Peter Taaffe: Religion or Socialism

(Militant No. 450, 6 April 1979 p. 6)

The third, and final, article in the series by Peter Taaffe looks at religion in advanced industrial societies, capitalist and Stalinist.

It is not just in the backward countries (dealt with in two previous articles) where attempts at a religious renaissance have been made, but also in the advanced capitalist world and even in the Stalinist states.

The continuation and even strengthening of religion in Eastern Europe and Russia is an eloquent testimony to the bankruptcy of these regimes.

In Poland, for instance, it is estimated that 80% of the population regularly attend Catholic churches. In Russia it is estimated that 30 million belong to the Orthodox Church which was assiduously courted and built up by Stalin and his heirs as a national prop to his regime.

The suppression of the Hungarian revolution and the invasion of Czechoslovakia were endorsed by “Soviet churchmen”! One wag described the Orthodox Church as a “state church in an atheist state”!

However, opposition religious movements, too, have sprouted in Russia over the past few decades. The Jewish religion, the Baptists and, largest of all, the Moslems, concentrated in Central Asia and numbering about 45 million have all grown.

Like causes produce like results. Russia is a one-party totalitarian regime, but one resting on a planned economy as opposed to the social base of the Shah’s Iran which was landlordism and capitalism. Political power is concentrated in the hands of a usurping bureaucratic elite. Democratic and national rights are ruthlessly suppressed.

Consequently, religion of all shades has become a vehicle for expressing the growing opposition and the airing of grievances of the oppressed nationalities in Russia.

The bureaucracy is mortally terrified that the events in Iran will infect Russia’s Moslem population in the areas bordering Iran with the same revolutionary virus. It could stir up a movement for national and democratic rights.

What an annihilating condemnation of this allegedly “Marxist” regime! Sixty-two years after the Russian revolution religion is viewed as a threat to its existence. Hence the persecution of the Jews, the Baptists, and other religious groups.

Genuine Marxism, while opposing religion from a philosophical point of view, is nevertheless completely opposed to this systematic hounding and persecution of those who cling to religious beliefs. Ideas will never be eradicated by the use of a bureaucratic club. On the contrary, such methods will only reinforce the grip of religion in Eastern Europe and Russia.

The main influence of these movements, however, is among the older generation, despairing intellectuals of the type of Solzhenitsyn, and in the more backward regions of Russia.

It will not be the churches, but the mighty Russian working class which will overthrow the bureaucratic elite and establish workers’ democracy. This will also be the case in Poland as much as in Russia. Notwithstanding the strength of Catholicism, the Polish workers in 1971 and 1976 turned in the direction of Marxism and the programme of workers’ democracy rather than towards religious obscurantism in their clashes with the Stalinist bureaucracy.

And rather the Catholic hierarchy adopting the role of implacable opponents of the regime – which is the picture presented in the capitalist world – the Cardinal of Poland, Wyszynski, declared in 1977 that “after long years of reflection over many years he had decided that in the difficult situation of the country the bishops and the Primate of Poland must take heed of the requirements of Poland’s reasons of state.”

This was interpreted as meaning that it was necessary to “preserve internal peace” (i.e. for the working class to back away from a confrontation with the bureaucracy) in the interests of the state and in that of the Church in order to present any Soviet intervention.”

In the advanced capitalist world also, particularly in America, religious revivalism has recently enjoyed a limited success, especially among sections of despairing middle-class youth.

On the one side, the ‘Economist’ is forced to agree, rather reluctantly, with the verdict of the Vatican mentioned earlier: “The last third of the 20^th Century is a period in which the familiar forms of organised religion have lost their hold on most people who would call themselves members of the educated middle class … This is probably the first time in history which, at least in fashionable assumption, to be intelligent and educated, is also to be without religious belief.”

The decay of capitalist society, its warped moral values, the greed and selfishness together with the seeming aimlessness and rootless existence of the majority of the population is more and more evident. It is in this atmosphere, saturated with hopelessness and despair, that all kinds of crazy cults and religions have sprung up, particularly in capitalist America.

The ‘Economist’ cheerfully remarks: “The market place of religious innovation is one of the last and best examples of free enterprise in the world today.”

But this realm of “free enterprise” too has produced monsters, such as the Manson gang, with their ritualistic murders, and the even more grotesque Dr Bob Jones, whose “experiment” resulted in mass murders and suicides in the Guyanese jungle.

The very fact that a thousand or so people (predominantly black) could traipse off into the jungles of Guyana to follow this madman is a crushing condemnation of American capitalist society. To many of the blacks the existence in Jones’ hell-hole was, it seems, preferable to continued life in America with its searing racism, unemployment and poverty.

The situation which has developed in capitalist America, is very similar to that which existed at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire.

The same feelings of hopelessness, the same despair, seems to pervade the whole of society. Christianity first developed as a response to this searching and questioning, particularly of the lower orders of society. No class existed at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire which could, in effect, show a way forward.

The Roman lumpen-proletariat played no productive role in society, but in fact lived at the expense of society. It stood, moreover, in an antagonistic relationship to the slave population. Society had to re-constitute itself again on the basis of “free peasantry”, i.e. on the basis of feudal relations, before it could go forward again.

The oppressed, therefore, looked for solace and deliverance towards a “Messiah”. Because no objective force existed in society to solve their problems, they looked for it from on high.

The situation today is profoundly different. The resources; particularly with the development of microprocessors etc. are at hand to completely eliminate want and privation. On the basis of a planned economy it would be entirely possible to raise wages, increase social service spending and dramatically cut the working week.

Society can go forward, new vistas can open up for the whole of mankind, if capitalism and landlordism is abolished throughout the globe. Only one class is capable of achieving this – the working class.

The modern working class is the only force capable of taking society forward. Private ownership of the means of production and the nation state are enormous obstacles to the further development of society. Only a planned socialist economy throughout the world can take society and mankind forward.

The socialist transformation of society would lay the foundations for a “paradise” – not in the hereafter – but on earth. But it is Marxism which will be the weapon by which this will be achieved, not the churches.

Lenin described the role of religion in this way: “Religion teaches those who toil in poverty all their lives to be resigned and patient in this world, and consoles them with the hope of reward in heaven. As for those who live upon the labour of others, religion teaches them to be “charitable” – thus providing a justification for exploitation and, as it were, also a cheap ticket to heaven likewise. ‘Religion is the opium of the people’. Religion is a kind of spiritual intoxicant in which the slaves of capital drown their humanity, and blunt their desire for a decent human existence.”

This remains true today, despite the many courageous religious individuals and groups who take the side of the poor against the rich. Of course, Marxism, notwithstanding the philosophical differences with religion, can and will link up on the basis of a socialist programme with those Christian workers and those from the middle class who are prepared to undertake a serious struggle against capitalism.

The church, with its ear to the ground, is undoubtedly capable of reading the signs correctly. It can see that the march of events is moving in the direction of socialism on a world scale. The Vatican was correct in the fact that “it believes the coming power in the world is a form of proletarian revolution embracing Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and Latin America. A lot of bishops are saying that starving babies will not be fed by capitalism, and the only thing that will feed them will be socialism.” (Evening Standard, 29^th March)

Mervyn Stockwood also remarks: “My guess is that within a hundred years a non-Marxist government will be the exception. The red flag will fly over most of the globe.” (‘The Cross and the Sickle’)

Undoubtedly, many radical Christians will collaborate with the working class and with Marxism for the socialist transformation of society. At the same time, sections of the working class and of the middle class will still undoubtedly retain religious belief even while participating in the socialist revolution.

But it is only the programme of Marxism that is capable of correctly arming the working people with an understanding of the processes at work in society and with a programme and policies capable of ensuring victory over landlordism and capitalism throughout the globe.