Criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism. ~Karl Marx~
Prometheus is the first saint and martyr on the calendar of philosopy. ~Karl Marx~
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. ~Karl Marx~
Now that we have looked a little at the philosophies that inspired and defined Marxist Socialism, let us return to the second post in this series, in which I listed seven principles that underlie the philosophy of Communism. In the next seven posts I would like to briefly examine these principles, and offer some salient quotes from Marx, Feuerbach, and later Communist leaders, to demonstrate the use and evolution of these principles within Communist history.
Today we will begin with the first point, which is atheism.
Atheism is certainly not new. In the sense of practical atheism (living as though God does not exist), it has cleary been around since Fall of our first parents. There is no historical record that can give us a date for the first appearance of intellectual atheism, the actual belief that God does not exist. However, there are certainly enough records of individual atheists to indicate that there have been atheists here and there throughout much of known history. At no point prior to modern times, however, did atheism define a culture, or achieve any real political or social prominence. Atheists were typically isolated individuals, and their beliefs do not seem to have been in keeping with the beliefs of the majority of their fellow countrymen. It is possible, of course, as some modern atheists would have us believe, that there were many more atheists who were afraid to voice their opinions, and those few who did so were lonely heroes. There is certainly no real evidence for such an idea, and even if the number of atheists of earlier times was far higher than we might imagine, the very idea that they kept their beliefs to themselves out of fear or social sensitivities would still seem to indicate that they were very much the minority. One thing is perfectly clear, however. Never, in all the long annals of history, until modern times, do we ever encounter an atheistic government, country, or society. Atheism was always the exception, never the rule.
Beginning with the Enlightenment (that infamous misnomer!) atheism appears on a larger scale, exhibiting great numbers and commanding more political power. Even this, however, was largely confined originally to France, and could be seen as more anticlerical than anti-theistic.
It is in Communist ideology, and in the Communist countries that we first really find an attempt to create an entirely atheistic government, country, and people. The atheism of this Communism stems directly from Communism's German roots, and it is worth while spending a few short paragraphs to examine its distinctive features.
It has already been noted in the previous posts in this series, that Hegel and Feuerbach represent two of the greatest philosophical influences on Marx and his thought. Hegel was an Idealist who promoted the idea of dialectically evolving Spirit. The evolution of this spirit would eventually culminate in a god-like perfection. Hegel, as mentioned in the first post, worded his beliefs carefully to hide his atheism, allowing his readers to fall into the trap of assuming that he really still did believe in some kind of Deity. He did this presumably to remain hire-able as a professor in a still nominally Christian Germany. It seems quite clear now, however, that he was really an atheist, merely making man into god through a sort of dialectical apotheosis.
Feuerbach split with Hegel's Idealism, preferring a stark materialism. His atheism was clearer, and he was hailed by his peers as having destroyed the notion of God. Like his master, he also apotheosized man, but only in the sense of humanity, not individual persons. He believed that humanity as a collective whole, dialectically advancing through history, would eventually repudiate the idea of God, and accept is own personal greatness, realizing that the attributes wrongly ascribed to God throughout history were really the glorious attributes of humanity itself.
Like Feuerbach, Marx was a devout materialist, who also believed that humanity contained its own greatness, the greatness for so long mistakenly attributed to God.
There are many forms of atheism, but Marxist atheism has a few particular qualities that are worth understanding. From what we have seen of Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx, we may observe four crucial aspects to Marxist atheism.
1. It is anti-theistic. Atheism takes many forms, and throughout history there have been many polite and well-mannered atheists who had come to a personal belief that God did not exist. They were not God-haters or God-destroyers. Often there beliefs remained personal, and they were quite willing to accept the religious convictions of their fellowmen. Feuerbach and Marx bear no resemblance to such personalities, and would best be described, not as atheistic, but as anti-theistic. Since they held that the attributes commonly ascribed to God were actually the attributes of mankind itself, they believed that faith in God robbed man of his own greatness. Belief in a deity crippled man, making him a servant to an imaginary tyrant. Thus faith was not an amoral issue, rather faith in God represented to these men an actual evil. Man must take back what had been robbed from him; must repudiate God and accept his own "divinity"; must leave the illusion of heaven and conquer earth; must renounce his own slavery and become master of the world.
2. It is evangelistic. It follows from what has been said above that Marxist atheism must take on an evangelical, almost messianic character. It is essential to it, for the liberation of mankind, that the very notion of God be removed from the minds of men, obliterated from the records of our memories. Thus is creates its own "gospel", the good new of materialistic humanism, and sends out its missionaries to convert the world. It becomes almost a religion in its own right, filled with evangelical zeal, striving to utterly destroy the last vestige of God in the minds of all men. It will not be satisfied until it has accomplished that very goal.
3. It apotheosizes humanity. This has already been mentioned above, but it should be noticed that Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx all share the idea of man-as-god. Feuerbach and Marx are particularly clear in noting that every goodness ascribed to God is really a projection of man himself, who in the alienation of his unhappy conscience seeks to create a perfect being outside himself and untainted by his own failures. To both these men, however, mankind really contains all the goodness and greatness of God within itself. Communism thus divinizes mankind, placing the image of man as the idol of worship in its humanist temple.
4. Its apotheosis is collectivist. Feuerbach, in breaking with Hegel's Idealism, also broke from the individualistic tendencies of Hegel. Marx, however was also critical of the vagueness of Feuerbach's abstract humanity, and sought a more concrete, historical understanding of man. It is important to understand Marx's thought here correctly, which due to its complexity will be reserved for another post. Marx was, in a certain sense of the word, both an individualist and a collectivist. Nonetheless, Marx believed that the perfection of man-as-god was not to be looked for in individuals, but rather in Communist society as a whole. In other words, the true freedom and perfection of the individual can only occur within the collectivist society of Marxist Socialism. Thus the collectivist aspect of Communism is present in the philosophies that inspire it, and its subjugation of the individual to the state is merely the political outworking of its philosophical root.
In his doctoral thesis Karl Marx glorifies the character of Prometheus from Greek mythology, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it man to use. For this deed Prometheus was condemned to everlasting torment in Hades, chained to a rock. Marx admires Prometheus because he rebelled against the gods, stole their greatness and gave it man, made man godlike, and preferred to torture to serving Zeus.
Thus we can describe the atheism of Marxist thought as collective, universal struggle, forging ahead with evangelical fervor, to eventually rid all the world of religion and the idea of God, thus enabling man, the new Prometheus, to take back by revolt his own great gifts and goodness which were stolen from him by the gods; until, at last, he sets up a humanistic, materialistic paradise of man in Communist society that will cover one end of the earth to the other.
Such is the picture of Marxist atheism, and it is at the very heart and soul of Communism.
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