Is North Korea A Communist Country?

In 1955, President Kim Il Sung of The "Democratic" People's Republic of North Korea introduced the "Juche" philosophy in North Korea. 


 Even though "Juche" is not complete communism, it adopts many communist concepts, Including:

1) Independence in politics

2) Self-reliance in the economy

3) and Self-defense in military.

Kim Il Sung
North Korea's "Eternal President"

According to the Juche philosophy, there is NO GOD, other than North Korea's "Eternal President" Kim Il Sung. 

However, there are still some forms of religion in North Korea, including:
Korean Shamanism - 16%
Cheondoism - 13.5%
Buddhism - 4.5%
Christianity - 1.7 %
& Lastly, coming in at a whole 64.3% is those who are "irreligious" 

Religion in North Korea:

So, as you can see, even though North Korea is starting to branch out with it's religion, we can still see that the communist way is still lingering, so what do you think?

Is North Korea a Communist Country or Not?
Leave your opinion below!

Religion in Communism

Now that you know what communism is, we can get to the main topic: Is there room for religion in communism? Well, Karl Marx (that guy with the dope beard), the father of communism sure didn't think so, in fact, he said that "religion in the opiate of the masses". That sounds a bit harsh, but hey, Marx was one smart cookie.

But it does raises some questions though. Karl Marx theorized IDEAL communism. Now, we know that whenever people get involved, whatever it may be, things are far from ideal. If the communist countries in our world today are not ideal, would there no room for religion? Or would religion seep through the cracks of their "less than ideal" governing methods? 

Tell me what you think down below.  

What is Communism?

What is communism? Well, if you have used the internet within the past decade, you may know a thing or two about it. You may know of the Internet's idea of what communism is, which may not be accurate, but something this colorful can't be bad.

Some of you may know what communism actually is, the form of government often associated with corruption, evil, and various other colorful terms one would use to describe their mother in law. But for those of you who don't really have an idea, here is some context, as well as some terms:
  

• Communism: a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.                     
• Socialism: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. 
• Democracy: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

 

Included at the bottom of this post is a link to a video which, in my opinion, does a dandy job of explaining what communism is, and what it is all about: 
Khan Academy: Communism

China, a Communist Country or Not?

The current constitution of china has been created in 1982 and has been

revised numerous times since. The constitution includes many civil

rights such as free speech, press, worship, the right to trial, and the right to own private property. However, in practice this constitution

has widely been disapproved. The government has done nothing to ensure that the new laws followed the constitution. The judicial system does not review the new laws set in place.

China actually is not all that communist now a days. They seem as if they have drifted away from true marxism after the Cultural revolution in 1976. True communism nothing is owned by a single person but is rather shared with the community. For example, in China everything is at least partially privately

owned. Whereas the Chinese Communist party under the Chairman Mao owned almost every factory in the nation.

China is becoming more of a capitalist country than it is a communist, for example the government owns every inch of the land in China. So as you can see the

idea of "True communism" has been long gone in China.

Religion in China

Four major religions in China

1) Buddhism - 13000 temples,

- 33 Buddhist colleges

- 50 publications in China 

2) Taoism - 1500 temples

3) Islam - +3000 mosques 

              - 18 million believers 

4) Christianity - 18000 priests 

                        - 12 religion sites 

                        - 10 million Christians  

Now you may ask yourself how are these religion groups influenced by Communism in china.

Well the communist party in china has gone through many changes on views pertaining to religion in china. They party went from wanting the support of the religious leaders to extremist persecution in the Cultural Revolution. And so in the 1980's the state decided to monitor the religious groups.  The views of the Party on religion, from policies and actions of the last ten years, can be divided in two approaches: religion as a “threat” and religion as “social capital." These different views are difficult to identify because the communist party worried of giving the impression of division internally. We can assume that at this moment the party's position on religious affairs shows signs of moving toward the “religion as capital” approach. 

So, is china moving away from communism and more towards capitalism?