On the occasion of the publication of a new book by Paul LeBlanc, MARX, LENIN, AND THE REVOLUTIONARY EXPERIENCE: Studies of Communism and Radicalism in an Age of Globalization, Michael Yates interviewed the author. Here's an excerpt:
MY: Do you see any contradictions between the secularism of Marx and Lenin and the religiosity of so many progressive change activists? PLB: Yes and no. Or to put it differently, it depends (as always) on what we mean by such things. The word "religion" has the connotation for many secular leftists of being equivalent to superstition, opposition to science, authoritarian moralistic rules, drawing people away from struggles for social justice today because they are promised a "pie in the sky" afterlife tomorrow. It is also seen as being intertwined with existing power structures. It is certainly the case that organized religion inclined very much in the direction of being pillars of a very reactionary status quo in the specific national cultures which Marx and Lenin experienced. Such "religiosity" is certainly in absolute contradiction to the orientation of Marx and Lenin, and they bluntly said so. On the other hand, both Marx and Lenin expressed respect for religious revolutionaries who were prepared to challenge the powers-that-be and to help mobilize the poor, the exploited and the oppressed in struggles for social justice. Secular revolutionaries certainly have much more in common with religious revolutionaries than they do with secular opponents of revolution. My friend, the late Marxist literary critic Paul Siegel, tried to get at this by dedicating his critique of world religions, The Meek and the Militant (which has just been republished by Haymarket Books) to Thomas Münzer and Thomas Paine. Münzer was a revolutionary Christian leader and martyr during the Reformation and Peasant War in Germany, and Paine was a hero of the American and French revolutions and also an uncompromising critic of organized religion. Teddy Roosevelt (who blended his own religiosity with the commitment to establish an American Empire) once called Paine "a filthy little atheist" -- but actually, when you read Paine's no-holds-barred assault on established religion, The Age of Reason, you find that he is not an atheist at all. He passionately believes in God, which he defines as the First Cause of all things -- but his God is not a cranky tyrant sitting up in Heaven, but instead a force that is inseparable from the natural sciences, from a global embrace of all humanity, and from a deep moral sense that leads to struggles "to do good" for human freedom, democracy and social justice. There are some contemporary religious thinkers and activists who have an orientation -- including a conception of God -- very much like that of Tom Paine and who are opponents of the kind of imperial religiosity represented by Teddy Roosevelt and his modern-day counterparts. Religion can be a way of giving simplistic answers to complex and troubling questions, as a way of providing reassuring, dogmatic certainties in order to explain away unpleasant realities, as a way of limiting and blocking critical thinking and preventing openness to those who are different. It can be, in this form, a powerful force for tyranny and intolerance, for hurtful and sometimes even murderous divisions among people, and for an enforced conformity to narrow conceptions of what it means to be human. Sometimes, when a secular Marxist accuses another secular Marxist of being dogmatic and sectarian and of having a "religious approach to Marxism," what is meant is that the accused person is turning Marxism into an closed, intolerant, reassuring (as opposed to illuminating) mode of thought. This suggests that the same negative qualities which some people associate with religion are found among those who idolize secularism and science. Religion is also a way of structuring one's sense of connection with the rest of reality. It can involve a sense of awe and wonder over all that exists -- the amazing mysteries of life and consciousness, one's interrelationships with other people and other beings, one's own sensuality and passion and creativity (in the broadest and deepest meaning of those words). These qualities, which I don't see as being inconsistent with science or with the secularism of Marx and Lenin, are sometimes referred to as a sense of spirituality. I agree with Joel Kovel when he criticizes modern capitalism, in his interesting book History and Spirit, for a "de-spiritualization" that impoverishes the lives of so many people in our culture. Whatever labels one uses, these qualities can be structured and given coherence within the framework of the Marxist tradition and within the framework of one or another religious tradition. And I have come to the conclusion that it is possible to develop such structures -- for example, an approach to Marxism and an approach to Judaism or Christianity or Islam or Buddhism -- in ways that are very positive and very much in harmony with each other. FULL TEXT: <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/yates280806.html> -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
