AHC: Keep communism from becoming anti-religious

As it says on the tin. With a POD of your choice, keep communism from developing its decisive atheist standpoint on religion.
 
As it says on the tin. With a POD of your choice, keep communism from developing its decisive atheist standpoint on religion.

Communism in India doesn't particularly care one way or the other about religion. It rejects favouritism towards religious organisations and practices but hasn't got any actual issues with religion.

It helps that Indian religions don't actually work in the same exclusive way as Abrahamic religions do.
 
Communism in India doesn't particularly care one way or the other about religion. It rejects favouritism towards religious organisations and practices but hasn't got any actual issues with religion.

It helps that Indian religions don't actually work in the same exclusive way as Abrahamic religions do.

I always wanted to see an ATL who bring new political ideas and ideologies from India....
 
I've heard of ideas for timelines where a collapsing Ottoman Empire ends up becoming an Islamic Socialist state, with the ideology that the Caliphate and the dictatorship of the proletariat are the same thing...
 
Isn't iran a bit leftwing for the economical side of the things BTW? I always thought the republic was a bit social-democratic for the economy. (But of course, the rest is QUITE rightwing, let's say by euphemism.)
 
It wasn't until the Paris Commune that socialism turned against religion, or more accurately until organized religion turned against socialist movements. Change the circumstances of the Commune's origin, or avoid it altogether, and the church would continue to be split between those who supported the reactionaries and and those who supported the revolutionaries.
 
Another big issue was that over in Russia the Church was still one of the main sources of massive wealth compared to the poor peasantry along with the Tsar and the Neauveau Riche. Theoretically, I suppose we could have a leader adopt the idea that religion is a necessary crutch for people, but insists that churches should draw all income from donations and have a certain cap on capital. Though that's likely to go more anti-religion later anyway.
 
Can't speak for other religions, but I've literally lost count of the number of times I've heard lefty types argue "Jesus was the first socialist/communist/liberal" or whatever. Surely it wouldn't be impossible to raise this from a throwaway line used to annoy evangelical conservatives into an official position of a communist party, with selective quotes from the gospels, comparing monasteries to collective farms, and so on?
 
Maybe prevent Austrian intervention in the Papal Conclave of 1903. In continuation of Pope Leo XIII's policies, the college wanted to elect the very liberal Mariano Rampolla. Francis Joseph vetoed the selection, however, throwing the conclave into chaos.

It won't get you a Communist Vatican, but you would get a Church that is much more receptive to some of the ideas outlined in communist literature. Christian Communism could just end up overtaking OTL communism.
 
Just have the Christian socialist movements gain some sort of majority. Not to difficult as it would only require a few changes to communist writers after Marx.
 
I've heard of ideas for timelines where a collapsing Ottoman Empire ends up becoming an Islamic Socialist state, with the ideology that the Caliphate and the dictatorship of the proletariat are the same thing...

I do wonder if a movement could have arisen that seeked to 'return' Ottoman governence back to a super-idealized conception of the medieval Caliphate.
 
I do wonder if a movement could have arisen that seeked to 'return' Ottoman governence back to a super-idealized conception of the medieval Caliphate.

"The Peoples' Ummah", something like that. There are serious anarchist and egalitarian streams within Islam, I could see the idea of "Submission to Allah, not to man" being turned into a kind of Islamic utopia, equivalent to the final stage of Marxist dialectic.

Maybe somehow the new 'Caliph' and a community of imams could become something like the "vanguard party" in Leninism, acting as the group that would "guide the Ummah and its people to its final stage of total submission to Allah alone".
 
"The Peoples' Ummah", something like that. There are serious anarchist and egalitarian streams within Islam, I could see the idea of "Submission to Allah, not to man" being turned into a kind of Islamic utopia, equivalent to the final stage of Marxist dialectic.

Maybe somehow the new 'Caliph' and a community of imams could become something like the "vanguard party" in Leninism, acting as the group that would "guide the Ummah and its people to its final stage of total submission to Allah alone".

Hmm. Sounds similiar to what I was thinking of, with just a few minor differences.
 
As others have said, the best bet is some form of Christian Socialism becoming notable. Have some small, but influential sect start handing out support of Communism, perhaps have it preached as "God's equality to all men."

The Bible has enough elements in it to be used in a socialist/communist context if you look for it. If Christian Socialists help Communism gain a foothold in a major country (UK, France, Germany...), I figure even secular Communists would begrudgingly support/tolerate them.
 
"The Peoples' Ummah", something like that. There are serious anarchist and egalitarian streams within Islam, I could see the idea of "Submission to Allah, not to man" being turned into a kind of Islamic utopia, equivalent to the final stage of Marxist dialectic.

Maybe somehow the new 'Caliph' and a community of imams could become something like the "vanguard party" in Leninism, acting as the group that would "guide the Ummah and its people to its final stage of total submission to Allah alone".

Same thing here. I've also thought that if the Russian monarchy collapses at the same time eventually leading to an Orthodox Communist Bloc which similarly claims to be the vanguard of all Orthodox Christendom (i.e. installs puppet regimes in Eastern Europe), the two rival Communist Blocs will hate each other much more than they hate Bourgeoisie Capitalists.

Eventually this leads to a non-Communist Iran (whom the Caliphate will denounce as schismatic heretic capitalists) developing close ties with Russia against the People's Caliphate, and minority populations in both blocs become bargaining chips between the two.

Stranger things have happened in OTL.
 
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