The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-02-20
By Leniir1

rms alnance cannot and must not be lndiffer-
ent in regard to the Inconsistencies and ignor-
ance of the religious masses. We demand the
complete separation of the church from the
state in order to fight the religious mists with
purely theological and only theological weapons
our press, our word. We have created our
alliance among other things, just for this fight
against all kinds Of religious confusion.
For us the theological fight is not private
but general party, general proletarian mat
ter.
If so, why do we not declare in our program
that we are atheists? That we forbid chris
tians and believers in god to enter our party?
The answer to this question must explain a
very important difference between the bour-
democratic and social-democratic Tread
Communist) method of putting the question of
religion.
Our program is entirely built up on scienti-
fic, materiahst philosophy. The explanation of
our program inevitably includes, therefore, al
so the explanation of the true historical and
economic roots of religious darkness.
Our propaganda necessarily includes even
the propaganda of atheism, publishing the
proper scientific literature, which was strictly
forbidden and suppressed up to this day by
medieval absolutist government and must
now become one of the branches of our party
work. Perhaps we must now follow the coun-
sci sometimes given by Engels to the German
to the French enlightened and atheist litera-
ture of the eighteenth century.
But we should not under any circumstances
fall into an abstract, idealistic method of con-
sideration of the question of religion look at it
from the standpoint of reason" fight above
classes-the standpoint often taken by the rad
ical bourgeois democrats. 1t would be silly to
think that in a society based upon the endless
suppression and coarsening of the toiling mass
es, you could dissolve religious prejudices mere
ly with propaganda weapons.
1t would be a bourgeois narrOwness to forget Z
that religious tyranny upon humanity is only
product and reflection of the economic tyran-
ny within society. You can enlighten a prole-
tariat with no books and no preaching if it will
not be enlightened by its own fight against the
dark powers of capitalism. Unity in this real
revolutionary struggle of the suppressed class
es for the creation of the paradise on earth is
more important for us than the unity of opin-
ion OF the proletariat about the paradise in
heaven.
1t is for this reason that we do not declare
and are not declaring our atheism in our pro-
gram; it is for this reason that we do not him
der and must not hinder proetarians who still
have remnants of old superstitions, from APP
preaching our party. We will always preach a
scientific outlook. We must always fight
against the inconsistency of all kinds of
Christians" But this does not mean in any
way that we must push religious questions to
the foreground, in which they do not belong
We do not allow the splitting up of the forces
of the real revolutionary economic and politi-
cal struggle for the sake of opinions on third
grade questions or obstacles which are fast
losing all political significance, which will soon
be thrown on the garbage-heap by the very
process Of economic development.
The revolutionary bourgeoisie is everywhere
busy-and will soon be busy in our country
instigating religious hatred, to direct the at
tention of the masses from their really impor-
tant and basic economic and political ques-
tions, which the Russian proletariat is now 60
ing to decide, having been unified by its revo-
lutionary struggle. This reactionary policy of
dispensing the proletariat makes its appear
ance today, mainly in the pogroms of the Black
Hundreds, but tomorrow they will perhaps
think out some more subtle means But we
will in any case match against it the calm