A Chinese Tragedy

Karl Marx was a thoroughgoing atheist. His materialistic interpretation of history began with his denial of the existence of any spiritual force in the universe. But he considered anti-religious agitation a waste of time and energy: under socialism all men would be so happy that they would feel no need of a spiritual narcotic, and religion, like the state, would just wither away. This did not satisfy Lenin. Most of the Russian people were deeply religious; the influence of the church was tremendous; and that influence was certain to be counterrevolutionary. Lenin made a determined effort to destroy religious institutions and to make religion ridiculous and contemptible in the sight of the rising generation. Stalin continued to patronize every form of anti-religious propaganda, education and discrimination; but, perhaps because he had been educated in a theological seminary, he attempted what Lenin did not—the seduction of a sufficient number of clerical men to form a Communist controlled church.

This is the kind of anti-religious program which the Chinese Communists took over, under Chou Enlai’s personal direction, and which they have been pushing with diabolical finesse and with far too much success for eight years. A detailed account of how they set to work is the major theme of Edward Hunter’s The Story of Mary Liu (Farrar, $4). But since the story is Mary’s, as she told it to the author in Hong Kong, something more than half the book is given to Mary’s personal history, to show how she came tobeina position to observe at first hand, and to experience for herself, the way the Communists contrived to turn a number of exalted Chinese Protestant dignitaries into traitors to the faith and to their friends, into whimpering or flamboyant liars, informers, and agents of the Red despotism.

RG

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Rodney Gilbert

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Religious Persecution

Religion

Karl Marx

Karl Marx was a thoroughgoing atheist. His materialistic interpretation of history began with his denial of the existence of any spiritual force in the universe. But he considered anti-religious agitation a waste of time and energy: under socialism all men would be so happy that they would feel no need of a spiritual narcotic, and religion, like the state, would just wither away. This did not satisfy Lenin. Most of the Russian people were deeply religious; the influence of the church was tremendous; and that influence was certain to be counterrevolutionary. Lenin made a determined effort to destroy religious institutions and to make religion ridiculous and contemptible in the sight of the rising generation. Stalin continued to patronize every form of anti-religious propaganda, education and discrimination; but, perhaps because he had been educated in a theological seminary, he attempted what Lenin did not—the seduction of a sufficient number of clerical men to form a Communist controlled church.

This is the kind of anti-religious program which the Chinese Communists took over, under Chou Enlai’s personal direction, and which they have been pushing with diabolical finesse and with far too much success for eight years. A detailed account of how they set to work is the major theme of Edward Hunter’s The Story of Mary Liu (Farrar, $4). But since the story is Mary’s, as she told it to the author in Hong Kong, something more than half the book is given to Mary’s personal history, to show how she came tobeina position to observe at first hand, and to experience for herself, the way the Communists contrived to turn a number of exalted Chinese Protestant dignitaries into traitors to the faith and to their friends, into whimpering or flamboyant liars, informers, and agents of the Red despotism.