Frederick Engels, one of the renowned founders of modern Socialism, taught that "nowadays in our evolutionary conception of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a Creator or a ruler."
("Socialism, Utopian and Scientific," by Frederick Engels, page 17 of the Introduction to the 1901 edition in English--New York Labor News Co.)
Wilhelm Liebknecht, who until shortly before his death in 1900 was one of the foremost leaders of the Socialist Party in Germany, addressing the Halle Convention, said: "As regards my own self, I had done with religion at an early age.... I am an atheist, I do not believe in G.o.d.... We may peacefully take our stand upon the ground of Socialism, and thus conquer the stupidity of the ma.s.ses in so far as stupidity reveals itself in religious forms and dogmas." The same German Socialist and atheist taught in his book, "Materialist Basis of History":
"It is our duty as Socialists to root out the faith in G.o.d with all our zeal, nor is anyone worthy the name, who does not consecrate himself to the spread of atheism."
August Bebel, who before his death in August, 1913, was the leader of the Socialists of Germany, gave many proofs of the intimate relation existing between Socialism and atheism. On September 16, 1878, he declared in the Reichstag:
"Gentlemen, you attack our views on religion because they are atheistic and materialistic. I acknowledge the correctness of the impeachment. I am firmly convinced that Socialism finally leads to atheism."
In the Reichstag, on December 31, 1881, he made the following profession of faith:
"In politics we profess Republicanism, in economics Socialism, in religion atheism."
According to the 1903 platform of the German Socialists, adopted at Dresden, "No religious instructions of any kind shall be given to children under the age of sixteen; after that they can select their own religious tenets and teachings, as they please. Superst.i.tious religious notions that are current among the less educated cla.s.ses are to be eradicated through proper instructions."
"The Comrade," September, 1904, confesses that the satirical weekly "L"Asino," published by the Socialists of Italy, and known throughout the world for its attacks on religion, carries on a bitter fight against the Catholic Church. In the early part of 1913, "L"Asino," speaking of the coming Italian election, boasted that the Socialists would proclaim their anti-clericalism and atheism in the public meetings.
The Austrian Socialists in convention at Linz, May 30, 1898, pa.s.sed a resolution proposed by Pernerstorfer to the effect that "Socialism is directly contradictory to Roman clericalism, which is enslaved to unyielding authority, immutable dogmas, and absolute intellectual thralldom. We doubt all authority, we know of no immutable dogma, we are the champions of right, liberty and conscience." [Reported in "Vorwarts," 1898, no. 126, suppl.]
The bitter persecution that has for years been waged against the church in France is too well known to require much comment. The representatives of the French Socialist Party at Tours in March, 1903, voted upon a program from which several clauses will be cited:
"The Socialist Party needs to organize a new world, free minds emanc.i.p.ated from superst.i.tion and prejudices. It asks for and guarantees every human being, every individual, absolute freedom of thinking, and writing and affirming their beliefs. Over against all religious dogmas and churches as well as over against the cla.s.s conceptions of the bourgeoisie, it sets the unlimited right of free thought, the scientific conception of the universe, and a system of public education based exclusively on science and reason. Thus accustomed to free thought and reflection, citizens will be protected against the sophistries of the capitalistic and clerical reaction." The program also declares for the "abolition of the congregations, nationalization of property in mortmain of every kind belonging to them, and appropriation of it for works of social insurance and solidarity."
In the Tours program, therefore, we have the open confession of the Socialist Party of France that it is anti-religious and that it favors the disgraceful robbery of the church that has for many years been going on in that country.
The Belgian Socialists are quite as violent as the French in their hatred of the church, for in addition to the large number of vile anti-religious pamphlets distributed during the campaign that preceded the elections of 1912, we have the testimony of no less an authority than the Socialist leader, Emile Vandervelde, in the "Social Democrat,"
England, January, 1903:
"In the end the question to be solved is: what is the essential aim of Socialism? There is not a Socialist who would hesitate to say that it is the emanc.i.p.ation of the workers, the freedom of the proletariat--and by this freedom we mean its complete freedom, the abolition of all slavery in the spiritual sphere as well as in the material sphere.... Can a sincere believer follow the church"s teachings and yet be a Socialist? We are bound to admit that both in philosophy and in politics there must be war between Socialism and the Church."
In England, too, the Socialists are the avowed enemies of religion.
Blatchford, who is well known to his comrades for his extreme work in propagating Socialism by the pen, wrote in the "Clarion," October 4, 1907:
"Believing that the Christian religion was untrue, and believing that all supernatural religions were inimical to human progress, and foreseeing that a conflict between Socialism and religion was inevitable, I attacked the Christian religion. I am working for Socialism when I attack religion which is hindering it."
Again in his book, "G.o.d and My Neighbor," Blatchford utters the following blasphemies:
"I am an easiful old pagan, and I am not angry with you at all--you funny little champion of the Most High....
"This is the G.o.d of Heaven? This is the Father of Christ? This is the Creator of the Milky Way? No! He will not do. He is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not clean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare, a bad dream born in the savage minds of terror and ignorance and a tigerish l.u.s.t for blood....
"Is this unspeakable monster the Father of Christ? Is he the G.o.d who inspireth Buddha and Shakespeare and Beethoven and Darwin and Plato? No, not he. But in warfare and ma.s.sacre, in rapine and rape, in black revenge and in deadly malice, in slavery and polygamy, and the debas.e.m.e.nt of women, and in the pomps, vanities and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter--we may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable personality."
This book, which teaches atheism from cover to cover, could be bought for a dollar a copy in 1912 at the National Office of the Socialist Party in Chicago, Ill. In the May, 1917, issue of the "International Socialist Review," "G.o.d and My Neighbor," by Blatchford, is thus advertised:
"Is the Bible true? This is the chief subject of debate today between Christians and Scientists the world over. Robert Blatchford says: "Is the Bible a holy and inspired book and the Word of G.o.d to man, or is it an incongruous and contradictory collection of tribal tradition and ancient fables, written by men of genius and imaginations? Mr. Blatchford believes religions are not revealed, they are evolved.
""We cannot accept as the G.o.d of Creation," he writes, "this savage idol, Jehovah, of an obscure tribe, and we have renounced him and are ashamed of him, not because of any later divine revelation, but because mankind have become too enlightened to tolerate Jehovah.""
Ernest Bax, an Englishman, one of the greatest authorities in the world on Socialism, an author who, even in America, has been styled "the most accomplished writer on behalf of Socialism in this and perhaps in any country," in his book, "Religion of Socialism," thus testifies to the relation existing between Socialism and religion:
"In what sense Socialism is not religious will now be clear. It utterly despises the other world with all its stage properties--that is, the present objects of religion." ["Religion of Socialism," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 52 of 1891 edition.]
Who could imagine any more convincing testimony of the atheistic and anti-religious nature of the Socialist movement than the following words of the English Socialist, James Leathan, in "Socialism and Character":
"At the present moment I cannot remember a single instance of a person who is at one and the same time a really earnest and intelligent Socialist and an orthodox Christian. Those who do not openly attack the church and the fabric of Christianity, show but scant respect to either the one or the other in private.... And while all of us are thus indifferent to the church, many of us are frankly hostile to her. Marx, La.s.salle and Engels among earlier Socialists; Morris, Bax, Hyndman, Guesde and Bebel among present-day Socialists--are all more or less avowed atheists; and what is true of the more notable men of the party is almost equally true of the rank and file the world over."
In 1910 a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Socialism and Religion" was issued by the Revolutionists of Great Britain. One quotation from it will amply suffice to show the utter contempt of the English[15] Socialist for religion:
"If a man supports the church, or in any respect allows religious ideas to stand in the way of principles of Socialism, or activity of the party, he proves thereby that he does not accept Socialism as fundamentally true and of the first importance, and his place is outside. No man can be consistently both a Socialist and a Christian. It must either be the Socialist or the religious principle that is supreme, for the attempt to couple them equally together betrays charlatanism or lack of thought. There is, therefore, no need for a specifically anti-religious test. So surely does the acceptance of Socialism lead to the exclusion of the supernatural, that the Socialist has little need for such terms as atheist, freethinker or even materialist, for the word Socialist, rightly understood, implies one who (on all such questions) takes his stand on positive science, explaining all things by purely natural causation--Socialism being not merely a politico-economic creed, but an integral part of a consistent world philosophy."
"The Western Clarion," a publication of the Canadian Socialists, declared in its issue of May 23, 1914, that the Socialist Party of Canada would have "no compromise with advocates of Christianity."
Alvarado, the governor of Yucatan, and his criminal sustainers several years ago drove the clergy from the country, turned the churches into I.
W. W. meeting houses, and turned some, as in the case of the Cathedral of Merida, even into warehouses. Religion was outlawed and an atheist tyranny established. Alvarado is an ardent I. W. W. Socialist of the most violent sort. His advent into Yucatan from the lawless northern part of Mexico was marked by wholesale confiscation of property, by robbery and outrage. His vile subordinates, of like origin with himself, committed loathsome crimes, unspeakable and without number, and no opportunity was overlooked to persecute the unhappy people whose acc.u.mulations by thrift and industry and whose steadfast adherence to their religion marked them as certain victims of robbery, murder and outrage.
"The Call," New York, April 9, 1919, informs us that the workers in Yucatan have elected a succession of Socialist governors, and in its issue of April 14, 1919, under the caption, "Up to the Minute Official Socialist News," we read the following:
"Felipe Carrillo, president of the Socialist Party of Yucatan, Mexico, spoke on conditions in Yucatan. Among other things he said: "The Socialist Party of America should do everything possible against intervention in Mexico.... All the public officials, from the highest to the lowest, are members of the Socialist party....
There is no middle cla.s.s in Yucatan.... The Socialist Party of Yucatan has been in power three years."
"A rising vote was taken, expressing our fraternal greetings to Felipe Carrillo and the Comrades of Yucatan."
The April 9, 1919, issue of "The Call" informs us that Alvardo in 1915 organized the Socialist Party of Yucatan, 62,700 members of which belong to the League of Resistance, an organization which, we are told, is purely economic in its activities.
What a strange name for an economic league, especially in Mexico, where economics have for some years been taught by the torch, bomb, dagger!
The March, 1919, edition of "The Eye Opener," the official organ of the Socialist Party of the United States, throws a little light on this economic league of "the knights of the red flag." On page 4 of that issue we are told that among the principles of the League of Resistance are the following:
"The Land is Mother, and Labor is the Father of Humanity.
Attack no one without motive, but never present the other cheek to any who has struck one.
Fly from the religions, princ.i.p.ally the Catholic religion, as from the plagues."
The article on the economic League of Resistance ends with the call of Yucatan to the rest of the continent: "Workers of the world, unite."
Carillo is then quoted as saying:
"Never will labor conquer until it understands solidarity. Political action, economic action, perhaps military action--todos metodos necesitamos. En todas las epocas del mundo, rifley dynamita sean necesarios; pero siempre y sobre todo, solidaridad." The words, "rifley dynamita" mean nothing and are evidently a misprint for "rifle y dynamita." There was good reason for letting the words remain in the Spanish in the official organ of the Socialist Party of the United States, for if "rifle y dynamita" were the Spanish words meant, their translation would be:
"We need all means. In all periods of the world"s history, the rifle and dynamite may be necessary, but always and above all solidarity."
So much for the _economic_ League of Resistance of the Socialists of Yucatan, which has been destroying both religion and civilization alike!
Carrillo, its president, has been greeted throughout our country by the Socialists, who have been extending their fraternal greetings also to the rest of their "Comrades in Yucatan."
CHAPTER XIX