Jia Runguo: The "Opium Cornerstone Theory" is a Distorted Generalization of Lenin’s Views on Religion
Jia Runguo: The “Opium as Cornerstone Theory” is a Distorted Generalization of Lenin’s View of Religion
Regarding the Marxist-Leninist view of religion, our Party has always advocated for humble and earnest study, a complete and accurate understanding, and the mastery of its basic principles to observe, analyze, and resolve China’s religious issues, thereby enriching and developing these principles through such practice. In the early years of the founding of New China, our Party proposed that religion possesses a long-term nature, a mass nature, an ethnic nature, an international nature, and a complexity. This fundamental viewpoint was a basic conclusion reached by applying the basic principles of the Marxist-Leninist view of religion to the observation and analysis of China’s religious issues. Since reform and opening up, our Party has gradually refined and established basic policies: the comprehensive implementation of the Party’s policy on freedom of religious belief, the management of religious affairs according to law, adherence to the principle of independence and self-management, and the active guidance of religion to adapt to socialist society. These are basic policies for handling contemporary Chinese religious issues formulated by applying the basic principles of the Marxist-Leninist view of religion and the aforementioned fundamental viewpoints. These viewpoints and policies enrich and develop the Marxist-Leninist view of religion and have become the core content of the theory of religion with Chinese characteristics.
However, whether during the period of socialist revolution and construction or the New Era of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, there are always those who take certain remarks by the revolutionary masters out of context, treating them as isolated and rigid dogmas to be applied mechanically. When such dogmatic approaches hit a dead end in reality, instead of reflecting on their errors, these individuals claim that the Marxist-Leninist view of religion is outdated and seek to "revise" it using non-Marxist views. A prominent example of such a distorted generalization of the Marxist-Leninist view of religion in recent years is the so-called “Opium as Cornerstone Theory,” which is based solely on Lenin's statement that "Religion is the opium of the people—this dictum of Marx is the cornerstone of the whole world outlook of Marxism with regard to religion."
Marx’s Original Intent and Lenin’s Enrichment and Development
In the "Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right," while summarizing the historical significance of the Young Hegelians' "critique of religion," Marx used a passage to summarize the role of religion for the people: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is 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."
In "Socialism and Religion," Lenin elaborated on Marx's view regarding the role of religion for the people: "Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man." Lenin concretized Marx's view, summarized it using Marx’s original words, and finally used the metaphor of "booze"—something the Russian people enjoyed drinking—as an illustration, thereby enriching and developing Marx’s view on the role of religion.
In "The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion," Lenin once again explained Marx's view: "Religion is the opium of the people—this dictum of Marx is the cornerstone of the whole world outlook of Marxism with regard to religion. Marxism has always regarded all modern religions and churches, and each and every religious organisation, as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class."
Lenin’s purpose in citing Marx’s "religion is the opium of the people" in this discussion was to clarify that the Party must maintain a clear and firm "world outlook" [1] when dealing with "religious issues"—specifically, to uphold materialism and atheism and oppose idealism and theism. According to the Marxist view of religion, religious concepts are merely a fantastic reflection in the minds of men of those external forces which control their daily life. Religious belief is but the helpless sigh and weak protest of the people when they cannot escape real suffering. While it may provide temporary spiritual solace and ease pain, it cannot solve the fundamental problem of escaping exploitation and oppression to achieve liberation and happiness; on the contrary, it hinders their revolutionary progress. Clearly, Lenin’s statement that "Marxism has always regarded all modern religions... as instruments of bourgeois reaction" was a concrete explanation of the practical significance of Marx’s famous dictum. It was a comprehensive exposition of the Party's basic attitude and policy toward religion, integrated with the specific realities of the Russian Revolution at that time. If we merely seize upon the words "opium" and "cornerstone," extracting them from their context and turning them into rigid dogma divorced from the specific context, historical background, and theoretical system—thus summarizing them as the so-called "Opium as Cornerstone Theory"—it is clearly an error.
The Attitude of the Communist Party of China
During the New Democratic Revolution [2], Li Da introduced these ideas of Marx and Lenin in Modern Sociology (1926) and Outline of Sociology (1937). However, as the aforementioned works of Marx and Lenin had not yet been translated and published, very few people within the Party were aware of the phrase "religion is the opium of the people."
After the founding of New China, with the translation and publication of Lenin’s works, the phrase "religion is the opium of the people" quickly attracted attention. Consequently, Zhou Enlai promptly expressed the attitude of the Central Committee. On June 25, 1950, in his "Speech on Religious Issues" at the second meeting of the Party Group of the first National Committee of the CPPCC, Zhou Enlai pointed out: "A certain comrade said that Lenin once said in 1909 that religion is opium. Do not think that slogans proposed during the revolutionary period should become even more severe after victory; in fact, the opposite is true. During the revolutionary period, principles had to be explained clearly; now that we hold political power, there are times when it is not necessary to emphasize that 'religion is opium.' The issue is to be good at isolating the small number of stubborn reactionary elements." On another occasion, Zhou Enlai stated explicitly once more: "Lenin said in 1909 that religion is opium; this was a slogan of the revolutionary period. Now that we have political power, we need not emphasize that religion is opium, but must respect the beliefs of the ethnic groups." It is evident that while our Party highly identified with Marx and Lenin’s use of opium as a metaphor for the spiritual intoxication of the people by religion, it also clearly identified it as a slogan of the revolutionary period and emphasized its de-emphasis after the victory of the revolution.
After reform and opening up, our Party achieved a "rectification of incorrect heritage" [3] regarding its guiding ideology for religious work. Central Document No. 19 of 1982, "The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period," comprehensively expounded the Party's basic views. In discussing the role of religion for the masses in a class society, this document did not cite the famous dictum of Marx or Lenin. This shows that our Party's position and view on this issue are clear and consistent.
The Errors of the Distorted Generalization
The "Opium as Cornerstone Theory" is a serious fragmentation and distortion of the Marxist view of religion. First, it severs the Party’s religious theory and policy from the Marxist-Leninist view of religion, freezing and limiting the Marxist view—which is continuously enriched and updated in practice—to specific statements within classical Marxist works. Second, it appears to ignore basic principles such as the essence, roots, functional role, and laws governing the emergence, development, and disappearance of religion, as well as the attitude and policy of the workers' party toward religion. Instead, it reductionistically understands the Marxist view of religion as a specific historical attitude or policy. Consequently, it reaches only one conclusion: religion is the opium of the people, and we must struggle against it.
The error of this theory also lies in its failure to grasp the rich content of Lenin’s view of religion based on the development of Marxist religious theory and the background of the Russian Revolution at the beginning of the last century. Instead, it arbitrarily fragments and distorts Lenin's discussion in "The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion." The result is that a portion of Lenin's religious thought, which specifically addressed the Party's religious policy, is presented as his entire view on religion. This has been distorted into the "Opium as Cornerstone Theory" (abbreviated as "Opium Theory") and the "Struggle Against Religion Theory" (abbreviated as "Struggle Theory"). Proponents claim that because our Party has long been influenced by Lenin’s "Opium Theory" and "Struggle Theory," it has become ideologically rigid, suppressing freedom of religious belief. They claim that the Marxist view of religion no longer fits the current situation and must "take the lead in advancing with the times." In other words, they seek to introduce certain fashionable Western theories to "develop" the Marxist view of religion.
In reality, Lenin was a proletarian revolutionary who fully accepted the theoretical and policy system of religion established by Marx and Engels and persisted in enriching and developing it through practice. Lenin's articles on religion do not constitute a view of religion independent of Marx and Engels; rather, they serve to enrich and develop their views. The practice of extracting certain remarks by Lenin from the history and theoretical-policy system of the Marxist view of religion to summarize a so-called unique "Leninist view of religion" is clearly metaphysical and contrary to the scientific attitude of historical materialism.