I missed this further up the thread. I'd just like to point out that communism and atheism, and religion in general, are not related. Marxist/Leninist societies that are based partially on the economic concept of communism usually include atheism as an important tenet, and, of course, Marx stated that ``religion is the opiate of the masses''. But he was hardly the originator of communism -- he just ``popularized'' it with the publication of Das Kapital.

In fact, the earliest reference to a communist society I can think of is Jesus' society. Of course, Paul bastardized all of that, but that's a different story.