Was V. I. Lenin a bit of a Christian fundamentalist?

[Boojatta]

From Matthew 25 (King James Version; public domain):

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

Not only did Lenin refuse to provide adequate food, water, and clothing to a number of people who lacked them, but Lenin deliberately caused many people to lose access to adequate food, water, and clothing. He authorized the gulag.

On a very literal reading, Lenin could try to argue that the above verses don't condemn him. He could say, "Well, my political opponents were all either relatively wealthy or relatively well-educated. Therefore, they cannot be considered 'the least of these'. Only those who failed to help 'the least of these' are condemned.

He could say, "For example, a typical politically active Menshevik was well-educated compared to the average citizen of the USSR and was therefore outside the category 'the least of these'. Farmers wealthier than their neighbors, regardless of how poor they were compared to the average resident of Moscow, were outside the category 'the least of these'. In addition, Esperanto enthusiasts, and a wide variety of other people were all outside the category 'the least of these'."

However, surely anyone who isn't a fundamentalist would be willing to accept the following as a paraphrase of the underlined sentence that is at the end of the above excerpt from the KJB.

Inasmuch as you failed to provide for anyone, even the least of these, you failed to provide for me.

[billyoc]

1. Or was Christ a Marxist?

Ballad of the Carpenter -- Ewan MacColl(banned from entry to the US)

Jesus was a working man
And a hero you will hear
Born in the town of Bethlehem
At the turning of the year
At the turning of the year

When Jesus was a little lad
Streets rang with his name
For he argued with the older men
And put them all to shame
He put them all to shame

He became a wandering journeyman
And he traveled far and wide
And he noticed how wealth and poverty
Live always side by side
Live always side by side

So he said "Come you working men
Farmers and weavers too
If you would only stand as one
This world belongs to you
This world belongs to you"

When the rich men heard what the carpenter had done
To the Roman troops they ran
Saying put this rebel Jesus down
He's a menace to God and man
He's a menace to God and man

The commander of the occupying troops
Just laughed and then he said
"There's a cross to spare on Calvaries hill
By the weekend he'll be dead
By the weekend he'll be dead"

Now Jesus walked among the poor
For the poor were his own kind
And they'd never let them get near enough
To take him from behind
To take him from behind

So they hired one of the traders trade
And an informer was he
And he sold his brother to the butchers men
For a fistful of silver money
For a fistful of silver money

And Jesus sat in the prison cell
And they beat him and offered him bribes
To desert the cause of his fellow man
And work for the rich men's tribe,
To work for the rich men's tribe

And the sweat stood out on Jesus' brow
And the blood was in his eye
When they nailed his body to the Roman cross
And they laughed as they watched him die
They laughed as they watched him die

Two thousand years have passed and gone
Many a hero too
But the dream of this poor carpenter
Remains in the hands of you
Remains in the hands of you

[Boojatta]

2. I asked about Lenin, not Marx.

Did Marx express approval of the idea of putting people into labor camps without due process and even though the people weren't guilty of violating any specific law?

Anyway, if French impressionist painting reminded me of the style of Michelangelo, then I wouldn't ask whether Michelangelo was a French impressionist. I would ask whether French impressionists had adopted some aspects of Michelangelo's style. Furthermore, the gap in time from the New Testament to the writings of Marx is much greater than the gap in time from Michelangelo to the French impressionists.

[edhopper]

4. All Hail Marx and Lennon

[edhopper]

3. Wow

I can now identify a Boojatta thread just from the title.

[knitter4democracy]

5. Fundamentalists would argue that they follow that teaching.

Considering how many churches are in poor areas and have soup kitchens and take clothing donations and such, all done quietly without the big publicity machines of the major evangelists of the movement, they could make a case that many of them are following that teaching.

So, if they are doing God's will in taking care of the least of these, how the heck does that make Lenin one of them?

[rug]

6. No, Christ didn't have to deal with Czarists and invaders intent on strangling the revolution.

[Boojatta]

7. How big is the difference between Czar-ists and Caesar-ists?

You do realize that the October revolution itself strangled the February revolution, don't you? Unless I'm mistaken, there was a provisional democratic government in Russia around February 1917. If I'm not mistaken, then the Czarist government was already on the scrap heap of history before Lenin tried to "give history a push."

[rug]

8. Czar is derived from Caesar, as is Tsar.

Kerensky was overthrown in October (Julian calendar) and the peace-loving capitalist democracies immediately invaded from both sides of the continent.

[Boojatta]

9. In your opinion, was Kerensky a Czarist?

Jesus seems a bit irrelevant to this discussion. He wasn't a Christian fundamentalist. He spoke out specifically against people who elevate their interpretation of the letter of religious rules above the spirit of those rules.

[rug]

10. No, i think he was a republican.

As far as Jesus Christ goes, I don't think he had one whit to do with politics. His whole life was about God and people, two topics far removed from politics and government, which is all about class interests.

[Boojatta]

11. Is the desire for "intelligent design" to be taught in public school biology classes

an example of a "class interest"? If it is an example of a class interest, then it's an example of an interest of the Christian fundamentalist class.

[rug]

13. No. That theological quibble is one of many the ruling economic classes use to divide people.

My rule of thumb is, what does this have to do with the price of bread.

[Dorian Gray]

24. Czar

in itself is a Russianization of Caesar, anyhow.

That didn't really add much, just a little bit of pointless information.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Sliming Lenin with the Bible is kind of odd considering the millions murdered in the name of Christ

The anarchist Mikhail Bakunin had a few choice words to say about the GAWD of the Bible:

The Bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty - Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.

We know what followed. The good God, whose foresight, which is one of the divine faculties, should have warned him of what would happen, flew into a terrible and ridiculous rage; he cursed Satan, man, and the world created by himself, striking himself so to speak in his own creation, as children do when they get angry; and, not content with smiting our ancestors themselves, he cursed them in all the generations to come, innocent of the crime committed by their forefathers. Our Catholic and Protestant theologians look upon that as very profound and very just, precisely because it is monstrously iniquitous and absurd. Then, remembering that he was not only a God of vengeance and wrath, but also a God of love, after having tormented the existence of a few milliards of poor human beings and condemned them to an eternal hell, he took pity on the rest, and, to save them and reconcile his eternal and divine love with his eternal and divine anger, always greedy for victims and blood, he sent into the world, as an expiatory victim, his only son, that he might be killed by men. That is called the mystery of the Redemption, the basis of all the Christian religions. Still, if the divine Savior had saved the human world! But no; in the paradise promised by Christ, as we know, such being the formal announcement, the elect will number very few. The rest, the immense majority of the generations present and to come, will burn eternally in hell. In the meantime, to console us, God, ever just, ever good, hands over the earth to the government of the Napoleon Thirds, of the William Firsts, of the Ferdinands of Austria, and of the Alexanders of all the Russias.

Such are the absurd tales that are told and the monstrous doctrines that are taught, in the full light of the nineteenth century, in all the public schools of Europe, at the express command of the government. They call this civilizing the people! Is it not plain that all these governments are systematic poisoners, interested stupefies of the masses?

God and the State (1871)

Mikhail Bakunin

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/godstate/ch01.htm

While Lenin had some definite ideas as to the role of religion in a secular world:

Religion must be declared a private affair. In these words socialists usually express their attitude towards religion. But the meaning of these words should be accurately defined to prevent any misunderstanding. We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our Party is concerned. Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to ecclesiastical and religious societies. These should become absolutely free associations of like-minded citizens, associations independent of the state. Only the complete fulfilment of these demands can put an end to the shameful and accursed past when the church lived in feudal dependence on the state, and Russian citizens lived in feudal dependence on the established church, when medieval, inquisitorial laws (to this day remaining in our criminal codes and on our statute-books) were in existence and were applied, persecuting men for their belief or disbelief, violating men’s consciences, and linking cosy government jobs and government-derived incomes with the dispensation of this or that dope by the established church. Complete separation of Church and State is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church.

Socialism and Religion (1905)

V.I. Lenin

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm

[Boojatta]

15. "odd considering the millions murdered in the name of Christ"

Do you deny that Lenin authorized the gulag? I don't see how I can be guilty of "sliming" or slandering Lenin if I describe historical facts.

Do you think that if an individual deliberately kills without excuse (for example, doesn't kill in self-defense), and kills in the name of Christ, then the name "Christ" should take all of the blame and that the individual should not be blamed at all? If not, then perhaps creation of the gulag cannot be blamed entirely on the name "communism." In that case, the man Lenin deserves at least some blame.

[IndianaGreen]

18. It was the Christian Tsars that began the gulag, and the pogroms

People forget the sort of scum the Romanovs and their ilk were.

[knitter4democracy]

19. We also tend to forget the Civil War.

Immediately after the takeover of the provisional government, the Whites attacked and started the Red/White Civil War. In trying to keep their new government together and on top, Lenin and the Party made some decisions that later became real problems. Because they were forged in the heat of war, though, people in power took them to be the only good way to handle dissidents.

[Boojatta]

21. What's the distinction between "takeover" and "attacked"?

Are you trying to suggest that the Bolsheviks acquired their initial political power through a peaceful process?

[knitter4democracy]

22. None. Both were violent.

Of course, when the Bolsheviki found the provisional government hiding in the Malachite room in the Winter Palace, there wasn't a struggle then or anything violent. The violence came later in convincing everyone else that they were in power.

Having actually studied Russian history, culture, and language in Russia, while it was awhile ago, I'd say that it was messed up before the Revolution and messed up after.

[Boojatta]

20. Do you know where the word "gulag" comes from?

Many Bolsheviks had contempt for pre-Bolshevik Russian governments partly because many Bolsheviks had an easy time escaping from where they were held as political prisoners. Thus, when they established a government, they made sure to themselves label many people as "enemies of the people", force them into camps, and make escape as difficult as possible.

[knitter4democracy]

23. Yeah, those holes up in Arkhangel'sk were so easy to get out of.

Back during the Old Believers controversy, they marched Old Believers across country up to Arkhangel'sk and dropped them into deep holes they'd made previous prisoners dig out of the permafrost. When they died, they kept the bodies down there, and they didn't always remember to drop down food.

Exile was one thing. When the tsar wanted you to disappear, you did.

[Occam Bandage]

14. Or, he could say, "I'm not a Christian. Religion is a force of economic oppression."

[Boojatta]

16. Kerensky could say that he's not a Republican.

Unless there was actually a Republican Party in Russia, Kerensky would be telling the truth.

[Occam Bandage]

17. If someone asked him how he might be viewed in light of the Republican Party platform,

that would be the appropriate response.

[Taverner]

25. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Beria - thy names are legion

Corrupted Marxism, Revolution and killed off a good third of the USSR.

Lenin was to Marx as Hitler was to Nietzsche