A Red Flag Rises, Part VIII: Collectivism

The aspect of collectivism is also crucial to communism, but Marx's thought requires a more nuanced understanding than it is often given.

 In Marx's dialectical reading of history, he saw a sort of primeval, or pre-historic collectivism which had helped the human species to survive in its infancy. This could be described as the thesis. Then comes the historical period of individuality, or the antithesis. While Marx does not approve of this state, he views it as a period of growth in human history. In Marx's futuristic view of the perfect, classless society, the synthesis is a state of perfect individuality expressed in a perfectly collective environment.

Thus Marx must not be understood as seeking to destroy individuality, but rather he sees it as a stumbling block to human development if it be promoted outside the collective.

Nonetheless, the collectivism of communism has done more than almost any other philosophy to crush individuality and destroy the dignity of the human spirit. Marx's ideal of individuality, flourishing in the environment of collectivism, has an Achilles' heel; and, like the heel of Achilles, it proves fatal.

We must always bear in mind that Communist philosophy has an eschatalogical aspect, one which requires as much faith as Christian eschatology.  While Christianity sees a hopeful future in which each individual's personality will be perfected, yet in the harmony of perfect brotherhood, free from sin and the necessity of law; Christianity always keeps in mind the reality of original sin and the necessity of Divine assistance. While the non-Christian may view the believer's hope as an illusion, the Church's understanding of the human condition is clearly rooted in reality. The Communist hope, the assumption that broken humanity can and will achieve this utopian estate without Divine assistance, is truly illusory, and nothing more than wishful thinking at best.

This two-fold flaw in Marx's dream, the denial of original sin and the denial of God, turns collectivism into a nightmare of inhuman abuse. Mankind will not naturally attain to such a state, and instead of achieving it through the inward conversion of grace, is forced to try to achieve it through the power of the socialist state. Communism is not concerned with converting hearts, but with changing society by force. The future utopia in which the individual finds freedom vanishes like the mirage it is, and is replaced by the present grim reality of the utter subjugation of the individual to the state, the abolition of free will, and the utter destruction of the dignity of the human person.

There is no other way for the Communist state. It has no channels of grace with which to change fallen humanity, it has no God upon which to call for aid in its efforts to change society. Without these helps, confronted with the harsh reality of sin and evil, with the human penchant for greed, selfishness, corruption, and violence, the Communist state always resorts to power and violence (both physical and psychological), in its efforts to create its illusory paradise on earth.

The common good is something which all of us must consider, for no man is an island, as John Donne reminds us, and we all have a certain duty towards our fellow men. In Communism, however, the common good becomes an idol, a harsh and evil pagan idol, to which the individual must mercilessly be sacrificed. The Christian recognizes in his brothers and sisters the Divine Image, the mark of brotherhood springing from common Fatherhood, and considers each individual as more precious than all the universe. Communism, having no God, sees no Divine Image, no inherent, eternal value in the individual. Its materialism robs man of his spirit, his individuality, and his destiny. The collectivism of Communism, shrouded under the language of the common good, swallows up each member of which it is composed, and consigns them to the materialistic oblivion of its atheistic humanism.

For all the rosy hopes of Marx, Communism remains a religion with no heaven, an iron law with no purpose, crushing its people in the wine press of its totalitarian collectivism, bringing forth no wine, but only streams of blood.

A Red Flag Rises, Part VII: The Philosophy of Revolution

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only  by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!" The Communist Manifesto

Today we look at item number four on our list, the inherent tendency towards revolution. While we know that Communism has often found success through revolution, it may be assumed that this is merely accidental, a result of varying factors of time, place, and personality. Through examining the underlying philosophical aspects of Communism we will be able to see that the revolutionary tendency is not accidental at all, but is rather an intrinsic aspect of Communist thought.

Since all of these posts have considered the impact of Hegel and Feuerbach on Marx, it is worth briefly comparing these three again on this point as well.

It should first of all be noted that the revolutionary tendency first appears in strength in Karl Marx, and then full-blown by the time of Lenin. Hegel and Feuerbach do not exhibit the revolutionary philosophy, at least in the material, militaristic sense. However, I think it is evident that the very nature of Hegelian dialectic is imbued with the spirit of revolution at its very center. Georg Hegel himself may not have been a revolutionary in the sense that Karl Marx was, simply because he was an idealist. His revolutions were struggles of the mind; his battlefield was the human spirit, not the body; and his goal was intellect, not a kingdom or society. Nor did Feuerbach, materialist though he was, intrude his dialectic upon the field of politics and economics, or infuse his sense of struggle with the elements of force and arms. It was left to Marx and his followers to do so.

Nonetheless, I repeat, the revolutionary tendency is in the philosophy of Hegel, in the very nature of his dialectic, patiently waiting till the followers of Marx would bring it into its own, and ravage the world with it. Even in the intellectual sense, no advancement, no good, can come in Hegelian dialectic without revolution. Let us consider for a moment the ideas of thesis and antithesis, in this light.

In Socratic dialectic we also will see the juxtaposition of contrary ideas. We can also call the first one the thesis, and its opposite the antithesis. We are also prepared to see a struggle between the two ideas, with the antithesis acting the revolutionary to the thesis' traditionalism. Yet the result is different, and it is in the difference between the results that we will see the necessity, or lack thereof, of the revolutionary force in the two different forms of dialectic.

In the Socratic dialogue, we discover that one idea or the other was right all along. When the smoke clears the victor that appears is no unfamiliar character. Thus we see that the struggle was not essential, the truth was already there all along, and would have remained even had it never been opposed. It is certainly true that the struggle may have sharpened or refined the idea, explored and probed its depths in some way, but this is only an indictment of the confusion and darkness of our own minds, or of some carelessness on the part of the one who first presented the idea. Simply put, truth stands on its own. It needs no struggle, opposition, or revolution, in order to be. It simply is, eternal and unchanging.

Not so with Hegelian dialectic. Here, in this relativistic construct, there is no absolute. Neither thesis nor antithesis represent actual truth. The only improvement, advancement, or actual good in the system comes in the form of the synthesis, an idea altogether new. The synthesis is the product, or offspring if you will, of the thesis and antithesis. Thus, in Hegelian dialectic, the struggle, the opposition, the revolution, is essential. If you recall Marx's idea of man as becoming, mentioned in the post on relativism, you will see how the struggle is even necessary for man to become. 

In Hegel, of course, this revolutionary element existed in the mind. But it is not difficult to see, once applied to the concrete world of politics and economics, how this dialectical reading of history almost automatically inspires revolution. Thus the revolutionary tendency of Marxism is, as stated above, integral to the system.

It should also be noted here, that the full blossoming of the violent revolutionary tendencies came even later than Marx, with Lenin under the inspiration of the oft-forgotten Sergey Nechayev, one of the most single-minded, virile, and hate-filled revolutionary minds in history. As the Canadian author, poet, and journalist Max Eastman wrote, "...the confluence of these two streams of thought (Nechayev and Marx) is one of the greatest disasters that ever befell mankind."

Communism is not revolutionary by accident. It will use whatever tools it must, but its heart is always towards violence to accomplish its ends. Its very language is the language of the revolutionary, it is conceived in anger, and born in blood.

A Red Flag Rises, Part VI: Blind Faith

Today we will look at a third aspect of Marxist thought: a blind faith in evolutionary social advancement.

We have already spent a great deal of time noting the influence of Hegel and Feuerbach on Marx, and here we will see yet another similarity between these three thinkers. All three of them hold to a dialectical viewpoint of history, with its steady evolution of synthesis. It seems to be ingrained in their theories that this dialectic will turn out well, indeed that it must turn out well. Mankind will continue to advance to some state of perfection. In Hegel we see the final advancement of man in the god-like knowledge of pure spirit; in Feuerbach (renouncing the idealism and individualism of Hegel) we see the perfection of abstract humanity reaching a final self-fulfillment; in Marx, the future perfection of the classless society of Communism.

What made three such brilliant atheists take such a rosy view of the future is still strange to me. As a Catholic, I believe in a hopeful end to history as well, yet it requires the thought of Divine intervention to hold to such a hope with any conviction. What, in all the long annals of human history, would lead us to assume that things will just keep getting better and better, without some miraculous assistance, I simply cannot imagine. Perhaps I will be accused of being pessimistic about human nature or the nature of the universe, but I would think that Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx would have had every bit as much reason (if not more) to be pessimistic as well.

At any rate, personal considerations aside, these three German philosophers did imagine that things were going to work out well in the end, that mankind would achieve some enduring state of perfection, that heaven would appear on earth.

The idea of heaven is cause for two common criticisms against Christianity and other religions that believe in the possibility of an a happy afterlife. The first criticism is the devotee focused upon heaven will be a person remarkably unconcerned with the problems of this present life and world. He or she will be expected to do nothing about the evils and sorrows which afflict our fellow men, or do anything to leave a better world for future generations. It is even possible to do remarkably evil things here (jihad comes to mind) because of one's belief the next life. All eyes on the afterlife, none here. The second criticism is that the idea of heaven is nothing more than a sort of sacred bribery, a promise of something nice in the future if we behave well now. It seems a little less than noble, a little "not-quite-manly". Instead of pursuing truth and justice for its own sake, we are all just striving for a slice of that pie-in-the-sky, which is probably not really there anyway.

Now, there is something to be said for both of these criticisms. It is quite true that certain people focus on heaven in such a way as to completely ignore the needs of this world. This habit is probably even worse among certain Christians who are convinced that the world is ending in the very near future. Why plant trees? We won't be around to see them. Why worry about pollution? The world won't escape the Apocalypse another twenty years anyway. Why bother about hunger and malnutrition in third world countries? Just give 'em the Gospel-- suffering makes you a better Christian anyway. And on we could go. And as for the bribery issue, well yes, I think that there is something to be said about that as well. I am afraid that many, perhaps most of us, haven't really gotten the Gospel into our hearts, so most of our behavior is based on alternating fear and bribery, not on a real desire to do good.

This is not the place to respond to such criticisms in detail, except to note that one would be hard pressed to find an institution in the last two millenia  that has been more concerned with the problems of life on this earth, than the Hell-and-Heaven-preaching Catholic Church. The roster of the names of saints who spent their entire lives helping the poor, the handicapped, and the sick, would fill pages. The reasons behind this apparently contradictory phenomenon will be left for a different post and a different day.

The really interesting thing about the materialistic and atheistic philosophies which we have been discussing is that they create a certain faith in heaven here on earth, yet few, if any, human institutions have done more damage to people here on earth than the utopian institution of Communism. Here is a contradictory phenomenon worth noting as well!

However, leaving these ramblings aside, I would simply like to point out three criticisms of this idea as found in Marx:

1. To view the advancement of mankind from past history is, at least, a rational idea. To assume that our species will automatically continue to advance, or even survive, is wishful thinking, and opposed to the basic principles of evolution which underlie the idea itself. In other words, to use biological evolution as an analogy, if we can demonstrate that some aspect of evolution actually happened, against astronomical odds, well and good. To be certain that this aspect of evolution will continue in the same manner against the same astronomical odds, is blind fortune telling. 

2. To assume that change is always improvement is a dangerous and somewhat naive viewpoint. In the atheistic constructs of the philosophies we have examined, with no Divine Power guiding our destiny, it seems to me that the idea that the syntheses of Hegelian-Fichtean dialectic should always represent unending improvement is a blindly optimistic view of the universe.

3. The idea that this future utopian state will be permanent seems to directly disagree with the basic premises of Hegelian dialectic. This was mentioned in the last post, so there is no need to go back over here. Suffice it to say that that the synthesis of utopia ought to have its own antithesis.

Finally, I would like to add that this blindly optimistic viewpoint of man's future is still very much with us today. There seems to be a feeling of man-come-of-age, man-controlling-his-destiny, man-as-the-summit-and-intention-of-evolution, that breeds a certain dangerous hubris, especially in matters of science and sociology.

At least the Christian's certainty of some heavenly place or state is founded upon the idea of an omnipotent Divine Being Who controls the odds, and is thus, ironically, a far more rational form of optimism.