Religious Persecution in Mao's China (Edexcel A Level History: Route E: Communist states in the twentieth century): Revision Note

Summary

• Communist theory dismisses all religion as superstition that is used to oppress the working classes

  • Religion also advocates ideas and values that were not compatible with Communism

• As a result, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Confucianism were all targeted and suppressed

  • Buddhism and Islam were also targeted because the regions where those faiths were popular were strategically important and vulnerable to foreign occupation

  • The spread of Christianity in China was seen as a form of Western Imperialism

  • Communists associated Confucianism with all that was wrong with the old China

• All of the religions were suppressed in the 1950s, with a fresh wave of violent attacks occurring during the Cultural Revolution in the mid 1960s

  • However, although severely weakened, none of the religions was completely eradicated from China

CCP Persecution of Buddhism, Confucianism, Ancestor Worship, Christianity and Islam

• Communists are atheists

  • They view organised religion as a device that was used by the controlling classes, or bourgeoisie, to deceive the working class

  • The promise of an afterlife, according to Communists, was a way of getting working people to accept their miserable lives without complaining

  • The view of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was that religion offered false hope and should be thrown off

• Religion and religious leaders also offered rival views and perspectives to the CCP

  • This gave Mao another motive to move against religion in China

Buddhism

• Buddhism, although Indian in origin, had been an important influence on life in China for over 1,000 years

  • It was particularly important in Tibet, where most of China's Buddhist's lived

  • Tibetan Buddhists followed the teachings of the Dalai Lama

  • Both Buddhism and Communism reject material possessions, leading the Dalai Lama to be initially welcoming to the CCP

• However, the CCP decided that the pacifist nature of Buddhism was incompatible with Communist China

  • But China's increased control over Tibet occurred for more than just religious reasons

    • Tibet borders India, a country viewed as being supportive of the West, in China

    • China was also involved in border disputes with India

• The CCP was unwilling to allow a region that bordered India to remain outside its control

  • The fear of a surge in Tibetan nationalism, fuelled by religious fervour, also convinced many in the CCP that Tibet and Buddhism had to be suppressed

Confucianism

• Confucianism is not a religion but a philosophical set of beliefs based on the ideas of Confucius, who lived in the 5th Century BCE

  • His ideas on the importance of family and kinship were deeply ingrained in Chinese society

  • His teachings had enormously influenced life in China for over 2,500 years, but were rejected by the CCP

  • The CCP looked to reduce the importance of the family

  • They also wanted the Chinese people to look to the teachings of Mao and Marx rather than Confucius

Ancestor Worship

• One of the key elements of Confucianism is ancestor worship

  • This is the belief that there is a reciprocal relationship between the living and the dead

  • The spirits of the dead have to be sustained through the tending of graves and temples

  • It is believed that this will lead to the dead intervening in the lives of the living and bringing good fortune

  • Neglecting the dead, however, would create a 'hungry ghost' who would bring bad luck and disaster on the living

• Ancestor worship was condemned as being a backward superstition by the CCP

Christianity

• Of all the religions, Christianity was probably viewed with the most suspicion and contempt by the CCP

  • Catholic and Protestant missionaries had established a Christian presence in China in the 19th Century and converted many Chinese people

  • To the CCP, Christianity represented Western capitalist imperialism

Islam

• Much like Buddhism, the CCP objected to Islam's presence in China on both ideological and strategic grounds

  • The beliefs of conservative Muslims on issues like gender equality were completely incompatible with Communist beliefs

  • The CCP also resented the power and influence that the Islamic religious leaders, known as mullahs, had over their communities

  • Finally, the Muslim northwestern provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu and Qinghai were all geographically close to the Soviet Union

  • The oil and gas reserves they contained greatly appealed to the USSR

    • This made Mao want to increase his control over the Muslim provinces

Methods of religious suppression: campaigns, closures and propaganda

The Suppression of Tibet

• The initial invasion of Tibet in 1950 by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was the first attempt by the CCP to destroy Tibetan Buddhism

  • Buddhism was banned from being practised in public

  • The Tibetan language was replaced by Mandarin

• This suppression led to a mass uprising by the Tibetans against Chinese rule in 1959

  • This triggered an even harsher clampdown by the Chinese, with many Buddhist monks being executed

  • Many Buddhist monasteries were closed down and turned into PLA barracks

  • The only monasteries that remained open had to accept Chinese state control and join the Chinese Buddhist Association

  • The Dalai Lama fled to northern India

• Things turned even worse during the Cultural Revolution (opens in a new tab) when the Buddhists became the targets of the Red Guards

  • Over 6,000 monasteries were destroyed, and thousands of Buddhists were murdered

Attacks on Confucianism

• The CCP presented Confucianism as representing all that was bad in China

  • It was blamed for holding China back and for allowing China to be colonised and humiliated by foreign powers

• During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards systematically destroyed monuments to Confucius, especially in his home town of Qufu

  • Tending and honouring the graves of the dead was discouraged, especially during the Qingming festival

  • The Qingming festival was replaced by the National Memorial Day

    • Instead of paying respects to their ancestors, people were encouraged to honour Communist soldiers who had died in the Civil War

Targeting Christian Missionaries

• The CCP had made its dislike of Christianity and the foreign missionaries clear long before it came to power

  • After 1949, fear of arrest and being accused of being a foreign spy led most Protestant missionaries to flee the country

  • Although many Catholic missionaries also left China, many others stayed after the Pope insisted they did so

• Many churches were closed down and had their buildings and property confiscated by the state

  • However, the CCP allowed Christianity to continue to exist in China as long as they were members of the 'Patriotic Churches'

  • These were state-controlled churches that were established in 1953 and that hung portraits of Mao in their Churches, schools and hospitals

  • The Catholic Church condemned this development and threatened to excommunicate any members of its clergy who joined

• The Cultural Revolution saw another wave of hostility aimed at Christianity, as it was seen as both foreign and representing an old way of thinking

  • Thousands of priests were arrested, and public worship was banned

The Suppression of Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai

• The PLA was sent to the provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu and Qinghai, which had a high proportion of Muslims, in 1950

  • This helped remove the threat of an occupation from the Soviet Union

• The military invasion was then followed up by the centrally planned resettlement of large numbers of non-muslim and ethnically different Han Chinese

  • This was intended to weaken the regional, Islamic identity of the provinces

• Although Islam was not banned, as with other religions, it was brought under state control

  • This was done through the setting up of the Chinese Islamic Association, which all Muslim leaders were required to join

• The Cultural Revolution brought fresh attacks on Muslim worship, and many mosques were vandalised and closed

  • Muslim leaders were arrested and dragged in front of humiliating struggle sessions

Impact of anti-religious campaigns 1949–76: how effective was suppression of religion?

The Suppression of Tibet

• Tibet was brought firmly under the control of the CCP, and all ambitions for remaining as an autonomous region have been quashed

  • Many of the temples and outward signs of Buddhism have been destroyed

• However, despite the destruction and brutality, Buddhism was never eradicated from Chinese life

  • Buddhism continues to be the most widely practised religion in China well into the 21st century

The Continuation of Confucian Values

• Confucian values had been too central to the Chinese way of life for too long to be eradicated within a generation or two

  • Its views on the importance of social harmony and family had shaped Chinese society for over two thousand years

  • Despite harsh criticism of the CCP and the creation of the Communes, Confucian values, such as honouring dead ancestors, survive to this day

The Weakening of Christianity

• The persecution of Christians and state control of the churches led to an enormous international outcry from both state and religious leaders

  • The CCP were completely unmoved by the criticism, and the persecution and control continued

  • As a result, both the Catholic and Protestant faiths were left severely weakened in China and have never recovered to their pre-1949 levels

Continued Restriction of Muslims

• Despite the resistance of some Islamic communities, the suppression and restriction of Islamic worship continue to this day

  • There was a modest Islamic revival in the 1970s, but the Uyghur Muslims continue to suffer restrictions and oppression

To what extent was the CCP successful in suppressing religious practice in China in the years 1949 to 1976?

• The CCP's attempts to suppress religion have been in different ways

  • Some historians believe that it was highly successful and that only traces of religion remained

  • Others argue that they took a subtle and pragmatic approach to restrict the influence of religion in China

Religion was all but wiped out

• The reforms of the 1950s, followed by the brutal attacks of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, essentially eradicated religion in China

Key historians

Traditional festivals were banned, along with the old rituals of birth, marriage and death; the destruction of family altars, genealogies and spirit tablets commemorating the ancestors was aimed at breaking the old spiritual link with earlier generations. It was a time, one outside observer said, when the Chinese people ‘lost the warmth of home’. Hundreds of thousands died tortured and brutalised in mock trials and summary executions by the Red Guards and the mobs they incited. Virtually all temples, mosques and churches were closed and vandalised. In a gruesome symbolic attack on the hated ‘feudal’ past, the tomb of the Ming emperor Wanli outside Beijing was opened and his remains, with those of his chief consorts, were dragged out, denounced and burned. In Confucius’ hometown Qufu, the local people saved some architectural treasures by boarding them up and painting them with Maoist slogans; the family cemetery of Confucius, however, was wrecked and some of the bodies within dug up, though the tomb of the Master himself was found to be empty when the Red Guards opened it. Religion was banned: by 1971, one foreign visitor reported that it was possible to travel right across eastern China and see no sign of religious practice of any form.

Michael Wood, The Story of China: A portrait of a civilisation and its people, 2020

The influence of religion remains, but was gradually reduced

Although the CCP wanted to eliminate religion in China, it took a long-term approach that left religion in place but removed those who were opposed to the CCP

Key historians

A fundamental ideological opposition to religion, and the goal of its elimination, remained central to CCP doctrine. Practical experience, however, had shown that this goal could only be achieved in the very long term, and was secondary to the more immediate objectives of defeating the CCP’s enemies, establishing CCP control, and rebuilding the socioeconomic structure. Indeed, though victorious, the CCP still considered itself at war—both literally, since the Korean War pitted China against the United States as early as 1950–53; and virtually, since the cold war era was in full swing, placing it firmly at odds with America and its allies, such as the KMT regime in Taiwan, which still hoped to annihilate the Communist regime and reestablish its rule over China. Thus, in many ways, the CCP maintained many of the attitudes and strategies developed during the wars against Japan and the KMT. This involved, on the one hand, eliminating all anti-Communist elements in society while, through the United Front, building alliances with sympathetic non-Communist forces. In the case of religion, the strategy was to reinforce friendly elements within each religious community (these sympathetic individuals were collectively referred to as the “religious sector” ) so that, with CCP guidance, they could then lead an internal struggle to purge uncooperative religious leaders and networks. This involved avoiding frontal attacks on people’s beliefs, displaying overt respect for religion, and nurturing friendly clerics within each community. The latter were appointed to political positions in bodies such as the People’s Congress or the People’s Consultative Conference at the local, provincial, or national level. Such appointments gave the leading clerics a higher social status than they could have ever hoped for in the previous political regime, and integrated them into the socialist political culture.

Vincent Goossaert, David A. Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China, 2011