MARXISM & RELIGION
By Late Mrs. Suroma (Bela) Mukerji M.A.
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Religion is the voice of God. It is not all talk and hypocrisy, it is above mind and senses; it begins when mannerism ends; it is eternal. But according to Marx there are no final scientific laws. There are no fixed properties in the world and therefore there can be no fixed concept. He says "Religion in itself lacking content dwells not on the sky but on earth and itself collapses along with the dissolution of the distorted actuality whose theory it represents.
But is the existence of two mutually contradictory aspects their conflict and their flowing together into a new category in matter able to collapse it? Or are the outer agencies —closing churches, destroying property, creating a society of militant Godless, starting anti-religious magazines with burlesque satires able to destroy it?
GREATEST FLAW
The greatest flaw in Marxism is lack of vision for which Sri Arubindo indicated it as Hostile force-Asurie force. That flaring up of passion that enabled great philosophers and poets to see the whole was not that of Marx.
The brutalities perpetrated In the name of religion blinded his vision and he indicated it as 'opium of the people’. His study of history led him to think matter first and then spirit. In the preface to his contributions to the critique of political economy he writes, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being but on the contrary their social being that determines their consciousness. He has taken into account physical life as it is, as is realised by reason. Life felt by intuition has been left out and this narrowness has influenced Pasternak to remark”. As to the interpretation of life and philosophy of happiness which it preaches it is simply impossible to believe that it is meant to be taken seriously, it is such a comic remnant of the past."
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
The philosophical basis of this comic remnant of the past is dialectical materialism or one of eternally developing matter through inner contradictions. Those contradictions are not only found indissoluble in inalienable connection but they crossover and mutually penetrate each other. If one limits himself to the task of weeding out the bad aspect for the preservation of Good he puts an end to the whole process. Mechanist's dialecticism is external as Bukharin expresses. “In the world there exist differently acting forces directed one against the other." Whatever the differences may be between the mechanists and Marxists both the Schools have studied man as a physical substance into a physical world. The orthogenic evolution in the expansion of mind has not been taken into account. Influences of Feuerbach’s materialism and Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest is glaringly visible. But Darwin has spoken only of the animal world of unconsciousness and physical might not the human world of consciousness and spiritual right, Fuerbadh's philosophy of matter is also one-sided.
PSYCHOLOGICAL School
This weakness of one-sidedness in the material philosophy of Marx has been severely criticised by the modern psychological school. The hereditary transmission adapting itself to environment has given way to habit instinct suggestion and imitation. It has passed its whole philosophy of life on mind just as Marx has based his philosophy on matter.
POINT MISSED
The point missed in both is that there is no one way traffic in the world. Life is neither one of matter nor one of mind. She is both. They cross over and mutually penetrate each other. If one wants to separate them he puts an end to life. Marx could understand this in respect of the contradiction of matter but refused to understand in respect of life otherwise why should he want religion a matter of heart to melt into the class-struggle of capital and labour? No doubt this attitude to religion was necessary to show the proletariat the way out of spiritual slavery of sloth and vice, to show them their position in the general system of capitalism, to make them understand that poverty is not the "punishment of sin but a social crime'', to open their eyes to new system of oppression and exploitation in the Industrial Revolution. But he should not have been exclusively blind to the humanistic side of religion.
COMMUNISM AND HUMANISM
Communism itself is the off-spring of this aspect of Religion. Is it not the legitimate successor of the best that was created by humanity in the nineteenth century in the shape of German philosophy English political economy and Freeh Revolution? Is not its birth perfectly in keeping with the saying in Gita. "Whenever spirituality decays and materialism is rampant then I reincarnate myself to protect the righteous, to destroy the wicked and establish the kingdom of God. I am re-born from age to age." In what more propitious time could communism be born? In England Industrial Revolution took humanity to animal life. In Russia the age old prejudices cynicism dissolution rottenness infamy of Tzar's regime headed by monster Rasputin and Romanor Family were stooping to any brutality to maintain the animal life of selfishness. In England pestilential priests were meddling in every sphere of life and indulging in every vice. In colonies Imperialism was taking a heavy toll of human lives.
HISTORY
To eradicate all these evils Marx started reading history and found matter as clue to the riddle of human activities and coupled man with matter. His fanaticism with it took away the balance from the theory of materialism. He deliberately mixed up elementary passion with ordinary one. He forgot that element of religion in man is eternal like mother's love for her child and goes on eternally developing through contradictions of positive and negative of Hegel without passing into oblivion. Feudalism and capitalism may be a process of endless ascendency from the lower to the higher. In them nothing may be final and absolute. But the concept of religion is born with humanity and will end with it.
(To be continued in the next issue)
But is the existence of two mutually contradictory aspects their conflict and their flowing together into a new category in matter able to collapse it? Or are the outer agencies —closing churches, destroying property, creating a society of militant Godless, starting anti-religious magazines with burlesque satires able to destroy it?
GREATEST FLAW
The greatest flaw in Marxism is lack of vision for which Sri Arubindo indicated it as Hostile force-Asurie force. That flaring up of passion that enabled great philosophers and poets to see the whole was not that of Marx.
The brutalities perpetrated In the name of religion blinded his vision and he indicated it as 'opium of the people’. His study of history led him to think matter first and then spirit. In the preface to his contributions to the critique of political economy he writes, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being but on the contrary their social being that determines their consciousness. He has taken into account physical life as it is, as is realised by reason. Life felt by intuition has been left out and this narrowness has influenced Pasternak to remark”. As to the interpretation of life and philosophy of happiness which it preaches it is simply impossible to believe that it is meant to be taken seriously, it is such a comic remnant of the past."
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
The philosophical basis of this comic remnant of the past is dialectical materialism or one of eternally developing matter through inner contradictions. Those contradictions are not only found indissoluble in inalienable connection but they crossover and mutually penetrate each other. If one limits himself to the task of weeding out the bad aspect for the preservation of Good he puts an end to the whole process. Mechanist's dialecticism is external as Bukharin expresses. “In the world there exist differently acting forces directed one against the other." Whatever the differences may be between the mechanists and Marxists both the Schools have studied man as a physical substance into a physical world. The orthogenic evolution in the expansion of mind has not been taken into account. Influences of Feuerbach’s materialism and Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest is glaringly visible. But Darwin has spoken only of the animal world of unconsciousness and physical might not the human world of consciousness and spiritual right, Fuerbadh's philosophy of matter is also one-sided.
PSYCHOLOGICAL School
This weakness of one-sidedness in the material philosophy of Marx has been severely criticised by the modern psychological school. The hereditary transmission adapting itself to environment has given way to habit instinct suggestion and imitation. It has passed its whole philosophy of life on mind just as Marx has based his philosophy on matter.
POINT MISSED
The point missed in both is that there is no one way traffic in the world. Life is neither one of matter nor one of mind. She is both. They cross over and mutually penetrate each other. If one wants to separate them he puts an end to life. Marx could understand this in respect of the contradiction of matter but refused to understand in respect of life otherwise why should he want religion a matter of heart to melt into the class-struggle of capital and labour? No doubt this attitude to religion was necessary to show the proletariat the way out of spiritual slavery of sloth and vice, to show them their position in the general system of capitalism, to make them understand that poverty is not the "punishment of sin but a social crime'', to open their eyes to new system of oppression and exploitation in the Industrial Revolution. But he should not have been exclusively blind to the humanistic side of religion.
COMMUNISM AND HUMANISM
Communism itself is the off-spring of this aspect of Religion. Is it not the legitimate successor of the best that was created by humanity in the nineteenth century in the shape of German philosophy English political economy and Freeh Revolution? Is not its birth perfectly in keeping with the saying in Gita. "Whenever spirituality decays and materialism is rampant then I reincarnate myself to protect the righteous, to destroy the wicked and establish the kingdom of God. I am re-born from age to age." In what more propitious time could communism be born? In England Industrial Revolution took humanity to animal life. In Russia the age old prejudices cynicism dissolution rottenness infamy of Tzar's regime headed by monster Rasputin and Romanor Family were stooping to any brutality to maintain the animal life of selfishness. In England pestilential priests were meddling in every sphere of life and indulging in every vice. In colonies Imperialism was taking a heavy toll of human lives.
HISTORY
To eradicate all these evils Marx started reading history and found matter as clue to the riddle of human activities and coupled man with matter. His fanaticism with it took away the balance from the theory of materialism. He deliberately mixed up elementary passion with ordinary one. He forgot that element of religion in man is eternal like mother's love for her child and goes on eternally developing through contradictions of positive and negative of Hegel without passing into oblivion. Feudalism and capitalism may be a process of endless ascendency from the lower to the higher. In them nothing may be final and absolute. But the concept of religion is born with humanity and will end with it.
(To be continued in the next issue)
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