Religion: The Marxist View of the Essence of Religion and the New Research by Chinese Communists
Author Pu Changchun is a professor and deputy director of the Nationalities and Religions Teaching and Research Office of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, June 2018
At the meeting commemorating the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech, pointing out that Marxism is a scientific, popular, practical, and constantly developing open theory, and called on the whole party to study and practice Marxist thought. The Marxist view of religion is an important part of Marxist thought and the source of the theory and policy of the Communist Party of China in understanding and dealing with religious issues. The question of the essence of religion is both the logical starting point of the Marxist view of religion and the core issue of China’s religious theory and policies.
The Essence of Marxist Views on the Essence of Religion
How to understand and recognize the basic view of Marxism on the nature of religion? The author believes that the Marxist view of the nature of religion should be grasped from the perspective of the overall thought of Marxism and its fundamental spirit. In this sense, the Marxist view of the nature of religion is the view of the nature of religion of historical materialism. The materialist conception of history is the cornerstone of the Marxist view of religion and determines the various components of the theoretical system of the Marxist view of religion. To grasp the basic view of Marxism on the nature of religion from the perspective of the materialist conception of history, we can start from the following five aspects.
The first is the derivative nature of religion.
That is to say, religion cannot determine itself, but is determined by social life; the mode of production and the mode of communication are primary, and religion is secondary. Marx and Engels pointed out in “The German Ideology”: “Religion itself has neither essence nor kingdom. In religion, people turn their own world of experience into an essence that is only in thought and imagination, and this essence is opposed to people as some kind of foreign body. This is by no means explained by other concepts, “self-consciousness” and other nonsense, but should be explained by the mode of production and communication that has always existed.” Engels pointed out in “Anti-Dühring”: “All religions are nothing more than the reflection of the fantasy in people’s minds of the external forces that dominate people’s daily lives. In this reflection, the power of the world takes the form of superhuman power.” Religion is determined by the dominant external force, not the other way around.
The second is the illusion of religion.
This illusion does not mean that religion itself does not exist, but mainly refers to the fact that the content reflected by religious ideas is unreal, neither objectively real nor truly reflecting objective existence. As Engels said in “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy”: “There is nothing outside of nature and man, and the highest beings created by our own imagination are only an illusory reflection of our own essence.” Marxism is a thorough atheism, believing that whether this highest being is personified or not, it is only an illusory reflection of human nature.
The third is the instrumentality of religion.
It is precisely because religion is derivative that it has instrumental characteristics and can be used by various classes, so it can be a tool of rule or a weapon of resistance. In The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science, Engels described the bourgeoisie’s use of religion. Engels argued that “(the British bourgeoisie) now needs to use spiritual means to control the people more than ever before, and the primary spiritual means of influencing the masses is still religion.” In The Peasant War in Germany, Engels profoundly pointed out that “the so-called religious wars of the 16th century were first fought for very practical material class interests. These wars were exactly the same as the later domestic conflicts in Britain and France, all of which were class struggles.” “Anti-feudal revolutionary oppositions were active throughout the Middle Ages. Depending on the conditions of the times, they appeared either in the form of mysticism, or in the form of open paganism, or in the form of armed uprisings.” In Notes on Germany, Engels expounded the essence of the German Reformation. Engels said: “The German bourgeoisie completed its own revolution, which, due to the spirit of the times, manifested itself in a religious form, that is, as the Reformation.” In “On the History of Primitive Christianity”, he analyzed religious uprisings: “These uprisings (religious uprisings), like all mass movements in the Middle Ages, always dressed in religious cloaks and took the form of a struggle to revive the increasingly degenerate primitive Christianity; but behind the religious fanaticism, there were always real worldly interests hidden.” Whether it is a religious war, a religious reform, or a religious uprising, they are all just covered with “religious” cloaks and borrowed religious forms.
Fourth, the transcendence of religion.
The so-called transcendence means that the essence of religion originates from the world of daily experience, but its form transcends the world of daily experience, is non-empirical or non-scientific, and thus has sacredness. Engels has clearly pointed out in Anti-Dühring that religion adopts the “form of superhuman power.” Marx and Engels believed in The German Ideology that “religion has been a transcendental consciousness from the beginning, and this consciousness is generated from the power of reality.” To a certain extent, transcendence and the resulting sacredness distinguish religion from other superstructures.
Fifth, the historicity of religion.
The so-called historicity means that religion is the product of human practice history, and that religion in different historical periods reflects the characteristics of each era. Engels pointed out in “To Marx” that “the initial religious expression was a celebration reflecting natural processes, seasonal changes, etc. The specific natural conditions and natural products in which a tribe or nation lives are transformed into its religion.” In “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy”, he believed that “religion was born in the most primitive times from people’s erroneous and most primitive ideas about their bodies and the external nature around them.”
Chinese Marxist View on the Essence of Religion
In the practice of religious work during the socialist revolution, construction and reform period, the Communist Party of China combined Marxism with China’s reality, constantly explored and innovated, and formed a Chinese Marxist view of religion. Among them, the view on the nature of religion not only inherits the essence of Marxist view of religion, but also contains Chinese wisdom and is very Chinese. These views can be summarized into five aspects.
The first is the theory of historical generation.
The Communist Party of China believes that religion is historical and is a historical phenomenon based on the history of human practice. In 1982, the CPC Central Committee’s “Basic Views and Basic Policies on Religious Issues in my country’s Socialist Period” stated that “religion is a historical phenomenon when human society develops to a certain stage.” This statement profoundly reveals the historical inevitability of the existence of religion. That is to say, the emergence, development, and demise of religion are all historical events with deep historical origins, foundations, and backgrounds. To understand religion, we must have a historical perspective and observe religious history from the perspective of human history. We cannot skip historical stages or extract historical materials.
The second is the theory of ideology.
Religion has ideological attributes, and thus political attributes. In his 1927 “Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan”, Mao Zedong believed that “the underworld system from King Yama, the King of the City God Temple to the Earth Bodhisattva, and the immortal system from the Jade Emperor to various gods and monsters – collectively referred to as the ghost system (divine power)”. “These four powers – political power, clan power, divine power, and husband power, represent the entire feudal patriarchal ideology and system, and are the four great ropes that bind the Chinese people, especially the peasants.” General Secretary Xi Jinping also pointed out that religion is an ideology, and we must fully understand the special complexity of religious issues from a political and overall perspective. He said: “Religion is a historical phenomenon when human society develops to a certain stage. It is a social ideology.”
The third is the theory of cultural phenomena.
The Communist Party of China also attaches great importance to the cultural attributes of religion, believing that religion is an important carrier of human culture and religious culture is an integral part of national culture. Mao Zedong was the first leader of the Communist Party of China to propose that religion is culture. When he met with representatives of the Tibetan tribute group on October 8, 1952, he proposed that “culture includes schools, newspapers, movies, etc., including religion.” General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly talked about the cultural nature of religion, believing that religion is “an important carrier of human culture” and saying that “as a culture, I pay close attention to reading religious works. Religion has a lot of wisdom and many useful explanations in persuading people to be good.” He encouraged the religious community to “work hard to explore and promote the content of religious doctrines, religious ethics and religious culture that is conducive to social development, progress of the times and healthy civilization.” Taking Buddhism as an example, he explained that “Buddhist culture with Chinese characteristics” has “left a profound impact on Chinese people’s religious beliefs, philosophical concepts, literature and art, etiquette and customs.”
Fourth, the theory of social forces.
The important reason why the Communist Party of China attaches importance to and studies religion and religious issues is that religion has a wide social influence, and believers are a social force that cannot be ignored. Mao Zedong once pointed out, “There are so many people who believe in religion. We need to do mass work, but we don’t understand religion. It’s not enough to be red but not professional.” General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that religion is a complex social and historical phenomenon. It is both an ideology and a social force. It has a very broad mass base.
The fifth is the theory of system elements.
The Communist Party of China believes that religion is not only a kind of ideology, but more importantly, religion includes externalized organizational forms and behavioral activities. Religion is a system of “virtual and real coexistence”. The “Basic Views and Basic Policies on Religious Issues in my country’s Socialist Period” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1982 pointed out that religion includes “religious beliefs, religious feelings, and religious rituals and religious organizations that are compatible with such beliefs and feelings”, which means that religion is a systematic existence, which is both an intangible thought and emotion, and also includes tangible organizations and behaviors. This view echoes the theory of religious elements in the Chinese academic community (Mr. Lu Daji’s four-element theory is the most representative), which elevates the perspective of understanding religion from a flat perspective to a three-dimensional perspective, and enhances and supplements the cognition that religion is only an ideology. The above five viewpoints form an organic whole and constitute the main content of the Chinese Marxist view on the nature of religion.
Theoretical and practical value of the Marxist view on the essence of religion and its sinicization
In terms of theoretical value, the greatest theoretical contribution of the Marxist view of the essence of religion, which is rooted in the materialist conception of history, is that it breaks the dilemma of the “hermeneutic circle” of the definition of religion from a methodological perspective. Simply put, this dilemma is that the goal of finding the essence of religion has in turn become the means of finding it – while summarizing and abstracting the “essence”, the standard of “essence” has already been used in advance. The method of understanding the essence of religion from the perspective of the materialist conception of history essentially provides a new and open cognitive path. It is neither an abstract conceptual deduction nor a simple summary, but a cognitive model of continuous back-and-forth and interactive interaction between theory and practice with practice as the core and history as the basis. As an open scientific system that is constantly developing, the Marxist view of the essence of religion does not directly provide a final and unchanging definition of the essence of religion, but provides a methodological window for continuously understanding the essence of religion.
In terms of practical value, the Sinicized Marxist view of the nature of religion has three important meanings:
First, it pays more attention to “people”. From the perspective of the subject of practice, the Communist Party of China has put forward the view that religion is mass-based and religious work is essentially mass work. It not only sees “religion”, but also sees “people”.
Second, it pays more attention to “change”. From a historical perspective, the Communist Party of China emphasizes the grasp of the dialectical relationship between the nature of religion and religious characteristics and forms, and believes that religion reflects the contradictory relationship in society, and the nature of the main social contradictions fundamentally determines the nature of religion. It puts forward the important view of guiding religion to adapt to socialist society. Third, it pays more attention to “source”. The Communist Party of China believes that religion is determined by external forces that dominate people’s daily lives. To solve religious-related problems, we must start with these dominant external forces. These external forces include the contradictory relationships between man and nature, man and society, and man and his own spirit. Therefore, it is proposed that the handling of religious issues should be source-based, comprehensive, and both symptomatic and root-cause.