The USSR and Its Ideological Heroes
The dilemma of the Marxist faced by the paradox of a materialist dogma on one hand and the rule of a party insisting on personal responsibility on the other is, naturally, without a solution. There can be little doubt that … [materialism] opens windows and doors not only to the worst slavery but also to the most inhuman savagery.
Erik von Kuhnelt-Leddihn
We do not believe in eternal morality, and we expose all the fables about morality.
Lenin
Every vice leads to cruelty. Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity and justice, leads through anger to cruelty. Most atrocities are stimulated by accounts of the enemy’s atrocities; and pity for the oppressed classes, when separated from the moral law as a whole, leads by a very natural process to the unremitting brutalities of a reign of terror[1].
C. S. Lewis
The USSR represents a summation and synthesis of all the elements we have been examining: atheism, materialism, moral relativism, and a belief that human nature can be changed by changing the environment.[2] It provides a powerful counter example to the many critics of Christianity who themselves are atheists and materialists. The crimes their like-minded peers committed are greater than any attributable to Christianity, but many apply the convenient double standard mentioned above. The thoughts of the people who brought about the horrors of communism are the best means to observing how ideas affect real people. As Francis Schaefer has said, materialist philosophers have “no final way of saying certain things are right and other things are wrong.” For them, “the final thing which exists—that is, the impersonal universe—is neutral and silent about right and wrong, cruelty and non-cruelty… [it] has no way to provide absolutes.”[3] As a result, the standards of private morals and political life are arbitrary. But as Schaefer points out, “these matters are not just theoretical but eminently practical, as can be seen from the results produced in England and the United States in contrast to those produced in France at the time of the Enlightenment, and later in Russia.”[4] A comprehensive history will not be made here, as there are many excellent books already, but a correlation between communist thought and results under their regime will be made.
For example, the atheism[5] and hatred of orthodox Christianity in the USSR is not so different from the contempt modern atheists show. The Soviet head of education declared: “We hate Christians and Christianity. Even the best of them must be considered our worst enemies. They preach love of one’s neighbor and mercy, which is contrary to our principles. Christian love is an obstacle to the development of the Revolution. Down with love of our neighbor! What we want is hate ... Only then can we conquer the universe.”[6] Moral relativism also influenced communist leaders. One of their most prominent leaders, Trotsky, said, “Whoever does not care to return to Moses, Christ or Mohammed; whoever is not satisfied with eclectic hodgepodges must acknowledge that morality is a product of social development; that there is nothing invariable about it; that it serves social interests; that these interests are contradictory; that morality more than any other form of ideology has a class character.”[7] Another a leading member of the Russian social democratic movement once said, “Marxism had ‘no official system of morals’… he would go on, ‘Whatever serves Communism is moral.”[8]
To simplify the overly complicated language that the communists used, it is easiest to keep in mind that the class the communists claimed to be representing, often called the proletariat, can more simply be thought of as “the workers,” “the poor,” or “the people.” It is helpful to substitute these words so as to not get lost in the jargon which is used to hide many ideas that would be easy to understand if they were just stated in plain language. The communists were always arguing that what they were doing was for the “good of society,” an idea borrowed from the leaders of the French Revolution. This is no arbitrary connection. Lenin found his inspiration in the French Revolution.[9] The example of the French Revolutionary leadership Lenin wrote, “is instructive. It is not obsolete, but needs to be applied to the revolutionary class of the twentieth century, the workers … The enemies of the people for this class are not monarchs, but landowners and capitalists, as a class.”[10]
[1] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), pg 58, Kindle Edition. [2] Victor Sebestyen, Lenin (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017), ebook (purchased through ebooks.com). Capital by Karl Marx met significant success in Russia after its publication with the first 3000 copies and selling within the first year [3] Francis Schaefer, How Should We Then Live (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2005), loc 1481, Kindle Edition. [4] Ibid, loc 1481 [5] Vladimir Tismaneanu, The Devil in History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012), pg 165, Kindle Edition. [6] W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Communist (Salt Lake City: Izzard Ink Publishing, 2015), pg 26, Kindle Edition. [7] David Horowitz, Radicals (Washington DC: Regnery, 2012), pg 195, Kindle edition. [8] Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography (New York: Free Press,1994), loc 1012, Kindle Edition. Victor Sebestyen, Lenin (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017), pg 281/882, ebook (purchased through ebooks.com). Lenin said something similar to Angelica Balabanoff. Vladimir Tismaneanu, The Devil in History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012), pg 163, Kindle Edition. Stalin exhibited this amorality, see Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin (New York: Alfred K Knopf, 2007), pg 584, ebook (purchased through ebooks.com). [9] Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography (New York: Free Press,1994), loc 1719, Kindle Edition. For an example of the violence related to the French revolutions terror and Lenin’s own on terror, see Ibid, loc 4150. Ibid, loc 4853. Shows that revolutionary tribunals were modeled on the murderous roving tribunals of the French Revolution. See Vladimir Tismaneanu, The Devil in History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012), pg 201, Kindle Edition. See Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin (New York: Alfred K Knopf, 2007), pg 154, ebook (purchased through ebooks.com). For how the youthful Stalin and other revolutionaries would sing the Marseilles. [10] Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography (New York: Free Press,1994), loc 3116, 4260, 4910, 4855, 4931, 2838, Kindle Edition.
Comments