Classic Reprint: What is patriotism? (1963)

A Classic Reprint from the July 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

We reprint this article from the Socialist Standard of December, 1915, written in the middle of the first World War, its message still rings true, and we know it will be of great interest to our readers.

The answer depends largely upon the point of view. From one standpoint patriotism appears as the actual religion of the modern State. From another it is the decadence and perversion of a noble and deep-rooted impulse of loyalty to the social unit, acquired by mankind during the earliest stages of social life. From yet another viewpoint, that of capitalist interests, patriotism is nothing more or less than a convenient and potent instrument of domination.

The word itself, both etymologically and historically, has its root in paternity. In tribal days the feeling of social solidarity, which has now become debased into patriotism, was completely bound up with the religion of ancestor worship. In tribal religion, as in the tribe itself, all were united by ties of blood. The gods and their rights and ceremonies were exclusive to the tribesmen. All strangers were rigidly debarred from worship. The gods themselves were usually dead warriors. Every war was a holy war. Among the ancient Israelites, for instance, the holy Ark of Jehovah of Hosts accompanied the tribes to battle. It was this abode or movable tomb of the ancestral deity that went with the Jews in their march through the desert, and even to Jericho, playing an important part in the fall of that remarkable city. All the traditions of the Jewish religion, in fact, were identified with great national triumphs.

Thus tribal religion was completely interwoven with tribal aspirations and integrity. Tribal “patriotism” and religion were identical. Indeed, without the strongest possible social bond, without a kind of “patriotism” that implied the unhesitating self-sacrifice of the individual for the communal existence, it would have been utterly impossible for tribal man to have won through to civilisation. Natural selection insured that only those social groups which developed this supreme instinct of mutual aid could survive; the rest were crushed out in the struggle for existence. Is it a matter for wonder if it be found that such a magnificent social impulse, so vital to the struggling groups of tribal man, received periodical consecration in the willing human sacrifices so common in primitive religious ceremonial ? Bound up with the deliberate manufacture of gods for the protection of the tribe and its works, there is indicated a social recognition of the need for, and value of, the sacrifice of the individual for the common weal.

This noble impulse of social solidarity is the common inheritance of all mankind. But being a powerful social force it has lent itself to exploitation. Therefore, with the development of class rule this great impulse is made subordinate to the class interests of the rulers. It becomes debased and perverted to definite anti-social ends. As soon as the people become a slave class “the land of their fathers” is theirs no more. Patriotism to them becomes a fraudulent thing. The “country” is that of their masters alone. Nevertheless, the instinct of loyalty to the community is too deep-seated to be eradicated so easily, and it becomes a deadly weapon in the hands of the rulers against the people themselves.

With the decay of society based on kinship, religion changed also, and from being tribal and exclusive it became universal and propagandist. “Patriotism” at the same time began to distinguish itself from religion. The instinctive tribal loyalty became transformed, by the aid of religion and the fiction of kinship, into political loyalty. In a number of instances in political society, as in Tudor England, the struggle for priority between religion and patriotism became so acute as to help in the introduction of a more subservient form of religion. Thus patriotism became emancipated from religion, and the latter became a mere accessory to patriotism as handmaiden of class rule.

Though universal religion did not split up at the same time as the great empire that gave it birth, patriotism did so. The latter has, in fact, always adapted, enlarged, or contracted itself to fit the existing political unit, whether feudal estate, village, township, county, kingdom, republic or empire. No political form has been too absurd for it to fill with its loyalty. No discordance of race, colour or language has been universally effective against it.

What, then, is patriotism in essence to-day? It is usually defined as being devotion to the land of our fathers. But which is the land of our fathers? Our fathers came from many different parts of the world. The political division of the world in which we live is an artificial entity. The land has been wrested from other races. The nation they call “ours” is the result of a conquest over original inhabitants, and over ourselves, by successive ruling classes. Unlike the free tribesmen we are hirelings; we possess no country.

Nationality, of which patriotism is the superstition, covers no real entity other than that of a common oppression, a unified government. It does not comprise any unity of race, for in no nation is there one pure race, or anything like it. It does not cover a unity of language, for scarcely a nation exists in which several distinct languages are not indigenous. Nor is it any fixity of territory, for this changes from decade to decade, while the inhabitants of the transferred territory have to transfer their allegiance, their patriotism, to the new nation.

The only universal bond of nationality or patriotism that exists for us to-day is, then, that of subjection to a single government. Patriotism in the worker is pride in the common yoke imposed by a politically unified ruling class. Yet it is this artificial entity that we are called upon to honour before life itself. This badge of political servitude is called an object worthy of supreme sacrifice. The workers are expected to abandon all vital interests and sacrifice all they hold dear for the preservation of an artificial nationality that is little more than a manufactured unit of discord: a mere focus of economic and political strife.

Thus one of the noblest fruits of man’s social evolution—the impulse of sacrifice for the social existence—is being prostituted by the capitalist class to maintain a system of exploitation, to obtain a commercial supremacy, and preserve or extend the boundaries of a superfluous political entity. The workers are duped by the ruling class into sacrificing themselves for the preservation of a politico-economic yoke of a particular form and colour. Many so-called Socialists have fallen headlong into this trap.

Had social solidarity developed in equal measure with the broadening of men’s real interests, it would now be universal in character instead of national. The wholesale mixture of races, and the economic interdependence of the whole world, show that nationalism is now a barrier, and patriotism, as we know it, a curse. Only the whole world can now be rightly called the land of our fathers. Only in the service of the people of the whole world, and not against those of any part of it, can the instinct of social service find its highest and complete expression. The great Socialist has pointed the way. He did not call upon the workers of Germany alone to unite. He appealed to the toilers of the whole world to join hands; to a whole world of labour whose only loss could be its parti-coloured chains. And in this alone lies the consummation of that tribal instinct of social solidarity of which patriotism is the perverted descendant.

Capitalism, therefore, stands as the barrier the destruction of which will not only set free the productive forces of society for the good of all, but will also liberate human solidarity and brotherhood from the narrow confines of nationality and patriotism. Only victorious labour can make true the simple but pregnant statement: “Mankind are my brethren, the world is my country.” Patriotism and nationalism as we know them will then be remembered only as artificial restrictions of men’s sympathy and mutual help; as obstacles to the expansion of the human mind; as impediments to the needful and helpful development of human unity and co-operation; as bonds that bound men to slavery; as incentives that set brothers at each other’s throats.

Despite its shameless perversion by a robber class the great impulse to human solidarity is by no means dead. Economic factors give it an ever firmer basis, and in the Socialist movement it develops apace. Even the hellish system of individualism, with its doctrine of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, has been unable to kill it. And in the great class struggle of the workers against the drones, of the socially useful against the socially pernicious, in this last great struggle for the liberation of humanity from; wage-slavery, the great principle of human solidarity, based upon the necessities of to-day and impelled by the deep-seated instincts of the race, will come to full fruition and win its supreme historical battle.

That is our hope and aspiration. For the present, however, we are surrounded by the horrors of war added to the horrors of exploitation, and subjected to the operation of open repression as well as to the arts of hypocrisy and fraud. With the weakening power of religion to keep the workers obedient, the false cult of nationality and patriotism is being exploited to the full. Like religion, patriotism has its vestments, its ceremonies, its sacred emblems, its sacred hymns and inspired music; all of which are called in aid of the class interests of our masters, and utilised desperately to lure millions to the shambles for their benefit. Thus is an heroic and glorious social impulse perverted and debased to the support of a régime of wage-slavery, and to the furtherance of the damnable policy of the slave-holding class: to divide and rule.

F. C. Watts

Faith, hope and superstition (1992)

From the March 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

It can’t be much fun being God these days. The trouble with being a figment of someone's imagination, is that you have to take on all the oddities and personality problems that they dream up for you. You get no say in the matter, even if you are omnipotent.

When humans first made the gods in their own image it was different. There were deities for every occasion and the task of running the universe was shared out. When disease or famine came and threatened the whole community, the merciful god could point an accusing finger at the god responsible for sickness, or for the harvest, and everyone was satisfied, if not entirely happy, with the situation. Times have changed, however, and gods who find themselves surplus to requirement face redundancy just like the rest of us. Today it’s a one-man job (and God is male, of course) and he has to accept the fact that he himself sent the AIDS virus, floods, famine, earthquakes and so on—for the benefit of humanity. Still, to help out and clear up any confusion, he has dozens of different sects of believers and worshippers to spread “the truth"—dozens of different truths in fact, each one being the real truth.

The further back into the history of god-worshippers you look, the better the logic seems to have been in their approach.The early believers decided that if suitably bribed, the gods could be useful in all sorts of ways. Today, when acts of God don’t work out in everyone's best interest, all kinds of excuses are made for him. He gets away with murder. Presumably because of this reverse progress in humanity’s long quest for God. many of the ancient ideas have survived through to today’s rituals. Saturnalia, for example, in honour of Saturn, a Roman agricultural god, was celebrated on 17 December. This was followed by several days of feasting and jollification with candles being lit, slaves allowed certain liberties, and a good time being had by all.

Ancient beliefs

Anthesteria (or caster as it is now known) was originally a Greek 3-day festival held when the first signs of new life in nature appeared. Lots of wine was consumed. and on the third day pots of vegetables were boiled for the spirits of the dead who were believed to be roaming at large. The day ended with the spirits being chased out and sent back to their spiritual home. On the third day they “rose again", you might say.

As far back as we know in the history of religion, grain or fruit had been offered to the gods to make sure they understood exactly what was required of them. Modern Christians do the same in their harvest festival. Many of the born-again variety, especially in America, have a similar approach except that it is considered preferable for the offering to be made in hard cash.

The very idea of being born again, which is only a modern recruiting version of the more conventional Christian baptizing, has a history which goes back, at the very least, as far as ancient Greece. Anyone who had been mistakenly supposed to be dead and had turned up, perhaps after a battle, and after the ritual handing them over to the god of the underworld had been performed, had to go through a play-acting form of re-birth before being re-accepted into society in order to convince the gods of their revived mortal status. In an equivalent ancient Indian ritual, performed for the same reason, the person being born again had to spend a night crouched in a tub of fat and water. Over this, the rituals normally performed for pregnant women were carried out. John the Baptist, who went in for ducking people in the river in order to cleanse them of their sins and give them new life, was only reviving an already old custom.

Another early idea was that of making human sacrifices, often with the victim being given the name of the deity to whom they were to be sent. The eagerly awaiting audience would swallow the flesh and drink the blood of the victim in an attempt to be at one with the god. Catholics today do the same or. at least, they claim to.

Childish absurdities

Every advance in humanity’s knowledge of their surroundings leads to a change in the ideas of "God”. This change, however, is obviously not one of greater understanding, but less. As "God" becomes more distant and obscure, the efforts to reach him are ever more bizarre. The “development” of religious ideas is backwards. They made more sense in the day when everyone knew that the Earth was the centre of the universe, was supported on pillars, and was flat. These were the kind of ideas held by the writers of the books of "God’s holy word”, and the absurdities contained in these are clear today to anyone who can read and is capable of doing so without a totally closed mind.

Believers however, whose hope of doing well in life (this one and the next), rest on the acceptance of these as "gospel", or. at least, on an ability to find a self-deluding interpretation of the nonsense, are put in an ever-increasingly ridiculous position. With faith, however, they rise to the challenge. For example: What is sin?. Answer (from a leaflet handed to the present writer by a Hyde Park evangelist, in response to the observation that the small baby she was carrying was not a sinner): "All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever”.

What is God? The nearest we ever get to an answer is that he is the creator of all things. This task took six days followed by one of rest—what did God do on the 8th day?, the 9th and 10th and so on until today? In what sense did he exist in a state of complete nothingness? How long was he in this state? When did he start the project? We do have an exact answer for the last question thanks to a certain Bishop Usher and a Dr Lightfoot. Usher computed the date to 4004 BC and Lightfoot, not to be outdone, worked it out to 23rd October, at 9 o’clock in the morning. What day of the week did God start on? Not a matter of great importance unless you happen to be a Seventh-Day Adventist and you, therefore, know that it was a Sunday, which makes the sabbath fall on Saturday and the rest of the Christian world one day out.

Some believers, who think that the idea of God creating the universe in just six days, and out of nothing, might sound a little far-fetched, concede that there may have been an error in translation and that a “day”, in fact, could mean a period of perhaps 1000 years. This, no doubt, would have made the task much easier, but presumably we cannot apply this multiplication of time (by 365,000) to the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. This trip, which ought not to have taken more than a few days (24-hour days, that is), took— with God's guidance—40 years. Even more miraculously, the clothes and the shoes they were wearing never wore out—‘And I have led you 40 years in the wilderness your clothes are not waxen old upon you. and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy feet". The robes and the sandals worn by a 10-year-old at the outset must still have been in good condition and supposedly still a reasonable fit, when the wearer at the age of 50 finished the trip.

Why bother with such absurdities, you may ask? Why not treat them with the same amusement that you would treat a 6-year-old who believes in fairies and Father Christmas? The answer is that if civilisation is to reach the stage where poverty is not tolerated, where the best that can be produced is produced—to satisfy human need, not the profit motive, and where all humans have equal access to the best possible standard of living and human dignity, the childish and primitive ideas that we are all inherently sinners, and therefore incapable of acting humanely, and that an invisible tyrant in the sky has a paradise where “only a few will be chosen”, must pass into obsolescence first. Such ideas have no place in the 20th century.

Nick White

Did Jesus ever live? (1911)

Book Review from the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Christ Myth, by Arthur Drews, Ph. D., Professor of Philosophy at Karlsruhe. Translated from the third revised German edition by C. Desmond Burns, M.A. 304 pp. 7s. 6d., net. T. Fisher Unwin, London and Leipzic.

To the Socialist the question whether there existed an historical Jesus of the Gospels is hardly a burning question. Whether the Christ legends had an historical nucleus or not does not affect the antagonism between religion, as such, and scientific knowledge. There is nothing inherently improbable in the collection of ancient myths round an historical personage and the attribution to him of the magic commonly believed in at the time. The Socialist, however, unlike the average professor, does not consider the work concluded when a belief has been traced to a myth! The myth clamours just as loudly for explanation.

Considerable work has been done, particularly on the Continent, in the direction of tracing ancient legends to their material basis, and showing their connection with definite phases of social life; but immensely more remains. The present book does not greatly increase our knowledge in this respect, and is to that extent unsatisfactory. A reference is, however, made to a rite which exists in the Vedic Agni cult, and which, according to the author, reaches back into the very origins of all human civilisation, and preserves the memory of the discovery of fire in the midst of the “horrors of the Stone Age”. And the author gets near to a recognition of the social basis of early Christianity in the following passage:

“Christianity is a syncretic religion. It belongs to those movements which at the commencement of our era were struggling with one another for the mastery. Setting out from the Apocalyptic idea and the expectation of the Messiah among the Jewish sects, it was borne on the tide of a mighty social agitation, which found its centre and its point of departure in the religious sects and Mystery communities. Its adherents conceived the Messiah not merely as the Saviour of souls, but as deliverer from slavery, from the lot of the poor and the oppressed, and as the bearer of a new justice.”

But it is, perhaps, hardly fair to condemn Professor Drews’ book on the score that it does not explain the beliefs and myths with which it deals, for, in view of the frantic attempts of professor of Protestant theology to base their religion on an “historic” Jesus, it is certainly useful to show how unsupported such a base is.

In spite of occasional emphasis, however, the negative, as might be expected, is far from being proved. The non-historicity of Christ remains in the realms of the “may have been”, the “probable” and the “perhaps”, the professor’s scholarship notwithstanding. The innumerable comparisons with pre-Christian religions of all sorts nevertheless demonstrate, at least, the great antiquity of practically the whole of the rites popularly connected with the name of Jesus.

In essence, the author’s work in comparative religion (or, rather, in comparative mythology) simply carries the so-called Higher Criticism to its full conclusion, without seeking any sounder basis. He will have nothing to say to materialistic monism, and therefore never reaches bed rock; but his investigations within their idealistic limits have their value, and it may be useful to give Professor Drews’ chief conclusions.

At the birth of Christianity men not only longed for a new structure of society, for peace, justice, and happiness on earth, but they trembled at the expectation of the early occurrence of world-wide catastrophe which would put a terrible end to all existence. And, says the professor:

“Seldom in the history of mankind has the need for religion been so strongly felt as in the last century before and the first century after Christ. But it was not from the old hereditary national religions that deliverance was expected. It was from the unrestrained commingling and unification of all existing religions, a religious syncretism, which was specially further by acquaintance with the strange, but on that account more attractive, religions of the East. Already Rome had become a Pantheon of almost all religions in which one could believe”.

Christ is derived from a cult god of the Jewish sects, and etymological variations of the name Jesus are shown to be but older words for the Messiah, the mediator, the god of healing, and the redeemer; each with distinct characteristics. The supposed place-name, Nazareth, is a geographical fiction: the word really meant a guardian or protector. Further, the infliction of death upon a gibbet or cross as a human sacrifice was, as is, indeed, generally known, an extremely ancient religion practice. The crucifixion story had a direct connection with weather gods and the Roman Saturnalia.

Professor Drews, in common with most modern critics, attributes systematic Christianity to Paul, who possibly existed. “It is evident”, he says, “that in reality it was merely a new setting to the old conception of the representative self-sacrifice of God”. Moreover: “No historical personality who should, so to say, have lived as an example of the God-man, was in any way necessary to produce that Pauline development of the religion of Jesus . . . Christ is, for Paul, only a comprehensive expression for the totality of men, which is therein represented as an individual personal being”. In other words, according to our author, Paul did not actually conceive of an historical Jesus. “The Pauline religion was only one form of the many syncretising efforts to satisfy humanity’s need of redemption by a fusion of religious conceptions derived from different sources”. But the connection with ancient religion is even closer.

“The place of the bloody expiatory sacrifices of the believers in Attis, wherein they underwent ‘baptism by blood’ in their yearly March festival, and wherein they obtained the forgiveness of their sins and were ‘born again’ to a new life, was in Rome the Hill of the Vatican. In fact the very spot on which in Christian times the Church of St. Peter grew above the so-called grave of the Apostle. It was at bottom merely an alteration of the name, not of the matter, when the High Priest of Attis blended his rôle with that of the High Priest of Christ, and the Christ-cult spread itself from this new point far over the other parts of the Roman Empire”.

Apart from Professor Drews’ statements, however, we know that the Christian search for an historical Jesus is quite a modern thing, and is really a sign of the dissolution of Christianity, of the weakening of faith, and of the growing scientific habit.

It is the accompaniment, also, of personal individualist religion rather than of the communal faith of the original Church. As a god, Christ appeared to his worshippers to no more need historic support than did the Godhead. But to-day faith has gone, and the attempt to find an historical nucleus for the Christ of the Gospels is the last despairing effort of what once was faith to justify itself by the light of reason.

Moreover, as Kalthoff says: “In default of any historical certainty the name of Jesus has become for Protestant theology an empty vessel into which that theology pours the contents of its own meditations."

It is truly all things to all men. But behind all its many forms it retains one constant care. It is true that Christians are being compelled to abandon the supernatural and to attempt to take refuge in an unfindable Christ-man, but they only throw overboard their grosser superstitions in order to save the essential superstition of Idealism as a bulwark against Materialism.

Professor Drews sees farther than the Protestants. He wishes to save religion by abandoning Christ altogether. “There must be”, he says, “an idealistic monism in opposition to the naturalistic monism of Haeckel, which is prevalent even to-day. This monism must not exclude but include God’s existence; and its present unfruitful negation of all religion must deepen into a positive and religiously valuable view of the world”.

In practice an “idealistic monism” is not monism, but dualism; but that need not concern us here. At bottom the professor’s attitude is typically bourgeois in its unctuous sophistry. Rather jettison all the gods there be than risk being overwhelmed by materialistic monism. At all costs keep the gaze of the masses fixed upon the sky, the ideal world where they cannot see how they are robbed and oppressed; do not let them investigate the material world, where they would soon find the way to material salvation! Such is the useful rôle of all religion to every ruling class. And Professor Drews would help it make its last desperate stand, sans Christ, sans Bible, but not sans its essential pernicious superstition. Truly, one must say of religion in all its multifarious forms, what our French friends say of government: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!”

F. C. Watts

The Modern Tyranny. (1907)

From the June 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Man’s Dominion over Things.

Whether it could ever have been truly said that man was “Lord of Creation,” using the last word in its mundane sense, is a point the profit of discussing which may be doubted. But if we agree that there was some modicum of truth in the Scriptural statement that man had dominion over all “created” things, then indeed has he had such a fall from his position of universal ascendency as even the historic experience of Humpty Dumpty does not parallel.

The rude savage, launching his arrow at the light-footed denizen of the plains; or contriving traps and pitfalls and poisoned welcome for the lumbering giants of the forest, might still, perhaps, be looked down upon with an air of condescension by the modern “Lord of Creation,” whose bow has evolved into a rifle, and whose chemistry has advanced from poison to explosives.

But, low as we adjudge him in the scale of humanity, the savage’s dominion over things had one distinguishing characteristic of vital importance, which made him a true dominator, and the absense of which has reduced civilised man, with all his vaunted triumphs over the forces of nature, to a condition of slavery more abject, more subtle, and more general than any form of subjection which has previously cumbered the earth.

This characteristic lay in man’s relation to the simple tools and weapons which constituted his means of procuring the necessaries of life. Early man was master of his instruments of production. He took up his bow when he was hungry or in danger, and laid it aside when it had served the logical purpose of its existence. He plied his axe, spun and wove on rude frames, and produced wealth by toilsome processes, to the end that he might have shelter and clothing and the comforts of his age, and these obtained, his axe might lie idle, and his loom be still.

Was given him by his tools.

And if, in these material things, the instruments of wealth production were the servants of those who made and owned them, still more effectively did they serve them in other ways. They lifted man up above the beasts of the field and gave him dominion over them. They brought him self-consciousness,—the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They built him up moral codes and ethical standards who had known no law of conduct. They prescribed his methods of life, determined his sexual relationships, fashioned alike the canons of his art and of his religion. They made unto him images to bow down to and worship—images of his idealised self, decked out in the barbaric splendour of savage virtues—”good’uns according to his lights.”

The savage sustaining himself by the weapons of the chase and war esteems certain qualities as virtues which people whose means of production have evolved to a higher stage condemn as vices. Thus the bow and spear demand for courage and cunning and ferocity, recognition as the highest of virtues, and decree the merciful unworthy and contemptible, while the plough and the windmill elevate the peaceful and the compassionate. Ferocity is a social necessity in savage life, as peace is to husbandry.

As also were his Gods.

So, the needs of Society as fashioned by the means of producing wealth, determine what shall be virtue and what vice, and the gods of the people being the embodiment of the people’s ideal, we find those of the savage and nomad races to be mighty gods of war, merciless and pitiless—the god of the barbarous Jews of the Old Testament, who smote the Amalakites and the Egyptians, and bade his victorious people take their male captives and “put them under axes of iron and under harrows of iron, and pass them through brick-kilns,” while for the virgins he devised a fate quite in accord with the jolly nature of one who said of Solomon (who numbered his wives by the hundred) “He is a man after my own heart.” And we find the ever developing means of production mould the people’s gods like plastic clay as they mould the people,—as they moulded the god of the Hebrews of the Old Testament into the loving and merciful father (an impossible conception to the savage) of the New.

In this way the tools—the means of producing wealth—served man in the past; served him with an irresistible hand if you like, and very much as a benevolent despot might serve his people, but served him nevertheless, since they developed in the individual, and set up in public esteem those qualities which were necessary to the public welfare.

But the tool has become master.

But when we examine the relative position of man and his means of production we stand appalled at the changed condition. The servant has become the master. That which man conceived and created in order that he might use it to assist him in the production of wealth, now uses man, not in the production of wealth, but of profit. The savage bent his bow to procure him meat and clothing and shelter, but human productive activities have long ceased to be purposive of the feeding, clothing, sheltering and comforting of humanity. If bread was produced to feed the hungry we should not find plaster in part substituted for flour. If cloth was produced to clothe the naked we should not weight it with useless and harmful mineral substances. Our universal custom of adulteration should show those whom no other argument can convince, that our modern means of wealth production are only incidentally means of producing those things which are necessary to the life and well-being of the people, while they are purposely conceived and designed and created with the primary object of producing—profit.

And Man its mere Lackey.

Think of it, ye exultant admirers of the march of civilisation, this wonderful development of the productive powers of man, has subjugated the lightning and exploited the tides, which has conquered the obdurate barrenness of the desert and set at defiance the terrors of capricious and untoward seasons, which has taken the very earth in its grip and forced it to yield up its treasures willy-nilly, what of human advantage has it brought, with all its evolution and its revolution ? What is it to us that it has made two blades of grass grow where one grew before, if we may never lie down upon it be we never so weary ? What is it to us that the drought can no longer bring us famine or the storm destroy our crops, if from abundance we reap only stint and from very surfeit starvation ? What is it to us that the cataract has been harnessed to our wheels and the electric element put to our revolving wonders, if we find no respite from toil save in utter exhaustion, and no relief from the cares of penury and insecurity but in the oblivion of the grave ?

It Starves Man amidst Plenty.

Yet this is what the development of our means of production has brought us to. It has made the fields to bring forth with astonishing prodigality, but it has created private ownership in those fields, and driven us from them, and brands us trespassers when we set foot upon their green sward. It has made us independent of the seasons and secure from famine, but instead it has given us the terrors of plethora—the casting of producers into the streets to starve because they have produced too much. It has placed the mighty forces of water-power and steam and electricity at the disposal of man, to enable him to produce with economical expenditure of effort, yet, instead of lightening his toil, it has augmented it until it is limited only by his endurance, and instead of saving him from the insecurity and vicissitudes of life, it has extended them until he finds surcease only in his death.

And has reduced him to a Commodity.

What dignity may ever have attached to the human state has been crushed out under the fearful tyranny of modern machinery. Not only has man’s productive energies been subverted so he labours for profit instead of for use-values, but he himself is reduced to the status of a commodity, is driven to market with a price upon his head like the most vulgar of the inanimate objects which he produces for sale, there to struggle for recognition as a common use-value, to find a purchaser or to perish. And in the struggle he is undone by the child of his own bosom. His position is undermined and he is rendered increasingly superfluous by the very machinery which he has created and raised up in opposition to him.

Nor is it only the producer who lies trammelled beneath the modern tyrant. Just as much is the possessor under the lash, at least as regards the development of those finer qualities and feelings which the evolutionary processes have rendered socially expedient and therefore moral. Our means of production have set the individual in opposition to the community. No longer are those qualities which are good for Society those fostered by our economic relations. The purchaser of labour-power who allows himself to be actuated by humane feelings, who pays above the market price for the human flesh and blood which he incorporates in the commodities he produces, or (which is the same thing) neglects to drain the last drop of sweat out of his workers, to just that extent weakens his position in the race for accumulated capital. To that extent he proves himself the unworthy steward of Capital, and Capital has a process of selection wonderfully effective in eliminating her unworthy stewards. She has no place for them in her economy—there is no room in production for profit for any humane feelings, but only for mean, sordid avarice and the qualities which support it. The capitalist even, dare not stand up and be a man ; dare not if he would give free rein to the feelings which (perchance) surge up within his breast. He also is a servitor of the modern tyrant, compelled by irresistible economic forces to play his part in the grim tragedy, in which each must be either oppressed or oppressor.

So human nature itself writhes under the heel of the tyrant. The ferocity of the savage, fostered by his method of production, was good both for the individual and his tribe, but who can pretend that that avarice nourished by capitalist production, at the promptings of which, when a man asks for beer we give him arsenic, and when our soldiers at the “front” ask for food we somehow get the powder mixed up with the beef, and the can explodes as Tommy opens it—who can pretend, I ask, that the mean and sordid qualities which our capitalist system of production tends to develope are good for the race, whatever they may be for the individual ? The savage, so far from being ashamed of the ferocity and cunning which are nurtured by his method of obtaining subsistence, idealises them, and makes them the inherent qualities of his gods ; but dare we so elevate and deify those personal attributes which tend to success in our mad system of blood-sucking competition ? No, they are anti-social, and instinctively we contemn them, as the savage contemns as undoing weakness the feeling that would spare an enemy. They are base, and we hate, loathe and despise them, as we must all baseness, and try to cover them up with the veil of hypocrisy, and put them out of sight behind vain pretences.

The machinery then, which we have perfected with so much patient application, has not only increased our toil and decreased our security, driven us from the fields to the city slum, set us so in opposition one against another that the son must struggle with the father, and the mother snatch the bread from the mouth of her babe, but it has so taken hold of us and our lives that the very possession of the social qualities which alone are moral, are damnation to their possessors. It has dethroned us, not only from any position of “lordship” we may have had over “creation,” but from that of being dictators of our own better feelings and guardians of those social instincts which play so important a part in our collective advancement.

A. E. Jacomb

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 7) (1928)

From the June 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from May Issue.)

“I trust your question is not actuated by Martian impishness,” I smiled, “but it is easily answered. As a socialist, my friend, I subordinate the influence of any one person to the mode of production prevalent in society, but I am not insensible to the fact that men obviously differ in ability and talents. I do not deny that Newton had a great brain, or that Beethoven was a musical genius, and I endeavour to appreciate their work—the heritage not merely of these isolated individuals, but of the influences and reactions of the society in which they lived. The healthy thing to do is not to idolise these men and prostrate oneself before them in awe, but to take the trouble to hear what they have to offer, build up upon it, and recognise (as a fellow being, not as a superstitious slave) the fact that they have given of their best to mankind. As Alexander Pope says, ‘The fool admires, the man of sense approves.’ "

“And now, Marty, I must try to outline to you the effects of ‘hero-worship’ on human history, but time and the very magnitude of the subject compel me to be as brief in my descriptions as an English summer.

“Early in my remarks I mentioned the ‘witch-doctor’ or ‘medicine-man’ of primitive societies, and left you to draw the obvious inference that this individual affords the earliest example in recorded history of a ‘hero.’ To the savage mind, my friend, all objects that are strange, powerful, vast or invisible arouse feelings of awe and dread, and are thought worthy of veneration. Sooner or later, however, there arise men who are capable of relegating natural happenings to natural causes, and these men, alone in this knowledge, are able to take advantage of the ignorance and superstition of the tribesmen in order to obtain for themselves power, wealth and comfort. Originally working among his own circle of friends (distributing charms against ‘evil’ or personal enemies, and love potions, etc.), the witch-doctor—known to various tribes as the Mulgarrodock, Shaman, Biraack, Bodio, Nepu, etc.—develops into an important functionary, who administers ‘magical’ rites for the supposed benefit of the community. You will readily believe, Marty, that when this stage has been reached, the position becomes one of extreme danger to the holder, and only the wily impostor, experienced in the arts of trickery and fraud, utterly unscrupulous and ruthless, is able to keep the confidence of the tribe in his power to avert ‘evil,’ to bring rain or sunshine, or to act as mediator between the tribesmen and their gods,”

W. J.

(To be continued.)

Unreasonable Faith (2001)

Theatre Review from the May 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

God Only Knows. Vaudeville Theatre, London.

A number of critics have taken against Hugh Whitemore’s new play, a thriller set in Italy which questions the basis of Christian belief. They argue that Whitemore doesn’t handle the thriller elements well, and that he has loaded the dice in favour of the atheist.

I found myself, not for the first time, very much in the minority. I thought the play compelling and intelligent, and if the narrative line depends upon the telephone failing mysteriously, then I think it fair to say that such mishaps are at the heart of many/most thrillers. Indeed judged by, for example, the naïve standards of The Mousetrap—Agatha Christie’s murder mystery which is still packing them in after 50 years—Whitemore’s text is Olympian in its sophistication. And crucially, I just don’t accept that the debate about belief and Christianity is managed in a one-sided fashion. Rather I would argue that if audiences have occasion to wonder about their own beliefs as they leave the theatre, this is because, unusually, the sceptic’s position has been examined scrupulously, fairly and reasonably comprehensibly.

The plot is simple. Four British holiday-makers playing an Italian version of monopoly in their rural retreat in deepest Tuscany, are surprised when after the sounds of a nearby car crash they are confronted by a bleeding Englishmen, played by Derek Jacobi, wearing pyjamas and bedroom slippers., Jacobi says he is an academic who is being employed by the Vatican to scrutinise an obscure archive and that, following a cocktail party, he was handed a 2000-year-old document which shows that the resurrection of Christ never happened. When his employers discovered this, Jacobi claims that he was drugged and forcibly detained in hospital. He escapes by stealing the keys of the car belonging to a central heating engineer, and is being pursued across Italy by agents of the church and state, who are fearful that he might reveal that Christianity is a gigantic fiction.

Perhaps the story seem comically implausible. But when Jacobi tells us about the evidence found in the document and uses this to demolish the substance of Christianity, his actions, and those of his pursuers, become increasingly credible. And the four holiday-makers wonder, “Has he escaped from a lunatic asylum or might he be telling the truth?” The dramatic events at the end of the play point to the latter rather than the former conclusion.

Socialists will find the play interesting as the following examples might confirm.

Amongst the “evidence” supposedly offer in the document is mention of the realisation, by the Roman state, that there might be mileage in supporting one of their critics whose particular message is that people should “love their enemies”. A perceptive politician suggests to Pilate that they should encourage the Jews forming around Jesus, and then arrange to fabricate his resurrection after he is crucified. (Normally the custom was to leave crucified corpses hanging until they were eaten by birds, but on this occasion permission was given for the body to be placed in a tomb.) The resurrected Jesus—a Galiliean who looked like the dead man and was bribed to impersonate Jesus—wasn’t recognised at first. People thought he was an angel or a gardener. The resurrection is crucial to Christian belief. At St Paul has it, “If Christ is not risen, then our faith in vain.”

Explaining why Christianity became such a popular cult the Jacobi character offers:

  “In the early days, the Jesus cult had a great sense of urgency. When the first Christians spoke of a Kingdom to Come, they weren’t talking about some event in the far distant future, but something that was going to happen in the next few weeks—months at most. They believed that the end of the world was sell and truly Nigh. People became Christians because they were scared. Also—wonderful simplicity. There were so many cults, so many different gods—Christianity swept all that away. One God—one road to salvation and life everlasting.”

But the moment I enjoyed most was when the nature of “faith” was analysed and evaluated. The Jacobi character questions its utility:

  “Would you give cash in advance to a man who promised to meet you on the street corner with a brand new Rolls-Royce? Do you have faith or . . . do you tell him to bugger off and find some other sucker?”

And later:

  “It says in the dictionary that faith is unquestioning confidence. Is that something to be admired? Is it? Not in my book it isn’t. It sounds like plain stupidity . . . The door opens and in walks Jesus. ‘I’ve died but here I am again.’ It seems a perfectly reasonable response to day ‘prove it’ . . . What’s so blessed about unquestioning evidence? . . . People still go in believing in astrology, in statues that weep, alien abduction, Our Lady of Lourdes, scientology, mystical stigmata and the whole wretched farrago of fairy tales and wishful thinking . . .”

Wonderful stuff, full of insight and humour.

Michael Gill

The Outline of History by H. G. Wells. A Criticism. (1920)

Book Review from the December 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

This, the Magnum Opus of Mr. Wells, is a very remarkable book. It will be a useful addition to the "library" of the worker-student as undoubtedly it already is in many thousands of cases, and the work will probably have a widespread influence. Whilst woefully deficient in many respects, it is certainly the best one-man attempt at a fairly detailed "Universal History" which has come under the notice of the present writer. A "perfect" work of this kind will never be written this side of the Revolution.

The prime value of the book is as a great accumulation of historical data, orderly arranged and compressed within comparatively small compass. As a narrative it is for the most part intensely interesting. The descriptive powers, not to speak of imagination, of the writer of "The Time Machine" are, in places, exercised to the full, and the grip of the story at times approaches fascination.

The evolution of the Solar System, the earth and life, the races of men and their languages, and the evolution of writing and of primitive ideas, are all clearly and concisely dealt with according to the most recent and authoritative findings of Science. Mr. Wells is particularly good when describing the growth of inventions, discoveries, and knowledge in general.

A good sense of proportion is, in the main, shown throughout the book. The civilisation of China in particular, receives the prominence to which, by its "peculiar" character, age and expansion, it is entitled in any general account of the work of Man. Moreover Mr. Wells is continually reviewing well known facts from quite unusual points of view. He shows, for the most part, at least, a healthy disregard for conventional opinions, and especially for those which, embellish the sacred personalities of "great men." Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Gladstone receive some rough handling which has shocked some of the more orthodox reviewers of the book. Mr. Wells has done some useful work in pulling down some of the "tin gods" of the multitude of hero-worshippers. He has his own "heroes," nevertheless.

A very valuable and organic part of the work are the maps. They form quite an historical atlas in themselves. The same artist, Mr. Horrabin, has produced the "time charts" which are a novel and helpful inclusion, whilst his numerous line illustrations are not only really illustrative and seemingly very accurate but they are good examples of a rather severe, but eminently suitable technique in that difficult art—pen drawing.

In reviewing such a large work the line must be drawn somewhere. Therefore the following comments and criticisms are chiefly confined to some of Mr. Wells' generalisations about history and views regarding social evolution. Owing to the different paging of the several editions, all citations are to the chapters and their subsections.

#    #    #    #

Despite his sub title: "A Plain History of Life and Mankind," Mr. Wells has not made the mere telling of his story his sole, or even his primary, aim. He has a theory to expound and to prove—a theory which issues finally as a lesson and a warning to his readers.

Briefly, Mr. Wells' "theory of history" is that the evolution of the human race consists of the gradual "rise" of bestial, cruel, selfish, ignorant animals — primaeval men—living in small, independent, isolated and antagonistic family groups, to a cultured refinement, wisdom and altruism—fit citizens of one world-wide brotherhood-community. We have not yet arrived at this latter stage of perfection, but Mr. Wells says we have made enormous strides in that direction and this achievement is the next great step in human progress.

It is important to note that this evolution is the result mainly, in Mr. Wells's opinion, of the influence of Religion and Education upon the minds of men, and it is to these factors he looks for future progress.

Of course our author strains the evidence to fit his theory. Practically all historians have done the same. It is so easy; it is all but unavoidable. Many of the "facts" upon which histories are based are so uncertain in themselves, are almost always open to a variety of legitimate interpretations and still more illegitimate ones. Moreover, their immense number makes inevitable a certain selection and suppression of facts in accord with the writer's views as to their relative order of importance, which again depends upon his theoretical opinion or practical aims. In the book before us the "straining" is very obvious in parts, but on the whole is not so much in evidence as one would expect, for the author is by no means either thorough or consistent in the application of his theories.

Mr. Wells assumes that altruism and social solidarity was lacking in the earliest men. Even apart from other considerations this is rendered very improbable by the fact that recent savages possess these qualities to a marked degree. The extinct Tasmanians certainly did, and, as Mr. Wells points out, they were still in the early Paleolithic stage at the time they were discovered. The Bushmen and Australians, only a little further advanced, also contradict his view. Savages are almost invariably kind, affectionate, and loyal to their own people, but hostile to strangers and cruel to their enemies. Any survey of the races of men, such as Keane's or Hutchinson's, will prove this.

A serious and significant omission occurs when Mr. Wells fails to make any mention of the existence of the communal marriage system among primitive peoples. The discovery of this institution was one of the most revolutionary in the whole range of anthropology.

The reason for this omission is that our historian believes that the earliest and original form of human society was the single "self-centred" family group, ruled despotically by the oldest male, usually the father, until he died or one of his sons managed to kill him and rule in his stead. This is merely an extension to primitive conditions of the old "patriarchal theory." He quotes from Worthington Smith's excellent description of life in the early Stone Age, but, as this writer holds the contrary view of primitive society, Mr. Wells adds a highly hypothetical account of the supposed paleolithic family group and the conduct of its ruler, the "Old Man," borrowed from the "Primal Law" by J. J. Atkinson, who, with Andrew Lang, is the only authority mentioned who supports his view. (See Chap. IX. 2.)

Now Mr. Wells does not tell his readers that a very large number—probably the great majority—of ethnologists and sociologists, hold a totally different view of social origins. Prof. Edward Jenks, a very able thinker, says in his "History of Politics" (p. 18) "by the discoveries concerning the nature of savage society . . it has been proved, that the earliest social group, so far from being a small household of a single man and his wives, is a large and loosely connected group or 'pack' ... it could easily be shown that the origin of society in 'single families' is inherently impossible," and he refers to the view supported by Mr. Wells as "the old theory, now definitely exploded."

It is difficult to see how man could have acquired language, tools, or a developed intelligence without a considerable degree of sociability. The conclusions of modern Psychology as to the deep-rooted power of the herd-instinct and the pronounced suggestibility of the human mind also point indisputably to the gregarious nature of man.

The "Handbook to the Ethnographical Collection" of the British Museum (a cheap, well illustrated and useful book to students) states the general opinion amongst ethnologists as follows :

  "In a primitive community the individual has little importance as such. He may almost be said to belong to it body and soul, and apart from it he has neither rights nor responsibilities. Such a system is unfavourable to the development of enterprise or private initiative, but at the same time it entourages the habits of obedience, discipline and common action, upon which further social progress depends. The absorbing claims of the community are well illustrated by the primitive laws of property, according to which everything of the greatest value belongs to the clan in common." (P. 25.)

Now the above paragraph flatly contradicts Mr. Wells's assertion that "No more nonsensical expression is conceivable in sociology than the term 'primitive communism.'" (Chap. XXXVII. 13.) By the use of such totally irrelevant analogies as the "dog and his bone, the tigress and her lair," he tries to prove that primitive man was an intensely individualistic property-holder.

Many readers of his work will be unaware that in taking up this position Mr. Walls is contemptuously disregarding for the benefit of his thesis the accumulated evidence of a host of competent observers in all parts of the world, and also, for the later stages of primitive communism, a considerable mass of documentary evidence. We cannot state or discuss this evidence here. The works on the subject are numerous ; those by Morgan, Tylor, Lubbock and Maine will be profitable reading to the student. A good summary from a sound viewpoint is Lafargue's "Evolution of Property," and a great mass of evidence from all peoples and periods is contained in Prof. Letourneau's "Property, its Origin and Development."

These omissions and errors, unfortunately, give a distorting perspective to what would otherwise be an uncommonly vivid picture of primaeval humanity. So conspicuous and important are they that their occurrence is only to be explained as a result of the preconceived theoretical notions of the author.

Mr. Wells classifies more advanced human societies into two primary types: "Communities of Will" and "Communities of Faith and Obedience." The former are societies of "free" individuals, jointly and freely determining the activities of the communities to which they belong. His stock examples are the tribes of nomadic, warlike herdsmen of the great plains. Illustrations of the second type of community are the ancient States, such as those of Egypt and Babylonia, in which a monarchic and priestly government controlled the lives and commanded the allegiance and obedience of its subjects who regarded it with fearful and religious reverence.

Now, to the Marxist this classification must appear unsatisfactory, being based on nothing fundamental. It lays no stress upon the supremely important factor of interest. It should be obvious that you will find no community of will where there is no community of interest. The two conditions are interdependent. One in the absence of the other is almost inconceivable.

The tribesmen of a nomadic people could determine the activity of the community in defence, offence, or migration because their individual needs both immediate and ultimate were identical. This was easily seen and fully understood. The division of social labour had not yet reached the point at which it produces classes of oppressors and oppressed. All had inalienable "rights" in the community, membership of which was based upon actual blood-kinship. Every incentive existed to loyal action in support of the tribe.

Moreover, the fact that in a pastoral community public affairs are decided by the Council of Chiefs or assembly of tribesmen in no way alters the fact that "faith and obedience" exert a great influence on its members. The people of the tribe owe rigid obedience to the tribal custom law, and the sacred bonds of "ancestor worship" are an additional cement to that produced by unity of interest.

Now, exactly the reverse state of affairs obtained in the great communities of Egypt and Babylonia. Here diversity of occupation social function and interest brought about by progress in agriculture, handicraft, and commerce, was the cardinal feature. There were peasants, artisans, merchants, soldiers, officials, nobles, and priests, with sub-divisions of each. (Chattel slaves, very numerous, especially in Babylonia, are expressly omitted, as they are not members of the community in Mr. Wells's sense.) The bulk of the "free" town workers had their narrow but well recognised craft interests, but those in different trades even in the same locality would have little in common. There were few amongst them who were completely propertyless, and thus no proletariat existed.

In districts where a large slave population existed—especially of gang-slaves—fear of their revolt would act as a sedative to discontent amongst the "free" workers.

These great States covered an extensive territory, and their population was large. Means of communication between distant cities and districts did not exist for the common people. There was thus little possibility of widespread revolt on the part of any exploited class. Local revolts though were not unknown—there was a "strike" of labourers at Thebes in the reign of Rameses III.—and as they were bound to conflict with the politico-religious authority they show that the common people were not so servile as Mr. Wells would have us believe.

Division of interests among the masses made possible the despotic rule of the politically intelligent minority, and the common need for protection against the inroads of barbarian invaders justified it. This minority, the "ruling class," were originally successful conquerors, clan or tribal chiefs and "medicine men." They had at their back a disciplined army largely of foreign troops from conquered provinces. Tradition and superstition were contributory factors, but of secondary importance.

Turning to another aspect of this interesting question, as Mr. Wells says (Chap. XX. 2): "On the whole the common men were probably well content to live under lord or king or god and obey their bidding. It was safer. It was easier." Accustomed to his lot and aspiring to nothing higher than the standard of comfort it traditionally afforded, the average Egyptian peasant or labourer would submit in "faith and obedience" to what must often have seemed intolerable extortion and irksome obligations, rather than engage in any serious revolt against what must have seemed to him the mightiest, most impregnable power in the world. Such an act would do too much violence to his settled habits of work and thought, and all to no good purpose. Here also, then, interest, bodily and mental, is the deciding impulse.

It must not be thought that Mr. Wells entirely fails to recognise these effects of the hierarchy of classes; he does show that they are a contributory factor, but seems to think that it was the influence of priests and of the "god-king" idea which primarily caused men to surrender their "wills" in social affairs. The "god-king" certainly was a useful, indeed a necessary institution to primitive civilisation. Superstition, religious or secular, is always useful to class divided societies. It gives the ruling classes a supernatural or a moral sanction otherwise absent and thus oils the wheels of exploitation.

Mr. Wells devotes a whole chapter to the rise of classes in Egypt, Babylonia, India and China and his treatment in the main is very satisfactory. Here and there throughout the book he shows very clearly the effect of class grouping and interest as a determinant in social change.

R. W. Housley

To be continued.

The Middle East and Historic Rights (1978)

From the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no question that individuals do influence society and that without an emphasis on the background and nature of outstanding individuals a complete picture of their times is not possible. The problem is, simply, that too much is made of their importance in the fashioning of history. As Karl Kautsky puts it in Foundations of Christianity:

. . . in terms of historical epochs, their influence is only transitory, merely the outer ornament which strikes the eye first in a building but says nothing about its foundations. But it is the foundations that determine the character of the structure and its permanence . . .

To put the proposition in another way: to understand the basic structure of a society is to grasp the underlying significance behind the actions of outstanding individuals. Take, for example, the apparent earth-shattering decision of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat to parley with the Israelis for “peace” and the return of Arab lands to their former owners. Consider, too, the stiff-backed arguments of Israel’s Menachem Begin on the “historical right” of the Jewish people to return to Samaria and Judea (commonly referred to – but not by Begin – as the West Bank).

Were one to base one’s understanding on popular belief, the new development in Middle East politics is the brainchild of Anwar Sadat. Millions of words are churned out by the media on his and his lovely wife’s personal backgrounds, their devotion to Allah and to the pressing economic problems of the Egyptian masses. Sadat is widely termed “courageous” excepting, to be sure, in some parts of the Arab world where he is labelled “traitor.” Whatever the appellation, however, he is thought of as the instigator of Egypt’s current political moves.

Now, it is not necessary to construct a theory based upon conspiracy to understand that the business class of Egypt and of Israel have orchestrated the present politics of “peace” in their immediate orbits. The symphony does not have to sound, upon original completion, as a finished work and is subject to refinement. Even the master composers of the classics were known to change their scores from the originals. And so it is with the bourgeoisies of Israel and Egypt. There is a constant urge, a need, in capitalist society for trade and capital investment that transcends historical prejudices. That such activity leads, inevitably, to further ruptures and war is but a contradiction of capitalism and beside the point. Business must go on, somehow, but it is not easy-to whatever extent it is possible — for nations to carry on profitable relations with one another when in a legal state of war.

As a matter of fact, the bourgeoisie, as a whole, is never really pleased with a perpetual need to build armaments and wage war with one another. It is costly and the experiences of the West German and Japanese capitalist class since their defeat in World War II prove how much more profitable it is when huge military establishments do not have to be maintained.

The point is that, whatever the outcome of current negotiations, one should learn more by examining Israeli and Egyptian business needs than by studying the personal characteristics of their heads of state.

Now, what of that “historical right” of the Jewish people to settle in Samaria and Judea (the West Bank)? There are, of course, two main opposing points of view: the area, in biblical times, was Jewish and is thus part of the traditional Jewish homeland; Arab occupancy for a couple of thousand years – more or less – makes it Arab territory. Upon analysis, both views are unsound and unfounded. In the first place, there is no real essence behind the premise that those who espouse Judaism (willingly or not) in our times are descendants of those early Jewish inhabitants of Samaria and Judea. Aside from the intermarriage and general miscegenation between Jews and non-Jews in mediaeval and modem times Judaism, in very early times, was a proselytising religion, particularly so in the early years of Rome’s imperial greatness. As Kautsky puts it:

  Among the many religions that came together in the Roman world empire the Jewish was the one best suited to the thoughts and needs of the time. It was not superior to the philosophy of the ‘heathen’ but to their religions — no wonder that the Jews felt far superior to the Gentiles and that the number of their supporters grew rapidly. ‘Judaism wins over all men,’ says the Alexandrian Jew Philo, ‘and exhorts them to virtue; barbarians, Hellenes, men of the mainland and men of the islands, the nations of the East like those of the West, Europeans, Asiatics, the peoples of the world.’ We expected Judaism to become the religion of the world. This was the time of Christ. (Foundations of Christianity).

And Kautsky goes on to say in his next paragraph:

. . . as early as 139 B.C. in Rome itself Jews were expelled for making Italian proselytes. It was reported from Antioch that the larger part of the Jewish community there consisted of converted Jews (rather than born Jews). It must have been so in many other cities as well . . .

Is it not preposterous, then, to relate present world Jewry to the historical inhabitants of Samaria and Judea or of Palestine, generally?

On the other hand, neither Jews nor Arabs, for the most part, could lay claim to meaningful ownership of the land on which they lived in biblical times any more than they can today. Throughout the period of recorded history the land in any part of civilization has been, mainly, the property of a small minority of any national population. The lesson is still to be learned: “Our land” so far as the vast majority is concerned is ours only in philosophy, poetry, and song — not in actuality. And the only historic right enjoyed by working people anywhere in the civilized world is the right to be exploited (when they can be “used”) by, and subject to, a ruling class and its state.

Harry Morrison

WSP (US), Boston.

Christianity or Socialism (1965)

From the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month Christians celebrate the birth of their Christ. It is therefore appropriate once again to examine the Christian religion and its relations to socialism and the working class.

Christianity is a comparatively recent religion but it is thick with the debris of man’s earlier superstitions. The pagan influence on the Christmas festival is especially well marked, for December 25th was a holy day long before Jesus Christ was even thought of. Primitive man worshipped the sun because the course of his life was dominated by the yearly round of that planet in the heavens. This practice was widespread but especially in northern countries mid-December was thought to be a critical time, as the days became shorter and shorter and the sun itself weaker. Great bonfires were lit to give the sun god strength and, when it became apparent that the shortest day had passed, there was great rejoicing. Thus the Roman winter-solstice festival, held on December 25th in connection with the worship of the sun-god Mithra, was known as the birthday of the unconquered sun-god.

December 25th was not generally introduced into the Western Church as Christmas day until the fourth century and it was even later before it was accepted in the Eastern Church. Several Christian sects had previously fancied the 24th or 25th of April as a suitable “holy” period—thus arbitrarily connecting Christ’s birth with the vernal equinox rather than the winter-solstice—while still other factions chose alternative solar festivals. However, St. Chrysostum (5th century) gives a very practical reason why December 25th was to be preferred. “On this day the birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in order that while the heathens were occupied in their profane ceremonies the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed.”

Man's consciousness is a reflection of his material environment. While he was struggling to find his feet in the universe it was understandable that he should interpret phenomena which he could not comprehend in supernatural terms but, in the twentieth century, such irrational relics from the past can be of no value to the working class.

Christians have argued against the materialist conception of history by claiming that the driving force behind the universe is a god’s will and that, while everything else may be subject to change, God and his religion remain constant. Yet the briefest examination of Christ and his theories shows him clearly as a product of his times. For example, he plainly shared the then common belief that disease was due to infestation with demons and he told his followers, “In my name ye shall cast our devils”. Again, religion has always been the willing tool of the ruling class. The church today holds chattel slavery to be immoral. But when Constantine the Great accepted the Christian religion the pope of the time received him with acclamation and no one suggested to him the need to surrender his slaves, of which he held thousands. Similarly the Christians’ god today dutifully reflects the interests of capital. Thus for hundreds of years the popes excommunicated those who put their money out at usury and denied them Christian burial because of this “grievous sin”. Yet, strangely, since Pope Benedict XIV’s condemnation in 1745, God has not moved his spokesmen to breathe one word against this practice.

We are told that the Bible is God’s word. This being the case, his laconic message could not be clearer—“Thou shalt not kill”. The record of the Christian churches in this century alone illustrates that they have never hesitated to take sides in Capitalism’s bloody quarrels. In the first world war the workers were urged to slaughter one another with God on their lips: “God of our Fathers . . . Be thou the rampart of our costs, the frontline of the battlefield”. And in the second world war Christians intoned in harmony with capitalist interests in both Germany and Britain. “You have every reason to say prayers for the Führer. May God preserve him, because we need an eternal Germany.” (Reported in the Daily Mail, May 9th. 1944.)

On the other hand in the Church of England Newspaper, February 23rd, 1940, we find a thoroughly English god rallying under the Union Jack: “It is to the living God therefore we must look for deliverance in the present hour. He it is Who delivered our fathers from the ‘Invincible’ Spanish Armada; He appeared on our behalf in 1914-18; and He will help us now if we call upon Him with a true heart.”

Capitalism is a dirty business, based as it is upon the misery of the majority of mankind. But it is well served by its priesthood, always ready with the facile lie and the glib distortion to endorse the actions of the bourgeoisie and persuade the workers that their present lot is part of some unalterable, God-given system.

Clearly then the Christian religion is a most versatile creed. Is it possible that it could be adapted again to serve the interests of a socialist society? The answer is no, for at all times Christianity and Socialism are contradictory. Socialism involves a rejection of leadership and the determination that the workers themselves must achieve socialism. Conversely? Christianity is rooted in a blind faith in leaders, both worldly and supernatural. The priests urge their flocks to remain servile and reap the blessings of poverty. They say that it is not up to the workers to consider the system which robs them, throws them into unemployment, subjects them to war and disease; that it God’s province. The Bishop of Barcelona orders: “Have confidence in your Bishops, who have received from God the mission of commanding; learn to obey . . . do not change a word of the directives that the Holy Church gives you through the Bishops. Be obedient!”

Again, within capitalist society there is a continual class struggle which can only be abolished by the establishment of a classless society—socialism. But Christians believe that there is a harmony of interests under capitalism. Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclincal on Labour asserted: “If one man hires out to another his strength or his industry, he does this in order to receive in return the means of livelihood, with the intention of acquiring a real right, got merely to his wage, but also to the free disposal of it . . . Socialists . . . strike at the liberty of every wage-earner, for they deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages.” The good pope has a point—in that socialism will certainly deprive everyone of the “liberty” of wage-slavery. However, with typical Christian charity (towards the bourgeoisie) he chooses to overlook the fact that under capitalism the workers are forced to sell their labour power to the owners of the means of living. This is not, as the pope suggests, a case of fair exchange but is based upon the appropriation of the surplus value created by the workers by the master class.

Yet there are those who still maintain that Socialism and Christianity can somehow by synthesised, given the right leader as a catalyst. The Labour Party has always taken this line and the so-called Christian Socialist Movement lingers on. desperately trying to create some sort of comprehensible amalgam out of conflicting idealist and materialist theories. Their analysis of capitalism is based upon the contention that it is an “evil” system, rooted in sin. But in their literature we find: “Capitalism has served mankind by accumulating capital, so making large scale production possible and increasing wealth generally . .  .” Thus these Christian gentlemen admit that what they call “sin” and “ evil ” have been of service to man. This inconsistency is the inevitable result of trying to accommodate Christianity and Socialism—the utopian and the scientific.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of good cheer, when the harsh reality of this world is briefly forgotten. But it is impossible to disregard capitalism even at this time of the year. We address our Christmas message to the working class, about to enjoy yet another wretched holiday under capitalism—the system they chose to perpetuate when they voted for the Labour and Tory parties last October. That man of the people, the sanctimonious Harold Wilson, has gone on record as talking of “our quest for the Kingdom of God on earth”. After one year of Labour government the conclusion in inevitable; God and Mr. Wilson are forced to administer capitalism in the interests of the ruling class as ever. But then Mr. Wilson is not a socialist—and neither is God.

John Crump

A Socialist on Religion (1970)

From the December 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion, in all its varieties, whether Christian or pagan, Jewish or Mohammedan, rests on and stems from the belief in a supernatural Being or Power of some sort. It is precisely a belief because no scientific, objective facts or even logic has ever been satisfactorily advanced to support this theory.

No atheist, however, can prove the non-existence of a God, for, as Madalyn Murray, American atheist and social worker, has said, “You don’t have to negate what no one can prove exists”. However, the sceptic can go a long way towards discovering the truth by closely examining the origin and historical development of religious belief.

If someone accepts the Biblical account of Man’s beginning; if he is so unscientific as to be convinced that the earth, sun. moon and all life was created by divine will within seven days some six thousand years ago. then there is hardly any basis for discussion with him and no purpose would be served in trying to pursue a futile argument.

If, however someone can reason logically, he would wisely discard the Bible as a less-than-useful source of historical enlightenment. The fact that the universe. earth and life were in existence millions of years before our ‘‘first parents” should be sufficient to start an investigation. There is little to dispute in the theory of evolution — by now more fact than theory — so our point of departure is that Man evolved, developed a brain, used tools, altered his environment. and formed societies.

As Man became conscious of himself and his surroundings, and ceased to be wholly led by animal instinct, in short, as soon as Man became capable of thinking, he must have wondered from where he came, to where he was going? How baffled must have been early Homo Sapiens at seeing his reflection in a pool of water, or, whilst in slumber, dreaming of a colleague, dead and decomposed years before. A primitive logic could concoct powerful beings or Gods behind the sun, stone, thunder, and other natural happenings.

These early beliefs could have laid the foundations upon which later religious consensus developed. Differing religions developed in societies with differing geographical, economic and social foundations. It is by examination of these material factors that an understanding of how basic belief developed into definite bodies of thought can be acquired.

The earliest records of the Jewish people disclose that they were nomad tribesmen herding flocks from pasture. The social unit was essentially patriarchal, the eldest usually assuming leadership of the clan. Under such conditions, the religion of Yahweh developed, symbolised by a ‘father in heaven guarding his flocks’, and clearly reflecting their economic and social mode of production.

Similarly, the Scandinavian Vikings of a thousand years ago, possessed the Gods of Odin and his son Thor, two allegedly brave and violent warriors who reflected the social system under which the Vikings lived, i.e., mainly that of plundering sea farers.

To achieve Vahalla (a celestial feast) one had to try to emulate the deeds of the great warrior Gods.

In short, the peculiar forms of religion have developed and flourished on differing modes of wealth production and social life in different geographical areas. They initially arose from Mankind’s prehistoric ignorance in his attempts to unravel the forces of Nature surrounding him, e.g., death, storms, shadows and dreams. It is indeed paradoxical that in our epoch of such remarkable scientific advances many people cling so doggedly to ancient fables evolved in an era of intellectual infancy.

Besides being scientific, religion is also blind faith in an unproven and unprovable concept, presupposes that religious dogma excludes understanding and knowledge. We all know of Galileo’s fate before the Inquisition for supporting Copernicus’ theory that the earth was not the centre of the universe. We all know of the brutal methods that the "agents of God” have employed in the past in their efforts to stem the tide of learning. There probably remain many sections of the religious personnel who would unhesitatingly resurrect such methods given the chance. One of the main grievances of some churches today is that the State is monopolising all education, and one can understand these churches’ consternation at being robbed of their young sheep by another competitor.

More realistic members of the clergy, however, are trying to swim with the tide; conceding more and more to the march of knowledge, compromising at every turn, and jettisoning one by one the more ludicrous of their assorted dogmas. It is interesting to speculate on how many moons will pass before they eradicate God himself.

Now is there any usefulness or practicality that religion holds for us under our present system of society?

Before attempting to answer this question, a brief expose of capitalism, our present system, is desirable.

Capitalism is a private (sometimes State) property class society, divided into owners of the means of production (under 10% of the population), and non-owners (90%), where the non-owners have to work for wages or salaries in order to live. Through the wages system, the class of non-owners (working class) are exploited by the class of owners, i.e., the capitalist class.

From this basic foundation, the whole paraphernalia of capitalist relations arise with all their complex workings. There is competition in various fields and in various stages, from "keeping up with the Jones” to colossal global warfare; there is poverty, both of a modest and extreme nature, resulting in numerous and tragic conflicts within the working class itself; there is frustration and mental anxieties wide in scope — from nervous and psychiatric ‘hang ups’ to murder and suicide. Capitalism is, in short, as poet N. B. Brock wrote, "a masterpiece of crucifixions”. (The Wayward Mind, 1970).

Where does a religion, e.g., Christianity, fit into all this? Some religious principles like ‘Thou shalt not steal’, stem directly from a system of private property. Stealing is quite unknown in primitive communal societies, as you cannot steal what you have, only what belongs to someone else. Stealing as concept and practice can only die out in a Socialist society as all wealth (abundant wealth to be sure) will be freely available to all. Not being denied access to the means of production and its products, people will simply not be motivated to steal. Anti-stealing ideas, therefore, are nothing but props to exploitative class society.

On the other hand, principles like ‘Thou shalt not kill’, though quite admirable in themselves, are that much idealistic dreaming in an insane society, because the economic, social and political environment compels such regrettable behaviour. Many of US bombing crews hideously destroying Vietnamese women and children with napalm are honest ‘God-fearing’ chaps who would go to church and even pray for peace! And taking Northern Ireland as a further example, no religious principle, (of either flavour) has in any way discouraged some brutal violence between workers there.

In short, capitalism, and the ignorance that goes with it, simply makes wishful thinking out of some quite admirable principles. Religion, at best, has been totally ineffective in compelling Man to live in peace, happiness, prosperity and freedom.

To conclude our analysis, the question arises “Has religion any relevance to Socialism”?

To begin with, its theoretical basis (of superstition and blind faith) is difficult, nay impossible, for a scientific socialist to accept. From the fact that an overwhelming majority in Socialism will be socialists, it follows that any remnants of superstition will be upheld by only a tiny, even insignificant minority of the population.

As to the ‘practical’ principles' as ‘loving thy neighbour’, the futility of pushing such concepts under Socialism should be obvious, as the social conditions obtaining there will freely permit their development. In a sane society, such behaviour will become part and parcel of all human social relations.

Religion, therefore, is one of the more retrograde concepts which many men have yet to jettison. It has constituted a shackle upon the brain of Man for generations of time. It has been utilised in the past to perpetrate and exonerate the most barbaric slaughter and cruelty of Man by Man : to defend the throne of the aristocracy as well as the money bags of the plutocracy.

Reciprocally, it has also been seized by the ignorant masses upon which to lean, and into which to escape. To quote Marx, “it is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right).

But also, like Marx always said, capitalism produces its own gravediggers. The flourishing of science and education under capitalism has led to a steady decline in organized religion in the ‘advanced’ countries. Although it can be argued that other phenomena are replacing religion as the ‘opium’, it is nevertheless a sign that at least one mental shackle is being expunged by the working class. It can only be conducive to the spread of the socialist idea.

PAG.