Lecture II in series on “Communism and Christianity”

Dr. Paul Tudor Jones

01/18/62

We have embarked on a series of studies in “Christianity and Communism.” One friend asked me after the initial lecture a couple of weeks ago: “Did you read about the Presbyterian parson in Indianapolis who delivered a series of lectures on “Christianity and Communism” and was asked to resign?” Later my friend sent me the clipping and remarked that he was glad that the Idlewild congregation was not as lackadaisical as the Indianapolis one was reported to be — wishing to hear only comforting sermons. Well, I hope my friend is right.

Surely, most churchmen are now aware that “Christianity and Communism” is not only a ‘fitten and timely’ subject for study in churches, but even a crucial one. I’m convinced that it is also a scripturally relevant concern of the contemporary churchman. This series is based on the scripture’s teaching about the Christian’s duty to any and every state in view of his Christian discipleship.

OUTLINE OF SERIES

I Introduction — The Thrust of Communism — The diversity of methods recommended for opposing communism — from John Kennedy’s New Frontier to the John Birch Society. (January 4, 1962)

II          The Nature of Communism — January 18, 1962

III        Why Communism is so Evil — January 25, 1962

IV Communist Infiltration and the Churches — February 1, 1962

V         The Christian Action before the Communist Threat — February 8, 1962

 

Historical Background.

Marxian Communism is a little over 100 years old. It had its origin in the writing of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, who collaborated in publishing in 1848 their Communist Manifesto. Later, Karl Marx, while in exile in Britain, published his masterpiece, Das Kapital, which he had laboriously written while working in the British Museum.

These are for the Communists, their inspired, holy scriptures, written by two German social and political scholars 100 years ago. They were produced against the backdrop of the poverty, social injustice, and cruelties of the early years of the industrial revolution in Western Europe. Marx and Engels studied the political and economic structures of their times, came to certain basic conclusions about the nature of human society, its evils, its possible goals, and the social techniques which might be employed to achieve a better life for the masses of people.

Dr. John Coleman Bennett, in his classic presentation of Communism, says it can be best understood under three separate categories:

I Communism as a Promised Hope of a Better Social Order

II Communism as an Interpretation of Life

III Communism as a Revolutionary Method

I Communism as the Promise of a New Order

The writings of Marx and Engels present a tragic picture of the bitter suffering of the laboring class of people in the factories and industries of the mid-19th century. These men saw the root of the workers’ trouble as lying in the institution of private property. The workers were poor, miserable, and powerless to improve their situation because the owners of the mills and factories held the power of life and death over the workers through their control of the means of production.

The only way to improve the lot of the workers, Marx and Engels taught, was to take the factories and machines out of the hands of the owners and establish state ownership of all industry. This could be accomplished only by armed, violent revolution. Hence the battle cry: “Workers of the world, arise! Throw off the yoke of tyrannical capitalism.”

There are at least three very beautiful, appealing pictures of the coming Utopia of Communism, painted in Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto; when the workers got into their hands the tools of production:

First, the picture of a political state, in which all the coercive aspects of power will disappear, giving way to perfect freedom. According to Communist doctrine, when the workers take over the methods and machines of production, then will be established what they call the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, the “proletariat” being the workers. But, of course, in practice, the dictatorship of the proletariat must be administered by a few of the communist comrades trained to manage economic and state affairs, and in practice, this oligarchy is supplanted by the single tyrant, a la Lennin, Stalin, Khruschev, Mao, and Castro.

But all this is justified in communist thought, as well as the most truculent and cruel treatment of recalcitrant enemies and friends, by the doctrine that capitalism is an evil, hard to stamp out, and the wonderful end, Communist Utopia, justifies the diabolical means.

For at the end of the process when the socialization of all production has taken place and the enemies of communism have been “liberated,” then the true communist state will emerge in which the restraining power of the state exemplified in armies, navies, and police forces will all wither away because there will be no longer any need for powers to restrain the source of all social evil — private ownership, since it will have become non-existent.

The second delectable picture of future bliss, painted by communist doctrine, is absolute plenty for all. The first picture involves the power of the state and human freedom. The second involves goods and the needs and wants of men. When the ultimate is reached in the Communist Utopia, then every man will produce, according to his ability, and each will receive, according to his need.

Of course, in the interim, the socialist state, during the dictatorship of the proletariat, manifests certain inequalities of recompense, and certain managers and professions and political functionaries are paid more than the lowest industrial workers.

The third Utopian picture of bliss in the Promised Communist New Order is the promise of obliterated distinctions between classes and races of men. Colonial exploitation has been, according to communist doctrine, an expected evil of the capitalistic system. The exploitation and degradation of colored peoples will wither away with the passing of capitalism and the inevitable spread of communist thought and action.

This has been one of the most powerfully persuasive arguments in the Communist arsenal to win converts in colonial and backward nations and among people who suffer from withheld civil rights and employment opportunities.

The slow gains in Christian cultures afforded the disenfranchised and the rapid progress of the underprivileged in newly communized states has worked to discredit Christian protestations of concern over social injustices, and to establish as valid and trustworthy, communist promises of a classless society to come.

A rather blasphemous poem by the Negro poet, Langston Hughes, epitomizes this:

Listen, Christ,

You did all right in your day, I reckon —

But that day’s gone now.

They ghosted you up a swell story too.

Called it the Bible —

But it’s dead now.

The popes and the preachers ‘ve

Made too much money from it.

They’ve sold you to too many

Kings, generals, robbers, and killers.

Even to the Tsar and the Cossacks.

Even to Rockefeller’s church,

Even to the Saturday Evening Post.

You ain’t no good no more.

They’ve pawned you till you’ve done wore out.

Goodbye,

Christ Jesus Lord God Jehovah,

Beat it on away from here now.

Make way for a new guy with no religion at all —

A real guy named

Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker — ME —

I said, ME!

Go ahead on now,

You’re getting in the way of things, Lord,

And step on the gas, Christ!

Move!

Don’t be so slow about moving’!

The world is mine from now on —

And Nobody’s gonna sell ME

To a king, or a general

Or a millionaire.

Goodbye, Christ, Good morning, Revolution!

II            Communism as an Interpretation of the Whole of Life

Communism is not only a promise of a new and better era to come; it is also a philosophy for the whole of life — yes, even as some describe it, as a new and dynamic religion.

There are several rubrics which are helpful in describing communism as an interpretation of life:

1. It is sometimes described as “dialectical materialism.” Hegel’s philosophy was called “dialectic idealism” — meaning that his basic philosophy taught that the fundamental reality in life was the idea, from the idea all of life progressed. (Illus. Idea of building in architect’s mind, blueprints, structure.) Communism reverses Hegel’s philosophy and teaches that “the material”, “the goods” of life are fundamental realities and everything else proceeds from this basic economic fact.
2. Another rubric is “economic determinism” — which is to say that the economic factors are the controlling and shaping ones in structuring human history to the point of being almost automatic. The Geo-politicians have a philosophy which teaches that the controlling factors in making men and nations are geographical — such things as climate, vegetation, rainfall, etc. But the communist philosophy of life is that the economic factors are the overriding ones — that human freedom is really a fiction, that such terms as “responsibility,” “challenge,” “freedom,” etc. would never be used if we understood clearly the irresistible economic factors always operative.
3. Another rubric of communism is “Religion is the opiate of the people.” Marxian philosophy has no place for God. It is rightly called atheistic. It substitutes for the Christian and Hebrew concept of the providence of God in sustaining His universe and ordering history, an inexorable process.

The communist doctrine about religion and art and government and all the institutions in a capitalistic system is that these institutions are the servants of private ownership and are used to bring out their own peculiar restraints to keep the old order of private property entrenched. Particularly, is religion suspect because it is used to keep the workers of the world content to suffer their present misery under the injustices of capitalism by the promise of the rewards of heaven. Therefore, religion, which is at best, but pre-scientific superstition, and at worst, an evil spiritual enslavement to keep the workers poor and feeble and the evil capitalists rich and strong, should be obliterated.

Yet, though communism is anti-religious and atheistic, there is in it a new, dynamic religious fervor. It offers a full interpretation of the meaning of all life. It is as R. Niebuhr says, “everywhere concerned with the ultimates.” It has a social conscience. It holds up a promised Utopia. It offers a clear pattern of action to achieve its Utopia.

III            Communism to be Understood Must also be viewed as a Revolutionary Method.

Marx and Engels surveyed the pitiable scene of the mid-19th century exploitation of labor; they dug deep into the evils of the political and economic structures of their day; they fabricated their philosophy of history, but they did not stop there. They issued a manifesto, a challenge to the workers of the world to rise up, use the power that was theirs in numerical strength, bash in the tissue thin cultural walls enslaving them such as religion, the capitalist philosophy, the political theories subservient to capitalism, and seize the political power and economic power (which they conceived to be essentially one) and communize the world.

This could be done, and would be done, only by revolution. R. Niebuhr calls communism “hard Utopianism” in contrast with political and economic liberalism which he terms “soft Utopianism.” The soft utopians believe that the good order will come gradually by reforms enacted as the minds and hearts of men are enlightened and humanized. The hard utopians, the communists, believe the good order will be ushered in only by revolutionary action, for those who have it so good under capitalism will never give in or give up until they are forcibly thrown out. The communist believes not only that he already has the system that will bring in the ideal social order, but he believes time and history and the process of economic determinism are on his side and working for him. So, he has a fighting creed which inspires him to give his utmost to the cause. (Cf. Mr. Kruschev — We will Bury You)

The audacious cruelty of the communists has astonished and sometimes paralyzed the rest of the world. They give no quarter to their enemies. People are puzzled and staggered by the enormities of a movement, which began as a crusade to liberate oppressed mankind, using methods of dealing with human beings more reactionary and more cruel than any means ever used by their capitalist enemies.

A case in point is the treatment of the Kulaks in the South of Russia. The Kulaks were peasant farmers who owned small bits of farmland. After the Revolution, when all the farms were being communized, the Kulaks resisted the movement, said they wished to stay out of the communes, and till their own little pieces of land. They were systematically “liquidated” as enemies of the state by the firing squad, starvation, or concentration camps.

Lenin’s wife, Krupskaya, said to him when her husband told of how he would stand up the opponents of the Revolution and shoot them down: “Yes, and you will shoot precisely those that are better men for having the courage to express their views.”

CONCLUSION

After a hundred years of communist ideology, propaganda, violent revolution, and social experimenting, there are some startling and surprising results. Perhaps no one would be more surprised at the results than Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, could they see them today.

History always has taken strange and unexpected turns, in spite of the careful analysis of the wisest of men and their profound predictions for the future. How surprised would Marx and Engels be to discover that it has not been in England and Germany, where they did their work and most carefully studied the industrial movement and projected their plans for communizing industry, that communism has taken hold, but rather in backward, agricultural, and undeveloped nations such as Russia in 1917, China in 1949, Cuba in 1961.

In the highly industrialized countries of Western Europe and in the U. S. A., communism has not only failed to make headway, but their “soft utopianism” has prevailed, where trade unionism, social security, profit sharing, stock purchases by employees and workers, have changed the lot of the industrial laborers materially and so altered the pattern of ownership and power in the social structure as to obviate many of the communist solutions.

In Russia, while industrialization of the country has proceeded remarkably, the dictatorship has continued, the purges of political enemies within the party has been ruthlessly cruel, the demolition of civil liberties has been barbaric, and a new form of communist colonial exploitation has developed making 17th, 18th, and 19th century imperialism’s exploitation look like Boy Scout camping sprees. Whenever the gate is open, as for a while it was in Berlin, the refugees from communist tyranny pour out.

From China there come some reports of industrial progress under communism, but most apparent are the horrible famines which have taken a toll in the millions of lives, the imperialist designs of communist China on Tibet, Outer Mongolia, North Korea, and South Viet Nam.

Cuba, under Castro, follows the familiar communist pattern of deceit, intrigue, callous destruction of enemies and opponents, seizure of private property without compensation, and the corruption of education.

Next week — we turn to a consideration of “Why Communism is so Evil.”