Communism and Christianism Part 12

The universe moves, with all that therein is. The vanguard of mankind is moving to a viewpoint from which rapidly increasing numbers will see that a revolution which is necessary on the part of a slave to free himself from a master is not only justified but required by the great, first law of the biological realm, the law of self-preservation--a nature-made law on behalf of freedom. This nature-made law will ultimately nullify all cla.s.s laws, every law which is in favor of the enslaving capitalist cla.s.s and against the enslaved labor cla.s.s.

Every state with its executive, legislative, judiciary, military and educative systems is founded on capitalism. Since this is the case and since human nature is what it is, all political inst.i.tutions, the American with the rest, are of the capitalist, by the capitalist, for the capitalist, and each to the end that the capitalist may keep the laborer in poverty and slavery.

Every modern church with its ministry, bible, creed, heaven and h.e.l.l is founded on capitalism. Since this is the case, and since human nature is what it is, all religious inst.i.tutions, the Christian with the rest, are of the capitalist, by the capitalist, for the capitalist and each to the end that the capitalist may keep the laborer in ignorance and slavery.

Whether Jesus was an historical or a dramatic person, the morality involved in his trial, condemnation and execution is the same. a.s.suming the historicity, he was put to death by Pilate because a cla.s.s of the people said: We have a law and by it, according to its official interpretation, he should die. The Governor, finding that the legal enactment and the judicial decision were in accordance with the representation of the Jews, turned Jesus over to the executioners for crucifixion, and the world condemns him because he knew that the law was the embodiment of a fiction instead of a truth, because he interpreted it in the interest of a sect instead of a people, and because he basely acted with reference to his own political interests without regard to justice for an heroic but helpless champion of slaves in their struggle against the masters.

Philosophic anarchy differs by the s.p.a.ce of the whole heavens from practical anarchy, and it is the latter that I always have in mind. The great essential of philosophic anarchy is individualistic freedom. The great essential of practical anarchy is imperialistic slavery.

Capitalism is the outstanding, overshadowing imperialist, the father of all the kaisers by which the world has been cursed, not only of the terrestrial ones such as Wilhelm II, Nicholas II, Woodrow I, but also of the celestial ones such as Jehovah, Allah, Buddha.

The occupants of regal thrones have no more responsibility for the existence of imperialism than those of presidential chairs, nor they any more than I, and I have none. The truth is that the responsibility for this blight of all the ages is now at last, if indeed it has not always been, wholly with the representatives of the working cla.s.s. They have the great majority in numbers and all of the revolutionary incentives and power; therefore they, and only they can do away with imperialism, and they can rid themselves of it whenever they choose. Prince Kropotkin, the philosophic anarchist, a great soul, would agree to this representation, for he says:

The working men of the civilized world and their friends in the other cla.s.ses ought to induce their Governments entirely to abandon the idea of armed intervention in the affairs of Russia--whether open or disguised, whether military or in the shape of subventions to different nations.

Russia is now living through a revolution of the same depth and the same importance as the British nation underwent in 1639-1648 and France in 1789-1794; and every nation should refuse to play the shameful part that Great Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia played during the French Revolution.

Since death ends all of consciousness, the most inhuman of all inhumanities and the most immoral of all immoralities is the shortening of human life; and next to it is the diminishing of its happiness.

War shortens many lives and fills more with misery; hence its essential inhumanity and immorality.

A large part of the world has just pa.s.sed through the furnace of war--a war between the German and English nations with their respective national allies. All international wars are contests for supremacy in the markets of the world, or at least for advantage in some among them.

This one was no exception.

The furnace of this war was seven times larger and seven times hotter than any other has been. According to the latest estimates (September, 1920) its fierce flames directly and indirectly killed thirty million young men and wrecked totally twice and partially thrice as many more.

Yet the fire by which the world upon the whole and in the long run suffers most is not the intermittent, flaming one of the h.e.l.l of international war, which is always kindled and sustained by the capitalists of the belligerent nations for the purpose solely of securing commercial advantages over each other; but the greater suffering is by the permanent, smoking fire of the h.e.l.l of the inter-cla.s.s war which is always kindled and sustained by the capitalist cla.s.s in each nation for the purpose solely of robbing the labor cla.s.s of the fruit of their toil.

These national and cla.s.s wars (h.e.l.ls, flaming and smouldering) are due to the same matter-force law, the law of self-preservation, and, paradoxical as it may seem, this law is equally operative on both sides in each war.

Both h.e.l.ls exist as the result of the working out of the same law of animal preservation by compet.i.tion--the law of capitalism, and both h.e.l.ls will be done away with as the result of the working out of the same law of human preservation by co-operation--the law of socialism.

One proof of the rightness of the co-operative system is the fact that it necessarily operates for the whole people and not for a cla.s.s, whereas the compet.i.tive system as necessarily operates for a cla.s.s and not for the whole people.

Still another proof, and it is in itself almost if not quite conclusive, of the rightness of the co-operative system is the fact that its compet.i.tive rival breaks down in every great emergency. It broke down completely in all the belligerent countries (in none more than the United States) immediately upon their entrance into the world war. Our government was obliged to a.s.sume control of the railroads, coal mines and food products.

If a cla.s.s government, such as ours is, can provide during a war by the co-operative system, and only by it, for the wants of a country, and better, too, than during the time of peace, what may we expect in the way of plenty, comfort and leisure, when under the cla.s.sless administration there shall be no more war with its wholesale waste, and when there shall be one vast army of producers?

All the days which the fifty millions of soldiers spent in idleness will then be so many holidays for toilers who are in need of them for rest and self-improvement; and every dollar which is now wasted will then be two dollars saved, so that the pecuniary prosperity of war times will be increased, rather than diminished, and made continuous. Under a cla.s.sless administration the world would soon become comparatively rich and happy.[H]

Representatives of the capitalist cla.s.s are trying to create the impression that the co-operative system which our government temporarily established as a military necessity is socialism, and that the labor cla.s.s should seek no more than its restoration and continuance: but this system is the same old wolf in sheep's clothing.

The rickety house in which we are living is a compet.i.tive structure and it cannot be made into a co-operative one, at least not upon its present foundation, the sand of capitalistic cla.s.sism. Industrialism must take it down and rebuild it upon the rock of cla.s.sless labor. Neither this demolition nor this reconstruction const.i.tutes any part of the government program. Its socialism is a mirage, not a reality, and the matter-force law renders it necessarily so.

Marxian socialism is simplicity itself. It requires only three conditions, each of which is perfectly intelligible; but no one of them ever has existed or could exist under any capitalist government, because all such governments, not excepting our own, especially not it, are organized in the interest of parasitic profiteers, not productive laborers. The three indispensable yet simple prerequisites to this real socialism or communism are:

First, that the people within a munic.i.p.ality, either town or city, own and control the utilities within the area occupied by that munic.i.p.ality, which have to do with the immediate comfort of the people who live there.

Second, that the people in each state own and control the utilities that come in contact with the people on a state-wide scale.

Third, that the people within the nation own collectively and control democratically the utilities which affect us on a national scale.

Should we desire to go into more detail, we might say that the things necessary to the individual be owned and controlled by the individual, that the home be controlled by the family, and so on.

To go into the question on an international scale we might also add that utilities mutually necessary to all the nations be owned by the nations, as the Panama Ca.n.a.l, for instance.--Higgins.

Prince Kropotkin, though not a bolshevik, says approvingly of the Russian revolution that it is trying to build up a society where the whole produce of the joint efforts of labor by technical skill and scientific knowledge should go entirely to the commonwealth; and he declares that for the unavoidable reconstruction of society, by pacific or any other revolutionary means, there must be a union of all the trade unions of the world to free the production of the world from its present enslavement to capitalism.

Higgins and Kropotkin have here put co-operative socialism or communism in a nutsh.e.l.l both as to its aim and program.

The law of self-preservation is ever the same, but whether its salvation is for a part of the people by compet.i.tion--capitalist salvation, or for the whole people by co-operation--socialist salvation, depends upon whether it rides or is ridden.

So long as the law of self-preservation was supposed to be the will of a conscious, personal G.o.d whose earthly representatives were kings and priests or presidents and preachers, the law did the riding within the large domain of animal compet.i.tion--the domain of capitalism. War is the normal, indeed necessary evil of this domain, and hence the world must have wars so long as it remains within it, and it will remain there so long as it has celestial divinities with terrestrial representatives in states and churches for its governors.

Now that the law is known to be a matter-force necessity, not a divine decree, the time may rationally be hoped for when the people will do the riding within the small domain of human co-operation--the domain of socialism. Peace is the normal, indeed necessary, state of this domain, and hence the world must cease to have war when it enters it, and is governed by itself instead of by a G.o.d and the powers of state and church alleged to have been ordained by him.

Capital punishment should not be administered, if at all, except to a murderer whose guilt has been established to the satisfaction of the great majority of the people in the community to which he belongs, and never in the case of a suspected murderer of whom this is not true.

If William II were really the devil behind the European war by which many millions of the young men of the world have lost their lives, and if Thomas Mooney were really the devil behind the San Francisco explosion by which ten citizens of California lost their lives, their punishment by death might be urged with much show of reason as a social necessity. But if both were hung on the same gallows the world would go on suffering by the ever recurring and closely related misfortunes of war and riot as if nothing had happened. The real devil behind all wars and riots is the capitalist system. There will never be an end of wars and riots until this devil is overthrown.

The so-called Kaiser-war and the so-called Mooney riot are on the same footing, both having the character of an insurrection and both having the aim of self-preservation. The insurrection of the Kaiser was a riot on behalf of the capitalist cla.s.s of Germany and for the purpose of protecting it against the capitalist cla.s.s of England. The insurrection of Mooney (a.s.suming his guilt, merely for ill.u.s.tration) was a riot on behalf of the labor cla.s.s of California and for the purpose of protecting it against the capitalist cla.s.s of that state.

Incidentally, both riots have secondary aims of world-wide extent. The Kaiser had two of these: to overthrow the commercial supremacy of England that Germany might have it, and to overthrow industrial republicanism (socialism) everywhere. Mooney had this: the overthrow of commercial imperialism (capitalism) everywhere.

As rioters, there is this in common between Kaiser William and Thomas Mooney, that though moving in opposite directions, they are nevertheless carried by the same matter-force law which manifests itself in the same riotous system, capitalism--a system which, under one form or another, has ever produced international wars and cla.s.s revolutions; and, so long as it is allowed to exist, never will cease the production of them.

Hence the interests of the world require not that these rioters, Kaiser William and Thomas Mooney, should be hung, but that the capitalist system, which by the operation of the law of self-preservation by animal compet.i.tions, produced both of the riots with which they are respectively credited, should be overthrown by the labor system, which, by the operation of the same law of self-preservation by human co-operation, will put an end to all b.l.o.o.d.y conflicts.

But taking the popular view concerning the responsibility for this commercial war and labor riot and a.s.suming that they should be charged respectively to Kaiser William and Thomas Mooney, why should the promoter of the little riot die, or worse, suffer imprisonment during life, and the promoter of the big war live?

Yet, if the Kaiser were captured even by England there is no probability that he would be turned over to a court const.i.tuted of representatives of the allied nations, tried, found guilty and put to death. Why not?

Because, like all wars, his war, no matter which side won the victory, has been upon the whole, or will be in the long run, in the interest of the capitalists of every nation on both sides, at least of the great ones.

If Kaiser William would not be sent to the gallows by such a court why should the court which tried Thomas Mooney be allowed to send him to it; and, especially why, since California is part of a republic, and the Kaiser's war was on behalf of imperialism and a small minority, while Mooney's riot was on behalf of republicanism and the overwhelming majority?

Just now the human part of the world is especially afflicted by unnecessary and therefore unjustifiable deaths. The Governor of California has the opportunity to prevent one such death. I say to him, do it. In the name of Justice and in the name of Humanity, I with millions of others solemnly call upon him to save Mooney, the revolutionist, as Pilate, the Governor of Judea, according to the verdict of all right-thinking men and women, should have saved Jesus, the revolutionist.

III.

You say in effect that we must postulate a divine consciousness to account for human consciousness; but, on your theory, how could human consciousness come out of a divine consciousness; and, anyhow, contrary to your implication, we know of no consciousness which has come, except by inheritance, from another consciousness, but only of consciousnesses which have come from unconsciousnesses.

Your contention, in this connection, is to the effect that nothing can come out of nothing, and this is the core of a book, "A Short Apology for Being a Christian in the Twentieth Century," by the learned ex-president of Trinity College, Hartford, Dr. Williamson Smith, with whom you have had, I think, some correspondence.

This Apology was written against a letter of mine to the House of Bishops, ent.i.tled, "A Natural Gospel for a Scientific Age," which has never seen the light, partly because the ex-President convinced me that if I must give up the orthodox conception of G.o.d, I could not hold to the one which I had worked out in the letter.

If you have not seen the ex-President's book, you will, I am sure, enjoy it more than I did, but I doubt whether you will profit as much by it, for it verges towards your lines and away from mine; and so it set me to studying as it will not you, with the result of rejecting the new conception of G.o.d which I had worked out for myself, but with it I threw over the old one and ceased to believe in the existence of a conscious, personal divinity. Of course, my faith in the existence of a spiritual world and hope for a future life in it went with the G.o.d.

Dr. Williamson Smith and you are entirely correct in the contention that something cannot come out of nothing: but I no longer pretend that it can and I now see that the stones which have been thrown at me by you both and others have come from gla.s.s houses; for this is really the pretension of orthodox theologians. They affirm that the universe was created by G.o.d out of nothing, but produce no sc.r.a.p of evidence for His existence, and even if they could prove that He exists, they would have to admit that He came out of nothing, or at least from something which did so.