Christ and Communism
A LITTLE more than a year ago I heard Dr. Stanley Jones, as last speaker in a crowded public meeting, hold the attention of a tired audience for nearly an hour, while he spoke of the challenge of communism and the response which the Christian church ought to make to it. He had just completed an exten- sive tour in China and Japan, and he had gathered some impressions from a journey through Russia. The speech arrested its hearers by incisive challenging statements and by vivid illustrations drawn from the personal contacts with all sorts of folk which Dr. Stanley Jones so easily establishes. As he sees it, the countries of the Far East, particularly China and India, are wavering between Christ and Communism, and the critical period lies in the next twenty-five years. The only adequate response of the Church must be to take Christ's gospel seriously. Like Henry Drummond, Dr. Stanley Jones interprets the quotation from Isaiah, " the spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor," as the programme of Christianity, and the pro- gramme includes deliverance from economic oppression and poverty, from physical disease and from inward hurt and sin. The programme outlined in a speech a year ago has now been expanded into a book, and into a most stimulating book.
The communism which is attracting students and workers in China and India is expounded with complete conviction and a fluent pen by Mr. Ralph Fox in the volume he has just contributed to the Twentieth Century Library. Mr. Fox, who in his earlier writings interpreted the feelings and outlook of factory workers with considerable forcefulness and some inde- pendence of judgement, has now surrendered completely to the spell of Russia. The teachings of Marx as interpreted by the genius -Lenin, and the teachings of Lenin as interpreted by the great Stalin, are the source of pure unadulterated truth and of unimpeachable wisdom. Just because his enthusiasm for Russian communism is so naive, the exposition by Mr. Fox can be cordially commended to all who wish to under- stand the nature and appeal of this revolutionary movement. Mr. Fox is very graphic and concrete in his discussion of the world-crisis, and he does not bother about philosophical top- hamper like dialectical materialism. He is quite confident that every people must travel the Moscow road, and he expects the crisis in China and India to be decided in favour of communism. The next advances are to come there. But everywhere, sooner or later, the working classes will discover in the communists their only true leaders.
A comparison of the two books is instructive. Outside Russia, communist revolutionary movements have so far been a complete failure in Europe. Mr. Fox attributes this failure to the poltroonery of social democrats and labour parties. Dr. Stanley Jones lays his finger on the true cause in com- munist ruthlessness. The communists gained by that ruth- lessness, a quick and comparatively easy victory in the local Russian situation and in doing so defeated their ends in the larger world situation." If communism does succeed in China, it will be due to the ignorance of the masses and to the fact that an old culture has crumbled under the impact of Western science. It is not unnatural that Mr. Fox is most
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