Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 11:14:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Robert Peter Burns <rburns-AT-scf.usc.edu>
Subject: Questions for James Miller


Suppose the revolution comes, and not all Catholics have died out by then. 
What should be done with them?  What would and did Marx have to say about
that?  <"Leave 'em be", methinks.> Suppose there's still some left 50
years, 100 years after the revolution.  Suppose 300, 500, 1000 years go by
and full communism has long since been attained, and there are *still*
some Catholics around.  That is, suppose Marx wasn't right about this
particular detail concerning the disappearance of religious faith under
communism, but was pretty much right in everything else.  Would it really
matter?  Matter as far as the general project of communism was concerned? 

Also, just exactly what is the logical connection between atheism and
socialist revolution?  Suppose all good socialists go to heaven when they
die, and God gives them a pat on the back on arrival.  Would this mean
that socialism isn't socialism, because it turned out that God really does
exist after all?  I mean, if these hypotheses are logically possible, then
aren't the watertight logical connections you and others want to draw
between revolutionary socialism and atheism not really watertight after
all?  I for one have never fathomed the connections you see as being
essential.  Marx's predictions about the disappearance of religion are
either based on contingent, causal hypotheses, in which case they could
turn out false, or else there is some logical necessity being assumed. 
But the hypotheses and suppositions mentioned above are eminently *logical
possibilities*, no matter how unlikely you may think them in fact.  Or are
you really prepared to say that the above scenario is absolutely logically
impossible?  Marx, great thinker and revolutionary that he was, was
fallible.  I think we must conclude that Marx *may* have been, *could*
have been mistaken on the matter, but without that vitiating his overall
analysis of capitalism, or his theory of the general course of human
history as regards the supersession of capitalism by socialism/communism. 
Or are you really saying that as a matter of conceptual definition no
society could legitimately be described as communist while still
containing significant numbers of religious believers?  Are you really
saying that though capitalism and markets were completely a thing of the
past, such a society would still not logically qualify as communist?  Such
a stance would strike me as an unreasonable and practically irrelevant
semantic dogmatism. 

My conclusion is that atheism is not logically essential to revolution,
socialism, communism, or even historical materialism.  If, as I believe,
God does exist, God may just have arranged matters this way, and in so
doing, have shown a divine sense of irony.  God may just want to hide in
the shadows of the march of reason, justice and history.  God, contrary to
what many people say and think, may turn out to be very self-effacing. 
That's how I, at least, interpret the crucifixion. 

Peter 
rburns-AT-scf.usc.edu
PS--I'd love to continue this and other discussions,
but I have a mountain of other work to do now, and
so I will probably post very little between now and
Christmas.




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