***This essay is the tenth in a series tracing historically the philosophic battle of ideas between the proponents and critics of what I consider to be the two core moral concepts in Western ethical discourse: selfishness and selflessness or self-interest and self-sacrifice. The first half of this two-part essay will examine the relationship between communism and Christianity, and the second will examine the relationship between Karl Marx’s moral philosophy and that of Jesus Christ.
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“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.”—Genesis 11:4
“Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.”—Luke 11:2-4
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”—II Corinthians 5:17
The history of early Christianity has many characteristic points of contact with the present labor movement. . . . Both Christianity and proletarian socialism preach the coming deliverance from slavery and property . . .”—Friedrich Engels, On the History of Early Christianity
One of the great intellectual problems that has preoccupied me for the past decade boils down to a single question: why have so many smart people been attracted to socialism and communism over the course of the last 175 years, and, more particularly, why do they continue to support communism despite the well-documented genocidal horrors committed by Marxism in practice? In other words, why does the socialist nightmare qua dream never seem to die? Why does communism persist?
I have, more particularly, wondered about the relationship between communism and Christianity. On the surface, these two thought systems seem to have very little in common; indeed, the differences are countless and massive, which raises yet another question: why have so many Christians become communists? This is a critically important question that must be explored, understood, and explained. But what if the answer explains why communism never seems to die?
I am not the first person to address the issues raised by these questions, nor shall I be the last. To write on the relationship between communism and Christianity is a thankless task. The topic invites debate and controversy. This essay will no doubt provoke many people, and that’s okay. It will upset both my Marxist enemies and my Christian friends, who will claim that communism and Christianity have nothing to do with each other. In a sense they are right: communism and Christianity are mortal enemies. Moreover, competing schools of Marxist thought (e.g., Leninist vs. Trotskyist) will no doubt complain about my presentation of communism, and different Christian denominations (e.g., Catholic vs. Protestant vs. Orthodox) will no doubt complain about my understanding of Christianity.
My goal is not, however, to offend. My goal is to explore, understand, and explain.
On the Relationship Between Communism and Christianity
That Christianity and communism are antipodes and mortal enemies is virtually a truism. The differences between them are deep, profound, and surely irreconcilable. Each regards itself as the final truth and the other as dangerously false. For 150 years, they have competed as rival faiths for the spiritual allegiance of humankind. To put a sharp edge on the point, let us not forget that Karl Marx described religion in his 1844 “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” as “the opium of the people,” nor should we forget that Pope Pius XI said of communism in his 1937 encyclical Divini Redemptoris that it “is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever.” The hostility of communists toward Christianity is as real as that of Christians toward communism. Each delight in reminding the other of the piles of corpses left in its wake.
Just as we might say “A spectre is haunting Christianity—the spectre of communism,” so we might also say “A spectre is haunting communism—the spectre of Christianity”!
Let’s begin by considering a few obvious theoretical differences between communism and Christianity. At the heart of Christianity is a belief in the eternal and universal existence of an omnipotent and infallible God (i.e., the Creator of the universe and man), and at the heart of Marxian communism is a militant atheism, the conviction that God and all other supernatural beings do not exist. Christianity is also concerned with a kingdom beyond the material realm—the kingdom of heaven—that is not of this world. The Marxist believes that there is nothing but this world and matter in motion. The essential mark of Christianity is its other-worldliness; that of communism, its this-worldliness.
Christians believe, moreover, that Jesus Christ was a real, living, historical man, but who was also the immortal son of God. All of this is poppycock for the Marxian communist. The message of the Apostle’s Creed is anathema to Marx and communism. What possible relationship could the Manifesto of the Communist Party have with Christ’s teaching in the New Testament? It is also true that Christ, unlike Marx, was not concerned with politics or political change, let alone revolution. Contrast, for instance, Christ’s admonition in Matthew 22:21 (KJV) to “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” and Paul’s charge to the Romans to “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” (KJV Romans 13:7) with Marx’s claim in his “Theses on Feuerbach” that “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” Jesus was concerned with changing men’s souls in preparation for the afterlife. Communists only think of politics and the here-and-now, and they do not think of the human soul as immortal.
In practice, communism and Christianity fought a pitched battle against one another throughout the last quarter of the nineteenth century and most definitely through almost the entirety of the twentieth century. Many Christians have been rounded up in communist countries and tortured and executed and vice versa. Communists want all men to be communists, and Christians want all men to be Christians. To quote from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Ballad of East and West” (1889), “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” Hence, communism is committed to destroying Christianity and Christians pray for a world without atheistic communism.
And yet, despite it all these profound differences, it’s hard to ignore the fact that communism and Christianity share certain characteristics that seem to overlap in both theory and practice. Indeed, for many, communism is, despite its atheism and materialism, a kind of secular religion—a faith of universal hope, redemption, and salvation, which provides a clue as to why so many Christians have become communists. It is simply a well-established fact that many communists were once Christians and even some Christians were once communists. The famous case of Whittaker Chambers is a telling example. Chambers was raised in a Christian household, converted to communism at age 25, and then converted back to Christianity some 20 years later. With the notable exception of China and southeast Asia, socialism has grown organically, root and branch, in Christian countries in Europe and the Americas. These are hard truths, particularly for conservative Christians who hate communism and love capitalism.
Communism, for all its anti-Christianism, bears certain resemblances to Christianity on several fronts. There is no identity between the two, but there is affinity. The Christian Church bases its authority on a commission from God, and the Communist Party bases its authority on a commission from History, Fate, or the Dialectic. Marx, like Jesus, created a faith and promised men a new future and destiny. The great twentieth-century novelist, Arthur Koestler (author of Darkness at Noon) wrote in his autobiography about his experiences as a Marxist and member of the Communist Party, which highlights this point. In The Invisible Writing (1954), Koestler quotes these revealing words of a young Soviet official.
We are believers. Not as you are. We do not believe either in God or in men. We manufacture gods and we transform men. We believe in Order. We will create a universe in our image, without weaknesses, a universe in which man, rid of the old rags of Christianity, will attain his cosmic grandeur, in the supreme culmination of the species. We are not fighting for a régime, or for power, or for riches. We are instruments of Fate.
Marxism functions as a replacement for—or rival to—Christianity, offering a total explanation of reality and man’s place in it, along with a sense of cosmic purpose. Marx’s dialectical materialism serves as a substitute for the biblical account in Genesis about the origin of the universe and subsequent human history. It mirrors the endless hope of Christians that the kingdom of God will return to its earthly, pre-Edenic paradise—a new Jerusalem.
One naturally wonders if those who left Christianity to become communists were simply rejecting Christianity outright, or whether they were simply transferring their moral allegiance to a new faith in the hope that their heavenly aspirations could be realized on earth in the here and now. The Christian convert to communism swaps the resurrection for insurrection. To these former Christians, communism represented a vision of the Kingdom of God on earth. Communism, like Christianity, offers all men deliverance from present injustice and suffering, promising to all believers a new world defined by equality, justice, and the brotherhood of all men. The gospels of Jesus and Marx speak directly to the poor, the meek, the suffering, and the hungry. They also speak indirectly to the rich or the bourgeoisie, who are taught to repent and feel guilt for their wealth.
All of this would suggest that there was something within Christ’s moral teachings and the accompanying Christian conscience that transferred rather easily and naturally to the communist conscience and moral teaching. Most Western converts to communism (and virtually all communists born outside of established communist nations were and are converts) would seem to have been motivated by the moral pangs or prickings (i.e., guilt) of their Christian conscience. There is something about socialism and communism that appeals to the Christian conscience.
What is it?
Despite his having referred to religion “is the opium of the people,” Marx himself (born a Jew and raised a Christian) did demonstrate a certain degree of sympathy for the teachings of Christianity. In the sentences immediately preceding this famous utterance in his “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” Marx expresses a much more subtle and even appreciative understanding of the role played by Christianity in human affairs. Christianity arose, he suggested, out of suffering. It is “an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.” Religion, he continued, “is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.” Marx believed that Christianity played an important role in relieving human suffering when it was first founded.
The problem with Christianity from Marx’s perspective is that it had adapted itself over the centuries to the extant powers and economic structures and had therefore become an ally of the bourgeois and capitalist oppressor class. Christianity, according to Marx, Engels, Lenin and their twenty-first century descendants, came to be used by the ruling classes as a tool of domination, exploitation, and subjugation. For Marx, the original moral impulse of Christianity was salutary.
To call communism a post-Christian religion is to recognize it as a complete faith, with its own unique liturgy, sacraments, conversion rites, dogmas, principles, hierarchic structures, festivals, and forms of sacrifice and salvation that mirror those of Christianity and lead to the same earthly end: the universal brotherhood of man. Communism is a new kind of religious faith because it is a dream and hope of a better future grounded in the certainty of its claims. It promotes a kind of personal salvation through union with forces and powers greater than the isolated and lonely individual. In the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which sums up rather nicely the communist’s sense of faith, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. . . . Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear (KJV 11:1, 3).” Substitute the word History, Fate, or Dialectic for God, and you will understand how the proletarian communist understands his commitment to the revolution. This is, as we shall see, the secret appeal of communism to many Christians in the West. Christianity and communism provide answers to the question of meaning.
If we are to understand what communism is and the moral vision to which it aspires, we must consider the very real possibility that it is viewed by many as a modern substitute for Christianity. In communism, History replaces God, this-worldliness replaces other-worldliness, materialism replaces spiritualism, the dialectic replaces the Trinity, Marx replaces Jesus, Lenin replaces Paul, the bourgeoisie replaces the Pharisees, the proletariat replaces God’s chosen people, the Comintern replaces the Church, the Party replaces the Apostles, the hammer and sickle replaces the Cross, and the classless and stateless society replaces heaven.
In these ways and many more, I argue that communism is a Christian heresy that seeks to return Christianity to its ethical roots in the pure and unadulterated teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Let us not forget that Marx himself believed that Christianity prepared the way, morally and psychologically, for Marxism. Communism was born of the Christians’ unfulfilled duties. On this point, we might, alternatively, characterize communists as Christians in a hurry.
The State’s Redemptive Power
Let us now dig deeper to explore other interstices between communism and Christianity. I should like to bring the reader’s attention to a couple of curious passages in Karl Marx’s “On the Jewish Question,” where Marx draws an interesting parallel between his philosophy and Christianity. (I have analyzed Marx’s essay “On the Jewish Question” in greater depth here and here.) Marx was, of course, a militant atheist and critic of all religion, but a deeper examination of his life and thought reveals a man driven by something like a messianic impulse, who sought to bring Jesus’s moral teaching down from the heavens and back to earth.
Marx was, first and foremost, as I have suggested already, a moral teacher, who believed that he had discovered a new scientific gospel based on the iron laws of history that would liberate humanity from its fallen state and resurrect man’s true self—his “species-being.” His essay “On the Jewish Question” reads as though it were a secular sermon diagnosing the fallen state of modern society, dismissing the political emancipation associated with classical liberalism as false prophecy, and pointing toward a new, totalizing path to redemption.
Marxism is obviously a radically different philosophy from Christianity in virtually every possible way, but it is interesting to note that Marx himself viewed his moral project as, in certain ways, a secularization of the Christian ethic. We can begin to see the parallels between Marx’s and Jesus’s philosophy by considering an interesting passage from “On the Jewish Question,” where Marx indicates how the modern secular State—and possibly the communist State—compares to Christ’s role in bringing man to a higher state of freedom:
The state is the intermediary between man and human liberty. Just as Christ is the intermediary to whom man attributes all his own divinity and all his religious bonds, so the state is the intermediary to which man confides all his non-divinity and all his human freedom.
In other words, both the communist State and Christ the Redeemer are intermediaries between what man is in his corrupted, post-Fall, post-species-being state (i.e., driven by egoism and self-interest) and what he could or should be, namely, a man who sacrifices his selfish interests for the sake of others. Marx then goes on to indicate that the secular State of the modern world serves that same kind of role that Heaven plays for Christians:
The political state, in relation to civil society, is just as spiritual as is heaven in relation to earth. It stands in the same opposition to civil society, and overcomes it in the same manner as religion overcomes the narrowness of the profane world; i.e., it has always to acknowledge it again, re-establish it, and allow itself to be dominated by it.
The Marxian State is that spiritual place where men will go to have their species-being resurrected or born again. The goal of the Marxian State is to purge men of their artificial passions, desires, needs, and wants they’ve developed over time in civil society—e.g., the selfish desire for acquisition and private property.
Splitting the Differences
At a high level of abstraction, both Marxism and Christianity share desire to 1) eradicate selfishness or egoism from man’s soul and 2) restore the universal brotherhood of love and sharing. Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, let us consider a few other parallels between Christianity and Marxism.
1) There is in both communism and Christianity a sacred text, the Bible for the Christian and the writings of Marx for the communist. The common moral teachings of these sacred texts inspire a hatred of the rich, a love of the poor, a passion for righteousness, and a zeal for the universal brotherhood of man that often turns into fanaticism. Communists and Christians also require creedal uniformity to their core texts, which both sides believe to represent the final truth. Furthermore, both communists and Christians believe they are the chosen people with the power to lead all of humanity to a New Jerusalem that promises the final salvation, which is a kind of return to man’s original condition before the Fall, as expressed either when Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or when early man developed a division of labor and created private property.
2) There is in both communism and Christianity a harmonious, propertyless, and unalienated state of existence where man’s true essence is to be found and later rediscovered and resurrected. For Christians, that time and place was the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived in a state of innocence and in communion with God; for Marx, that time and place was a hypothetical prehistoric stage of “tribal ownership” (see The German Ideology), where there were no classes, no State, and, most of all, no private property, and where men’s “species-conciousness” allowed them to live happily and harmoniously in communion with each other.
3) There is in both communism and Christianity, a singular moment that plunges mankind into a long history of selfish greed, suffering, conflict, and alienation. For Christians, that cataclysmic event was the moment when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command that they not eat fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and thereby entered into and bequeathed to all humanity a state of perpetual disobedience and sin; for Marx, that event was the moment that man claimed woman as his own (i.e., as property) and subsequently put a fence around a plot of land that he claimed as his own exclusive property, divided labor between men and women, and then introduced competition between men, all of which caused permanent class conflict and alienation in one form or another.
4) There is in communism and Christianity a shared belief that humanity will be redeemed by a Savior, who speaks for humanity, especially for the poor, suffering, and oppressed. For Christians, Jesus Christ was brought to earth to reveal God’s plan for man, to bear humanity’s sins, to model perfect obedience to God and selfless love, and to reconcile post-Fall man to God in his eternal kingdom; for Marxists, Karl Marx revealed the meaning, purpose, and forward direction of History (qua Fate), which was to palliate man’s suffering in the present, to restore man’s original need to sacrifice for the sake of the poor, needy, and the downtrodden, and to deliver him to the kingdom of freedom. Both communism and Christianity give men a reason to live and a reason to die.
5) There is in communism and Christianity a critique of existing power structures. Jesus, speaking on behalf of the poor, the meek, and the oppressed, challenged the religious, social, and political elites of his time (e.g., Pharisees, Sadducees, Roman imperial officials), condemning their greed, lust for power and wealth, and injustices (Matthew 23:13-36). Marx, speaking on behalf of the proletariat, challenged the bourgeoisie and the capitalist class for their greed, power lust, and exploitation of the working class. The Marxian version of original sin comes in the form of man’s selfish and unquenchable desire for private property, which means the greatest sinners are the largest holders of private property, namely, the bourgeoisie and the capitalist class, who seek to exploit the workers. The proletariat for Marx is, in turn, the modern version of the poor, the meek, and the downtrodden. Like Christ, he seeks to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick. Like Jesus, Marx claims to speak for the poor and suffering who are victims of the egoistic, self-interested hucksters—the money changers—who worship the “worldly god,” namely, “money.” With Marx, the Kingdom of Heaven will be replaced by the Kingdom of Freedom, which is freedom from want.
6) There is in communism and Christianity the use of discipleship in which small groups of committed followers are tasked with changing the world. The teachings of Jesus and Marx were carried on after their respective deaths by a small cadre of acolytes whose common missions were to spread either the word of Christ or the gospel of Marx. For Christians, the Twelve Apostles were tasked with proclaiming the Gospel (the “good tidings” of salvation through Jesus), making disciples, baptizing, and teaching obedience to Christ’s commands (Luke 2:10-11, 46-47, 4:18-19; Matthew 28:19-20), and their mission was to spread the spiritual message of salvation, forgiveness of sins, and the coming Kingdom of God, building a community of believers rooted in faith and sacrificial love. For Marxists, the revolutionary Vanguard was tasked with educating the masses about the cause and nature of their oppression and with organizing and mobilizing the proletariat for the historically pre-ordained violent revolution to overthrow capitalism. The Vanguard, an elite corps of ideologically committed “intellectuals,” was to prepare the way for establishing a socialist state on the road to communism and the ultimate withering away of the State. Christ had his Paul and Marx had his Lenin.
7) There is in communism and Christianity a final resting place or what we might call the end of history. Whereas with Christianity the end is transcendent of time and space, communism puts it at some future date in an undetermined place. For the Christian, the sins of the individual must burn away; for the communist, the sins of society must fall off. In both utopias, humanity will have all it could ever need or want. There shall be no exploitation or suffering in the Christian heaven and in the communist society. In Isaiah 65:17-19, God announces:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
And then again in Revelation 21:1-4, John the Apostle announces the new heaven, an announcement reinforced by God’s own words. The message is clear: heaven shall be brought down to earth and made real for all living men and women.
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Readers should note that the Book of Revelation talks of a “new earth,” and that new earth is a “new Jerusalem,” which has come down out of heaven and will be governed by God himself.
And so too with the communists. In 1932, an American missionary of communism William Z. Foster predicted that the arrival and adoption of the Marxist-Leninist ideology in America would result in “the most profound of all revolutions in history. The proletarian revolution would initiate “changes more rapid and far-reaching than any in the whole experience of mankind.”
The hundreds of millions of workers and peasants, striking off their age-old chains of slavery, will construct a society of liberty and prosperity and intelligence. Communism will inaugurate a new era for the human race.
Now, it is true that the differences between the Christian’s earthly Heaven and Marx’s classless and stateless society are seemingly night and day, but the point is that Marx felt the need to create a secular heaven where not individuals, but society passes from a state of corruption, degeneration, and suffering to a secular state of redemption and perfection. In both places, alienation and suffering will be eliminated.
The evidence seems clear: communism and Christianity are driven by a common vision of a future society in which men will be free, content, peaceful, and happy in living together. In Micah 4:3-4, it is said of the Lord that,
And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.
At the heart of Marx’s moral teaching is a radical redefinition of human salvation. The “human emancipation” or “human freedom” that Marx hopes will be achieved through the coming-into-being of the communist State and then the withering away of the State is the Marxian version of Christian salvation and earthly heaven. True emancipation and true freedom for Marx are not political concepts (i.e., to be emancipated politically and free from government coercion) but are, rather, psychological and moral concepts. Emancipation means the liberation from one’s selfish desires and freedom for the resurrected expression of one’s true communal self or species-being. In his The German Ideology, Marx describes his idyllic communist society in the following terms:
While in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.
Marx’s messianic narrative culminates, like the Bible, with a promise of a restored humanity. For Christianity, the Kingdom of Heaven is a state of perfect harmony and communion with God. For Marx, the eventual withering away of the communist State results in the Kingdom of Freedom, which is a state of perfect harmony and communion between men. It is a millenarian secular state of brotherly love and harmony, where all human contradictions, resentments, and hatreds are resolved. In the Christian heaven, men are reunited with God. In Marx’s secular heaven, men are reunited first with their true selves and then with each other. Marx’s vision of an ego-less, selfless, classless, stateless community of brotherly love is his version of a secular New Jerusalem.
None of this, of course, either the Christian or communist vision of a future defined by universal brotherhood and freedom, is much more than a literary flourish that bears little relationship to reality. Not surprisingly, both the Old and New Testament Prophets and the communist theoreticians are curiously reticent about the exact nature of their classless societies. In both cases, there will be a material redistribution of wealth from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs. Freedom, happiness, and the unity of all men will follow in these perfect conditions. Beyond these glittering generalities, there’s not much more to know.
Conclusion
This essay concludes, then, with the question posed by V. I. Lenin in the title of his famous book: What is to be Done?
This question is not mine to answer, although I will say that communism is a plague on human civilization. This demonstrable fact must be addressed by those Christians (including my Christian friends) who oppose socialism and communism. It is your responsibility to either show me that I am wrong, or to show your fellow Christians who support communism, socialism, or even the liberal welfare state that they are wrong—morally wrong. Everything depends on it.
I look forward to the conversation.
Context on the "opium of the masses" line: many people took opium for medicinal purposes in the 1840s, including Marx (it was also known as Laudenaum). Marx chided anarchists like Bakunin for making atheism a cornerstone of their politics.