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p Religious ideology has a key role to play in the ideological defence of capitalism, and there is good reason why that is so.

p Back in 1913, Lenin remarked on the emergence of this tendency. He said that the time would come when the bourgeoisie in command of the most advanced capitalist countries would, out of fear of the growing and strengthening proletariat, support everything that was backward, moribund and medieval. However, the bourgeoisie’s attempts to make religion serve the cause of defending capitalism are now being made in a new situation. The authority of religion is being inevitably undermined by the unparalleled growth of the influence of the ideas of socialism and Marxism-Leninism, and the growing authority of science, something some bourgeois ideologists have had to admit. One of them, John Rees, says: “It has often been said that many people are attracted to Marxism because it offers a comprehensive view of the world and the destiny of man in secular terms at a time when science has weakened the hold of religious faith.”  [206•1 

p All of this has forced the clerical champions of capitalism to improve the instruments they are using to exert an ideological influence on men’s mind, to develop the religious social doctrine, and to make use of ever subtler and more refined “arguments” to prove the existence of God.

p In every period of history, God’s name has been used to sanctify social inequality, the division of society into rich and poor, the exploiters and the exploited, that is, to justify the very foundation of antagonistic society. At the same time, religious ideology sought to provide a universal ground for consolation of the oppressed,  [206•2  so as to take the steam out of the social protest, and to dampen the working people’s social activity with promises of reward for their suffering on earth in a hereafter.

p Let us bear in mind that religion has always served as a 207 lightning conductor which was used to ground the discontent of the masses. Making use of its traditional social demagogy, the clerical ideologists criticised the defects and shortcomings of exploiting society by claiming that man was by nature sinful, and seeking to create, by advocating “moral self-improvement”, an illusion that these shortcomings could be corrected while the basis of the exploiting system remained. In this way, such “criticism” has long performed the functions of ideological defence of the exploiting society.

p This function became most handy for the imperialist exploiters in the present epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. In a collection issued in 1922, by the American Academy of Political and Social Science, P. H. Callahan, a businessman, declared, for instance, that the intervention of the church in the relations between the capitalists and the workers “is all that can stay the swing of the pendulum to the other extreme where, as today in Russia, the once favoured classes will be trampled down and destroyed”.  [207•1 

p At the turn of the century, Abbot A. Kannengieser wrote: “Nothing can stop the formidable advance of socialism except Catholicism.”  [207•2 

p That is still the prevailing view. The incumbent US President, Richard Nixon, has said that the Roman Catholic Church is one of the most powerful barriers for communism in every part of the world.

p Pope Leo XIII said that the Roman Catholic Church had much more power for fighting communism than all the human laws, the orders of the authorities and the weapons of soldiers.  [207•3 

p In his Encyclical “Divini Redemptoris” Pope Pius XI said that the Popes had warned against the communist danger more frequently and with greater conviction than any other social force in this world, and that the most urgent task of the day was vigorously to resort to effective means to block the way of revolution.

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p That is precisely the purpose for which the imperialists have been using the clericals’ extensive experience in stultifying the minds of the masses, the power of long religious habit, which still keeps a large section of the working people under the influence of religious dogmas, the flexibility and demagogic character of religious propaganda, and the theologists’ skill in speculating on the noblest ideas of humanism and brotherhood.

p In contrast to the great ideas of the class struggle, the clerical ideologists set out the so-called solidarism theory which is aimed directly against the working people’s social emancipation, in contrast to the noble ideal of national liberation, the reactionary ideology of cosmopolitanism, in contrast to the scientific world outlook, religious unscientific views of the universe, which fetter the powers of the human mind.

p Let us examine the most popular theoretical conceptions used by the clerical ideologists in their defence of capitalism.

p The solidarism theory, which the clerical ideologists contrast with the Marxist theory of the class struggle, not only has deep socio-political roots in the class interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie, but also ideological roots which go deep down into the history of religious social doctrines.

p The solidarity principle springs directly from the fundamental theoretical conceptions of the religious philosophy of history and religious sociology.

p Among the fundamental propositions of the religious philosophy of history is the idea of order and stability, as embodied in the so-called organic conception of society, and which is profoundly hostile to any idea of social progress and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

p The clerical philosophers and sociologists have always regarded private property as a key element ensuring “our legal order which is based upon a higher moral order founded by God”.  [208•1  “The institution of private property has a definite place in society, and to the degree that individual and group rights are followed in relation to it, to that extent will it fit more harmoniously into the social organism.”  [208•2 

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p The fundamentals of this theory is justification and vindication of social inequality and class oppression, defence of private property, and the idea of class peace and co- operation. These have been embodied not only in the writings of clerical philosophers and sociologists, but also in a number of official declarations issued by religious bodies, and in particular by leaders of the Catholic Church.

p Thus, the papal Encyclical, “Rerum novarum” (1891), directly contrasts the solidarism doctrine with the Marxist theory of the class struggle.

p The Pope sharply attacked those who allow themselves to be believed that one class is naturally hostile to another. The two classes, the capitalists and the working men, had been ordained by nature itself to dwell in harmony and agreement, for each needed the other: capital could not do without labour, nor labour without capital. The Encyclical recognises the “right” of workers to join in associations, but adds that the law should intervene to prevent certain associations, as when men joined together for evil purposes which are evidently bad, unlawful or dangerous to the state. The state and its agencies are set this basic task: to put an end to conflicts dividing the classes.

p In his Encyclical “Certum Laetitiae” (1939) Pope Pius XI declares social inequality to be a sociological law based on mankind’s long history, which has allegedly shown that there had been rich and poor in the past, and that this will always be so.

p The theologist A. Retzbach, a commentator of papal social Encyclicals, wrote: “The Catholic social doctrine in general ... does not want a classless society. The latter is a socialist aim, a socialist dream. Class and social distinctions are a natural phenomenon. Rich and poor, high and low will always be there, so long as men live on this earth. That is why the class struggle is an unnatural phenome- non.”  [209•1 

p What are the theoretical conceptions underlying the “theory of solidarism”, which has been adopted as the clericals’ official dogma? The main one is undoubtedly the concept of the “natural order” based on the “natural law”.

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p The main aspect of this concept is that all men are allegedly united in a common urge to establish a natural, social order, whose main principles have been designated by God. Loyalty to these principles is assumed to be the basis of solidarism.

p To make this more convincing, these inventions are claimed to be a manifestation of “rationalism”, because the requirements of the “natural order” can be cognised only by human reason. Actually, men are invited to put their faith in divine predestination, whose basic principles are proclaimed by the church to be immutable rules of political philosophy. The main ones are said to be, first, the right to private property, the economic basis of the so-called natural order, and second, the state whose functions are to maintain this “natural order”.

p The clerical ideologists continue to maintain the propositions even today. Thus, Dante L. Germino declares: “The starting point of the political philosophy of those who adhere to the Roman Communion is the concept of the natural order. The natural order is the organisation of the human community in a manner conducive to the fulfilment of the ends proper to man’s distinctively human nature. Such an ordering of human relations is an embodiment of the natural law.”  [210•1  The “natural law” concept is defined by the Anglican philosopher John Wild, as “a universal pattern of action required of human nature itself for its per- fection”.  [210•2 

p The clerical ideologists believe that the “requirements of human nature” are based on divine will, through which human reason comes to understand the “immutable principles of right order which serves as the foundation for a just social system”.  [210•3  What is left unexplained is the role that is here left to reason, and the ways of this cognition, because men are essentially invited simply to put their faith in the divine origin of the stated social principles.

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p The clerical ideologists would like to extend these “ guiding norms” to all men, whether believers or non-believers. The “natural law” is “a common platform of generally accepted principles for the establishment of a workable social order, independently of religious beliefs”.  [211•1  The natural law is “not an ideology, but an objective criterion, and unseen measure in terms of which all current political systems ... may be evaluated”.  [211•2 

p How is this “objective criterion” expressed in concrete terms? What are the guiding norms in this sphere? In the economic sphere, it is the natural right to possess private property.  [211•3 

p It will be easily seen that the “natural order” concept is essentially one designed to defend capitalism.

p The main content of the religious doctrine of solidarism, which is used as an ideological weapon by the exploiting classes in their fight against the working people’s social emancipation, is to unite all men behind the idea of fending capitalism, to induce them to believe that the capitalist system is the natural social order, and that private property has been sanctified by the divine will. Back in 1848, Montalembert, a spokesman for the clericals in the French National Assembly, declared: “To inspire respect for property among those who have no property—I know no other means to inspire such respect except by making them believe in God. ... There you have the only faith which is truly popular and which can provide efficacious protection for property.”  [211•4 

p The Pope’s Encyclical “Mater et Magistra” of 1961 likewise declares the right in private property to be a sacred right: “The right of private property in the means of production is of lasting importance, above all because it is a natural right based on the ontological and purposeful priority of individual human beings with respect to society.”

p The papal Encyclical does not confine itself to an apology of private property in the advanced capitalist countries, but 212 urges an active struggle to spread the principle in the economically underdeveloped countries. A special section of the Encyclical, entitled “Effective Spread of the Idea of Private Property”, declares: “It is not enough to assert the natural character of the right to private property in the means of production. An insistent effort should be made to promote its spread in all the social classes.... The spread of private property should be even more vigorously stimulated and spread at this time in which we live, when, as has been said, the economic systems of growing numbers of political communities have entered the path of rapid development.”

p The capitalist monopoly press has given an eloquent characteristic of this document certifying the church’s loyalty to the capitalist system. The Washington Post said that “Mater et Magistra” is likely to occupy an outstanding place among religious teachings aiming to make capitalism acceptable to the human mind.

p What are the “guiding ethical norms” of the clerical ideologists in the political sphere?

p In the forefront is the thesis concerning the need to support the state as an instrument helping to consolidate the “natural order”. This naturally implies the bourgeois state, which stands zealously on guard of private property. In the postwar period, the clerical ideologists have been trying hard to spread the idea of a “democratic” form of administration which many regard as a natural postulate established by reason itself, but which, incidentally, draws a sharp distinction between the people and the “masses”, between “legitimate social rankings and indiscriminate levelling, between effective participation by the people in the affairs of state through their elected representatives, and a plebiscitary, majoritarian tyranny.”  [212•1  Consequently, the clerical ideologists clearly support bourgeois democracy, that is, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and condemn the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is, socialist democracy, a democracy of the majority.

p The “natural law” concept is an important element not only of Catholic but also of Anglican political thinking, whose orientation on the natural law was most clearly revealed in the speeches of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 213 William Temple, who delivered his famous judgement to the effect that “he could not see any other possible base for Christian social ethics than natural law”.  [213•1  Let us add that the Anglican Church makes even greater play than the Roman Catholic Church with “human nature”.

p Why is it that present-day clericals do not confine themselves to putting their faith in God, but are so zealous in appealing to “natural law” and “human nature”? This may be due only to their urge to put a “humanistic gloss” on their reactionary sermons, and to create the impression that these are preached in defence of the interests of the individual.

p The protestant ideologists are just as eager in providing an apology for the capitalist system.

p Protestantism emerged as the bourgeois species of Christianity and has been most outspoken in vindicating and justifying capitalist enterprise, money-making and exploitation. The protestant doctrine of “calling”, says Max Weber, an authoritative bourgeois sociologist of the turn of the century, invested secular activity with a religious meaning and impelled the believer who seeks wealth and success. Weber quoted Richard Baxter as saying: “If God show you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way (without wrong to your soul or to any other), if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be God’s steward, and to accept His gifts.”  [213•2  In other words: make money, for this accords with the will of God.

p Bourgeois sociologists also have to admit that there is a direct bond between the Protestant Church and capitalism and its interests. Thomas Hoult writes: “Protestant leaders of the day were loud in their praise of the businessmen and strict in their condemnation of protesting workers”,  [213•3  adding that in the last decade the Protestant Church in the USA has once again showed its close links with the economic interests of the ruling classes. For instance, the National Council of Churches of the USA is dominated by economically privileged groups which give the work of the Council a class character. The US Protestant Journal Christian Economics, widely distributed to ministers and 214 religious teachers, is composed of pleas to the government to give tax relief to businessmen ... to put a moratorium on social legislation.  [214•1  The practical support of capitalism by the Protestant Church is closely bound up with the fundamental ideological concepts of Protestantism, as will be seen above all in the spread of the idea of solidarism, which, in contrast to the natural order of the Catholics, is ideologically based on the concept of the abstract man, with the preaching of a general human love as its main propaganda trick.

p Marx emphasised that the cult of the abstract man, which had appeared in Christianity, was being given its ultimate development in its “bourgeois varieties, like Protestantism, deism, etc.”  [214•2 

p Modern Protestantism is the most eloquent example showing the use of the abstract man cult to justify the theory of solidarism and to obscure the class contradictions in the capitalist society.

p It is impossible to advance towards the social emancipation of the working people without being aware of the real social relations existing in the exploitative world (the exploitation of man by man, social inequality and social and national oppression). All these defects of the private-property system can be eliminated only by the working people’s struggle. However, this is being impeded by the Protestant religious preaching, in which living social reality is replaced by an illusion of a universal brotherhood and love.

p Let us note that present-day theorists of Protestantism now and again seek to cover up the class nature of their views, thus, they have disavowed the openly apologetic Catholic doctrine of “natural law”, which they say leads to a “ justification of private property”.  [214•3  However, their own doctrines help to defend capitalism and private property no less than the conceptions propounded by the ideologists of Catholicism.

p How do the Protestant ideologists substantiate the principle of solidarism, and how do they cover up the antagonistic character of the capitalist system? They distort the real social relations existing in the capitalist world and turn 215 relations between men belonging to different classes into relations of faithless, abstract “individuals”, who are in a “person-to-person” relationship with each other.

p Let us see how this is done in practice by John A. Hutchison, a Doctor of Philosophy and Professor of Religion at Columbia University, and a theorist of modern American Protestantism.

p He writes: “Personality, so described, always occurs in community;... human self assumes personal character in the presence of, and in relation to, other human selves.”  [215•1  This would not appear to be such a bad assertion at all. Indeed, once man has emerged from the animal world in the process of labour, he enters into definite relations with other men and begins to live in a community. But how is this correct proposition interpreted by the clerical ideologists, who turn a blind eye to mankind’s historical experience and to the objective laws governing social development? They deduce the laws of social life not from life itself but from the.behests of God; a closer look shows that these behests fit in very nicely with the interests of the exploiters.

p Hutchison writes: “To live personally—is the law of man’s life.... The fulfilment of this person-to-person relation is called love.”  [215•2 

p Spelling out the meaning of this, Hutchison says that this moral rule demands that class and national interests should be foregone. He warns of the dangers of an excessive concern for the purposes of nations, classes and other groups, each of which is “inclined to equate its interests with the final good and so become proud, intolerant, and blind”.  [215•3  Consequently Hutchison seeks to block man’s way to social emancipation and national liberation. “To be a person—to live in freedom and love. . . . This is the real meaning of his existence. ... Thus the Bible bids men to love God with heart, soul, and mind, and to love neighbor as self.”  [215•4 

p Another modern theorist of Protestantism, the Swiss theologist Henri Babel, is even more explicit: “Love is positive, hatred—negative. Love brings men together, hatred divides them and ranges them against each other.”  [215•5 

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p This is clearly a new version of the same class solidarism. Instead of a direct glorification of the private-property system, as it is with the Catholics, it exudes sweet words of love. But the essence remains the same.

p The Protestant concept of “universal love” is just as false and reactionary as the Catholic doctrine of the “natural law”, because both serve to defend capitalism and to justify and establish the unnatural order in which man exploits man.

p The idea of solidarism, whatever its version, serves even today as the main ideological instrument of the clericals in their fight against the working-class movement.

p There is good reason why they have been trying so hard to inject the principles of solidarism directly into the practices of the working-class movement, covering up their reactionary substance with a barrage of social demagogy, diverse forms of “going into the midst of the people”, and the establishment of a ramified network of clerical trade unions and even the well-known scheme of setting up worker-priests.

p The concrete task behind all these schemes is to act as middlemen in the class struggle so as to eliminate it by spreading illusions among the working people that it is possible to reconcile contradictory interests through a “person-to-person” relationship.

p The clericals’ effort to interfere in relations between the workers and their employers sprang from the church’s response to the working-class movement: “We must concern ourselves with the people, otherwise they will concern themselves with us.... We must go into the midst of the people to prevent them from fighting, and to try to pacify them.”  [216•1 

p It is a highly characteristic fact that from the very outset of the clerical movement of “going into the midst of the people” the task was not to do away with the working people’s sufferings, but to assuage them, not to emancipate the oppressed but to console them. Let us also note that the “consolers” were doing this out of fear of the working-class movement. One of the originators of “social Catholicism”, Viscount Armand de Melun, declared in his Annales de la charite (1848): “Every soul which has not obtained 217 consolation is a menace. ... It is a danger to the whole world.”  [217•1 

p To do away with this danger (not to the whole world, of course, but to the capitalist system) the clericals set about building up clerical organisations among the workers in the first half of the 19th century.

p In the spirit of the church’s proclaimed need “to bring individuals closer together and to reconcile their interests”, the clerical ideologists set about redecorating capitalist enterprises into paternalistic-type outfits in which capitalist exploitation was diffidently covered up with a “christian” front. Take the curious case of one owner of a textile mill, Leon Harmel, who called his factory a “religious and economic association constituted by the families of the employers and the workers”.  [217•2 

p The theory and practice of solidarism was enshrined by the Vatican as official church policy on the working-class issue. The Encyclical of December 28, 1878, “Quod Apostolici Muneris”, said that such associations should habituate their members to be satisfied with their lot, bear up under the strains of their work with dignity, and always live in calm and serenity.

p At the end of the 19th century, following the publication of the Encyclical “Rerum Novarum”, clerical trade unions were set up in many capitalist countries, and these subsequently became a powerful weapon which the employers used in their fight against the working-class movement.

p In his Encyclical, “Quadragesimo Anno” (1931) Pope Pius XI ordered the support of clerical trade unions which were implementing the theological “social philosophy” and spread the need to substitute collaboration for the struggle between master and worker, with special emphasis on getting people together not by social status, but by diverse lines of social activity.

p The effort to substitute occupation for class as the basis of social life was the way in which the solidarism doctrine was being implanted in the day-to-day life of the workers.

p However, the clerical offensive against the working-class movement did not break the will of the working class to 218 struggle. An analysis of the strike movement shows that it has in fact grown and become sharper, as will be seen from these figures. In 1958, strikes involved 26 million persons; in 1959, 36 million; in 1960, 56 million; in 1961, 51 million; in 1962, 55 million; in 1963, 57 million; in 1964, 56 million; in 1965, 36 million; in 1966, 44 million; in 1967, 46 million; in 1968, 57 million; and in 1969, 60 million persons.

p Contrary to the predictions of the clerical ideologists, the mass struggle in the capitalist countries has not in fact faded away, but has been gaining in scope and acerbity. Suffice it to say that from 1960 to 1968 inclusive, over 300 million persons were involved in strikes in the advanced capitalist countries as compared with 150 million over the preceding 14 years.

p In no capitalist country has the clericals’ policy of class solidarism been capable of reconciling the interests of the working people and the capitalists.

p The fiasco of the clerical scheme of implanting “ workerpriests” is fresh evidence of the impotence of the class-peace propaganda. Let us recall that these “worker-priests” were advised to work on the shopfloor, live in working-class neighbourhoods, spend their time after working hours with the workers, and so on. In many instances these Catholic priests, after a period of association with the workers, “ married or joined in the class struggle”, while “some of them even became communists”.  [218•1  In 1954, the Vatican was forced to dissolve this clerical outfit.

p A prominent clerical sociologist said that the church did not have much success in spreading its influence on the working class. A large majority of the workers adopted the Marxist ideology and accepted theoretical and practical materialism. Nowhere is the secularisation of life so strongly expressed as it is in the working class, with the exception of its elite. Even among the Catholic clergy there is a tendency to break with Catholicism.

p If priests, wise in the experience of clerical hypocrisy and trickery, find themselves unable to withstand the influence of the environment, how can the clericals hope that rankand-file workers will abandon the class struggle and their vital interests for the sake of a contrived “solidarity” with their masters?

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p The working people are united by their common living conditions, their interests, and their joint struggle for a better future on the basis of radical social change, and there is nothing that can destroy the great solidarity of the working class, which springs from reality itself.

p Social demagogy is another instrument used by clerical ideology against the working people’s interests.

p The clericals are much too clever to take an open stand in defence of the exploiting system in our day, and they have been defending it by pretending to criticise it. This kind of defence of capitalism can still hope to succeed, for it is aimed at the most gullible and least perspicacious and confuses those who suffer from the social injustices of the capitalist system.

p Indeed, it is easy to accept what the clericals are saying when they admit the injustice, the suffering, the poverty and social inequality under capitalism, and boldly lay bear its sores, insisting that these must be eliminated. But all this “criticism” amounts to no more than a peculiar form of defending capitalism.

p What they are actually suggesting is that the pillars of capitalism should be left intact.

p The clerical ideologists have grossly deceived the workers by creating illusions that some of the negative aspects they deal with can be eliminated without changing the social system itself. In fact, their highly eloquent exposure of the defects of capitalism leads up to a false and hypocritical sermon of clerical reformism, which is essentially akin to the propaganda of the social reformists, the Right socialists and Labourites, who also deceive the workers by saying that it is possible to “transform” capitalism into socialism through reforms on the basis of the capitalist mode of production.

p The clericals’ social demagogy has now assumed especially large proportions in a peculiar response to the powerful attractive force exerted by communist ideas. The need to “humanise” capitalism, an idea being spread in the most diverse forms, is undoubtedly a new ideological method of influencing the masses.

p This idea is a very handy one because, on the one hand, it does not deny the “imperfections” of capitalism, and even admits the grave effects of the social order in the capitalist countries, and on the other, it fortifies the illusion 220 that these defects can be eliminated on the basis of the existing system.

p This “humanisation of capitalism” idea, in its various forms, is a curious synthesis of two traditional and inseparable tendencies in religious ideology, the apologetic and the “critical”.

p Today, these two tendencies have been markedly invigorated, with the one alternately prevailing over the other, and this has produced two extremes: “excessive pessimism” and “excessive optimism”.

p The “excessively optimistic” ideologists take an open stand in defence of capitalism, a typical example being the series on ethics and economic life started in 1949 by the Federal Council of the Churches in the USA. Even clerical theorists have expressed the view that the authors of this study seek to equate Christianity and “free enterprise” and have “uncritically accepted” the US economic system.  [220•1 

p An example of the other “extreme” (a pessimistic view of modern capitalism) is a book by the English Protestant theologian, V. Demant, whose very title is indicative.  [220•2  The author takes a very gloomy view of the state of things in the capitalist society, believing the reasons for the decline of capitalism to lie in the hostility it had brought on itself.  [220•3  Demant believes capitalism is now in a critical state, but he does not feel that the situation could be improved by the measures which many bourgeois ideologists, including religious leaders, believe to be the answer to the problems of the capitalist system, primarily government intervention in economic affairs. Demant thinks that the treatment of capitalism by means of government regulations is no better than the ailment itself. Demant’s book shows how the stagnation of the capitalist system is reflected in the religious ideology.

p This book was widely commented upon by theologians, with D. L. Munby, Professor of Economics at Aberdeen University, giving the most detailed examination of his ideas. Professor Munby, a Protestant theologian, read a 221 course of lectures entitled “Christianity and Economic Problems”, at the New York Theological Seminary, in a typical theological defence of capitalism, claiming to overcome the “extremes” of its optimistic and pessimistic views, and setting out a demagogic programme for salvaging capitalism by “humanising” it.

p All of Munby’s reasoning is marked by social demagogy, which closely interlaces an apology of capitalism and a “critique” of its shortcomings.

p Thus, he declares that it is not right to understate the achievements of capitalism, but that one should not close one’s eyes to some of its most blatant defects. But while condemning the sharp “inequality” he insists that inequality is here to stay because men are differently endowed by nature. He takes the bourgeois and reformist view by asserting that “it is impossible to say . . . whether the working class begins and ends”, but there and then admits that some in society are “deprived”. He asserts that the state is the “guarantor of law and order”, but adds that he does not consider nationalisation of all the means of production to be necessary. He seeks to camouflage the existence of colonialism in our day, putting the blame for all the defects of the colonial system on what he calls old-fashioned colonialism, extolling the “good works” of the colonialists, etc.

p It is Munby’s admission and recommendations that are of the greatest interest.

p What is most important is, first, that Munby tries hard to disavow capitalism and, second, that he proposes to change and not to preserve it. He does not risk setting himself up as an avowed champion of capitalism, but the measures he recommends are designed not so much to change the existing state of things as to perpetuate it.

p In a chapter entitled “The End of Capitalism?”, Munby has to admit that, “men have lost faith in a purely laissezfaire society, and are not prepared to return to it. They have lost faith because it has failed to achieve full employment, to provide reasonable minimum standards ... to provide satisfaction in work, and above all to convince them that the elaborate mechanism of the price system is not an irrational set of forces beyond human control.”  [221•1 

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p But at this point, being the theologian that he is, Munby starts to twist and turn. He does not go on to draw the conclusion that the capitalist system has proved to be unworkable and so requires substitution by another socioeconomic system. He proclaims that “capitalism in this sense is dead”,  [222•1  and that a “mixed economy”  [222•2  has been established in the West. He says mankind’s future is not linked with a “collectivist society”, but one based on a “mixed economy”. Seeking to create the impression that his proposal implies a fundamental improvement in social life, he recommends a “flexible experimental approach” which ignores the “dogmas” of the extreme Right and Left. He does not reject government interference in economic affairs, but stresses that not everything depends on the state, and that there is need for a more deep-going improvement of the social system by tackling the problems brought up by modern life “in the human plane”.

p He recommends that social life should be humanised, but at once condemns secular humanism. He deals at length with freedom, security, creativity, equality, associations, etc., and stresses that the ultimate decision on all the social issues should rest with the employers, while the workers should bear “their share of responsibility”. When dealing with the need for security, he explains that “human beings require .. . the friendship and respect of those among whom they work or live”; explaining the principle of “creativity” he says that “we shall not limit ourselves to a simple choice between free enterprise and socialism because there are other ways”. On the question of equality, he declares hypocritically that men should be considered equal not because they are truly equal, but because man should not regard as an unequal one whom God had refused to regard as such. He urges the state to keep a close watch on the “ associations” (meaning parties and trade unions) with the church making a fitting contribution to the “development of the free world”, giving men a reminder of “values” which they should hold in respect. Thus, Munby’s programme of humanising capitalism essentially boils down to a defence of 223 capitalism, because he does not propose any real steps to change the existing state of affairs, and merely puts forward the old programme of class solidarism abundantly spiced with social demagogy.

p Munby’s economic programme also has some interesting similarities with reformism.

p Let us note that the reformists themselves have recently taken some marked steps towards the clerical ideologists. Thus, at a conference of the Socialist International in 1953 it was said that socialism was in itself neither religious nor anti-religious and could be derived from either source of social thinking.

p For their part, the clerical ideologists have resorted ever more frequently to typically reformist methods of advocating capitalism in their social demagogy and in the practice of clerical trade unions.

p The notorious theory of class solidarism provides the practical platform for the rapprochement between the reformists and the clericals. The reformists present this conception most frequently as different ways of “ democratising capital” and the clericals, as so-called participation.

p The idea of the workers’ “participating” in the profits of the capitalists and in running capitalist enterprises was, in particular, the main plank of the clerical trade union platform. Thus, the llth Congress of the International Federation of Christian Trade Unions in 1952 declared that participation in the management of enterprises would enable the working people, without upsetting the natural function of the entrepreneur to play an active part in the orientation, administration and management of the enterprises, thereby centring economic activity on concern for man and his family.  [223•1 

p The clerical theorists have given the “participation” theory every kind of boost, presenting it as a cure-all for the ills of the capitalist system, and spicing it heavily with social demagogy. The theologian Dante L. Germino writes: “Profits and wages should be duly proportioned to one another. ... In any event, each person, in conformity with his contribution to the common good, as Leo XIII said, ’must receive his due share, and the distribution of created goods’ must be consistent with the demands of social justice.

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p ‘For every sincere observer is conscious that the vast differences between the few who hold excessive wealth and the many who live in destitution constitute a grave evil in modern society.’ ”  [224•1 

p The programme of the clerical ideologists amounts to an elimination of this “evil”, that is, of the excessive social contrasts which are a menace for capitalism, but elimination through class solidarity and for the defence of capitalism.

p In their efforts to substantiate the solidarity principle, the clerical ideologists frequently turned to the “ deproletarisation of the proletariat” theory, that is, the possibility of the workers becoming men of property. That is not a new theory, for a hundred years ago Vogelsang wrote that society has to “absorb” the working class making it, socially speaking, an organic component part of society. He added: “The only solution of the working-class question, the only fair approach to the working class is an end to the existence of the working class, its absorbtion by the propertied class.”  [224•2 

p This idea has been elaborated by the present-day social reformists who propose a “scattering of property” through the issue of so-called workers’ shares, as the cure-all.

p Everyone knows, however, that the purchase of a few shares by a worker makes no difference to his social standing, for he continues to create surplus value for the capitalists. Workers who own shares exert no influence at all on the affairs of capitalist corporations. One author says: “For example, of the 27,000 employees of the Esso Standard Oil Co., more than 20,000 are stockholders” and own “less than one per cent of the total. Moreover, the employees’ stock is held by a company-selected trustee, and cannot be voted by them.”  [224•3  We find a similar picture on the scale of the whole country. In 1951 “approximately 65 per cent of the shares were held by the one per cent of families whose annual income exceeded $15,000. About one-third of the outstanding shares owned by the individuals were held by the onetenth of one per cent of families who had incomes above 225 50,000.”  [225•1  Such is the state of affairs in the USA, which the reactionary ideologists normally set up as a model of “ democratic capital”.

p According to Fortune magazine, 27 men in the United States now have personal fortunes ranging from $200 million to $300 million; five with personal fortunes from $300 million to $500 million; six from $500 million to $1,000 million, and two from $1,000 million to $1,500 million. Meanwhile, according to official statistics, 32 million people live below the poverty line. In a message to Congress, President Nixon declared that the failure of the war on hunger and malnutrition in the USA was shocking and patent.

p It is wrong and misleading, therefore, to say that any “democratisation” of capital has taken place in the USA.

p So long as private property in the means of production and the power remain in the hands of the bourgeoisie, capitalism remains a social system with poles of poverty and wealth, and growing contradictions between a handful of monopolies and broad sections of society.

p The church has been fighting communism under the banner of so-called third way and third force. The clerical ideologists declare that the church opposes both capitalism and communism. In its Pastoral Constitution “The Church in the Modern World”, the Second Vatican Council stressed that the church did not identify itself with any social system. It added: “In virtue of its.mission and its character, the church is not connected with any particular form of culture or political, economic or social system. In consequence of this universality it can serve as a close link between different human communities and different nations, provided they put their faith in it and in actual fact allowed it real freedom in accomplishing its mission.”  [225•2  Once again the clerical myth of a “third way” echoes the bourgeois- reformist theory of capital being “democratised”.

p The clerical and reformist social demagogy and the practice of imaginary class collaboration may give the unjust social system a longer lease of life, but they cannot save capitalism, an inhuman social system doomed by history to destruction.

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p IN’

p The clerical ideology, which, by its very essence, is concerned with the defence of the capitalist system, has always exerted a great influence on secular social thinking, including bourgeois sociology.  [226•1 

p In effect, the clerical ideology is akin to bourgeois sociology in its fundamental hostility to the idea of social progress and the objective laws of the historical process. Bourgeois sociologists like clerical ideologists are rabidly hostile to the Marxist scientific analysis of bourgeois society, which shows up its contradictions and proves its inevitable destruction. Many bourgeois sociologists have in fact borrowed from the clerical ideologists their conception of the state as an institution designed to maintain law and order in the social organism, the conception of the abstract human individual as the primary cell of this organism, the conception of solidarism as the guiding principle of social life, and the thesis of the need for active participation by sociologists in the effort to translate this principle into life.

p The clerical sociologists see the “human relations” problem as being directly connected with the task of strengthening the “solidarity” and “harmony” in society. They believe the study of social relations is important in order to find ways of improving human relations and establishing a more ordered society,  [226•2  that is, a society resting on class solidarism.

p “Social order”, another principle of religious theoretical sociology, is also closely connected with the idea of solidarism. The clerical sociologists regard society as a harmonious whole, and see “social order” as expressing the organic conception of society. Two clerical sociologists in the USA, W. Willigan and J. O’Connor, declared that “Social Order is a comprehensive term which implies the harmonious functioning of the entire complex of social organisations in their interrelationships and interfunctioning so that each is integrated into an organic social structure, each part functioning according to its nature and purpose, each part in correct relationship with all other parts”.  [226•3  Hence, their 227 conclusion that “every effort should be made to eliminate social and class conflict.... Furthermore the State is obligated to promote the welfare of its subjects, and the Church and all other agencies should uphold the highest principles of morality and develop positive programs of social action in terms of such principles”.  [227•1 

p The idea of solidarism is most clearly expressed in modern US religious sociology by the so-called “applied sociology” school, which is said to be a sociology for practical purposes, and by the so-called Sociational School. Its main exponents, Franz Mueller of St. Thomas’s College of Minnesota and Clement Mihanovich of St. Louis University, regard sociology as a science which studies the “phenomena of human life in the light of their associative or dissociative effect”.  [227•2  They hold that sociology should analyse men’s moral and religious behaviour in the light of the “processes of integration and disintegration among human beings”.  [227•3 

p Mueller declares that the principal slogan of solidarism is “not socialisation of the means of production ... but . .. co-ordination of the individuals and of the establishments in a district sphere of responsibility, and ultimately the national community dedicated to the common good”.  [227•4 

p The clerical sociologists regard society as a coherent organism and substitute a division of men by occupation instead of by class, thereby covering up and justifying class inequality. This, like all the other basic ideas of religious sociology, is deeply embedded in other bourgeois sociological schools which ostensibly have nothing in common either with religion or clericalism.

p The penetration of religious ideological conceptions including the solidarism theory, into modern bourgeois sociology is also expressed in the widely spread ideas of functionalism, which today is undoubtedly the main line of the methodological development of bourgeois sociological theories.

p This is evident from the so-called theory of social action, propounded by the US sociologist Talcott Parsons, perhaps 228 the most influential theoretical system within bourgeois sociology. Parsons regards the individual and the society as independent systems, and “social action” as behaviour which is oriented on the attainment of definite goals by means of regulated expenditure of energy. To keep an individual constantly oriented on the object with whom he interacts, Parsons introduces a system of values, and this is naturally presented as being inconceivable without the participation of religion.

p Bourgeois sociologists will have to admit that their concept of value boils down to the “Christian tradition”, one of whose main elements is the right in private property. The advocates of functionalism emphasise the importance of these values—laws, moral rules—without which, they say, the functional mechanism cannot operate. A collective work, edited by US sociologist Joseph B. Gittler, says: “No competent sociologist can deny or dismiss the pervasive role that religion plays in the life activities of many individuals. ... Religion ... is a basic social institution.”  [228•1  This re-emphasises the unity of the diverse bourgeois theories in the defence of the moral and religious principles of capitalist society, which sanctify and consolidate the exploitative order, and seek to paralyse the class struggle by hypocritically preaching the idea of solidarism.

p It is highly characteristic that the solidarism theory has been reflected not only in the theoretical conceptions of bourgeois sociology, but also in the practices of the capitalist enterprises. This is most clearly evident from the wide spread in the capitalist countries of Europe and the USA of the so-called human relations system, which is an aggregation of pseudo-humanistic economic, political, social and ideological instruments applied within the framework of the capitalist enterprises and designed to help moderate the sharpening contradictions and to establish a class peace.

p All of this shows that this is an effort in the economic and ideological struggle specifically designed to weaken, if not to eliminate altogether, the working-class movement. In order to establish relations of “solidarity” at the capitalist enterprises, everything is being done to spread the idea of setting up workers’ committees, under the sponsorship of 229 management, for the purpose of integrating the workers with the capitalist companies.  [229•1 

p Both the theory and the practice of “human relations” are designed to obscure the relations of exploitation, to secure the speed-up the employers want, by convincing the workers that they stand to gain from the intensified exploitation because their interests are identical with those of monopoly capital.

p A report given by A. F. Okulov and L. N. Velikovich at the international conference on “The Growing Role of Leninism in the Modern Epoch and the Criticism of AntiCommunism”, held from January 19 to 23, 1970, showed the essential features of present-day clerical anti- communism, which broadly speculates on the beliefs of religiousminded men and women and abuse their faith for definite political ends.

p According to the report, clerical anti-communism has been fighting communism along these lines:

p 1. By seeking theoretically to “refute” Marxism, with the Catholic theorists of the Jesuit Order and some Dominicans being most zealous in this field. Their theoretical activity is closely connected with the anti-communist activity of religious centres in the “free world”. There are many anticommunist publications in the USA and Western Europe produced by clerical “Marxologists” and “Sovietologists”. The works of men like Gustav Wetter, Innocent Bochenski, Jean-Ives Calvez and Henri Chambre are standard works among anti-communists.

p 2. By playing down in every way the successes of the socialist countries, clerical anti-communism denigrates the policy of the CPSU, and the Communist and Workers’ Parties on the religious question, presenting it as a policy aimed against freedom of religion.

p The intensity of this flood of slander is characterised by this fact. There are 147 items in the list of books appended to the work, entitled The Russian Orthodox Church in the USSR, by the anti-Soviet arch-priest D. Konstantinov, and this only for the period from 1960 to 1966. All writings by the men who falsify the condition of religion and the church in the USSR are centred on the idea that the church is captive and persecuted.

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p 3. Religious camouflage is one of the specific features of clerical anti-communism. The church itself is making a sizable contribution to anti-communism, which has been raised to the level of government policy in the capitalist countries. The ideology of anti-communism as a whole speculates on men’s beliefs and increasingly claims to stand up in defence of Christianity and the other religions allegedly threatened by communism. The bourgeois and clerical falsifiers distort the substance of Marxism and try to prove that the main aim of communism is to destroy religion.

p These slanderous inventions are blasted by the Marxist theory of religion and the policy pursued by the Communist Parties in the socialist countries on religion. Marxism has always repudiated any repression with respect to believers and the clergy. Administrative methods of fighting religion are alien to the Marxist-Leninist theory. It is well-known that Engels criticised Duhring for demanding the prohibition of religion in socialist society.

p In the fight against religious anti-communism, the evaluation of the nature of the present epoch acquires great importance.

p Bourgeois and clerical ideologists variously falsify the main content of world development, characterising it mainly as a contest between Christianity and communism. When Dwight Eisenhower was President of the United States, he said that the fight in the world was “by freedom against slavery and by Godliness against atheism”.  [230•1  He was echoed by FBI chief Edgar Hoover, who insisted that “the essential issue between the communists and ourselves is belief in God”.

p Thus, the incompatibility of Christianity and communism is presented by the bourgeois ideologists as the principal contradiction of the present epoch, whose substance they reduce to the clash between Christians and atheists. On this religious foundation it is not very hard to present the aggressive foreign policy of the imperialist states as defence of Christianity. This helps to obscure the class contradictions within capitalism both on the national and on the international scale.

p Anti-Sovietism is a prominent feature of clerical anticommunism.

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p A great many books, pamphlets and articles are being published in the USA, the FRG and other capitalist countries which give their readers the most distorted ideas about the position of religious bodies in the USSR. Since the publication in 1918 of the Soviet Government’s decree separating the church from the state, and the school from the church, there has been a steady stream of propaganda designed to blacken the Communist Party’s policy on religion and the church. What has to be reckoned with is that a part of the population has succumbed to this propaganda and takes a hostile attitude to the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.

p We now find anti-communism evolving away from its grossest forms to more refined ones. The deep crisis into which clerical anti-communism has been plunged has induced the most realistic-minded leaders of religious bodies to renovate their ideological arsenal, and to substitute a “ positive anti-communism” for their old “negative anti- communism”. The centre of gravity in the fight against communism is being shifted to the contrast between Marxism and the church’s social doctrine as set out in the latest Encyclicals and the decisions of the Second Vatican Council. With this renovated social doctrine, which is being put forward as a constructive alternative to Marxism, the ideologists of clerical “positive anti-communism” seek to induce believers to accept the idea that key social problems can be tackled on the basis of “Christian principles”.

p Even in its modernised form the social doctrine of Catholicism remains hostile to Marxism, as Pope Paul VI has repeatedly and unequivocally stated. He characterised the negative attitude to materialist conceptions as one of the axioms of the social doctrine of Catholicism. He used to say that the church rejects Marxist-type movements whose materialistic conceptions doom man to supremely harmful experiments and temptations.

p Clerical anti-communism springs from the general crisis of capitalism, the crisis of the Roman Catholic Church and other religions, which, says the Main Document of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, unhinges their age-old conceptions and rigid structures. The social conceptions being spread by the church about the divine predestination of private property are meeting with a dwindling response among the working people, who have 232 been taking an ever stronger stand against the church’s apologetic attitude to capitalism. As socialist ideas penetrate into the midst of believers in the capitalist countries, they also generate sceptical attitude to the slanderous inventions about the socialist countries which are being spread by bourgeois secular and clerical propagandists.

p In the struggle for the working people’s vital needs, especially in the fight against the danger of war, the Communists call on all their brothers by class to take joint action, which should not be hampered by any religious differences.

p The servants of the church slander the Communists by insisting that the latter regard all religious-minded men as reactionaries. Actually, however, “Communists recognise that Catholic workers have the same economic and political interests as all other workers—they want peace; they want democracy; they want prosperity. So the Communists hold out the hand of solidarity to Catholics for the joint accomplishment of these democratic objectives.”  [232•1 

p The successes of socialism, the growth of the liberation movement, the achievements of science and technology have been promoting this struggle, which is an irreversible process and cannot be turned back whatever the tricks used by the church as it switches from primitive forms of fighting communism, as it refurbishes and renovates religion, as it seeks to “synthesise” religion with science, and to modernise it as far as it can. This struggle has been gaining in breadth and depth, involving more and more countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

p The fact that religious ideology has no positive, not to say “revolutionising”, part to play cannot be an obstacle for co-operation between the Communists and believers in the joint struggle for progressive goals. The Communists are guided by Lenin’s precept that “unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven”.  [232•2  That is why the Communist Parties urge all the working people, regardless of whether they are atheists or believers, to unite in a 233 common struggle against imperialism, and for peace, national liberation, social progress, democracy and socialism, and more and more progressive-minded clerical leaders are coming to be aware of this.

p Paulo de Tarso, leader of the massive Left Catholic movement in Brazil, urging the need for joint massive action in the liberation movement in his country, wrote that the Christian must be a revolutionary because the “capitalist system is inhuman.... On many questions, specifically agrarian reform and the abolition of privileges in general, we are at one with the Communists and can act together.”  [233•1 

p There has been considerable comment in the world press on the activity of Camilo Torres, a Catholic priest and sociologist in Columbia, who has taken a vigorous stand in favour of a united front of the country’s democratic forces. Torres, an active participant in guerrilla action against the anti-popular oligarchy, declared that “the Communists are revolutionaries. They are the ones with whom the unity movement should be realised in order to carry out revolution. I shall never become an anti-communist.”  [233•2 

p The whole country was shocked and the world indignant when Torres was killed.

p More and more believers in various countries are being involved in the general democratic and socialist movement.

p Many believers favour a dialogue with the Communists, and have taken part in public meetings with them to formulate a common stand on concrete issues. Here is what an active Austrian Communist, Walter Hollitscher, said at a meeting in Czechoslovakia organised by the World Marxist Review. “In the recent past we Austrian Communists managed to score some success in the struggle against the anticommunism of Catholic propaganda. This is due above all to the fact that there has been a sharp growth of interest in communism and the Marxist outlook among the broad masses. The same people, who had but recently sought to convince the public that Marxism was only a ’dead dog’ which should be ignored, are now saying that Marxism is 234 extremely viable, that it is surer of its victory than ever before and has a great attractive power.

p “Thus, for instance, we have had a visit to Austria by the well-known Jesuit Gustav Wetter, of the Collegium Russicum in Rome. He gave talks on dialectical materialism and said that the Communists were dedicated men who believed in the triumph of their cause, and that is why they were dangerous. He added: perhaps, the Communists will do away with the exploitation, as they promised to do, but then life will be ’drab and boring’. Wetter clearly hoped to immunise his audience, especially the young people, against “infection” by Marxism.

p “He did not succeed in doing this. In response to his talks which distorted Marxism, we organised reports on similar subjects: Marxism and religion, the “meaning of life” in the Marxist and the Catholic view. In these reports we spoke of the papal social Encyclicals (above all the Encyclical “Mater et Magistra”) and pointed out that these Encyclicals came out in favour of private property in the means of production and, consequently, in favour of man’s exploitation of man.

p “The Communists have given the reports to large audiences, and the number of those attending has been growing, especially through the influx of young people. Clergymen have also come to take part in the debate. Of course, it takes more than one report to get men to give up their religious beliefs, but these reports have given many young people food for thought, showing them that the Marxist doctrine in fact differs greatly from what the anti- communists have been saying. They begin to realise that the Communists are sincerely concerned for the welfare of mankind and are fighting for its interests.

p “Thus, the barriers set up by our opponents are being destroyed step by step. Let us bear in mind that the aim of anti-communism is to isolate us from the masses. But what I had described above helps to overcome such isolation and is one of the means of fighting against anti- communism.  [234•1 

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p Speakers at the international theoretical conference on the criticism of anti-communism held in January 1970 justly noted that the dialogue between the Marxists and the Christians does not at all mean that the ideologists of clerical anti-communism have in any way reduced their attacks on the socialist countries. What is more, clerical anti-communism has tried to use these meetings for ideological subversions, anti-communist propaganda, infiltration of religious ideas into the midst of Marxists, and softening and liberalising Marxism. These purposes, in particular, are being promoted by the West German society known as Paulus Gesellschaft (St. Paul’s Society) which is headed by the Jesuit Erich Kellner, and which is sponsored by the Vatican and the Bonn government. In pursuance of the tasks set by the Vatican, the society arranged three international meetings of Marxists and Christians in Salzburg (1965), at Chimsa (FRG, 1966) and in Czechoslovakia (1962), which were attended by Catholic and Protestant theologians and also by Marxists from the capitalist countries. Let us note that characteristically the organisers of these meetings invited only reactionary-minded theologians and clerical leaders. Left-wing Catholics and representatives of Leftist trends in the Protestant church did not take part in these meetings. The leaders of St. Paul’s Society made a special point of inviting Marxists who were inclined to abandon some of the key propositions of Marxist theory, specifically those on religious matters. The theologians directed their efforts to encouraging in every way revisionist-type statements which tended to deepen the differences between Marxists from various countries.

p The concepts of a dialogue between Catholics and Marxists, worked out by the Vatican Secretariat for the Affairs of Nonbelievers, are clearly anti-communist in tenor and do not in any sense bring about any real co-operation between Christians and Marxists in the struggle for peace and democracy and against imperialism and neocolonialism.

p The writings of Roger Garaudy on religion, notably, his books, From Anathema to Dialogue, and Marxism of the 20th Century, were given a highly positive welcome in clerical circles. In these writings Garaudy elaborates the idea that religion has been a means of giving expression to human needs (emotions, labour) and has synthesised human achievements in its day, presenting them in the imagery of 236 faith, under a religious integument. He said: “It is our duty to be in communion with these achievements instead of rejecting them.”

p However, while stressing the expression of despair and the striving for a better life, Garaudy tends to minimise the inhuman substance of religion. Any objective evaluation of religion must be based on a consideration of its contradictions. It was, in fact, the glossing over of this negative aspect of religion that induced Garaudy to revise Marx’s wellknown formula: “Religion is an opiate for the people.”  [236•1 

p This view was expounded at the philosophical congress in Vienna in September 1968 by Gustav Wetter, who said in his report that if the Marxists wanted to carry on a dialogue with the theologians they had to abandon their view of religion as an opiate for the people, as an illusory reflection of reality. In short, he demanded that they abandon Marxism. The Italian Jesuit De Rosa wrote in the journal of the Italian Jesuits Civiltd Cattolica, that “ cooperation between the Catholics and the Communists will be possible only when communism is purged of Leninism”.

p It is not right in assessing religion and the church to depart from the class Marxist-Leninist stand and to agree to any ideological compromises. The Marxists, the Communists have no reason to make a secret of their atheistic, scientific views. However, the different views of the world must not be an obstacle for joint action by Marxists and believers in the fight against imperialism, and for peace, national liberation, social progress, democracy and socialism.

“Owing to the considerable aggravation of social contradictions, conditions have arisen in many capitalist countries for an anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist alliance of the revolutionary working-class movement and broad masses of religious people. The Catholic Church and some other religious organisations are experiencing an ideological crisis, which is shattering their age-long concepts and existing structures. Positive co-operation and joint action between Communists and broad democratic masses of Catholics and followers of other religions are developing in some countries. The dialogue between them on issues such as war and 237 peace, capitalism and socialism, and neocolonialism and the problem of the developing countries, has become highly topical; their united action against imperialism, for democracy and socialism, is extremely timely. Communists are convinced that in this way—through broad contacts and joint action—the mass of religious people can become an active force in the anti-imperialist struggle and in carrying out far-reaching social changes.”  [237•1