IR COMMENTARY – Vladimir Lenin was a founder of Russia's Social Democrat movement. The Bolsheviks were Social Democrats. Their political party evolved to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1898. Some sources says Lenin was responsible for the deaths of 20 million Russians.
Today in America, Social Democrats now occupy elected office – as high as in the U.S. Congress. They are gaining more and more popularity each day among a generation infatuated with social media and celebrities. Social Democrats demand "single-payer health care," a "Green New Deal" and self-imposed "population control" while condemning America's economic foundation of capitalism.
And Social Democrats have strong opinions about religion. The Social Democrats removed the one-remaining reference to God – the “God-given potential” of working people- from the 2012 Democratic National Committee's platform.
Last month at the August meeting of the Democratic National Committee, black minister Rev. William Barber said the Bible promotes socialism.
“If someone calls it socialism,” he said in a widely-publicized account, “then we must compel them to acknowledge that the Bible must then promote socialism, because Jesus offered free health care to everyone, and he never charged a leper a co-pay.”
But what did Vladimir Lenin say about religion? And what do Social Democrats think about it, but may not have yet publicly said? A commentary in the Christian Post Monday by Dr. Paul Kengor explains:
“Religion is opium for the people,” wrote Lenin in December 1905, echoing his hero, Karl Marx. “Religion is a sort of spiritual booze.” That was a mild assessment from a man who wrote that “there is nothing more abominable than religion,” and “all worship of a divinity is a necrophilia.” Yes, necrophilia.
Sticking to this 1905 statement, Lenin saw socialism as incompatible with religious belief: “Everyone must be absolutely free to… be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule.” He declared: “Complete separation of Church and State is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church.” Sounding like a 21st-century secular progressive in America, Lenin insisted that “religion must be declared a private affair.”
Of course, once Lenin and his Bolsheviks took over a decade later, they refused to tolerate religion even as a private affair. In fact, even in that 1905 letter, Lenin conceded as much: “We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our Party is concerned.” In his Soviet state, the Party was the supreme, infallible authority, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union would relentlessly pursue what Mikhail Gorbachev called “a wholesale war on religion.”
Lenin continued, stating that in order “to combat the religious fog… we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers.” Lenin wanted a political system “cleansed of medieval mildew.” He wanted to halt “the religious humbugging of mankind.”
Lenin's contemptuous mindset is alive and well today in America – and growing exponentially among the nation's teens and 20-somethings. It was on display last Friday when students walked out of class protesting anything they or their instructors perceived as standing in the way of "saving our Mother Earth."
Will the freedom to worship in public and the freedom to express one's faith in an Almighty God be encouraged as the next generation moves into political office and celebrity status? Will religious people be allowed to express their beliefs if those beliefs differ with public policies being thrust upon them?
Religion-minded people in the U.S. are already mocked, silenced by the media, and ridiculed by family members and neighbors. Now seen as an irritant, old-fashioned and irrelevant, God-fearing law-abiding citizens are now scoffed as those that "cling to their Bibles and guns."
In other words, Social Democrats – like their founder Lenin – believe religion is a "Medieval Mildew" that must be extinguished, lest it multiply and infect society.
God help us.
