“Marxism With Chinese Characteristics”: Communism, Religion, and the Myth of Chinese Atheism. (My Mao paper for History 2)

Hey all, I remember some of you asking to read my paper on Chairman Mao’s reinterpretation of Marxist religious policy. So, many months later, here it is. BTW, I think there are a couple of typos, but I don’t feel like going back through it to check:

When Mao Zedong sought to apply Marxist thought to the new People’s Republic of China, he was faced with a significant obstacle: a traditionally conservative agrarian society. While Marxism was birthed within an industrializing, European context, Chinese communism emerged, primarily, in opposition to imperialism, and to the feudal structure that colluded and cooperated with imperialist forces. Thus, the attitude of Marxist orthodoxy toward traditional religion took on a new meaning in China, and especially in what came to be known as “Mao Zedong Thought”. Whereas Karl Marx opposed Christianity as the institutionalized religion of the masses, standing in between the reality of oppression and the goal of a socialist revolution, Mao confronted an educated elite that espoused agnostic Confucianism and elevated the agrarian peasant class that adhered to an intensely supernatural form of popular religion. In this way, the Chairman of the People’s Republic opted for an innovation that would appropriate aspects of both Confucian and popular religious philosophy in order to rally the masses around a set of spiritually connotative symbols associated with his charismatic leadership. In the Chinese context, then, the Marxist philosophy of religion was turned on its head, discouraging the humanist agnosticism of the educated urbanites in favor of the popular faith of the uneducated agriculturally-based peasantry, whose objects of devotion he would then aim to replace.

Christianity held a unique position in the Chinese socio-cultural and religious milieu at the time of Mao’s assumption of leadership, in that it held no indigenous positions of institutional power. As a result, it could neither be utilized to maintain the social hierarchy, or to provide supernatural explanations for natural phenomena, both of which Karl Marx identified as the consciousness-dulling functions of pre-socialist primitive religion. To Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the greatest sin of Christianity was its association with Western imperialism. As we will see, then, Christianity, while officially addressed in the anti-religion policies of the CCP, may be more accurately understood in the context of a vigorously nationalistic movement, which opposed the faith because of its political associations, rather than on Marxist orthodox principle. Because Chinese nationalism and anti-Western feeling were far more developed than early Chinese Marxism, the young nation actively opposed Christianity on nationalistic grounds, with a focus and energy not present in their opposition to traditionally Chinese faiths long-associated with feudal structures. In this way, it may be concluded that Mao Zedong was only loosely committed to a policy of eradication of religion for its own sake; rather, he hoped to place himself at the center of Chinese religion and philosophy, while rejecting Christianity in order to consolidate nationalistic sentiment and nationalist movements.

Karl Marx’s view of history relied upon a materialist understanding of progress, in its assertion that industrialized societies had been moving from a primitive state to a rationalistic one, and would ultimately reach an egalitarian, communistic state of existence. In his time, Marx was advocating for what he believed to be the transition from a capitalist, industrialist state to the “dictatorship of the proletariat”; this transition, he believed, hinged upon two things: an industrialized, urban-based economy[1], and the removal of irrational modes of belief, which would detract from the masses’ participation in revolution.[2] In regard to the environment required for socialism to take root, Benjamin Schwartz argues that China must have found “Marxism in its pre-Leninist form…most irrelevant,” going on to note that “there is no hint in Marx’s scattered discussions of the world’s ‘backward areas’ that these areas were to play a leading role in the imminent transition from capitalism to socialism.”[3] Although both Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin would later successfully translate Marxism into less-developed countries, Karl Marx himself believed that backward, rural areas were not sufficiently educated or class-conscious to rise up against the bourgeoisie. In addition, the peasantry was not closely connected with the means of production that generated revenue for the capitalist class, and thus would be unlikely to resent the profit made from their labor. As pertains to the role of eliminating religion and superstition as an obstacle to proletarian liberation, Marx famously opposed all religious and quasi-religious practice as “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”[4] Karl Marx, then, wrote for a very specific audience: the new industrial working class, kept from empowerment by outmoded belief in an otherworldly future that would compensate for present disenfranchisement.

It is obvious, then, that the young Mao Zedong and his colleagues in the CCP were confronted with a vastly different situation, in that China’s impoverished and powerless masses lived in the countryside, operated within a still-feudal system, and adhered to an ad-hoc set of folk superstitions and beliefs. Further, the official philosophy around which society was organized and duties prescribed offered little in the way of future comfort or compensation; rather, the Confucianism of the state was an agnostic or religiously indifferent system of hierarchical relationships and filial obligation, centered around a charismatic and all-powerful head of state.[5] Consequently, although the official policy of Confucianism provided a justification for the unequal stratification of Chinese society, as consistent with the Marxist view of religion, it lacked any supernatural quality, which was provided for the average Chinese by popular religion, revolving, as it did, around the manipulation and worship of local deities in the interest of obtaining blessing and fortune. In his article, “Political Religion: The Case of the Cultural Revolution in China,” Jiping Zuo describes this phenomenon as follows:

Although the official and popular religions were practiced at different levels, they both served important functions. Official religion provided both a rationale for the existing social structure and a behavioral guide for individuals to help maintain the society. Popular religions served to meet the psychological needs of individuals, providing the release of anxiety and other benefits.[6]

Because these two belief systems applied to separate spheres—the sphere of social obligation and the sphere of personal psychology, according to Zuo—there was no integrated system of religious belief that conspired, in the traditionally Marxist sense, to oppress the proletariat. Logically, this meant that religion qua religion could not be construed as the enemy. Mao, however, applied this conclusion in a uniquely Chinese—and uniquely Maoist—fashion, by viewing both the Confucianism of the emperor and nobility and the conglomeration of Taoism, Buddhism, and local religion espoused by the rural peasantry in utilitarian perspective. Because Confucianism was, quite obviously, the philosophy of the ruling class, and a significant instrument of its ability to rule, Confucian ideology became an easy target for the Chinese Communist Party, though it was not supernaturally or superstitiously based. In addition, because Confucianism was so closely tied with the intellectual elite, the Chinese system of education, and the examinations for official governmental positions, it became a symbol of feudalism, and of resistance to modernization. Thus, as Yeo notes, “Mao’s anti-intellectual mentality was related to his anti-Confucianist feelings, for Confucius was regarded as the greatest scholar and teacher of all time in China.”[7] Many have pointed out, though, that the Chairman also drew heavily from the Confucian conception of the “ideal” leader, or the “Superior Man”, previously understood to be the emperor and his officials, who would exercise benevolent authority based upon personal character and merit.[8] And so, while Mao opposed the ancient philosophy for its elitism and conservatism, it is also clear that he did not intend to do away with the Chinese familiarity with and expectation of charismatic leadership. In this way, he used the hierarchical and relational delineations of Confucian social teaching to, “[transfer] the emphasis of the tradition from the kin group to the party. For example, instead of emphasizing loyalty primarily to the kin, the party became the center, and patriarchy was exercised at the national level.”[9]

Paradoxically, while Mao rejected the fundamentally agnostic philosophy of the elite, he embraced the mostly irrational faith of the agrarian peasants; this is not to say, however, that he encouraged the continued worship of the same locally-specific deities, but that he claimed the worship of these deities for himself. Throughout the entirety of the period of Mao’s rule of the People’s Republic of China, he relied upon the populist feeling of the masses, which predominately referred to the peasants, who were the poorest and most ignorant, due to traditional social organization. More specifically, he relied on the fervor and backing of the rural masses at times when he faced challenges to his leadership, and, as a result, was able to appeal directly to their approval of his policy, at the expense of the official organs of Party and state.[10] This tendency of The Great Helmsman, as Mao began to be called, may be observed in nearly every campaign that he launched during his tenure as head of state, each time calling on the people of China to “become one with the masses” and “learn what the peasants demand,” as in the collectivization campaign of 1955, which was followed by the Great Leap Forward, an ill-informed and disastrous modernization campaign.[11] During the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, the pro-peasant, pro-rural rhetoric was heightened, as Mao sought to consolidate power following the failure of the Great Leap Forward, which resulted in widespread famine and poverty. Under increasing pressure, and perceiving threats to his power, Chairman Mao delivered a speech wherein, “he threatened that, if the Chinese state collapsed, he ‘would go to the countryside to lead the peasants to overthrow the government.’”[12] In fact, he was able to capitalize upon the high percentage of peasants in the Red Army, and later in the Red Guards, cultivating their favor and devotion by appearing frequently to review units of soldiers, workers, and volunteers.[13]

The level of dependence that Mao exhibited upon the peasants’ support meant that he was less likely to condemn them for maintaining their superstitions and religious practices. Furthermore, Chairman Mao shrewdly reinvested these beliefs and practices with a new meaning, as he had done with Confucianism, but with greater effect. In his essay, “The Social Psychology of the World Religions,” Max Weber speaks directly to the social functions of Confucianism and the religion of the less-educated, which he understands, as above, to be an amalgamation of Taoism, Buddhism, and folk religion or superstition. In Weber’s model, disadvantaged groups are more likely to perceive a need for a savior figure, and a supernatural explanation of the world, while the “propertied, the ruling strata were not in such need”.[14] The Weberian construct also views any religion of peasants as a kind of magic, because of their dependence upon the whims of nature and elemental forces, which they seek to control through ritual and rite. [15] Traditionally, this division within societies has manifested itself both in cooperation, indifference, and opposition; that is, while the ruling class has often looked down upon “irrational” religion, they have also encouraged it as a kind of opiate and comfort. At the same time, the educated class has, not surprisingly, been wary of the susceptibility of the poorer classes to savior-like figures, who were seen as a threat to the status quo. Consequently, and especially in the Chinese context, there has been a close, symbiotic relationship between the peasant class, adhering to supernatural and superstitious expressions of faith, and charismatic leaders, demonstrating apparently supernatural power and authority. Weber himself applies this, apart from its Maoist expression, to the Chinese religious and political landscape, as well as more broadly, noting that,

under certain conditions, the personal head[s] of a party are such types of [charismatic] rulers for their disciples, followings, enlisted troops, parties, et cetera. The legitimacy of their rule rests on the belief in and the devotion to the extraordinary, which is valued because it goes beyond the normal human qualities, and which was originally valued as supernatural.[16]

In contrast, then, to the Marxist position that would seem to advocate the total undermining of the Confucianism of the ruling class as well as the supernaturalism of the peasantry, Mao Zedong became the ideal, charismatic Confucian ruler to the supernaturally-oriented peasant class.  Efforts to solidify this position, and particularly efforts to replace symbols of traditional folk religion with those of Mao and of the Communist Party came to a head during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, as described above, and continue to be felt. The Cultural Revolution, however, is notable for the intentionality with which Mao and his allies sought to institutionalize cultic behavior, in such a way as to parallel and supercede previous modes of worship in Chinese society. Jiping Zuo, as one who lived through the period, describes in detail some of the ritual and practice that became commonplace during this time, including: families gathering before a portrait of Mao to ask for instruction at the start of a day, and confessing before the same portrait at the close of the day; memorizing portions of the “Little Red Book,” which was a collection of Mao’s sayings; singing hymns exalting Mao as the “Great Helmsman”; taking pilgrimages to his birthplace, and other sites related to his life; and carrying the “Little Red Book,” or wearing badges and pins as talismans.[17] Yeo, in his survey of relevant accounts and literature, finds the same phenomena, adding: “villagers had ‘tablets of loyalty’ in their homes where Mao’s portraits hung, and city-dwellers had little portraits of Mao hanging in their vehicles, both symbols of an object of reverence and of good luck,” going on, as well, to describe groups that met to study Mao’s works, which Yeo compares with the Christian practice of exegesis.[18] Less obvious, perhaps, was the way in which the Great Helmsman used the language of Chinese mythology to refer to himself, including such symbols as the east, the rising sun, the son of heaven, and the color red, all of which may be found in songs, speeches, writings, and the “Little Red Book”.[19]

A further indication that this “political religion,” as it is called by Zuo,[20] was implicitly encouraged and explicitly tolerated is the staying power that has been exhibited by the cult of Mao. In 1993, Alvin P. Cohen, in “A New Deity in the People’s Republic of China: Mao Zedong,” wrote of his visit to China, noting that the widespread presence of Mao’s image being used as a talisman, in the form of necklaces or amulets.[21] He even describes extreme examples, such as, “photographs…put in the windows of vehicles to ward off evil or put in business establishments to attract profit,” to which are offered burnt incense and other forms of devotion.[22] While Cohen concludes that these practices are consistent with a new wave of nostalgia for the alleged order and security of the Mao era, especially in the face of the drastic reforms wrought by Deng Xiaoping, this phenomenon may, in fact, be understood as the reemergence of forms of devotion that had been latent all along, but had never disappeared. The apparently religious treatment of the Chairman’s memory persisted because it was never officially condemned or outlawed, but was fueled, at varying levels by the organs of the state.

If the PRC, steered and directed as it was by the “Great Helmsman”, merely gave lip service to the Marxist principles and policies relating to religion, and if these policies were in many ways irrelevant in the Chinese context, which was divided into civil and popular religion, why has Christianity been uniquely persecuted in Mao’s China? As we have seen, Mao Zedong was eager to appropriate various aspects of Chinese religion for his own purposes, because its symbols and associations were so deeply ingrained in Chinese thought and culture. In contrast, Christian faith and practice was directly and comprehensively associated with Western imperial power. This understanding of Christianity is most evidenced in the May Fourth Movement, widely seen as the birth of Chinese communism, and in the founding of the Three Self Church, the state-sanctioned expression of Christianity in the People’s Republic. The May Fourth Movement is the term given to the student movement that erupted in protest in the capital city of Beijing in May of 1919. At its heart, this movement was a response to increasing incursions of Western nations, as well as imperial Japan, into China and her affairs. Though China had suffered repeated annexations of territory and the imposition of Western demands upon resources and trade policy, the proverbial “final straw” was the Versailles Conference, also of 1919, where the Allied nations of the First World War granted control of Shandong province to Japan.[23] In fact, because orthodox Marxism seemed ill-suited to the problems of China, it was extreme nationalism that initially rallied the students around a cohesive movement, ensuring that this nationalism would continue to be an underlying factor in the founding and governing philosophy of the People’s Republic. Schwartz assesses the nationalism of the period as a reaction to, “the supine attitude of the Peking government toward Japanese pressure and the betrayal of Wilsonian idealism at Versailles,” which necessitated, then, the rejection of all things Western, including Christianity.[24] This took the form of explicitly anti-Christian organizations and publications, arising as a part of the May Fourth movement, including the “Anti-Christian Student Federation” and its accompanying manifesto.[25]

For Christianity to continue to exist in China, then, it had to distance itself from all imperialist and Western associations. Under Premier Zhou Enlai’s and the Communist Party’s direction, the established Chinese Churches came together under the heading, the “Three Self Church,” and issued “The Christian Manifesto”.[26] In “The Christian Manifesto,” the new body stated their aims as follows, “It is our purpose in publishing the following statement to heighten our vigilance against imperialism, to make clear the political stand of Christians in New China, [and] to hasten the building of a Chinese Church whose affairs are managed by the Chinese themselves.”[27] Because the May Fourth movement, and the revolution that it would later inspire, were fueled by nationalism much more than they were by strict communist ideology, the anti-Christian line was repeatedly stressed, and the Three Self Church increasingly marginalized, such that, by the time of the Cultural Revolution, it was banned entirely.

In conclusion, it is clear that Mao Zedong was interested, not in eradicating religion, but in utilizing the sway that religious belief held over the popular imagination. Communist China, then, has never been a truly atheistic nation, but has been a nation willing to tolerate and encourage religion in the service of the state and its ends. While the West has often seen Chinese religious policy merely through the lens of its effect upon Christian faith and practice, it is more accurately seen in application to the traditional religions of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and folk religion, as discussed above. Similarly, a better understanding of the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to Christianity may be attained through an understanding of the nationalism of the May Fourth generation, and its influence on the future of the People’s Republic. In the ensuing period between the Cultural Revolution and the present time, the Church in China has experienced dramatic, exponential growth, which may be traced to two important developments: the forced indigenization of Christianity after the expulsion of foreign missionaries, as well as the openness to dialogue with the West in the wake of Deng’s reforms. In historical perspective, then, as a cosmopolitan China emerges, and as the Church continues to grow, Christianity is poised to take its place as the most robust, indigenous, and well-developed faith in twenty-first century China.

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[1] K.K. Yeo, Chairman Mao Meets the Apostle Paul (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002), 112.

[2] Yeo, Chairman Mao, 94.

[3] Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1951), 7-8.

[4] Karl Marx, “Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” accessed 23 March, 2009, available from http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm.

[5] Jiping Zuo, “Political Religion: The Case of the Cultural Revolution in China” Sociological Analysis 52:1 (1991): 99-110.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Yeo, Chairman Mao, 124.

[8] Anwar M. Barkat, “Reconstruction of Political Ethics in an Asian Perspective,” in Perspectives on Political Ethics: An Ecumenical Enquiry (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1983), 56-57.

[9] Jiping Zuo, “Political Religion,” 106.

[10] Yeo, Chairman Mao, 122.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Zuo, “Political Religion,” 106.

[14] Max Weber, “The Social Psychology of the World Religions,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed., trans., and with intro. by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 267-301.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Zuo, “Political Religion,” 103.

[18] Yeo, Chairman Mao, 149.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Zuo, “Political Religion,” 104.

[21] Alvin P. Cohen, “A New Deity in the People’s Republic of China: Mao Zedong” Journal of Chinese Religions 21 (1993): 129-30.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Yeo, Chairman Mao, 140.

[24] Schwartz, Chinese Communism, 17.

[25] Yeo, Chairman Mao, 141.

[26] Documents of the Three Self Movement, trans. Francis P. Jones, in Christianity in Communist China, ed. George Patterson (Waco: Word Books, 1969), 167-168.

[27] Ibid.

Works Cited

Barkat, Anwar. “Reconstruction of political ethics in an Asian perspective.” In Perspectives on Political Ethics, ed. Koson Srisang. Washington D.C.:    Georgetown University Press, 1983.

Cohen, Alvin P. “A New Deity in the People’s Republic of China: Mao Zedong” Journal of Chinese Religions 21 (19993): 129-30. 

Marx, Karl. “Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.” Accessed 23 March, 2009. Online: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm.

Patterson, George N. Christianity in Communist China. Waco: Word Books, 1969.

Schwartz, Benjamin I. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. New York: Harper and Row, 1951.

Weber, Max. “The Social Psychology of the World Religions.” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, translated and edited, H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Yeo, K.K. Chairman Mao Meets the Apostle Paul. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2002.

Zuo, Jiping. “Political Religion: The Case of the Cultural Revolution in China” Sociological Analysis 52:1 (1991): 99-110.