Communism is a twentieth-century ideology professing to be based on the thought of Karl Marx, Vladimir I. Lenin, and, in some varieties, Mao Zedong. It is an atheistic doctrine, equally antagonistic to all forms of organised religion, including Islam, but many practising Muslims and individuals raised and educated in Muslim cultural traditions have been members or supporters of communist parties. Before the Russian revolution of October 1917, Lenin wrote a booklet entitled The right of nations to self-determination (1914) and a pamphlet entitled The socialist revolution and the