of the Chinese population took part in Chinese folk religions and Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism had played a significant role in the everyday lives of ordinary people. After the 1949 Chinese Revolution, China began a period of rule by the Chinese Communist Party. For much of its early history, that government maintained under Marxist thought that religion would ultimately disappear, and characterized it as emblematic of feudalism and foreign colonialism. During the Cultural Revolution, student vigilantes known as Red Guards converted religious buildings for secular use or destroyed them. This attitude, however, relaxed considerably in the late 1970s, with the reform and opening up period. The 1978 Constitution of the People's Republic of China guaranteed freedom of religion with a number of restrictions. Since then, there has been a massive program to rebuild Buddhist and Taoist temples that were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. The Communist Party has said that religious belief and membership are incompatible. However, the state is not allowed to force ordinary citizens to become atheists. China's five officially sanctioned religious organizations are the Buddhist Association of China, Chinese Taoist Association, Islamic Association of China, Three-Self Patriotic Movement and Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. These groups are afforded a degree of protection, but are subject to restrictions and controls under the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Unregistered religious groups face varying degrees of harassment. The constitution permits what is called "normal religious activities," so long as they do not involve the use of religion to "engage in activities that disrupt social order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious organizations and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign dominance." Article 36 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982 specifies that: Most people report no organized religious affiliation; however, people with a belief in folk traditions and spiritual beliefs, such as ancestor veneration and feng shui, along with informal ties to local temples and unofficial house churches number in the hundreds of millions. The United States Department of State, in its annual report on International Religious Freedom, provides statistics about organized religions. In 2007, it reported the following (citing the Government's 1997 report on Religious Freedom and 2005 White Paper on religion): Buddhists 8%. Taoists, unknown as a percentage partly because it is fused along with Confucianism and Buddhism. Muslims, 1%, with more than 20,000 Imams.