Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 18:11:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Carl Davidson <cdavidson-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: Re: Lenin on "clericalist" nonsense


>From Carl in Chicago: 

Once again, Adolpho et. al. give us a wonderful example of dogmatist
phrasemongering as their method of argument.  The issue at hand is how
the left should view the emergence of a sector of religious people, clergy
and laity, in the immediate struggles of the workers in their communities
in the U.S. in 1996.  Instead of making a concrete analysis of concrete
conditions of today, as they were challenged to do, they scurry through their
volumes of Lenin to find quotes they believe will devastate their 
critics. Sorry, guys, but I can support Lenin's struggle against the 
Russian church 100 percent, and still think it has little to do with 
the issue at hand.  And on a related matter, since one of your quotes
touched on it, do you really want to go all the way with Lenin in his
differences with Einstein?

-------
>In reference to the recent thread in this list on the question of the clergy
>taking up the cudgels on behalf of the "working classes" being interpreted
>as a "positive phenomena in itself", I like to contribute some of Lenin's
>own points of view regarding the tasks of Marxists in this regard.
>
>FOR "MARXIST PROFESSORS" (and political "left groups") WHO APPLAUD AND
>CHERISH THE CLERICS!
>
>"......the modern Narodniks (the Popular Socialists,
>Socialists-Revolutionaries, etc) have frequently retreated in quest of
>fashionable reactionary philosophical doctrines, captivated by the tinsel of
>the so-called last word in European science, and unable to discern beneath
>this tinsel some variety of servility to the bourgeoisie, to bourgeois
>prejudice and bourgeois reaction".
>
>"......it is our duty to enlist all adherents of consistent and militant
>materialism in the joint work of combaring philosophical reaction and the
>prejudices of so-called educated society.  Dietzgen senior - not to be
>confused with his writer son, who was as pretentious as he was unsuccessful
>- correctly, aptly and clearly expressed the fundamental Marxist view of the
>philosophical trends which prevail in bourgeois countries and enjoy the
>great regard of their scientists and publicists, when he said that in effect
>the professors of philosophy in modern society are in the majority of cases
>nothing but "graduated flunkeys of clericalism".    
>
>"Our Russian intellectuals, who, like their brethen in all other countries,
>are fond of thinking themselves advanced, are very much averse to shifting
>the question to the level of the opinion expressed in Dietzgen's words.  But
>they are averse to it because they cannot look the truth in the face.  One
>has only to give a little thought to the governmental and also the general
>economic dependence of modern educated people on the ruling bourgeoisie to
>realise that Dietzgen's scathing description was absolutely true.  One has
>only to recall the vast majority of the fashionable philosophical trends
>that arise so frequently in European countries, beginning for example with
>those connected with the discovery of radium and ending with those which are
>now seeking to clutch at the skirts of Einstein, to gain an idea of the
>connection between the class interests and the class position of the
>bourgeoisie and its support of all forms of religion on the one hand, and
>the ideological content of the fashionable philosophical trends on the other".
>
>"It will be seen from the above that a journal that sets out to be a
>militant materialist organ must be primarily a militant organ, in the sense
>of unflichngly exposing and indicting all modern "graduated flunkeys of
>clericalism", irrespective of whether they act as representatives of
>official science or as free lances calling themselves "democratic Left or
>ideologically socialist" publicists".
>
>"On the other hand, take a glance at modern scientific critics of religion.
>These educated bourgeois writers almost invariably "supplement" their own
>refutations of religious superstitions with arguments which immediately
>expose them as ideological slaves of the bourgeoisie, as "graduated flunkeys
>of clericalism".
>
>In referring to the modern scientists and their attitude towards religion,
>Lenin seems to be writing too with the "Marxists" of today and their
>penchant for "clerical allainces":
>
>"......(such "modern scientists").... not only ...(refrain).... from
>combating the SUPERSTITIONS AND DECEPTION WHICH ARE THE WEAPONS OF THE
>CHURCH AS A POLITICAL ORGANISATION, not only ... (evade)..... these
>questions, but ...(make).... the simply ridiculous and most reactionary
>claim that ...(they)... are above both "extremes" - the idealist and the
>materialist.  This is toadying to the ruling bourgeoisie, which ALL OVER THE
>WORLD DEVOTES TO THE SUPPORT OF RELIGION HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF RUBLES FROM
>THE PROFITS SQUEEZED FROM THE WORKING PEOPLE".
>
>
>There is, of course a clear link between the abandonment of Lenin's clear
>attitude against attempting to dress up clericalism in "Left-socialist" garb
>with the prevalence of revisionist thinking and "modern scientificism" with
>airs of "superceeding" Marxism as a consequence of the
>Kruschev/Brezhnev/Gorbachev/Deng modern revisionism within the ICM.  This is
>something which should prompt a clear re-assessment and reversal of these
>unhealthy and anti-Marxist trends of "colusion with clericalism in its
>"pro-working class" or "liberationist" disguise.
>
>
>Adolfo  
> 
>
>
>
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>
>
Keep On Keepin' On



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