Is Communisim Compatible with Christianity?

There are some Christians who feel that Communism, to some degree, encompasses the essence of Christianity. Philosopher and authoress, Ayn Rand, seemed to group Communism, Christianity and most forms of mysticism into a group that she referred to as altruists or the collective. In this post, I want to look at how Christianity does not fit in with Communistic thinking.

First of all, Christianity is not, nor should be a political institution. Christianity is a religion, a path towards spirituality. Communism is a political/economical and social system based on the Communist Manifesto by Marx. Marx himself explained that religion must be abolished for communism to work in his Communist Manifesto. He makes it clear that in order to have true and lasting happiness, religion must be abolished.

Let's take a look at some of Marx's thinking in his own words:
Karl Marx (from the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right).
"Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society, produce religion, a reversed world-consciousness, because they are a reversed world. Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore immediately the fight against the other world, of which religion is the spiritual aroma.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.