ABSTRACT
The Marxian catchword, "religion is the opium of the people", is false as far as concerns the European West—where the Church is so often in open or tacit opposition to the State, and is unquestionably never so interlinked with the State as it was in Old Russia. Prior to the revolution, family feeling was much stronger in Russia than in the European West. The bolshevik campaign against the family obviously lacks sincerity, in as much as the majority of Russian communists are far from being inclined to renounce marriage and family life. The Party has not yet renounced the aim of destroying marriage and the family. Its best ally in this campaign against the will of the people is the lack of housing accommodation, a shortage so terrible that in comparison therewith even the disastrous housing conditions of latter-day Germany seem almost ideal. The bolsheviks regard the housing shortage with mixed feelings.
