Communism = Religion?

Many people believe that Communism and Atheism come hand and hand every time. Countless books and websites have popped up claiming Communism to be it's own religion. Communism is NOT a religion, although. Nor does affiliation with Communism dictate one's religion as Atheist (although typical.)

Communism can't be defined as religion because of one, small aspect... spiritualism. People will tell you that anything that is an institutionalized system based around belief and worship, like Communism, is a religion. Well, do you consider Monarchy a religion? No, of course you don't. So, Communism is not a religion because it lack of spiritualistic appeal.

So, is Communism essentially Atheism? Nope. I'll use Romania for an example, if you don't mind. I can tell you that religion wasn't the main reason people were persecuted in Romania. Just because they tortured Christians doesn't mean that it was BECAUSE they were Christian. Sure, Communist countries typically have a flair for inquisitions, but the fact-of-the-matter is that almost the whole population of Romania was, and still is, Christian. You can't tell me that Ceausescu managed come to power in a country when he wanted to slaughter/torture all of the citizens? Is the religion of the Communist leader the religion of the Communist country? No, thus Romania, a COMMUNIST country, is a chiefly CHRISTIAN country. Actually, a census taken of Romania showed that it had the highest concentration of Christians in the WORLD (with a resounding 99.5% of the population.) Some would argue with the persecution of Baptists in Romania, but that has nothing to do with Communism. It's on a very small level (more people are killed for hate crimes in the US in a month than Romania in a five years) and it's because that almost everyone in Romania is Romanian Orthodox, Romanian Catholic, or Protestant (making Baptist the religious minority.) Of course, things have change quite recently, but I'm talking about... the... old... Romania... yeah!

Do you know why Communism is so short-lived in some countries and not in others? Because there are certain pre-requisites for the Communism to succeed. These are the society should be a "free society", meaning it should give importance to an Individual over the society and that it should be based on equality, fraternity and liberty. These have been brought to China by Buddhism, Russia by Christianity and Vietnam by Taoism. The absence of these factors in Hindu India society could not foster the growth of Communism in India. So technically, "free society" (which also insinuates freedom of religion) is necessary in a Communist government... anything without is either 1. not truly Communism or 2. destined to fail.

Additionally, people have added on extra meaning to Communism. Why do most Communist leaders push for Atheism? Because it allows more influence for the government, of course! The technical definition for Communism is "a totalitarian system of GOVERNMENT in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production". We have all these Communist/Atheist leaders, but why? You know it's because instead of taking on just Marxist theories of economics they adopted the theories on religion, too ("opiate of the masses", etc.) Hey, if you're going to go Marxist... go all the way!

People think that just because Communism is secular it's automatically Atheist. Just because Communism isn't associated with religion, doesn't mean that there is NO religion. It's disproving induction again.

Went a little overboard, but I'll go to extensive lengths to prove I'm right... even if it's to myself.