this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Fine, in regular language:
People are ignoring the fact that the hell created by the early fall drove a mass of people experiencing the most the drastic degradation on conditions felt outside of instant mass death situations like the bubonic plague existed in a Society where the Orthodox Church was allowed to exist?
That perhaps post-Soviet Russia was born into the original sin of Stalin not eradicating it? If the time Lenin backed down and respected religion instead of being a wimp and not enforcing equality (on the first go around things were equal, it was religious people who used the federalism to reinstitite the bigotry inherent to their texts).
If he went full 1984 on religion like anyone with humanities best interests at heart should, that reactionary base would not exist.
If Lenin killed every priest, Russia wouldn’t be homophobic, because Lenin’s original intent would have been enforced at gunpoint long enough for a new generation to grow up under it.
Ends rant
You don’t get rid of religion by killing priests, or religious prejudice by outlawing religion. Religious prejudice is a product of oppression by nature and by exploitation. Marx called state repression of religion nonsense because it’s really no different than killing all criminals and expecting crime to go away. When state power is seized, the religious establishment should lose its hold on the state, anything else will be eradicated through development.
How much development? The USSR developed more and more rapidly than anyone else and as soon the opportunity arose all the old vices came back (if they can be said to have truly gone away).
More than was made. It’s not realistic to expect religion to be eliminated in less than a century; even with speedy development, the USSR was backward for most of its lifetime.
The “old vices” grew again heavily because exploitation, inequality, and class divisions reappeared, as well as the government allowing religion to gain institutional footholds as it lost its character as a dotp. As for why it ceased to be a dotp, unequal development across various areas as a result of leaps in modes of production/premature centralization caused different classes to assert themselves in the party.
That’s a fair interpretation. The thing that didn’t work was simply incomplete cannot be disproved as as an argument.
I don’t think it’s that simple at all, and eradicating a faith is not possible without massive amounts of tyrannical overreach and oppression against the believers (mostly poor people). This is a lesson the Soviets learned that you have not. It must be overcome gradually through education and improved conditions for several generations, which the Soviets were trending towards but never achieved due to their eventual stagnation and collapse.
If Marxism insists on eradicating faith and antitheism as a major tenet it will never find victory in the Arab world or in Latin America. It will be rejected by the masses. This doesn’t mean we should be tailist or incorporate religious dogma into Marxist theory, but it does mean we shouldn’t be overtly antagonist and hostile except against organized institutions that make reactionary moves, and even then the solution is not to eradicate the popular institution but to coopt and “tame” it, to slowly secularize society.
If religion is the opiate of the masses, the worst thing to do is to suddenly cut them off cold turkey without fixing the underlying issues and pains fully, or without providing an adequate replacement. Opiates are pain killers and they have their place and their use.
Opiate addiction can’t kill. Many types can’t , actually.
Edit your comment to be withdrawal from something actually permanently damaging then yeah, it would be a worst idea.
The people were just liberated, that is the best time to make sweeping changes.
Oppression against bigots is always justified. I’ll shed no tears for any believer killed for being a bigot because “the holy tradition”.
It’s not a stability risk if you go about the right way. By any rights America should not exist, but guess what? With enough application of force you can get people to go along with anything.
Doing so to enforce human rights in order to secure them as a part of society that people grow up assuming to be good is a way to solve bigotry.
It hasn’t been tried yet, what you’re advocating for has been tried and it failed.
“Bigots” here meaning everyone who believes in Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism or other religions in the USSR? So the vast majority of the population including the peasantry? I’m not sure why you think it’s a practical or good idea to go stomping on the majority of people instead of uplifting them through generations of education and material improvements. This type of punitive mindset against the majority of the people is anti-materialist and idealist dogma, and it’s why the Soviets ended such policies and learned a fundamental lesson. You sound little different than the New Atheist arguments used to destroy Afghanistan, and general islamophobic arguments.
It means anyone who truly believes in homophobia which is indeed within the texts every pre reformation christian holds dear. Unless we include the gnostics, but everyone persecuted them so I'm not in the way I am phrasing things.
to the best of knowledge none of the new atheists advocated for socialist perspectives on equality. To further my point: misogyny (which is also very much the bible) should have been treated the same way. Progress was made, but not nearly enough of it stuck. A greater change to culture would have made more if it stick.
My overall point is: it is better a generation of (as you call it) "tyranny" so the next generation is raised believing in our values than allowing multiple generations to be raised with socially normalized bigotry.
Perhaps you are right and social engineering instead of a crackdown would have worked. I am arguing that everything tried was nowhere near enough and that bigoted beliefs cannot spread without people spreading them. Address the root problem, the people spreading the bigoted beliefs. If Tate had died in the crib how many young western men would not have fallen victim to the message he spreads? remove every Tate-like figure and they would not have been corrupted.
Look at the evil inherent to the Amerikkkan world-view (MSE used to distinguish between the USA and the rest of the peoples who live in the Americas). It is pushed from the top-down. Yes, there is a willingness born of the fact it benefits many in some cases, and all in some, but most of al it benefits the people who wield power. It proves that those who control the levers of power can actually dictate the worldview of most. Why does my coworker who stocks shelves with me think the CEO earned his place in the family company? Because society forces that view on him via a combination of suppressing dissent and strongly emphasizing arguements in favor of this. If a strong state can successfully suppress class interest, it can suppress bigoted worldviews.
It’s possible to forbid homophobia and also still allow religions to exist and wither away organically. Make homophobia illegal and punish it appropriately when statements or actions are made. Those within religious institutions that fail to comply can be punished until either the institution reforms or ceases to exist. You don’t start out by saying “I will eradicate your religion” or you will guarantee reaction and maximum hostility.
the entire reason the ussr re-legalized homophobia was religion. This is the crux of what I am saying. Remove religion as a factor and that would not have happened. Therefore: remove religion. When a person has cancer you remove the tumor, do the same for society.
Upon reflection: What was tried clearly did not work. How would you actually do things differently given the knowledge that the actually occurring history we are discussing did not succeed in solving the problem. I am willing to be convinced a different approach is better, but I am very unlikely to be convinced what was tried was the optimal solution. I am advocating a cauterization approach because if it did go far enough, going all the way would be a good second attempt. If it works by going too far, at least it worked and nothing else has.