History of Protestantism - Anti-clericalism and Atheistic Communism

Anti-clericalism and Atheistic Communism

In many revolutionary movements the church was associated with the established repressive regimes. Thus, for example, after the French Revolution and the Mexican Revolution there was a distinct anti-clerical tone in those countries that exists to this day. In some cases, opposition to the clergy turned into opposition to religion itself; thus, for example, Karl Marx condemned religion as the "opium of the people" as he considered it a false sense of hope in an afterlife withholding the people from facing their worldly situation. Based on a similar quote ("opium for the people"), Lenin believed religion was being used by ruling classes as tool of suppression of the people. The Marxist-Leninist governments of the twentieth century were generally atheistic. All of them restricted the exercise of religion to a greater or lesser degree, but only Albania actually banned religion and officially declared itself to be an atheistic state.