At any rate, in ancient times, vegetarianism appears to have been both widespread and well-tolerated, and often dominant (for practical reasons if none other.) Before about 300 A.D., the majority of the world's population was on a largely vegetarian diet, and a high-meat diet was far more likely to cause raised eyebrows than one which eschewed meat entirely. Even the Romans, despite the myths that have come down about decadent feasts, stuck to a diet of mostly grains; flesh-eating was largely reserved for occasions involving ceremonial sacrifices. Until, that is, the rise of the Christian church.
Vegetarianism was considered a heretical practice by the church; in fact, from 500-1400 A.D., people could (and did) get burned at the stake for practicing it. Writings supporting it were buried, people who supported it were crushed, and vast amounts of disinformation were spread regarding its nature. Unsurprisingly, this dealt vegetarianism something of a setback in Western society; it did not become popular again until the church began losing its power. As a result vegetarianism often is regarded as a new idea by Westerners. In Eastern societies, where vegetarian doctrines go back in an unbroken line for thousands of years, the antiquity of its origin is well known.
Perhaps surprisingly, the church probably did not take this extreme view because of the Bible, which is so vague and self-contradictory on the subject that it can be (and has been) easily used to support either side of the argument. In fact, most of the vegetarians who did manage to survive the Inquisition were religious in nature themselves, such as the ascetic Trappist monks. The mainstream church's doctrine came, rather, from the writings of Aristotle. Aristotle took the view - actually slightly contrarian for philosophers of his era - that animals did not have souls and thus could be eaten. When the science of Aristotle was adopted as unalterable doctrine by the church, vegetarianism became anathema right along with the heliocentric solar system.
Vegetarianism finally resurfaced again in the West during the Enlightenment. Serious discussions of its possible merits began once more among the scholars of the Renaissance. The concept slowly gained legitimacy until it entered public consciousness in 1847, when the Vegetarian Society, a British organization, popularized the term. The promotion of vegetarianism gained strength in 1908 with the foundation of the Vegetarian Union, a still-extant organization which brings together vegetarian societies from all over the world into yearly congresses.
By this time, most of you who have been following these Fun Facts faithfully are probably wondering, "Well, this is all very well and good, but what's the nature of the inevitable connection between vegetarianism and communism in the 1920's?" Well, of course there was one, but it's somewhat more tenuous in nature than some of the previous connections that have been discussed (as difficult to achieve as that may seem.) Certainly, both philosophies were darlings of the intellectual left of the time, and it was hardly surprising to find one person with both views; Tolstoy, the much-beloved Russian liberal, was one of the most famous vegetarians of the nineteenth century, and George Bernard Shaw, the much-beloved British socialist, one of the most famous of the twentieth. Vegetarianism was also common in related social and political movements of the era; it was common among the Spanish Anarchists, and also the communitarian societies of the American northeast.
However, it would also be hardly surprising to find a person who held one view but not the other. Vegetarianism was harldy a tenet of, for example, Bolshevism, and none of the leaders of the Party were vegetarian (which is perhaps one reason that Katya didn't consider the notion until fairly recently.) The ranks of vegetarians in the 1920's were also filled with people who had nothing to do with communism at all; many of them came from religious movements like the Seventh Day Adventists or the Bible Christian Church, or were health theorists such as those discussed in the Medicine fun fact, or, of course, were Easterners who were following the same practices that they had for thousands of years whatever their politics. Incidentally, however, the myth that Hitler was a vegetarian is just that - a myth (his doctor did place him on a vegetarian diet for a while for health reasons, and Goebbels used this to spread a rumor that he was a vegetarian in order to associate him with saintly ascetics, but in fact, everyone who knew Hitler said he cheated on the diet anyway.) Actually, under Fascism, both vegetarian and communist societies were declared illegal.
But at any rate, in 1925, vegetarianism was viewed in much the same light as communism - in most circles, not usual, but certainly neither unheard of nor bizarre. There were, therefore, food establishments and services devoted to it even in the stodgiest of meat-eating countries - soy milk was available even in Britain, for example, although it is also true that (the Seventh Day Adventist) Dr. Kellog's corn flakes were probably eaten a bit too often by British vegans. Famous vegetarians of the era included Nikola Tesla, Upton Sinclair, Albert Einstein, Dr. Benjamin Spock, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Schweitzer, Franz Kafka, and Mohandas Gandhi.
Meat-free dreams
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