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Karl Marx's Attitude Toward Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

N. Lobkowicz
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Extract

Those not well acquainted with Karl Marx often believe that the founder of “scientific Communism” was a militant atheist who considered the extermination of religion and, in particular, of Christianity one of his major tasks. This belief is, to say the least, inexact.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1964 , pp. 319 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1964

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References

1 Reding, M., Der politische Atheismus (Graz, 1958)Google Scholar.

2 Engels, K. Marx-F., Werke (East Berlin, 1961), I, 378Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as MEW followed by volume and page. As far as possible, I have used this recent edition. As it does not contain some of Marx's early writings, I have also used the Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. by Rjazanov, D. and, since 1931, by Adoratskij, V. (Berlin, 1929)Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as MEGA followed by division, volume, part if applicable, page.

3 MEW, III, 216 f.

4 MEW, I, 378.

5 MEW, II, 115.

6 MEGA, I, 3, 125.

7 MEW, III.

8 As Fetscher, I. has pointed out in Marxismusstudien (Tübingen, 1957), II, 33Google Scholar, Marx always described “ideologies” as false reflections of a false world; the same applies to religion. But precisely because they are reflections, both ideologies and religion are “true” in the sense described above Cf. Weil, E., Marxismusstudien (Tübingen, 1962), IVGoogle Scholar.

9 MEW, I, 340.

10 MEW, I, 378.

11 MEW, III, 6. In Engels' edition of the “Theses on Feuerbach,” the passage runs: “criticized in theory and revolutionized in practice.” Cf. ibidem, 534.

12 MEW, I, 379.

13 MEW, II, 116.

14 MEW, III, 218.

15 MEW, II, 118, cf. I, 357.

16 MEW, XIX, 31.

17 MEW, XVIII, 532. In the same text which criticized the Blanquists and Bakuninists for their militant atheism, Engels wrote: “Of the German social-democrat workers one can say that atheism is something obsolete among them; this purely negative expression does no longer apply. …” (This passage was written in 1874; in a later edition (1894) Engels amended the passage: “Of the great majority of German social-democrat workers, etc.”). Cf. also Engels' letter to W. Liebknecht, December 15, 1871, Engels, K.Marx-F., Briefe an A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, K. Kautsky und andere (Moscow-Leningrad, 1933), I, 41 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Weil, E., Marxismusstudien (Tübingen, 1962), IV, 159Google Scholar.

19 This has been well emphasized by Gollwitzer, H. in Marxismusstudien IVGoogle Scholar. See my review in Natural Law Forum (1963), pp. 137 ff.

20 It is comparatively seldom noticed that the final version of the Manifesto must have been written by Marx alone. Marx completed the manuscript in January 1848, while Engels was away in Paris; he used Engels', sketch “Principles of Communism,” of 1847Google Scholar. For an interesting comparison between Engels' original sketch and the Manifesto, see Bollnow, H., Marxismusstudien (Tübingen 1954), I, 76 ffGoogle Scholar.

21 MEW, IV, 480.

22 MEW, VII, 201. The passage is translated in the selection: Marx-Engels, , On Religion (2nd ed.: Moscow, 1963), pp. 90 ffGoogle Scholar.

23 MEW, XX, 294.

24 MEW, XX, 582 ff.

25 MEW, III, 37 ff.

26 Engels, to Schmidt, C., 10 27, 1890, On Religion, p. 284Google Scholar. Engels, says that religion “stands furthest away from material life, and seems to be most alien to it,” MEW, XXI, 303Google Scholar. Cf. also the following passage in Marx, : “It is indeed far easier to discover by analysis the earthly kernel of religious formations than to develop the deified forms out of the particular situations of real life. And yet the latter method is the only scientific one.” MEW, XXIII, 393Google Scholar.

27 MEGA, I, 3, 86.

28 MEGA, I, 3, 115. There is a certain ambiguity here. In the Manuscripts of 1844, Marx stated that though private property appears to be the cause of alienation, it is really its consequence, “just as the gods are in the beginning not the cause but the effect of man's intellectual confusion.” MEGA, I, 3, 91 f. But if private property is a consequence of alienated labor, how can its Aufhebung abolish all alienation? The only possible answer seems to be that the expression “positive transcendence of private property” means more than simple expropriation; private property is “transcended” by a development which permits man to govern both nature and the social world, by a development in the course of which private property disappears.

29 MEW, I, 379.

30 In the end, the principle of development and thus of history is the dialectics of need and satisfaction as described in the German Ideology. Means of production develop only because each new means generates new needs and thus asks for new instruments. Cf. MEW, III, 28.

31 Engels, to Schmidt, C., On Religion, p. 284Google Scholar.

32 This point is of some relevance to the discussion as to whether Engels' “dialectical materialism” is compatible with Marx's philosophical conception. Though I basically agree with the ideas developed by Fetscher, I., Marxismusstudien, II, 26ffGoogle Scholar. — and cf. Von Marx zur Sowjetideologie (9th ed.; Frankfurt, 1963), pp. 73 ffGoogle Scholar. — I have to stress that two further points will have to be proven: first, that Marx's original conception is not in need of Engels' later scientism; and second that Marx himself adhered to his original conception when he wrote Das Kapital.

33 Cf. Gollwitzer, H., Marxismusstudien, IV, 34Google Scholar.

34 For a recent and concise discussion about the difference between “Young Hegelians” and “Left Hegelians,” cf. Stuke, H., Philosophie der Tat (Stuttgart, 1963), pp. 32 ffGoogle Scholar.

35 Feuerbach studied theology at Heidelberg, where his teachers were the Hegelian Daub and the exegetist Paulus; Bauer studied theology at Berlin, where his teachers were Schleiermacher, Hegel, and the editor of Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, Marheineke. For Feuerbach, cf. Feuerbach, L., Sämtliche Werke (2nd ed.: Stuttgart, 1959), I, 359Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as FSW, followed by volume and page. For Bauer, cf. Hertz-Eichenrode, D., Der Junghegelianer Bruno Bauer im Vormärz, Philos. Doct. Diss., (Berlin, 1959)Google Scholar.

36 FSW, II, 388.

37 S. Bulgakov, quoted by Wetter, , Der dialektische Materialismus (4th ed.: Freiburg, 1958), p. 15Google Scholar.

38 Karl Marx als Denker, Mensch und Revolutionär, ed. by Rjazanov, D. (Berlin, 1928), p. 27Google Scholar.

39 See, for example, his letter to Karl Marx of Nov. 18, 1835, MEGA, I, 1, 2, 186.

40 MEGA, I, 1, 2, 171 ff.

41 This is also stresed by Cottier, G. M. -M., L'athésme du jeune Marx, ses origines hégéliennes (Paris, 1959), pp. 145 ffGoogle Scholar.

42 See, for example, his poem “The Prayer of Prometheus,” MEGA, I, 1, 2, 30 f.

43 Cf. the only surviving letter of Marx to his father, MEGA, I, 1, 2, 213 ff.

44 Even the pseudo-religious experience yielded by Hegel's pantheism seems to be missing in Marx. Cf. Gebhardt, J., Politik und Eschatologie (Munich, 1963), especially pp. 49 ffGoogle Scholar.

46 Cf. FSW, II, 381.

46 Besides the works by Gebhardt and Stuke, cf. Löwith, K., Von Hegel zu Nietzsche (4th ed: Stuttgart, 1958), pp. 350 ffGoogle Scholar.

47 The best formula is probably that of Iljin, I., Die Philosophie Hegel's als kontemplative Gotteslehre (Bern, 1946), p. 418Google Scholar: “Hegel learned his best in Christ's gospel; but what he taught was not Christianity.” For a thorough treatment, see Cottier, op. cit.; for the young Hegel, P. Asveld, La pensée religieuse du jeune Hegel (Paris-Louvain, 1953)Google Scholar. From the Protestant point of view see Barth, K., Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert (2nd ed.: Zurich, 1952), pp. 343 ffGoogle Scholar.

48 Hegel, , Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Glockner, H. (3rd ed.: Stuttgart, 1959) XVI, 193Google Scholar; cfr XV, 99. Hereafter cited as HSW, followed by volume and page.

50 HSW, XV, 37.

51 Ibid.

52 HSW, XVI, 353.

53 HSW, XV, 38 f.

54 HSW, VI, 78. Cf. Anselm, St., Cur Deus homo, and Hegel, Enzyklopädie, ed. by Hoffmeister, J. (Leipzig, 1949), p. 100Google Scholar.

55 HSW, XV, 38.

56 Hegel, , Enzyklopädie, preface to the 2nd ed., p. 14Google Scholar.

57 HSW, XV, 166.

58 Hegel, , Enzyklopädie, preface to the 3rd ed., p. 24Google Scholar.

59 HSW, XVI, 316.

60 To anyone who has studied Hegel, it becomes obvious that he views his own endeavor as a continuation of the Paraclete's work. Of course, Hegel does not want to say that his private insights are revelations of the Holy Spirit. Rather, he considers his philosophy as a creative development of Christian theology which, in turn, he views as a continuation of the wonder of Pentecost. This pneumatological aspect of Hegel's philosophy is somewhat concealed by the usual English translation of “Geist” by “Mind.”

61 HSW, XV, 37.

62 HSW, XV, 50.

63 Enzyklopädie, p. 472.

64 HSW, II, 24.

65 HSW, XVI, 353.

66 Stace, W. T., The Philosophy of Hegel (New York, 1955), p. 509Google Scholar.

67 Barth, K., op. cit., pp. 349 ffGoogle Scholar.

68 Cf. Hegel's Latin speech on the occasion of the tricentennial of the Augsburg Confession, translated in Die protestantische Staatsidee, ed. by van der Bleek, W., (Leipzig, 1919)Google Scholar; also Enzyklopädie, p. 458; here, Hegel explicitly opposed saintliness to Sittlichkeit im Staate. See also the section on reformation, HSW, XI, 519 ff.

69 For a sympathetic exposition of Hegel's philosophy of state, see Weil, E., Hegel et l'Etat (Paris, 1950)Google Scholar. For a critique of the most violent recent criticism of Hegel's concept of state by K. R. Popper, see Kaufmann, W., The Philosophical Review (10, 1951)Google Scholar, and its expanded translation in Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung (1956), pp. 191–226.

70 HSW, VII, 357 ff.

71 HSW, XI, 82.

72 Enzyklopädie, p. 463.

73 HSW, VII, 358.

74 Enzyklopädie, p. 455.

75 HSW, VII, 350.

76 HSW, VII, 359.

77 Ibid., 362.

78 Ibid., 353: auf den Inhalt, insofern er sich auf das Innere der Vorstellung bezieht, kann sich der Staat nich einlassen.

79 On Goschel, cf. Gebhardt, , op. cit., 54 ff., 76 ff.Google Scholar; on Marheineke, K. Barth, op. cit., pp. 442 ffGoogle Scholar.

80 This is probably the main reason why all Young Hegelians are often described as Left Hegelians. It has to be emphasized, however, that the equation was not perfect, in particular, if the criterion for Left Hegelianism is politics. Thus, for example, the Old Hegelian E. Gans clearly was a Left Hegelian; and Kierkegaard whom Löwith describes as a Young Hegelian, clearly was not a Left Hegelian. Cf. Stuke, , op. cit., p. 33Google Scholar.

81 Cf. Gebhart, op. cit. As for the political aspect, see Mayer, G., “Die Anfänge des politischen Radikalismus im vormärzlichen Preussen,” Zeitschrift für Politik (1913), pp. 1–114Google Scholar.

82 Cf. MEGA, I, 3, 152.

83 Cf. Löwith, , op. cit., p. 93Google Scholar.

84 FSW, II, 217.

85 See, for example, Löwith, , op. cit., pp. 156 ff.Google Scholar, and Gollwitzer, , Marxismusstudien, IV, 39Google Scholar.

86 FSW, II, 297 ff., 287 ff.

87 FSW, II, 297 ff.

88 FSW, II, 27.

89 HSW, II, 569.

90 HSW, XI, 416.

91 HSW, II, 596 ff.

92 HSW, XI, 416.

93 HSW, II, 31 ff.

94 HSW, XI, 416.

95 Tucker, R., Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), pp. 93 ffGoogle Scholar.

96 Feuerbach's letter to Hegel, , Briefe von und an Hegel, ed. by Hoffmeister, J. (Hamburg, 1952), III, 245Google Scholar. On this important letter, cf. Löwith, , op. cit., pp. 85 ff.Google Scholar; Stuke, , op. cit., pp. 52 ffGoogle Scholar.

97 FSW, II, 230.

98 FSW, VI, 89 ff.

99 FSW, II, 227.

100 Gollwitzer, , Marxismusstudien, IV, 38Google Scholar points to FSW, II, 219, and tries to prove that Feuerbach wasn't so apolitical a thinker after all. Of course, Feuerbach was well aware that, after man has overcome his state of “alienation,” he will be obliged to reorganize society, to build up a new kind of state, and the like. But “politics,” here, does not mean the building up of something radically new (as most politically minded Left Hegelians understood it); it simply means to organize life according to the ever present Divinity of Man.

101 Barth, K., op. cit., pp. 487 ffGoogle Scholar.

102 Cf. the article “Théologie de la Kénose,” by Henry, , Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible, V (Paris, 1957), col. 138 ffGoogle Scholar. Henry goes so far as to describe Luther's position as “monophysism.”

103 Cf. Cottier, , op. cit., pp. 27 ffGoogle Scholar.

104 FSW, II, 217.

105 Ibid., 218.

106 Ibid. 220.

107 MEGA I, 3, 153.

108 For Feuerbach's scheme, cf. FSW, II, 224.

110 MEGA, I, 3, 156.

109 Letter to Schweitzer of January 24, 1865.

111 Cieszkowski, A. v., Prolegomena zur Historiosophie (Berlin, 1838), p. 129Google Scholar.

112 Ibid., p. 126.

113 Bauer, B., Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker (Leipzig, 1841), I, p. xxiGoogle Scholar.

114 For the origin and meaning of this expression, cf. Ruge, A., Aus früherer Zeit (Berlin, 1863), IV, 446 ffGoogle Scholar.

115 Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz, ed. by Herwegh, G. (Zürich-Winterthur, 1843), p. 321Google Scholar.

116 FSW, II, 219.

117 Tucker, R., op. cit., p. 96Google Scholar.

118 For an interpretation of Hegel's Phenomenology from Marx's point of view, cf. Kojève, A., Introduction a la lecture de Hegel (Paris, 1947)Google Scholar, especially the section “En guise d'introduction.”

119 Cf. the quotation from Aeschylus Prometheus, verse 966–969, in the introduction to Marx's, doctoral dissertation, MEGA, I, 1/1, 10Google Scholar.

120 Cf. Hegel's famous letter (1816) to Niethammer, , Briefe von und an Hegel, II, 88 ffGoogle Scholar.

121 Weiss, J., Moses Hess, Utopian Socialist (Detroit, 1960), p. 33Google Scholar, has a very suggestive passage on Feuerbach's role in this respect.

122 Cf. MEW, I, 378 ff.

123 FSW, II, 220 ff.

124 Cf. FSW, II, 237, where anthropotheism is described as “religion conscious of itself”; or VI, 26, where Feuerbach argues that “a true atheist is one who denies the predicates of the divine being … not the one to whom the subject of these predicates is nothing.”

125 MEW, I, 379.

126 For a further elaboration of this point, cf. Gollwitzer, , Marxismusstudien, IV, 80 ffGoogle Scholar.

127 In order to avoid misunderstandings, I have to add that even contemporary Marxism-Leninism clings to the Marxian theory of a nonmilitant atheism; yet it is significant enough that, in practice, Communists often felt obliged to act contrary to this theory. As far as theory goes, Lenin, for example, is in perfect agreement with Marx. Cf. “Ob otnoshenii rabochey partii k religii” (1909), Sochineniya (5th ed.: Moscow, 1958), XVII, 415 ffGoogle Scholar.