PAUL HOLLANDER
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It is particularly important to address the parallel often drawn these
days between Christianity and Marxism and the associated rhetorical
question: should we also discard Christianity because of the Inquisition,
corrupt popes, and other unappealing practices which were linked to it,
or legitimated by it? Reject Christian values because of the small number
of true Christians among us? But Christianity (and its various incarna–
tions) did not make the same inordinate demands on human lives and
social arrangements, nor did it seek to overcome (except on rare histori–
cal occasions) the division between the private and public realm; nor did
these beliefs (obviously) claim to be scientific truths. And while religious
intolerance too has been the source of conflict, bloodshed, and
repression , Christianity did not inspire or legitimate slaughter and en–
slavement on a scale comparable to those communist systems perpetrated.
After all, a good deal of Christianity devalued existence here and now,
hence its involvement with transforming life on this earth - its involve–
ment with "theory and practice" - was inherently more limited, as was
therefore its capacity to do damage. (Another difference of lesser moral
importance: Christianity, unlike Marxism, inspired a vast amount of
good art and music; it has also inspired enduring forms of charity and
service to existing human beings, rather than to abstractions.) Also of
some interest and relevance, as we pursue these parallels, unlike Marxism,
Christianity has provided a sustaining worldview for hundreds of millions
of people; Marxism and its varieties nourished intermittently small, elite
groups, more often than not legitimating their power drives.
The argument that communist practices discredited praiseworthy
socialist ideals also has been advanced by people who are not Marxists .
But what precisely is the socialism that communism - the attempted ap–
plications of Marxism - besmirched? Here the responses may divide be–
tween those who might point to Scandinavian countries as existing ex–
amples of a humane socialism and those who admit that socialism has not
had so far any authentic or appealing incarnation but argue that this need
not meall that we give up on awaiting or seeking its arrival. For the
latter group "socialism" has become something of a code word for good
intentions, decency, caring, a generalized affirmation of social justice,
humane welfare-state policies, respect for a wide range of individual
rights - values and policies not especially distinctive and already dis–
cernible in a number of Western societies which are more capitalistic
than not.
Recent reflections of a Polish writer, Jerzy Surdykowski, suggest
that those who had witnessed the attempts to realize socialism are less
than sanguine about it
even as an ideal.
He wrote:
