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

by William Montgomery Brown

We have no desire to belittle such efforts nor to discourage their promoters; but (though they may afford some local and temporary alleviation to the miseries of far the greater part of the world—miseries growing out of its division into two classes, a small class of owning masters and a large class of working slaves) we center no hope in them, because the whole history of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion, not excepting the Christian, show these efforts to be only reformatory and temporary bubbles which sooner or later are always pricked by the masters of what little revolutionary air they contain, and so never issue in any general or permanent improvement of the sad lot of the overwhelming majority of the slaves.

How little the church serves the working slaves, and how much the owning masters, will appear from the following representations of Roger W. Babson, the well-known financial expert and adviser:

The value of our investments depends not on the strength of our banks, but rather upon the strength of our churches. The underpaid preachers of the nation are the men upon whom we really are depending, rather than the well-paid lawyers, bankers and brokers. The religion of the community is really the bulwark of our investments. And when we consider that only 15 per cent of the people hold securities of any kind and less than 3 per cent hold enough to pay an income tax, the importance of the churches becomes even more evident.

For our sakes, for our children's sakes, for the nation's sake, let us business men get behind the churches and their preachers. Never mind if they are not perfect. Never mind if their theology is out of date. This only means that were they efficient they would do very much more. The safety of all we have is due to the churches, even in their present inefficient and inactive state. By all that we hold dear, let us from this very day give more time, money and thought to the churches, for upon these the value of all we own ultimately depends.

What our critics say about the recent efforts of the American churches being in the right direction is interesting to Mrs. Brown and me, but we are much more impressed by the observation of a writer in a late issue of Soviet Russia. In speaking of the baneful influence of the Russian church through all the ages he says:

Out of the shadows of antiquity, from the morning of man's cupidity and avarice, two sinister figures have crawled with crooked talons through history, leaving a trail of blood and fear most horrible which has not halted yet. These are the monarch and the priest. The one is symbolical of despotic or oligarchic power, the other typifies the sordid ignorance and fearful superstition of the credulous masses which maintains the power of the first. High in the streets of Moscow, where one may see the pallid, long-haired, degenerate-looking venders of holy lies and pious impositions shuffle along like spectres from a remoter age, there hangs a woven streamer of scarlet hue with huge white lettering, which defiantly proclaims that religion is the opium of the people.

Though many still cross themselves a score of times daily on passing the church, yet nevertheless the people are rapidly assimilating the knowledge which elevates and enlightens, and learning to reject that which terrorizes and deforms the mind, and just so sure as the last filthy tyrant has been placed for ever beyond mischief, so will the last priest soon vanish from the land once contemptuously known as "Holy Russia".

The foregoing is from a revolutionary sympathizer with soviet Russia and the following is from a reactionary criticizer of it, but both are to the same effect, that orthodox Christianity is wholly against the interest of the proletariat and entirely for that of the bourgeoisie:

One of the most striking characteristics of Bolshevism is its pronounced hatred of religion, and of Christianity most of all. To the Bolshevik, Christianity is not merely the theory of a mode of life different from his own; it is an enemy to be persecuted and wiped out of existence.

To understand this is not difficult. The tendency of the Christian religion to hold before the believer an ideal of a life beyond death is diametrically opposed to the ideal of Bolshevism, which tempts the masses by promising the immediate realization of the earthly paradise. From that point of view Christianity is not only a false conception of life; it is an obstacle to the realization of the Communist ideal. It detaches souls from the objects of sense and diverts them from the struggle to get the good things of this life. According to the Bolshevist formula, religion is opium for the people: and serves as a tool of capitalist domination.