Marx the herald angels sing
In the past year, for all sorts of reasons (not least the contribution made by Alexander Solzhenitsyn), there has been a renewed examination of just what lies behind the dominant 'spiritual' force of our age—the ideology, in all its myriad aspects, of Socialism. To thousands of millions of people in the world today, Socialism in one form or another appears to have succeeded the superstitious claptrap of religion as the natural philosophy of all enlightened men—a belief in equality, brotherhood and the ultimate perfectibility of human societies. Faced with the traditional Christmas message of the Christians, 'Glory be to God in the Highest, peace on earth, goodwill to men,' the Socialist will only rule out the first seven words as irrelevant rubbish. He will happily subscribe to the remainder as 'the spirit of Helsinki.'
Of course, throughout its two thousand-year history, Christianity has always been made up of two distinct strands. The first (deriving from its Founder) is a direct appeal to the inner life of each individual—love God, love your neighbour, and you will see the world anew. The second (increasingly overlying the first across the centuries) has been what might be called 'the collectivist aspect' of Christianity—that which sees religion as the ideology of a group, to be imposed upon others, and as chiefly concerned with building 'a perfect society.' It has invariably been out of this aspect of Christianity that all its worst evils—intolerance, fanaticism, persecution—have flowed, involving the maximum degree of self-deception and distortion of the original among its practitioners.
Unfortunately it has been precisely in this collectivist aspect that Socialism, with all its rosy idealism, its apparent benevolence towards the underdog and the oppressed, is Christianity's heir. The great difference between Christianity and Socialism is that the latter has never aspired to be anything other than a collectivist ideology. Socialism is not concerned with the 'inner life' of individuals. It is concerned with building a better world by submerging individuals in the mass. Like any collectivist morality, Socialism is not opposed to hatred or oppression (or even killing) in themselves, but only to those things when they are practised by other groups. A Christian who is full of hatred is a poor Christian. But a Socialist who is full of hatred (like Marx or Lenin) may be all the better a Socialist for precisely that reason.
When the Christian says 'Goodwill towards men' he really must mean that, or he completely fails to grasp what the spiritual liberation of his religion is about. When the Socialist says it, he can only really be aspiring to the peace on earth that will follow when all the enemies of Socialism have been crushed. That is one reason why it is hard to imagine singing carols about the birth of Marx, or being profoundly moved by a version of the Messiah or the Christmas Oratorio which described the life and works of Mao Tse-tung. You cannot celebrate the One when your loyalty is only to a part. But the same of course applies equally to Christians themselves.
Previous page
