Re: [Marxism] No one is turned away because she can't pass a litmus test on religion.

[Einde O'Callaghan <einde@xxxxxx>]

Leon Trotsky wrote:
<snip>

>  All members had to be atheist.  Do you think they
> were wrong?

This simply isn't true. There were even priests in the Bolshevik Party,
as long as they didn't proselytise for their religion they were allowed
to be members. And at one stage the Bolsheviks prodced a special paper
for members of the persected non-Orthodox sects. It didn't produce
atheist propaganda, but rather took up the issues affecting members of
these relgious groups. What was the point of producing such a paper if
it wasn't to recruit members to the party?

And in the Soviet repoublics of Central Asia most party members in the
pre-Stalinist period were Muslims, even some of the leaders. And then
there was the Congress of the Peoples of the Eaast in Baku - even if it
was run by Zinoviev and may have been a bit dubious in some respects it
made no efforts to promote anti-religious propaganda - which in any case
would have been an extremely sectarian, not to say counter-productive,
in the circumstances.

Einde O'Callaghan


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