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Communist Eschatology A Christian Philosophical Analysis of the Post-Capitalistic Views of Marx, Engels and Lenin

FN Lee

PART ONE

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Index Part One ABOUT THE AUTHOR................................................................................................................................................4 FOREWORD...............................................................................................................................................................4 PREFACE...................................................................................................................................................................5 Chapter I INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNIST ESCHATOLOGY...................................................................................8 PART ONE................................................................................................................................................................22 HISTORICAL SECTION.............................................................................................................................................22 Chapter II THE MARXIST LENINIST PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.............................................................................23 Chapter III THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF MARXISM ................................................................................................32 Chapter IV THE ADVENT OF MARXIST LENINIST REVOLUTIONISM .......................................................................54 Chapter V LENIN'S IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIALISM ...........................................................................................72 Chapter VI THE POST-LENINISTIC HISTORY OF COMMUNISM ..............................................................................83

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Francis Nigel Lee was born in England in 1934. He grew up in South Africa, where he received: the B.A., LL.B., and

M.A. (Philosophy) degrees from the University of Cape Town; the degrees of Cand. Litt. and the Diploma in Theology from the Reformed Theological College at Stellenbosch; the L.Th., B.D., Th.M. (in Islamic Theology), and Th.D. (in Christian Systematic Theology) degrees from the University of Stellenbosch; and the Ph.D. degree (in Christian Philosophy and Communist Philosophy) from the Orange Free State University, a Christian (and anti-communistic) state university dedicated to the development of a conservative Calvinistic life and world view.

The author of the books Communism Versus Creation, Calvin on the Sciences, The Covenantal Sabbath. and A

Christian Introduction to the History of Philosophy, Dr. Lee has also written many philosophical and theological booklets on culture, nationality, education, etc. Previously departmental chairman and professor of philosophy and religion at an American college from 1967 through 1969, and also 1972 visiting professor of apologetics at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, from 1969 to 1973 he pastored the Reformed Church (D.R.C.) at Winterton Natal in South Africa, and is also a barrister-at-law of the Supreme Court of that country. The proud father of two daughters, he is currently professor of theology at Fairfax Christian College, in Fairfax Virginia, U.S.A., as from 1973.

FOREWORD In a very moving passage, St. Paul declares, "For we are saved by hope" (Rom. 8:24). As John Murray has pointed out,

this can be better rendered, "For in hope were we saved." It meant, Murray makes clear, that, "In hope" refers to the fact that the salvation bestowed in the past, the salvation now in possession, is characterized by hope. Hope is an ingredient inseparable from the salvation possessed; in that sense it is salvation conditioned by and oriented to hope. This is simply to say that salvation can never be divorced from the outlook and outreach which hope implies. The salvation now in possession is incomplete, and this is reflected in the consciousness of the believer in the expectancy of hope directed to the adoption, the redemption of the body.*

Life as an assured and certain hope gave to Christian culture a dynamic power as long as that dimension of hope

remained. As defective eschatologies removed that hope from history and restricted it to eternity, Christian culture retreated to the cloister and to the walls of the church. Its imperial and conquering power had been undercut, and the kingship of Christ, and of the believer in Christ, was severely limited.

The dramatic rise of Marxism coincided with the retreat of Christianity. Marxism offered a saving hope, although a false

one, and it parodied the Biblical faith in the sovereign, predestinating power of God with its ideas of materialistic determinism. It has offered victory to a world where too often ostensible Christians have offered instead retreat.

Now, with the growing internal crisis in the world of Marxism, its inner decay and loss of hope, it is especially important

to analyze the significance of Marxist eschatology in terms of a Biblical eschatology, and to indicate that the Marxist hope has been indeed a fantastic illusion.

In an already published Chalcedon Study, Gary North, in Marx's Religion of Revolution: The Doctrine of Creative

Destruction (Nutley, N.J.: The Craig Press, 1968), has given an unequalled analysis of the economic fallacies of Marxism and their roots in a cosmology of chaos. Now, in this work, Francis Nigel Lee gives us the most thorough and illuminating study yet made of the communist eschatology, its roots, implications, and consequences, as well as its far-reaching ramifications in every area of life.

More is involved, however, than barren analysis. Dr. Lee gives us a framework for action as well as for understanding,

with a full awareness that ideas have consequences. This is a work, therefore, of major importance, and it has implications far beyond its subject. It is a study written for those who plan to command the future under God by one who regards it as his duty and calling under God to do so.

ROUSAS JOHN RUSHDOONY President, Chalcedon, Inc.

*John Murray: The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959). vol. 1, p. 308 f.

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PREFACE The present author has no use for communism. To the contrary, he grew up in South Africa, a resident of Natal, a

proponent of free enterprise, and an ardent Calvinist. Why then, it may be enquired, should he even be interested in the theories of communism? Of what existential

significance can the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin possibly be to one with the author's background? Perhaps it is not sufficiently realized that the influence of the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin not only affects the

life of everyone currently alive on this planet (inasmuch as even Lenin's 1913 The Three Sources and Three Component Paris of Marxism [p. 3-8] triumphantly claimed that Communist Parties or "independent organizations of the proletariat are multiplying all over the world, from America to Japan and from Sweden to South Africa"), but that their writings themselves actually refer not only to free enterprise but also to South Africa, Natal, and Calvinism by name.

Karl Marx's sister married the notarial candidate Juta and emigrated to South Africa (Blumenberg, p. 11). Engels, in his

1895 Supplement to Marx's Capital III (pp.908, 910), regarded the free enterprise "stock exchange" as "confirmation of the Calvinist doctrine ... [of] predestination," and then went on to state that "colonization ... is purely a subsidiary of the stock exchange," in whose interests "Africa [was] leased directly to companies ( South Africa), and Natal [was] seized by Rhodes for the stock exchange." And Lenin, in his 1916 Imperialism-the Highest Stage of Capitalism (pp.77, 102), against the background of the anti-colonial "protest ... movement in Natal (South Africa)," did not hesitate to point to "Cecil Rhodes, millionaire, a king of finance, [as] the man who was mainly responsible for the Anglo-Boer War."

Calvinism, South Africa, Natal, stock exchange! Unlike Friedrich Engels, the wealthy factory owner, the present writer

has never even been near a stock exchange throughout his life. However, unlike Marx and Engels and Lenin, the present writer has been very much inside Calvinism, South Africa, and Natal in his life, and happens to be versed with all three. And the writer's realization of all three communist authorities' gross ignorance regarding the true states of affairs in these matters, cannot but make him very critical about the accuracy of their views in other matters too.

Yet the writer would not pre-judge the issue. In the first and especially in the second section of this dissertation, the

communists' own argumentation will be presented almost without comment and at great length. Only in the third section of our dissertation will the communists' views be subjected to criticism.

Accordingly, the Christian layman may find it profitable to read this dissertation in the following order: first, the epilogue

and the short summary (both at the end of this work); second, the conclusion (ch. 34); third, the introduction (ch. 1); fourth, the critical section (ch. 20-33); fifth, the chronological table (at the end of the work); sixth, the historical section (ch. 2-6); seventh, the doctrinal section (ch. 7-19); and lastly. the entire dissertation in the indexed order of its chapters.

Needless to say, the present dissertation does not claim to he an exhaustive treatise on all the aspects of communism,

but merely a study of communist eschatology-an introductory survey of the communist doctrine concerning expected future events. Those interested in other aspects of communism are to be referred elsewhere-to Bochenski and Niemeyer's excellent Handbook on Communism, for a general survey of the subject; to Burns's Handbook of Marxism, for a compendium of the most important communist documents; to Possony's A Century of Conflict, for communist revolutionary technique and for the military aspects of the problem; to Wetter's Dialectical Materialism, for a survey of Soviet dialectical materialistic (diamatic) philosophy; and to the present writer's own M.A. (Philosophy) dissertation Communism Versus Creation, for the analysis and refutation of Marxist-Leninist genesiology; etc. A reasonable grasp of communism, however, may readily be gained by simply reading the summaries at the end of each chapter of this present work in the order given in the index (q.v.)

On completion of this present work, my second doctoral dissertation, I would like to extend my most sincere thanks: to

the Triune God, from Whom and through Whom and to Whom are all things, and Whose victory over all anti-Christian movements such as communism is absolutely secure; to my dear wife Nellie, for lovingly playing this lengthy and cosmologically proportioned score on the keyboard of her typewriter; and to my doctoral promoter the Reverend Professor Doctor P. de B. Kock and my two co-examiners Professor Doctors F. J. H. Wessels and P. J. Heiberg for their profound patience in ploughing through the extensive manuscript; and to my esteemed typesetter, Earl L. Powell of Falls Church, Virginia, for his great patience with me in last-minute amendments and additions in my endeavor to make this book as up-to-date as possible to the glory of God-"his Lord said unto him, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make the ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord' " (Matt. 25:21).

While writing this work, it has become increasingly clear to me that communism has a dynamic plan for developing this

present world here and now, and that only a more dynamic plan for developing this present world here and now will

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triumphantly defeat communism in THIS PRESENT WORLD HERE AND NOW (before A.D. 2000-cf. Epilogue, pp.837-850). Communism can and must be conquered. It is already cracked, as the December 1971 Sino-Soviet tensions during the

Indo-Pakistani war have dramatically illustrated. But the communist wall will not easily fall of its own accord, and the indecision of the West may yet allow Russia and China to paper over the crack in their one-time monolith and to conquer yet larger areas of the free world for the cause of world communism.

Only consistent Christianity, through the power of the risen Christ and His omnipotent Spirit, can (and shall) defeat anti-

Christian communism and triumph on a cosmic scale. The Church of Christ must once again live according to "all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). It is not sufficient for Christians, with the undoubtedly dedicated Breckinbridge, just to "preach the gospel to every creature," vital though this undoubtedly is. In addition, we must say with the more consistent Thornwell (Collected Writings, IV, p. 48-49), that Christians must also subdue the entire cosmos to the glory of God:

We may differ from Dr. Breckinbridge as to the competency of the Gospel dispensation, under augmented measures of

the Spirit, to subdue the world to Christ but we are heartily at one with him as to the duty of the Church to preach the Gospel to every creature. We may differ from him as to the state of things preceding and introduced by the second advent of Christ, but we are at one with him as to the necessity of watching and praying and struggling for His coming. It is the great hope of the future, as universal evangelization is the great duty of the present

If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into

the struggles that are before her. Hope would inspire ardour. She would even now rise from the dust, and like the eagle plume her pinions for loftier flights than she has yet taken. What she wants, and what every individual Christian wants, is faith-faith in her sublime vocation, in her Divine resources, in the presence and efficacy of the Spirit that dwells in her-faith in the truth, faith in Jesus, and faith in God. With such a faith there would be no need to speculate about the future. That would speedily reveal itself. It is our unfaithfulness, our negligence and unbelief, our low and carnal aims, that retard the chariot of the Redeemer. The Bridegroom cannot come until the Bride has made herself ready. Let the Church be in earnest after greater holiness in her own members, and in faith and love undertake the conquest of the world, and she will soon settle the question whether her resources are competent to change the face of the earth (emphasis mine-N.L.).

Indeed, as the greatest of all the Reformers himself stated: "The nature of the apostolic function is clear from the

command; 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature' (Mark xvi. 15). No fixed limits are given them [apostolic Christians-N.L.], but the WHOLE WORLD is assigned TO BE REDUCED TO OBEY CHRIST, so that by spreading the Gospel as WIDELY as they could, they might EVERY-WHERE erect His Kingdom" (John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, chapter 3, paragraph 4).

Moreover, one not only needs to be driven forward by a cultural motive to subdue all things and a missionary motive to

save all people, but also by an eschatological motive to sanctify the whole of life while optimistically awaiting the coming of God's Kingdom here on earth. "Hallowed be Thy Name! Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth" (Luke 11:2). Until "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign fore ever and ever" (Rev. 11:15).

Only when all three of these requirements are emphasized-God's command to "subdue the earth" (or the "Dominion

Charter" of Genesis 1:26-28) and God's command to "disciple all nations" (or the "Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20) and God's command "Thy will be done" (or the "Kingdom Vocation" of Luke 11:2)-is "all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27) being proclaimed. For, having been baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, powerfully driven ever onward by the trinitarian religious basic motive, Christians are to keep the Father's fundamental Dominion Charter and the Son's central Great Commission and the Holy Spirit's terminal Kingdom Vocation to the glory of the one true Triune God alone. And eschatologically, it is only when both the "Dominion Charter" and the "Great Commission" are obeyed that God's children will overcome the devil by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of their testimony (Rev. 12:11) by keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus and by laboring for Him with comprehensive and abiding works (Rev. 14:12-13) in every field of endeavor, for: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (ICor. 10:31).

Thus saith the LORD, the Triune God: "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion

over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the al', and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His Own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen. 1:26-28).

And thus too saith the LORD, the Lord God the Father (after sin!): "When I consider Thy heavens, the works of Thy

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fingers, the moon and 'he stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels [or: than a "divine being], and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet" (Ps. 3:3-6).

And thus too saith the LORD, the Lord Jesus Christ: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye

therefore. and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:18-20).

And thus too saith the LORD, the Lord Who is the Spirit: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth:

'Yea,' saith the Spirit, 'that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them' (Rev. 14:13). "For the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy" (Rev. 19:10), and "the Spirit of Christ ... testified beforehand ... the glory that should follow" (I Pet. 1:11).

Thus saith the Lord! And therefore, thus saith too the writer of this dissertation, who desires only to become a more

obedient Christian and to subject himself even more unreservedly to the ever-expanding reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. Francis Nigel. Lee The Manse, Winterton, Natal, South Africa-January 1972 Fairfax Christian College, Fairfax, Virginia, USA-January 1974 anno Domini, regente Iesu (For a resum of communist activities since this dissertation was submitted in January 1972, through the time of its

publication in early 1974, see the Chronological Table below, at page 859 and following pages.)

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Chapter I INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNIST ESCHATOLOGY

"As Lenin once said: 'No dark force will withstand the alliance of science, the proletariat and technology.' Those prophetic words have become living reality. We have smashed and destroyed the evil force of the exploiters. We have wiped out for good all forms of economic and spiritual oppression. And now we are concentrating more and more of our effort on eliminating man's dependence on the elements, on subjugating them to man's will. Man will thereby take the last hurdle on his road to the realm of true freedom."

-Nikita Khrushchev: The Road to Communism (1961) A new social order is possible, in which the class differences of today will have disappeared, and in which-

perhaps after a short transition period, which, though somewhat deficient in other respects, will in any case be very useful morally-there will he the means of life, of the enjoyment of life, and of the development and activity of all bodily and mental faculties, through the systematic use and further development of the enormous productive powers of society, which exist with us even now, with equal obligation upon all to work.

-Friedrich Engels1 Before commencing on our dissertation itself, we deem it prudent by way of this Introduction: firstly, to define the

meaning of the expression communist eschatology" in the sense in which we shall use it; secondly, to discuss the authority of the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin in communist circles; thirdly, to state the problem to be solved by this dissertation; fourthly, to delineate the material to be used in so doing; fifthly, to mention the difficulties of the subject; sixthly, to enumerate the chief sources to be consulted; seventhly, to outline the methodology and structure of the dissertation; eighthly, to admit frankly the presuppositions of our approach; and ninthly, to discuss the vital importance of the subject to every person alive today-after which (tenthly) a summary of this Introduction will be given.

1. Definition of Communist Eschalology The title of our dissertation is "Communist Eschatology - a Christian philosophical analysis of the post-capitalistic views

of Marx, Engels, and Lenin." Accordingly, it would seem desirable that clarity should be reached right here at the very outset as to what we mean by the two main words in our title, viz.-"Communist Eschatology." Hence the following definitions.

Firstly, then: What is "communism"? Karl Marx, the founder of modern Marxist communism, himself supplied us with two classic definitions. In his 1844

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, he stated: "Communism is the positive abolition of private properly, of human self-aIienation, and thus, the real appropriation of human nature, through and for man. It is therefore the return of man himself as a social, that is, as a really human, being, a complete and conscious return which assimilates all the wealth of previous development. Communism as a complete naturalism is humanism, and as a complete humanism is naturalism. It is the definitive resolution of the antagonism between man and Nature, and between man and man. It is the true solution of the conflict between existence and essence, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species. It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be this solution."2 And in his 1867 Capital, he described communism as the "community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labor-power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labor-power of the community."3

Friedrich Engels, the life-long friend of Marx and, together with the latter, the co-founder of modern communism, cryptically stated in his 1847 Principles of Communism: "Communism is the doctrine of the requisites for the emancipation of the proletariat,"4 and Lenin quoted Engels as having defined the objects of communism as "(1) to achieve the interests of the proletariat in opposition to those of the bourgeoisie; (2) to do this through the abolition of private property and its replacement by community of goods; (3) to recognize no means of carrying out these objects other than a democratic revolutionary force."5

Lenin, the founder of modern Russian communism, himself followed the same line of reasoning. On the very day of Lenin's revolutionary takeover of Russia, he proclaimed that "the cause for which the people have fought, namely the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers' control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power-this cause has been secured."8 Later, in his post-revolutionary 1920 Tasks of the Youth League. Lenin asked: "What is a Communist?" And thereupon he answered his own rhetorical question as follows: "'Communist' is a Latin word. Communis is the Latin for 'common.' Communist society in which all things-the land, the factories -are owned in common and the people work in common. That is communism."7

But perhaps the most comprehensive definition of communism-and one enjoying the full support of modern communist philosophers8-is that laid down in the New Party Program adopted at the Twenty-second Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (C.P.S.U.) in 1961: "Communism is a classless social system with one form of public ownership of the means of production and full social equality of all members of society; under it, the all-round development of people will be

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accompanied by the growth of the productive forces through continuous progress in science and technology; all the springs of co-operative wealth will flow more abundantly, and the great principle 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' will be implemented. Communism is a highly organized society of free, socially-conscious working people in which public self-government will be established, a society in which labor for the good of society will become the prime vital requirement of everyone, a necessity recognized by one and all, and the ability of each person will be employed to the greatest benefit of the people."9

By "communism," then, communists mean the views propounded by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin relative to their desire to abolish private ownership of all the means of production and all the implications thereof. And in this dissertation we shall use the word in this authorative communist sense.

Secondly, it must be inquired: What is "eschatology"? Eschatology is the study of the future, and the eschatological orientation of communism as such is already apparent

from the above definitions of "communism"; for communism, even though it also offers an explanation of the past and the present (and indeed, of everything in the universe), Is nevertheless especially a program for the future. With restless movement, communism - as seen by communists-stretches forward toward the attainment of the future perfection of man and nature, toward the future realization of the eschata-the "last things."

It may be objected that "eschatology," as the doctrine of the "last things," is exclusively a theological discipline, and has no place in a philosophical dissertation. However, as we have shown elsewhere,'0 alongside of a theological eschatology, there is also great merit in developing a specifically philosophical eschatology too, just as there is merit in developing a philosophical ethics (alongside a theological ethics).11 For inasmuch as theological eschatology should only attempt to systematize exclusively the Biblical revelation regarding the future (and then again, pre-eminently in its direct relationship to the revelation of the divine plans for the unfolding of the future), it is submitted that a philosophical eschatology is needed too-an eschatology in which an attempt must be made to systematize the extra-Biblical material12 regarding the future as a whole, which material is now found in the past and present development both of the universe (or nature) and of human products (or culture), then again, to systematize this material preeminently in relation to the (present) natural universe and human culture as such, rather than in relation to the exclusively Biblical account of the divine plans for the future.12 The Christian theologian, then, will use only the Bible in his eschatological research, and the non-Christian philosophical eschatologist will totally disregard the Bible in his research. But the Christian philosophical eschatologist will avoid both of these two extremes. From a careful study of the past and of the present state of the universe and of man's culture, he will attempt to understand their future tendencies-in a Christian Biblical perspective.12

Philosophical eschatology, then, attempts to give a scientific account of the future of the universe as a whole (that is, of nature and culture in their entirety) through a scientific examination thereof here and now.

Communists too have a philosophical eschatology. And although communist eschatology has its roots in the distant past (in the dialectical laws which communists believe govern the coming into being and passing away of all things)13-even as Christian eschatology too rests in the distant past14-communist eschatology as such starts to unfold in its full implications particularly after the principial destruction of capitalism by a successful communist revolution-even as Christian eschatology as such starts to unfold in its full implications particularly after the principial destruction of sin by the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.15

By communist eschatology, then, we mean particularly the communist view of the process of communism's progressive conquest of the whole world after the advent of the proletarian revolution, even as by Christian eschatology we mean particularly the Christian view of the process of Christ's progressive conquest of the whole world after the advent of Christ's resurrection.16

In this dissertation, however, we shall not attempt to give a detailed Christian eschatology. For our subject is an analysis of communisi eschatology, not of Christian eschatology. And although we should attempt to give a Christian philosophical analysis of communist eschatology (which will necessarily involve the use of some Christian eschatology), the provision of an exhaustive Christian eschatology as such is not our present purpose.17 (Cf., however, our forthcoming book, Come, Lord Jesus!).

Restricting our field to communist eschatology, then, we must immediately distinguish between communist tactics, communist strategy, and communist goals.

By communist tactics, we mean those day by day activities whereby communist strategy to extend their influence (both in non-communist and in socialist countries) by means of press campaigns, exploitation of sports, trade, strikes, etc., to gain a small advance (or even to deliberately lose a little ground in order to confuse a noncommunist enemy).18

By communist strategy, we mean those long-term plans to gain an important objective not easily' reachable, such as the objective of neutralizing a hostile anti-communist government or engineering a communist takeover of a non-communist state, by means of a whole series of tactics subordinate thereto.

Communist tactics are not to be discussed in this present dissertation,'9 and, by and large, neither is communist strategy. For here we are largely to be engaged exclusively with communist goals-the ultimate eschatological aims of communists, to be implemented especially after they conquer the world, should they so succeed. Here we are going to examine the eschatological "whither" rather than the sacramental "how" or the pragmatical "whereby."

Yet we shall need to discuss how communists, presently in control of only some countries, plan to achieve world communism everywhere. We shall need to understand how they plan to walk down what Khrushchev calls The Road to Communism20 in a specific country, once they have succeeded in taking over that country in a socialistic revolution. Hence we shall need to understand the general eschatological direction which socialist states believe must be taken in the entire

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post-capitalistic period subsequent to their takeover of a particular country. The scope of this dissertation, then, as suggested by its title, is an examination of "communist eschatology"-i.e., a

Christian philosophical12f "analysis of the post-capitalistic21 views of Marx and Engels and Lenin."22

2. Authority 0' Marx and Engels and Lenin Communist eschatology, then, is the systematicization of the views of Marx and Engels and Lenin regarding the future. But why just Marx and Engels and Lenin? Why not too the views of earlier communists such as those of Morelly (1753f)

and Mably (1768), and of the conspiratorial Illuminati of 1776f and the French Jacobins of 1789 and of the 1796 revolutionary Illuminati communists Babeuf and Buonarroti and the latter's 1830f socialist revolution in France, and the views of the great Moses Hess (1837f)?

Undoubtedly, all of the above (and many others) did deeply influence Marx and Engels and Lenin. Engels referred to the "actual communistic theories [of Mably and] Morelly."23 Marx and Engels mentioned the Illuminati and their leader Von Knigge by name.24 Lenin greatly admired the French Revolutionary Jacobins.25 Marx and Engels highly praised Babeuf as a genuine communist and propounded similar views in their own Communist Manifesto.20 And again, it is also clear that it was Moses Hess who actually converted Marx and Engels to communism.2?

Moreover, Marx and Engels and Lenin even acknowledged the authority of some of their contemporary socialists. For example, Ferdinand Lassalle (1 836f) and Joseph Dietzgen (1 869f). Lenin acknowledged Lassalle's "Philosophy of Heraclitus the Dark" in his own Philosophical Notes

On Dialectics."28 And as regards Dietzgen-Marx regarded him as "our philosopher,"29 Engels credited him with "a remarkable instinct for arguing out so much correctly,"30 and Lenin described him as "nine-tenths materialist" and as "a Marxian."31

Yet modern communists do not appeal to the above pre-Marxian communists, from whom Marx and Engels and Lenin derived their communism. Nor do they appeal to the fellow socialist contemporaries of Marx and Engels and Lenin. Instead, the modern appeal is to Marx and Engels and Lenin themselves.

Even Marx and Engels themselves seemed to view only their own and one another's writings in a really authoritative light, as too did the later Lenin, whom Marx and Engels, of course, had not met or even read.

On the one hand, each of the three was painfully aware of his own shortcomings. Marx's use of an unprintable four-letter word to refer to some of his own writings reveals exactly what he thought of their intrinsic worth.32 Engels wrote to Marx that he was "still dissatisfied" with his own essay on the Mark (the primitive German commune) and that "I myself would like to be quit of the stuff";33 and in his Introduclion to his Anti-Dhring, Engels declared: "It was not my fault that I had to follow Herr Dhring into realms where at best I can only claim to be a dilettante. This applies to jurisprudence and in many instances also to natural science. ... I am also aware of the inadequacy of my knowledge of physics and chemistry."34 And Lenin roundly admitted in his 1899 Letter to Potressov: "I recognize my backwardness in philosophic matters."35

Furthermore, Lenin criticized Marx and Engels, and they too criticized one another. Quite a few of the works apparently jointly written by Marx and Engels were actually first written by Engels, but had to be largely completely re-written by Marx.36 Nor did Engels himself hesitate to criticize some of the sentences in Marx's 1848 Class War in France in his own 1891 Introduction Ihereto87 and even to correct a statement in Marx's Capital in a subsequent Engelsian edition thereof.38 Nor did Lenin fail to describe Marx's own view of the "Class War" of 1848 (in the latter's Address of 1850) as "a magnificent and valuable mistake";39 and already in 1899 Lenin was stating: "We do not regard Marxist theory as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the corner-stone of the science which socialists musi further advance in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life."40

On the other hand, however, each of the three thinkers implicitly believed in the general authority of his own views. Marx quarrelled with just about every one of his contemporary socialistic thinkers except with Engels-for Engels was the only great socialistic thinker contemporary with Marx who at that time (except for peripheral matters) endorsed everything Marx had written, in which writings Marx himself so passionately believed.41 Engels himself described his own Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Cixtsical German Philosophy as "the most detailed account of historical materialism which, as far as I know, exists."42 And Lenin's extreme intolerance even toward his fellow Marxist Mensheviks just because they criticized his own Leninistic interpretation of Marxism, indicates that he too thoroughly endorsed his own position.43

Furthermore, Marx and Engels each endorsed the other's position (and sometimes even elevated it above his own), as too did Lenin.

Wrote Marx to Engels: "Your satisfaction [with Marx's written work] up to now is more important to me than anything the rest of the world may say of it."44 And elsewhere Marx confessed: "Engels is always one step ahead of me."45

Engels returned the compliment at Marx's graveside: "Mankind is shorter by a head, and the greatest of our time at that. ... On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep but forever. An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt."46

Immediately after Marx's death, Engels wrote to Liebknecht: "Although I have seen him this evening laid out on his bed, the rigidity of death in his face, I cannot fully realize that this brilliant mind has ceased to impregnate the proletarian

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movement of both worlds with its mighty thoughts. We owe all that we are to him; and the movement as it is today is the creation of his theoretical and practical thought..47 Looking hack on Marx's death at a later stage, Engels subsequently wrote to Becker: "The greatest mind in our Party had ceased to think, the strongest heart that I have ever known had ceased to beat."48 And yet ten years later, Engels wrote to Mehring: "If the greater man [Marx] dies, the lesser [Engels] easily gets overrated, and this seems to be just my case at present; history will set all this right in the end."49

Indeed, Marx and Engels corroborate one another on almost every point. With enthusiasm did Engels later relate "how the two of us in Brussels in the year 1845 set about jointly to expound the opposition between our view ... and the ideological view of German philosophy... To Feuerbach, who after all in many respects forms an intermediate link between Hegelian philosophy and our conception, we never returned."50

This complementariness of Marx and Engels was also recognized by Lenin in his own The Marx-Engels Correspondetwe.51 "In general," wrote Lenin, "the philosophy of history yields very, very little; this is comprehensible, for it is precisely here, in this field, in this science, that Marx and Engels made the greatest step forward."52 Lenin's book Karl Marx is full of praise for the latter;53 in Lenin's book The State, he says of Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State that: "You may rely upon every phrase in it...";54 and in Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Cn)icism, he warmly endorsed "Friedrich Engels-the well-known collaborator of Marx and co-founder of Marxistn."55

If the synthesis of the views of Marx and Engels as "Marxism" (though '6Marxism-Engelsism" would be a much fairer description)55 had already been brought about by post-Engelsian and pre-Bolshevik socialists ,56 it was Lenin himself that brought about the establishment of the (Third) Communist International in 1919, which established the further synthesis between Marxism-Engelsism and Lenin's views into the tight system still I known as 'Marxism-Leninism."57

Stalin, by endorsing Marxism-but particularly by endorsing Leninism-helped to canonize this synthesis. "Leninism," wrote Stalin, "is Marxism in the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution. ... Marx and Engels lived and worked in the pre-revolutionary epoch .. .when developed imperialism did not yet exist. ... Leninism is the further development of Marxism. .. Leninism includes all that Marx taught, plus Lenin's new contribution to the treasury of Marxism, which necessarily follows from all that Marx taught ... (... being fundamentally one and the same)58

So then, we may perhaps say that if the works of Marx are the "Law" and those of Engels are the "Prophetic Books" and both of them together the "Old Testament" of communism, Lenin is the "New Testament" (cf. his 1922 -Testament!), and all three together constitute the communist "Scriptures."

For since Lenin, all communist leaders have, like Stalin,58 enthusiastically re-endorsed the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin as the basic and absolutely authoritative documents of the communist life and world view. "The changes in the world," wrote Khrushchev in 1957, "will proceed in the direction well described by Marx, Engels and Lenin in their theoretical works. We communists have deep faith in the triumph of Marxist-Leninist teachings."59 And in 1958 he added: "The communists have always been and always will be faithful to Marxist-Leninist teaching,"60 and "there are no different points of view and never have been between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China on questions of principle [italics mine-N.L.], because they proceed from the single teaching of Marxism-Leninism, which they follow faithfully."61 And even in 1959, he declared: "We are in full and complete agreement with the fraternal Communist Party of China, though its methods [italics mine-N.L.) of building socialism are in many ways dissimilar to ours. We know that China has its peculiarities in historical development, in the size of its population, the level of production, and national culture. Therefore, it would be a mistake to ignore these peculiarities and to imitate what is good for one country but does not suit another. Why are there no differences [in principle-N.L.] between us and the Communist Party of China? Because the class approach and class understanding of both parties is the same. The Chinese Communist Party stands firmly on Marxist-Leninist class positions."62

And since then, even though Red China and Russia have-to some extent-gone their separate ways (as, for that matter Catholicism and Protestantism have also gone their separate ways since the Reformation), as is now well known-yet the important point is that notwithstanding this, both these communist powers have continued to appeal to Marx and Engels and Lenin as their basic authority (just as Catholics and Protestants appeal to the Bible as theirs). The 1966 second edition of The Thoughts of Mao Tse-tung, for instance, declares that "the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin is universally applicable,"63 and the 1970 edition too refers to "the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism."64

And even in Russia, Khrushchevian philosophers recorded in 1963 that "true democracy can be won only by following the road which the scientific socialism of Marx, Engels and Lenin has pointed out."85 Post-Khrushchevian Brezhnevian Soviet experts exclaimed in 1968 that "Marx and Engels laid the foundation of communism as a science [and] Lenin developed the theory of scientific communism ... [so] that the theory of scientific communism is now called Marxism-Leninism."66 And for the occasion of the centenary of Lenin's birth, in 1970, the C.P.S.U. declared that: "The whole of modern history is inseparably connected with the name of Lenin. Lenin is the great successor to the revolutionary teaching of Marx and Engels. He is the founder of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the leader of the greatest social revolution and the builder of the world's first socialist state. Lenin's ideas had and continue to have the most profound influence on the entire course of world development."67

The most apparent proof of the utter authority of the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin in communist circles even today, however, is the facility and authority with which they are quoted even against fellow communists regarded as deviating from the true road. For quite apart from recent disturbances within the Communist Parties of Poland, Czecho-slovakia, and Roumania, it is now well known that even since 1960 there have been three main groups within international communism relatively hostile even to one another, viz., the right-wing communists (Yugoslavia and Communist Party of

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Italy), the leftist communists (China and Albania), and the Soviet-group communists (Russia and her satellites). These tensions have disturbed and split Communist Parties in the West too,68 but all these factions always quote Marx and Engels and Lenin as their authority, even in their internecine feuds. The Red Chinese, for example, in attacking the Russians, have prided themselves on their own orthodoxy while accusing the Russians of revisionism. For according to the Peking Review of March 25, 1966: "After Stalin's death, the leaders of the C.P.S.U. headed by Khrushchev, gradually revealed their true features as betrayers of Lenin and Leninism, and embarked on the old path of the German Social Democrats Bernstein and Kautsky, who betrayed Marx and Engels and Marxism."69 And more recenily, the Red Chinese have described the Polish riots of December 1970 as proof that "the colonial rule of Soviet revisionist social imperialism in Eastern Europe has fallen into a crisis, and that modern revisionism has gone further bankrupt," Poland having become a "dependency of Soviet revisionism."70 To the Chinese, the Yugoslavs, however, are still worse than the Russians, and are, in fact crypto-capitalists,71 whereas the highly doctrinaire and Peking-oriented Communist Party of Australia recently branded the Russian leaders as "the new Czars," and accused them of having "restored capitalism in Russia."68 On the other hand, maintain the Chinese, "the friendship between the Chinese and Albanian peoples, based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, is unbreakable,"72 and "the Albanian Party of Labor, headed by Comrade Enver Hoxha, the long-tested leader of the Albanian people, is a party taking Marxism-Leninism as its guide to action, a party long steeled in the flames of revolutionary struggle and a party which maintains close contacts with the masses. It has always been loyal to Marxism-Leninism and the principles of proletarian internationalism."73

The Russians, however, do not see themselves as revisionists, but as "creative Marxists,"74 and equally oppose Yugoslav "revisionism"71 and Red Chinese and Albanian "reactionary dogmatism"71 or "uncreative Marxism."75 Right after the start of the Sino-Soviet disagreement, the Russians at first merely referred to the Chinese indirectly, deploring the "reaction of conservative [= dogmatistic!-N.L.] forces in the communist movement to the creative [- Soviet!-N.L.] Marxism-Leninism of the modern epoch."16 By April 1970, on the centenary of Lenin's birth, however, Brezhnev and Kosygin were appealing to Lenin to endorse their internal line against Red China.77 And by January 11, 1971, Moscow Radio was describing Mao's thoughts as "an unprincipled mixture of utopian and equalitarian ideas of the peasants' uprisings, Confucianism, anarchism, Trotskyism, chauvinism, Chinese feudalism, national bourgeois ideas and other ideas contrary to Marxist principles."70 Nor are the Russians much kinder to the Albanians. "The actions of the Albanian leaders indicate that they are departing from internationalist positions and backsliding onto the path of nationalism,"78 and "narrow nationalism is indeed the common characteristic of the Chinese-Albanian left and the Yugoslav right deviations."71

Perhaps most interesting of all - certainly from the doctrinal angle-is the Albanian position. To the Albanians, "the friendship between the Albanian and Chinese peoples is great and unbreakable. It is a close, fraternal friendship based on the immortal principles of Marxism-Leninism. It is a friendship steeled in our joint struggle for national liberation and for the sacred cause of building socialism and Communism in our two countries, in our joint struggle against U.S.-led imperialism and its lackey-the Belgrade Tito clique which represents modern revisionism-and in our unswerving struggle for the defense of the purity of Marxism-Leninism."80 While Khrushchev, according to the Albanians, was a "base, unfounded, anti-Marxist, a plotter and common putschist, a real Judas," and guilty of "demagoguery and hypocrisy ... similar to the slanders of the imperialists and Tito."81

However, the point of importance here is that, in spite of all internal differences, communists and Communist Parties everywhere always appeal to Marx and Engels and Lenin as their final authority. Even the 1959 Program of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia claims that Yugoslavian communists are fighting "on two fronts-against both [the Soviet and the Chinese!] forms of revision of the basic scientific principles of socialism as laid down by Marx, Engels and Lenin."11

But again it must be asked: Why just "as laid down by Marx, Engels and Lenin"? Why not as also laid down by later Marxist-Leninists, such as Trotsky, Stalin, Khrushchev, Mao Tse-tung and Ch Guevara?

Undoubtedly, all these later communists considered themselves to be good Marxist-Leninists, no matter how much they differed from one another in their emphases. However, by no means all who claim to be Marxists or Marxist-Leninists appeal to all (or even to any) of these thinkers; and some of these thinkers also frequently attacked one another (e.g., Trotsky-Stalin; Khrushchev-Mao), but all of them always themselves appealed to the final authority of Marx and Engels and Lenin.

For example, internationalistic-communistic Trotskyites everywhere are anti-Stalinist82 precisely because they claim to be (Marxist-)Leninists.83 Similarly, post-Trotskyite nationalistic-communistic Stalinists everywhere (including the Albanians and the Red Chinese), even when fulminating against non-Leninistic Marxist revisionists" (such as the German Social Democratic Party or the British Labor Party), again appeal to Marx and Engels and Lenin (and never to Trotsky!) as their authority.84 Again, Khrushchev, in spite of his differences with Yugoslav communists on the one hand and Albanian and Red Chinese communists on the other, and in Spite of his repudiation of Stalin's personality defects (but hardly of Stalin's Marxist-Leninist doctrine!),85 always claimed to be following Marx and Engels and Lenin.86 And Mao Tse-tung (in spite of allowing his own87 "thought" to be raised to the level of that of Marx and Engels and Lenin, and in spite of allowing [the Marxist-Leninist!] Stalin87 to remain alongside the triumvirate Marx and Engels and Lenin [and alongside of Mao himself!] as a full authority in Red Chinese circles)88 has always claimed that he (Mao) and Stalin89 are both faithful followers of Marx and Engels and Lenin and are therefore to be considered as authoritative.90

The position is, then, that Trotsky is only authoritative in the circles emanating from the anti-Russian-communist (Trotskyite) Fourth International, and is even anathema to the anti-Russian (because pro-Stalinist and therefore anti-Trotskyi therefore Stalin hated Trotsky!) Red Chinese and Albanians;91 Stalin is today only fully authoritative in Red China92 and Albania,93 partially authoritative in Russia94 and her satellites, and anathema to Yugoslavia95 and most Western communists;

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Khrushchev is today of only very minor authority (in contrast, however, to the still "canonical" [Khrushchevian] New Party Program of the C.P.S.U. of 1961), and even then, only in the Soviet bloc-but a hated man in the Chinese bloc;98 Mao is of complete authority in the Chinese bloc88 and Chinese-oriented Western parties,97 but anathema to the Soviet bloc;10 and Ch Guevara, the Cuban communist guerilla, is at most a useful mentor on terrorist warfare, but is hardly regarded as an authoritative communist theoretician even by those young Western Hemisphere communists who idolize him as a hero.

Only Marx and Engels and Lenin, then, are universally authoritative for all communists everywhere. As the Communist Party of the U.S.A. remarked in 1957: "The Communist Party [of the U.S.A.] bases its theory particularly on the principles of scientific socialism as developed by Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and V.I. Lenin."98 In the following year, Moscow Radio broadcast: "There is only one Marxist-Leninist teaching. There was only one Marx and only one Lenin. All Communist and Workers' Parties are guided by their teachings."99 And this is why Selsam and Martel confine their Reader in Marxist Philosophy (published by the communistic International Publishers) to "the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin."100

The nature of the authority of Marx and Engels and Lenin, however, is not mechanical. Apart from the fact that Marx was primarily the economist, Engels the naturalist, and Lenin the revolutionist of the triumvirate,101 and apart from their minor differences of opinion102 and of emphasis (such as Lenin's great stress on tactics),103 it must be remarked that communists do not believe and never have believed in the "plenary verbal jot-and-tittle inspiration" of the Marxist writings-to put it in theological terminology. Or-if we may be pardoned the brief use of another dogmatological distinction: communists believe that their Marxist writings are not mechanically, nor organically, but rather dynamically "inspired"-that is, they are generally authoritative because they describe states of affairs as they really are, and not absolutely authoritative irrespective of the empirically assembled and empirically verifiable truth of their contents. They are authoritative as a guide to action, rather than as "eternal truths" required to be intellectually assented to as articles of faith.

This was clearly the view of Marx and Engels and Lenin themselves. Wrote Engels in his 1890 Letter to Bloch: "Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that younger writers sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it[For regarding] the more recent 'Marxists' , the most wonderful rubbish has been produced from this quarter too."104 And in his 1890 Letter to Schmidt he exclaimed: "As Marx used to say about the [views of the] French 'Marxists' of the late seventies: 'All I know is that I [Marx] am not a Marxist!' "105

As Lenin wrote in his 1917 The Task 0/the Proletariat in Our Revolution: "'Our doctrine is not a dogma, but a guide to activity,' said Marx and Engels, who always scorned the mere acquisition and repetition of 'formulae,' capable at best only of outlining general tasks, which are necessarily changed by the concrete economic and political circumstances of each particular period in the historical process . In analyzing a given situation, a Marxist must proceed not from the possible, but from the real."106 And yet again: "We do not regard Marxist theory as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the cornerstone of the science which socialists must further advance in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life107. Consequently, this is also the view particularly of modern Russian Brezhnevian "creative Marxists" too,108

But even though Marxism-Leninism is merely a "guide to activity," it is nevertheless an authoritative "guide to activity." As Lenin wrote in his The Three Sources and the Three Component Parts of Marxism: "The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously reigned in the views on history and politics gave way [at the advent of Marxism] to a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in consequence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social life another and higher system develops100. And elsewhere: "Marxism differs from all other socialist theories in the remarkable way it combines complete scientific sobriety in the analysis of the objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution with the most definite recognition of the importance of the revolutionary energy, the revolutionary creative genius and the revolutionary initiative of the masses-and also, of course, of individuals, groups, organizations and parties that are able to discover and exercise contact with various classes110.

Perhaps Marxism-Leninism does indeed require the selective interpretation of an active Communist Party to apply it in practice;111 but according to authorities such as MeFadden,112 Acton,113 and Hampsch,114 there is nevertheless a basic unity in the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin, and the latter are certainly authoritative to communist parties everywhere.

And on the basis of the above discussion, we ourselves cannot but agree with this conclusion.

3. Statement of the Problem Herewith we have automatically arrived at the problem-that is, at the evident state of affairs with which we have now

been confronted.115 Desiring to ascertain how communists expect the future to unfold, we have seen that only the writings of Marx and

Engels and Lenin are regarded as universally authoritative to all communists everywhere. The problem, then, is to discover, understand, expound, systematize, evaluate, and correct everything that can be found in the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin, which and which alone throw light on the subject of communist eschatology.

4. Delineation of the Material Having stated the problem, it will be necessary to delineate the material to be used before proceeding further. Firstly, it will be necessary to give the historical background against which the significance of the writings of Marx and

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Engels and Lenin can be understood in their historical setting.116 However, this historical background will be limited to an examination only of those predecessors of Marx and Engels and Lenin to whom the latter appeal for authority,111 and of the most important communistic successors of Marx and Engels and Lenin especially in Russia and, to a lesser extent, in Red China, in so far as they have been able to work out the eschatological implications of the views of Marx and Engels and Lenin in practice.117 For as Khrushchev remarked: The changes in the world will proceed in the direction well described by Marx, Engels, and Lenin in their theoretical works. We communists have deep faith in the triumph of Marxist-Leninist teachings."118 "If anyone thinks we shall forget about Marx, Engels, and Lenin, he is mistaken. This will happen when shrimps learn to whistle"119 -that is, neverl

Secondly, we shall limit our doctrinal discussion chiefly to the views of Marx and Engels and Lenin alone, largely excluding the views of Stalin and Khrushchev and Mao (except in so far as they illustrate the unfolding of the eschatological views of Marx and Engels and Lenin), and almost totally excluding the (universally speaking) relatively unimportant views of other communists such as Guevara, Tito, Trotsky, etc. However, inasmuch as Russia and Red China are undoubtedly the most important countries in the communist world, and inasmuch as Soviet Russia has now had fifty-four years to develop socialism since its revolution (as compared to China's twenty-three years), and inasmuch as, up to the last decade, China still looked to the Soviet example, we shall also say something about the modern Russian views, and, to a lesser extent, a word or two about the modern Red Chinese views.

Thirdly, we shall further restrict our discussion even of the views of Marx and Engels and Lenin largely to an examination of their histomatic (i.e., historical materialistic or cultural-scientific)'20 rather than of their diamatic (i.e., dialectical materialistic or natural-scientific)121 views. This restriction will be applied, because 'diamat' deals largely with communist protology122 which has been adequately treated by the present writer in another work on communist genesiology (or protology) ,123 and because communist eschatology is the subject of this present work. However, in passing, even in this present work we will briefly ground 'histomat' in (pre-histomatic) diamat and also briefly mention the ultimate eschatological implications of (post-histomatic) diamat.124

Fourthly, we shall further limit ourselves largely to a discussion of the eschatological histomat of Marx and Engels and Lenin, as opposed to their protological histomat. This is in keeping with the eschatological nature of this dissertation. However, it will also be necessary to give a considerable description of the initially protological histomatic condition of man under "primitive communism" as well-in so far as the future communism of communist eschatology is believed to be a return to this condition of "primitive communism," albeit at a higher level.'25

And lastly, we shall largely limit our critique of communist eschatology to a critical examination of the implications of what the communists them-selves believe, rather than posit a sophisticated Christian eschatology in its place.126 We shall, however, briefly state the Christian eschatological position at the close of each critical chapter, to enable the reader to understand the critical perspective of the present writer more clearly.

5. Difficulties of the Subject In spite of the above delineation of the material, however, our subject is full of difficulties. The first difficulty is that Marx and Engels and Lenin nowhere gave us a systematic philosophy, but only "philosophical

nuggets" here and there in scores and scores of books and articles and pamphlets largely written polemically to deal with a particular historical problem which is frequently obscure to the modern uninitiated reader.127 For this reason, we deem it necessary to give a historical analysis of the background of these writings (in section one) before proceeding to interpret them (in section two) and criticize them (in section three) of our dissertation.

The second difficulty is the fact that not eschatology but revolution is the major theme of communist theory, as Tucker128 and North129 and Ramm130 and indeed even the Marxists themselves131 all have pointed out. In fact, in spite of the importance of our subject (even to the communist),132 the purely eschatological writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin are few and far between.133

Thirdly, a far greater difficulty still, is that what little Marx and Engels and Lenin did write about the post-capitalist condition of the world as they expected it to be, is sprinkled fragmentarily and most unsystematically as a sentence here and a phrase there (as Kraan points out),134 throughout many of their writings which themselves have little or nothing to do with eschatology. The very nature of the material to be studied makes some overlap in the various chapters of this dissertation unavoidable. As Gary K. North, professor of history at the University of California, Riverside, remarked in a December 28, 1970, letter to the writer: "Your dissertation will be a tough one, since Marx said so little with regard to the post-Capitalist universe."135 One year later, after completion of the dissertation, I can reply to North: "Correct!"

Fourthly, an even greater difficulty, perhaps, is that up to now there has never been any real attempt by post-Leninists-be they communist, non-communist, or anti-communist, to collate the eschatological material in Marx and Engels and Lenin in a systematic matter. In Kraan's famous Christian Confrontation of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, for example, he devotes but 3 of his 419 pages to communist eschatology.138 As Ramm points out,137 there is a crying need for an authoritative textbook on communist eschatology. Humbly,.this work of the present writer would seek to fill this need. However, the pioneering nature of the present work is obvious, and suffice it to say that locating, systematizing, and evaluating the material offered herein has been far from easy.

Fifthly, the dialectical style of the Marxist-Leninist writings makes their interpretation particularly difficult, as Possony138

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and Bochenski and Niemeycr189 have indicated. It is necessary to read the Marxist-Leninist writings in depth in order to be able to distinguish their tactics from their strategy in a given case, as indeed suggested by the title of one of Lenin's books-One Step Forward, Two Steps Back! As De KIerk189 states, communist doctrine is involved and complex.

Sixthly, there is the problem of logomachy, or the communist device of deceiving their opponents through the subtle use of words which deliberately lead the noncommunist to understand the words used by communists in a different way to that in which communists themselves understand them. Classic examples of this are the much used words peace" and "democracy." For by "peace," the communists mean "world conquest by communism, preferable without (communists') bloodshed," and by "democracy" they mean "the dictatorship of the Communist Party" (which they again misleadingly call "the dictatorship of the Proletariat") 140

Seventhly, there is often difficulty in distinguishing the successive post-capitalistic periods of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," "socialism," and "communism" in the communist writings-and these are the key words in communist eschatology!

The "dictatorship of the proletariat" is clearly the period immediately following capitalism, but there is some difficulty in establishing precisely when it terminates, namely, at the commencement of socialism or at the commencement of the subsequent period of communism. This is because Stalin'41 claimed in 1938 that "socialism" had then arrived, whereas Khrushchev142 made the same claim in 1958-1959. Consequently, we do not know exactly when the dictatorship is supposed to have ended and socialism to have begun.

Again, the word "socialism" sometimes is used in such a way as to suggest that it commences right after the destruction of capitalism,148 whence the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would then be the first stage of "socialism." Yet again, "socialism" sometimes clearly means "future communism."144

So too, even the word "communism" is variously used as well-sometimes it means "primitive communism";145 sometimes it means the entire post-capitalistic period (including the "socialistic" commencement thereof) ;148 and sometimes it means post-socialistic "future communism."147 In addition, the Marxists sometimes called the pre-Marxist utopias as well as the anti-Leninistic Marxists of the Second International "socialists" or "communists," and Marx even called some non-Marxian utopian futurologists "communists."148 On the whole, however, the Marxists successively distinguish148 between "proletarian dictatorship," "socialism," and "communism," or at any rate between post-capitalistic "socialism" and post-socialistic "communism," and it is this latter terminology and meaning which we shall follow here throughout.

Eighthly, writing this thesis in an anti-communist country where the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin are banned by law has made the task very difficult. Much research was done overseas, and the obtaining of access to scarce prohibited material in the original German has proved difficult, as there is only one known complete (and restricted) set thereof in any South African public library.

Ninthly, the difficult job of logically systematizing the non-logical (historical, economic, sociological, etc.) Marxist-Leninist material presented in this book, which does in any case always "offer resistance" to all logical attempts to bring scientific order into the non-logical "chaos," was rendered far more difficult on account of the aforementioned additional difficulties than it would have been without them.

But lastly, all the effort was worth it! For the Marxist-Leninist eschatology is indeed the dynamic of that whole system-the magnetic force pulling the movement forward on a worldwide scale.149 Communist esehatology cannot be ignored. Without some knowledge of communist eschatology, communism itself would never have gotten off the ground; and without some knowledge of communist eschatology, the West will continue to be impotent to check its further spread.

6. Chief Sources Subject to all the above-mentioned difficulties, the chief sources containing the fragmentary material of eschatological

importance are (inter alia) especially the following works of Marx and Engels and Lenin, and constant reference will be made to them during the course of this dissertation:

WORKS OF KARL MARX: On the Jewish Question (1843)-includes material on the future of money and religion; Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844)-includes material on the future of man as such; Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1844)-includes material on the nature and future of religion; Theses on Feuerbach (1845)-includes material on the future of the family; The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)-includes material on the future of the division of labor and the future of the state; Capital, vol. I (1867)-includes an account of the nature and future of money and fragments on post-capitalistic communism; The Civil War in France (1871 ) - on the eschatological significance of the Paris Commune; On the Nationalization of Ground and Land (1872)-includes argumentation on the future nationalization of production assets; Critique of the Gotha Program (1875 ) - on future "socialism" and "communism"; and his Capital, vols. II and III (posthumously edited by Engels, and each with a couple of paragraphs of eschatological significance).

WORKS OF FRIEDRICH ENGELS: Review of Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present (1844) - on the future of religion; The First Elberfeld Address (1845 ) - on the grounds for the future disappearance of the state; Principles of Communism (1847) - on the nature of (future) communism; Letter to Cuno (l872) - on the future of the state; On Authority (1874) - on the necessity of control even under future communism; Letters to Bebel and to Bracke (l875) - on the future of the state; Anti-Dhring (1878) - containing some futurological material; Dialectics of Nature (1878f)-including material on the (diamatic) future of the universe; Socialism-Utopian and Scientific - containing a few passages on future freedom and statelessness;

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The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884)-briefly mentioning something of their future too; and his 1891 Introduction to Marx's Civil War in France-identifying the 1871 "Paris Commune" as a species of the post-capitalistic "dictatorship of the proletariat."

WORKS OF MARX AND ENGELS: The Holy Family (l84S) - containing a critique of non-Marxist left-Hegelian doctrine and a Marxist (somewhat future-oriented) alternative thereto; The Gennan Ideology (1846) - including an interesting section on the careerless nature of future labor; Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) - including the famous ten-point program for the future; On the Polish Question (1866) - including material on the future of nationality.

WORKS OF VLADIMIR LENIN: Here we should perhaps separately detail firstly those of his works written before the implementation of socialist or communist eschatology at the time of the successful proletarian revolution in 1917, and those written after that time-which latter are obviously more practically and less theoretically oriented than are the former.

PRE-REVOLUTIONARY WORKS OF LENIN: What Is to Be Done? (1903)-on the necessity of the (then still future) "democratic centralization" of the proletarian party; One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904) - on the necessity of future tactical maneuvering; Socialism and Religion (1909)-on the future of religion; The Paris Commune (1912)-and on its mean-ing for the future; Letter to Gorki (1913)-including the nature of religion and its future disappearance; On the National Question and On the Nationalization of Jewish Schools (1913) and The Rights of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)-all three on the future of nationality; Philosophical Notes (191Sf)-very fragmentary, but highly useful philosophically, and yielding a few glimpses of future expectations; Imperialism-the Highest Stage of Capitalism (l916) - on future world developments immediately prior to the communist takeover; The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up (1916) - on the future of nationality; The Youth International (1916)-including the future of youth; Letters from Afar and The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution (1917)-including some aspects of the commencement of communist eschatology; Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Program (1917)-on the future communist program; State and Revolution (l917) - on the future of the state.

POST-REVOLUTIONARY WORKS OF LENIN: The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government (1918) - one of the first post-revolutionary documents; Speech to the Third Workers' Co-operative Congress (1918) - on the necessity of socialist co-operation; Speech at die Founding of the Cornmunist International (1919 ) - on the plan for world takeover; Draft Pro-gram of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)of vital eschatological importance in all fields; The Task of the Working Women's Movement in the Soviet Republic (1919) - on the future of women and the family; Speech Delivered at the First Congress of Agricultural Artels (l9l9) - on the necessity of collectivization; Report on the Subbotniks (1919) - on the 'ultimate goal of universal unpaid labor; Left-wing 'communism' an Infantile Disorder (1920) - on the necessity of the (socialistic) dictatorship of the Communist Party; From the First Subbotnik on the Moscow-Kazan Railway to the All-Russian May-Day Subbotnik (l92O) - on the intensification of unpaid labor; Twenty-one Conditions for Communist Organization (1920) - on the tactics and strategy of communist world conquest; The Tasks of the Youth League (1920)-including material on communist ethics and their future; On Polytechnical Education (1920)-a vital sketch of future pedagogics; The Tax in Kind (1921 ) - on the New Economic Policy of Socialist Russia; On the Significance of Militant Materialism (1922) - on post-capitalistic epistemology; Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution (1922)-self-explanatory!; The Attribution of Legislative Functions to the State Planning Commission (1922)-on the eschatology of government; Letter to the Congress (1922)alias Lenin's famous "Testament"; The Question of Nationalities or of 'Autonomization' (l922) - on the future of the nations; On Co-operation (l923) - on the necessity of communization; and Better Fewer, But Better (1923)-Lenin's last article, on his plans for the realization of world communism.

The above sources are by no means the only documents to be used in this dissertation, but they are the more important ones. The relative preponderance of Lenin's writings over those of Marx and Engels is explained by the fact that the latter did not live to see the socialist revolution, whereas Lenin did and also wrote much vital material of eschatological importance after that event.

7. Methodology and Structure Having established the above, it is now necessary to say something about the methods to be used in this dissertation

and about the structure of the latter itself. Actually, the two go hand in hand, inasmuch as chosen methods directly influence the edification of a structure. Having

obtained clarity on the goal150 of the dissertation and the sources151 to be used in its construction, it is necessary to find the correct way of proceeding from the sources to the goal.

As the writer has pointed out elsewhere,'52 this is exactly the meaning of the word "method"-namely, a way or road proceeding from a definite starting-point or source to a definite termination-point or goal. Our method(s) must therefore enable us to follow the correct procedure from the major sources of the communist worldview to the solution of the stated problem, namely the construction (and evaluation) of the contents of communist eschatology.

Procedure implies proceeding on the way or road-implies method(s). Construction implies prior clarity concerning the nature of the structure to be erected. Methods and procedure, structure and construction, therefore go hand in hand.

This dissertation will try to do three main things, and will therefore be divided into three main sections. Firstly, according to our above "statement of the problem,"150 it will be necessary to "discover" and "understand" the

writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin relative to communist eschatology. To do this, a historical survey of the sources of

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these documents themselves will be necessary. And this we will do in our "historical section." Secondly, having "discovered" and "understood" the Marxist documents, it will next be necessary, as also stated in the

problem,150 to "systematize" and to "expound" them. For this purpose, a doctrinal exposition of the eschatological contents of the documents will be required. And this we will do in our "doctrinal section."

Finally, it will also be necessary to "evaluate" and to "correct"150 the eschatological views of Marx and Engels and Lenin. This will be done by giving a critique of their historical and doctrinal views. And this we will do in our critical section."

In the first or "historical section," we shall first give a short survey of the section and then give a general outline of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy of history, of the historical roots of Marxism, of the advent of Marxist-Leninist revolutionism, of Lenin's implementation of socialism, and of the post-Leninistic history of socialism. Each of these topics will he further sub-divided into sub-headings, all of which follow one another in the correct chronological order.

In the second or "doctrinal section," we shall first give a short survey of the section and then give an account of the communist eschatological doctrine of: labor, value, property, class, the family, education, morality, law, the state, nationality, the arts, science, and religion. Each of these topics in its turn will be analyzed as to its nature, after which an account will be given of its status under "primitive communism," alienation, socialism, and future communism, according to Marx and Engels and Lenin, and then (very shortly) under socialism and future communism according to modern post-Leninistic communists.

In the third or "critical section," we shall first give a short survey of the section and then give a critique of the communist view of history and of each of the topics discussed in the doctrinal section. In every case, we shall first discuss the partial credibility of the communist views, and then mention their theoretical contradictions and the practical problems encountered in attempting to implement the communist program, where-after we shall give a transcendental critique of the topic and indicate the religious nature of the communist view thereof, and finally close with a short statement of the Christian philosophical view of the topic as a viable alternative to that of communism.

Every chapter of all three sections of the dissertation will commence with a statement of what is therein to be discussed and will end with a summary of the conclusions therein reached; and a final chapter on the general conclusions of the whole dissertation will be given after the end of the critical section.

The methodology and structure of the thesis, then, is fivefold: firstly, an introduction to the subject-with which we are presently engaged; secondly, a historical section-which follows next; thirdly, a doctrinal section-which follows thereafter; fourthly, a critical section-which evaluates the aforegoing; and finally, a conclusion-in which the findings of the whole dissertation will be presented.

8. Presuppositions of This Approach In trying to present a picture of communist eschatology as it really is, a number of presuppositions must be made at the

outset. By stating these presuppositions for the benefit of the reader, we are being critical of our own viewpoint, and thus we help the reader to understand the perspective from which we write so that he can easily determine the value of this dissertation for himself in terms of his own present standpoint.

The first presupposition that we have made in this dissertation is that the communistic account which we will cite in detail-the account of Marx and Engels and Lenin of the historical sources of their own views and the eschatological aims thereof-is a true reflection of what Marx and Engels and Lenin themselves really believed to be the case. On the whole, this has not proved terribly difficult to do, for as Marx and Engels wrote in the Manifesto of the Communist Party: "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims."525 On the whole, we have found this to be largely the case in respect of the writings of Marx and Engels, and, to a lesser extent, of Lenin (as opposed to the very deceptive and concealing nature of modern communistic propaganda writings).

The second presupposition is that we have correctly understood the Marxist-Leninist writings in the sense in which Marx and Engels and Lenin intended them to be understood. Particularly in view of the communist dialectic,153 care has to be taken in trying to determine the precise purpose of the communists when they made their statements, as well as in establishing the intended and actual meanings thereof. We have taken care to do this, even to the point of ourselves thinking dialectically about these writings, and we presuppose that we have succeeded. If we have not, we submit that the Marxist-Leninist writings are quite beyond the understanding of the average man. However, the large consensus of opinion183 among both communist and anti-communist experts as to the intended meaning of the documents, convinces us that we too have understood their message.

The third presupposition is that we have correctly evaluated the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin. Here we have tried to be scrupulously honest. For this reason, in our critical section, we will firstly give the communists all credit for discovering true states of affairs, where we believe this to be the case; and we believe that this part of our critique will satisfy every reader-even those sympathetic to communism. Only thereafter-but still only in terms of the communist assumptions themselves-will we draw attention to what we believe to be the contradictions and practical problems inherent in the communist views themselves and the inability thereof to account for other obvious states of affairs in the universe; and we believe that this part of our critique, the transcendental critique, will satisfy all non-communists and perhaps even cause the communists themselves to reexamine their own position. Only then will we propose a more satisfying account of the phenomena discussed: an account which we believe has none of the difficulties and inconsistencies of the communist view-viz., the Christian view.

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Our fourth presupposition, then, is that the Christian view is the correct one, as it indeed claims to be.154 We shall attempt to demonstrate why we believe that this is the case, by showing that the Christian view explains all the discovered states of affairs which communism cannot satisfactorily explain. In so doing, we believe that all Christian and many non-Christian non-communists and at least some communists themselves will be brought to admire the internal consistency and comprehensive accuracy of the Christian viewpoint, and, by the grace of God according to divine election, be brought to make it their own.

Our fifth presupposition, following from the fourth, is that the Bible is altogether trustworthy (even as it itself claims to be)155 as a guide even in the realm of philosophy and philosophical eschatology,156 and that we have correctly understood'57 the philosophical implications of its teachings, the most important of which are: that the Triune158 God alone is eternal159 and unchangeable;160 that He is the Creator,161 Sustainer,162 Redeemer,163 and Consummator164 of all165 things; that He created166 man as the very image 167 of God and viceroy168 of the universe to dominate and subdue it 169 to the glory of God ;170 that man deliberately turned and has continued to turn away171 from God, by putting his trust in one or more parts of the created universe instead,172 whereby he has become separated from the true Origin and the only Explanation of the universe;173 that only by the elective grace174 of God-by the Almighty Father,175 the First Person of the Triune God; and only through the merits of the 1ife176 and deaths177 and resurrection178 of Jesus Christ,179 the Second Person'80 of the Triune God; and only by the gracious operation'81 of the Holy Spirit,182 the Third Person183 of the Triune God-can man184 and his culture185 be saved; that the Bible is the infallible Word185 of the Triune God and gives us accurate information even regarding the nature of the universe itself,185b regarding our present inability186 to understand the universe satisfactorily without the help of the Bible, regarding our ability187 to understand the universe satisfactorily188 even if only partially189 with the help of the Bible,190 and regarding the necessity of our studying the universe itself,191 albeit always in the light192 of the Bible; and that the Bible further gives us broad192 yet accurate193 information concerning the course of future events in the universe,194 and. that this information can be systematized195 both for theological purposes196 and as a guide to the systematic analysis of the nature197 and tendency198 of the universe gained from the study of the universe itself-for purposes of philosophy199 and philosophical eschatology.200

Our sixth and final presupposition is that we have been able to present this dissertation clearly and understandably to the reader, so that he will know exactly what we mean, irrespective of whether he agrees with us, and that he will in this way have been adequately confronted with the tremendous importance of the subject as a whole.

9. Importance of the Subject

This, then, brings us to the importance of the subject as a whole. For why, it may he enquired, was it thought necessary

to write such a lengthy dissertation on the matter of communist philosophical eschatology? We submit that communist philosophical eschatology is of vital importance to at least four categories of people-to

communists, to non-communists, to anti-communists, and to Christians. Firstly, the subject of communist eschatology is of vital importance to communists themselves. And it is important for

both theoretical and practical reasons. It is important to communists for theoretical reasons, inasmuch as whereas idealistic bourgeois philosophers are

supposed to be unable to predict the future, materialistic "socialist philosophers" are; and for the latter, communist eschatology yields them a clear-cut theoretical understanding of the communist world toward which communists believe world history is inexorably unfolding.201

"Bourgeois philosophers," of course, will deny this, because, wrote Marx, they are not "disinterested inquirers" engaged in "genuine scientific research," but "hired prizefighters" haunted by a "bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic."202 Such bourgeois "professors of economics," wrote Lenin, "are nothing more than scientific salesmen of the capitalist class, and the [bourgeois] professors of philosophy are scientific salesmen of theology