Is Communism Synonymous With Atheism?

[Pup]

1. Dictators of all orientations made cults of personality around themselves, not only the commies.

Absolutely. Which is why I said it's a subset of atheism, just as believing in the diety of one's leader (Japan, ancient Egypt, etc.) is a subset of deism. One could say it's a pseudo religion in the sense that it uses all the techniques of religion to try to inspire/control people, without claiming any supernatural powers or attributes.

While religion was something for the common guy to believe in, or as Marx put it, "opium for the people", that cult of personality essentially did anything at all for exactly one guy: the dictator. It was Stalin's personal opium. The people were more or less just actors by necessity in it, but it really wasn't doing that much for them.

Its failure is certainly proof of that for the long term, but for the short term, it was successful enough to get dictators installed in power, using opiates such as patriotism and idealism.

I wonder if a parallel example could be found in U.S. politics in just the last few years. I think there were some people genuinely inspired by the ideals of hope and change before the last presidential election, but when those ideals didn't become realized, the cult of personality and idealism evaporated.

However, if the leader had a permanent grip on power and wasn't up for reelection every four years, then even when the ideals faded, a lot of people would need to act as if they were still inspired, for selfish practical reasons. I think that's the tail end of communism that we're more used to seeing, not the young, idealistic, inspiring beginning.

 

[HansMustermann]

I think actually that's exactly the thing. You can find examples of ideology or ideals taken to (figuratively speaking) near-religious extremes everywhere, including the USA, Germany, etc. Even Czarist Russia before the revolution really needed no substitute for religion, but still made a big deal out of patriotism, tradition, and the slavic way. It doesn't IMHO make them really a substitute for religion, especially since most use religion or at least coexist with it just fine.

And even in the USSR, really, from what I gather it actually was pretty much orthogonal.

1. Most people still wanted to go to church, and Stalin reinstated the church during WW2 because basically he didn't need one more reason for morale problems. And you could find that among both the chest-thumpers and those who had no reason to love the regime much.

2. But eventually the funny thing all over the USSR and Eastern Europe is that a lot of people ended up growing up without religion, and again that applied to both those who were big time into the official doctrines (not many) and those who really didn't have that either.

So basically it looks pretty orthogonal to me.

Sometimes I wonder if the latter is actually what scares the fundies most. The idea that if given half a choice a bunch of people can basically decide that they really really don't need any religion at all, and can actually just go cold turkey too, without any surrogates to fill the void.

 

[HansMustermann]

Also:

However, if the leader had a permanent grip on power and wasn't up for reelection every four years, then even when the ideals faded, a lot of people would need to act as if they were still inspired, for selfish practical reasons. I think that's the tail end of communism that we're more used to seeing, not the young, idealistic, inspiring beginning.

I'm not sure there was such near-religious belief even at first. The russian revolution happened more because people were really ticked off at the old regime, they perceived it as impotent and incompetent too after almost a century of failures, war-weariness was sky-high by now, and the economic situation of the poor was such that they probably couldn't even imagine that it can go any worse with communism.

To reiterate what I was saying in another thread, in Petersburg where it all sparked, industrialization really had produced a monster. Not only the demand for hours worked peak at really unreasonable extremes, and not only were the salaries at bare subsistence levels, but the city itself hadn't kept up. There was a shortage of everything, from food to housing. And I don't mean "shortage of housing" as in the 21'st century housing bubble, but as in there were apartments where 16 (yes, SIXTEEN!) factory workers were not as much roommates as hot-bunking and packed like sardines.

And it had gone from bad to worse to reaching hard bottom and starting digging down over a century. There was no evidence that the old regime could eventually produce anything better.

There were a lot of people who didn't as much believe in Lenin -- except as just a good leader and/or fighting for the right side of that conflict -- as just really believed that a change must happen. Communism simply looked like a good idea, rather than something religious.

And for the cult of personality -- while Lenin too _was_ a brutal dictator and enacted his own cult of personality -- I'm not sure even he had many worshippers or that it ever worked as a substitute for religion at any point. You could IMHO find more Lenin worshippers on a western college campus than he ever had in Moskow or Petersburg.

And when he died, well, his successor didn't even have that much claim to glory. I don't think one can actually trace a long tail curve all the way to the 80's.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

Personality cults are much stronger when the subject is no longer available to show human foibles.

 

[timhau]

You can say that again.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

I was considering using that specific example. This is a consistent trend in humanity. Look at the Roman Emperors. Look at religions based on an individual. Once the mortal person is out of the way, the faith can really get going.

 

[HansMustermann]

Thing is, though, I don't think the Romans actually worshipped dead Emperors much. I'm pretty sure that by Constantine's time for example, saying "divus Diocletianus" was very much just a way of saying "the late Diocletian", rather than actually believing he'd be divine.

And I think that if you'd ask someone who escaped from North Korea, you'd find that they don't actually think all that much of Kim.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

Thing is, though, I don't think the Romans actually worshipped dead Emperors much. I'm pretty sure that by Constantine's time for example, saying "divus Diocletianus" was very much just a way of saying "the late Diocletian", rather than actually believing he'd be divine.

I know it didn't last, but I thought there was a tendency to sincerely deify Emperors older than current memory?

And I think that if you'd ask someone who escaped from North Korea, you'd find that they don't actually think all that much of Kim.

As I understood it the old guard among the leadership looked fondly back on him with very uncritical eyes. I would agree however that by and large in any place with an enforced cult of personality the average person of the country would be quite unpious when removed from the enforcement. I would hazard it takes a good century of the person being gone for the cults to really take off.

 

[HansMustermann]

TBH, I'm not sure if anyone except Caesar actually has a defendable claim to being actually taken anywhere near seriously as a deity, though. Like any cult of personality, it was (A) mostly a mandatory ritual especially after Diocletian instated the Dominate (either literally mandatory, or as in, you don't want to be the guy who rocks the boat), and (B) actually far more done before the guy died, than after.

Also, it's not that uncommon for cults of personality to hammer on tradition and illustrious ancestors. It makes it sound less like something the current guy came up with, and more like some fine tradition that you'd do well to continue.

Basically I'm not sure if even those at the top are actually keeping doing a cult of personality of Kim Il Sung per se, or IMHO more likely it's really how the cult of personality of Kim Jong-il works. It's in effect IMHO more of a way to remind people that Kim Jong-il has inherited some of that claim to greatness and is continuing that glorious rule, than really anything else.

Way I see it, it was the same or mostly the same for most other cults of personality. Stalin continued Lenin's cult of personality and, in fact, stepped it up, just because it propped his own claim to glory and legitimacy, rather than because every Ivan and Ekaterina were actually wanting to worship Lenin. Octavian Augustus ramped up Caesar's cult because his own claim to glory and legitimacy depended on it. Etc.

In effect you only need to notice what happens when some tin-horn dictator doesn't have such a previous leader to base his own legitimacy on. Then they go and dig up and polish some historical forefathers which they supposedly emulate or inherited the good parts of. Because tradition really is that powerful a motivator, or at least excuse.

So IMHO the cult of the dead previous dictator is only really the easy sub-case of that.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

No arguements against that. I agree it is all about appealing to a rose tinted version of past heroes, even if it is the direct past from a few years before. I suppose if the obvious cultivating is too public that hurts its chances of digging in deep and lasting. I would predict that worship of Haile Salassie will last well into the next century but the hero worship of Lenin and Stalin will very much be an occasional thing that never really organizes.

 

[timhau]

And I think that if you'd ask someone who escaped from North Korea, you'd find that they don't actually think all that much of Kim.

Maybe not, but they sure do put a lot of effort into pretending that they do.

I'm sure the ones who escaped from NK don't have a very high opinion of the Kims. I don't know how good sources they are for the general consensus.

 

[Drewbot]

Another poll might be, does communism require Atheism to succeed?

 

[HansMustermann]

I dunno, I don't think anyone figured out what communism would require to succeed. Given, you know, that no implementation was actually anywhere near successful. Or even at a point where you could say, "well done, you really came close to the finishing line that time; I'm sure you'll do better next time with a bit more effort."

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

Communism appears to be one of those things that does not appear to work on a scale larger than a commune.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

It's not really that communism doesn't work - We can't really know. It's that it seems just about impossible to set up.

 

[HansMustermann]

True, but technically I don't even need a claim that it's flat out impossible to ever work. I'm just saying that nobody managed to make it work, hence we really don't know if atheism (or anything else for that matter) is required to make it work or not. We don't have a set where it worked and a set where it didn't, so we can look at what were the differences. That's really all I'm saying.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I'd like to see a comparison of religiosity between increasingly capitalist/increasingly socialist countries. It's be interesting to compare that to what Marx said, if nothing else but out of curiosity.

 

[HansMustermann]

TBH, I think it would have very little to do with what Marx said.

His characterization of religion is IMHO best illustrated in such quotes as "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." or stating that the struggle for its abolishment is trying to replace the illusory happiness of religion with demanding real happiness.

If you want to prove him right or wrong about religion, IMHO it needs a much deeper look than simply whether the country is more socialist or more capitalist.

 

[epix]

The theory of God being the real deal just formed a Stephen Hawking style. Hard logic -- nothing but hard logic.

1. God's mind works mysterious ways.
2. God created Man to his own image, to his own likeness.
Conclusion:
3. God created atheists.

Since atheists exist, God must exist as well.

The conclusion needs some clarification, though, so it wouldn't trip over the non sequitur: What would you do if someone said that atheism is a synonym to communism?

I would click on some of the online dictionary of synonyms to find out if it's true or not.

Wrong. You conduct a poll.

Nooooo!

Yeeees. But only if your mind works mysterious ways.

So atheists are the image and likeness of God, right?

Yep.

Then who created the theists? Atheism is the antonym to theism (a poll may concur), so theist's mind cannot work mysterious ways, but the other-way-around ways.

Well, the Nature made theists in Africa and then they walked elsewhere. Heeeeeeere's Johny.

In that case, there is a contradiction that this theory cannot clear.

Oh, really. And what that might be?

A paradox. God creative tinkering means an "intelligent design," so he couldn't have created atheists.

Have you ever been to Siberia?

No, comrade Vodkov.

How do you like my theory?

It's the best I ever come across -- self-indicting, but bulletproof.



Aaah the commies of atheistic persuasion. LOL.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

TBH, I think it would have very little to do with what Marx said.

His characterization of religion is IMHO best illustrated in such quotes as "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." or stating that the struggle for its abolishment is trying to replace the illusory happiness of religion with demanding real happiness.

If you want to prove him right or wrong about religion, IMHO it needs a much deeper look than simply whether the country is more socialist or more capitalist.

True, but it's a start, isn't it?