by Western liberalism was developed as a secular replacement for the Christian religion that forms one of the four pillars of Western civilization — 1) the Judaeo-Christian religious tradition, 2) , and 4) modern science and technology. Western liberalism is an attempt to bring the first three in line with modern science as the latest development. Greek thought based on reason and Roman law and organization can be viewed as precursors to the development of modern science. But traditional religion was a fierce opponent of the rise of modern science and stood forcefully in the way of its development and the promulgation of scientific understanding. Whether consciously or not, the Church recognized the threat of challenge and even replacement, which, of course, did eventually happen.
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Mike Norman considers the following as important: liberalism and religion, Russian Revolution, traditionalism
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Bourgeois liberalism aimed to replace the feudal system, in which governance was vested in monarchs, aristocrats and landed gentry. with capitalism, with governance by owners of private property in constitutional republics.
Marx and Engels belonged to the anarchist wing, which was opposed to bourgeois liberalism where property owners replace feudal lords. Anarchism as a from of liberalism views the culmination of liberalism as the replacement of the nation state, where rule is based on law and its enforcement, with consensus governance that precludes legalized state violence, as well as intimidation and coercion based on the threat of violence. Anarchists recognized that the so-called rule of law under bourgeois liberalism simply leads to a new privileged class and an oligarchy of property owners.
While bourgeois liberalism came to dominate Western capitalistic countries that were constitutional republics, the anarchist model came to dominance in the East through the Russian and Chinese revolutions. While Western bourgeois liberalism has predictably led to oligarchy plutonomy, "sanctified" by Western political theory based on liberal economics as the discoverer of the natural laws of economics that dominate growth and progress, the communist project foundered in Russia and has been modified in the direction of bourgeois liberalism in China.
Religion has been replaced as a dominant factor in Western bourgeois liberalism, replaced by science, without actually attacking religion, although some Western liberals hold that religion is acting as a drag and should be rejected as superstitious. But under communism, religion was attacked by the state "acting in the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat" as "the opium of the people" that prevented mass consciousness raising.
The problem was that in the East, communism was far less successful in replacing religion, even with suppression, than scientism was in the West, owing to the success of science in improving individuals lives. Communism failed as a replacement for religion in the USSR, although the Chinese Communist Party has not yet given up on it. Nevertheless, President Xi Jinping is now attempting to integrate Confucian tradition with market socialism with Chinese characteristics.
On the occasion of the October Revolution centenary we decided to ask personalities from the Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia and western countries the same set of questions. These interviews are intended to represent a modest contribution to the re-evaluation of the events that had an impact in the 20th century. Although 100 years have passed, many misconceptions about the profound causes of this major overturn and the way the „proletarian revolution” is treated by the political elite, the academia and the church hierarchy still remain in the public consciousness of ex-communist countries and of the entire world. We think it is vital to find appropriate answers to questions of this intricacy.