So the Communist Party of Canada doesn't let me in...

wish the YCL would lend a hand out east, theres ALOT of support they could nab here in halifax.

We need people to organize out east, we all live in BC and Ontario for the most part. Organize comrade Organize! We can't form a club out of nowhere, it takes people picking up the scarlet banner and becoming an organizer.

But basically talk to me on MSN someday I can try to help ya out.

After reading this stuff about people saying religion and Communism can't go hand in hand, I realized that Communism is as repressive as any other ideology. Or maybe you all got it wrong and Communism is all tolerant and benevolent. So which is it?

I am atheist and I think you don't need God at all in communism, in fact the catholic church of my country was one of the main supporters of my dear Paco el Bajito (Franco).

I dislike the Church as an institute. But i have nothing against religion. I was raised old-catholic, wich is a very progressive, open minded church. And i would defend it against morons who make generalisations against religion.

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I am atheist

So?

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and I think you don't need God at all in communism

Communism don't need God, but most people do.

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in fact the catholic church of my country was one of the main supporters of my dear Paco el Bajito (Franco).

Organized religion can never be a true religion because the followers take orders from a religious leader and not the founder or God or whatever.

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So?

Just stating what I am, or is it that I can't say what I am?

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Communism don't need God, but most people do

Are you sure? In my opinnion some People is religiouos either becuse they need to belong to some group or just because of tradition. I have come to that conclusion because in the conversations I have had with people who called themselves religious (all of them roman catholics) none of them was able to give the reason why they were catholics, some said it was because they had been educated in that way and others said it was because they wanted to help people which is something that the church of my country does to a very little extent I must inform you that if you donate money to Caritas Diocesana, the charity organisation of the church, 40 % of what you donate goes directly to the church's funds. And here it is what they use their funds for: they put money in the stock market, an example; they had 1.000 millones de pesetas(6 millions of €) in Gescartera, please see Gescartera case here: http://www.elsocialista.es/esp-gescartera.HTML (spanish)

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Organized religion can never be a true religion because the followers take orders from a religious leader and not the founder or God or whatever.

Then there hasn't been true religion in my country ever!

The revolutionary wrote:

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Im a construction worker, a fool time volunteer at my church, and a very outspoken communist. I think God is nesecceray for communism to survive because God promotes socilistic ideas. Those who are not blessed by God are cursed by him.

I wrote my first post in response to this, Excuse for not quoting it when I should, in any case what I meant was that Communism does not NEED religion to survive, which doesn't mean that I think that religion and communism can't go hand in hand. But on the other hand in a communist state there would be no room for a religious institution such powerful as the Spanish Catholic Church.
Please take into account that speak from my personal experience, my opinion is based on how Catholic church works in my country.

I think we should defend the rights of people to believe what they want to believe. But make religion a private matter of the individual. In Latin AMerica a lot of the communists are catholic so its not universal that religion is reactionary.

Religion is not reactionary, it's the people who are the reactionaries.

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Religion is not reactionary, it's the people who are the reactionaries

Exactly, man created religion for this purpose.

Anarchism or Socialism by Joseph Stalin

Chapter 2

THE MATERIALIST THEORY

We already know what the dialectical method is.

What is the materialist theory?

Everything in the world changes, everything in life develops, but how do these changes take place and in what form does this development proceed?

We know, for example, that the earth was once an incandescent, fiery mass; then it gradually cooled, plants and animals appeared, the development of the animal kingdom was followed by the appearance of a certain species of ape, and all this was followed by the appearance of man.

This, broadly speaking, is the way nature developed.

We also know that social life did not remain static either. There was a time when men lived on a primitive-communist basis; at that time they gained their livelihood by primitive hunting; they roamed through the forests and procured their food in that way. There came a time when primitive communism was superseded by the matriarchate -- at that time men satisfied their needs mainly by means of primitive agriculture. Later the matriarchate was superseded by the patriarchate, under which men gained their livelihood mainly by cattle breeding. The patriarchate was later superseded by the slave-owning system -- at that time men gained their livelihood by means of relatively more developed agriculture. The slave-owning system was followed by feudalism, and then, after all this, came the bourgeois system.

That, broadly speaking, is the way social life developed.

Yes, all this is well known. . . . But how did this development take place; did consciousness call forth the development of "nature" and of "society," or, on the contrary, did the development of "nature" and "society" call forth the development of consciousness?

This is how the materialist theory presents the question.

Some people say that "nature" and "social life" were preceded by the universal idea, which subsequently served as the basis of their development, so that the development of the phenomena of "nature" and of "social life" is, so to speak, the external form, merely the expression of the development of the universal idea.

Such, for example, was the doctrine of the idealists, who in the course of time split up into several trends.

Others say that from the very beginning there have existed in the world two mutually negating forces -- idea and matter, consciousness and being, and that correspondingly, phenomena also fall into two categories -- the ideal and the material, which negate each other, and contend against each other, so that the development of nature and society is a constant struggle between ideal and material phenomena.

Such, for example, was the doctrine of the dualists, who in the course of time, like the idealists, split up into several trends.

The materialist theory utterly repudiates both dualism and idealism.

Of course, both ideal and material phenomena exist in the world, but this does not mean that they negate each other. On the contrary, the ideal and the material sides are two different forms of one and the same nature or society, the one cannot be conceived without the other, they exist together, develop together, and, consequently, we have no grounds whatever for thinking that they negate each other.

Thus, so-called dualism proves to be unsound.

A single and indivisible nature expressed in two different forms -- material and ideal; a single and indivisible social life expressed in two different forms -- material and ideal -- that is how we should regard the development of nature and of social life.

Such is the monism of the materialist theory.

At the same time, the materialist theory also repudiates idealism.

It is wrong to think that in its development the ideal side, and consciousness in general, precedes the development of the material side. So-called external "non-living" nature existed before there were any living beings. The first living matter possessed no consciousness, it possessed only irritability and the first rudiments of sensation. Later, animals gradually developed the power of sensation, which slowly passed into consciousness, in conformity with the development of the structure of their organisms and nervous systems. If the ape had always walked on all fours, if it had never stood upright, its descendant -- man -- would not have been able freely to use his lungs and vocal chords and, therefore, would not have been able to speak; and that would have fundamentally retarded the development of his consciousness. If, furthermore, the ape had not risen up on its hind legs, its descendant -- man -- would have been compelled always to walk on all fours, to look downwards and obtain his impressions only from there; he would have been unable to look up and around himself and, consequently, his brain would have obtained no more impressions than the brain of a quadruped. All this would have fundamentally retarded the development of human consciousness.

It follows, therefore, that the development of consciousness needs a particular structure of the organism and development of its nervous system.

It follows, therefore, that the development of the ideal side, the development of consciousness, is preceded by the development of the material side, the development of the external conditions: first the external conditions change, first the material side changes, and then consciousness, the ideal side, changes accordingly.

Thus, the history of the development of nature utterly refutes so-called idealism.

The same thing must be said about the history of the development of human society.

History shows that if at different times men were imbued with different ideas and desires, the reason for this is that at different times men fought nature in different ways to satisfy their needs and, accordingly, their economic relations assumed different forms. There was a time when men fought nature collectively, on the basis of primitive communism; at that time their property was communist property and, therefore, at that time they drew scarcely any distinction between "mine" and "thine," their consciousness was communistic. There came a time when the distinction between "mine" and "thine" penetrated the process of production; at that time property, too, assumed a private, individualist character and, therefore, the consciousness of men became imbued with the sense of private property. Then came the time, the present time, when production is again assuming a social character and, consequently, property, too, will soon assume a social character -- and this is precisely why the consciousness of men is gradually becoming imbued with socialism.

Here is a simple illustration. Let us take a shoemaker who owned a tiny workshop, but who, unable to with stand the competition of the big manufacturers, closed his workshop and took a job, say, at Adelkhanov's shoe factory in Tiflis. He went to work at Adelkhanov's factory not with the view to becoming a permanent wage-worker, but with the object of saving up some money, of accumulating a little capital to enable him to reopen his workshop. As you see, the position of this shoemaker is already proletarian, but his consciousness is still non-proletarian, it is thoroughly petty-bourgeois. In other words, this shoemaker has already lost his petty-bourgeois position, it has gone, but his petty-bourgeois consciousness has not yet gone, it has lagged behind his actual position.

Clearly, here too, in social life, first the external conditions change, first the conditions of men change and then their consciousness changes accordingly.

But let us return to our shoemaker. As we already know, he intends to save up some money and then reopen his workshop. This proletarianised shoemaker goes on working, but finds that it is a very difficult matter to save money, because what he earns barely suffices to maintain an existence. Moreover, he realises that the opening of a private workshop is after all not so alluring: the rent he will have to pay for the premises, the caprices of customers, shortage of money, the competition of the big manufacturers and similar worries -- such are the many troubles that torment the private workshop owner. On the other hand, the proletarian is relatively freer from such cares; he is not troubled by customers, or by having to pay rent for premises. He goes to the factory every morning, "calmly " goes home in the evening, and as calmly pockets his "pay" on Saturdays. Here, for the first time, the wings of our shoemaker's petty-bourgeois dreams are clipped; here for the first time proletarian strivings awaken in his soul.

Time passes and our shoemaker sees that he has not enough money to satisfy his most essential needs, that what he needs very badly is a rise in wages. At the same time, he hears his fellow-workers talking about unions and strikes. Here our shoemaker realises that in order to improve his conditions he must fight the masters and not open a workshop of his own. He joins the union, enters the strike movement, and soon becomes imbued with socialist ideas. . . .

Thus, in the long run, the change in the shoemaker's material conditions was followed by a change in his consciousness: first his material conditions changed, and then, after a time, his consciousness changed accordingly.

The same must be said about classes and about society as a whole.

In social life, too, first the external conditions change, first the material conditions change, and then the ideas of men, their habits, customs and their world outlook change accordingly.

That is why Marx says:

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."

If we can call the material side, the external conditions, being, and other phenomena of the same kind, the content, then we can call the ideal side, consciousness and other phenomena of the same kind, the form. Hence arose the well-known materialist proposition: in the process of development content precedes form, form lags behind content.

And as, in Marx's opinion, economic development is the "material foundation" of social life, its content, while legal-political and religious-philosophical development is the "ideological form" of this content, its "superstructure," Marx draws the conclusion that: "With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed."

This, of course, does not mean that in Marx's opinion content is possible without form, as Sh. G. imagines (see Noboati, No. 1. "A Critique of Monism"). Content is impossible without form, but the point is that since a given form lags behind its content, it never fully corresponds to this content; and so the new content is "obliged" to clothe itself for a time in the old form, and this causes a conflict between them. At the present time, for example, the form of appropriation of the product, which is private in character, does not correspond to the social content of production, and this is the basis of the present-day social "conflict."

On the other hand, the idea that consciousness is a form of being does not mean that by its nature con sciousness, too, is matter. That was the opinion held only by the vulgar materialists (for example, Büchner and Moleschott), whose theories fundamentally contradict Marx's materialism, and whom Engels rightly ridiculed in his Ludwig Feuerbach. According to Marx 's materialism, consciousness and being, idea and matter, are two different forms of the same phenomenon, which, broadly speaking, is called nature, or society. Consequently, they do not negate each other; nor are they one and the same phenomenon. The only point is that, in the development of nature and society, consciousness, i.e., what takes place in our heads, is preceded by a corresponding material change, i.e., what takes place outside of us; any given material change is, sooner or later, inevitably followed by a corresponding ideal change.

Very well, we shall be told, perhaps this is true as applied to the history of nature and society. But how do different conceptions and ideas arise in our heads at the present time? Do so-called external conditions really exist, or is it only our conceptions of these external conditions that exist? And if external conditions exist, to what degree are they perceptible and cognizable?

On this point the materialist theory says that our conceptions, our "self," exist only in so far as external conditions exist that give rise to impressions in our "self." Whoever unthinkingly says that nothing exists but our conceptions, is compelled to deny the existence of all external conditions and, consequently, must deny the existence of all other people and admit the existence only of his own "self," which is absurd, and utterly contradicts the principles of science.

Obviously, external conditions do actually exist; these conditions existed before us, and will exist after us; and the more often and the more strongly they affect our consciousness, the more easily perceptible and cognizable do they become.

As regards the question as to how different conceptions and ideas arise in our heads at the present time, we must observe that here we have a repetition in brief of what takes place in the history of nature and society. In this case, too, the object outside of us preceded our conception of it; in this case, too, our conception, the form, lags behind the object -- behind its content. When I look at a tree and see it -- that only shows that this tree existed even before the conception of a tree arose in my head, that it was this tree that aroused the correspond ing conception in my head. . . .

Such, in brief, is the content of Marx's materialist theory.

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I think we should defend the rights of people to believe what they want to believe. But make religion a private matter of the individual.

Agreed. I'm an atheist, but I have no problem with people believing in whatever type of religion they want. The problem comes in when people think that their religion demands that the do a certain deed in society, (e.g. "My religion says that everyone with blond hair is inherently evil and must be purged from the earth, so I will kill every blond person I see."). That's where the problem comes in. Similarly, when the followers actively proselytize. While not near my first example, it still gets irritating.

But as I understood it, many communists (don't quote me on this, this is just my understanding) were against organized religion (especially Christianity) because they would only put thought into what they could do to guarantee a good life in the *afterlife*, and do nothing to improve their lives and the lives of those around them on Earth.

Why don't you ask the party why they didn't let you in instead of assuming its about your religion?

Did you even read the topic? The party didn't refuse to let him in, he just read a rule on the site wrongly, which stated that religious discrimination is not allowed.

So did you join the party yet?

Yes its way off topic now.

To Summarize, the Communist Party of Canada has many christains and people of other faiths in it. They do not descriminate against them. We follow our constitution. Religion is a private matter of the Individual. We do not shove atheism down the throats of our comrades. Many of us are atheists but its of little matter.

You should try and get more in touch with the YCL in the Vancouver area. The party isn't open door. Comrades will at least need to know you a bit before you can be a party member.

Yeah, I saw the symbol of the Canadian Communist Party...Ha ha, then I pestered this Canadian capitilist for days...

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The practice or advocacy of any form of discrimination based on national, ethnic, or aboriginal origin, race, gender, colour, disability, sexual orientation, or religious belief shall be subject to disciplinary action including expulsion from membership, if necessary.

Degenerate liberal queers that aim to refrain from offending anyone. I'm utterly disgusted with how queers are associated with people of colour and women. I think that any and all queer demonstrations must be broken up by the guards. Maxim Gorky once said, "Eliminate homosexuality and fascism will dissapear".

What a lovely view on what you should judge people on, Zvezda. Yet, I will not let this degenerate into the usual matches for or against 'queers'.