Quote is from "Dizzy with Success" by Joseph Stalin: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/03/02.htm
the purring r of the revolutionary 
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Sure, but he's not decrying any form of atheism, he's not saying the bells shouldn't be removed eventually.
He's decrying these actions not as inherently bad, but as a part of jumping too far ahead trying to implement their own ideas of socialism and central governance, especially in one tiny area, without resolving class contradictions. So instead they just fuel infighting in the working class, rather than achieve progress. He's actually arguing for a degree of class reductionism.
How could there have arisen in our midst such blockheaded exercises in “socialisation,” such ludicrous attempts to overleap oneself, attempts which aim at bypassing classes and the class struggle, and which in fact bring grist to the mill of our class enemies?
They could have arisen only in the atmosphere of our “easy” and “unexpected” successes on the front of collective-farm development.
They could have arisen only as a result of the blockheaded belief of a section of our Party: “We can achieve anything!”, “There’s nothing we can’ do!”
They could have arisen only because some of our comrades have become dizzy with success and for the moment have lost clearness of mind an sobriety of vision.
To correct the line of our work in the sphere of collective-farm development, we must put an end to these sentiments.
He is calling out excessively strident atheism though.
He's calling out premature atheism, that's about all.
He's actually arguing for a degree of class reductionism.
Is it though? In the context it kinda seems like the opposite.
So sassy, I love it. It's always fun when big serious figures do this. Of course I also love the famous "Trotsky has sent in a silly letter. We shall neither print it, nor reply."
lmao it's really got the three r's for emphasis in there. I wonder what it looked like in Russian.
That they are going too far ahead of the people?
Right
What should they do instead?
Focus on social evils and superstitions that harm them, and find ways to help them there?
Education, literacy, housing, medical access, jobs with livable wages. Things that actually materially improve standards of living.
What AB said, basically. There are places where religion can be a serious impediment to progress that we should be immediately concerned with, but generally the best way to foster secularism in society besides also destroying religious political organizing (which is not the same as shutting down churches generally) is through education and improving people's material conditions.
You can look at the course of development for the standard of living for the American working class from the post-ww2 period to now and see a steady decline of religiousness corresponding to the steady increases to standards of living, which in the past few decades is mirrored by the steady decline of standards of living corresponding to new waves of religious fervor as the people have no outlet to channel their frustrations towards their predicament other than what has been passed down to them by their forefathers; the sweep painkiller of going to church and believing you'll get pie in the sky when you die.
DJ Stalin, Dizzy With Success
Here's what i have to say about Christians: if the waldensians and cathars and hussites were so wrong why'd you have to kill them
Well you see what happened when they didn't, you get protestants.
counterpoint: you only got protestants after purging all of those first
Counter-counterpoint: they didn't purge hard enough
90% of Catholic sectarians stop massacring just before preserving the unity of the Church forever. 
Ignatius shouldn't have stopped at Paris.
They're as much of a plague upon the earth as the germans, which is coincidentally the birthplace of the protestant reformation - another reason to rebalkanize Germany into a thousand little city-states.
They're as much of a plague upon the earth as the germans
Zgadzam się 
don't get rid of the bells for nakedly ideological reasons, get rid of them because the noise is a public nuisance
One of the few things I miss about being in the deep south was I always knew the top of the hour. Sure therw was an additional annoying song played at noon that was under a minute, but the benefit of knowing the hour no matter where I was was great
Yeah how tf else am I supposed to know what time it is
You've never worked outside without being able to keep a watch I'd wager. Knowing the time without needing to pay money is one of the few good things churches have offered.
Same, but I actually enjoy the bells. Car noises however, I don't. Yet im forced to listen to that shit all day
You've never worked outside without being able to keep a watch I'd wager
I don't think I know any job where you have to be outside without any access to a watch, phone, radio, whatever.
Renaissance fair carnie?
I wonder if his training to be an orthodox priest in the seminary affected his outlook regarding socialism & atheism
Religion is useful and I think a socialist movement should use it