Question about Marxist Analysis of Class Consciousness

[Josh]

Communism includes the express destruction of Christian religion. Communism is thus never going to work as it is literally antichrist.

[joshuabgood]

Marxism is a lot like capitalism. In theory it works for everyone. In reality it never quite works. The purists always say it was never quite done right...if it was...it would work.

I tend to agree. That is, if Communism was done "right", it would work. (I think I was already saying this in HS, or at least by the time I was in the "Hippie Jesus People Movement".) But doing it right requires that EVERYONE is practicing the basic principles of the Jewish Law, which Jesus summed up in two. (Maybe God never intended for people to think that there were 10 Commandments. Jesus clarified that.)

I think that the reason Communism opposed Christianity so violently was that it was basically trying to get the Kingdom of God without God, without Jesus. (Without God, without Jesus, organized Christianity and Communism end up the same place - the power and riches all in the hands of a few.)

I think communism opposed Christianity also because Christianity represented the statist institution of the Czarist monarchy. And the "divine right" of a brutally oppressive system. If the EO churches had actually had the reputation of living out Jesus teachings re wealth and power it really wonders me if Marx, and then Lenin, would have opposed it like they did.

[Neto]

Marxism is a lot like capitalism. In theory it works for everyone. In reality it never quite works. The purists always say it was never quite done right...if it was...it would work.

I tend to agree. That is, if Communism was done "right", it would work. (I think I was already saying this in HS, or at least by the time I was in the "Hippie Jesus People Movement".) But doing it right requires that EVERYONE is practicing the basic principles of the Jewish Law, which Jesus summed up in two. (Maybe God never intended for people to think that there were 10 Commandments. Jesus clarified that.)

I think that the reason Communism opposed Christianity so violently was that it was basically trying to get the Kingdom of God without God, without Jesus. (Without God, without Jesus, organized Christianity and Communism end up the same place - the power and riches all in the hands of a few.)

I think communism opposed Christianity also because Christianity represented the statist institution of the Czarist monarchy. And the "divine right" of a brutally oppressive system. If the EO churches had actually had the reputation of living out Jesus teachings re wealth and power it really wonders me if Marx, and then Lenin, would have opposed it like they did.

Perhaps I should have said "I think that the reason Communism OPPOSES Christianity..." (present continuous tense) I agree that the form of Christianity found in the EO was not the type that would gain the approval of those concerned about justice. (I have not read enough of either Marx or Lenin to make a judgement as to whether I think their social concern was very deep, or not.) Following Ken's point (regarding the expectation that the revolution would only take root in an industrialized society), did Marx think that the rural peasants would not oppose the Church? There is a clear example to the contrary in the life of the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Machno.

[HondurasKeiser]

Marxism is a lot like capitalism. In theory it works for everyone. In reality it never quite works. The purists always say it was never quite done right...if it was...it would work.

I tend to agree. That is, if Communism was done "right", it would work. (I think I was already saying this in HS, or at least by the time I was in the "Hippie Jesus People Movement".) But doing it right requires that EVERYONE is practicing the basic principles of the Jewish Law, which Jesus summed up in two. (Maybe God never intended for people to think that there were 10 Commandments. Jesus clarified that.)

I think that the reason Communism opposed Christianity so violently was that it was basically trying to get the Kingdom of God without God, without Jesus. (Without God, without Jesus, organized Christianity and Communism end up the same place - the power and riches all in the hands of a few.)

I think communism opposed Christianity also because Christianity represented the statist institution of the Czarist monarchy. And the "divine right" of a brutally oppressive system. If the EO churches had actually had the reputation of living out Jesus teachings re wealth and power it really wonders me if Marx, and then Lenin, would have opposed it like they did.

This feels like reading your own biases back into history or at the very least, an unknowable assertion. Never mind the fact that Marx and Engels didn’t live anywhere near an Eastern Orthodox state or in a country that espoused “Divine Right” (a concept developed most fully by James I & VI and largely dead by the end of the Stuarts in England…170 years before Marx). It’s impossible to know what the Marxists might have made of religion had they encountered radical Jesus followers en masse because we can’t go down paths not taken. We can though look at the historical record and their own writings and know a few things for certain:

1. Marx and his acolytes were materialists and as such preternaturally opposed to metaphysical ideas. They even rejected Hegel’s metaphysics because it was too woo-woo. For them the only truly knowable things were those that could be quantified, tested and observed in the material realm.

2. Marx and Lenin weren’t persecutors of religion in the way that the later Soviets were. They simply saw religion through the prism of class. Protestantism was simply bourgeois morality set to ritual, Catholicism was the moral instantiation of feudalism and the Muensterites were delusional yet proto-proletarian revolutionaries. They were all misguided but, in a sense necessary for the progression of history to be brought towards classless utopia, at which point, the scales would fall from people’s eyes and religion would be seen as unnecessary.

[HondurasKeiser]

I tend to agree. That is, if Communism was done "right", it would work. (I think I was already saying this in HS, or at least by the time I was in the "Hippie Jesus People Movement".) But doing it right requires that EVERYONE is practicing the basic principles of the Jewish Law, which Jesus summed up in two. (Maybe God never intended for people to think that there were 10 Commandments. Jesus clarified that.)

I think that the reason Communism opposed Christianity so violently was that it was basically trying to get the Kingdom of God without God, without Jesus. (Without God, without Jesus, organized Christianity and Communism end up the same place - the power and riches all in the hands of a few.)

I think communism opposed Christianity also because Christianity represented the statist institution of the Czarist monarchy. And the "divine right" of a brutally oppressive system. If the EO churches had actually had the reputation of living out Jesus teachings re wealth and power it really wonders me if Marx, and then Lenin, would have opposed it like they did.

Perhaps I should have said "I think that the reason Communism OPPOSES Christianity..." (present continuous tense) I agree that the form of Christianity found in the EO was not the type that would gain the approval of those concerned about justice. (I have not read enough of either Marx or Lenin to make a judgement as to whether I think their social concern was very deep, or not.) Following Ken's point (regarding the expectation that the revolution would only take root in an industrialized society), did Marx think that the rural peasants would not oppose the Church? There is a clear example to the contrary in the life of the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Machno.

Marx thinks rural, small village life is worse than industrial capitalism inasmuch as the concentration of labor and capital in the cities helps dispel superstitions, including religion, encourages education and the rising status of women; all of which helps push history towards utopia.

[Josh]

I think communism opposed Christianity also because Christianity represented the statist institution of the Czarist monarchy. And the "divine right" of a brutally oppressive system. If the EO churches had actually had the reputation of living out Jesus teachings re wealth and power it really wonders me if Marx, and then Lenin, would have opposed it like they did.

The answer is “yes”; no such corrupt institutions existed in China and the Communist repression of Christianity was particularly brutal.