IV

(Final Installment)

As we have seen in our preview article, every non-Christian philosophy and religion has its own god, its own explanation of sin, and its own theory of redemption. From this point of view no communist has a right to claim originality. With regard to the communistic conception of God, we saw that Marx and Engels revived the theories of the ancient philosophers in their most primitive form, for several of the latter philosophers had already become aware of the fact that the world, outside us is more than a mere materialistic conception can make of it. The communistic theory of God is a return to the animism of the savages, who attribute human values to trees and other material objects. The use of the ideas and terminology of modern philosophies is nothing else than an attempt to cover up the immorality of the theory under the guise of a scientific outlook.

The Communistic Antithesis

The purpose of this contribution is to deal more in detail with the communistic conception of sin and redemption. These conceptions are embodied in the so-called theory of the class struggle. Marx and Engels were not original on this point either. They borrowed their basic idea from Darwin’s theory of evolution, but with this difference that they saw Darwin’s principle of the struggle for existence also at work in human society.

The determining principle in history is this class struggle. In former times this warfare was carried on between freeman and slave, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman. These people formed, quite naturally according to Marx, two opposing classes, and the result of their fighting always ended either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, as, for example, after the Reformation, or in the common ruin of the contending classes, as, for example, in the old Roman empire. Here we can see how faithfully Marx copied the Bible. Over against the biblical antithesis….between sin and evil he develops his own antithesis. According to Marx the two opposing parties of his day were the capitalists and the “proletariat,” or laboring class. The bourgeoisie, in communistic language, is the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of production and the employers of wage-labor. The proletariat is the class of people that do not possess the means of production and for that reason are compelled “to sell” their labor-power in order to live. This is a mild description of that which Communist Party propaganda broadcasts over the whole world, often spiced with malediction and most severe expression of hate and anger.

         

           

According to Marx and his present day followers capitalists are the incarnation of every conceivable sin in this world. The proletarian class is, on the other hand, the most excellent example of holiness. The latter is the elect, the former the reprobate. The reason for the election of the proletarian class is quite obvious. He is the man who works with matter in motion, he serves matter faithfully: the laboring class stands in most perfect harmony with the universe. For this reason it is a sin against the very structure of nature or cosmos, when one treats the laboring class as slaves and subjects them to the exploitations of the capitalists. Capitalists are parasites. And it is a natural right. a consistent following out of the true essence of matter and of man’s mode of working with nature to strive after a total revolution of the existing order of production.

According to Marx the world, revolution that must lead to the triumph of the labor class is not exclusively motivated by purely superficial, economic and social abuses which gave rise to dissatisfaction. Marx’ great world revolution is rather the last and logical consequence of a consistently materialistic philosophy and metaphysics carried to its extreme. For this reason the best defense against communism is not the improvement of material conditions in which people live. although this would be helpful, but in the first place to prevent that people from believing in this materialism. And in case people already believe this monstrous lie, to try to convert them. The real danger of communism comes not from the activity of the agents of Moscow, but is occasioned by the religious vacuum of present day American life. People that are dissatisfied with the proclamation of the Word of God by the Church are apt to believe anything.

Religion and Machines

There are two more important elements that must be considered in order to understand Marx correctly on this point. According to Marx the capitalists use two devices by which they are able to rule and to exploit the working class, namely, religion and the use of machines. Marx’ times were the times o f the industrial revolution, the transition period between the age of the manual worker and the factory worker. “Millions of manual workers many of them independent craftsmen, were being displaced by a relatively small number of machine workers. This meant, in turn , a general lowering of the standard of living of many people in the beginning, which, under adverse economic conditions tended to result in a general impoverishment,

Under the influence of these technical changes Marx came to the conclusion that machinery in the hands of the capitalists is a most powerful weapon used by them against the working class. For when man lives in misery and poverty he is inclined to be religious. And if a man is religious he is wiling to live like a slave, without aspirations, taking everything as it is on earth for granted because his religion tells him that after h is life on earth a life of abundance is waiting for him in heaven. Lenin has put it something like this:

Religion lulls the man whose life is miserable with the hope of celestial reward. It teaches him patience, resignation. As for those who profit from the work of others, religion teaches them to give alms here below, thereby offering them a convenient justification for their existence as exploiters. At a cheap price, religion sells them title to parcipitation in heavenly happiness, Religion is the opiate of the people, Religion is a gross kind of spiritual alcohol in which capitalism’s slaves drown their revenge for an existence so little worthy of man.

Marx’ prescription for the solution of this problem is quite simple in theory, Change the economic conditions of the laboring class and no one will have any use for religion. Improve the standard of living and God will be superfluous and unnecessary in the life of man, and heaven can be relegated to the sparrows, For this reason religion is communism’s “public enemy number one!” Without the absolute destruction of religion communism cannot be realized. To be a good communist you ought to be a convinced a the is t. That is the first article in the decalogue of the communist youth organization in Russia Religion must be destroyed in order to arrive “the goal of a classless society in which there is no need for reIigion…

Pathway to Paradise

But how to change the economic conditions of the great laboring masses? On this question the Communist Manifesto of 1818 is very clear. The answer it gave to this question made it popular all over the world . Marx’ reply contains two elements; the first one is a call to the proletariat of the world to organize themselves into a party, the Communist Party. The second part is that the accumulation of wealth on the one hand by the capitalists, and the accumulation of misery on the other hand of the proletariat, will ultimately result in the great crisis, the breakdown of the capitalistic society. At that historical moment the Communist Party of proletarians will take over the whole capitalistic economy, the state and other political institutions, and a new classless society of proletarians will arise. Nobody will then even know what is meant by the word misery, in short, this earth will change into a most beautiful paradise.

It is impossible to deal at length with the scientific argumentation that Marx offered as proof for his ideas. Scholars of great fame have written large volumes on this subject, and Marx’ theory of economic depression is in almost all cases the object of discuss ion in any work on the so-called business-cycle. It would really be a revelation to many a layman in economics to find that the great majority of economists and politicians are willing to admit that Marx’ theory is right up to a certain point. The thing that they do not like is Marx’ absolute certainty that the world will actually take the course he has outlined in his writings. Modern scientists generally use conditional, qualified language. Given these conditions in a certain economy, and if such and such act ion is taken to cure some of the bad conditions, and if some other action is taken to activate a promising element, then we might expect that a certain conceived result will follow provided always, of course, that nothing else will interrupt, for example, a war.

The foundation of Marx’ certainty is his dialectic. Capitalists and proletariat are related as thesis and antithesis, the new communistic paradise is the eventual synthesis. To one not willing to accept this “logic” this may sound idiotic. For Marx and his followers it signifies still an all important truth. One needs only to remember the gain-current rumors that Moscow has postponed the day of final collapse for the capitalistic economy in the USA. In anticipation of this certain crisis, however, Moscow has ordered its international forces to hamper and impede capitalism as much as possible by strikes, cold wars, and so on, while in the meantime it ties to build up its own economy as fast as possible according to the capitalistic principles, in order to be ready to deal the death-blow to the capitalist nations at the proper time.

One will find that all of the Communistic propaganda is centered around this idea. As a result this theory has been hammered into millions of minds and souls who are now fervently awaiting the realization of this theory. This is the pie that Marx and his cohorts hung in the sky for the great masses who live from day to day by this godless credo. The fact that modern men are willing to believe this absurdity rather than to believe the Word of God shows abundantly their absolute depravity, and at the same lime certifies the veracity of that Word.

Biblical Parallels

All the above mentioned considerations and explanations, however, do not answer one important question, namely, why did Marx set up his theory as he did? There must be some reason why Marx felt obliged to set up his whole complicated scheme of salvation. Martin Buber, also a Hebrew, has kept himself busy with this question.  He says that in the Marxian and other socialistic utopian systems the force of a dispossessed Messianism is working. The social system of communism and socialism has the character of an annunciation or of a proclamation. On this point there is a certain similarity with the Word of God in that it, also contains an annunciation. But the similarity is only superficial.

Marx’ theory or crisis is only a theory. But the Bible has its prophecy of crisis, compared to which the theory of Marx is but a child’s game. This prophesy is the main theme of its last book, the Revelation of Jesus Christ of John. And this constitutes the difference between a human theory and the veracity of the prophesy of our Lord. Marx, the son of a rabbi, has plagiarized this prophesy to the utmost. Without that Word he would not. have been able to develop his monstrosity. His hate against God and his Church, his deep revolutionary character, molded by modern philosophy and an apostatizing church, inspired him to set up his own scheme of salvation for mankind. His religion is a religion of hate.

Who shall ever be able to measure the guilt of an apostatizing church in this connection? Men like Marx never had an opportunity to observe a Christian nation or even a church that could in truth be called Church, that is, a community congregated and living together by the power of the Word of God. Reared among nationalists who were Christian only in name, a Roman Catholic Church that was neither catholic nor church, and mystics who derived their religious villainy from gnostic Persia, everything worked together, so to say, to compel a man like Marx to cry ecrasez l’infame with even more energy than Voltaire ever did.

In this respect the religious situation today in America is very similar to the time of Marx. How soon will the youth of today be fed up with the mixture of commercialized Christianity and mysticism that constitutes today’s American Christianity? The fact that during the past decades so many educated people from our universities, labor union leaders, and political leaders became converted to communism, shows how serious this situation gradually has become. The next outburst of hate that is being bred in these circumstances will be even more horrible than Marx’ tame theory. When this outburst will occur a man like McCarthy will not even have a chance to express his protests. Fortunately for the Church, it is not the question what one thinks of communism that determines the course of this world; the testimony of Christ, the Word of God is the determining principle in the history or the world.

The acte de finale of this history will not be the day of judgment of Marx proletarian dreams, but the glorious day of our Lord Jesus Christ. The end of this world will not result in the utopia that Marx visualized a utopia in which each common man shall have an abundance of bread, wine, cars, and other desired worldly things, neither will it be the ideal time for an immortal soul as the mystics of today try to make us believe, but it will be eternal death for the unbeliever, proletarian or capitalist, and eternal life for the believer, also proletarian or capitalist. This is the prophecy of Scripture.

Final Conclusions

The scope of this paper does not permit us to enumerate other interesting elements in Marx’ theory. For that reason we will conclude with a few remarks about the Communist Party. One might say that this party is the embodiment of the Marxian theory. Some people are surprised to hear that the structure of this party is almost an exact copy of the hiearchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church. One might say that the pope has been Marx” principle teacher on how to make an effective application of his theories. Eighteen centuries of papal and clerical dictatorship has exercised a very influential appeal to the revolutionaries of all centuries. From that point of view nothing ought to surprise us. On the contrary, surprise should be the experience of those pupils whose lives ended like that of Hitler and Mussolini. Many people think that the Communist Party is only a subversive element in an otherwise civilized nation. Let us see how Bakunen defined this party. According to him God is a malevolent and absurd phantasm, born of the puerile imagination of the people. The abolition of God is a necessary condition for the triumph of humanity. Our enemy is God. We, that is, the Communist Party, we are the party of Satan. In this clear-cut language one can see how a communist degrades man to a level lower than that of a beast of burden. Man is indeed prone to hate God, that is, he is actually a hater of God! That must be our last conclusion.