title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: In June 2016, Spanoulis signed a new 2-year contract extension with Olympiacos, lasting through the 2017–18 season. The contract was worth net income (€1.5 million net income per season). During that season's EuroLeague competition, Euroleague.net named Spanoulis the "Most Clutch Player in EuroLeague History". That same season, Spanoulis eventually led Olympiacos to the 2017 EuroLeague Final.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: During the 2017–18 season, Spanoulis became the EuroLeague's all-time career leader in assists, and the Greek Professional Basket League's all-time career leader in points scored. He was also the 2018 Greek Cup Finals Top Scorer. In May 2018, he was named to the All-EuroLeague Second Team, of the 2017–18 season, the eighth All-EuroLeague Team selection of his career, which set a record for the most All-EuroLeague Team selections of all time.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Prior to the start of the 2018–19 season, Spanoulis signed a one-year contract extension with Olympiacos, on July 2, 2018, at a salary of €1.2 million net income. He was named the MVP of Round 14 of the 2018–19 EuroLeague season.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: During the Greek Basket League 2018–19 season, Spanoulis became the Professional Greek League's all-time career assists leader. He passed the previous record holder, Dimitris Diamantidis, in a Greek League game against AEK Athens, in January 2019. On 14 March 2019, Spanoulis suffered a season-ending peroneal tendon rupture on his right ankle, in a EuroLeague game against the Italian club Olimpia Milano.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: After undergoing a 2018–19 season-ending right ankle surgery, for a peroneal tendon rupture, on 1 April 2019, Spanoulis began individual workouts again on 5 July 2019. After his return to individual training, Spanoulis signed a one-year contract extension with Olympiacos, at a salary of €600,000 net income. On 29 November 2019, Spanoulis passed Juan Carlos Navarro, to become the EuroLeague's all-time career leader in Performance Index Rating (PIR). He accomplished the milestone in a EuroLeague 2019–20 season game versus the Italian club Olimpia Milano.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: On 2 January 2020, Spanoulis also passed Navarro as the EuroLeague's all-time leading scorer since the 2000–01 season, in Olympiacos' loss against Fenerbahçe. On 4 February 2020, Spanoulis again suffered a season-ending peroneal tendon rupture injury, in a EuroLeague game against Žalgiris Kaunas. It was the same right foot injury, that he had suffered in the previous 2018–19 season. On 7 February 2020, Spanoulis had another surgery to repair the tendon.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: On 12 May 2020, Spanoulis was named to the EuroLeague 2010–20 All-Decade Team. Among the 10 players voted onto the All-Decade Team, Spanoulis was voted the number one EuroLeague player of the 2010–2020 decade, in a vote decided by EuroLeague head coaches, EuroLeague players, fans, and sports journalists. He received more than twice as many votes as the player who came in second place in the voting, which was Bogdan Bogdanović.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: On July 11, 2020, Spanoulis re-signed with Olympiacos, to a one-year €600,000 net income contract, through the 2020–21 season.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis was a key member of the Greek under-18 junior national team at the FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship's 2000 tournament. Greece finished in third place in the tournament, winning the bronze medal. Spanoulis was also on the Greek under-20 junior national team that finished in first place, and thus won the gold medal, at the 2002 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship. During the 2002 FIBA Europe Under-20 championship's gold medal game, Spanoulis sank two clutch free throws, with just 13 seconds remaining on the game clock, to clinch a win over the Spain under-20 national team, and win the gold. Spanoulis also played with Greece's national under-26 selection at the 2001 Mediterranean Games. Spanoulis was a key member of the team for Greece during that tournament. Greece finished in second place in the tournament, winning the silver medal.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis led the Greece men's national basketball team in scoring during the 2006 FIBA Mini World Cup tournament they won. On the way to that achievement, They defeated Australia, then Germany (the later whose team included NBA star Dirk Nowitzki).


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis was named the MVP, of both the 2007 and 2009 friendly Acropolis Tournaments, in Athens, and he also won the same tournament 9 times with the Greece national team, in the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2015.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis' retirement from the Greece men's national basketball team was announced on September 17, 2015, after the 2015 EuroBasket. He ended his Greece men's national basketball team career, having been the leading scorer in every major tournament that he played in, from 2006 onward (9 tournaments in total: 2006 FIBA World Cup, 2007 EuroBasket, 2008 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament, 2008 Summer Olympics, 2009 EuroBasket, 2010 FIBA World Cup, 2012 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament, 2013 EuroBasket, and the 2015 EuroBasket).


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: In December 2019, Greece's senior national team head coach at the time, Rick Pitino, stated that, "Just for the record, I would love to see Spanoulis join our national team”. Pitino then stated in May 2020, on Spanoulis rejoining the Greece national team, "I must say that I still want Spanoulis to play. Before the injury, I thought that Spanoulis would play. I want him to be the leader, I want him to lead the team, even if he is not 100% ready. He will have time to get back on his feet. I want him to come as a leader. We will not win with athleticism, but with intelligence and the pride of playing for Greece. Spanoulis is very important to me, I want to have him with me. I will make him an offer that he can't refuse."


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis made his debut with the Greece men's national basketball team, for the first time, in the summer of 2004, when he was selected by his then head coach at Maroussi, Greek basketball legend, Panagiotis Giannakis, to be a member of the Greek squad during the 2004 Summer Olympics, which were held in Athens, Greece. Spanoulis was able to play in front of his home country's fans at Helliniko Olympic Arena, as Greece was the Olympic Game's host country. Greece finished in 5th place in the tournament, losing to Manu Ginóbili and the eventual gold medal-winning Argentine national basketball team, 69–64, in the quarterfinals. That was tied for the 2nd highest finish for Greece, in Summer Olympics Basketball, in its history. The 5th-place finish, making Greece one of the top 5 national teams in the world, was the beginning of Greece's great run in international tournaments during the 2000s (decade).


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis also played at the 2008 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament, where he averaged 12.8 points per game, at the main 2008 Summer Olympics competition, where he averaged 14.3 points per game, and at the 2012 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament, where he averaged 19.3 points per game.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: At the 2005 EuroBasket, Spanoulis was a key member of the Greek team that won the EuroBasket and took home the gold medal. It was just the second time in Greece's history, that the senior men's national basketball team won the gold medal at the EuroBasket, and the first time since the 1987 EuroBasket, when the legendary players Nikos Galis, Panagiotis Fasoulas, Fanis Christodoulou, and Panagiotis Giannakis, led Greece's national team.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Two years later, at the 2007 EuroBasket, Spanoulis was again part of Greece's team. Greece played the tournament shorthanded, as it was without key players, Antonis Fotsis and Sofoklis Schortsanitis, and was not able to medal in the tournament. Greece finished in 4th place in the tournament, losing in the semifinals game against the Spain basketball team, and its numerous star players, like Marc Gasol, Juan Carlos Navarro, José Calderón, Sergio Rodríguez, Jorge Garbajosa, Rudy Fernández, and Pau Gasol. Spanoulis was the game's leading scorer, with 24 points, and he also dished out 5 assists, but Spain got the win, by a score of 82–77, over the depleted Greek squad. Spanoulis led the Greek team in scoring during the tournament, with a scoring average of 11.7 points per game.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: At the 2009 EuroBasket, Spanoulis averaged 14.1 points per game, and led Greece to the bronze medal. He was named to the All-Tournament Team. At the 2013 EuroBasket, despite playing most of the tournament with an ankle injury, Spanoulis was third in the tournament in scoring, averaging 16.7 points per game. During the tournament, he led Greece with a 20-point scoring performance, to a 79–75 victory over the world's 2nd ranked team in the FIBA World Rankings at the time, Spain. At the 2015 EuroBasket, Spanoulis led the Greek team, which had four players on it who had spent the 2014–15 season in the NBA (Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kosta Koufos, Nick Calathes, and Kostas Papanikolaou) in points per game and assists per game. Greece was ultimately defeated in the quarterfinals by Spain, by a score of 73–71, and finished the tournament in 5th place. After the tournament, Spanoulis announced his retirement from the Greek senior national team. He was Greece's leading scorer in every major FIBA tournament that he played in, from 2006 onward.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis was a member of the Greek senior team that competed at the 2006 FIBA World Cup, and he helped to lead the Greek team to the silver medal, as they finished in second place in the tournament. In the semifinals game against Team USA, he was the game's second-leading scorer, with 22 points (after Carmelo Anthony, who scored 27 for the USA), and along with his teammate, Theo Papaloukas, led Greece to victory over the USA, by a score of 101–95.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis led the Greece national team in scoring during the 2006 FIBA World Cup, with an average of 11.7 points per game, and he also led the Greek team in free throw shooting percentage at 87.8 percent.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis also played with Greece at the 2010 FIBA World Cup, where he averaged 13.7 points per game.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis' older brother, Dimitris, is a former professional basketball player. Spanoulis is married to Miss Star Hellas of 2006, Olympia Chopsonidou. Together, the couple have six children: Thanasis Spanoulis (born January 2, 2010), Vassilis Spanoulis Jr. (April 5, 2012), Dimitris Spanoulis (June 5, 2013), Emilia Spanouli (August 3, 2015), Anastasia Spanouli (September 25, 2017), and another daughter (January 20, 2020).


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis' basketball idols, and favorite players as a kid, were Michael Jordan and Nikos Galis. During his playing career, Spanoulis is often referred to by the nicknames V-Span and Kill Bill. When Spanoulis played with Maroussi Athens, he was given the nickname Bill the Butcher, by Tracy Murray, who was at that time a player of Maroussi's rivals, Panathinaikos Athens.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis was the first Greek-born player to play for the Houston Rockets, and he was the third Greek-born player to play in the NBA. While he was with the Houston Rockets, Spanoulis was friends with teammates John Lucas III, Jake Tsakalidis, Shane Battier, Tracy McGrady, and Steve Novak. Over his playing career, some of the other basketball players that he was friends with included: Mike Batiste, Tony Parker, Carlos Arroyo, Šarūnas Jasikevičius, Roderick Blakney, Nick Calathes, Ioannis Bourousis, Dimitris Diamantidis, Theo Papaloukas, and Georgios Printezis, among others. He is best friends with Nikos Zisis, and he was the best man at Zisis' wedding.


title: Vassilis Spanoulis

text: Spanoulis was one of the idols of Greek basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Slovenian basketball player Luka Dončić, when they were youths in Europe. Antetokounmpo described Spanoulis as, "The Kobe of Europe". Dončić said that when he was young, he was "enchanted" by Spanoulis. Dončić wore the number 7 jersey when he was a member of Real Madrid, as an homage to Spanoulis, who wore the number 7 jersey with the Greece men's national basketball team and Olympiacos Piraeus. Dončić also chose to wear the number 77 jersey with Slovenia's national team and the Dallas Mavericks, in honor of Spanoulis.


title: Power Mac G5

text: The Power Mac G5 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 2003 to 2006 as part of the Power Mac series. When introduced, it was the most powerful computer in Apple's Macintosh lineup, and was marketed by the company as the world's first 64-bit desktop computer. It was also the first desktop computer from Apple to use an anodized aluminum alloy enclosure, and one of only three computers in Apple's lineup to utilize the PowerPC 970 CPU, the others being the iMac G5 and the Xserve G5.


title: Power Mac G5

text: Three generations of Power Mac G5 were released before it was discontinued as part of the Mac transition to Intel processors, making way for its replacement, the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro retained a variation of the G5's enclosure design for seven more years, making it among the longest-lived designs in Apple's history.


title: Power Mac G5

text: Officially launched as part of Steve Jobs' keynote presentation at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2003, the Power Mac G5 was introduced with three models, sharing the same physical case, but differing in features and performance. Although somewhat larger than the G4 tower it replaced, the necessity for a complex cooling system meant that the G5 tower had room inside for only one optical drive and two hard drives.


title: Power Mac G5

text: Steve Jobs stated during his keynote presentation that the Power Mac G5 would reach 3 GHz "within 12 months." This would never come to pass; after three years, the G5 only reached 2.7 GHz before it was replaced by the Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro, which debuted with processors running at speeds of up to 3 GHz.


title: Power Mac G5

text: During the presentation, Apple also showed Virginia Tech's Mac OS X computer cluster supercomputer (a.k.a. supercluster) known as "System X", consisting of 1,100 Power Mac G5 towers operating as processing nodes. The supercomputer managed to become one of the top five supercomputers that year. The computer was soon dismantled and replaced with a new cluster made of an equal number of Xserve G5 rack-mounted servers, which also used the G5 chip running at 2.3 GHz.


title: Power Mac G5

text: The PowerPC G5 (called the PowerPC 970 by its manufacturer, IBM) is based upon IBM's 64-bit POWER4 microprocessor. At the Power Mac G5's introduction, Apple announced a partnership with IBM in which IBM would continue to produce PowerPC variants of their POWER processors. According to IBM's Dr. John E. Kelly, "The goal of this partnership is for Apple and IBM to come together so that Apple customers get the best of both worlds, the tremendous creativity from the Apple corporation and the tremendous technology from the IBM corporation. IBM invested over $3 billion US dollars in a new lab to produce these large, 300 mm wafers." This lab was a completely automated facility located in East Fishkill, New York, and figured heavily in IBM's larger microelectronics strategy.


title: Power Mac G5

text: The original PowerPC 970 had 50 million transistors and was manufactured using IBM CMOS 9S at 130 nm fabrication process. CMOS 9S is the combination of SOI, low-k dielectric insulation, and copper interconnect technology, which were invented at IBM research in the mid-1990s. Subsequent revisions of the "G5" processor have included IBM's PowerPC 970FX (same basic design on a 90 nm process), and the PowerPC 970MP (essentially two 970FX cores on one die). Apple refers to the dual-core PowerPC 970MP processors as either the "G5 Dual" (for single-socket, dual-core configurations), or Power Mac G5 Quad (for dual-socket, four-core configurations).


title: Power Mac G5

text: The Power Mac G5 line in 2006 consisted of three, dual-core PowerPC G5 configurations, which can communicate through its HyperTransport at half its internal clock speed. Each processor in the Power Mac G5 has two unidirectional 32-bit pathways: one leading to the processor and the other from the processor. These result in a total bandwidth of up to 20 GB/s. The processor at the heart of the Power Mac G5 has a "superscalar, superpipelined" execution core that can handle up to 216 in-flight instructions, and uses a 128-bit, 162-instruction SIMD unit (AltiVec).


title: Power Mac G5

text: All modern 32-bit x86 processors since the Pentium Pro have the Physical Address Extension (PAE) feature, which permits them to use a 36-bit physical memory address to address a maximum of 2 bytes (64 gigabytes) of physical memory, while the PowerPC 970 processor is capable of addressing 2 bytes (4 terabytes) of physical memory and 2 bytes (16 exabytes) of virtual memory. Due to its 64-bit processor (and 42-bit MMU), the final revision of the Power Mac G5 can hold 16 GB of Dual-Channel DDR2 PC4200 RAM using eight memory slots, with support for ECC memory.


title: Power Mac G5

text: Early versions of dual processor G5 computers have noise problems. The first one is ground loop-based interference, which sometimes causes noise leaks into the analog audio outputs. This bug was fixed in Rev. B G5.


title: Power Mac G5

text: The second noise problem came from the 'chirping' sound, which can be triggered by fluctuations in power draw. For example, using Exposé causes a brief chirp. A widely circulated work-around is to disable the CPUs' "nap" feature using Apple's CHUD Tools, but this was not recommended by Apple. This noise problem was not fixed until the dual core generation of G5s was produced, however it did not affect the "Late 2004" model (at least there have never been any reports). The power draw fluctuation was later attributed to the lack of power management features in the single-core processors. Apple eventually posted the chirping bug information on its support site.


title: Power Mac G5

text: Although the noise problems did not prevent the affected computers from working, they were problematic for audio professionals and enthusiasts, especially for the liquid-cooled models, which had been expressly designed as mechanically quiet for discerning listeners.


title: Power Mac G5

text: A common problem among single processor G5s was that the plate of metal soldered to the Logic Board connecting all eight of the RAM slots would, over time, expand and contract in such a way that the computer could not boot properly, as it would not detect any RAM. The only way known to fix this problem is for someone to re-solder the plate themselves or expose the other side of the Logic Board to heat from a heat gun. The latter of these two options is far easier, as to access the plate of metal one would have to completely remove the Logic Board from the computer, whereas all one has to do to expose the other side is remove a fan.


title: Power Mac G5

text: All 2.5 GHz and 2.7 GHz dual processor models and the 2.5 GHz quad-processor model had a liquid cooling system that consisted of a radiator, coolant pump, and heat exchangers bolted to the processors. The cooling system was made by Delphi Automotive, a former Harrison Radiator Division of General Motors. This was a bold step for Apple, and should have allowed the use of very fast processors, giving Apple an advantage in both the performance and reliability race, but the system turned out to be subject to coolant leakage, made worse by the system's use of GMDexcool coolant, which is more corrosive than regular automotive coolant. If not caught in time, the leakage could destroy the processors, logic board, and even corrode the aluminium casing itself. While leakage was sometimes detectable by drops of green coolant in or beneath the machine, in many machines the seepage is so slight that it was almost impossible to detect without dismantling the entire computer. Later models (only the 2.7GHz) were equipped with a Panasonic liquid cooling system which was much more reliable.


title: Power Mac G5

text: The liquid cooling system fits into the case where the heat sinks would normally go, so there is no easy way to distinguish the liquid-cooled versions from the air-cooled, although most, but not all, of the liquid-cooled machines have a sticker inside warning about the possibility of leakage.


title: Power Mac G5

text: When P.A. Semi announced the preliminary pre-production plan of PWRficient processor, there had been persistent rumors that Apple would prepare for its use in its professional line of personal computers.


title: Power Mac G5

text: In 2006, "The Register" reported that P.A. Semi had formed a tight relationship with Apple, which would result in P.A. Semi promptly delivering processor chips for Apple's personal computer notebook line and possibly desktops. Even in 2006, Apple did not have a laptop version of the G5 processor. The processor that would run the personal computers was P.A. Semi's preliminarily proposed processor, PWRficient 1682M (PA6T-1682M). The version that would be sampled for pre-production at third quarter of 2006 was a 2 GHz, dual-core CPU with two DDR2 memory controllers, 2 MB of L2 cache, and support for 8 PCI Express lanes. The sampled chip also has lower heat intensity than Intel's Core Duo, which gives off 9–31 W under normal load.


title: Power Mac G5

text: According to "The Register" article, P.A. Semi executives believed that they were all but assured of winning Apple's contract, and CEO Dan Dobberpuhl thought that Apple's hints of moving to Intel were just a persuading tactic. At the time, the companies were working for PWRficient software.


title: Power Mac G5

text: Despite the advantages of more compatible architecture, Apple moved to the Intel architecture officially for 'performance-per-watt' reasons. However, P.A. Semi would not be able to ship its low-power multicore product in volume until 2007, which, combined with P.A. Semi's status as a start-up company, seems to have been the final blow to the development of Power Mac computers. However, it was also speculated that Apple switched to Intel processor because Apple could no longer abide the constant delays in performance ramp up, desired native Windows compatibility, or it was Apple's strategy to shift its business focus away from desktop computing to iPod (and subsequently iOS) development.


title: Power Mac G5

text: Apple acquired P.A. Semi in 2008, using P.A. Semi's engineering resources to develop ARM CPUs for their iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV product lines; and would go on to eventually come full circle with these designs replacing Intel chips in Macs in 2020.


title: Beretta 93R

text: The Beretta 93R is an Italian selective-fire machine pistol, designed and manufactured by Beretta in the late 1970s for police and military use, that is derived from their semi-automatic Beretta 92. The "R" stands for "Raffica", which is Italian for "volley", "flurry", or "burst" (sometimes spoken "R" as ""Rapid"" in English).


title: Beretta 93R

text: The Beretta 93R was designed to be used by the Italian counter-terrorism forces of the national police "Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza" and Carabineri "Gruppo di Intervento Speciale" (both formed in the late 1970s in response to terrorism) but was also adopted by other police and military forces who required a concealable weapon with rapid fire capabilities. The pistol is a development of the Beretta 92 design.


title: Beretta 93R

text: The Beretta 93R is mechanically similar to the Beretta 92. It can be selected to fire either a three round burst or single fire. A selector switch enables the operator to alternate between the two firing modes. The pistol is fitted with a collapsible angled foregrip at the front end of the trigger guard to provide better stability when firing. A folding steel buttstock can be attached at the heel of the grip. The Beretta 93R is much more controllable compared to other machine pistols because it was designed with only a three round burst mode as well as a ported barrel.


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: Delicatessen is a 1991 French post-apocalyptic black comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, starring Dominique Pinon and Marie-Laure Dougnac. It was released in North America as "presented by Terry Gilliam."


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: In a dilapidated apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, food is in short supply and grain is used as currency. On the ground floor is a butcher's shop, run by the landlord, Clapet, who posts job opportunities in the newspaper to lure victims to the building, whom he murders and butchers as a cheap source of meat to sell to his tenants.


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: Following the murder of the last worker, unemployed circus clown Louison applies for the vacant position. Louison proves to be a superb worker with a spectacular trick knife, and the butcher is reluctant to kill him too quickly. During Louison's routine maintenance, he acquires a package dropped by a mailman. Louison delivers the package to Clapet's daughter, Julie, who says the package contains confections and invites him to join her that evening. Louison and Julie's relationship blossoms into romance. At the same time, several of the tenants fall under Louison's boyish charms, worrying others who are more anxious for their own safety should they require meat.


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: Clapet tells apartment tenant Marcel Tapioca that his rent is late and he must give up his mother-in-law as payment. That evening, Julie begs her father to let Louison go, knowing that Clapet is killing tenants for meat. She goes to her apartment, unwraps a newspaper in her refrigerator and sees an article about the Troglodistes, a group of vegetarian rebels who live underground. Julie descends into the sewers to make contact with the feared Troglodistes, whom she persuades to help rescue Louison.


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: After the apparent butchering of Tapioca's mother-in-law, the Troglodistes go through the sewer pipes and attempt to capture Louison, but end up mistakenly capturing tenant Mademoiselle Plusse instead. Meanwhile, as Julie and Louison watch television, Clapet ascends to the roof, shaking the television antenna to lure Louison into going up to fix it. Attacking Louison with a cleaver, Clapet's attempt to kill him is foiled by an unexpected electrical explosion in one of the apartments.


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: Clapet, along with some tenants, storms Louison's room in another attempt to murder him. Louison and Julie take refuge in a bathroom and flood it, floor to ceiling, until Clapet opens the door, releasing the flood and washing the attackers away. Mademoiselle Plusse escapes the sewers, finds Louison's boomerang knife, and gives it to Clapet. Clapet throws the knife towards Louison, but inadvertently kills himself. Louison and Julie play music together on the roof of the now peaceful apartment building.


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: The film was received well critically. "Variety" called it "a zany little film that's a startling and clever debut." "Empire" called it a "fair bet for cultdom, a lot more likeable than its subject matter suggests, and simply essential viewing for vegetarians". Inverse described the movie as having "striking visual aesthetic inspired by the monochrome photography of French-Hungarian photographer Brassaï, and the fantasy films of Terry Gilliam".


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: Not all reviews were positive, however, with "The New York Times" saying "its last half-hour is devoted chiefly to letting the characters wreck the sets, and quite literally becomes a washout when the bathtub overflows."


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: Although Delicatessen examines the resistance movement in German-occupied Europe, few film critics commented on this theme upon its initial release.


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave it an approval rating of 89% from a total of 54 reviews with an average rating of 7.76/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet deftly combines horror, sci-fi, and humor in "Delicatessen", a morbid comedy set in a visually ravishing futuristic dystopia." Metacritic gave it 66 out of 100 out of a total of 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."


title: Delicatessen (1991 film)

text: The film has won and been nominated for several important European awards. At the César Awards it won Best Editing, Best Debut, Best Production Design and Best Writing, at the European Film Awards it won Best Set Design, at Fantasporto the Audience Jury Award, at the Guild of German Art House Cinemas Best Foreign Film, at Sitges Best Actor, Best Director, Best Original Soundtrack and the Prize of Catalan Screenwriter's Critic and Writer's Association. At the Tokyo International Film Festival, it won the Gold Award. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It also received nominations for those award ceremonies as well as for the BAFTAs.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Propaganda in the Soviet Union was the practice of state-directed communication to promote class conflict, internationalism, the goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the party itself.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The main Soviet censorship body, Glavlit, was employed not only to eliminate any undesirable printed materials but also "to ensure that the correct ideological spin was put on every published item." Under Stalinism, deviation from the dictates of official propaganda was punished by execution and labor camps. Afterwards, such punitive measures were replaced by punitive psychiatry, prison, denial of work, and loss of citizenship. "Today a man only talks freely to his wife – at night, with the blankets pulled over his head," the writer Isaac Babel privately told a trusted friend.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: According to historian Peter Kenez, "the Russian socialists have contributed nothing to the theoretical discussion of the techniques of mass persuasion. ... The Bolsheviks never looked for and did not find devilishly clever methods to influence people's minds, to brainwash them." Kenez says this lack of interest "followed from their notion of propaganda. They thought of propaganda as part of education." In a study published in 1958, business administration professor Raymond Bauer concluded: "Ironically, psychology and the other social sciences have been employed "least" in the Soviet Union for precisely those purposes for which Americans popularly think psychology would be used in a totalitarian state—political propaganda and the control of human behavior."


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: An important goal of Soviet propaganda was to create a New Soviet man. Schools and Communist youth organizations such as the Young Pioneers and Komsomol served to remove children from the "petit-bourgeois" family and indoctrinate the next generation into the "collective way of life". The idea that the upbringing of children was the concern of their parents was explicitly rejected.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Those born after the Russian Revolution were explicitly told that they were to build a utopia of brotherhood and justice, and to not be like their parents, but completely Red. "Lenin's corners", "political shrines for the display of propaganda about the god-like founder of the Soviet state", were established in all schools. Schools conducted marches, songs, and pledges of allegiance to Soviet leadership. One of the purposes was to instill in children the idea that they are involved in the world revolution, which is more important than any family ties. Pavlik Morozov, who denounced his father to the secret police NKVD, was promoted as a great positive example.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Teachers in economic and social sciences were particularly responsible for inculcating "unshakable" Marxist–Leninist views. All teachers were prone to strictly follow the plan for educating children approved by the top for reasons of safety, which could cause serious problems dealing with social events that, having just happened, were not included in the plan. Children of "socially alien" elements were often the target of abuse or expelled, in the name of class struggle. Early in the regime, many teachers were drawn into Soviet plans for schooling because of a passion for literacy and numeracy, which the Soviets were attempting to spread.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The Young Pioneers were an important factor in the indoctrination of children. They were taught to be truthful and uncompromising and to fight the enemies of socialism. By the 1930s, this indoctrination completely dominated the Young Pioneers.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The radio was put to good use, especially to reach the illiterate; radio receivers were put in communal locations, where the peasants would have to come to hear the news, such as changes to rationing, and received propaganda broadcasts with it; some of these locations were also used for posters.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: During World War II, radio was used to propagandize Germany; German POWs would be brought on to speak and assure their relatives they were alive, with propaganda being inserted between the announcement that a soldier would speak and when he actually did, in the time allowed for his family to gather.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Wall posters were widely used in the early days, often depicting the Red Army's triumphs for the benefit of the illiterate. Throughout the 1920s, this was continued.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: This continued in World War II, still for the benefit of the less literate, with bold, simple designs.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Films were heavily propagandist, although they were pioneers in the documentary field (Roman Karmen, Dziga Vertov). When war appeared inevitable, dramas, such as "Alexander Nevsky" (1938) were written to prepare the population; these were withdrawn after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, but returned to circulation after the war began.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Films were shown in theaters and from propaganda trains. During the war newsreels were shown in subway stations so that the poor were not excluded by an inability to pay. Films were also shot with stories of partisan activity, and of the suffering inflicted by the Nazis, such as "Girl No. 217", depicting a Russian girl enslaved by an inhuman German family.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: An institution during World War II was the propaganda train, fitted with presses and portable cinemas, staffed with lecturers. In the Civil War the Soviets sent out both "agitation trains" () and "" () to inform, entertain, and propagandize.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Meetings with speakers were also used. Despite their dullness, many people found they created solidarity, and made them feel important and that they were being kept up to date on news.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Joseph Stalin's lectures on Leninism were instrumental in establishing that the Party was the cornerstone of the October Revolution, a policy Lenin acted on but did not write of theoretically.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Art, whether literature, visual art, or performing art, was used for the purpose of propaganda. Furthermore, it should show one clear and unambiguous meaning. Long before Stalin imposed complete restraint, a cultural bureaucracy was growing up that regarded art's highest form and purpose as propaganda and began to restrain it to fit that role. Cultural activities were constrained by censorship and a monopoly of cultural institutions.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Imagery frequently drew on heroic realism. The Soviet pavilion for the Paris World Fair was surmounted by Vera Mukhina's a monumental sculpture, "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman", in heroic mold. This reflected a call for heroic and romantic art, which reflected the ideal rather than the realistic. Art was filled with health and happiness; paintings teemed with busy industrial and agricultural scenes, and sculptures depicted workers, sentries, and schoolchildren.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In 1937, the Industry of Socialism was intended as a major exhibit of socialist art, but difficulties with pain and the problem of "enemies of the people" appearing in scene required reworking, and sixteen months later, the censors finally approved enough for an exhibition.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The very first law the Soviets passed on assuming power was to suppress newspapers that opposed them. This had to be repealed and replaced with a milder measure, but by 1918, Lenin had liquidated the independent press, including journals stemming from the 18th century.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: From 1930 to 1941, as well as briefly in 1949, the propaganda journal "USSR in Construction" was circulated. It was published in Russian, French, English, German, and, from 1938, Spanish. The self-proclaimed purpose of the magazine was to "reflect in photography the whole scope and variety of the construction work now going on the USSR". The issues were aimed primarily at an international audience, especially Western left-wing intellectuals and businessmen, and were quite popular during its early publications, with subscribers including George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, and Romain Rolland.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Illiteracy was regarded as a grave danger, excluding the illiterate from political discussion. In part this was because the people could not be reached by Party journals.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Immediately after the revolution, books were treated with less severity than newspapers, but the nationalizing of printing presses and publishing houses brought them under control. In the Stalinist era, libraries were purged, sometimes so extremely that works by Lenin were removed.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In 1922, the deportation of writers and scholars warned that no deviation was permitted, and pre-publication censorship was reinstated. Due to a lack of Bolshevist authors, many "fellow travelers" were tolerated, but money only came as long as they toed the party line.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: During the Stalinist Great Purges, textbooks were often so frequently revised that students had to do without them.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The revolutionary theater was used to inspire support for the regime and hatred of its enemies, particularly agitprop theater, noted for its cardboard characters of perfect virtue and complete evil, and its coarse ridicule. Petrushka was a popular figure, often used to defend rich peasants and attack kulaks.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Many Soviet works depicted the development of a "positive hero" as requiring intellectualism and hard discipline. He was not driven by crude impulses of nature but by conscious self-mastery. The selfless new man was willing to sacrifice not only his life but his self-respect and his sensitivity for the good of others. Equality and sacrifice were touted as the ideal appropriate for the "socialist way of life."


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Work required exertion and austerity, to show the new man triumphing over his base instincts. Alexey Stakhanov's record-breaking day in mining coal caused him to be set forth as the exemplar of the "new man" and to inspire Stakhanovite movements. The movement inspired much pressure to increase production, on both workers and managers, with critics labeled "wreckers".


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: This reflected a change from early days, with emphasis on the "little man" among the anonymous labors, to favoring the "hero of labor" in the end of the First Five-Year Plan, with writers explicitly told to produce heroization. While these heroes had to stem from the people, they were set apart by their heroic deeds. Stakhanov himself was well suited for this role, not only a worker but for his good looks like many poster hero and as a family man. The hardships of the First Five-Year Plan were put forth in romanticized accounts. In 1937–38, young heroes who accomplished great feats appeared on the front page of "Pravda" more often than Stalin himself.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Later, during the purges, claims were made that criminals had been "reforged" by their work on the White Sea/Baltic Canal; salvation through labor appeared in Nikolai Pogodin's "The Aristocrats" as well as many articles.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: This could also be a new woman; "Pravda" described the Soviet woman as someone who had and could never have existed before. Female Stakhanovites were rarer than male, but a quarter of all trade-union women were designated as "norm-breaking." For the Paris World Fair, Vera Mukhina depicted a monumental sculpture, "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman", dressed in work clothing, pressing forward with his hammer and her sickle crossed. Pro-natalist policies encouraging women to have many children were justified by the selfishness inherent in limiting the next generation of "new men." "Mother-heroines" received medals for ten or more children.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Stakhanovites were also used as propaganda figures so heavily that some workers complained that they were skipping work.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The murder of Pavlik Morozov was widely exploited in propaganda to urge on children the duty of informing on even their parents to the new state.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The class enemy was a pervasive feature of Soviet propaganda. With the Civil War, the newly formed army moved to massacre large numbers of kulaks and otherwise promulgate a short lived "reign of terror" to terrify the masses into obedience.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Lenin proclaimed that they were exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class, a position reinforced by the many actions against landlords, well-off peasants, banks, factories, and private shops. Stalin warned, often, that with the struggle to build a socialist society, the class struggle would sharpen as class enemies grew more desperate. During the Stalinist era, all opposition leaders were routinely described as traitors and agents of foreign, imperialist powers.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The Five-Year Plan intensified the class struggle with many attacks on "kulaks", and when it was found that many peasant opponents were not rich enough to qualify, they were declared "sub-kulaks." "Kulaks and other class-alien enemies" were often cited as the reason for failures on collective farms. Throughout the First and Second Five-Year Plans, kulaks, wreckers, saboteurs and nationalists were attacked, leading up to the Great Terror. Those who profited from public property were "enemies of the people." By the late 1930s, all "enemies" were lumped together in art as supporters of historical idiocy. Newspapers reported even on the trial of children as young as ten for counterrevolutionary and fascist behavior. During the Holodomor, the starving peasants were denounced as saboteurs, all the more dangerous in that their gentle and inoffensive appearance made them appear innocent; the deaths were only proof that peasants hated socialism so much they were willing to sacrifice their families and risk their lives to fight it.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Stalin, denouncing White counter-revolutionaries, Trotskyists, wreckers, and others, particularly aimed his attention at the Communist old guard. The very improbability of the charges was cited as evidence, since more plausible charges could have been invented.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: These enemies were rounded up for the gulags, which propaganda proclaimed to be "corrective labor camps" to such an extent that even people who saw the starvation and slave labor believed the propaganda rather than their eyes.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Stalin himself informed Sergei Eisenstein that his film "Ivan the Terrible" was flawed because it did not show the necessity of terror in Ivan's persecution of the nobility.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Propaganda can start a large movement or revolution, but only if the masses rally behind one another to make the images produced by propaganda a reality. Good propaganda must instill hope, faith, and certainty. It must bring solidarity among the population. It must stave off demoralization, hopelessness, and resignation.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: A common theme was the creation of a new, utopian society, depicted in posters and newsreels, which inspired an enthusiasm in many people. Much propaganda was dedicated to a new community, as exemplified in the use of "comrade." This new society was to be classless. Distinctions were to be based on function, not class, and all possessed the equal duty to work. During the 1930s discussion of the new constitution, one speaker proclaimed that there were, in fact, no classes in the USSR, and newspapers effused over how the dreams of the working class were coming true for the luckiest people in the world. One admission that there were classes – workers, peasants, and working intelligentsia – dismissed it as unimportant, as these new classes had no need to conflict.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Military metaphors were used frequently for this creation, as in 1929, where the collectivization of agriculture was officially termed a "full-scale socialist offensive on all fronts." The Second Five-Year Plan saw a slowdown of the Socialist Offensive, this against a propaganda background of trumpeting the USSR's triumphs on "the battlefield of building socialism."


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Happiness was mandatory; in a novel where a horse was described as moving "slowly", the censor objected, asking why it was not moving speedily, being happy like the rest of the collective farm workers.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: "Kohlkhoznye Rebiata" published bombastic reports from the collective farms of their children. When hot breakfasts were provided for schoolchildren, particularly in city schools, the program was announced with great fanfare.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Since communist society was the highest and most progressive form of society, it was ethically superior to all others, and "moral" and "immoral" were determined by whether things helped or hindered its development. Tsarist law was overtly abolished, and while judges could use it, they were to be guided by "revolutionary consciousness". Under the pressure of the need for law, more and more was implemented; Stalin justified this in propaganda as the law would "wither away" best when its authority was raised to the highest, through its contradictions.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: When the draft of the new constitution led people to believe that private property would be returned and that workers could leave collective farms, speakers were sent out to "clarify" the matter.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Stalin bluntly declared the Bolshevists must close the Tsar-induced fifty- or a hundred-year gap with Western countries in ten years, or "socialism would be destroyed". In support of the Five-Year Plan, he declared being an industrial laggard had caused Russia's historical defeats. Newspapers reported overproduction of quotas, even though many had not occurred, and where they did, the goods were often shoddy.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: During the 1930s, the development of the USSR was just about the only theme of art, literature and film. The heroes of Arctic exploration were glorified. The twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution was honored with a five volume work glorifying the accomplishments of socialism and (in the last volume) "scientifically based fantasies" of the future, raising such questions as whether the whole world or only Europe would be socialist in twenty years.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Even while a majority of the population was still rural, the USSR was proclaimed "a mighty industrial power." "USSR in Construction" glorified the Moscow-Volga Canal, with only the briefest mention of the slave labor that had built it.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In 1939, a rationing plan was considered but not implemented because it would undermine the propaganda of improving care for the people, whose lives grew better and more cheerful every year.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: During World War II, the slogans were altered from overcoming backwardness to overcoming the "fascist beast" but continued focus on production. The slogan proclaimed "Everything for the Front!" Teams of Young Communists were used as shocktroops to shame workers into higher production as well as spread socialist propaganda.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In the 1950s, Khrushchev repeatedly boasted that the USSR would soon surpass the West in material well-being. Other Soviet officials agreed that the USSR would soon show its superiority because capitalism was like a dead herring – shining as it rotted.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The first post-mortem attack on Stalin was the publication of articles in "Pravda" proclaiming that the masses made history and the error of a "cult of the individual."


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Many warnings were made of the necessity of keeping out of any imperialistic war, as the breakdown of capitalism would make capitalist countries more desperate.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Even before the Bolshevists seized power, Lenin proclaimed in speeches that the Revolution was the vanguard of a worldwide revolution, both international and socialist. The workers were informed they were the vanguard of world socialism; the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" was constantly repeated.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Lenin founded the organization Comintern to propagate Communism internationally. Stalin proceeded to use it to promote Communism throughout the world for the benefit of the USSR. When this topic was a difficulty dealing with the Allies in World War II, Comintern was dissolved. Similarly, "The Internationale" was dropped as the national anthem in favor of the "Hymn of the Soviet Union".


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Japanese prisoners of war were intensively propagandized before their release in 1949, to act as Soviet agents.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: While Lenin was uncomfortable with the personality cult that sprung up about him, the party exploited it during the Russian Civil War and officially enshrined it after his death. As early as 1918, a biography of Lenin was written, and busts were produced. With his death, his embalmed body was displayed (to imitate beliefs that the bodies of saints did not decay), and picture books of his life were produced in mass quantities.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Stalin presented himself as a simple man of the people, but distinct from everyday politics by his unique role as leader. His clothing was carefully selected to cement this image. Propaganda presented him as Lenin's heir, exaggerating their relationship, until the Stalin cult drained out the Lenin cult – an effect shown in posters, where at first Lenin would be the dominating figure over Stalin, but as time went on became first only equal, and then smaller and more ghostly, until he was reduced to the byline on the book Stalin was depicted reading. This occurred despite the historical accounts describing Stalin as insignificant, or even a "gray blur", in the early Revolution. From the late 1920s until it was debunked in the 1960s, he was presented as the chief military leader of the civil war. Stalingrad was renamed for him on the claim that he had single-handedly, and against orders, saved it in the civil war.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: He often figured as the great father of the "great family" that was the new Soviet Union. Regulations on how exactly to portray Stalin's image and write of his life were carefully promulgated. Inconvenient facts, such as his having wanted to cooperate with the Tsarist government on his return for exile, were purged from his biography.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: His work for the Soviet Union was praised in paeans to the "light in the Kremlin window." Marx, Engels, Lenin, and above all Stalin appeared frequently in art.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Discussions of the proposed constitution in the 1930s included effusive thanks to "Comrade Stalin." Engineering projects such as canals were described as having been decreed personally by Stalin. Young Pioneers were enjoined to struggle for "the cause of Lenin and Stalin". During the purges, he increased his appearances in public, having his photograph taken with children, airmen, and Stakhanovites, being hailed as the source of the "happy life," and according to "Pravda", riding the subway with common workers.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The propaganda was effectual. Many young people hard at work at construction idolized Stalin. Many people chose to believe that the charges made at the purges were true rather than believing that Stalin had betrayed the revolution.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: During World War II, this personality cult was certainly instrumental in inspiring a deep level of commitment from the masses of the Soviet Union, whether on the battlefield or in industrial production. Stalin made a fleeting visit to the front so that propagandists could claim that he had risked his life with the frontline soldiers. The cult was, however, toned down until approaching victory was near. As it became clear that the Soviet Union would eventually win the war, Stalin ensured that propaganda always mentioned his leadership of the war; the victorious generals were sidelined and never allowed to develop into political rivals.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Soon after his death, attacks, first veiled and then open, were made on the "cult of the individual" arguing that history was made by the masses.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Nikita Khrushchev, though leading the attacks on the cult, nevertheless sought out publicity, and his photograph frequently appeared in the newspapers.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: As Stalin drew power to himself, Leon Trotsky was pictured in an anti-personality cult. It began with the assertion that he had not joined the Bolshevists until late, after the planning of the October Revolution was done.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Some historians believe that an important goal of Soviet propaganda was "to justify political repressions of entire social groups which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of proletariat", as in decossackization or dekulakization campaigns. Richard Pipes wrote: "a major purpose of Soviet propaganda was arousing violent political emotions against the regime's enemies."


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The most effective means to achieve this objective "was the denial of the victim's humanity through the process of dehumanization", "the reduction of real or imaginary enemy to a zoological state". In particular, Vladimir Lenin called to exterminate enemies "as harmful insects", "lice" and "bloodsuckers".


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Class hatred should be cultivated by an organic revulsion as far as the enemy is concerned. Enemies must be seen as inferior. I believe quite profoundly that the enemy is our inferior, and is a degenerate not only in the physical plane but also in the moral sense.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: According to "The Black Book of Communism", an example of demonization of the enemy were speeches by state procurator Andrey Vyshinsky during Stalin's show trials. He said about the suspects:


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Shoot these rabid dogs. Death to this gang who hide their ferocious teeth, their eagle claws, from the people! Down with that vulture Trotsky, from whose mouth a bloody venom drips, putrefying the great ideals of Marxism!... Down with these abject animals! Let's put an end once and for all to these miserable hybrids of foxes and pigs, these stinking corpses! Let's exterminate the mad dogs of capitalism, who want to tear to pieces the flower of our new Soviet nation! Let's push the bestial hatred they bear our leaders back down their own throats!


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Early in the revolution, atheistic propaganda was pushed in an attempt to obliterate religion. Regarding religion more as a class enemy, a cause of hate, than a contender for people's minds, the government abolished the prerogatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and targeted them with ridicule. This included lurid anti-religious processions and newspaper articles that backfired badly, shocking the deeply religious population. It was stopped and replaced by lectures and other more intellectual methods. The Society of the Godless organized for such purposes, and the magazines "Bezbozhnik" ("The Godless") and "The Godless in the Workplace" promulgated atheistic propaganda. Atheistic education was regarded as a central task of Soviet schools. The attempt to liquidate illiteracy was hindered by attempts to combine it with atheistic education, which caused peasants to stay away and which was eventually reduced.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In 1929, all forms of religious education were banned as religious propaganda, and the right to anti-religious propaganda was explicitly affirmed, whereupon the League of the Godless became the League of the Militant Godless.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: A "Godless Five-Year Plan" was proclaimed, purportedly at the instigation of the masses. Christian virtues such as humility and meekness were ridiculed in the press, with self-discipline, loyalty to the party, confidence in the future, and hatred of class enemies being recommended instead. Anti-religious propaganda in Russia led to a reduction in the public demonstrations of religion.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Much anti-religious efforts were dedicated to promoting science in its place. In the debunking of a miracle – a Madonna weeping tears of blood, which was shown to be rust contaminating water by pouring multicolored waters into the statue – was offered to the watching peasants as proof of science, resulting in the crowd killing two of the scientists.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: They also tried to overthrow the evangelical image of Jesus. The literature of the USSR in the 1920s, following the tradition of the demythologization of Jesus, created in the works David Strauss, Ernest Renan, Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Binet-Sanglé, put forward two main themes – Jesus' mental illness and his deception. It was only at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s that the Soviet Union's propaganda won the mythological option, namely the denial of the existence of Jesus.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: A "Living Church" movement despised Russian Orthodoxy's hierarchy and preached that socialism was the modern form of Christianity; Trotsky urged their encouragement to split Orthodoxy.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: During World War II, this effort was rolled back; "Pravda" capitalized the word "God" for the first time, as religious attendance was actually encouraged. Much of this was for foreign consumption, where it was widely disbelieved, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt condemning both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as atheistic regimes which did not permit freedom of conscience. This rollback may have occurred due to the ineffectiveness of the Soviets' anti-religious effort.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Between campaigns against bourgeois culture and making the ideology of the Socialist Offensive intelligible to the masses with cliches and stereotypes, an anti-intellectual tone grew in propaganda. Soviet leaders posed as common people, lacking interest in such matters as fine art and ballet, even as they selectively chose from working class culture.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In the 1920s, much Soviet propaganda for the outside world was aimed at capitalist countries as plutocracies, and claiming that they intended to destroy the Soviet Union as the workers' paradise. Capitalism, being responsible for the ills of the world, therefore was fundamentally immoral.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Fascism was presented as a terroristic outburst of finance capital, and drawing from the "petit bourgeoisie", and the middling peasants, equivalent to kulaks, who were the losers in the historical process.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: During the early stages of World War II, it was overtly presented as a war between capitalists, which would weaken them and allow Communist triumph as long as the Soviet Union wisely stayed out. Communist parties over the world were instructed to oppose the war as a clash between capitalist states.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: After World War II, the United States of America was presented as a bastion of imperial oppression, with which non-violent competition would take place, as capitalism was in its last stages.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Campaigns against the society of Imperial Russia continued well into the Soviet Union's history. One speaker recounted how men had had to serve for twenty-five years in the imperial army, to be heckled by an audience member that it did not matter, since they had had food and clothing.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Children were informed that the "accursed past" had been left far behind them, they could become completely "Red".


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: The Soviet press showed a little favor towards its neighboring states. Poland was a subject of this approach from the very beginning. In general, the Soviet press portrayed Poland as a fascist state, that belonged to the same club as Germany and Italy.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Anti-Polish propaganda was heavily used in the Polish-Soviet War in 1920 as well as during the Soviet invasion of Poland and subsequent annexation of Eastern Poland 1939–1941. (see Fig 1)


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Poland's capitalist government and its chief of state, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, were fierce anti-communists; all parties or groups affiliated with Communist activities were banned and its members sent to Bereza Kartuska concentration camp in eastern Poland. This potentially fueled Soviet propaganda against the Polish state and vice versa. The posters often featured capitalist mustached Poles dressed as lords, barons, nobles or generals holding a whip over enslaved Ukrainians and Belarusians, which were a minority in Poland at the time.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Many Soviet and Communist writers and artists participated in the Spanish Civil War (Mikhail Koltsov, Ilya Ehrenburg) or supported the Republicans. Popular revolutionary poem "Grenada" by Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov was published in 1926.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In the face of massive Soviet bewilderment, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was defended by speaker in Gorky Park. Molotov defended it in an article in "Pravda" proclaiming that it was a treaty between states, not systems. Stalin himself devised diagrams to show that Neville Chamberlain had wanted to pit the USSR against Nazi Germany, but Comrade Stalin had wisely pit Great Britain against Nazi Germany.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: For the duration of the pact, propagandists highly praised Germans. Anti-German or anti-Nazi propaganda like "Professor Mamlock" were banned.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, Stalin himself declared in a 1941 broadcast that Germany waged war to exterminate the peoples of the USSR. Propaganda published in "Pravda" denounced all Germans as killers, bloodsuckers, and cannibals, and much play was made of atrocity claims. Hatred was actively and overtly encouraged. They were told that the Germans took no prisoners. Partisans were encouraged to see themselves as avengers. Ilya Ehrenburg was a prominent propaganda writer.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Many anti-German films in the Nazi era revolved about the persecution of Jews in Germany, such as "Professor Mamlock" (1938) and "The Oppenheim Family". "Girl No. 217" depicted the horrors inflicted on Soviet POWs, especially the enslavement of the main character Tanya to an inhuman German family, reflecting the harsh treatment of "OST-Arbeiter" in Nazi Germany.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Despite their own treatment of religion, a revival of Orthodoxy was permitted during World War II to demonize Nazism as the sole enemy of religion.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Vasily Grossman and Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov were war correspondents of the "Krasnaya Zvezda" ("Red Star").


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet propaganda to Germans during World War II was at pains to distinguish between the ordinary Germans and their leaders, the Hitlerites (Nazis), and declaring they had no quarrel with the people. The only way to discover if a German soldier had fallen alive into Soviet hands was to listen; the radio would announce that a certain prisoner would speak, then give some time for his family to gather and listen, and fill it with propaganda.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: A National Committee for 'Free Germany' was founded in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps in an attempt to foment an uprising in Germany.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Anti-fascism was commonly used in propaganda aimed outside the USSR during the 1930s, particularly to draw people into front organizations. The Spanish Civil War was, in particular, used to quash dissent among European communist parties and reports of Stalin's growing totalitarianism.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In face of the threat of Nazi Germany, the international claims of Communism were played down, and people were recruited to help defend the country on patriotic motives. The presence of a real enemy was used to inspire action and production in face of the threat to the Father Soviet Union, or Mother Russia. All Soviet citizens were called on to fight, and soldiers who surrendered had failed in their duty. To prevent retreats from Stalingrad, soldiers were urged to fight for the soil.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Russian history was pressed into providing a heroic past and patriotic symbols, although selectively, for instance praising men as state builders. "Alexander Nevsky" made a central theme the importance of the common people in saving Russia while nobles and merchants did nothing, a motif that was heavily employed. Still, the figures selected had no socialist connection. Artists and writers were permitted more freedom, as long as they did not criticize Marxism directly and contained patriotic themes. It was termed the "Great Patriotic War" and stories presented it as a fight of ordinary people's heroism.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: While the term "motherland" was used, it was used to mean the Soviet Union, and while Russian heroes were revived, Soviet heroes were used plentifully as well. Appeals were made that the home of other nationalities were also the homes of their own.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Many Soviet citizens found treatment of soldiers who fell into enemy hands as "traitors to the Motherland" as suitable for their own grim determination, and "not a step back" inspired soldiers to fight with self-sacrifice and heroism.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In the 1960s, reviving memories of the Great Patriotic War was used to bolster support for the regime, with all accounts to carefully censored to prevent accounts of Stalin's early incompetence, the defeats, and the heavy cost.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, the concept of a Socialist Utopia was heavily proselytized by the Soviet government. Under the Khrushchev administration, this idea of a Soviet utopia was worked heavily into the concept of space travel and spreading across the world. The accomplishments in space were closely tied to a sense of utopia and the idea that communism was superior to other forms of government. In a press release after Sputnik's launch the Soviet Union states that "...our contemporaries will witness how the freed and conscientious labour of the people of the new socialist society makes the most daring dreams of mankind a reality." The concept of success in science and space exploration were closely tied to the concept of a new socialist society and the utopia that would be created in that society.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Trotsky and a small group of Communists regarded the Soviet Union as doomed without the spread of the revolution internationally. The victory of Stalin, who regarded the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union as a necessary exemplar to the rest of the world and represented the majority view, did not, however, stop international propaganda.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: In the 1980s, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that the budget of Soviet propaganda abroad was between $3.5 and $4 billion.


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Propaganda abroad was partly conducted by Soviet intelligence agencies. GRU alone spent more than $1 billion for propaganda and peace movements against Vietnam War, which was a "hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost", according to GRU defector Stanislav Lunev. He claimed that "the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad".


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: According to Oleg Kalugin, "the Soviet intelligence was really unparalleled. ... The KGB programs – which would run all sorts of congresses, peace congresses, youth congresses, festivals, women's movements, trade union movements, campaigns against U.S. missiles in Europe, campaigns against neutron weapons, allegations that AIDS ... was invented by the CIA ... all sorts of forgeries and faked material – [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at the public at large."


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet-run movements pretended to have little or no ties with the USSR, often seen as noncommunist (or allied to such groups), but were controlled by the USSR. Most members and supporters, did not realize that they were instruments of Soviet propaganda. The organizations aimed at convincing well-meaning but naive Westerners to support Soviet overt or covert goals. A witness in a US congressional hearing on Soviet cover activity described the goals of such organizations as to "spread Soviet propaganda themes and create false impression of public support for the foreign policies of Soviet Union."


title: Propaganda in the Soviet Union

text: Much of the activity of the Soviet-run peace movements was supervised by the World Peace Council. Other important front organizations included the World Federation of Trade Unions, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and the International Union of Students. Somewhat less important front organizations included: Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization, Christian Peace Conference, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, International Federation of Resistance Movements, International Institute for Peace, International Organization of Journalists, Women's International Democratic Federation and World Federation of Scientific Workers. There were also numerous smaller organizations, affiliated with the above fronts.


title: Marxism and religion

text: 19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx, the founder and primary theorist of Marxism, viewed religion as "the soul of soulless conditions" or the "opium of the people". According to Karl Marx, religion in this world of exploitation is an expression of distress and at the same time it is also a protest against the real distress. In other words, religion continues to survive because of oppressive social conditions. When this oppressive and exploitative condition is destroyed, religion will become unnecessary. At the same time, Marx saw religion as a form of protest by the working classes against their poor economic conditions and their alienation. Denys Turner, a scholar of Marx and historical theology, classified Marx's views as adhering to Post-Theism, a philosophical position that regards worshipping deities as an eventually obsolete, but temporarily necessary, stage in humanity's historical spiritual development.


title: Marxism and religion

text: In the Marxist–Leninist interpretation, all modern religions and churches are considered as "organs of bourgeois reaction" used for "the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class". A number of Marxist–Leninist governments in the 20th century such as the Soviet Union after Vladimir Lenin and the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong implemented rules introducing state atheism.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Karl Marx's religious views have been the subject of much interpretation. In the "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" of 1843, Marx famously stated:


title: Marxism and religion

text: According to Howard Zinn, "[t]his helps us understand the mass appeal of the religious charlatans of the television screen, as well as the work of Liberation Theology in joining the soulfulness of religion to the energy of revolutionary movements in miserably poor countries". Some recent scholarship has suggested that "opium of the people" is itself a dialectical metaphor, a "protest" and an "expression" of suffering. Marx did not object to a spiritual life and thought it was necessary. In the "Wages of Labour" of the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844", Marx wrote: "To develop in greater spiritual freedom, a people must break their bondage to their bodily needs—they must cease to be the slaves of the body. They must, above all, have time at their disposal for spiritual creative activity and spiritual enjoyment."


title: Marxism and religion

text: There are those who view that the early Christian Church such as that one described in the Acts of the Apostles was an early form of communism and religious socialism. The view is that communism was just Christianity in practice and Jesus as the first communist. This link was highlighted in one of Marx's early writings which stated that "[a]s Christ is the intermediary unto whom man unburdens all his divinity, all his religious bonds, so the state is the mediator unto which he transfers all his Godlessness, all his human liberty". Furthermore, Thomas Müntzer led a large Anabaptist communist movement during the German Peasants' War which Friedrich Engels analysed in "The Peasant War in Germany". The Marxist ethos that aims for unity reflects the Christian universalist teaching that humankind is one and that there is only one god who does not discriminate among people. Tristram Hunt attributes a religious persuasion to Engels.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Roland Boer asserts that Marx's depiction of religion as 'opium', while suspicious of religion's addictive potential, also emphasizes religion's medicinal properties akin to those of opium in Western medicine.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Nonetheless, Lenin allowed Christians and other religious people in the Bolshevik Party. While critical of religion, Lenin also specifically made a point to not include it in "Our Programme" or his ideological goals, arguing:


title: Marxism and religion

text: But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an "intellectual" question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Joseph Stalin's public statements on religion throughout his years serving as General Secretary of the CPSU were scarce. In 1927, answering the question of an American trade union delegate, Stalin affirmed that the Communist Party must have an anti-religious policy:


title: Marxism and religion

text: We carry on and will continue to carry on propaganda against religious prejudices. Our legislation guaranteed to citizens the right to adhere to any religion. This is a matter for the conscience of each individual. That is precisely why we carried out the separation of the Church from the State. But in separating the Church from the State and proclaiming religious liberty we at the same time guaranteed the right of every citizen to combat by argument, by propaganda and agitation any and all religion.


title: Marxism and religion

text: The Party cannot be neutral towards religion and does conduct anti-religious propaganda against all and every religious prejudice because it stands for science, while religious prejudices run counter to science, because all religion is something opposite to science. Cases such as recently occurred in America in which Darwinists were prosecuted in court, cannot occur here because the Party carries out a policy of the general defense of science. The Party cannot be neutral towards religious prejudices and it will continue to carry on propaganda against these prejudices because this is one of the best means of undermining the influence of the reactionary clergy who support the exploiting classes and who preach submission to these classes. The Party cannot be neutral towards the bearers of religious prejudices, towards the reactionary clergy who poison the minds of the toiling masses. Have we suppressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Anti-religious propaganda is a means by which the complete liquidation of the reactionary clergy must be brought about. Cases occur when certain members of the Party hamper the complete development of anti-religious propaganda. If such members are expelled it is a good thing because there is no room for such "Communists" in the ranks of our Party.


title: Marxism and religion

text: In their influential book "The ABC of Communism", Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky spoke out strongly against religion, writing that "Communism is incompatible with religious faith". However, importance was placed on secularism and non-violence towards the religious:


title: Marxism and religion

text: But the campaign against the backwardness of the masses in this matter of religion, must be conducted with patience and considerateness, as well as with energy and perseverance. The credulous crowd is extremely sensitive to anything which hurts its feelings. To thrust atheism upon the masses, and in conjunction therewith to interfere forcibly with religious practices and to make mock of the objects of popular reverence, would not assist but would hinder the campaign against religion. If the church were to be persecuted, it would win sympathy among the masses, for persecution would remind them of the almost forgotten days when there was an association between religion and the defence of national freedom; it would strengthen the antisemitic movement; and in general it would mobilize all the vestiges of an ideology which is already beginning to die out.


title: Marxism and religion

text: God-Building was an idea proposed by some prominent early Marxists of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Inspired by Ludwig Feuerbach's "religion of humanity", it had some precedent in the French Revolution with the "cult of reason". The idea proposed that in place of the abolition of religion, there should be a meta-religious context in which religions were viewed primarily in terms of the psychological and social effect of ritual, myth and symbolism in an attempt to harness this force for pro-communist aims, both by creating new ritual and symbolism and by re-interpreting existing ritual and symbolism in a socialist context. In contrast to the atheism of Lenin, the God-Builders took an official position of agnosticism.


title: Marxism and religion

text: North Korean leader Kim Il Sung wrote about religion in the context of Korea's national liberation struggle against Japan. In that context, Kim criticized the protestant Christian creed, stating that while "[t]here is no law preventing religious believers from making the revolution," their lack of action led to "non-resistance" and psalms alone could not block the Japanese guns when "decisive battles" were necessary.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Kim's writings addressed the "opium of the people" metaphor twice, both in the context of responding to comrades who object to working with religious groups (Chonbulygo and Chondoism). In the first instance, Kim replies that a person is "mistaken" if he or she believes the proposition that religion is the "opium of the people" can be applied in all instances, explaining that if a religion "prays for dealing out divine punishment to Japan and blessing the Korean nation" then it is a "patriotic religion" and its believers are patriots. In the second, Kim states that Marx's metaphor "must not be construed radically and unilaterally" because Marx was warning against "the temptation of a religious mirage and not opposing believers in general." Because the communist movement in Korea was fighting a struggle for "national salvation" against Japan, Kim writes that anyone with a similar agenda can join the struggle and that "even a religionist ... must be enrolled in our ranks without hesitation."


title: Marxism and religion

text: The Soviet Union was an atheist state in which religion was largely discouraged and at times heavily persecuted. According to various Soviet and Western sources, over one-third of the country's people still professed religious belief (Christianity and Islam had the most believers). Christians belonged to various churches: Orthodox, which had the largest number of followers; Catholic; Oriental Orthodox (mainly Armenian Apostolic Church) and Baptist and other Protestant denominations. The majority of the Islamic faithful were Sunni (with a notable Shia minority, mainly in Azerbaijan), while Judaism also had many followers. Other religions, which were practiced by a relatively small number of believers, included Buddhism and Shamanism. After 1941 in the Stalin era, religious persecution was greatly reduced. To gather support from the masses during World War II, the Stalin government re-opened thousands of temples and extinguished the League of Militant Atheists. Atheist propaganda returned to a lesser extent during the Khrushchev government and continued in a less strict way during the Brezhnev years.


title: Marxism and religion

text: The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly, but two-thirds of the Soviet population were irreligious. About half the people, including members of the ruling Communist Party and high-level government officials, professed atheism. For the majority of Soviet citizens, religion seemed irrelevant. Prior to its collapse in late 1991, official figures on religion in the Soviet Union were not available. State atheism in the Soviet Union was known as "gosateizm".


title: Marxism and religion

text: Albania was declared an atheist state by Enver Hoxha. Religion in Albania was subordinated in the interest of nationalism during periods of national revival, when it was identified as foreign predation to Albanian culture. During the late 19th century and also when Albania became a state, religions were suppressed in order to better unify Albanians. This nationalism was also used to justify the communist stance of state atheism between 1967 and 1991. This policy was mainly applied and felt within the borders of the present Albanian state, producing a nonreligious majority in the population.


title: Marxism and religion

text: The People's Republic of China was established in 1949 and for much of its early history maintained a hostile attitude toward religion which was seen as emblematic of feudalism and foreign colonialism. Houses of worship, including temples, mosques and churches, were converted into non-religious buildings for secular use. However, this attitude relaxed considerably in the late 1970s with the end of the Cultural Revolution. The 1978 Constitution of the People's Republic of China guaranteed "freedom of religion" with a number of restrictions. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a massive program to rebuild Buddhist and Taoist temples that were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. However, the Chinese Communist Party still remains explicitly atheist and religion is heavily regulated, with only specific state-operated churches, mosques and temples being allowed for worship.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, suppressed Cambodia’s Buddhist religion as monks were defrocked; temples and artifacts, including statues of the Buddha, were destroyed; and people praying or expressing other religious sentiments were often killed. The Christian and Muslim communities were among the most persecuted as well. The Roman Catholic cathedral of Phnom Penh was razed. The Khmer Rouge forced Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as an abomination. Many of those who refused were killed. Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed.


title: Marxism and religion

text: After the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, a socialist state more reflective of the values shared by Vietnam and allies of the Soviet Union was established. Oppression of religious groups was nearly totally ended and relations between religious groups and the People's Republic of Kampuchea were much more neutral throughout its existence until the restoration of the monarchy a decade later.


title: Marxism and religion

text: In contrast with the brutal repression of the sangha undertaken in Cambodia, the Communist government of Laos has not sought to oppose or suppress Buddhism in Laos to any great degree, rather since the early days of the Pathet Lao communist officials have sought to use the influence and respect afforded to Buddhist clergy to achieve political goals while discouraging religious practices seen as detrimental to Marxist aims.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Starting as early as the late 1950s, members of the Pathet Lao sought to encourage support for the communist cause by aligning members of the Lao sangha with the communist opposition. Though resisted by the Royal Lao Government, these efforts were fairly successful and resulted in increased support for the Pathet Lao, particularly in rural communities.


title: Marxism and religion

text: North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion in Article 68, although that principle is limited by the requirement that religion may not be used as a pretext to harm the state, introduce foreign forces, or harm the existing social order. In North Korea, the state recognizes and favors Chondoism as a distinctly Korean revolutionary religion.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Following the Korean War, Christians generally organized in house churches or small congregations. In the 1960, the government permitted two hundred informal congregations in former centers of Christianity.


title: Marxism and religion

text: During its Socialist era, the Romanian government exerted significant control over the Orthodox Church and closely monitored religious activity, as well as promoting atheism among the population. Dissident priests were censured, arrested, deported, and/or defrocked, but the Orthodox Church as a whole acquiesced to the government's demands and received support from it. Unlike other Eastern Bloc states where clergy were forced to rely on donations or subsistence wages, Orthodox clergy in Romania were paid a salary equivalent to the average received by the general population, and received significant state subsidies for the reconstruction of churches destroyed in the war. Starting in the 1960s, the state used religious officials of the Orthodox Church as ambassadors to the West, engaging in dialogue with religious organizations in the United Kingdom. This relatively favorable attitude towards the church continued until the death of Patriarch Justinian of Romania in 1977, at which point the state began a new anti-church campaign, engaging in urban renewal projects that entailed the destruction of churches.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Roland Boer argues that theological influences permeate the works of "Biblical Marxists" Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin, "Catholic Marxists" Althusser, Henri Lefebvre, Antonio Gramsci and Terry Eagleton, and the Marxists of the 'Protestant Turn' in Žižek and Adorno.


title: Marxism and religion

text: In "The Communist Manifesto", Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote: "Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat." In "", Engels drew a certain analogy between the sort of utopian communalism of some of the early Christian communities and the modern-day communist movement, the scientific communist movement representing the proletariat in this era and its world historic transformation of society. Engels noted both certain similarities and certain contrasts.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Christian communism can be seen as a radical form of Christian socialism. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support communism as the ideal social system. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact date when Christian communism was founded, many Christian communists assert that evidence from the Bible suggests that the first Christians, including the Apostles, created their own small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection. Advocates of Christian communism argue that it was taught by Jesus and practiced by the Apostles themselves.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Contemporary communism, including contemporary Christian communism, owes much to Marxist thought—particularly Marxian economics. While not all communists are in full agreement with Marxism, communists share the Marxist critique of capitalism. Marxism includes a complex array of views that cover several different fields of human knowledge and one may easily distinguish between Marxist philosophy, Marxist sociology and Marxist economics. Marxist sociology and Marxist economics have no connection to religious issues and make no assertions about such things. On the other hand, Marxist philosophy is famously atheistic, although some Marxist scholars, both Christian and non-Christian, have insisted that Marxist philosophy and the philosophy of Marx and Engels are significantly different from one another and that this difference needs recognition. In particular, Jose Porfirio Miranda found Marx and Engels to be consistently opposed to deterministic materialism and broadly sympathetic towards Christianity and towards the text of the Bible, although disbelieving in a supernatural deity.


title: Marxism and religion

text: In the 20th century, many analysts of Marx's works began to believe that Marx did not condemn religion in its entirety, but rather the Prussian Protestantism he encountered in Germany specifically:


title: Marxism and religion

text: An attempt to reconciliate religion with communism has been made by the followers of Eurocommunism. The Eurocommunists of Italy, France and Spain considered it essential to reach out to the Catholic population and secure their help in construction of socialism. This entailed abandoning state atheism in favor of secularism and allowing a greater tolerance of Catholicism, as well as toning down the critique of religion in favor of praising specific aspects of religion, such as the solidarity and camaraderie of Catholics, especially in the context of anomie. This shift was particularly noticeable in the Italian Communist Party, which included several left-leaning Catholics as "independents" on its electoral lists. Many Italian communists such as Lucio Lombardo-Radice and Cesare Luporini started advocating for greater cooperation with Catholics, which led Enrico Berlinguer to highlight that the PCI "does not espouse atheism" at the 15th Congress of the party in 1979.


title: Marxism and religion

text: In the 1950s and the 1960s, liberation theology was the political praxis of Latin American theologians, such as Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay and Jon Sobrino of Spain, who made popular the phrase the "Preferential option for the poor". While liberation theology was most influential in Latin America, it has also been developed in other parts of the world such as black theology in the United States and South Africa, Palestinian liberation theology, Dalit theology in India and Minjung theology in South Korea. Consisting of a synthesis of Christian theology and Marxist socioeconomic analyses, liberation theology stresses social concern for the poor and advocates for liberation for oppressed peoples. In addition to being a theological matter, liberation theology was often tied to concrete political practice.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Camilo Torres Restrepo was one of the key thinkers of liberation theology. After his death, Torres became an icon in Colombia and in the rest of Latin America, as well as among many Catholics worldwide. Torres argued that Christians had fought socioeconomic inequalities in the past, and while the Gospel was not intended to change society, it influenced important changes like the abolition of slavery, the democratic valorization of the human being and Marxist humanism. Because of that, Torres considered Marxist humanism a product of the Christian humanist movement. Torres expressed his disappointment with the Church for its exclusively spiritual approach to social problems, arguing that a spiritual approach shouldn't exclude a socioeconomic one. He saw an alliance between Marxists and Catholics as necessary, arguing that they are the only movements that could bring about political change, and that both are devoted to fighting social inequality. He believed in the necessity of a revolution, seeing the poverty in Colombia as proof that the hitherto peaceful ways of the Catholic Church to bring about change have failed.


title: Marxism and religion

text: From the 1940s through the 1960s, communists, socialists and Islamists sometimes joined forces in opposing colonialism and seeking national independence. The communist Tudeh Party of Iran was allied with the Islamists in their ultimately successful rebellion against the Shah Pahlavi in 1979, although after the Shah was overthrown the Islamists turned on their one-time allies. The People's Mujahedin of Iran, an exiled political party which opposes the Islamic Republic, once advocated communist ideals, but has since abandoned them.


title: Marxism and religion

text: Communist philosopher Mir-Said (Mirza) Sultan-Galiev, Joseph Stalin's protégé at the People's Commissariat for Nationalities (Narkomnats), wrote in "The Life of Nationalities", the Narkomnats' journal.