If Lenin killed every priest, Russia wouldn’t be homophobic, because Lenin’s original intent would have been enforced at gunpoint long enough for a new generation to grow up under it.
You don’t get rid of religion by killing priests, or religious prejudice by outlawing religion. Religious prejudice is a product of oppression by nature and by exploitation. Marx called state repression of religion nonsense because it’s really no different than killing all criminals and expecting crime to go away. When state power is seized, the religious establishment should lose its hold on the state, anything else will be eradicated through development.
How much development? The USSR developed more and more rapidly than anyone else and as soon the opportunity arose all the old vices came back (if they can be said to have truly gone away).
More than was made. It’s not realistic to expect religion to be eliminated in less than a century; even with speedy development, the USSR was backward for most of its lifetime.
The “old vices” grew again heavily because exploitation, inequality, and class divisions reappeared, as well as the government allowing religion to gain institutional footholds as it lost its character as a dotp. As for why it ceased to be a dotp, unequal development across various areas as a result of leaps in modes of production/premature centralization caused different classes to assert themselves in the party.
You don’t get rid of religion by killing priests, or religious prejudice by outlawing religion. Religious prejudice is a product of oppression by nature and by exploitation. Marx called state repression of religion nonsense because it’s really no different than killing all criminals and expecting crime to go away. When state power is seized, the religious establishment should lose its hold on the state, anything else will be eradicated through development.
How much development? The USSR developed more and more rapidly than anyone else and as soon the opportunity arose all the old vices came back (if they can be said to have truly gone away).
More than was made. It’s not realistic to expect religion to be eliminated in less than a century; even with speedy development, the USSR was backward for most of its lifetime.
The “old vices” grew again heavily because exploitation, inequality, and class divisions reappeared, as well as the government allowing religion to gain institutional footholds as it lost its character as a dotp. As for why it ceased to be a dotp, unequal development across various areas as a result of leaps in modes of production/premature centralization caused different classes to assert themselves in the party.
That’s a fair interpretation. The thing that didn’t work was simply incomplete cannot be disproved as as an argument.