Atheism vs. Communism
by Jon Nelson

In their attempt to demonize atheism, many church leaders to this day insist on equating atheism with communism. This tactic, which originated during Sen. Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist hysteria, is as nonfactual today as it was then. Just because one is an atheist, it does not follow that one is a communist. Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, Katherine Hepburn and countless others are known to be atheists, yet no one would call them communists.

In fact, there have been many communist countries in Europe and elsewhere that were Christian, including Roman Catholic Italy, Hungary, and Poland, and Lutheran Germany. The smear campaign against atheists is an attempt to link them with the crimes of the various communist dictatorships. Few would deny that Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union was a totalitarian dictatorship, or that he focused much of his enmity on the church. However, we must consider two important factors: 1) Did he commit his crimes in the name of atheism, and 2) What were his motivations.

Throughout its history, Russia's people have always had strong mystical inclinations. Their mystical traditions extend far back in history, to the time of the first Slav settlements over a thousand years ago. In the year 988, due to the conversion of Vladimir 1, Russia became officially Christian. The Russian people lived and breathed religion, and it played a central role in their lives until the time of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Stalin (1879-1953) was the product of a seminary, and learned its lessons of manipulation and mind control well. He knew that the best way to stifle dissent and to break the will of the people was to deprive them of that which they value the most. Religion, being so important to the lives of the Russian people, was the perfect target. By depriving the people of the crutch of religion, he knew he could crush their spirit.

There are no elements of freethought (the foundation of atheism) in Soviet philosophy. Stalin most certainly was unfamiliar with the humanistic underpinnings of atheism; they contradicted his goal, which was to create a totalitarian state in which he became the new god, whose dictates were not to be questioned. Individual rights, so central to freethought, were unknown in Soviet Russia.

The massacres of Stalin's reign were committed in the name of statism, not atheism, and statism is a by-product of the fundamentalist religious mindset.

Every government since time immemorial has recognized the role religion plays in stifling dissent and keeping people quiet and submissive. Charles I of England, for example, once said "religion is the only firm foundation of power."

Stalin did not want to share his power with anyone. Recognizing the church as the only significant rival to his supremacy, he attacked it. His attacks had nothing to do with ideological differences; it was a simple question of his stamping out a perceived threat.

Final proof that Stalin was not acting on atheistic principles could be seen during the opening salvos of the Barbarossa campaign during World War II. Things were not going well for the Russian armies at that point and Stalin, facing a possible revolution on the home front was searching for ways to amass a broad base of support for the war effort. To achieve this, he reinstated the Orthodox Church hierarchy to serve 'Mother Russia.' This shows that Stalin was by no means averse to promoting religion if it suited his purposes to do so. Clearly, Stalin's tyranny was based on the totalitarian premises that he learned from religion: Unquestioning obedience, reverence for a deity-figure (in human form) as well as a pie-in-the-sky utopian vision. His government never tolerated freedom of thought. Stalin's policies were the antithesis of atheist philosophy.

In fact, one can make a much more convincing historical case for equating Christianity with fascism than atheism with communism. Christianity has shown its totalitarian colors on countless occasions throughout history. Every time a country has based its government on fundamentalist Christian principles, that country has been a dictatorship. Such governments have never tolerated dissent or opposing viewpoints and have never hesitated to use violence to enforce their wills. This attitude can be traced back to the earliest history of the church and to the Bible itself. Biblical doctrines that despots have found to be invaluable include obedience to authority, the undermining of human reason, the view of humanity as being inherently evil, and the view that this life is of secondary importance to an imaginary next life. Doctrines such as this tend to weaken resistance and to render people more susceptible to political influence. This should be kept in mind when listening to the views of today's religious and political leaders. To be sure, they often speak of morality, love and compassion, but the fact remains that Christian love has historically always been a conditional love, applicable only toward fellow Christians; the unconverted were subjected to Crusades, Inquisitions, burnings, torture and death. In more enlightened times, thanks to the influence of humanistic principles from the Enlightenment, these have largely been eliminated, but social ostracism remains a powerful weapon against dissent.

The horrors wrought by Christianity cannot be dismissed as irrelevant ancient history. In the twentieth century, it was the Vatican that first supported and recognized fascism, viewing it as a powerful weapon against "atheistic" communism. The Vatican supported the various fledgling fascist governments in the period between the two world wars, giving diplomatic recognition to Mussolini in 1929 and playing an instrumental role in the formation of France's Vichy government, Franco's Spain, and the Ustashe government in Croatia.

Croatia is a particularly interesting case study. During the Second World War, the population of Croatia suffered, proportional to the size of the country, the greatest loss of life of any country during the war. Many of the concentration camps were run by Catholic priests, including the legendary Jasenovac camp, called the "pit of death," which was run by Father Miroslav Filipovic.

The Vatican's support of Hitler is also a matter of historical record. The Vatican signed a treaty with Nazi Germany on July 20, 1933. Hitler repeatedly referred to himself as a Christian both in speeches and in his writings, and was never excommunicated by the church. Every Nazi soldier was required to wear a belt buckle with the inscription "Gott mit uns," meaning God is with us.

There were numerous Nazi followers in the United States as well. Two of the most rabid anti-semites from this period were Church pastors, the Rev. Gerald L.K. Smith (1898-1976) and Father Charles Coughlin (1891-1979), who said "Germany's war is a battle for Christianity."

Notice the ideological similarities between Nazi fascism, Soviet communism, and Christianity. Racism and bigotry are essential core components of all three; the Christians and Nazis persecuted Jews and non-believers, and the Soviets, owing to their Slavic origins, viewed all others as being inherently inferior. We can trace this ideology back to the time of the ancient Hebrews, who viewed themselves as the "chosen people." Right there is a prescription for an ethnocentric, racist ideology.

There are other ideological similarities as well. All three tend to be ethnocentric, viewing the world around them as being inherently evil, and all three tend to see everything in simplistic, dualistic terms: Us vs. them, good vs. evil, etc. This is an important fact to be remembered when religious zealots today insist that everyone follow the absolutes of their religion. Properly understood, atheism stands for the principles of reason, freedom and individual rights. It is opposed to all forms of totalitarian ideology. Yes, there are individual atheists who are communists. However, the attempt to link all atheists and all communists under the same ideological banner completely falls apart when the facts are revealed. But then, what does faith have to do with the facts?


REFERENCES:
1) A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes. Copyright 1996 by Penguin Books
2) The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Consulting editor Mark Kramer. Published 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
3) Stalin by Edvard Radzinsky. Published 1997 by Anchor Books.

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