Religious Communism （Home work of ESL in 1989)
In China, Communist considers religion a superstition which poisons people like an opium of spirit; however, Communism itself functions religiously in many aspects.
A few days after I arrived Canada, an old lady asked me:
"What is your religion?"
"I don't believe in any religion."
"How can you live without religion?" her eyes grew wide with surprise and suspicion.
I was not less shocked than she was when I was looking at her astonished face. Had I lived in China where there were hardly any functional churches or temples? Could that be a human society without religion? What was a religion really?
Since there are many churches in Montreal, I went to a Christian. I joined the Sunday worship, the Bible study on Friday evening, and even the basic training -- a systematic Bible course for whomever was eager to become a Christian. The only religious decoration in the church is a cross hanging on the rostrum. There was scarcely any superstitious ritual in the church except the frequent praying.
Christians pray to God to give thanks and to get guidance and blessing. While the effect varies from person to person, to
pray is at least a psychological method of enhancing faith: praying keeps them aware of their relation with God and reminds them to behave as Christians.
I wondered why the Communist Party of China(CPC) didn't use this effective method when they asked people to "Bear in mind constantly the class struggle," "Bear in mind constantly the lofty Party," and "Bear in mind constantly the proletarian dictatorship." Then I remembered they did have similar rituals during the Great Cultural Revolution, when revolutionary people had to ask Chairman Mao' instructions in the morning, to report to him at night, to adore him before meal and every event, and all had to be done standing before Mao's portrait. Now all these rituals have become history, but devoted members of the CPC should always remember their relationship with Communism and
behave as Communist fighters, though they lack concrete psychological methods like praying to assure this.
The church was a happy and harmonious community. The Christians were so friendly that they always intended to offer
help. They could all be Lei Feng, the Communist Saint in China, if they devoted their lives to Communism instead of God.
Despite the pleasing church life, I had difficulty in believing in Christ not because the Bible was too exotic but because of something familiar that made me sceptical. Since I had never participated in any religious activities before, the strange familiarity kept puzzling me until I compared the Holy Spirit to Communism, Satan to capitalism, and the belief and
practice of Christianity to that of Communism. It is not the contents but the structure and patten of the two belief systems
that are similar.
For the Communist, Communism is the source of all the goodness and true in the world and Communist Party is the saviour of human being; for the Christian, God is goodness and true itself and Christ is the Saviour.
If there is a scientific discovery or other achievements in China, it will inevitably be used as a testimony to how powerful
Mao's thought is, how correct CPC's leadership is and how great the People are. Here the People is a holy word in CPC's dictionary that stands for the source of life and history. I can neither deny the achievements that occurred in the Communist country, nor can I deny that people get more food in North America than in Asia, when a Christian says that this is because there are more Christians praying to God in North America.
On the other side, CPC attributes all evils to capitalism as Christians condemn all evils to Satan. If there is a dispute
inside CPC, the right side must be thought as Marxism, and the wrong side must be thought as capitalism; even though most the individual involved are peasants who do not understand Marx' economics at all, and capitalism has never got chance to develop in China. If a new trend in China does not fit into the revolutionary tradition, it will certainly be labelled bourgeois. Wearing jeans was once criticised as a bourgeois living manner, but I find, ironically, the most in jeans are proletarian in the west society.
Mathematically, we can give a void set any properties without risking a logical conflict; much the same way, the Holy
and the Evil, both Communist's and Christian's, lie so behind the real world that they can explain any thing regardless peoples' ordinary experience.
If the Communism in China is a religion, what is the institute that functions as church? Well, China's society comprises multifunctional communities called working units such as factories, schools, armies, stores or farms. The community is
Communist magic: it is an enterprise when producing; it is a government when planning the housing, children's education,
health and welfare for its employees; it is a church when providing spiritual guidance that helps individual spiritually
grow into Communist. The role of the missionary belongs to political tutors, political commissar or the secretary of the
party branch.
Every week, the working unit puts half day for political study, as youth Christians have an evening for Bible study. These
two studies are functionally the same in their belief systems. They are studies for the believer, propaganda for the secular, education or brain wash for the naive. It enhances the faith of the believers by communicating with the Holy Spirit (or heightening Communism awareness), and it teaches the unbelievers how to approach the holy.
This kind of study begins by reading a verse of Bible, or Mao's Quotation, or an editorial of People's Daily, or a document of CPC. Since the verse is a light from the Holy Spirit, the attendants are asked let it guide their daily life. There are many citations from other verses of the Bible or Marxism's classical works to prove the true of the verse. The proof is very convincing for the believer who has faith on the ures, but the secular consider it an absurd logic to prove each other among the meaningless ures. There are then some testimony about the power of the Holy Spirit, examples of ancient Saints or Red Army Martyrs, and believers' recent experience. They all sound much the same. Having the Holy Spirit or remembering the Party and the People, you body will be filled with almighty power that can accomplish great jobs. Keeping steadily the Holy Spirit, your spirit or thought will be purified every day as well your detailed and subtle behaviours will be corrected. Guiding by the Holy Spirit, you can succeed all your life. If the light of Holy Spirit from the studied verse discloses the sins or evils of every day life, the study will be finished by repents or self-criticises.
Having some rituals to perform is usually another character of religion. A Christian told me that they are not idolatrous.
The rituals in the church connect Christians to God as saluting a national flag connects a person to his country: it is an action in the material world symbolizing the feeling of reverence towards the spiritual world. In fact, while daily feeling is easy to put on the face and is easy to tell, to express a feeling towards a Holy Spirit is too different from common experience that man has to symbolize some actions for this purpose. That is why humankind has developed at least as many rituals as many religions.
Both Christianity and Communism perform the most solemn ritual when one becomes holy: baptizing to become a Christian or taking the oath to join the party. The main theme of the process is to symbolize a new born spiritual being, one born from Christ the Father and another born from the Party the Mother. There are many songs to adore the Father Christ as well many songs to praise the Mother the Party. However, a more solemn song like "The International" is likely be sung at these occasions. To be born as new believer, one should die as unbeliever first, that is to repent or to self-criticise his bourgeois thoughts he has had. Baptizing or taking the oath is the core ritual where a prist or two old party members play the role to assure the spiritual baby is qualified and to introduce the him into the sacred institute -- the church or the party. Once the most solemn ritual has finished, the most emotional moment comes. The new believer will
receive memorial gifts for the crucial event and tears may drop on faces. From then on, he will be an entirely new man who is expected to grow from good to perfect, a never ending road to go.
An item in "Encyclopedia Americana" says:"Religion, the pattern of belief and practice through which men communicate with or hope to gain experience of that which lies behind the world of their ordinary experience. Typically it focuses on an Ultimate or Absolute, thought of by some believers as God."
Having God or not, Communism in China is sure something ultimate and absolute.
On one occasion, a professor asked me what was the main religion in china. I said it used to be Communism but now it was in a state of religion vacuum. One of my Chinese friend argued to me immediately: "Communism is not a religion."
I have heard nobody say Communism is a religion before.
Someone may think that Communism is a scientific belief because it originates from Marx's academic theory. We know
science is based on some beliefs such as there must be some natural rules behind every phenomena, but such belief is
different from religious one that it does not provide any morality norm.
Someone may argue that Communism is just a political myth which gives the Communist Party the legitimacy in power. However, many religions have provided legitimacy for political power in the history too. Communism may once be a political myth, but in China, if it has not developed into a religion yet, it has at least many religious functions in the society. Pure political myth does not need the believer to enhance their faith as frequent as weekly, and the faith in it seldom risks temptation from the evil side: it should be simply granted be true without the need of reasoning and testimony, like "We hold it true that man is born equal..."
Someone have said that Communism could not be a religion because it does not believe in God. In fact, non of the main
religions in China believe in God: Buddhism has no Supernatural Creator, Taoism believes in nature that has no personality, and Confucianism simply avoids any spiritual creature. They are religions because they are holy and provide practical methods to approach the holy. Unlike oriental religions, Communism has not only Ultimate Good but also Absolute Evil. It comes from the west and its structure resembles Christianity. A Christian once told me that Marx invented the Communism by plagiarizing the Bible. No matter if it is true or not, there must be some resemblance to
enable one to say so.
Someone may say that Communism is not religion because it does not worship. This is right if you define the worship as some mysterious rituals only. However, as an action or mean to praise the Ultimate Good, worship can take other forms. Paintings and sculptures are the arts of worship that we can see in every church. Singing songs is the most usual method to worship God in the church that I went to. In China, not only paintings, sculptures and songs but performance art, novels and movies are used to worship Communism. There are also many revolutionary sacred places as Shaoshan, Yanan and Jinggangshan that are reserved for the Communist believer to go on pilgrimages.
As long as man asks questions like "What is the meaning of a life?" "What is the destiny of our universe?" the religious
phenomena will not disappear, for man needs a spiritual guide. Because Communist have tried to sweep all the religions away from China since CPC was founded, they have either transformed Communism into a religion, or Communism have already played many religious functions.
