Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 23:20:10 +0200
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: Sword of Faith, Shield of Righteousness


Carl Davidson's memories of the role of the black churches in the South
during the anti-segregation struggle, particularly the mention of the
parishioners standing armed guard against the racists, reminded me of a
personal family anecdote.

My first wife's grandfather was a hell-fire puritanical preacher in Oulu in
northern Finland, from a family of builders and carpenters. He once made a
pilgrimage on foot from Oulu to Petrograd -- this was when Finland was a
Tsarist Grand Duchy and part of the great prison of nations.

During the Civil War in Finland in 1918, the whites came snooping around
the Hall of the People, the working class centre, to see if they could get
their hands on anyone for torture or shooting (the Yugoslavs have very
little to teach the Finns about vicious civil war).

Unarmed, grandpa the priest barred their way. When challenged he roared at them:
'I bear the shield of righteousness and wield the sword of faith!'. They
were so taken aback they went away, and the comrades in the building lived
to fight for one more day.

This is the kind of *tactical assistance* that will be invaluable in any
similar struggle.

However, if any priests get near a position of strategic leadership,
there'll be disaster -- just look at Tutu in South Africa and Martin Luther
King in the States.

Which boils down to the fact that any religious communists -- half-Marxists
-- will have to choose which leadership to follow in the struggle, the
Party or the Pope, and this choice will determine whether their trajectory
is revolutionary -- with their class -- or counter-revolutionary -- against
it.


Cheers,

Hugh

PS With respect to Carrol's reflections on the need for 'one, two, many
Gapons', the Gapon incident was almost immediately relegated to distant
history by the upsurge of straightforward proletarian mobilization with no
need of priestly mediation. One up to Trotsky.

Such incidents often accompany great historical mobilizations, and are
extremely useful in raising the temperature, so long as the priestly
sprinklers aren't activated before the conflagration has taken hold. One up
to Lenin.

As I wrote in reference to the Turkish hunger-strikers:

>Don't forget that one of the triggers of the Russian revolution of 1905 was
>the mowing down by Tsarist troops of the peaceful demonstration to petition
>the Tsar led by the priest Gapon. In Gapon's words, Bloody Sunday, 9
>January 1905, 'divided the Tsar from the people by a river of blood'. This
>slaughter of the innocents brought the anger of the proletariat, already
>rising with the great mobilizations and strike waves, to the point of
>eruption.

I think Vladimir sums up the dialectics of the position we need to have in
relation to non-Marxists in the revolution very well:

>I can only say that it would be DISASTROUS for communists not
>to work toward the most close cooperation with people like the
>Spoon collective, as it would be, no doubt, SUICIDAL to comromise
>our principles and goals for the sake of such cooperation.


H




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