<blockquote>This struggle for the Russian soul between the Communists, with their goal of a new society in which religion shall have no place, and the Orthodox Church, the sectarians, Orthodox Jews, and Mohammedans, each group offering some special appeal to its own worshipers, is one of the most complicated and interesting of the psychological dramas which are being enacted in the Soviet Union to-day. The struggle is symbolized in one of the main squares of Moscow, where, on a brick building, opposite the famous shrine of the Iberian Virgin,(2) were inscribed the words: "Religion is opium for the people."
In many a worker's home one can find similar evidences of this struggle. In one corner of the room the wife continues to burn candles before the traditional Russian ikons, or carved images representing Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and scenes from the Bible and the lives of the saints. In another place the Communist husband has arranged his "Lenin corner," strikingly and suggestively similar to the ikon corner in general idea, with the pictures of Lenin from childhood to death, portraits of other Communist leaders, and a few Communist books and pamphlets. I once stood in a factory church which had been turned into a workers' club; and here again the substitution of new objects of reverence for old was very striking. Instead of pictures of the saints, pictures of Marx and Lenin. Instead of the rich decorations of the typical Orthodox church, red streamers pro-claiming that with Communism would come the final liberation of humanity. An adherent of the Russian church with whom I talked once said: - "The Communists say that religion is opium for the people. But we can say, with much more reason, that Communism is opium for the people." (William Henry Chamberlin, "Soviet Russia: A Living Record and a History," <http://www.marxists.org/archive/chamberlin-william/1929/soviet-russia/ch13.htm>)</blockquote> -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
