United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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The Nature of Mae By JOE FRY I THINK it is no exaggeration to say that in considering the nature of man we are grap¬ pling with one of the most fundamental prob¬ lems of our age. Unless we have a valid under¬ standing of man, we are lost, for we fail to understand our actions and the actions of others in the complex relationship of life. We can only stand then at the mercy of the titanic forces of history which demand absolute obedience from man under the guise of glossy pretensions. It is utterly imperative, therefore, that we see the truth about ourselves in order to find the mean¬ ing of our existence. I think a word of caution is in order, though. In dealing with the nature of man we are not dealing with some vague nebulous humanity. We are dealing with the essential nature of men and women in concrete historical situations. Therefore our thinking must be existential if it is to be meaningful. You, with all the complex modes of an historical being, are the subject under consideration. Standing in a world of crisis, we are called to do some really tough thinking. Vain sentimen¬ talism, Christian or otherwise, cannot stand against the piercing light of the Marxist an¬ alysis. The Marxist position stands as a judge¬ ment upon our civilization and all others which refuse to face the inadequacies of their own socio-economic structure. Many thinkers have seen Marxism as a Christian heresy for it is the position of a half truth carrying both the profound insights and extreme dangers that a half truth does. The Christian faith asserts that man is cre¬ ated in the image of God, and by that it means that man stands in a structural relationship with God in which he and God are united. I use the word structural to indicate that this relationship with God has a definite and essen¬ tial character. In this relationship God stands at the very centre of man’s life and thus truly lives because he is united with the source of life itself. But all men stand in this relationship and in this relationship they are bound together in true community. Here man realizes his des¬ tiny. Here and here only is man a true human being. The very substance of this relationship is one of love, in which God declares that the life of every human personality is sacred. The sacredness of human personality is thus not a human demand; it is a divine claim. Needless to say, such is not the world that you and I live in. Wherever we look we see man mercilessly exploiting his fellows. Human personality is not regarded as sacred but rather as an object among things; something to be used for the self-aggrandizement of other men, an economic system, a class or a state. Men are subject to the brutality of the will-to-power of other men and are dehumanized. We live in a world of hatred and divisibility where men are in conflict with their fellow men and at war within themselves. Man no longer has any abiding meaning in his life, his creative capa¬ cities are shattered, the brotherhood of man stands as a hollow mockery, and men are estranged from men and seem alienated from their true humanity. This is the world we know best! What has happened to the world that God created and affirmed was good? In seeking to understand and articulate the meaning of evil the Christian faith speaks of the fall of man. This is not, as is commonly assumed, an objec¬ tive incident which took place in two historical people at the dawn of history, but rather the Bible seeks to describe in mythological terms an experience which belongs to every man. You and I in the most profound sense are the char¬ acters in that drama of the fall. We are Adam and Eve. The Christian faith affirms that man is a sinner but it does not speak of sin in any moral¬ istic sense. The Christian concept of sin is man’s rebellion against the will of God. Man refuses to remain in that structural relationship in which God is the centre. He seeks to transcend his own creatureliness and make himself the Page Twenty-five

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herself from attack and making it impossible for any coalition of powers to be amassed against her. Soviet foreign policy in the 1920’s shifted frrom the early emphasis upon world revolu¬ tion to preservation of the Soviet State. A num¬ ber of leftist critics and historians suggest that the world revolution was betrayed, that Stalin consciously led the Communist party from vic¬ tory in Germany, China and elsewhere through¬ out the world. Trotsky, probably the most out¬ spoken theorist impatient for early progress of the revolution throughout the world, had not foreseen the consequences of attempts at world revolution in its initial stages -—• consequences resulting in the wholesale invasion of Russia by the Western Imperial powers and Japan. There is no doubt that if a well organized coali¬ tion of the intervening powers had been set up, the Soviet state would have been doomed. It is further highly likely that any new large scale attempt to spread the revolution would have caused a new war of intervention. Realistic Soviet policy therefore necessarily dictated a “go slow” policy in world revolution until the Russian base was secure. The Russian revolu¬ tion had been declared “permanent” even by Trotsky and Lenin but it could not be perma¬ nent for long unless Russia was re-established economically and the threat of renewed inter¬ vention was not allowed to materialize. The prospects of proletarian revolution early began to disintegrate with the emergence of social and political reforms and the emergence of stronger labor unions and reformist parties in Capitalist countries therefore necessitating a far more carefully planned and executed movement to bring about revolution in the West. With regard to China, Stalin was in fact reverting to the Marxian analysis of the emerg¬ ence of a “bourgeoisie-democratic” society first before a proletarian revolution could take place. This concept was held by the majority of the Communist leaders until the revolution was declared a success in Russia. There is certainly no real evidence to prove that Stalin abandoned the idea of world revo¬ lution but much more that he was extremely fearful lest the impatient revolutionaries, of which Trotsky was the foremost, seriously split the party while the threat of Capitalist attack hung fearfully over Russia. A bitter warning had been given to the new Russian state by the ware of intervention, a warning not lost on Stalin. “What is commonly forgotten in the West is that Soviet “totalitarianism” was not inevitable nor necessarily implicit in the Bolshevism of 1917-18 but was forced upon it, with death as the alternative, by the decisions of Russian democrats and of the Western Democracies.” 1 The emphasis was therefore placed by Stalin and his followers in the Politburo on security from attack. The Russian government once again was dependent upon power politics and the economic and armed strength of Russia for its survival, let alone the expansion of the Com¬ munist ideal. Stalin foresaw a strong possibil¬ ity of renewed war in Europe and hoped that Russia would be able to strengthen her eco¬ nomic position before it became involved in war. He and his ministers sought to break down the almost unanimous hostility of the Western countries of Europe and stave off war until she could benefit by it. In a speech made an Janu¬ ary 1925, Stalin said: “The banner of peace re¬ mains our banner as of old. But, if war begins, we shall hardly have to sit with folded arms. We shall have to come out, but we ought to be the last to come out. And we should come out in order to throw the decisive weight on the scales, the weight that should tilt the scales.” 2 Thus the overall policy of the Soviet Union in the 1920’s was conditioned by the threat of re¬ newed war and was therefore primarily based upon the need for security. 1. Frederick L. Schumann, Op. Cit., p. 127. 2. Ibid. BIBLIOGRAPHY Schuman, Frederick L., Soviet Politics At Home and Abroad, New York, Alfred A. Knoft, 1946. Deutscher, I., Stalin, New York, Oxford University Press, 1949. Beloff, Max, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1929-1941, Vol. I, 1929-1936, Oxford University Press, 1947-49. Sayers, Michael, and Kahn, Albert E., The Great Con¬ spiracy Against Russia, New York, Boni and Gaer, Inc., Publishers, 1946. Pares, Bernard, Russia, Past and Present, New York, New York American Library, (A Mentor Book) 1943, 1949 (Revised Edition, 1951). Page Twenty-four

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centre of the world. He desires to be God. Plac¬ ing himself in this position he tries to bend all men to his own will for self-aggrandizement. All men stand in this position, for all men are sinners; men are estranged from one another because each has made himself his own centre. Thus it is evident that evil is not something outside of man’s nature. It is not rooted in any objective historical reality. Rather, it is a posi¬ tive force which permeates the whole of man himself. The corrupted human situation has deeper roots than mere historical and sociologi¬ cal structures. It is rooted in the depths of the human heart. The Marxist understanding of evil is extrinsic to the nature of man. Marx was aware of evil but he saw it as being inherent in the socia- economic structure and not in man himself. Man himself he considered good. Marx thought that man’s actions were always relative to the the socio-economic structure and as a result if this same structure was evil then man’s actions became evil. Marx also saw that the manifes¬ tation of this evil was bourgeois individualism, the estrangement of man from man, every man standing by himself and for himself. Marx be¬ lieved that evil could be eliminated and man’s natural goodness restored by changing the socio¬ economic structure. Through this new socio¬ economic structure a collective is established in which he believed men would be restored to a true relationship with one another. By formulating this theory Marx was speak¬ ing prophetically to his time. In every age man has created complex structures in which he seeks to direct the course of his life and to these forms he has always sought to give an authority of absolute sanction, refusing to admit their fragmentariness. But Marx saw through the pretensions of his age and pointed out the in¬ justice and brutality of bourgeois capitalism. He shattered the bourgeois idea of inevitable progress which assumes a natural equilibrium of economic power. I believe that Marx’s in¬ sights into the evil of the socio-economic struc¬ ture of his time were valid. However, he mis¬ understood the real origin of this evil. Thus the conclusions that he drew were false. They were false because he failed to under¬ stand the source of evil and therefore its true dimensions. Since evil is a positive force which is in the very heart of man it cannot be eradi¬ cated simply by reordering the economic struc¬ ture. Marx saw that man was separated from man but he attributed this separation to the economic order alone. He thus sought to re¬ unite man with man through the external structures of the economic factor, thus creating a collective. But again he did not see deep enough into the meaning of evil. Men are not separated from one another just on an economic plane but in the depths of their being. There¬ fore his collective unites men on a superficial level only and does not heal the real infection which poisons mankind. Man remains a sinner and is thus still separated from his fellows. Yet Marx did not see this in his own system. He, in his piercing insight, revealed the fragmen¬ tariness of bourgeois capitalism and went on to show how all systems were incomplete and contain within themselves the seed of their own destruction. But Marx refused to admit that his system is just as fragmentary. The in¬ adequacies of other cultures do not appear in his. The Marxist has posited his understanding as absolute truth from which he judges all sys¬ tems but will allow for no judgement on his position. Thus Russia finds greatest difficulty in establishing inner moral checks upon its will to power; not because it is communistic or ma¬ terialistic but because it is informed by a single religion and culture which makes self-criticism impossible and self-righteousness inevitable. However, though we may think the evil and the contradictions of the Marxist position are obvious, we of the west participate in those same contradictions. They are more subtle but perhaps for that very reason they are more dangerous. We too externalize our understand¬ ing of evil although in a slightly different way. Instead of seeing evil as inherent in the faulty order of the world, we see it in those nations or systems which threaten our prosperity and security. So, like Marx, we look for a false re¬ demption. If we can only get rid of the Kaiser the New Age will appear. If Hitler can be de¬ feated then surely the New Order will be ushered in. And now, if only Russia can be taken care of the Kingdom will come. And we too absolutize our position by claiming that the great American way of life is the Messianic hope of the world and we support this claim by asserting that all the religious forces of the world stand with us. We are the representatives Page Twenty-six