Marxism and Liberation Theology Michael Lowy - IIRE

"If you want to
Christian communities were
local branch of tbe International
Association."
The essential ciilTerence between
to that the
deliverance to the hereafter whereas socialism
it in this world.
But is this difference as clear-cut as appears at
first In his of the second Christian
movement - The Peasant Wars in
become blurred: Thomas
i leader of the
teachings: they serve not Christ but the Golden Calf.
The first of Christianity were passionate communists
and the Fathers of the Church (like Basil the
Great and John denounced social
tice. this cause is taken up the socialist
movement which brings to the poor the Gospel of fraternityand
and calls on the to establish
on earth the
(12) Instead of a battle in the name of
tried to rescue the social
tradition for the labour
like Ouo Bauer and Max Adler.
were much less hostile to than their German or
seemed to consider Marxism
as cumpatible with some form of but this referred
mainly to as a belief'
neo-Kantian rather than \0 concrete historical
religious traditions. (13)
The Communist International
In the Communist International little attention was
paid to religion. A significant number of Christians
joined the movement, and a former Swiss Protestant
pastor, Jules Humbert-Droz, became during the 19208
one of the main leaders of the Com intern. The dominant
idea among Marxists at that time was that a
Christian who became a socialist or communist necessarily
abandoned his former "anti-scientific" and "idealist"
religious beliefs. Bertold Brecht's beautiful theatrical
play Saint Jean the (1932) is a
good example of this kind of simplistic approach towards
the conversion of Christians to the struggle for
proletarian emancipation. Brecht describes very aptly
the process by which a leader of the Salvation
Army, discovers the truth about exploitatiou and social
injustice and dies denouncing her former views. But for
him there must be an absolute and total break between
her old Christian faith and her new credo of revolutionary
struggle. Just before dying, Jean says to the
"If ever someone comes to tell you
that there exists a God, invisible however,
from whom you can expect help,
hit him hard in the head with Slone
until he dies."
Rosa Luxemburg's intuition, that one could
for socialism in the name of the true values of original
Christianity, was lost in this kind of crude - and quite
intolerant - "materialist" As a matter of
a few years after Brecht wrote this piece, there apin
France a movement of revolu-
Christians
left-socialists). Their main "We socialiSiS
because we arc Christians." (
Gramsci
the
the greatest interest in
the one who showed
issues. He is also
of the first Marxists who tried to understand the conrole
of the Catholic Church and the
culture among masses. His rein
Prison lVoiebooks arc
and but the same time
very insightful. His and ironic criticism of the
conservati ve f urms of the J esuilic
brand of
- did not
disliked
"Religion is
most gigantic
known. since it is the most
cile, in mythological
historical life. It
that is the
has ever
attempt to reeonthe
real contradictions of
that mankind has the
same 'nature: that man ... in so far as created
son of God, is therefore brother of other men, equal to
other men, and free amongst and as other men ... ; but
it also affirms that all this is not of this world, but of
another (the utopia). Thus do ideas of equality, fraternity
and liberty ferment among men ... Thus it has
come about that in every radical stirring of the multitude,
in one way or another, with particular forms and
particular ideologies, these demands have always been
raised."
He also insisted on the internal differentiations of
the Church according to ideological orientations - libmodernist,
Jesuitic aud fundamentalist currents
within Catholic culture - and to the different
social classes:
religion ... is a multiplicity of
different and often religions: there is a
Catholicism for the peasants, a Catholicism for the
petty bourgeoisie urban a Catholicism
for women, and a Catholicism for intellectuals .... "
Most of his notes relate to the history and present
role of the Catholic Church in Italy: its social and political
expression through Catholic Action and the Pco-
Party, its relation to the State and subordinate
ua",,\Co>, etc. He was particularly interested in the way
traditional intellectuals were recruited and used as instruments
of the Church:
"Although it has organized a marvellous
mechanism of 'democratic' selection of