Ahmadi Perspectives on Marxism

God Within Marxism

Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad ra begins this topic by first introducing Karl Marx. He doesn't hesitate in diving straight into his first argument against Marx. As written:

"To him the denial of God is not merely incidental, it is an integral component of his philosophy, with which religion is absolutely incompatible. With him, humans are like elements interacting with each other under the socio-economic laws which govern them. They must be set free from the religious interference which distracts their natural course. To Marx, revelation and inspiration lie beyond the vocabulary of philosophical thought."

"In the spectrum of conflict of human ideas and beliefs, religion stands at one extreme, with its emphasis on the role of revelation as the most valid guiding principle. Marxism stands at the other end with its total denial of revealed truth. Between these two occur various philosophies—some closer to one, some to the other. But negation of all that religion stands for is never found so total and absolute anywhere except in the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism and scientific socialism."

The following arguments to be discussed are:

The denial of God is integral to Dialectical Materialism.

Religion is completely incompatible with Marxism.

This is a very important argument to discuss first because Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad ra predetermines this later on when attacking on everything Marxism stands for. It is the root of his argument, and this root must be pulled. The denial of god is not integral to Marx's philosophy. As the reader will soon learn, Marx's dislike for religion and his views of historical progression of society are related but not dependant on each other. In fact no individual is forced to renounce god, and at the same time neither forced to accept. The theoretical foundation of Marxism, known as Dialectical Materialism, is not realised by the rejection of a deity, nor the submission to one. This is because god is not a subject of this philosophy to begin with. It is a different topic altogether.

What Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad ra is actually referring to is the Materialism aspect of Dialectical Materialism. To recall, Materialism is a philosophy where all knowledge comes from this world, and from no where else. To materialists, prophets of god are people who received ideas from the environments they came from. Materialists do not believe that prophets received ideas as a form of revelation from a superior being, and it's to this aspect of Marx's philosophy where Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad ra is arguing it's incompatibility to god. But when further studying Dialectical Materialism, one can see just how little the philosophy is related to god. The material side is focused on nothing more than human history. Karl Marx studied human history and from the patterns he saw, he constructed his philosophy based on that materialistic principle. This principle is the embodiment of Hegel's Dialectics, in which "the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. From this point of view the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment-seat of mature philosophic reason and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of evolution of man himself (Anti-duhring, Frederick Engels)."

This is why the philosophy is called "Dialectical Materialism." It's not just two separate concepts coming together. These two concepts are closely tied to one another.

Dialectical Materialism is a secular philosophy. The word secular is not the same as atheistic. Secularism means "denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis," and at the same time the right of religious practice will be upheld. A person who is an atheist does not believe in god, while a person who is secular can believe in god and simultaneously believe that religion has nothing to do with the state, foundation, or philosophy.

Again, the existence or non-existence of god has nothing to do with Marx's philosophy. Sociology is a topic that studies society from an applied materialistic viewpoint. It is a science, and therefore is materialistic. To say that the denial of god is integral to the study of Sociology, is wrong because the existence of god has nothing to do with sociology. The only part where god comes into the equation is when studying how society uses god, and not if god exists. Marx's philosophy is a sociological viewpoint and theory of how society progressed throughout time. Dialectical Materialism is constructed in that materialistic perspective- it is secular. It is a science, and can be implemented just as much as any other scientific topic. Physics does not deny god, nor does it thrive on his existence. It merely explains what is happening in the environment. Science is used for explanation, and dialectical materialism, a strand of social science, does a good job at elaborating trends in human history.

Continuing the sentence, Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad ra writes: "... with which religion is absolutely incompatible." Let's not forget that the belief, or nonbelief, in god is not a part of Marx's philosophy. On the contrary, religion can be compatible with Marx's philosophy, and this will be discussed in the next sections. Marx viewed religion as a nuisance because he believed it distracted people from their exploitation. He was right to a certain degree. All religions had been corrupted at that period of time, and feebly threw themselves to the doorstep of the ruling class. Religion was used more for power and control, rather than it's true purposes. Marx witnessed the state of religion, prior to the creation of Ahmadiyyat. It only makes sense for him to be against it through his opinions.

One can argue that religions and Marxists have been mortal enemies ever since the creation of the philosophy, and cannot be compatible to each other as seen throughout history. It is true that religions have been criticising Marxism throughout time. Let's understand this, and find out why this has been happening. The overall state of religion during the time of Marxism's creation has already been discussed, and the reader is trusted to have enough knowledge about its corruption. From the fallen castles of morality, a new one had to be built. It was from that low point where the Ahmadiyya Community was established.

Such example of corruption can be seen in Afghanistan, where women were the most oppressed than anywhere else in society. The situation of Afghanistan was a nightmare, and the repressive mullahs provoked a revolution. In the aftermath of the revolution, women were able to go to school, get an education, and have basic human rights for the first time. They were granted equality in all section of society. Of course this didn't settle well with the Mullahs who had their corrupted authority taken away. Imperialist nations around the world, such as the United States, sided with the mullahs to create a counter-revolution. After the Soviet Union retreated aid from Afghanistan, due to it's own internal problems that will be discussed later, the counter revolution succeeded. From there, the Taliban, a creation of the United States, was established and the atrocities against women started once again.

Marxists/communists/socialists have been battling people representing corrupted forms of religion. So it wasn't religions who were antagonizing Marxists, it was corrupted religions. Religion was not the sole target of opposition anyway. Socialists opposed anyone or anything who got in the way of socialism. That also included all capitalist conceptions that supported the capitalist system.

"Whatever helps the world Communist revolution is good; whatever hinders it is bad. Religion, through its insistence upon individual responsibility to the Creator of all things, interferes with the advance of world collectivism. "- Lenin

One should not be against religion, but rather against what people have done to it. Religion was the tool for the powerful and the elite throughout the majority of history, and the apparatus for capitalist class consciousness. It is indeed a strange phenomena how religious people become more conservative the more they deviate from the true teachings of their respective faith; "corrupt" is a more fitting word for their behavior. Religion is supposed to give power to the oppressed, but ironically it ends up giving it to the oppressor.

Every single concept touched in this section will be further analyzed in the coming sections.