Communism — The Sociological Challenge

by E. Herbert Nygren

On Sunday, January 22, 1905, the Tsar’s Cossacks were turned loose on the striking workers in St. Petersburg, Russia.[1] Before the year—referred to by Lenin as “the year that buried patriarchal Russia” —had passed, some 2,800,000 people had taken part in the rebellion.

The priest, George Jopan, leader of the peasants who converged on the great square, asked amnesty for the strikers already arrested, an expansion of civil liberties, land reforms, and other ammenities. “Sire,” he said, “do not refuse aid to thy people! Throw down the wall that separates thee from thy people. Order and swear that our requests will be granted, and thou wilt make Russia happy.” The Tsar did not appear. His later concessions were too late, far the nation of Russia was never to be the same. Onto the stage of human history was to appear one Lenin, carrying into practice some of the philosophical theories and meanderings of his sometime traveling companion and intellectual mentor, Karl Marx.

Karl Marx, was born in Trier, Germany, the son of a prosperous Jewish lawyer, who for no apparent reason had himself and his family baptized into the state church when young Karl was six. His early study at the University of Berlin was marked by arrogance and satire. His acid tongue led him from his first love, teaching, into Journalism. His Manifesto, prepared in 1848, made no impression whatsoever on the intellectual community of nineteenth century Europe. Before the consideration of the Marxian writings, it would be fitting to consider briefly the philosophical and intellectual heritage of this relatively unknown aspiring journalist whose teaching, according to Lenin, “is all-powerful because it is true.” Lenin went on: “It is complete and harmonious providing man with a consistent view of the universe, which cannot be reconciled with any superstition, any reaction, any defense of bourgeois oppression. It is the lawful succession of the best that has been created by humanity in the nineteenth century—German philosophy, English political economy, and French socialism.”[2] (There is a very real dilemna here; Marx and Lenin both assert true objectivity, but each also claims cultural determinism.)

The primary intellectual stimulation for Marx seems to have been the philosophy of the German, Hegel. Philosophy, to Hegel, is a self-enclosed and self-sufficient system. Its subject matter is what has happened; its purpose is the clarification of the happening. To clarify an event is to explain it in terms of its logical necessity, the dialectic of unfolding truth. What is real is reasonable; what is reasonable is real.

Karl Marx accepted the Hegelian dialectic that reality is a process which is intelligible and moves with a logic all its own, but rejects the notion that this reality is the unfolding of absolute mind. It can be explained only as matter in motion, extended in space and time, existing in itself apart from mental awareness. The idea or world spirit of Hegel is to be replaced by the forces of production.

Marx seems to have accepted the criticism of Hegel offered by Ludwig Feuerbach. Feuerbach taught that Philosophy began with mere sense perception. By this it follows that man is the measure of the truth and is the true substance of his world. The world is nonsensual; man objectifies it and himself. Thus, truth is circumstantial.

Marxian philosophy is materialistic. Matter and its mode of existence, motion, are uncreatable and are their own final cause. The controlling force is not reason, but material (i.e. economic force). Men produce in order to live; as production increases a division of labor arises; out of this is an estrangement: The worker is alienated from the instrument of production, from the process of production, and from the product of production. Labor is construed as the commodity; the laborer does not receive equal to what he produces. The dialectic of Hegel has been utilized by Karl Marx as the vehicle of his own philosophical development.

Lenin has written: “Marx treats the question of communism in the same way as a naturalist would treat the question of the development of say, a new biological variety, once he knew that such and such was its origin and such and such was the definite direction in which it was changing.”[3] Marx would have agreed whole-heartedly with Feuerbach who believed that religion was nothing other than the relation of man to himself, or more correctly to his own nature. Feuerbach taught that the Divine Being is nothing else than the human nature purified, made objective and revered.

The end, then, for Marx, is inevitable: class-struggle, the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariate, which is necessary for the period separating capitalism and communism. (A current inconsistency can be noted: The clique rules today, not the proletariate; some three percent rules Russia. Forgotten when the slogan, “abolish private property, abolish evil,” is proclaimed, is the greed for lust and power within the hearts of men.)

Marx is saying that primordial matter is the cause of the inevitable occurrence: post hoc proves propter hoc, (i.e. the cause must necessarily entail its effect.) The determinism of the self-sufficient material world has the solution to the social problems of the day.

Marxian thought builds upon his recognition of the misery of man and the sickness of society, which is the result of man’s alienation from reality. Biblical teaching suggests that man’s misery consists in his alienation from God. St. Paul, in Romans eight writes, The “Entire creation sighs and throbs with pain.” James Stewart writes of Paul, “He knew that civilization was demon-ridden, and that ruthless forces held the soul of men in bitter thraldom. But what his piercing insight saw was that the mood of tragic desperation was itself the harbinger of hope.”[4]

Marxian philosophy boasts of its humanism, its concern for the humiliated, the enslaved. But there is no true humanism, because it mutes the significance of the individual.

Levi cites the novel by Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, in which Ivanov says: “There are only two conceptions of human ethics…One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principles that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community.”[5]

Hegel lost in theory and Marx lost in practice the worth of the individual against the abstract collective. In the name of the class the individual is sacrificed and submerged. In the end the proletariate was of concern for Marx, not so much because it was suffering, but, because the dialectic of history forced the issue.

To return a moment to man’s alienation. He is separated from matter, the means of production. The allegation is made that labor has been appropriated. Evil can be eliminated by changing economic relations. For Marx, salvation is an economic factor dependent upon the determined victory of the proletariate. This victory, however, depends upon the victory of the Communist Party, which is, in the end, the best judge of the interest of the proletariate class. The victory of the party is then dependent upon organization in which the actual power is vested. Since the ruling group has the greater insight into social matters, it is in the position to judge the truth of any proposition. Because, to Marx, all in the world is interrelated, the world can be seen reflected in political movements.

Implied in the dialectical materialism of Marx is philosophy of the state analogous to that of Plato. Perhaps few philosophers have taken Marx’s philosophy of the state as seriously as they might, for its implications have much to do with the social milieu of our day. The belief that the redemption of the society can come only when productive means and private ownership are destroyed, leads to a ruthless struggle for power within the Party and generates a new morality which endorses every act that might further the revolution.

To take one contemporary illustration: Herbert Marcuse who is the intellectual spokesman for the movement often called the “New Left” applied certain Marxist concepts to American culture. For Marx’s proletariate, Marcuse has the outcasts—the exploited, the unemployed, the dark-skinned. These are the vanguards of change—the potential “new man.” Here may be found the crux of the assault upon society today. Our society, Marcuse has said, is one that compels the vast majority of the population to earn their lives in stupid, inhuman and unnecessary jobs. The free election of masters he has claimed, does not abolish the masters or the slaves. Free choice among a wide variety of goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil or fear—that is, if they sustain alienation.

Because of the dialectical character of human society, there are “forces and tendencies which may break this containment and explode the society.” Marcuse is critical of the positivistic influence in philosophy since the day of Hume. He views it as based upon the authority of fact; thus thought must be satisfied with fact, with the state of affairs.

This leads to Marcuse’s attack on the modern university that has the “facts” which control the students. Thus the university is guilty of defending the status quo. Marcuse has written: “The real field of knowledge is not the given fact about things as they are, but the critical evaluation of them as a prelude to passing beyond their given form.” He develops the Hegelian notion of the “power of negative thinking:” “Thinking,” said Hegel, “is, indeed, essentially the negation of that which is immediately before us.” Negative thought must break down the given reality in order to create a new world.”[6] Man has the power to negate every given condition and make his own conscious work. Man is engaged in self-creation; he is the result of his own labor.

In a paper[7] delivered by Dr. Bernad Zylstra of the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, it was suggested that for Marcuse this leads to a “total transvaluation of western values—and for the revolutionary embodiment of new values in the political arena… The dialectical process of history must continue until all reality is realized in its full potential”—happening for all.

According to the revolutionists, if man wants to be truly free, he must, first recognize his enslavement with an absolute refusal to accept “the system.” Theoretical reason must become political revolution. Marcuse has further written: “The realization if the objective…would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies.” In the “humanism” of Marcuse, as in that of Marx, one can find that as one does in Marx, that “humanism” is implemented by an anti-humanism.

The New Testament has some relevant words to this mood of our day. The Book of Acts, chapter three, records the account of a lame man who had been brought to the gate of the Jerusalem temple. Day after day some friends had done this favor for the man, leaving him in his misery just outside the building compound which represented everything that was holy in Judaism. What a picture this gives to the reader: tragedy, despair, discouragement, poverty—just outside the door of the temple.

By virtue of the fact that this had been a daily ritual, one would suspect that no one inside the temple had taken cognizance of his needs. There he lay, a symbol, perhaps, that the prosperity of the temple and its “Gate beautiful” had led to a loss of spiritual perception. Is it not true that the sovereignty of God extends not only over prayer and warship but also over all human activities? It is the concern of the people of God to see to it that the social order is functioning in accordance with God’s will.

The life of Jesus would indicate that if he discriminated at all he did so in favor of the poor. Perhaps a crucial point in the narrative of the lame man at the gate of the temple is the implication that the people of God (i.e. The Church) needs to open its eyes to the needs of all who are about us, to become really aware of the fact that men do suffer and die right “alongside” of us. This is not to suggest that the Church as an institution should dabble in politics, but that Christian men and women, concerned about housing and education, sanitation and recreation, should try to work for the glory of God.

Religion of Jesus’ day had fallen to the place so that what went on inside the sacred walls meant little to life on the outside. It would seem that the ponderous piety of the Pharisee, the subtle sophistication of the Saduccee, and the indifferent irreverence of the irreligious indicated all contact with life had been lost.

Genesis gives us the account of Cain and Abel. The author would have us visualize God looking around for Abel. Not finding Abel, God asks his brother Cain concerning Abel’s whereabouts. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” responded Cain.

An affirmative answer to Cain’s question is implied as God asked: “What have you done?” “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” There is no indication in this narrative that Cain had deliberately plotted to murder his brother. It appears almost as if in a moment of anger at the prospect of God’s willingness to accept the sacrifice of Abel rather than his own, Cain picked up a stone or a stick and struck a blow. The punch, the blow, a fall—a casualty of man’s lack of concern for another. I suspect that Cain was shocked when he saw Abel lie so still. He had seen sheep die, but never a man. So still he lay—and he tried to cover it in order to hide it from God. Suddenly the voice! “Where is your brother?”

To be sure, life had its vertical dimension. But it must never be forgotten that it has also its horizontal dimension. God is concerned with how a man treats his brother. Is he now saying to us, “Your brother’s blood is crying to me from the Asian battlefield, the riot-rocked cities, the hovels of the shanty-town.”

On the island of Iona, off Scotland, there stands a monastery from the thirteenth century. In the ancient chapel on a gothic arch above the pulpit, the monks had carved the face of a man in torment with sightless eyes, open mouth, agony-lined face—a constant reminder to the worshipper that the needs of men must concern him.

There is a second observation that can be made from the lame man’s request. We are told that he had been asking for coins from sympathetic passers-by. All he wanted was alms to assist him in his limited existence rather than strength to overcome his weakness. Does this portray much of mankind? Man is unaware of his real needs. He thinks he needs a surface ointment when in fact he needs radical surgery. The man asked for alms when he needed strength to walk again.

Is there an analogy here to the modern church and the poverty programs? All too often the people of this generation ask for hand-outs. They ask for and receive tokens which do little more than preserve them in their previous miserable condition. This creates a generation of parasites who come for their daily dole, day after day, expecting that it will be thereafter all, it always has.

Man so often seems incapable of sensing the real problem of life. Basically, it is neither political nor economic; it is spiritual. This age needs, as every age before has needed the redemption of man and the whole social order. This will come, not by political realignment, by violent changes in government, nor by the expansion of poverty programs, but by the regeneration of the human heart. The world at the door needs to be given the bold imperative: “Rise and walk!” Get up from the lethargy of lost initiative; get up from the ignorance of carelessness; get up from that life of sin which has you so bogged down that you have lost all cognizance of yourself.

What the church of Christ needs to do is to put its emphasis on the core of the problem. The word sin needs to be recalled from its present place in ecclesiastical limbo. Is it not true that much poverty is caused by sin—not necessarily the sin of the poor, but the sin of the greedy, the bigoted and the proud, whose only concern is themselves.

There is a third observation drawn from the account of the lame man. It is from Peter’s words: In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” We must note well—nothing was given to the man enabling him to continue in his meager existence as a crippled beggar. The power of Jesus Christ was never meant to be used to dole out palliatives to help worldly woes; it was (and is!) meant to put men on their feet. Dr. George Buttrick made the observation: “True charity is more than flinging a coin to a beggar.”

There is a classic story that persistently appears, although its historicity is somewhat shrouded; nevertheless, it could well have occurred. St. Thomas Aquinas, the “angelic doctor” of Roman Catholic dogmatic theology, is said to have visited the papel chamber on an occasion when the Pope Innocent II was seated by a table counting gold. “You see,” the Pope is said to have remarked, “the Church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’” “True, Holy Father,” responded Thomas, “but neither can it now say ‘Arise, and walk.”

Peter and John served as channels through which the power of the resurrected Christ could move in the world. Peter enabled the beggar to take his eyes off himself and focus them on Christ.

It is well to take note of the fact that Jesus himself stood apart from economic disputes. He refused to decide between two men disputing about an inheritance. Nevertheless, he taught that the gifts of God which men possessed should be distributed in such a way that all men should have a satisfying life. Jesus headed no social revolution nor legislated for social advances, but brought to men a spirit designed to set them crusading against injustice everywhere. Likewise, the church should concentrate on its God-given talk—holding up the Christ for all to see. If the Church is not a channel for the grace of God to flow through into the world, it is little more than cumbersome machinery.

Man cannot be helped unless the Church can declare unequivocally that the cross of Christ, with all it typifies, did something for man which he could not do for himself or for one another.

Notes

1. Overstreet, Harry and Bonaro, What We Must Know About Communism. New York: Norton and Company, 1958. A helpful summary is found in chapter one.
2. Cited by: Levi, Albert William, Philosophy and the Modern World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959, p. 201.
3. Mendel, Arthus P., Essential Works of Marxism. New York: Bantam Books, 1961, p. 168.
4. Stewart, James, Herald of God. London: Holder and Staughton, 1946.
5. Levi, Op. Cit., p. 230.
6. Marcuse, Herbert, Reason. and Revelation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1941, p. 156.
7. Presented at Wheaton College Philosophy Conference, November 6, 1969. Unpublished.