NOUGHTS OR CROSSES?

Grey River Argus, 2 September 1948, Page 7

NOUGHTS OR CROSSES?

WELLINGTON, Aug. 30. In an address Sir Patrick Duff, K.C.8., K.C.V.0., High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, at a luncheon meeting of the Wellington Christian Association to-day, said: — Wherever we live on the globe, we are to-day inescapably all boxed up together in the same powder magazine. Distance once gave security. It does so no longer. In days of aircraft doing 600 miles an hour and rocket bombs projected on to their targets over continents and oceans, geography has crumpled up like a concertina. Those people in New Zealand who think they need not worry because they are buried far away in the midst of the wide spaces of the Pacific are about as realistic and as dignified as the ostrich’s tail which thinks it is safe and ornamental because its - head is buried in the sand. You need to re-focus your glasses: because,' if you don’t look out, things which you think are far away are going to fall right into your lap at any minute. We are living in a dangerous world. Ai silent grim battlefront has been moving westward in Central Europe under a baffling disguise. It moves under cover —the cover of democracy itself—though it is as different from democracy as chalk from cheese. Its name is Communsm, and its weapon the Fifth Column. “The cold war,” as it is called, is a very real war. If you had any doubts about it before, take a look at Czechoslovakia! And remember, that all this is, in the air age, literally on your doorstep. From the point of view of those who are promoting it, “the cold war” is being pretty successful. Why resort, Russia may well think, to the old-fashioned war with all its hazards and expense, if the objective can be obtained by cheaper and equally effective means, by getting traitors or dupes in your enemies’ camp to poison your enemies’ wells and cause your enemies to do themselves your own dirty work for you? This creeping paralysis is a _ war, right enough, and it is delivering to Russia all the fruits of victory without the risks or bother of open warfare. Communism now controls the Government of about one-fifth of the world’s population. Since 1939, Russia has moved her frontier nearly onue thousand miles westward. The momentum of her conquests has by no means stopped; and the urge for expansion, which is a fundamental tenet of Communism’s aggressive creed, is as restless as ever. This is Power politics with a vengeance! But the sickness which is making the rest of the world such a passive prey to-day is a spiritual sickness: and the challenge which confronts us comes as much from our own spiritual deficiencies as. from any alien power. Both the sickness and the challenge requires the earnest attention of all thinking men and women in communities that are still free to think. We might start by examining—(l) What the doctrine of Communism is. and ,(2) What is lacking in our own spiritual defences which makes us either blind to our peril or else to behave in the face of that peril like a rabbit fascinated by a (1) What is Communism? Communism started, of course, on a religious basis on a literal interpretation. of passages in the Scripture; and various primitive tribes have at one time or another in history put varying degrees of it into practice. But, in later times, it was Marx and Engels in their “Communist Manifesto” of I'B4B who invested it with its modern meaning. They no longer sought any basis for it in religious or ethical assumptions, but grounded their entire theory on an economic analysis of the material forces at work in society. Engels in his preface to the German edition of the Manifesto in 1883 declares that “The basic thought underlying the Manifesto is as follow: The methods of production and the organisation of social life inevitably arising therefrom constitute in every historical epoch the foundation upon which is built the political and intellectual history of that epoch.” This, then, is the starting point—dconorriics |is the final cause of everything else. Property and the means of production are the fundamental economic factors in society; and Marx sees the whole of history as a struggle between classes to secure control of these levers of power. For Marx and Engels, wages and property and material economic factors comprise the whole environment and horizon of mankind and give, rise to the class differentiation in society. To remedy the imperfections' of a world assumed by Marx and Engels to be so constituted, they evoke a vision of a free and equalitarian society in which, ideally, everyone would contribute to the common good according to his abilities and would receive according to his needs. Once a state of affairs is reached where there is no private property but all property is held in common, then, it is argued, classes will disappear, and, with classes, all need for government. This, in barest outline, is Marx’s own conception of the whole content of history, the total philosophy of life: this is the stirring call for revolution, with Marx’s own comforting assurance that the process of nature makes it inevitable anyway. The ideal state of things, however, it is argued, cannot be brought about except by revolution and by the ensuing “dictatorship of the proletariat and, after, the abolition accomplished in the interests of the proletariate and, after the abolition of class society, of all men, has to be conducted by the communist ,party (“the proletariat’s advance guard”) because the people as a whole are too stupid to understand what is being done for them or, owing to their habituation to the older forms of society, too incapable of realising the new order. The dictatorship of “the proletariat” is very far from meaning, as some. of the simple followers fondly imagine from its ambiguous title, that the. multitudes who form “the proletariat” are, each and all, going to be a little pocket dictator himself. Nobody has more utter contempt for the common man that the doctrinaire communist. It is the proletariat itself that is going to be dictated to quite as much as everybody else—though, of course, for the proletariat’s own supposed good. Things like parliamentary democracy have all got to go. It is no good suggesting that democratic processes, while still retaining individual freedom, have progressively widened the basis of society, shared more of the wealth with the workers, raised trade unions to the rank of Third Estate and developed an ever-increasing distatse for anv war imperialist or otherwise. Parliamentary democracy has go to go because, as a matter of doctrine, it is regarded as only veiling the control of society by capitalists. Resolution of Comintern Conference, 1928. i

“Communism rejects Parliamentarianism as a form of future society; 1 it rejects it as a form of class dictatorship of the proletariat: it rejects the possibility of the slow conquest of Parliament: its fixed aim is the destruction of Parliamentary Government. Therefore there can only be the question of utilising bourgeois State institutions with the object of destroying them. The Communist party enter such institutions not in order to do constructive work, but so that it may enable the masses to destroy the bourgeois State ma-

chine and Parliament itself from within.”

To the future form of society the happiness of the present generation as well as the traditions of the past must be ruthlessly sacrificed. It is true that the theory is that eventually a classless society of free individuals will emerge as a result of the dictatorship and that, when that happens, men will be brothers and dictatorship and government will wither away as unnecessary. Of course, what has happened so far in actual life where this formidable experiment has been tried, is the utter and total opposite. The dictatorship becomes more and more absolute and arbitrary and “the proletariat” becomes more abject, more regimented, and less and less imbued with the self-restraint and self-reliance which —(goodness knows!) —are little enough in our own democracy, but which in some degree or another are an indispensible necessity for any free citizens in any free society. The doctrine of economic determination denies point blank that it is possible people—“the proletariat” —to think for themselves: the Iron Curtain, which keeps out all sounds and sights of the outei’ world, and the State-controlled Press which feeds to the people only such news and information as the Government think fit for them to hear, is an integral part of the apparatus of the Communist State. Liberty of any chocie for the individual, which is a necessary condition of what Western democracy regards, as freedom, is utterly denied. The special mark of Communism is not that it attacks freedom, in the sense in which we use the word “'Freedom”, but that it says there is no such thing. In the Communist State they only permit Communist schools, 'Communist newspapers, Communist Trade Unions, Communist police, Communist parties and a Communist way of life. There is no place for a minority, there is no toleration of any kind in the Communist conception of society. As “Trud”, the official journal of the Central Committee of the Syndicate of Social Workers in its issue of November 13, 1927, put it:( “The essential difference between! the existence of parties in the Western world and with us Communists is that the sole possibility with Communists is the following—one party is in power and all the others are in gaol.” If you ask what the Leader of the Russian Opposition thinks about the policies of the Russian Government, the answei’ is—a Siberian silence!

Under the religious view that each human being is a child of God, or even under the philosophical view that the mind or spirit of men is not explained by the material world, the individual mind or spirit has a significance and importance' on its own account and individuals, or minorities, have a claim to be respected. St. John said “God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit . . .” But Marx’s doctrine that economics (not God) is the final cause of everything else and that materialism is the be-all and erid-all of man deprives the individual spirit or mind of any significance or any importance on its own account whatsoever. Marx and his followers regard men as no more than an economic entity and the motive power in human history as no more than the struggle of the classes for wealth. Furthermore, on theii' assumption that all intellectual and moral life has no root except in economics and in the struggle of the classes, and on their assumption that the processes of the human mind are no ■more than automatic responses to material surroundings, all standards of truth and ethics and of moral concern disintegrate and disappear. Look what has happened in Russia. Liberty, Mercy, Justice, Truth, if they can be said to exist at all, have lost the meaning which civilised men from time immemorial have hitherto given them. This is not just a difference in ideology. It is the greatest transformation that the world has evei’ undergone. It means that the whole bottom is being pulled out of our civilisation. It means that man is being persuaded to regard himself as an economic cipher and not as an eternal spirit. This is a tremendous challenge. It is not Governments that can meet it. The task is one for Churches and schools and universities and the press and above al! for the individual citizen, for you and me. We have got to 1 confront this creed of discontent and despair with a stronger creed; and with the spirit of a Crusade! The only safeguard against ruthless ideological power politics is recovery of the sense of things that matter more than politics or economics; which things are, in the end of the day, the things of the spirit. We have got to search our hearts for those ultimate convictions about God and man which afford the only defence. „ And so I come to my second question.

2) What has, in recent times, been falling out of our* defences which has made us sb vulnerable and so

Over the last fifty or a hundred years much social progress has been made in many directions. Many evil things have been suppressed: many ills have been alleviated: many fears or cruel disciplines have been abated. But improved social conditions do not inevitably make better human beings. The world, with a laubable and awakening conscience, is trying to remove the fear of want. But, pre we putting anything in its place as an instigator of human action? What are those who are desirous of removing competition in industry putting in its place to prevent stagnation and apathy? There is a parable in the Bible of a man from whom an unclean spirit was cast out and who went through dry places seeking rest; but, finding none, he took to himself seven other spirits worse than himself. And' the last state of that man was worse than the first. We are' succeeding in creating plenty of voids. But, where are the more positive motives to fill up the empty spaces? For the last generation or two we have got sO absorbed with the material accomplishments of science and invention that we have relaxed our religious beliefs through obsession with material things, or through sheer indifference and carelessness. For the purposes of the Police State it is very necessary that man should have no more than an economic significance. The dictator must get it into people’s heads that economics are the final cause of everything: that material economic factors are their end-all and be-all, A dictator requires to persuade his people, on this reasoning, that, for the sake of economic security, they should consent to hand over their freedom to the dictator's keeping. See where this leads us. “If I am a creature with a snan-life of 60 or 70 years, no more tha.r. a mere economic counter or unit, I cannot count for anything over against the nation or the State. But, if I am a child of God, destined for eternal fellowship with Him, I have therein a dignity with which the State can make no comparable claim. It is here that man’s dignity resides, in a region where all are equal. In the British Coronation service the v King is seated as the Crown, the token of earthly royalty, is placed upon his head; but he is kneeling when just afterwards he receives the effectual tokens of divine grace in the same manner in which any labouring man in any village Church receives them. At a point where alone man has true dignity he is completely equal to all his fellowmen: his infinite value is of such a kind as to shut out all the pretensions of a dictator.” Those whom religion binds to God are not. the raw material for dictators. It Is not for nothing that dictators suppress religion. “Atheism is an itegral part of

. Marxism” as Lenin himself said: and his widow added: “We must make our school boys and girls not merely non-religious, but actively and passionately anti-religious.” In an article in Pravda the other day on the subject of the sQoth anniversary of the independence of Orthodox Church in Russia it was stated “The' party, as Stalin teaches us, cannot be neutral in face of religion: it carries on antireligious propaganda against all and every religious prejudice because it stands for science, whereas religious prejudices are opposed to science inasmuch as every religion is opposed to science.” What is our attitude in the face of this challenge? We are, as near as makes no matter, neutral! One has even heard the absence of all religious or spiritual content from education talked of as if it were something to boast about. Neutral! —when such a fight as this is on. I am not making the suggestion that people should belatedly start polishing up their Christianity as. an ahtidote to Communism. Such an idea would be ludicrously irrelevant and unequal to the n£eds of the day and it would be a poor Christianity that was adopted for so debasing a motive as mere self-preservation and self-interest. But, none the less, we should search our hearts to see where our inertia ,is leading us. The grim battlefront of the cold war is creeping on, under a political disguise. Communism 'is out to spyhon the soul out of man. It is precisely in its recognition of the spiritual worth and spiritual freedom of each. Individual that Western demiocracy differs from Communism. Democracy is the practical application of the Christian teaching to the governance of society. And democracy, as Sir Stafford Cripps recently said, is in danger of dying out because we are failing to give it the soul without which it cannot survive. Democracy to-day is’not commanding the spiritual forces necessary either for its task or for its safety. The time has come when ordinary Christian people must bestir themselves and come to the rescue. If the reinforcements are going to be any good, it means very much more than that we must start going to Church with more regularity on Sunday. It means more than passing resolutions at meetings of Christian businessmen or at Rotary Clubs or at stop-work meetings. It means that we must try to> make our task as Christians a daily and hourly task —a daily and hourly Cross —of our ordinary lives. It means that the garrison must make their Christianity as persevering and active as the enemy make their Communism, instead of allowing, as at present, something whole-hearted to be confronting something half-heart-ed. It means that a Christian needs to carry his Christianity into his business or employment or Trade Union in the same way that the Communism carries his .Communism into his business or employment or' Trade Union.

It is all wrong to think of Christianity as nothing but a religion of personal salvation, rather than a way of life here on. earth. The idea that there are two worlds, the one in which we live, imperfect and necessarily sinful, and the one hereafter, perfect and without blemish, has grown up since the time of Christ, and has led many people to dissociate their religion from their daily life. We are liable to regard Sunday as the day set apart for contemplation of the perfect life hereafter, and the other six days as devoted to the life of this world. Religion and 1 life thus become separated in a way which was unthinkable to the followers of the Old Testament teachings and which is contrary to the teachings of the New Testament. “I come to bring you life and life more abundantly,” Christ said. He did not suggest that He‘came merely to tell us about a life hereafter — that was part of His teaching, but only a part. He was concerned, and very much concerned, with the human relationships in life: He it was who introduced the analogy of the Fatherland of God and the brotherhood of man. Our personal relationship with God is something that is completely private and apart from the world, but the effect of that relationship should colour the whole of our actions in our human contacts. Nothing is made more clear in the teachings of Christ than that our behaviour to others in this life is a test of the reality of oui’ religious faith. We are taught to envisage our human relationships as if they were relationships with God Himself. The same standards are to apply towards our brother Christians as to our Father, God. The common factor, and the only common factor which is available as the foundation upon which to build our actions —as individuals, classes or nations—is our common Christian faith: our moral rather than oui' material interests. What we must constantly be trying to do is to remember that our religion is part of our everyday life—that however we act we cannot escape that intimate relationship with God in all that we do. It is this foundation which the Communist creed tries to tear away from under our civilisation. It is this foundation which, if Christians sleep upon their watch, will get torn away. Remember what Edmund Burke said:

“He also trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch as well as he who goes over to the enemy.”