In response to this, Christian writer Dinesh D'Souza says this type of reasoning "clearly shows what happens when you let a biologist out of the lab" and that it "shows a gross ignorance of history". ^[16]

Enver Hoxha's regime in Albania set out to abolish all religion with the intention of making the country officially atheistic: Article 37 of the Albanian constitution of 1976 stated that "The State recognises no religion, and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people."^[17]

[edit] Communist Albania

Albania was declared an atheist state by Enver Hoxha,^[18] and remained so from 1967 until 1991.^[19] 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.^[19] This policy was mainly applied and felt within the borders of the present Albanian state, thus producing a nonreligious majority in the population. As of 2007, according to news reports, religious participation in Albania was increasing.^[20]

The Agrarian Reform Law of August 1945 nationalized most property of religious institutions, including the estates of monasteries, orders, and dioceses. By May 1967, religious institutions had relinquished all 2,169 churches, mosques, cloisters, and shrines, many of which were converted into cultural centers for young people. Many Muslim imams and Orthodox priests renounced their "parasitic" past. More than 200 clerics of various faiths were imprisoned, while others were forced to seek work in either industry or agriculture. As the literary monthly "Nëndori" reported the event, the youth had thus "created the first Atheist nation in the world." From year 1967 to the end of communist rule, religious practices were banned and the country was proclaimed officially atheist, marking an event that happened for the first time in world history. Albanians born during the regime were never taught religion, so they grew up to become either atheists or agnostics^{[citation needed]}.

Old non-institutional pagan practices in rural areas, which were seen as identifying with the national culture, were left intact. As a result the current Albanian state has also brought pagan festivals to life, like the lunar Spring festival (Albanian: Dita e Verës) held yearly on March 14 in the city of Elbasan, which is a national holiday.

[edit] The Soviet Union

USSR. 1922 issue of the Bezbozhnik (The Atheist) magazine. By 1934, 28% of Christian Orthodox churches, 42% of Muslim mosques and 52% of Jewish synagogues were shut down in the USSR.^[21]

State atheism in the Soviet Union was known as "gosateizm,^[3] and was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. As the founder of the Soviet state V. I. Lenin put it:

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.^[22]

Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and, ultimately, the elimination of religious beliefs. Within about a year of the revolution the state expropriated all church property, including the churches themselves, and in the period from 1922 to 1926, 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and more than 1,200 priests were killed (a much greater number was subjected to persecution). ^[23]

In the 1920s and 1930s, such organizations as the League of the Militant Godless ridiculed all religions and harassed believers. Atheism was propagated through schools, communist organizations (such as the Young Pioneer Organization), and the media. Though Lenin originally introduced the Gregorian calendar to the Soviets subsequent efforts to re-organise the week for the purposes of improving worker productivity with the introduction of the Soviet revolutionary calendar had a side-effect that a "holiday will seldom fall on Sunday" ^[24]

Although all religions were persecuted^[23], the regime's efforts to eradicate religion, however, varied over the years with respect to particular religions, and were affected by higher state interests. Official policies and practices not only varied with time but also in their application from one nationality and one religion to another. Although all Soviet leaders had the same long-range goal of developing a cohesive Soviet people, they pursued different policies to achieve it. For the Soviet regime, the questions of nationality and religion were always closely linked. Not surprisingly, therefore, the attitude toward religion also varied from a total ban on some religions to official support of others.

Most seminaries were closed, publication of religious writing was banned. ^[23] The Russian Orthodox Church, which had 54,000 parishes before World War I, was reduced to 500 by 1940. ^[23] Although the great majority of Russia was Christian, according to the CIA Factbook, only 17 to 22 percent of the population is now Christian. ^[25]

[edit] 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.

In the early years of the People's Republic, religious belief or practice was often discouraged because it was regarded by the government as backward and superstitious and because some Communist leaders, ranging from Vladimir Lenin to Mao Zedong, had been critical of religious institutions. During the Cultural Revolution, religion was condemned as feudalistic and thousands of religious buildings were looted and destroyed.

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.

The Communist Party has said that religious belief and membership are incompatible. Party membership is a necessity for many high level careers and posts. That along with other official hostility makes statistical reporting on religious membership difficult. There are five recognized religions by the state: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholic Christianity, and Protestant Christianity.^[26]

Most people report no organized religious affiliation; however, people with a belief in folk traditions and non-religious spiritual beliefs, such as ancestor veneration and feng shui, along with informal ties to local temples and unofficial house churches number in the hundreds of millions. The United States Department of State, in its annual report on International Religious Freedom,^[27] gives possibly the most reliable statistics about organized religions. In 2007 it reported the following (citing the Government's 1997 report on Religious Freedom and 2005 White Paper on religion):^[28]

• Buddhists 8%. According to other sources at least 50% and possibly as high as 91%.^[29][30]
• Taoists, unknown as a percentage partly because it is fused along with Confucianism and Buddhism. According to some sources it's at least 30%.^[31][32]
• Muslims, 1.5%, with more than 45,000 Imams. Other estimates state at least 2%.
• Christians, Protestants at least 2%. Catholics, about 1.5%. Total Christians according to 2008 different polls: 4%.

It should be noted, however, that statistics relating to Buddhism and religious Taoism are to some degree incomparable with statistics for Islam and Christianity. This is due to the traditional Chinese belief system which blends Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, so that a person who follows a traditional belief system would not necessarily identify him- or herself as either Buddhist or Taoist, despite attending Buddhist or Taoist places of worship.

[edit] Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge

Pol Pot suppressed Cambodia’s Buddhists: 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.^[33][34] Forty-eight percent of Cambodia's Christians were killed because of their religion.^[35]

[edit] Mongolian People's Republic

In 1936, and especially after Japanese encroachments had given the Soviets enough reason to deploy Soviet troops in Mongolia in 1937, a whole-scale attack on the Buddhist faith began. At the same time, Soviet-style purges took place in the Communist Party and in the Mongolian army. Mongolia's leader at that time was Khorloogiin Choibalsan, a follower of Joseph Stalin who emulated many of the policies Stalin had implemented in the Soviet Union. The purges lead to the almost complete eradiction of Lamaism in the country, and cost an estimated 30,000-35,000 lives.

[edit] See also

Antireligion Communist terrorism Society of the Godless

Religious persecution Religion in Russia Religion in China

Atheism portal Religion in the Soviet Union Religion in Afghanistan

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Davies, Norman. 1996. Europe: a history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dawkins, Richard. 2006. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0618680009.
• Elsie, Robert. 2001. A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture. New York: NYU Press'. ISBN 0814722148.
• Greeley, Andrew M. 2003. Religion in Europe at the end of the second millennium: a sociological profile. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
• Marx, Karl. February, 1844. A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.
• Miner, Steven Merritt. 2003. Stalin's holy war religion, nationalism, and alliance politics, 1941-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Pipes, Daniel. 1989. The long shadow: culture and politics in the Middle East. New Brunswick, U.S.A.: Transaction Publishers.
• Pospielovsky, Dimitry, 1935- The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia Published 1998. St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 413 pages, ISBN 0881411795 page 257.
• Wolak, Arthur J. 2004. Forced out: the fate of Polish Jewry in Communist Poland. Tucson, Ariz: Fenestra Books.

[edit] External links

• Keston Institute: Resources for the Studies of Communist Countries and Religious Affairs

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