Randos And Some People Claiming To Be Communist: "Communism is not Anti Religion!"
Religion From Six Of The First Eight Texts Of The Basic Marxism-Leninism Study Guide. I'll breakdown what each quote is saying, and i'll do so honestly. So will be disingenuous or lack of comprehension and interpret the words from the various texts differently but this is what is said and meant in ML theory.
The Principles of Communism: "All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance."
Religion is not eternal but tied to specific "historical stages" of social development. Religion exists because material conditions produce a need for it. Once communism removes those conditions, the argument goes, the need disappears and religion withers, not through suppression but obsolescence. This denies religion any independent, transcendent basis.
Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism:
"The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern history of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth century in France, where a resolute struggle was conducted against every kind of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of democracy have, therefore, always exerted all their efforts to “refute”, undermine and defame materialism, and have advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts to the defence or support of religion."
This is materialism versus idealism, with idealism explicitly equated to religious defense. Calling materialism the only position "consistent" with natural science, he frames religion as pre-scientific superstition and casts anyone defending idealism, even secular philosophical idealism, as functioning politically to prop up religious belief. This is the logical consequence of taking science seriously, not a separate stance.
"Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines—philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, that the various political forms of the modern European states serve to strengthen the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat."
Religion is placed in the same category as law and politics, a "superstructure" reflection of underlying economic relations, not an autonomous truth-claim about the universe. Religious doctrine has no independent epistemic standing; it is explained away as a byproduct of class society organizing itself, which strips it of the possibility of containing revealed or transcendent truth.
"People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, how ever barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can—and, owing to their social position, must—constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new, and to enlighten and organise those forces for the struggle."
Religious language is grouped with political propaganda as a tool of deception, specifically class deception. Religious claims are not sincere metaphysical assertions but rhetorical cover for material class interests, and believers are "foolish victims" until they see through this. It does not just say religion is false, it explains religion as a mechanism that manufactures false consciousness in service of a ruling class and must be done away with.
Karl Marx : a brief biographical sketch with an exposition of Marxism:
"Any other use of the concepts of (philosophical) idealism and materialism leads only to confusion. Marx decidedly rejected, not only idealism, which is always linked in one way or another with religion, but also the views—especially widespread in our day—of Hume and Kant, agnosticism, criticism, and positivism[2] in their various forms; he considered that philosophy a "reactionary" concession to idealism, and at best a "shame-faced way of surreptitiously accepting materialism, while denying it before the world."
It goes beyond rejecting religion outright and also rejects agnosticism. Agnosticism is treated as cowardice, a "shame-faced" evasion rather than a legitimate middle position. Lenin's Marx, one is either a consistent materialist or one is, functionally, still serving idealism and therefore religion. There is no honest unresolved position permitted.
"At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or—what is but a legal expression for the same thing—with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out."
Religion is listed as one of several "ideological forms," it is how people become dimly aware of and process material conflicts they do not actually control, originate, or understand. Religious consciousness is downstream of economic contradiction, not a cause of history in its own right. It denies religion agency; it is a symptom, not a driver.
The Communist Manifesto:
"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."
Religious fervor is described as something capitalism destroyed, prior religious justification for exploitation an "illusion" or veil. Feudal exploitation dressed itself in religious sanctification while capitalist exploitation is at least honest about being naked self-interest. Religion is ideological camouflage for material domination in any mode of production that uses it.
"In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests."
Again, religion is in the same category as bourgeois law and morality: prejudices that exist to hide class interest. Implying religion is not passive error but an active trap set by material interest. It denies religion any content beyond class camouflage.
"The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination."
Religious objections to communism are placed outside the domain of things worth debating, grouped with other "ideological" complaints. It treats religious argument as noise generated by superstructure rather than as a position with content that needs refutation on its own terms.
"When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge."
Successive religions is an epiphenomena of class struggle rather than genuine spiritual or intellectual progress. Christianity displacing paganism, and rationalism displacing Christianity, are read purely as symptoms of which class was ascending. Even the liberal Enlightenment value of religious liberty is reduced to an ideological expression of market competition, denying it any standing as a principled advance in its own right.
“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”
Religion persists across historical change and therefore has some enduring, non-reducible core. Marx and Engels raise it only to reject it in the passage that follows.
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
Communism "abolishes all religion." It is stated here as the opposing bourgeois objection, framed sarcastically, but it is also an accurate description of the goal from Marx and Engels' own standpoint, since their reply denies that any "eternal truths" exist independent of class society. Rejecting eternal truths as a category is itself an anti-theist move, since most theistic systems ground morality and meaning in exactly such eternal, mind-independent truths.
Socialism, Utopian, and Scientific:
"His advance in the direction of Communism was the turning-point in Owen’s life. As long as he was simply a philanthropist, he was rewarded with nothing but wealth, applause, honor, and glory. He was the most popular man in Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and princes listened to him approvingly. But when he came out with his Communist theories that was quite another thing. Three great obstacles seemed to him especially to block the path to social reform: private property, religion, the present form of marriage."
This places religion in the same category as an economic institution to be dismantled, not a private belief to be tolerated. Engels presents this approvingly as the moment Owen's thought matured into genuine communism, implying that a serious reformer must eventually identify religion as a target, not just an incidental feature of the old order.
What Is To Be Done?
"The question arises, what should political education consist in? Can it be confined to the propaganda of working-class hostility to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to explain to the workers that they are politically oppressed (any more than it is to explain to them that their interests are antagonistic to the interests of the employers). Agitation must be conducted with regard to every concrete example of this oppression (as we have begun to carry on agitation round concrete examples of economic oppression). Inasmuch as this oppression affects the most diverse classes of society, inasmuch as it manifests itself in the most varied spheres of life and activity — vocational, civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc. — is it not evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of developing the political consciousness of the workers if we do not undertake the organisation of the political exposure of the autocracy in all its aspects? In order to carry on agitation round concrete instances of oppression, these instances must be exposed (as it is necessary to expose factory abuses in order to carry on economic agitation)."
Religion is listed as one "sphere" in which autocratic oppression operates and therefore one front on which agitation must be conducted. Religion is not treated as a sacred or protected domain exempt from political exposure, but as just another institutional arena where the party must actively organize and intervene, subordinated to the same revolutionary strategy as vocational or civic life.
To say that communism, Marxism-Leninism is compatible or pro religion is to ignore or be dishonest about what it says about religion.
This sentiment we see in these quotes continues the further one continues into communist theory but within the first ten texts of the basic Marxist-Leninist study guide, when it comes to religion, the underlying thought is that religion has no independent, transcendent, or eternal basis of its own. It is instead a byproduct: an ideological reflection of material and economic conditions, generated by class society to console, deceive, or pacify. It is a symptom of contradiction, not a source of truth.
Because it is derivative rather than foundational, it has no legitimate claim to neutrality or protection; it can be exposed, argued against, organized against, and ultimately expected to dissolve once the material conditions that produced it are abolished. Agnosticism and toleration are not treated as safe middle ground either, since a consistent materialist has no room to leave the question open.
The assumption is not merely that religion is false, but that it is functionally a tool: a superstructure serving to obscure or defend class interest, whether feudal, bourgeois, or autocratic, and its disappearance is treated as inevitable rather than something that needs to be forced. And it being a tool is why the Soviet 1936 Constitution Article 124, freedom of conscience clauses in Cuba/Vietnam/China was allowed. The people needed to be managed while they were educated, deprogrammed, and rehabilitated from the indoctrination of the oppressive systems the formerly lived under. Religion was never seen as anything more than a tool, it's tolerance was to be temporary not indefinite. Read or listen to the basic Marxist-Leninism study guide if you have questions. Socialism For All on YouTube has an audio book Playlist of the guide and his library of audio books along with the Marxist Internet Archive library back up my statements.
The Principles of Communism: "All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance."
Religion is not eternal but tied to specific "historical stages" of social development. Religion exists because material conditions produce a need for it. Once communism removes those conditions, the argument goes, the need disappears and religion withers, not through suppression but obsolescence. This denies religion any independent, transcendent basis.
Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism:
"The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern history of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth century in France, where a resolute struggle was conducted against every kind of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of democracy have, therefore, always exerted all their efforts to “refute”, undermine and defame materialism, and have advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts to the defence or support of religion."
This is materialism versus idealism, with idealism explicitly equated to religious defense. Calling materialism the only position "consistent" with natural science, he frames religion as pre-scientific superstition and casts anyone defending idealism, even secular philosophical idealism, as functioning politically to prop up religious belief. This is the logical consequence of taking science seriously, not a separate stance.
"Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines—philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, that the various political forms of the modern European states serve to strengthen the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat."
Religion is placed in the same category as law and politics, a "superstructure" reflection of underlying economic relations, not an autonomous truth-claim about the universe. Religious doctrine has no independent epistemic standing; it is explained away as a byproduct of class society organizing itself, which strips it of the possibility of containing revealed or transcendent truth.
"People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, how ever barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can—and, owing to their social position, must—constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new, and to enlighten and organise those forces for the struggle."
Religious language is grouped with political propaganda as a tool of deception, specifically class deception. Religious claims are not sincere metaphysical assertions but rhetorical cover for material class interests, and believers are "foolish victims" until they see through this. It does not just say religion is false, it explains religion as a mechanism that manufactures false consciousness in service of a ruling class and must be done away with.
Karl Marx : a brief biographical sketch with an exposition of Marxism:
"Any other use of the concepts of (philosophical) idealism and materialism leads only to confusion. Marx decidedly rejected, not only idealism, which is always linked in one way or another with religion, but also the views—especially widespread in our day—of Hume and Kant, agnosticism, criticism, and positivism[2] in their various forms; he considered that philosophy a "reactionary" concession to idealism, and at best a "shame-faced way of surreptitiously accepting materialism, while denying it before the world."
It goes beyond rejecting religion outright and also rejects agnosticism. Agnosticism is treated as cowardice, a "shame-faced" evasion rather than a legitimate middle position. Lenin's Marx, one is either a consistent materialist or one is, functionally, still serving idealism and therefore religion. There is no honest unresolved position permitted.
"At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or—what is but a legal expression for the same thing—with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out."
Religion is listed as one of several "ideological forms," it is how people become dimly aware of and process material conflicts they do not actually control, originate, or understand. Religious consciousness is downstream of economic contradiction, not a cause of history in its own right. It denies religion agency; it is a symptom, not a driver.
The Communist Manifesto:
"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."
Religious fervor is described as something capitalism destroyed, prior religious justification for exploitation an "illusion" or veil. Feudal exploitation dressed itself in religious sanctification while capitalist exploitation is at least honest about being naked self-interest. Religion is ideological camouflage for material domination in any mode of production that uses it.
"In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests."
Again, religion is in the same category as bourgeois law and morality: prejudices that exist to hide class interest. Implying religion is not passive error but an active trap set by material interest. It denies religion any content beyond class camouflage.
"The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination."
Religious objections to communism are placed outside the domain of things worth debating, grouped with other "ideological" complaints. It treats religious argument as noise generated by superstructure rather than as a position with content that needs refutation on its own terms.
"When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge."
Successive religions is an epiphenomena of class struggle rather than genuine spiritual or intellectual progress. Christianity displacing paganism, and rationalism displacing Christianity, are read purely as symptoms of which class was ascending. Even the liberal Enlightenment value of religious liberty is reduced to an ideological expression of market competition, denying it any standing as a principled advance in its own right.
“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”
Religion persists across historical change and therefore has some enduring, non-reducible core. Marx and Engels raise it only to reject it in the passage that follows.
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
Communism "abolishes all religion." It is stated here as the opposing bourgeois objection, framed sarcastically, but it is also an accurate description of the goal from Marx and Engels' own standpoint, since their reply denies that any "eternal truths" exist independent of class society. Rejecting eternal truths as a category is itself an anti-theist move, since most theistic systems ground morality and meaning in exactly such eternal, mind-independent truths.
Socialism, Utopian, and Scientific:
"His advance in the direction of Communism was the turning-point in Owen’s life. As long as he was simply a philanthropist, he was rewarded with nothing but wealth, applause, honor, and glory. He was the most popular man in Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and princes listened to him approvingly. But when he came out with his Communist theories that was quite another thing. Three great obstacles seemed to him especially to block the path to social reform: private property, religion, the present form of marriage."
This places religion in the same category as an economic institution to be dismantled, not a private belief to be tolerated. Engels presents this approvingly as the moment Owen's thought matured into genuine communism, implying that a serious reformer must eventually identify religion as a target, not just an incidental feature of the old order.
What Is To Be Done?
"The question arises, what should political education consist in? Can it be confined to the propaganda of working-class hostility to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to explain to the workers that they are politically oppressed (any more than it is to explain to them that their interests are antagonistic to the interests of the employers). Agitation must be conducted with regard to every concrete example of this oppression (as we have begun to carry on agitation round concrete examples of economic oppression). Inasmuch as this oppression affects the most diverse classes of society, inasmuch as it manifests itself in the most varied spheres of life and activity — vocational, civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc. — is it not evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of developing the political consciousness of the workers if we do not undertake the organisation of the political exposure of the autocracy in all its aspects? In order to carry on agitation round concrete instances of oppression, these instances must be exposed (as it is necessary to expose factory abuses in order to carry on economic agitation)."
Religion is listed as one "sphere" in which autocratic oppression operates and therefore one front on which agitation must be conducted. Religion is not treated as a sacred or protected domain exempt from political exposure, but as just another institutional arena where the party must actively organize and intervene, subordinated to the same revolutionary strategy as vocational or civic life.
To say that communism, Marxism-Leninism is compatible or pro religion is to ignore or be dishonest about what it says about religion.
This sentiment we see in these quotes continues the further one continues into communist theory but within the first ten texts of the basic Marxist-Leninist study guide, when it comes to religion, the underlying thought is that religion has no independent, transcendent, or eternal basis of its own. It is instead a byproduct: an ideological reflection of material and economic conditions, generated by class society to console, deceive, or pacify. It is a symptom of contradiction, not a source of truth.
Because it is derivative rather than foundational, it has no legitimate claim to neutrality or protection; it can be exposed, argued against, organized against, and ultimately expected to dissolve once the material conditions that produced it are abolished. Agnosticism and toleration are not treated as safe middle ground either, since a consistent materialist has no room to leave the question open.
The assumption is not merely that religion is false, but that it is functionally a tool: a superstructure serving to obscure or defend class interest, whether feudal, bourgeois, or autocratic, and its disappearance is treated as inevitable rather than something that needs to be forced. And it being a tool is why the Soviet 1936 Constitution Article 124, freedom of conscience clauses in Cuba/Vietnam/China was allowed. The people needed to be managed while they were educated, deprogrammed, and rehabilitated from the indoctrination of the oppressive systems the formerly lived under. Religion was never seen as anything more than a tool, it's tolerance was to be temporary not indefinite. Read or listen to the basic Marxist-Leninism study guide if you have questions. Socialism For All on YouTube has an audio book Playlist of the guide and his library of audio books along with the Marxist Internet Archive library back up my statements.
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