"We are partOf every rock and bird and beast and hill,One with the things that prey on us,And one with what we kill."
"We are partOf every rock and bird and beast and hill,One with the things that prey on us,And one with what we kill."
Darwinism and Marxism constitute one gospel, the only true, comprehensive and sufficient gospel whichthe world has ever had or can have, and there is no hope for the future of mankind except in it. If it fails the world is lost, but it shall not and indeed cannot fail, for its words are so many acts or facts of nature.
There is no fact which is not such an act, and every such fact is a part of the one only law upon the knowing and doing of which terrestrial life and its happiness are wholly and solely dependent.
Yes, life, long life, happy life, all there is of such human life, or divine life, (if there be any), depends entirely upon a knowledge of and conformity to this law which is the doing of nature, and not at all upon any law which is the willing of a god, if indeed there is such a law.
Neither the religion nor the politics which enters into the constitution of Marxian or proletarian socialism is at all concerned about the heaven above or the hell below the earth, if there are such places: but the concern of both is wholly to ring out a hell from the earth and to ring in a heaven upon it.
Nor have the religion and politics which constitute this socialism the least concern about the service of a celestial divinity (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha or any other) by doing his will; but both are much concerned with the service of humanity, which consists in rightly learning, interpreting and using the laws of nature, wholly for the purpose of making the terrestrial lives of men, women and children as long and happy as possible, and with absolutely no reference to any celestial life which may be either above or below the earth.
Religion and politics are the complementary andinseparable halves of the social sphere, religion being its idealism and politics its practicalism.
Religious idealism is a social soul of which the church should be the embodiment.
Political practicalism is a social soul of which the state should be the embodiment.
Contrary to the representations of orthodox Christianism it is impossible for any soul to exist without an embodiment.
In truth the body produces the soul, not the soul the body. We must have the church and state in order that we may have their souls, idealism and practicalism.
Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust asideAnd naked on the Air of Heaven ride,Were't not a Shame—were't not a Shame for himIn this clay carcass crippled to abide?—Omar.
Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust asideAnd naked on the Air of Heaven ride,Were't not a Shame—were't not a Shame for himIn this clay carcass crippled to abide?
—Omar.
The church and the state are on the same level as to their origin and importance. Both are human institutions and each is indispensable to the other. It is not at all desirable or possible to rid the world of either, but it is absolutely necessary that both should be revolutionized, the church by having its bible and creed rewritten or at least reinterpreted, on the basis of truth as it is revealed by nature, and the state by having its institutions reorganized on the basis of service to all instead of only to those of a small class, the owner or master class.
All the idealistic aims of churches and all the practical undertakings of states should be directly concerned with the answer to three questions: (1)the question as to how to reach the goal where terrestrial life shall in the case of each man, woman and child be as long and happy as it is within the range of possibilities to make it, by the fullest of attainable knowledge concerning the laws of nature; (2) the question as to how to make the most successful endeavor universally to disseminate such knowledge, and (3) the question as to how resistlessly to persuade to the living of it.
These are the only concerns and aims of Marxian socialism and they cannot be promoted or even avowed by Christian socialists.
The great crime of the ages is the robbing of the producer of the basic necessities of human life by the non-producer.
Capitalism is the robber, and the politics and religion of the old states and churches are the right and left hands by which he has been and is doing the robbing.
Marxian socialism is an undertaking which has for its task the overthrow of the system which makes it possible for those who produce nothing to live surfeitingly, and renders it necessary for those who produce everything to live starvingly.
Poverty is a disease caused by the unjust wage system of competitive capitalism for producing and distributing the necessities of life (food, clothing and shelter) for the profit of capitalists, the few who live by owning the materials and machines of production and distribution; and this blighting malady cannot be cured by charity, but it will spread until this system is supplanted by the just one of co-operative industrialism, a system by which these necessities shallbe produced and distributed for the use of laborers, those who live by making and operating the machines.
Every gift to charity by a rich man is a robbery of a poor man. You will not see this at once, if ever, and I shall not blame you for the failure to do so. It was not seen by me until I was much older than you; but I am now seeing it as clearly as I ever saw the sun on a cloudless noonday, and this is true of rapidly growing millions who are resolutely resolved to do away with the prevailing conception of charity, according to which capitalists may rob laborers of the fruit of their toil, giving them of it barely enough to keep body and soul together and to raise up children who are doomed to follow in their footsteps; and then, when the strength of their victim fails, to make amends for the robberies, by giving the most highly favored among them beds in hospitals, poor-houses in which to die prematurely, and nameless graves in potter's fields in which to await hopefully a resurrection and ascension to an inheritance of happiness in a sky, which was denied them on the earth.
The time is at hand when everywhere the unemployed and the underpaid shall begin a resistless march towards the goal of economic levelism under a banner containing this slogan: We want no charity but the right to work and the fruits of our labors that we and our helpless dependents may have every necessity to the fullest life for body and soul.
During more than a whole generation Mrs. Brown and I have not produced a spoonful of any food, a thread of any garment or a shingle of any house; and yet we have had foods, garments and houses in abundance with some to spare, while theirproducers have had them in scarcity with much to want.
While the world war was on, an ill wind for the producers blew a thousand dollars to us and an ill wind for us blew it into the hands of a committee, ostensibly for investment on behalf of a hospital of which we approved, but really for the purchase of a bond in the interest of a war of which we disapproved.
The fathers of the present generation of producers and distributors of the necessities of life were robbed in order that we might inherit the property from which our income is derived; the sons and daughters are being robbed over and over again and again, year after year, in order that the property may continue to yield this income to us.
We therefore paid nothing of our own for this bond. What we gave for it was of the spoils which the great robber, capitalism, has bestowed upon us, its favorite children, from what it has taken from its unfortunate victims.
The same persons or their children and successors were or shall be robbed first to create our property, then to pay the income of it, next to buy the bond, and now they are being robbed to meet the interest on it and finally they will be robbed to pay its face value. If capitalism stands, of course the victims of the last of these robberies will belong, probably, to a remote generation; but this delay is a misfortune in store for many of all intervening generations.
If the robbery connected with this bond were limited to its original cost, one thousand dollars, and to its accruing interest, which is likely in time to aggregate several thousand dollars, it would indeed be bad enough, yet not nearly as much so as it is under the melancholy circumstances; for the money paid on account of the bond goes towards killing or wrecking its producers, if not those who produced this particular thousand dollars, yet others of their class to whom the world owes all of its wealth; therefore the thousand dollars which went into this bond has been devoted to the robbery of those who were robbed of it and of the most precious of all things: life and limb.
You will ask: how can you and Mrs Brown, in the face of your theory, according to which all who live by owning are robbers of those who live by working, consistently receive and expend the income of your inheritance?
The answer was given to a friend who asked us why we did not follow the heroic example of a young American who had recently renounced what had been inherited by him, and this is, in effect, what we said:
As we look at the question, our course is more rational than his, because the wealth which he renounces may go to some one who is without his sympathy for the proletariat. We prefer to receive our inheritance and use it to overthrow the economic system which makes it possible for us to do nothing and have everything, and for those who do everything to have nothing.
Capitalists, as such, people who live by the owning of the machines of production and distribution, instead of by the making and operating of them, have much to say against the alleged anarchism of socialists and yet they are necessarily what they accuse anarchism of being, robbers and murderers.Every cent of profit, interest and rent is so much robbing, and all wars are so many conflicts between the capitalistic bandits or robbers in the countries involved, and the peace conferences, which follow them, are so many attempts of the bandits on the successful side to have the spoils as large as possible, and to satisfactorily divide them.
It is Holy Week 1921. The week in which during all the years of many and long ages benighted people sacrificed their Christs to Shylock gods. If Jesus lived and was a Christ, unhappily He was neither the first nor the last, for there were many both before and after Him. Were they who superstitiously led these victims to their Golgothas greater sinners against humanity than those who did avariciously during the war drive large armies of young men to the terrible trenches, a wholesale sacrifice of the lords of power and wealth and who do now drive the vast majority of the nations involved in that war to a terrible body and soul destroying poverty and slavery? No. The modern robbers even more than the ancient ones are in need of the prayer: Forgive them for they know not what they do.
Communism and Christianism have, indeed, this in common, that their object is to promote life, long life, and happy life, both lives in a large and full measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.
Yet, with this sameness in the gospels of Communism and Christianism there is this difference in the aims of the christs who preached them, which separate them as widely as the east is from the west, leaving a great and impassable gulf between them.
Marx, the christ of the Communist gospel, said: I amcome that the world might have terrestrial life for body, mind and soul, and have it for each in the fullest of possible measures by co-operation with each other in the discovery of the laws of nature and in making them serve men, women and children by securing for them food, clothing, shelter, health and comfort for the body, and leisure for the mind to think and for the soul to grow.
Jesus, the christ of the Christian gospel, according to orthodoxy, said: I am come that ye might have celestial life for mind, body and soul and have it for each in the largest and fullest possible measure by co-operation in persuading each other in particular and the world in general to receive a revelation of the will of a conscious, personal God, made through prophets, preserved in the bible and interpreted by the church.
With me it is a melancholy but resistless and deepening conviction, that, if orthodox Christianism should become associated with Marxian socialism, as Kingsley and you would associate them, we should soon have a glaring illustration of the truth of two proverbs: a house divided against itself cannot stand; and no man can serve two masters.
Moreover, I believe that if Christian socialism were to become a door to Marxian socialism, through which orthodox Christianism could enter and make itself at home, the revolutionary aims of the slave class would be thwarted and the world would enter upon a new dark age, as it did when Constantine was converted to Christianity and Christians became the most loyal citizens and valiant soldiers of the Empire.
At that time chattel slavery had run its course aswage slavery has now; and, if it had not been prolonged by a military despotism, as I fear this may be, the world would have had something of the feudal slavery, but nothing of the dark age. This age was the baneful fruit of Christianism. Christianity has held the world back from civilization instead of advancing it towards civilization.
The Christianization of Marxian communism, in accordance with the program of Kingsley and our Church Socialist League, would spell another military despotism for the prolongation of a second system of slavery, which has run its course and is in a fair way of being overthrown; but if the revolutionists fail, as the result of being trampled under the iron heel, we are at the threshold of a second dark age and shall soon be passing through all the miseries of it.
My interest in the movement within our church looking towards a Christian socialism of a more radical and revolutionary type would be great, if only I could feel as I should so much like, that the Christian socialism to which you have consecrated the whole prime of your life, and the Marxian socialism, to which I have consecrated all of the little that remains of mine, the fag-end, are not utter incompatibilities, so much so that it is absolutely impossible that they can co-exist and co-operate to any good purpose.
The irreconcilable incompatibility of Christian socialism and Marxian socialism is due to the fact that, whereas the Christian is essentially imperialistic in its character, the Marxian is as essentially democratic. The reason for this fundamental and ineradicable difference, and the consequent incompatibleness, is the factthat orthodoxism, whether Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan or Buddhistic, is nothing unless it is supernaturalistic and traditional; and Marxism is nothing unless it is naturalistic and scientific, as much so as is Darwinism.
In order that you may see the reason, as I understand it, for this wide, deep and bridgeless difference, I draw the following contrasts between the essential beliefs of Marxian socialists and orthodox Christians:
1. Marxian socialism is essentially naturalistic. Orthodox Christianism is essentially supernaturalistic. The consistent socialist says: I have all the potentialities of my own life within myself. The consistent Christian says: My strength is from God.
2. Marxian socialism is essentially classless. Orthodox Christianism is essentially a class system by which the world is divided into two classes, saints and sinners. The consistent socialist says: Every man is my brother. The consistent Christian (like the theist of every name—Jew, Mohammedan, Buddhist and the rest) says: Every true believer is my brother, but those who are not are only potential brethren.
3. Marxian socialism is essentially terrestrial. Orthodox Christianism is essentially celestial. The consistent socialist says: Earth is my home. The consistent Christian says: Heaven is my home.
4. Marxian socialism is essentially materialistic. Orthodox Christianism is essentially spiritualistic. The consistent socialist says: The basic necessities of life, and therefore its first concern, are foods, raiments, shelters, comfort and leisure. The consistent Christian says: Take no primary thought for these, but only for faith in and obedience to God, regarding all else of secondary importance.
5. Marxian socialism is essentially proletarian. Orthodox Christianism is essentially bourgeois. The consistent socialist says: I am, by reason of my antecedents, a man, a woman, a child of nature on an essential level as to my origin and destiny with every other representative of humanity and indeed animality. The consistent Christian, like the theist of every name, says: I am (by reason of my faith, baptism or conversion) a prince or princess, the son or daughter of a king, God.
6. Marxian socialism is essentially democratic. Orthodox Christianism is essentially imperialistic. The consistent socialist says: I live with reference to the will of the majority. The consistent Christian says: I live with reference to the will of a God.
7. Marxian socialism is essentially pacific.[F]Orthodox Christianism is essentially belligerent. The consistent socialist says: Since you are a man, Ico-operate with you. The consistent Christian says: Since you are not a believer, I contend with you.
8. Marxian socialism is essentially non-sectarian. The consistent socialist says: All the world is my home and the desire and effort to render service to men, women and children is my religion. The consistent Christian says: Only Christendom is my home and the desire and effort to serve a God is my religion.
9. Marxian socialism is, as to the source of knowledge and the means of attaining it, essentially scientific. Orthodox Christianism is essentially traditional. The consistent socialist says: The salvation of the world is dependent upon what is learned by natural experience, observation and investigation about the doings of a matter-force-law, nature. The consistent Christian says: This salvation depends upon what is learned by revelation, tradition and inspiration about the willings of a father-son-spirit, God.
10. Marxian socialism explains the history of mankind on the naturalistic theory that it has been determined during every period by the existing system for supplying the materialistic necessities of life. Orthodox Christianism explains this history on the supernaturalistic theory that it is determined by the providential directions of a triune divinity. The consistent socialist says: If you will tell me of the economic system by which a people have fed, clothed and housed themselves, I will tell you, at least in general outline, what has been their history. The consistent Christian says: If you will tell me what the providences of my God have been towards a people, I will tell you their history.
11. Marxian socialism has inscribed on one of itsbanners: Liberty. Orthodox Christianism has this inscription on its corresponding banner: Obedience. The consistent socialist says: This Liberty-banner is the symbol of my freedom as a son of man to be progressively learning, living and teaching the unfolding revelations of nature—to know and to live which is to have life, terrestrial life in an ever increasing measure, all the life there is here and now or elsewhere and elsewhen, if there is to be a conscious, personal life anywhere or anywhen else. The consistent Christian says: This Obedience-banner is a symbol of my slavery as a son of God by which I am bound to receive, live and teach the faith once for all delivered to the saints in the Old and New Testaments or else lose the permanent life in the sky which is to follow this temporary one on the earth.
12. Marxian socialism has inscribed on another of its banners: Justice to Man. Orthodox Christianism has on its corresponding banner: Love to God. The consistent socialist says: It is my aim to do unto others as I would have them do unto me if our circumstances were reversed. The consistent Christian says: It is my aim to love God with all my heart, mind and soul.
And if there be any further contrast between this Christianism and Socialism, it is briefly comprehended in these three statements,—in themselves sufficient to show how absolutely impossible it is for a consistent Jesuine Christian to be a consistent Marxian Socialist:
1. Marx seeks to save by doing away with both the master and slave classes—Jesus by exalting the slave class above the master class.
2. Marx exhorts the slave class to look to itselffor deliverance—Jesus taught it to look to a God for this.
3. Marx promises salvation for this world here and now, a world about which everybody knows much—Jesus promised it for another world elsewhere and elsewhen, a world about which nobody knows anything.
The world has never had a gospel which is at all comparable in its excellency to that of Marxian Socialism. The gospel of Jesuine Christianism, according to the orthodox interpretation of it, is no exception; for, granting it to be superior to the Mosaic, Buddhistic, Mohammedan and other gospels, it is, nevertheless, almost infinitely inferior to the Marxian gospel. Gospels are for the purpose of saving the world from its suffering. The Jesuine and Marxian gospels are alike in having for their object the salvation of the proletarian world.
About three years ago I discovered that I had spent a long, strenuous and open-handed ministry in preaching lies to the permanent ruin of my health and the temporary embarrassment of my purse; therefore I had the unhappy experience of being forced to see that all this part of my life, its prime, had been mostly, if not wholly wasted and worse. What was to be done?
My friends told me as plainly as they could, and some succeeded in making it brutally plain, that in losing my faith in the supernaturalistic dogmas of traditional Christianism, as they are literally interpreted in the doctrinal standards of the orthodox churches, I had lost the pearl of great price.
My soul told me that I had never possessed this jewel, but that, even with the little time and enfeebled strength that remained to me, I might yet find it, if only I should cease looking for it in the field of supernaturalism, under the direction of divine authority, and begin looking for it in the field of naturalism, under the direction of human reason.
Happily, where faith went out courage came in, and it increased with my desperation until (though standing on the shore of death where the deep and unknown stream lies darkly between the present and future) I could and I did undertake the supreme task of my life—the breaking of the chains by which I was bound as a slave to the degrading superstition that I was, both by an inherited and cultivated disposition, a doomed man, and by an inherent weakness, a helpless one with no power to emancipate myself.
Of such enslaving chains I mention three among the strongest, the severed parts of which, with those of all the rest, now lie scattered about me: (1) the chain of the fear of God; (2) the chain of the fear of the devil, and (3) the chain of the fear of man.
Hitherto I had been a child, thinking as a child, understanding as a child and speaking as a child.
Henceforth I was to be a man, the greatest, conscious, personal being who has anything to do with this world; and as a man, I put away the things of a child, especially the most childish of all things, fear, the fear of God, the fear of devil and the fear of man.
Preachers of the supernaturalistic interpretationsof religion say that the fear of God is salvation. It is damnation. No one who has fear of any conscious, personal master whomsoever or wheresoever, God in heaven, devil in hell or man on earth, is free or other than a slave. Nor has any such attained to the full stature of manhood.
There is only one fear which saves and that is the fear of ignorance. The world's destroyer-god is ignorance. There is no other devil on earth or in hell below it, and this one lives, moves and has his being in the fear of knowledge.
The world's saviour-god is knowledge. There is no other Christ on earth or in any heaven above it, and this one lives, moves and has his being in the fear of ignorance.
Happily, I listened to my soul and I have found the pearl of great price, yes, a whole bed of them, so that I am now in position to substitute in my preaching a truth for every lie I used to preach, and thus save myself; but woe unto me unless I make the substitution by ringing out the lie and ringing in the truth.
Within the last three years I have learned that, as I have not been, since the beginning of my Christian ministry, more than a generation ago, a producer, I have nothing of my own to give to charity, and what is true of me is true of Mrs. Brown.
No one is a producer who does not grow things on the farm, make things in a shop, discover things in a laboratory or render some necessary or helpful service to those who do such things. I have done nothing of the kind. If I had been preaching truthsI might have rendered such service, but I preached lies.
Every possession rightfully belongs to the productive worker and nothing to the unproductive idler. This is one of the two greatest and most salutary among all the truths known to mankind. Recently I made acknowledgment of it on the pledges to a good cause, that of the Red Cross, by writing on their upper left hand corners: "The gift of Unknown Laborers through Bishop and Mrs. Brown, whose possessions are the fruits of their enforced toil and sacrifices."
By this acknowledgment I rang out a great lie—the lie which makes the salvation of the world depend upon the capitalists with their servants, the preachers on the right and the politicians on the left hand.
Salvation or, what is the same reality, civilization, always has been and always will be dependent upon the producer. It will never be attained until the laboring class has done away with the capitalist class. The ideal civilization (which is the salvation of the world from its unnecessary sufferings, especially the overwhelming ones due to the great trinity of evils, war, poverty and slavery) is in the very nature of things an impossibility on the basis of class sectarianism, such as we have even in our Anglo-American Christianity, the best interpretation of traditional religion, and in our American democracy, the best interpretation of traditional politics.
Among the pathetic things about war, there is this, the laboring class makes by far the greater sacrifices, not only of life and limb, but also of money.
Quite contrary to the general impression, capitalists, as such, pay no part of the enormous and ruinous pecuniary cost of war. When Mr. Rockefeller pays out three million dollars in war taxes he is disposing of what rightfully belongs to laborers, because they, not he, earned it. Capitalists, as such, neither earn nor pay anything, in time of either war or peace.
So much for one of the two great truths. The other, which is the greater because it includes its companion, is this: Man has within himself all the potentialities of his own life. This is true of the universe as a whole, and, therefore, necessarily so of all that therein is.
The sum of both truths is that the salvation of the world is wholly dependent upon productive laborers and that they must look individually only to the exertion of their own mental and physical powers and collectively to co-operation with each other for the accomplishment of their mission.
Through the whole of my past ministry in the field I rang out these great truths and rang a great lie in by representing that the salvation of the world depends upon a potentiality which is in the sky and not in man, that heaven is above the earth and hell below it, not on it.
When I commenced my present ministry in the study,
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,Some letter of that After-life to spell;And by and by my Soul return'd to me,And answer'd 'I Myself am Heaven and Hell!'
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,Some letter of that After-life to spell;And by and by my Soul return'd to me,And answer'd 'I Myself am Heaven and Hell!'
Omar, the poetic astronomer, might have added a stanza which would have closed. "I myself am God."This is, in effect, what Jesus did say: "I and my Father are one." This is as true of you and me and of every man, woman and child as it was of Jesus.
And Jesus represented that God, both as Father and Son, dwells in the hearts of believers. But every relevant fact which has been scientifically established as such (and there is a whole mountain of such facts) points to the conclusion that Christians are no more divine than other people, and that, as to his essential nature, no man would be less divine than he is if Jesus had never been born.
Gods in the skies (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha) are all right as subjective symbols of human potentialities and attributes and of natural laws, even as the Stars and Stripes on a pole, Uncle Sam in the capitol and Santa Claus in a sleigh are all right as such symbols; but such gods are all wrong, if regarded as objective realities existing independently of those who created them as divinities and placed them in celestial habitations.
What is true of the gods is equally so of all the supernaturalistic dogmas of the several traditional interpretations of religion. Insofar as they are not pure superstitions they are symbols of imaginary events which people think should or must have occurred in the past or should or must occur in the future; not statements of historical events which have occurred or are to occur.
So far I have not found it necessary to renounce the Christian God or any of the things which go with him and I have no idea of doing this, any more than I have of renouncing the American Uncle Sam and the things which go with him, but I place the BrotherJesus of the Christian religion and the Uncle Sam of the American politics on the same footing with each other and with others of their kind as subjective realities. I could be a Jew and an Englishman as conscientiously as a Christian and an American. Many of the early Christians were also Pagans, worshippers of other Gods than Jesus.
Nor is this all or even much more than half of my religious and political levelism.
On the one hand as a religionist I can be any and everything but an orthodox sectarian. This orthodoxy is a libel against humanity. The world owes to it a great part of all its unnecessary troubles—those which are brought about by the triune devil of persecution, ignorance and superstition.
On the other hand as a politician I can be any and everything but a nationalistic sectarian. This nationalism is a libel against humanity. The world owes to it a great part of all its unnecessary troubles—those which are brought upon it by the triune devil of war, poverty and slavery.
Hoping that you will abandon Jesuine socialism for Marxian communism and join me in an effort to banish the fictitious, superstitious gods from the skies and the lying, robbing capitalists from the earth, I am with every good wish,
Very cordially yours,WM. M. BROWN.
Brownella Cottage,Galion, Ohio.
FOOTNOTES:[D]This letter was written in July, 1919, and sent to the press in September, 1920. In the interim several of its representations and arguments were made more complete: therefore, some among the additions bear the marks of dates belonging to later months.[E]According to the showing of the science of biblical criticism there is more than one Jesus of whom we have an account in the New Testament: (1) a naturalistic, this-worldly, pacific, human Jesus, and (2) a supernaturalistic, other-worldly, belligerent, divine Jesus, the Jesus of orthodox Christians.[F]This shall be true of Marxian socialism when it is triumphant, but it will not be so while it is persecuted. Socialist Russia has asked for peace after every war which the capitalist nations (England, France, Italy and America) have waged against her, not because she could no longer defend herself, but for the reason that her socialism, being co-operative in its character, necessarily imposes humaneness; yet they could not grant it, because their capitalism, being competitive in its character, as necessarily imposes inhumaneness. The hand of the capitalist world is aggressively against socialist Russia, and must be, because the life of capitalism depends upon her death: and her hand is defensively against all the capitalist nations. Capitalism and socialism cannot occupy the earth together. Either the one or the other must have all of it. Mankind in general is illustrating the truth of the proverb which has been illustrated by so many families in particular—a house divided against itself cannot stand.
[D]This letter was written in July, 1919, and sent to the press in September, 1920. In the interim several of its representations and arguments were made more complete: therefore, some among the additions bear the marks of dates belonging to later months.
[E]According to the showing of the science of biblical criticism there is more than one Jesus of whom we have an account in the New Testament: (1) a naturalistic, this-worldly, pacific, human Jesus, and (2) a supernaturalistic, other-worldly, belligerent, divine Jesus, the Jesus of orthodox Christians.
[F]This shall be true of Marxian socialism when it is triumphant, but it will not be so while it is persecuted. Socialist Russia has asked for peace after every war which the capitalist nations (England, France, Italy and America) have waged against her, not because she could no longer defend herself, but for the reason that her socialism, being co-operative in its character, necessarily imposes humaneness; yet they could not grant it, because their capitalism, being competitive in its character, as necessarily imposes inhumaneness. The hand of the capitalist world is aggressively against socialist Russia, and must be, because the life of capitalism depends upon her death: and her hand is defensively against all the capitalist nations. Capitalism and socialism cannot occupy the earth together. Either the one or the other must have all of it. Mankind in general is illustrating the truth of the proverb which has been illustrated by so many families in particular—a house divided against itself cannot stand.
The hour has struck for the Grand March! Onward, Comrades, all together! Fall in line! Start the New Year with a cheer! Let us join the world's procession marching toward a glad tomorrow. Strong of hope and brave in heart the West shall meet the East! March with us, brothers every one! March with us to all things new! Climb with us the hills of God to a wider, holier life. Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to meet the Dawn!
Leave behind you doubts and fears! What need have we for "ifs" and "buts"? Away with parties, schools and leagues! Get together, keep in step, shoulder to shoulder, hearts throbbing as one! Face the future, out-daring all you have dared! March on, O Comrades, strong and free, out of darkness, out of silence, out of hate and custom's deadening sway! Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to the wind-blown Dawn!
With us shall go the New Day, shining behind the dark. With us shall go Power, Knowledge, Justice, Truth. The time is full! A new world awaits us. Its fruits, its joys, its opportunities are ours for the taking! Fear not the hardships of the road—the storm, the parching heat or winter's cold, hunger or thirst or ambushed foe! There are bright lights ahead of us, leave the shadows behind! In the East a new star is risen! With pain and anguish the Old Order has given birth to the New, and behold, in the East a man-child is born! Onward, Comrades, all together! Onward to the camp-fires of Russia! Onward to the coming Dawn!
Through the night of our despair rings the keen call of the New Day. All the powers of darkness could not still that shout of joy in far-away Moscow! Meteor-like through the heavens flashed the golden words of light, "Soviet Republic of Russia". Words sun-like piercing the dark, joyous radiant love-words banishing hate, bidding the teeming world of men to wake and live! Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to the bright, redeeming Dawn!
With peace and brotherhood make sweet the bitter way of men! Today, and all the days to come, repeat the Word of Him who said, "Thou shall not kill". Send on psalming winds the angel-chorus, "Peace on earth, good-will to men". Onward march, and keep on marching until His Will on earth is done! Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to the life-giving fountain of Dawn!
All along the road beside us throng the peoples sad and broken, weeping women, children hungry, homeless like little birds cast out of their nest. With their hearts aflame, untamed, glorying in martyrdom they hail us passing quickly, "Halt not, O Comrades, yonder glimmers the star of our hope, the red-centered dawn in the East! Halt not, lest you perish ere you reach the Land of Promise". Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to the sun-red Dawn!
KARL MARX
CHARLES DARWIN
The contradiction in terms known as the Christian Socialist is inevitably antagonistic to working-class interests and the waging of the class struggle. His policy (that of the Christian Socialist) is the conciliation of classes, the fraternity of robber and robbed, not the end of classes. His avowed object, indeed, is usually to purge the Socialist movement of its materialism, and this means to purge it of its Socialism and to divert it from its material aims to the fruitless chasing of spiritual will-o'-the-wisps. A Christian Socialist is, in fact, an anti-Socialist.
Clearly, then, the basis of Socialist philosophy is utterly incompatible with religious ideas; indeed, the latter have been reduced to their logical absurdity in what is called "Christian Science."
Moreover, the consistent Christian, if such exists, could look upon the existing world only as an essential part of God's plan, to be accounted for only through God, and modified at God's pleasure. He could regard those who sought the explanation of social conditions in purely natural causes, and who also sought to take advantage of economic development in order to turn this vale of tears into a pleasant garden, only as men who denied by their acts the very basis of his faith.
FOOTNOTES:[G]From the Official Manifesto by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, showing the Antagonism between Socialism and Religion.
[G]From the Official Manifesto by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, showing the Antagonism between Socialism and Religion.
My Dear Brother:
Your letter (April 1st, 1920) enclosing an essay, entitled, Is There a God, came duly to hand and I thank you warmly for it. The essay is a masterpiece and I hope you can let me keep this copy, or make another for myself, for reference when I am writing or conversing on its lines, as is frequently the case.
In the dispute between yourself and friend of which you speak, you are altogether right and he is entirely wrong. In the last analysis it is a disputation as to whether or not the Jewish-Christian bible contains an infallible revelation from an omniscient being, a triune god, Father, Son and Spirit. It does not.
As an objectivity there is no such divinity. He is a subjectivity existing in the imagination of orthodox Christians. You do not agree with me in this, but every day of thought and study deepens the conviction that it is true. None among the gods of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion are objectivities. The lesser ones are generally ghosts of deadmen, and the greater ones are as generally versions of the sun-myth.
The one god of the Jews and the triune god of the Christians, if taken seriously, are superstitions; and the bible revelations of their willings and records of their doings, if taken literally, are lies.
Both the Old and New Testaments are utterly worthless as history. The twelve patriarchs of the Jewish God, Jehovah, are not historical personages, but myths, and this is true of the twelve apostles of the Christian God, Jesus.
Yes, the Old Testament is the Jewish version of the immemorial and universal sun-myth, rewritten several times for the purpose, not of telling any truth, but of imposing the fiction that Jehovah and his people constitute the greatest procession that ever came down the pike of supernaturalism. The New Testament is the Christian version of the same myth, only with the view of showing that Jehovah and the Jews were not, but Jesus and Christians are, this procession.
In itself, the sun-myth, as symbolism, is not only poetically beautiful, but also scientifically true; yet, as literalism, it is in the case of the ignorant, superstition, and in the case of the educated, self-deception.
The sun is, in a very literal and real sense, the creator-god in whom this world lives, moves and has its being; and he is the saviour-god who was born of a virgin nebula, and every winter descends into hell and rises from the dead (the southern solstice) by a new birth and ascends into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the father (the sky) at the northern solstice, and finally he is the illuminator god who lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
And the apostles who preached the gospel of the redemption of the world are the twelve signs of the zodiac through which the sun apparently passes in its annual ascension to the summer solstice and descension to the winter solstice.
Nor is this all: "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world" is the sign of the zodiac, Aries (sheep, ram) through which the sun passes towards the end of March, when all the saviour-gods annually died and rose again. The rising symbolizes the return of the sun towards the northern solstice from the southern one, upon which return seed-time and harvest are dependent, without which the world would perish, not indeed by sin but by starvation.
Jehovah is the sun-myth rewritten to fit in with the ideals and hopes of the owning, master class of the Jews.
Jesus is the sun-myth rewritten to fit in with the ideals and hopes of the owning master class of the Christians.
The Christian god, Jesus, is an improvement upon the Jewish god, Jehovah, because of the division of labor. The task of the owning master class is a twofold one, the robbing of the weak owners by the strong ones in wars, and the robbing of the slaves by the masters which under the capitalist system is done in surplus profits.
Jehovah serves Christians as the god of war. In his name they wage wars, either as groups within a nation having different commercial interests, as in the case of the Civil War of the United States, or as nations against nations with different commercial interests, as in the case of the Revolutionary war of theColonies with England, or the World War of the Allied countries with the Central ones.
Jesus serves Christians as the god of slavery. When they have successfully waged a war of conquest, as the Pilgrim Fathers did against the Indians of America, or when they have appropriated all the means and machines of production, as the capitalists have everywhere, they reconcile the propertyless to a terrestrial hell of toil, want, sorrow and slavery by preaching the Jesuine gospel of hope for a celestial heaven of eternal rest, joy, plenty and freedom.