Blog #3 Part 2

Hey there, and welcome to Part 2 of my third blog post! In this section, I will be looking for an answer to the second third and fourth questions I posed in my second blog post I recommend you skim it for context if you haven't already read it. I will also briefly discuss the information I will be including in my final product (i.e., information I haven't included in any blog posts, such as the answer to my primary question). 


Firstly, let's touch upon the connection between Communism and Utopia. The term "Utopia" refers to a perfect or ideal state, where every citizen is entitled to equality, liberty, and overall happiness. Throughout history, many thinkers have come up with theories about what it would be like to create a Utopian society and how life would be led within it. The most well-known is Thomas More, an eminent Renaissance humanist who wrote a book entitled Utopia in 1516.

Figure 1: A portrait of Thomas More. His novel Utopia lays the framework for many Communist ideas and inspired Karl Marx. He was one of the first individuals to suggest abolishing private property. In his book, private property is, in fact, a completely foreign concept with which citizens are unfamiliar. He promoted a high level of religious tolerance, free speech, as well as the equal distribution of food, money, and status. Education in his Utopian state is based on ethics and happiness. The government is a democracy, with an elected sovereign and well-organized public agents that 'rule.' The only wars that are seen as worthwhile are ones to defend or liberate the nation. However, it should be noted that there are slaves performing undesirable tasks in More's Utopia.






More's Utopian society is essentially an escape from or alternate form of reality, where morals govern beliefs and society. In theory, it sounded like every working class individual's dream. Yet, in reality, the ideas in More's book were never executed in the perfect way he envisioned. Although, as stated above, many of his ideas fed into the core principles of Scientific Socialism and Communism (i.e. the requirements to create a Communist society), they were taken to an extreme and sometimes modified, which had negative results. In many Communist societies that sprang up in the twentieth century, only a small percentage of people ended up enjoying the benefits of living in "Utopia" while the rest lived in poverty, much like in a Capitalist society. For instance, education in Communist countries was used to spread propaganda among an impressionable populace. Private property was abolished, but for different reasons than it would be in a true Utopian society: instead of the focus of the act being equality, the Communists focused on political gains for the state.


This leads me to writing about one of the main reasons why Communist societies may have collapsed in the end: the role of religion. As previously mentioned, More's Utopian Society favoured religious tolerance, while countries such as the Soviet Union attempted to ban religion altogether. In Book 2, Page 97 of Utopia, More says that the ruler of the fictitious Utopian world, King Utopus "...decreed that every man might cultivate the religion of his choice."

Figures 2 and 3: Anti-religious propaganda from the Soviet Union. Figure 2 says "the struggle against religion is the struggle for socialism" and Figure 3 says "there is no God." The Soviet Union was able to ban religion by creating specialized propaganda units (i.e. League of the Godless), destroying houses of worship, killing or imprisoning thousands of religious supporters (especially members of the Russian Orthodox Church), and making it illegal to teach  religion to children. They believed that, in order to suppress rebellion, there must be widespread atheism across the country, with the former head of the Soviet state (Vladimir Lenin) comparing religion to a venereal disease. Soviet critic Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn confirms this. He said "militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy. It is not a side effect, but the central pivot."




In my final product, I will answer my primary question, "Did the Industrial Revolution Lead to the Cold War" by analyzing all the information I found on how the "west" (i.e. Britain, United States, etc.) and the "east" (i.e. the Soviet Union) reacted to the Industrial Revolution and the concepts of Capitalism and Communism that rose alongside or in reaction to it. I will then determine whether there is a connection between them and the Cold War.

Works Cited

Fraser, Giles. "Why the Soviet Attempt to Stamp out Religion Failed." The Guardian, October 26, 2017. Accessed December 16, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2017/oct/26/why-the-soviet-attempt-to-stamp-out-religion-failed.

Marc'hadour, Germain P. "Thomas More." Encyclopædia Britannica. November 22, 2018. Accessed December 16, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-More-English-humanist-and-statesman.

More, Thomas. Utopia. 1551

PIRNUTA, Oana Andreea, and Ioana Anca GRIGORESCU. On Utopia- Between Philosophy and Communism. University of Brasov, Romania. May 27, 2011. Accessed December 16, 2018. http://www.afahc.ro/ro/afases/2011/socio/PIRNUTA_GRIGORESCU_2.pdf.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn." Encyclopædia Britannica. December 07, 2018. Accessed December 16, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aleksandr-Solzhenitsyn.