Marxist–Leninist atheism

[6] The philosophic roots of Marxist–Leninist atheism are in the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924).

"[11] In those debates about reason and reality, the Hegelians considered philosophy an intellectual enterprise in service to the insights of Christian religious comprehension, which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel had elaborately rationalized in The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807).

He objected to the religious basis of Hegel's philosophy of spirit in order to critically analyse the basic concepts of theology, and he redirected philosophy from the heavens to the Earth, to the subjects of human dignity and the meaning of life, of what is morality and of what is the purpose of existence,[13] concluding that humanity as a species (but just not as individuals) possessed within itself all the attributes that merited worship and that people had created God as a reflection of these attributes.

[15]Feuerbach thought that religion exercised power over the human mind through "the promotion of fear from the mystical forces of the Heaven",[16] and with "an intensive hatred of the old God" said that houses of worship should be systematically destroyed and religious institutions eradicated.

In The German Ideology (1845), about the psychology of religious faith, Marx said that: It is self-evident, moreover, that "spectres", "bonds", [and] "the higher being", "concept", [and] "scruple", are merely the idealistic, spiritual expression, the conception, apparently, of the isolated individual [person], the image of very empirical fetters and limitations, within which the mode of production of life, and the form of [social] intercourse coupled with it, move.

[28] In Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Ideology (1846) and in the Anti-Dühring (1878), Friedrich Engels addressed contemporary social problems with critiques of the idealistic worldview, especially religious interpretations of the material reality of the world.

In the Anti-Dühring, Engels said: The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved, not by a few juggled phrases, but by a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science.

[32]As a revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin said that a true communist would always promote atheism and combat religion, because it is the psychological opiate that robs people of their human agency, of their volition, as men and women, to control their own reality.

Impotence, of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters, just as inevitably, gives rise to the belief in a better life after death, as [the] impotence of the savage in his battle with Nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like.Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught, by religion, to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward.

But those who live by the labour of others are taught, by religion, to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters, and selling them, at a moderate price, tickets to well-being in heaven.

Additionally, the populace also needed to be prepared in order to make a transition from religious beliefs to atheism, as Soviet Communism would require of them.

[35] Scientific atheism became a philosophic basis of Marxism–Leninism, the ideology of the Communist Party in Russia, as with other Marxist-Leninist countries, such as the People's Republic of Albania.

[36][37] Vladimir Ilyich Lenin enshrined the dissemination of Marxist-Leninist atheism as a task of the Communist Party, believing it to be an "urgent necessity.

[38] He was a staunch critic of Anatoli Lunacharsky, who proposed the concept of God-Building, which held that because religion "cultivated in the masses emotion, moral values, [and] desire", revolutionaries should take advantage of that fact.

"[38] This rigid stance in favour of atheism and against religion resulted in the alienation of "some of the sympathetic, leftist-minded yet religious believing intellectuals, workers or peasants.

"[38] The pragmatic policies of Lenin and the Communist Party indicated that religion was to be tolerated and suppressed as required by political conditions, yet there remained the ideal of an officially atheist society.

Yet by the late 1920s, when religion had not withered away, the Bolshevik government began anti-religion campaigns (1928–1941)[45] that persecuted "bishops, priests, and lay believers" of all Christian denominations and had them "arrested, shot, and sent to labour camps".

[46] In the east, Buddhist Lamaist priests "were rounded up in Mongolia, by the NKVD in concert with its local affiliate, executed on the spot or shipped off to the Soviet Union to be shot or die at hard labor in the mushrooming GULAG system" of labour camps;[47] and by 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, 40,000 churches and 25,000 mosques had been closed and converted into schools, cinemas and clubs, warehouses and grain stores, or museums of scientific atheism.

[48] In 1959, the academic course Fundamentals of Scientific Atheism (Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma) was "introduced into the curriculum of all higher educational institutions" in the Soviet Union.