labor camps, where they soon perished from starva-
tion and overwork. During the late 1940s communists
in North Korea conducted a systematic removal of re-
ligion from society, followed by the complete eradica-
tion of all religious practice during the 1960s and
1970s. Immediately after the establishment of the com-
munist government in China, opportunities for reli-
gious practice were reduced and ordination was
restricted. At the outset of the Cultural Revolution in
the mid-1960s, Buddhist practice all but disappeared
from China. In Vietnam, repression of religion began
with the victory of the communists in April 1975, af-
ter which communists destroyed or confiscated Bud-
dhist pagodas and Buddhist office buildings. By 1982
there were only about twenty-three hundred monks
left in Cambodia, a drastic decrease from the sixty
thousand monks in Cambodia in 1975 when the na-
tion first became communist. The situation in Tibet is
unique in that the communists were not Tibetans but
Chinese who claimed Tibet as their territory. Before
the Chinese invasion, there were more than six thou-
sand monasteries in Tibet; fewer than twenty monas-
teries survived persecution by Chinese communists.
The spiritual and political leader of Tibet, the four-
teenth DALAILAMA, was exiled to India in 1959.Since the communist persecutions began, Buddhists
have generally held fast to the Buddhist teaching
against injuring others. Vietnamese monks performed
SELF-IMMOLATIONas a protest against communist per-
secution, and for half a century the Dalai Lama has ap-
pealed to the world to stop the suffering of the Tibetan
people and the destruction of Tibetan Buddhism, but
Buddhists have refused to resort to violence to settle
the tragedy brought upon Buddhism and Buddhist fol-
lowers. The Buddhist message of nonviolent protest
has brought awareness to the world of the importance
of the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the urgency
of human rights issues. Through their faithfulness to
Buddhist teachings and their belief in human values inCOMMUNISM ANDBUDDHISM
Chinese vice-premier Chen Yi enters Lhasa in 1956 to attend ceremonies marking the incorporation of Tibet into the Chinese state. He
is accompanied by the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama went into exile in 1959. © Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced
by permission.