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...indeed, one of the most important figures in modern history - is not, in my view, Karl Marx. Karl Marx died as pretty much a failure; only eleven people attended his funeral. His attempt to establish himself as the guide and general of a disciplined group of revolutionary leaders - although it formed the pattern for most twentieth-century tyrannies, through the admiring imitation of Lenin - resulted in nothing more than a series of violent conflicts in the rising international socialist movement and his own total discrediting.
Move ahead 22 years, and take the best witness - the witness of an enemy. The rising Christian polemist and genius, GK Chesterton, sees no value in Marxism at all. He charges it with reversing the meaning of human life, placing food (the ultimate point of its insistence on production and distribution) at its centre, and reducing men to the level of cows. But he is clear on one thing: in spite of what he sees as its anti-spiritual and anti-intellectual nature, Marxism is widespread among intellectuals to the point of being a commonplace. This, mind you, is twelve years before an adventurer from the fringes of Russian Marxism launched his brutal bid to take over the immense, broken Russian hulk, and, in a few years, transformed his branch of Marxism from a local political movement into a world power. Lenin's immense success certainly drew to him everyone who was disposed to be impressed by success (or "the judgment of history", as they would call it); and to that extent it helped make Marxism a dominant feature in modern politics for as long as Soviet money could affect it. But Marxism - and this must never be neglected - was an important and popular heresy not just in Russia, but across the West, long before the rise of the Soviet Union - indeed, before anyone had ever heard of Lenin. We do not have to be surprised that it survived its fall.
Socialism is even older than Marxism and would have become a significant party or set of parties with or without old Karl's sectarians. The aim of Marxism from first to last was not to estabish itself as a political movement unlike any other, but to take over the larger Socialist area and "organize it" in the Prussian manner natural to the Prussian Karl Marx. The success it gained in this endeavour, even before Lenin, was by no means predictable, especially in England (Marx' main area of activity and the place where Chesterton observed his posthumous success), where every Socialist leader from William Morris to Keir Hardie was Christian, and the link between religion and workers' movements seemeed unbreakable. So what happened?( Read more... )
Move ahead 22 years, and take the best witness - the witness of an enemy. The rising Christian polemist and genius, GK Chesterton, sees no value in Marxism at all. He charges it with reversing the meaning of human life, placing food (the ultimate point of its insistence on production and distribution) at its centre, and reducing men to the level of cows. But he is clear on one thing: in spite of what he sees as its anti-spiritual and anti-intellectual nature, Marxism is widespread among intellectuals to the point of being a commonplace. This, mind you, is twelve years before an adventurer from the fringes of Russian Marxism launched his brutal bid to take over the immense, broken Russian hulk, and, in a few years, transformed his branch of Marxism from a local political movement into a world power. Lenin's immense success certainly drew to him everyone who was disposed to be impressed by success (or "the judgment of history", as they would call it); and to that extent it helped make Marxism a dominant feature in modern politics for as long as Soviet money could affect it. But Marxism - and this must never be neglected - was an important and popular heresy not just in Russia, but across the West, long before the rise of the Soviet Union - indeed, before anyone had ever heard of Lenin. We do not have to be surprised that it survived its fall.
Socialism is even older than Marxism and would have become a significant party or set of parties with or without old Karl's sectarians. The aim of Marxism from first to last was not to estabish itself as a political movement unlike any other, but to take over the larger Socialist area and "organize it" in the Prussian manner natural to the Prussian Karl Marx. The success it gained in this endeavour, even before Lenin, was by no means predictable, especially in England (Marx' main area of activity and the place where Chesterton observed his posthumous success), where every Socialist leader from William Morris to Keir Hardie was Christian, and the link between religion and workers' movements seemeed unbreakable. So what happened?( Read more... )
