a) Origins and Essence of Religion

p Religion is a fantastic and illusory reflection in people’s consciousness ot the outside forces 471 dominating them in everyday life. In this reflection, earthly forces assume the form of supernatural ones. Religion is associated with belief in deities and the performance of rites.

p Religion emerged in the first stages of the formation of human society, when, due to the low level of development of the productive forces, man was helpless in his struggle against the spontaneous forces of nature. The dependence on spontaneous forces and the lack of knowledge of their causes conditioned man’s deification of these forces and the appearance of the belief that deities engender and control these forces.

p Later on, when society became divided into classes and some sections of society began to exploit others, people came under the spell of the spontaneous forces of society which began causing the working people “...the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events. .."  [471•1  This was a second, additional cause of religion and an object of religious reflection. “In the beginnings of history”, Engels wrote, “it was the forces of nature which were first so [ religiously-EJ] reflected.... But it is not long before, side by side with the forces of nature, social forces begin to be active-forces which confront man as equally alien and at first equally inexplicable, dominating him with the same apparent natural necessity as the forces of nature themselves. The fantastic figures, which at first only reflected the 472 mysterious forces of nature, at this point acquire social attributes, become representatives of the forces of history.”  [472•1 

p In bourgeois society, capital is this additional spontaneous force, opposed to man and dominating him; it constantly threatens the worker and petty trader with “sudden”, “unexpected” and “accidental” ruin, which would turn him into a pauper. In capitalist society the fear of losing his job and hence all means of subsistence never leaves the worker.

Apprehensions concerning the future and a feeling of insecurity brought about by people’s helplessness vis-a-vis the spontaneous forces of capital inevitably lead people to religion, reinforce and develop their religious feelings.

b) The Class Nature of Religion

p In antagonistic societies religion serves the exploiters. Besides the state which establishes the order conforming to the interests of the exploiters and suppresses any resistance on the part of the exploited, the exploiters need means for spiritually enslaving the working people in order to retain supremacy. It is this function which religion is called upon to fulfil. “All oppressing classes,” Lenin wrote, “stand in need of two social functions to safeguard their rule: the function of the hangman and the function of the priest. The hangman is required to quell the protests and the 473 indignation of the oppressed; the priest is required to console the oppressed, to depict to them the prospects of their sufferings and sacrifices being mitigated ... while preserving class rule, and thereby to reconcile them to class rule, win them away from revolutionary action, undermine their revolutionary spirit and destroy their revolutionary determination.”  [473•1 

p Religion justifies exploitation and the existence of the classes of oppressors and oppressed; it pleads for obedience to the authority by stressing that every kind of authority originates in God; it teaches people humility and calls on them to bear the earthly burden patiently, no matter how heavy it is, since it is sent by the Almighty to redeem their sins.

p Exposing the reactionary essence of Christianity, Marx wrote: “The social principles of Christianity justified the slavery of antiquity, glorified the serfdom of the Middle Ages and are capable, in case of need, of defending the oppression of the proletariat. ..”  [473•2 

p To compensate for people’s sufferings and privations, religion promises them the divine reward of eternal bliss in “the other world”, i.e. after death. It alleges that in “the other world”, the exploiters and exploited would change places; the former would be eternally tormented while the latter would live in paradise.

Religion distracts the working people from the pressing problems of reality, from the struggle for emancipation and for conditions worthy of man.

c) The Abolition of the Social Base
of Religion Under Socialism

p By sweeping out capitalist production relations and the corresponding bourgeois superstructure in the course of the socialist revolution, the proletariat also rejects religion and wins for itself a better life on earth.  [474•1 

p A radical improvement in the people’s social life is brought about by the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and by the elimination of the economic and political domination of the last exploiting class (the bourgeoisie) and with it the elimination of exploitation of man by man. A radical change occurs in the life of society. With the establishment of socialist ownership of the means of production, the conditions of life which dominated people in the past, come under their power and control.

p The laws governing their social actions, which opposed them as alien, objective and spontaneous in the past, are presently used by them with knowledge and skill. From this moment on, people begin to create their history consciously.  [474•2  All this undermines the social roots of religion and creates the conditions necessary for it to disappear.

p Religion does not, however, disappear immediately once socialist society has been built. It continues to exist for quite a long time under socialism. In contrast to the exploiting society, however, where religion is an inevitable product of the contradictions in people’s social being and the material conditions of their life, religion in socialist society mainly represents a vestige of the past, for the changes in people’s social being are not immediately matched by changes in their consciousness. Old ideas and views survive for some time in the form of traditions and customs, even under conditions of the changed social being. This is why religious views survive in socialist society.

The survival of these views is undoubtedly encouraged by the influence of capitalist countries, where religion and the church occupy a dominant position, as well as by all sorts of natural calamities and personal tragedies.