I mostly agree with you, but it was the USSR that cut ties, not China. Mao only rightfully criticized Khrushchevs revisionism, but in response Khrushchev cut economic aid, later on all political ties and tried to stage a coup against Mao. Same with Albania, it was Khrushchev that broke the ties.
I mean, i said what i said because in some socialist countries religion was very heavily suppressed imo, in Albania for example or USSR at times. Getting a Bible or a Quran was very hard and so on. I think assets of churches should be expropiated indeed. Churches should become like a kind of mass organization imo, with all its assets owned by the state and the organization also controlled by the state. The church functions as a church but is subordinated to the party and takes orders from it. Again, i think religious people who can think in a materialist way should be allowed to join the party. Ofc there should be high standard requirements, but if they meet them and are believers, i think its ok. I understand why you think this is impossible, since your country is full of religious nutjobs (no offense), but i can guarantee you its true. Here in Spain religion has much less influence in society than in Poland, and youll find many people who consider themselves catholic but dont appear like it at all. They rarely go to church, follow no restrictions associated with catholicism and dont care about what the Pope says about abortion, gays or some other thing. My mom is like that, shes a scientist so she can apply rational thinking, but she still believes. I often ask her why (im atheist), and she says it makes her feel protected during hard times. I think that these type of people, which believe me are very common here in western europe, should be allowed to join the party.
I also think you shouldnt discard the progressive potential for religion. I think religion is a tool, so its not bad by itself. Sure religion is very often used by reactionaries, but it can also be used progressively. Again what China did in Tibet, they picked a loyal Panchen Lama, and now he uses his strong influence as a religious leader to promote socialism, friendship with the chinese government and fights the tibetan CIA opposition. Indeed, the beliefs of the mainstream religions (islam, christianity, judaism and buddhism) are often quite compatible with socialism, since they promote friendship with others, helping the poor, solidarity, etc. Hell if Jesus Christ was alive today hed be 100% called a “communist” by the libs. Thats where christian socialism and islamic socialism comes into the picture. In countries with strong religious influence it can be a great way to strenghten socialism i think. Ofc you should be able to control the religious leaders for this to work, otherwise the reactionaries can use the religion against socialism. For example i think in Poland it wouldnt work, because the religious leader is the Pope, and hes in Rome so you cant control him. It could work tho in Russia for example, where you have the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church there. You put someone loyal in charge, control him and use christianity to promote socialism. I think its an option as valid as state atheism. Both options could work in the appropiate material conditions i think. What do you think?
I mean, i still think tho that we shouldnt supress religion, we should control it, like in China. Religion will fade away with communism, but until then we must deal with it somehow. Supressing it doesnt work (as a pole you sure must know) and its wrong. By controlling it, we remove cults and reactionary branches of mainstream religions and put in its place religious leaders loyal to the Communist Party. China did this great in Tibet. They replaced the proUS Panchen Lama with a prochinese one, and as soon as the Dalai Lama dies the same thing will be done, and it will be the end for the US funded tibetan opposition. Same in Xinjiang, they have religious leaders who respect secularism and are loyal to Beijing. I also think we shouldnt ban religious people from joining the Communist Party as long as they can separate their faith from reality and do a materialist analysis (meaning no creationist type idiots). Thats what i think.
Even if they claim to be ML its bad. Here the Communist Party of Spain claims to be ML but its 100% liberal. They are in coalition government with these Podemos idiots and the socdems. They love Zelenski, say pootin man bad all the time and support sending weapons to neonazis. While many members of the party are based the leadership are a gang of corrupt opportunists and are destroying the party. Although imo the party was killed in 1975, when they rejected revolution in favor of liberal democracy. Honestly i think the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) is the only mainstream communist party in western europe that isnt 100% social imperialist.
Chomsky is worse than BE though. BE doesnt say “akchually the collapse of the USSR was a good thing” thank god. He also doesnt say the good ol “USSR was state capitalist” bs
After Stalin died in 1953, Khrushchev slowly but surely centralized all power in his hands. He did this by inventing “evil crimes committed by Stalin” and purging anyone who disagreed under the accusation of “having collaborated with stalinist crimes”. For example, Lavrenty Beria suffered this fate. Principled party members like Molotov and Kaganovich tried to depose Khrushchev in a vote but he staged a military coup and had them arrested too. Once all opposition was gone, he continued “destalinization” by proposing his “peaceful coexistence theory”, meaning that capitalist west and socialist east can coexist peacefully forever, so no reason to worry about WW3. This is ludicrous, socialism and capitalism simply cannot coexist, in the end one always wins over the other. He also said that the Communist Party should represent “the entire soviet people”, instead of just the workers and peasants, basically including the bourgeoisie into the party. This contradicts every basic marxist tenet of class struggle. No, you cannot unite bourgeoisie and proletariat under 1 party, its impossible. The workers and peasants only must rule under socialism.
Mao saw all of this, and initially tolerated it. But after the military coup in 1957 and his “peaceful coexistence” theory, he had enough. He began rightfully criticizing Khrushchev, to which the USSR responded by cutting economic aid. In the end this escalated in 1961 when the USSR cut diplomatic relations with China. From then on, the international communist movement split in 2, proUSSR or proChina. Albanias Enver Hoxha supported Maos criticisms, which ultimately led to the Soviet Albanian Split, in which Albania sided with China against USSR.
PD: This is obviously a simplification, research more yourself.