Theocracy or Democracy ? By Arnold Petersen Published Online by Socialist Labor Party of America www.slp.org February 2007 Theocracy or Democracy? By Arnold Petersen PUBLISHING HISTORY PRINTED EDITION ................................... August 1944 ONLINE EDITION ..................................... February 2007 NEW YORK LABOR NEWS P.O. BOX 218 MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA 94042-0218 http://www.slp.org/nyln.htm THE moment religion organizes into a specific creed it becomes a political force. From Moses down to Brigham Young, every creed-founder has been a State- builder. Creeds being in their essence political, they fatedly reflect economic and social, in short, material conditions—and struggle for the same. As a final consequence, every creed, like every political party, naturally and sincerely holds all others wrong, itself alone the one entitled to survive. .. . It is important to realize this great historic fact. It tears away the mask of religion behind which political aspirations love to conceal themselves. The tearing away of the mask serves the double purpose of thwarting deception, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, of promoting a spirit of intelligent fair play on the part of any one political body toward all others, including of course the unmasked political bodies as well. —Daniel De Leon (1912) PREFACE. The Catholic Church is a splendid model to learn from.—Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf. This essay is not an attack on religion as such, nor an affirmation of atheism, monism, “philosophical materialism,” or any of their kindred. It is not an assault on Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism, or any other religious faith or belief. It is primarily and emphatically an affirmation of the principle (the American principle, we may justly call it, because of its first practical and originally sincere and serious application by the founding fathers of America) that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and that it is only the “governed”—the people—who can and must determine the foundation and form of government; and that “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such [outmoded or unsatisfactory] Government and to provide new Guards for their future security.” This brief essay, then, is an effort to expose and repel the attempts made from whatever quarter to subvert the revolutionary democratic principles of the founders of America. It is, in its negative sense, a denial of the theocratic claim that “The powers that be are ordained of God,” hence a denial that this country is a “Christian” country or the country of any other creed; that this government is a “Christian” government, or the government of any other creed; that this civilization which we acclaim in the name of American democracy is a “Christian” civilization, or the civilization of any other creed. It is, obviously, a denial of the impudent claim that any person can, or does, hold this world (or any part thereof) in custody, or that he can determine the fate and well-being (or otherwise) of the people, or that he can and should rule them (directly or indirectly) in behalf of a divine power as the vicar or super-representative of such supposed divine power. It is, moreover, a denial of the equally impudent claim, most characteristically made by an industrial feudalist, the late Pennsylvania coal baron, George F. Baer, that “The rights and interests of the laboring men will be protected and cared for—not by the labor agitators [how true!], but by the Christian men to whom God, in His infinite wisdom, has given the control of the property interests of the country.” This essay, to repeat, is in its positive sense an affirmation of the Jeffersonian principle that power and supreme authority derive solely from the mass of the people and that there is “no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but Socialist Labor Party 4 www.slp.org Theocracy or Democracy? the people themselves” (Jefferson); that even as power can reside safely only in the mass of the people, so, ultimately, wisdom springs alone from the genius of the people in the mass, irrespective of occasional lapses and incidental aberrations; and that government, to be just and effective, must not alone derive its powers from the mass of the people, but must be directly responsive to the everyday needs of the mass of the people, which in our day means that it must be responsive to the needs of the people primarily in their capacities as industrial workers; hence, their democracy must be a “workshop democracy,” or an Industrial Democracy of, by and for the working people, without intervention by usurping powers, whether supernatural or otherwise. It is with these negative and positive claims that this work deals. In so far as there appear to be attacks in this work on so-called religious bodies, they are, first, not attacks, properly speaking, but counterattacks on those whose claims and pretensions deny the American principle that governments derive their powers from the mass of the people—attacks by those who affirm the reactionary principle that governments derive their powers from a divine source, or are ordained by a divine or supernatural power, be the specific designation of that source or power what it may. Secondly, they are attacks on those very mundane and material interests and individuals who appear in the guise of representatives of a supposed ipso facto divinity, shielding themselves in the cloak of religion, and operating, as said, in behalf of political and private property interests. These latter are, in fine, the de facto attackers and subverters of the basic American (and potentially universal) democratic principles—principles without which there can be neither liberty nor an untrammeled pursuit of attainable happiness. And when, or if, the cry is set up that this work is an attack on “religion,” etc., it should be clear that those who would thus react to the “attacks” in this essay speak for and in behalf of vested interests, whether vested church interests, or vested political and private property or ruling class interests generally. This, then, is manifestly no assault on religion nor in any sense a plea for atheism. Atheism, as commonly understood, is essentially reactionary and sterile. It rests its case (if it can be said to have a case) on a mere negation, and, for the rest, accepts the very social and politico-economic principles which prepare and preserve the soil in which grow the doctrines, and in which are nurtured the theocratic claims and dogmas, thereby to that extent insuring the continuation of class rule and the uninterrupted fleecing of labor by capitalism. To attack religion, pure and Socialist Labor Party 5 www.slp.org Theocracy or Democracy? simple, is to engage in the pastime of fools. Socialism has no patience with such infantile practices. Were every vestige of religion wiped out, and the social and economic principles of capitalism left undisturbed, nothing essential would be changed. This the crafty leaders of organized creeds well understand. And they understand, too, that the “menace” of Socialism, or Marxism, is a menace only to the grossly materialistic substance on which subsist the hordes of church-politicians (theocratic and Ultramontane politicians), and not to the simple faith to which cling the oppressed and exploited masses—a faith which, stripped of the irrelevant supernatural or superstitious, resolves itself into a code of ethics and morals which, insofar as it is true and responsive to the spiritual and ethical needs of modern man, is compatible with any social order, however secular and mundane, which is based on social and economic justice. The Marxian Socialist, ever sane and realistic, does not waste his time and effort firing “bullets” into heavenly mansions! He saves his metaphorical powder and lead for assaults on the very earthy capitalist robber-burg, and has little concern about the particular garment worn by the defenders on the capitalist ramparts—cares little whether these defenders are garbed in bourgeois mufti or in the black uniforms of churchianity! * Evidence accumulates that there is on foot a well planned and cleverly directed scheme for instituting a theocratic regime in the postwar world, if that postwar world becomes “frozen” in a feudo-industrialist mold—as will not happen if the workers respond to the Marxian organizing call of the Socialist Labor Party. It seems proper to take note here of some of these plans and schemes, especially those embraced in the developments since this essay first appeared (1941) in the Socialist Labor Party publication, Fifty Years of American Marxism. Since the active universal element in these theocratic plottings is the Ultramontane machine (the international Roman Catholic “Party”), our chief concern here will be with the doings of that clerico-political organization. Numerous manifestoes and pronouncements have been issued by the Vatican and the hierarchy since the outbreak of the war. Most of these reveal the essential oneness of Ultramontanism and fascism, despite mutual hostility between the hierarchy and Fascist and Nazi governmental gangsters. The truth of the matter is that there is no real or basic conflict between the authoritarian Vatican and the Socialist Labor Party 6 www.slp.org Theocracy or Democracy? authoritarian and totalitarian Nazi-Fascist State. Though the Vatican may decry collectivism, its social polity is framed for, and can only fit into, a feudo-collectivist mold which is nothing else than the Nazi-Fascist mold. The Vatican despises the Hitlers and the Mussolinis and their crude and barbarous methods, but admires their basic social and economic program. It was none other than Hitler’s trusted errand-boy, Franz von Papen (an avowed Catholic) who, according to the magazine, The Protestant, June-July 1942 issue, declared: “The Third [Nazi] Reich is the first power in the world not only to recognize but to translate into practice the high principles of the Papacy.” Von Papen should know! On the other hand, the Nazis generally hold in contempt the Popes and the priests, though they tolerate them so long as they can use them. They recognize in Catholic social organization the identical pattern of the Nazi-Fascist “new order”—the corporate state, the “divinely inspired” fuehrer principle, and the belief that the few are born to govern and command the supposedly inarticulate and dumb masses. And each vies with the other in hatred of Marxian Socialism. There is, then, no essential difference in principles, but it is thoroughly understandable that the Vatican should regard the Nazis and Fascists as upstarts and interlopers, as crude and vulgar brutes and guttersnipes! The Pope has repeatedly insisted that the postwar world must be based on the acceptance of the Church’s “Christian” social principle which (when details are called for) is identified as the principle laid down in Leo XIII’s famous encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), which, in turn, constitutes in effect the constitution of an industrial slave state, a stratified class society wherein the rulers are implored to be kind to their slaves, and these latter directed to be obedient to their masters. These injunctions were repeated by Pope Pius XII in his address delivered May 13, 1942, in which the masses were enjoined to be “obedient to those who command them and to God. That is the will of the Creator.” (Italics mine.) Last August the New York Times (August 26, 1942) reported that Msgr. John A. Ryan, of the “National Catholic Welfare Conference,” suggested to “legislators and rulers” “to follow Catholic social teaching in setting up a new social order. .. .” And in an obviously Vatican-inspired article, Camille M. Cianfarra, for seven years Vatican correspondent to the New York Times, wrote: “The Vatican, being a conservative force, feels that its help will be invaluable to the Anglo-American powers in the period of postwar reconstruction.” (New York Times, October 4, 1942.) Socialist Labor Party 7 www.slp.org Theocracy or Democracy? Invaluable, indeed! And does the Pope think there will be any conflict between his social and political ideas and those of the “Anglo-American powers”? Evidently not, for Mr. Cianfarra reports: “His [the Pope’s] conception of world order is held in Vatican quarters to be similar to that of the democratic powers.” We know what the Pope’s “conception of world order” is. And if this is “similar” to those of Roosevelt and Churchill (not to mention Stalin!), then by the same token we also know what “new” world order is being planned for us by Messrs. Roosevelt, Churchill & Co. It is an “order” wherein the workers are reduced to the status of absolute economic serfdom, with the masters (through the collective agency of the authoritarian theocratic State) in complete control exercising power over the lives and fortunes of the masses to a greater extent than at any time in history. And in this connection it is well to remember the several missions to the Vatican by Mr. Roosevelt’s personal representative, Mr. Myron C. Taylor. In the New York Herald Tribune of September 23, 1942, it is reported that Mr. Taylor “has laid the groundwork for postwar collaboration in the task of world rehabilitation through his talks with Pope Pius XII in the opinion of Vatican observers.” In the same dispatch it is movingly and tenderly reported that— “The Pope loves all, the happy and those who are suffering, gentlemen and slaves [!!], the poor and the rich.” As author Bemelman would say: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” The New York World-Telegram, commenting editorially (September 24) on Mr. Taylor’s visit to the Pope, made this significant observation: “There is probably a good deal more to the Roosevelt-Vatican negotiations than meets the eye. The President would hardly have sent Myron Taylor to talk at such length with the Pope on routine matters.” (Italics mine.) Hardly! * Socialist Labor Party 8 www.slp.org Theocracy or Democracy? A Vichy despatch, dated July 15, 1942 (published in the New York Herald Tribune), announced that the Pope was then preparing “a peace encyclical.” The Vichy dispatch goes on to say that, “It was said that the encyclical, which will be sent to bishops all over the world, also will contain provisions seeking to maintain the present Catholic authoritarian regimes in Italy, Spain, Portugal and France.” (Italics mine.) With the implication, one may suppose, that similar “regimes” will be planted elsewhere in the postwar “democratic” world. For that postwar world, even if it is under the benevolent aegis of the Vatican, will, of course, be a “democratic” world! At least, so said the recent statement issued by the Catholic “Inter-American Seminar on Social Studies” (New York Times, September 15, 1942). Here we are told that— “Democracy, whatever its deficiencies may have been in the past [!] .. .when it is directed by Christian principles constitutes a system under which Christian [Ultramontane] living can be best achieved.” (Italics mine.) The statement also insists that “The Christian concept of labor must be reestablished.” That is fair warning. What is that “Christian concept of labor”? It is the concept expressed in Leo XIII’s encyclical already referred to under which, as stated, the working class is reduced to a permanent slave class in whom is to be inculcated respect for the “God-ordained” authorities, and a proper respect for the theocratic partners of the feudal industrial lords. A concept, in other words, which guarantees as never before to the masters of industry the overwhelming bulk of the product of labor, with but a slave’s pittance for the workers. The rulers are, however, warned that their slaves must be well fed: “The poor must live well,” is the alluring way the theocratic gentlemen put it. And the expected dependence of the feudo-industrialist masters on the Church is underscored and emphasized again and again, as for instance: “It is a fatal error to regard economic life as independent of the moral teachings of the Church.” And this spiritual and political guidance is promised by the Church which for a thousand years maintained all but supreme rule in a world based on its (then) socio- political principles—a church, indeed, which less than one hundred years ago (through its head the Pope) condemned progress and science unqualifiedly! Indeed, Socialist Labor Party 9 www.slp.org Theocracy or Democracy? the aforementioned “Inter-American Seminary’s” statement unwittingly calls attention to this fact when it avers that “The crisis [global war, etc.] has its ultimate origin in the disruption of Christian unity and the pagan Renaissance.” By this the theocratic state planners mean the Reformation and the birth of modern civilization! In other words, that which civilized and cultured men hail as the world’s liberation from the physical and intellectual thralldom of the dark, medieval period, and as the “rebirth” (“renaissance” =rebirth) of society and civilized living, the theocratic propagandists condemn! What does this mean if it does not mean that the principles and practices of the pre-renaissance age are recommended as the pattern for the “new” theocratic world order? The agile Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen recently spoke in West Haven, Connecticut, on the subject of “going back to God.” The New Haven Evening Register of November 17 reports him in part as follows: “Monsignor Sheen traced the beginning of the present conflict back to the 18th century WHEN THE POWER OF REASON RATHER THAN TRUTH BECAME WIDELY PRACTICED.” (Incidentally, one could wish that the brethren would get together and agree on what should be designated as the origin of “the present conflict.” John A. Ryan and associates insist that its origin is to be found “in the disruption of Christian unity . .. ,” etc., which dates it as of the sixteenth century. Sheen “traced the present conflict back to the eighteenth century.” It is only a matter of 200 years, but, after all, that is still several lifetimes! Could it be that the reverend gentlemen do not know, and do not understand?) Observe the cunning and crafty injection of a surreptitious premise in this brief sentence. “Reason” and “Truth” are placed in juxtaposition as if they precluded each other. The theocratic gentleman does not explain how one can arrive at the truth in mundane matters (he was discussing “the present conflict”) except through reasoning and a consideration of the facts. Nor does he attempt to make clear how one can follow the dictates of reason and not eventually arrive at the truth, other things being equal. But let that pass. Of particular interest here is the condemnation of reason. Reason, the capacity for reasoning things out, is the mark of spiritual and intellectual manhood. Deprived of that, man sinks to the level of the brute, that which separates man from the beast being precisely the capacity of the former to reason, to appraise facts and to reach conclusions and decisions. Reason, Socialist Labor Party 10 www.slp.org