Communism and Christianism / Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View

by William Montgomery Brown

With very few exceptions, all important factories in Russia have been nationalized, and are now the property of all the workers in common. The business of the Unions is therefore no longer to fight the capitalists, but to run industry.

Hand in hand with the Unions works the Department of Labor of the Soviet Government, whose chief is the People's Commissar of Labor, elected by the Soviet Congress with the approval of the Unions.

In charge of the economic life of the country is the elected Supreme Council of People's Economy, divided into departments, such as, Metal Department, Chemical Department, etc., each one headed by experts and workers, appointed, with the approval of the Union by the Supreme Council of People's Economy.

In each factory production is carried on by a committee consisting of three members: a representative of the Shop Committee of the Unions, a representative of the Central Executive of the Unions, and a representative of the Supreme Council of People's Economy.

The Unions are thus a branch of the government—and this government is the most highly centralized government that exists.

It is also the most democratic government in history. For all the organs of government are in constant touch with the working masses, and constantly sensitive to their will. Moreover, the local Soviets all over Russia have complete autonomy to manage their own local affairs, provided they carry out the national policies laid down by the Soviet Congress. Also, the Soviet Government represents only the workers, and cannot help but act in the workers' interests.

The motto of this section is the conclusion of a good article in the first number of one among the best of the periodicals devoted to the promotion of Marxism, The Workers' Council, published by the International Educational Company, New York City. This article is so short and lends itself so naturally as a supplement to the foregoing explanation of the new economic system which has been established and is being developed in Russia that I quote the rest as the conclusion of this section about Sovietism.

Communist Russia, the Russia of the common people, marks a new epoch in the world's history. It marks a basic change in the structure of human society. Up to this time society lived under the rule of the few, under the rule of the class which possessed the wealth of the country. The methods were different at different periods in the world's history, but the results were the same: riches and power for the few, a bare existence and endless toil for the many. The slaves, the serfs, or the wage workers of today, who compose the masses of the people, have ever been the hewers of wood and the carriers of water, the beasts of burden on whose backs sported and fattened kings and nobles, landlords and capitalists. They who possessed wealth had the power. And they passed laws to protect that power, to make the possession of wealth a social institution. Private property was enthroned and every striving of mankind was subjected to the rule of property. Thence grew the exploitation of man by man for private profit, and all abuses resulting therefrom; fear of loss of property, care of possession, dread of the future, fear of loss of employment, envy and greed. Human society was ruled by property grabbers; masters, kings, capitalists, providing toil, disease, war for the masses of mankind. That is the rule of capitalism, and cannot be otherwise.

But under communism, profit is abolished, and with it the exploitation of man by man; private property is no longer a factor in the life of man; property becomes universal, all natural and created wealth belong to society, to every member of the community, as secure a birth right as air and sunlight. Everybody's measured work provides a common fund of things to satisfy material needs, today, tomorrow and in years to come. There can be no fear of losing one's job, of seeing one's children starve, of the poor-house in old age. As sure as the sun will rise on the morrow, man is secure of his bread, his shelter and clothing. Man is freed from animal cares, free to develop his human qualities, his intelligence, his brain and heart.