Christ, Marx, and the Liberation of Slaves

I have received some pushback on my previous article, which argued that Karl Marx was, indeed, largely to blame for the horrors of communism.  A young philosopher named Eric DeJardin wrote a rebuttal on my Facebook page, which I will answer later.  But first, let me respond to a second and closely-related challenge he issued:  

DM: "And my demonstration of how Marx was to blame for the Gulag, which enslaved tens of millions, remains untouched."

ED: "I responded to it pretty extensively on your FB page. We're in the middle of discussing it, so it's not exactly 'untouched.'  Anyway, by your own criteria a better case can be made for holding Christianity responsible for slavery in Christian nations than can be made for holding Marx responsible for atrocities in Marxist nations.  Heck, we can point to texts plainly supporting slavery in the Bible while, as you have admitted, you can't even say that Marx would have supported what was done in his name." (emphasis mine)

My mistake.  Eric did try to rebut my arguments.  Good for him.  This is a better forum for more in-depth discussions, so I intend to answer his arguments here.  (Though one gets the feeling, with Marx and these young philosophers, that pushing them away from Marx, is like trying to talk Juliet into keeping from Romeo, after she has been smitten by Cupid's arrow.)

But first, let's tackle Eric's claim that by my six criteria for historical causation, given in that article, Christianity is more responsible for slavery than Marx is for communist atrocities.  The evidence points overwhelmingly in the opposite direction, I will argue.  

I. Judging Christianity and Marxism, Half a Dozen Criteria

1. Precedence.  "First, A must precede B, to cause it . . ."

"Christianity cannot be blamed for the general phenomena of inquisitions, or credited for the institution of marriage, since people were abusing others, marrying, or doing both at the same time, long before the first noel range out . . . 

"What belongs to our species as a whole cannot be credited to or blamed on any particular belief system . . . "

Nothing about slavery in Christian countries was unusual, except its ending.  Human beings had been enslaving one another since the dawn of time.  And the particular forms slavery took in Christian countries (including chattel slavery) were not unusual, either.  So by the criterion of precedence, it is hard to say Christianity caused slavery -- though easy to argue that it caused the abolition of slavery.  Slaves had often been set free before Christianity, but abolition movements were unusual.  (One finds hints of them here or there, such as under the rebel Wang Mang who temporarily overthrew the Han Dyansty.)      

Communism combined common and original elements, as I said: 

"KKK-like secret societies, and scapegoating, are common in world history, especially in the wake of a cataclysmic conflict like the Civil War.  So neither Christ nor Marx could have invented scapegoating or secret societies as a whole, but could have inspired or influenced the form a particular such phenomenon took . . . 

"Some other aspects of communism-in-practice were also common: dictatorship, mass murder, scapegoating, mass human bondage (when technology allowed).  But other parts of the system were fairly unusual.  Communes were established in most communist states.  They were not the first communes in history, but they were unusual in being established on a top-down basis, and the extreme to which, say, the Maoists and Kmer Rouge took them.  The attempt to put the proletariat in charge (or intellectuals in the name of the proletariat) was also unusual.  Attacks on one religion or other are not unique, but wholesale destruction represented a stark break from the past.  Rule by the communist party, and party organization from the top down to the village, school, and platoon levels, did not I think have close parallels in prior Russian or Chinese societies."  

So the Criterion of Precedence does not encourage us to blame Christ for slavery.  But it is easy to see how Marx's teaching may. in theory, have caused many of the evils of communism.  

2. Proximity.  "Second, like magnetism, the closer you stand, the harder a social influencer pulls.  Mohammed preached against idols, and before his death, Mecca had been cleared of them.  Marx advocated revolution, and seventy years later, the October Revolution erupted.  Most often, we are influenced by teachings we see lived out around us.  A hurricane spawned near Africa may break on Cape Cod, but only when warm water lies between source and destination.  Similarly, an ancient scripture may build great force over millennia, but only when the “warm water” of a practicing community of believers keeps it going . . . Proximity matters."

Early Christians did not, so far as I know, bring about any upsurge in slave-trading, or in slave ownership.  Indeed, in another post on this site, "Abolition of Slavery: The Early Years," I describe opposition to slavery in the Early Church.  And a reader cited a letter (which I have now verified) telling how St. Augustine's congregation liberated 120 slaves, a common sort of thing for them to do, Augustine implies:  

"About four months before I wrote this letter, a crowd of people collected from different regions, but particularly from Numidia, were brought here by Galatian merchants to be transported from the shores of Hippo (It is only, or at least mainly, the Galatians who are so eager to engage in this form of commerce). However, a faithful Christian was at hand, who was aware of our practice of performing acts of mercy in such cases; and he brought the news to the church. Immediately, about 120 people were set free by us (though I was absent at the time), some from the ship which they had to board, others from a place where they had been hidden before being put on board. We discovered that barely five or six of these had been sold by their parents. On hearing about the misfortunes that had led the rest of them to the Galatians, via their abductors and kidnappers, hardly one of us could restrain their tears." 

So there is no positive link between early Christianity and an increase in slavery: on the contrary, some push-back already occurred, including from the greatest early Christian thinker after St. Paul, and from others whom I cite, like Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Patrick.  

By contrast, as mentioned, revolution followed Marx within decades.  And after revolution, communes, abolition of private property, attacks on "religion," Dictatorship of the (alleged) Proletariat, secret police, mass arrests, and all the rest.  Not all of this was unique to communism (Point One), but much of it was highly unusual in European history, as was widely recognized at the time. 

So by the Criterion of Proximity, too, Marx can be credibly blamed for the Gulag, but Christ cannot reasonably be blamed for any increase in slavery.  (Which did not, it seems, occur for 1500 years.)    

3. "Third, duration.  Sometimes a religion is quickly accepted, but its deeper implications take generations to sink in." 

I should have made a distinction with this criterion, which is in some conflict with Criterion Two.  If the agents of social change gain great political power, change is often instituted quickly.  For instance, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young overthrew American tradition within their community, and instituted polygamy from the top down.  Chairman Mao overthrew the "Four Olds" and Confucian traditions within three decades.  However, both reforms proved short-lived: Mormon polygamy, because the larger American culture refused to admit Utah until they banned it, Maoism, because in later years, the Chinese Communist Party began to find Confucius useful.  (Though some reforms stuck, for instance, few Chinese now burn incense to ancestors.)  

I would argue that abolition of slavery was one of those "deeper implications" that took a while to sink in among Christians.  It was not imposed top-down when Christians finally took power, centuries after Christ.  But as shown above, and in the rest of that article, the anti-slave logic of the Gospel began having an effect early on through thinkers like Gregory of Nyssa and even (in a less sweeping manner) St. Augustine, an effect which grew, though there was often push-back, due to various forms of self-interest.  

Because Marxists gained dictatorial power, the effect of their thinking revealed itself early on, when zeal was still fiery, and then began to die down.  Early social experiments tended to be far infused with radical ideology, early in the revolutionary periods in Russia, China, Peru, Vietnam, and Cambodia.  Then reality began to set in.  People became exhausted by revolutionary fervor, and old ways reasserted themselves.  

Read The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, for an account of how that process played out in   

North Vietnam.  

4. An active ingredient.  "Fourth, something in the alleged cause should explain its supposed effect.  If Islam is blamed for encouraging prepubescent marriages, one should find something in the life of Mohammed or early Muslim teaching that encourages or allows men to marry young girls.  (Such as records of his consummating marriage to the nine-year-old Aisha.)  If Christianity is credited for saving girls from foot-binding in China, that claim will be strengthened if we find Jesus or the apostles helping women in analogous ways in the New Testament . . . "

Eric addresses this important criterion by claiming that the Bible clearly justifies slavery, while Marx opposed it.  (Forgetting, perhaps, that my argument against Marx does not particularly focus on slavery, though yes, his followers did resurrect it on a massive scale, for fairly predictable reasons.)  

So this is a key criterion, which I will focus on a little more than the others.  (But don't worry, I will be brief -- a thorough treatment would take a book!)   

In that previous article, I pointed to many "active ingredients" in Marx's personality and teaching which led to the Gulag and other horrors.  I need not repeat or explain them all again here.      

What does the Bible say about slavery?  Many think that the Bible is all over the map on the subject.  I wrote: 

"Perhaps religious texts are mere Rorschach ink blot tests: Mother Theresa and the Grand Inquisitor read the same Bible, then depending on their character or upbringing, reach opposite conclusions about how to treat folks.  Yet as novelist Tom Wolfe noted in The Kingdom of Speech, from Mohammed to Marx, history demonstrates the power of words to shape society.  A linguistic artist himself, Wolfe recognized Jesus as one of five men whose words have cut most deeply . . . " 

As for words that cut deeply, note how Jesus' sayings struck: (a) A black slave in a pre-Civil War novel; (b) a white traveler in the same novel; (c) the author, and (d) Americans outside the South.  

Uncle Tom's Bible

Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is often credited with helping form an anti-slavery consensus in the North before the Civil War, surprised me when I first read it.  I knew several men in Harriet's family were famous preachers and Bible teachers, and vocally opposed slavery.  (I had even spoken in a forum at Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, where one brother served as pastor.)  But I didn't know that the novel was actually a kind of theological debate and a Bible study, not just a story.  

In Chapter 12, for instance, two white Christians on a boat on the Mississippi which is transporting slaves cross swords over slavery, as onlookers take the side that suits their interests: 

A. “It’s undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the African race should be servants,—kept in a low condition,” said a grave-looking gentleman in black, a clergyman, seated by the cabin door. “‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be,’ the scripture says.” 

"I say, stranger, is that ar what that text means?” said a tall man, standing by.

“'Undoubtedly. It pleased Providence, for some inscrutable reason, to doom the race to bondage, ages ago; and we must not set up our opinion against that.'

“'Well, then, we’ll all go ahead and buy up niggers,' said the man, “if that’s the way of Providence,—won’t we, Squire?'”

Here a preacher, obviously part of the Establishment, cites an obscure Old Testament passage which actually has nothing to do with slavery, to justify what the South wished to see justified.  Then slave-traders echo that reasoning to justify their lucrative line of work.  (Which they would have gone on doing without such help, or found other ideological support for.)  

Then a young man, whom Beecher may model on one of her brothers, or her theology-teaching husband, responds:

B. "A tall, slender young man, with a face expressive of great feeling and intelligence, here broke in, and repeated the words, 'All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.’ I suppose,” he added, “that is scripture, as much as ‘Cursed be Canaan.’”

Beecher is greatly understating her point, as she no doubt intends readers to recognize.  (Thus the satirical, "Is that ar what the text means?" Followed by the glib, "Undoubtedly.")  

"Do unto others" are the words of Christ himself.  And they obviously apply to the pitiful case described onboard, of an old lady whose only remaining child is snatched from her arms and sold to another owner.  (While the first passage is, again, not about slavery at all.)  Beecher knows that the words of Jesus trump a mis-cited and irrelevant Old Testament passage. She then satirically goads her readers not to be hardened to such evil for the sake of national unity, even: 

"The trader had arrived at that stage of Christian and political perfection which has been recommended by some preachers and politicians of the north, lately, in which he had completely overcome every humane weakness and prejudice.  His heart was exactly where yours, sir, and mine could be brought, with proper effort and cultivation. The wild look of anguish and utter despair that the woman cast on him might have disturbed one less practiced; but he was used to it. He had seen that same look hundreds of times. You can get used to such things, too, my friend; and it is the great object of recent efforts to make our whole northern community used to them, for the glory of the Union."

This passage satires how Scripture is abused to justify what Beecher shows it cannot justify.  Later in the same chapter, Beecher shows her hand more clearly, through the Christ-figure of Uncle Tom himself: 

C. "Tom had watched the whole transaction from first to last, and had a perfect understanding of its results. To him, it looked like something unutterably horrible and cruel, because, poor, ignorant black soul! he had not learned to generalize, and to take enlarged views. If he had only been instructed by certain ministers of Christianity, he might have thought better of it, and seen in it an every-day incident of a lawful trade; a trade which is the vital support of an institution which an American divine tells us has “no evils but such as are inseparable from any other relations in social and domestic life.” But Tom, as we see, being a poor, ignorant fellow, whose reading had been confined entirely to the New Testament, could not comfort and solace himself with views like these."

Beecher's point is that a hardened, establishment preacher, motivated by social standing, money, or national interest, can indeed find warrant for slavery in the Old Testament, even if he has to twist things a little.  And some verses, taken out of the full context of Scripture, may help even more.  But Christians are supposed to look to Christ for their example, and interpret Scripture through him.  And no one with any sense could read the New Testament -- not just this one verse, but hardly any of it -- and deny that the practices of American slavery were the opposite of what Christ taught and modeled -- and his disciples. 

For Augustine's animus against slave traders is explicitly affirmed in the New Testament, and would apply to those on that boat in Uncle Tom's Cabin, if the preacher were courageous enough to tell the truth:  

"We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers . . . "

There is nothing in the New Testament to explain any upsurge in slave-trading under the Christian watch, which would in fact not occur for more than a millennia, and then only after the Muslim slave trade had primed that pump for centuries.  

Eric cites the verse that instructs slaves to obey their masters, not to kill them.  And really, would Christianity be Christianity, if it instructed people to kill their bosses?  Hierarchy is part of life, and must be observed, within the bounds of Christian law.  But Eric omits this following set of instructions: 

"And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."

This is pretty revolutionary, in itself.  Masters should treat slaves "in the same way" as slaves treat masters?  And not only don't beat them, but don't even threaten them?  What's to keep them from running away, then?  

And slavery is not, a la Aristotle, a fundamental marker of human character.  We are all equal before God, who is the real boss.  

I already showed that there are many "active ingredients" in the life and teachings of Marx that explain the evils of communism: Marx's violent, arrogant character, his self-worship, his justification of class violence, his naivete about human nature, his over-generalizations, his absurd prophecies, his talk about the "dictatorship of the proletariat," his refusal to admit error, his hatred of God, etc.  

So by the fourth criterion, too, Marx can very reasonably be blamed for tyranny.  But Christ should be credited for the liberation of slaves, which began earlier than most people realize, and is still not complete.  

I might add that as a young missionary, I was inspired to try to liberate sex slaves in Asia, by passages in the Old Testament.    

5. Energetic motion. "Fifth, causation is also clearer if change moves uphill against so powerful an element in human nature.  Why would any man sleep with more than one woman?  The answer is too obvious, to most men, to need stating.  Lust and philandering need no explanation, nor do rape, conquest, polygamy, or enslavement of the weak . . . It takes moral energy to move society uphill against the gravitational resistance of political power."

This criterion, too, helps explain why Marx was in fact to blame for the Gulag.  Just to take one instance: common ownership of property, which led to so many millions of deaths and so much misery in China, was emphatically not normal for Chinese. They had to be forced into it, by Marxist ideologues.  The communes moved radically against human nature, and thus demonstrate ideological causation. 

By contrast, as noted, it has been normal since the dawn of time for the powerful to exploit the weak, including by enslaving them.  This requires no explanation by itself.  Chesterton, indeed, said early in the 20th Century that enslavement was very human, and could be expected again.  Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler would soon prove him a prophet.  

Of course, it did take some ideological energy to upset what had become European norms against slavery by that time, and Marx and Hitler did provide that energy.  But having established a dictatorship, demonized whole classes, and destroyed the economy by communizing property, mass slavery became a fairly natural expedient.  You have to blame someone for your mistakes!  (When did Marx ever accept blame?)  You have to make someone do the work once incentive is gone!  

Slavery was ubiquitous in the world in which Christianity first appeared.  Half of ancient residents of Athens were slaves.  If anything, early Christianity began fitfully to apply some brakes to human enslavement. 

So by this criterion, too, Eric has things backwards.  Marx's life and teachings help explain the radical, often anti-human, policies of his followers, which fairly quickly led into the old grooves of tyranny and slavery.  But Christ's disciples acted against human nature and interest to free slaves against opposition, then bring about abolition or effective near-abolition of slavery.  (The first time during the "Dark Ages.")       

   

6.  Citations.  "Finally, if reformers cite or allude to a text while instituting reform, that may indeed point to the source of their inspiration."

As I showed, Marx' disciples did cite Marx extensively, and translate and print his works, to justify and explain their actions. 

Yes, as mentioned above, Christians who wished to justify slavery also looked for, and found, verses which helped them do so.  Some of those citations were, no doubt, stronger than the one Stowe quoted.  

But I agree with Stowe, as did Wilberforce, and as did northerner abolitionists who were inspired by Scripture to risk their lives (against interest and Nature) to liberate slaves.  Read honestly, as Uncle Tom did, it is impossible to justify slavery from the life and teachings of Jesus, which are for Christians the heart of the Bible, from which all else must be interpreted.  Not just that one verse, but the tone and implications of the entire New Testament, and a deeper understanding of the Old, set world civilization up for what in fact occurred: a worldwide abolition movement, led by pious Christians like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom.    

So five of the six historical criteria I mentioned clearly show why Marx's teachings and example led to so much misery, so quickly, under the lead of his radical disciples.  Solzhenitsyn points out that some of the "losers," like Trotsky, were if anything worse!  The other criteria is ambivalent, and analyzed carefully, also indicts Marx.  But Jesus liberated slaves, he did not capture or mistreat them.  

Is Capitalism Moral?

Is Capitalism Moral?

Here's a thoughtful challenge to capitalism that came up on Facebook last year on this day, which I don't think I've answered yet. It was posed by Eric DeJardin in response to my description of slavery as an inherently "corrupt-making" institution. Doesn't capitalism also corrupt the capitalist?

"Would you say that the imperative of viewing labor power as a commodity doesn't carry with it the danger of viewing people as commodities? If so, the latter is surely potentially soul-corrupting, especially if it tends to lead us to view them as mere commodities (in which case it very plausibly runs afoul of Kant's humanity formula of the CI)."

If Kant has something interesting to say about capitalism, I'll let the Eric DeJardin bring him in. Here are my thoughts:

1. Our relations with others can be divided, as Martin Buber did, into "I-It" and "I-Thou" perspectives. (But this will be my analysis, not his.)

2. "I-Thou" means (as I take it) that we enter into full personal relations with one whom we recognize and treat as a dignified and intrinsically valuable being.

3. "I-It" is more functional, treating the "other" essentially as a means to some goal.

4. For practical purposes, I-It relations are the norm. We may smile at the woman who takes our money at Burger King and wish her a good day, but we're mainly wondering why burgers have gotten so expensive, or whether we should order a side salad. She is mainly an instrument for a transaction, and you are mainly a customer through whom her paycheck will come, while she wonders whether she can afford a trip to Mexico this spring.

5. All big corporations, clans, or kingdoms see millions of such pragmatic transactions a day, in which one primarily views the "other" as a means to an end, or a roadblock (say, a slow driver in the left-hand lane) preventing you from reaching your goal.

6. Christians are called to recognize the "Thou-ness" of those with whom they interact, as we see from Jesus, both in his stories (Good Samaritan, etc), and in how he treated those he met. While the disciples often saw people as categories (harlot, Pharisee, old woman, etc), Jesus looked people in the eye.

7. Yet we cannot raise our hats, like Crocodile Dundee, to everyone in Manhattan. "Who touched me?" The disciples wondered why Jesus asked, because the crowd was pressing on all sides. Humans are also bodies which obey the laws of physics, such that one may need to get into a boat to separate oneself from their "it-ness" even to speak more clearly to their "thou-ness." If you pray for everyone who does 50 in a 60 or tailgates you when you're doing ten over the speed limit, you may be on the slow road to sainthood. Or you may crash, and arrive there more quickly.

8. Capitalists face these same trade-offs. We are called, by Christ, to treat both employees and customers as "thous," as persons made in the image of God, not as mere machines or money-sources. Yet if an employee fails to work productively, or a customer fails to pay, the "its" one produces will fail, which will harm other "thous" -- self, family, stock-owners, employees, devoted customers. This is a genuine dilemma for a believing businessman, exemplified by Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, who is trying to run businesses and help people, but then an employee falls through the cracks and is forced (out of his sight or knowledge, he's a busy man) into prostitution.

9. Trying to find the proper balance is inherently tricky. But so are moral choices in general -- an art, not a science, and an art that none of us practices perfectly.

10. Given that there is always a "quanta" of power in every society (Burke), those with great power will always find this balancing act more difficult, because their actions will impact more people, whose rights and needs will conflict.

11. Freedom is an absolute good. Adam and Eve in the Garden were given a choice. Jesus preached without compulsion or manipulation.

12. Free enterprise is therefore good in and of itself, though like the Garden, may act as a stage on which good or evil acts are taken.

13. The New Testament does warn: "If a man will not work, he should not eat." I think this implies that firing a lazy or dishonest employee is acceptable, as is giving lower wages to a less efficient employee -- though with an eye to mercy, and hoping that the "Thou" will repent or learn his job better. (Possibly by providing him with more schooling.)

14. There are incentives built into capitalism which can go either way. One may see it as effective to squeeze every last drop of blood out of one's employee, then drop him. Or one may recognize it as in one's "enlightened self-interest" to make her happy and healthy so she'll work harder and more honestly.

15. When one sees a capitalist treating employees as "thous," then, one may cynically, and perhaps correctly, suppose that he is merely acting in "enlightened self-interest," and despite the dogs-at-work policy, or the long holidays, he still sees employees essentially as "its."

16. Conversely, a genuinely compassionate manager may be forced by the demands of production and the many "thous" whom she cares for (children, aged parents, stock-holders, customers), to be very strict towards employees, to give less than they feel they need (one lump of coal, Bob Cratchit!), even to fire them in economic downturns.

17. In both cases, one should be careful in judging motives. God knows the heart.

18. In two parables, Jesus compared God to an employer who paid different wages to his managers, or paid laborers the same, even though some worked much longer hours than others. We are or should be equal before the law, but equality of outcome lies in tension with freedom and justice, since we are not equal in skill, honesty, luck, or value in I-it transactions, nor do we share equal needs or relationships with other workers or the boss.

19. The employers in both those stories seem to have been close enough to the action to know what was going on. In a large company, still more in government, it is often hard to figure that out.

20. Government rightly establishes rules to constrain those with power from abusing them. A just government (Madison recognized) must also recognize and make allowance for its own tendency to abuse power -- thus, "checks and balances."

21. Limited government is moral not only because it prevents the concentration of power, and therefore allows more freedom. But also, in countries where civilized norms of interaction are accepted, it is usually better to let people close to the situation figure the situation out and seek a just resolution. Outside intervention is sometimes necessary when local power has become corrupt, however, as in the South after the Civil War, or in lawsuits.

22. Freedom is not only an absolute good, it is also a relative good, because all else being equal, free competition encourages the production of more good things. By hypothesis, a Darwinian struggle tends to maximize the amount of life on a coral reef, or in a jungle. A struggle between companies likewise encourages a lively, rich, productive ecosystem of productive concerns.

23. But in a market in which competition is key, it is tempting to see competitors, or even employees and customers, as mere "its," bodies to drive off the road so one can get ahead.

24. At the same time, as Joseph Henrich shows in The WEIRDest People in the World, free markets have proven, even in remote regions of Africa, to encourage people to trust one another more. A strong correlation has been demonstrated between the presence of markets and how willing people are to trust strangers.

25. Competition occurs in non-capitalist societies as well. People will compete for food, sex, housing, fame, power, and living space regardless of whether cash is on the table. In New York City, for instance, there is it seems fierce competition for fixed-rent properties, which are a kind of wealth, hoarded by those rich enough in some sense to acquire them. In a communist Gulag, where money does not exist, competition is at its most ruthless, "Who-to-Whom," as Solzhenitsyn related.

26. Socialist countries may take cash off the table, or spread it around, but tend to concentrate power far more than countries with a free market. That is an empirical fact, demonstrated (I think) by history: no genuinely socialist society that I know of, has been very free, and most have been dictatorships, often governed by cruel tyrants.

27. Concentration of power is a necessary consequence of even democratic socialism. By taking money or stock away from "billionaires," (they used to say "millionaires," but those are now too common in capitalist countries to make a politically-auspicious target), the state necessarily concentrates power in its hands.

28. Even if the leader is elected by the people (democratic socialism), that concentration of wealth and power will draw unscrupulous people. "Power corrupts." It also attracts corrupt people, who become more corrupt by wielding it.

29. So while we always have a choice between seeing those around us as "thous" or "its," and both perspectives are to some degree valid at times, at least four systems emerge which create different practical incentives:

a. Capitalism without democracy. Here power is distributed economically, but concentrated politically.

b. Capitalism with democracy. Here power is distributed both economically and politically. However, growing wealth increases the relative political power of the wealthy. (Which can be offset by regulations, trust-busting presidents, and competition between capitalists.)

c. Socialism with democracy. Here power is distributed politically, but concentrated economically.

d. Socialism without democracy. Power is concentrated in both realms, and bad things tend to happen.

30. Yet all these systems also vary depending on culture, which ultimately derives from belief.

31. Both empirically, and theoretically, I think "b" is most moral, because it distributes power on two axis, and because market relations encourage people to trust one another more. We give strangers money every day, even let them into our homes (as I did an electrician yesterday), without compunction.

32. So no, capitalism does not make people corrupt, not more than other systems, though the rich of all kinds are tempted in special ways. It is as Jesus said of foods, money enters the pocket and is eliminated, but corruption creeps out of the heart.

33. Nor does capitalism save our souls, or make us genuinely moral beings. We can game any system. We can pretend to treat people as "thous," like the Pharisees, to seek the praise of men, while really only thinking of the bottom line.

33. Ironically, this past week, conservatives (including me) attacked a rich, white, male, 1% singer, and the rich, 1% capitalist TV and football executives who hired him. And then the Left rushed to defend that man. Some justified this by noting that he speaks Spanish, or because (I saw one say) to protect "brown" people from racist conservatives.

So now even "Christian" progressives are now celebrating a rich, white male 1%-er who sings in pornographic language about his many sexual conquests -- justifying it because he sings in Spanish, the language of some of the world's greatest imperialists.

An amazing inversion. And my criticism of that rich man is just what socialists say of capitalists in general -- that he treats "thous" (women) as "its," and encourages others, male and female, to do the same.

So clearly, capitalism does not ensure even minimal virtue, or protect society from the reward of its own twisted values. But while as a conservative, I have no problem with banning smut from public airwaves, or fining those who violate basic standards, I don't think the ultimate solution to America's moral problems can come from the top down. A society that winks at such exploitation, has become corrupt, and will corrupt all institutions, regardless of the structure of society.

In short, beginning with Adam and Eve, then Cain and Abel, freedom is a necessary, but insufficient, quality to allow us to recognize the Imago Deo in those around us, and respond to them as "thous," not mere tools for exploitation.

Is Marx to blame for Communism? And Jesus for the KKK?

Who knew that my esoteric studies in Marxism as an undergraduate would suddenly be called upon again in 2026, thirty-seven years after the celebrated fall of the Evil Empire? Or my experience living in communist societies would be relevant in America? One would think that ghost, at least, had been laid to rest -- "the spirit that is haunting Europe," as Marx and Engels famously put it to open The Communist Manifesto.

But the old man is back, in a big way. Not only because he is still officially one of the elder sages of the world's second superpower, led by Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. He has popped up again in the West, with young people lauding socialism, including some of my Facebook friends who seem deeply interested in Marx's writings. He inspired Howard Zinn's best-selling People's History of the United States, and Ibrim Kendi and Black Lives Matters. And when I blame him for bad things that happened in the world, I get lots of pushback. Which is fine -- some of that pushback has been intelligent and informed. (Even if I think those who praise Marx should interview some of his many victims.)

In this post, I want to address one particular defense of Marx: that if one blames him for the Gulag, one must also blame Jesus for anything bad that self-described Christians may do.

I will answer this challenge by drawing on six historical principles of causation that I describe in my new book, How Jesus has Liberated Women.  I will not try to run down every citation or give many footnotes.  But I will draw, not only on what I know of Marx himself, but on secondary sources, even if casually referred to, and to the history of communism, and my experience of it.  

The Challenge

David Marshall: "I regard Marx as evil, and think that a straight line CAN be drawn not only from Marx to Stalin, but from Marx to Castro, Mao, Kim, Pol Pott, and all the rest."  

CS (to another Marx-friendly poster, but in response to my claim): "Your analogy with Jesus advocating the prosperity gospel is apt.  I would put it even more harshly: saying that Marx would have advocated for Soviet or Maoist policies is like saying Jesus would have advocated for the KKK or the Proud Boys."

Let's begin by clearing up some confusion here.  By saying "a straight line can be drawn" I did not mean to limit the effects of Marx to whether he would or wouldn't have approved of the programs of Stalin or Mao.  I see that as rather irrelevant speculation.  A great figure influences his heirs in a variety of ways, most of which can be subsumed into two categories: ideas, and character or story.  For instance, in later literature one often finds Stoics referring to Socrates both for his beliefs, and also saying "This is how Socrates acted."  The same is true with Christianity: the Sermon on the Mount has been tremendously influential, but so has the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet, of him driving money-changers from the temple, and of his death on the cross.  

Similarly, by "drawing a line" from Marx to later Marxists, I would include both IM, Intellectual Marxism, and SM, Spiritual Marxism.  Even when Stalin and Mao did not follow his theories perfectly -- nor could they! -- I think they reprised his character in many ways, including in his tyrannical personality.  

How can we evaluate CS's analogy?  In general, how do we know if A causes B?  By what criteria can we judge historical causation? 

I thought about these last two questions while writing my new book, How Jesus has Liberated Women.  I was also trying to determine historical causation there.  So I formulated the following criteria without reference to the present question.  If you think any of these criteria are fallacious, or that I should add others, say so in the comment section below. 


Cause and Effect: Six Guidelines   

1. Precedence.  "First, A must precede B, to cause it . . .

"Christianity cannot be blamed for the general phenomena of inquisitions, or credited for the institution of marriage, since people were abusing others, marrying, or (like Estella in Great Expectations) doing both at the same time, long before the first noel range out . . . 

"What belongs to our species as a whole cannot be credited to or blamed on any particular belief system . . . 

2. Proximity.  "Second, like magnetism, the closer you stand, the harder a social influencer pulls.  Mohammed preached against idols, and before his death, Mecca had been cleared of them.  Marx advocated revolution, and seventy years later, the October Revolution erupted.  Most often, we are influenced by teachings we see lived out around us.  A hurricane spawned near Africa may break on Cape Cod, but only when warm water lies between source and destination.  Similarly, an ancient scripture may build great force over millennia, but only when the “warm water” of a practicing community of believers keeps it going.  Even when precepts are codified in text, what moves us is how those whose hands we shake on Sunday morning interpret those texts.  Proximity matters.   

3. "Third, so does duration.  Sometimes a religion is quickly accepted, but its deeper implications take generations to sink in. 

4. An active ingredient.  "Fourth, something in the alleged cause should explain its supposed effect.  If Islam is blamed for encouraging prepubescent marriages, one should find something in the life of Mohammed or early Muslim teaching that encourages or allows men to marry young girls.  (Such as records of his consummating marriage to the nine-year-old Aisha.[2])  If Christianity is credited for saving girls from foot-binding in China, that claim will be strengthened if we find Jesus or the apostles helping women in analogous ways in the New Testament . . . 

“'People take from the Bible what they put in,' you may object.  Perhaps religious texts are mere Rorschach ink blot tests: Mother Theresa and the Grand Inquisitor read the same Bible, then depending on their character or upbringing, reach opposite conclusions about how to treat folks.  Yet as novelist Tom Wolfe noted in The Kingdom of Speech, from Mohammed to Marx, history demonstrates the power of words to shape society.  A linguistic artist himself, Wolfe recognized Jesus as one of five men whose words have cut most deeply . . . [3] 

"Every society developed mating rituals long before Christianity arrived.  There is no simple, deterministic calculus by which to perfectly weigh each variable.  Eros is a famously capricious brat, firing arrows where he will. 

5. Energetic motion. "So fifth, causation is also clearer if change moves uphill against so powerful an element in human nature.  Why would any man sleep with more than one woman?  The answer is too obvious, to most men, to need stating.  Lust and philandering need no explanation, nor do rape, conquest, polygamy, or enslavement of the weak . . . It takes moral energy to move society uphill against the gravitational resistance of political power.   

6.  Citation.  "Finally, if reformers cite or allude to a text while instituting reform, that may indeed point to the source of their inspiration. 

"So a religious explanation for social innovation is more credible if the teaching closely precedes reform in a believing community, is repeated over time, if one finds in it clear justification for change, if that justification is cited, if belief is widely enough embraced to effect change, and if the change it initiates works against our strong instincts."

Now let us apply these six principles to (a) the claim that Marx caused the Gulag and the rest, and (b) the claim that Jesus caused the KKK.  

(1) Precedence?  

This one may seem easy.  Christianity preceded the appearance of the KKK, as the writings of Marx preceded Stalin's camps.  So it is possible that these two teachings could have caused those movements.  

In the broader sense, KKK-like secret societies, and scapegoating, are common in world history, especially in the wake of a cataclysmic conflict like the Civil War.  So neither Christ nor Marx could have invented scapegoating or secret societies as a whole, but could have inspired or influenced the form a particular such phenomenon took. (In theory.)  

Some other aspects of communism-in-practice were also common: dictatorship, mass murder, scapegoating, mass human bondage (when technology allowed).  But other parts of the system were fairly unusual.  Communes were established in most communist states.  They were not the first communes in history, but they were unusual in being established on a top-down basis, and the extreme to which, say, the Maoists and Kmer Rouge took them.  The attempt to put the proletariat in charge (or intellectuals in the name of the proletariat) was also unusual.  Attacks on one religion or other are not unique, but wholesale destruction represented a stark break from the past.  Rule by the communist party, and party organization from the top down to the village, school, and platoon levels, did not I think have close parallels in prior Russian or Chinese societies.  

(2) Proximity?  

The KKK did not appear in the first 1800 years of the existence of Christianity.  Other movements did, of course, and some of them were harmful.  But based on this criterion, the case that Jesus "caused" the KKK is greatly weakened.  If the New Testament were such as to inspire KKKs, they should probably have appeared millennia earlier.  

The chronological line between Marx and the USSR and CCP is much shorter and more direct.  Marx died in 1883, having fomented revolution for decades.  Lenin was 13 years old then, and several years later, was pouring over The Communist Manifesto, the 1848 call to revolution written by Marx and Engels.  He then fomented and led revolution in Russia.  He met Marx's son-in-law, read Plekhanov, who had also been influenced by the Communist Manifesto and traveled to Geneva, beginning to argue for revolution in Russia based on Marx's theories.  

The revolutionaries who came to power in 1917 were, in other words, close second-generation followers of Marx and Engels and part of the faith community they had established.  

From Marx' death to the Russian Revolution was 34 years, about the same as the time from Jesus' death to the writing of the first gospels, within individual memory.  From Jesus to the founding of the KKK, on the other hand, was more than 1800 years, or more than 50 generations of similar length.  

By the criterion of proximity, then, it is exponentially more plausible to credit the Russian Revolution to Marx, than the KKK to Jesus. 

(3) Duration?  

Duration is an ambivalent criterion, potentially in conflict with proximity.  The influence of an idea can grow, or degrade.  Few would argue that the Inquisitors were more strongly influenced by the teachings of Christ than Peter and John, because they'd had more time to think about it.  Yet some effects do take time to assimilate and develop, without coercion.  Christian marriage was one such idea that impacted Europe over time, as Joseph Henrich argues in The WEIRDest People in the World, as was anti-slavery, Rodney Stark argues in For the Glory of God.  

Where early believers gain power, as in Mecca, they can impose ideologies quickly, and suppress contrary habits. Revolutionary ideologies do not, then, require long duration to strongly impact cultures, as can be seen in diverse cults (which compel compliance internally) and revolutionary governments.  Joseph Smith regularized polygamy, Jim Jones' word was law, and Charles Manson instituted new concepts in mating and violence in short order.  

One could argue (as some do) that all the communist countries were mere "Asiatic despotisms" that reprised traditional forms of tyranny in a new name.  However, revolutionary governments are able to affect changes in a short time that peaceful preaching fails at over a long time.  The Paris Commune of 1871, for instance, closed all Catholic churches and schools, an example that Engels pointed to: "Well, then, gentlemen, do you want to know how this dictatorship looks? Then look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat."  That is an example of the impact ideas enforced from above can have, of which Marx and Engels approved.  

Christianity had influenced western culture for centuries between the KKK arose.  So there was more than enough time for that influence to work, or weaken.  And communism, being imposed from above, had enough coercive power to apply Marx's doctrines, if that's what revolutionaries wished.  So this criterion may not be very relevant in the present comparison.  

(4) Is there clear justification in original texts or accounts of teacher for the later movement (active ingredients)?  

Jesus cannot rationally be cited to justify wearing bed sheets, burning crosses, or terrorizing black or Jewish people (he belonged to the latter race himself.)  I need not belabor this point, as any reasonable person who reads the New Testament will see this quickly.  Not much "love your enemies" or "the meek shall inherit the earth" seems to have gone on under those bedsheets, still less "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  Jesus offered neither precept nor example to justify terrorizing one's neighbors.  

Which does not prove that his sayings could not possibly have influenced the founding of the KKK.  History is not always rational.  Sometimes it goes in odd directions, like a bouncing ball that strikes a rock at an unexpected angle.  Misquotes and selective proof-texting are common.  If someone makes the case that abuse of some words of Jesus contributed to the founding of the KKK, I'll hear them out.  But Jesus and the KKK are too far out of harmony for an honest and sincere follower of the former to found the latter.  

I concede (insist) that Marxism evolved.  No great communist leader followed Marx's plans exactly -- nor could they have. But while the intellectual link between Marx and communist rule is not perfect, many aspects of that rule are clearly justified or encouraged by the writings of Marx:   

a. The Communist Manifesto, which influenced the Russian Revolution as noted above, clearly did call for violent revolution.  

b. The term "dictatorship of the proletariat" foreshadows tyranny of some sort.  Marx and Engels set forth a program in the Communist Manifesto that demanded tyrannical power, including "abolition of property in land," abolition of inheritance, "confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels," "centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State," "industrial armies," etc, which Marx and Engels themselves describe as "despotic."  

Given that a vague class cannot hire, fire, make laws, tell cops whom to arrest, and so on, such enormous power was bound to fall into few hands.  It cannot be a coincidence that Engels praised dictatorships, and dictatorships appeared.  Nor is it surprising that when they appeared, they were led by individual dictators.  It is folly to suppose things could have turned out differently.    

c. Communes and banishment of private property can be justified in the writings of Marx and Engels.  The word "commune" in English is connected with the Paris Commune of 1871, which they commented on and which seems to have changed their thinking in some ways.  

d. Marx and Engel's hostility to religion, while hardly unique among 19th Century radicals, was reflected by numerous measures against Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists: destruction of churches, torture and murder of pastors, burning of Scriptures, imprisonment of common believers.  One might deny that Marx called for these specific actions.  Nevertheless, his hostility is a plausible cause for that effect.    

e. Marx rejected traditional morality, setting up three new moral systems: by which Marxists judged capitalists, themselves, and revolutionary society.  Revolution justified breaking all the Ten Commandments: envy, expropriating property, bearing false witness, murder, adultery, and of course fearing and worshipping God alone.  Traditional morality tended to filter back once the revolutionaries had taken power, and found they needed a well-behaved citizenry, but this could take time, and consequentialist moral justifications often took the form of rationalizing gross evil.  Marx opened that Pandora's box.   

f. Marx and Engels were structuralists.  They located evil in a class or condition of society.  This implies that should the structure be improved, those evils will disappear or at least abate.  

Such optimism seems, in retrospect (and to Burke, beforehand) a foolish and dangerous doctrine, which was bound to cause trouble in several ways:  

First, competition in a free enterprise system optimizes economic progress.  By stifling markets, poverty broke out again and again, until rulers ratcheted back their Marxism and allowed markets again.  (This is about the stage when I came into China, in 1984.)  

Second, if evil is located in the capital-owning classes, why worry about revolutionaries?  They represent the People, the Working Classes!  And so charismatic and effective power-grabbers were fated to come to power by the naivete of communism itself: Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Tito, Mao, Xi Jinping, Castro, Hoxha, Kim I, II and III, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Jim Jones (yes, another Marxist), BLM, and on and on.  

Marx was deeply influenced by the Greek story
of Prometheus, such as Aeschylus' Prometheus 
Bound, and by Percey Shelly's
Prometheus Unbound.

Third, Marx and Engels view of historical progress was naive because of their structuralism.   For instance, Engels claimed that "almost all savages and barbarians" early in human evolution, “women not only have freedom, but are held in high esteem.”  Because society was supposed to pass through definite Hegelian stages, one could generalize based on scanty data, and extrapolate progress to the future. 

But human cultures are not simply determined by developmental stage.  India and Burma were both rich-growing lowland cultures at similar stages of development, but women were treated quite differently, not due to material state, but to religious writings, like the Law of Manu and Buddhist sutras.  Preliterate cultures also different radically in ideology and therefore lifestyle.  

g. Contrary to what one of my critics claims, Marx did, in fact, predict that capitalism would make workers poorer: 

"The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class.  He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth."  (Communist Manifesto)

"The higher the productiveness of labor, the greater is the pressure of the laborers on the means of employment, the more precarious, therefore, becomes their condition of existence." 

"Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole."  (Capital I)

"The more productive capital grows, the more the division of labor and the application of machinery expands.  The more the division of labor and the application of machinery expands, the more competition among the workers expands and the more their wages contract." Wage Labor and Capital

It is hard to imagine great economic nonsense, or anything that has been more thoroughly refuted by history.  Compare the horrors Marx himself records at an early stage of capitalism, to, say, the facts Steven Pinker describes, and the figures he gives, in Enlightenment Now.  And I have seen this with my own eyes: I watched free markets raise the people of East Asia from poverty to wealth over the past 40+ years.  

Nonsense, as C. S. Lewis put it, draws evil after it.  

Among the greatest evils done by communism were the many and varied, but almost all disastrous, experiments in collectivization carried out.  Of course they didn't all follow Marx precisely, because he didn't give a clear plan, and because what he did say was such nonsense, as above.  

Communism also anticipated the impoverishment and collapse of the capitalist West.  This did not happen, instead, the West grew richer and richer, except when it experimented with socialism itself.  (No, socialism did not make Scandinavia wealthy!)   Modern Marxists therefore add a post hoc theory to explain Marx's failure of prediction away: yes, the West grew richer, because it exploits Third World countries! 

To refute that theory lies beyond the scope of this essay.  (And a little knowledge of the world is enough to refute it, anyway.)  The point at present is that Marx' pessimism about the poor under capitalism clearly inspired the communism movement as a whole.  North Korea may still be telling people that Americans and South Koreans are starving.  That's where communist media got that from.  

h. Delegitimization of existing social structures and beliefs was also bound to concentrate power in the hands of the sole authority remaining.  Marx's idea that such things as religion were a "superstructure" on economy, which he claimed to explain, subordinated everything to his dictatorship, even in theory, as he seems to have recognized himself.  While Freud's theory tracing diverse motivation to sexuality may have been equally reductionistic, it was also inherently individualistic, since people control their own bodies in the obvious sense.  But setting economic structure at center, and then proposing a change in that structure would occur and a "dictatorship of the proletariat" emerge before government magically withered away, concentrated power even in theory.  Practice would follow.   

i. Marx and Engels paradoxically assumed, by writing books, that ideas change social relations!  While employing millions of words to promote revolution, they failed to see that beliefs carried by words matter at least as much as economic structure.  

j. Marx's love of theory can plausibly be credited for inspiring a similar impulse to pose as cutting-edge social theoreticians by future revolutionary leaders.  Solzhenitsyn satirizes this tendency by picturing Stalin up late at night deciding to make his blundering mark on linguistics.  (In the First Circle.)  Mao Zedong Thought and the Little Red Book may be reflections of the same bent: a great political leader had to be a great theorist as well, like Marx!  In North Korea, we see the ideology of Juche, credited to the god-like founders of the state, pompously called Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.  (The sort of terminology replete in theoretical communist writings, one reason I dislike reading them.)  Marx's blending of theory with action may have encouraged this unfortunate marriage of theory and obsequious power.

Idolatrous rule is headed off in Christianity by making Christ the unique Son of God, and setting obedience to God first among moral commandments.  I would argue (and did some, in Jesus and the Religions of Man) that worship of God seriously undermined tyranny first in the West, then in other countries as well.  

k. Marx's paradoxical position within 19th Century radicalism prefaces a curious fact: most "proletarian" revolutions were led by intellectuals.  Neither Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim, Pol Pott, or Guzman, worked much with their hands.  Most were teachers, philosophers, poets, budding lawyers, and avoided dirtying their hands like the plague.  

Two practical results followed: first, they neither showed much practical sympathy for ordinary workers, nor knew how to improve their lives.  (Again Solzhenitsyn satirizes this flaw, this time in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.)  

l. Second, this special position of the "leading edge" of the revolution set party bosses up as god-like figures who would do the thinking for mankind. 

So most importantly, Marx's narcissism, obvious in some of his writings, and mentioned by acquaintances, is a credible source to which to trace the rampant self-worship of communist dictators.  I spend some time on this pattern in Jesus and the Religions of Man, arguing that the "red knot" of history replays the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden, who fell through wishing to be "as gods, knowing good and evil."  I will not belabor that point here.  

So those are thirteen important ways in which later communism was foreshadowed in the writings and life of Karl Marx.  There are, no doubt, others: it has been a while since I have thought about this.  

(5) Are the allegedly influential texts cited in the course of instituting reform?  

I have tried to find original source materials from the 19th Century KKK, without success so far.  So I'll leave it as an open question as to whether the KKK cited Jesus to justify their actions, and how seriously, frequently, and sincerely.  Or leave furnishing such evidence to the person who thinks such a link credible.  Given that the South was, in theory, mostly Protestant, and that religion is a unifying factor in every society (its "Sacred Canopy"), one would expect that some such effort, however strained and weak, was probably made. 

Communists certainly have cited Marx, frequently, and with apparent sincerity.  Some of my students at Peking University worked in the School of Marxism.  I interviewed students in that field going abroad to study developments in European Marxism. Mao cited both Lenin and Marx in his influential "On Contradictions:" 

"It was not until Marx and Engels, the great protagonists of the proletarian movement, had synthesized the positive achievements in the history of human knowledge and, in particular, critically absorbed the rational elements of Hegelian dialectics and created the great theory of dialectical and historical materialism that an unprecedented revolution occurred in the history of human knowledge. This theory was further developed by Lenin and Stalin. As soon as it spread to China, it wrought tremendous changes in the world of Chinese thought."

So according to Mao, Marx's thinking had an enormous influence in China, including his concept of "dialectical and historical materialism," that is, an anti-religious model of history.

How about the Russian Revolution?  Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife and deputy education commissar in the Soviet Union for ten years, describes Lenin's deep dependence on Marx and attempts to make his work better known: 

Lenin had a wonderful knowledge of Marx. In 1893, when he came to St. Petersburg, he astonished all of us who were Marxists at the time with his tremendous knowledge of the works of Marx and Engels.

In the nineties, when Marxist circles began to be formed, it was chiefly the first volume of "Capital" which was studied. It was possible to obtain "Capital," although with great difficulties. But matters were extremely bad with regard to the other works of Marx. Most of the members of the circles had not even read the "Communist Manifesto." I, for example, read it for the first time only in 1898, in German, when I was in exile.

Marx and Engels were absolutely prohibited (by the state) . . . 

Lenin understood foreign languages, and he did his best to dig out everything that he could by Marx and Engels in German and French. Anna. Ilyinishna tells how he read "The Poverty of Philosophy" in French together with his sister, Olga. He had to read most in German. He translated into Russian for himself the most important parts of the works of Marx and Engels which interested him.

In his first big work, published illegally by him in 1894, "Who are the Friends of the People?" there are quotations from the "Communist Manifesto," the "Critique of Political Economy," the "Poverty of Philosophy," "German Ideology," "The Letter of Marx to Ruge " in 1843, Engels' books "Anti-Dühring" and "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State."

The "Friends of the People " tremendously widened the Marxist outlook of the majority of the then Marxists, who as yet had very little acquaintance with the works of Marx. It dealt with a number of questions in an entirely new way and was tremendously successful.

In the next work of Lenin, "The Economic Content of the Teachings of the Narodniki and a Criticism of Them in the Book of Struve" we find already references to "The Eighteenth Brumaire" and the "The Civil War in France," to the "The Criticism of the Gotha Programme" and the second and third volumes of "Capital."

Later, life in emigration made it possible for Lenin to become acquainted with all the works of Marx and Engels and to study them.

The biography of Marx written by Lenin in 1914 for "Granat': Encyclopaedia" illustrates better than anything else the wonderful knowledge of the works of Marx by Lenin.

This is also shown by the innumerable extracts from Marx which Lenin constantly made when reading his works. The Lenin Institute has many notebooks with extracts from Marx.

In short, Marx was frequently cited by communist revolutionaries who showed sincerity and even passion in doing so.  That they sometimes disagreed with Marx, say on Stalin's idea of revolution in one country, or in Mao's reliance on the peasants, or in Zinn's appeal to racism, does not change this fact in the least.  By hypothesis, Marxism is a scientific school of thought.  Marx is not supposed to be a divine oracle issuing ultimate truths to all mankind.  So there was reason, as well as rationalizing, in adapting his theories to the varying conditions they encountered. 

By contrast, on Christian hypothesis, Jesus was the Son of God.  If the KKK were sincere in following him, they would have to be more faithful to his words than communists were to a mere economic philosopher.  Lots of luck proving that!   

(6) Energetic motion: does change move against human nature?  

The KKK appealed to ordinary human motives to scapegoat Blacks, Jews, and Catholics: pride, jealousy, the fun of belonging to a secret society and of dressing up, the pleasure of rituals.  Such societies were a dime a dozen in traditional China, for instance, and were often implicitly revolutionary: the Heaven and Earth Society, White Lotus, the Tai Pings (which designated the Manchus as "demons" to be killed.)

Such a movement is easy to explain psychologically and sociologically, after the South lost the Civil War to culturally alien Yankees, and sought means of resisting as best they still could.   

Tyranny is also easy to understand, including spy networks and harsh punishments.  The totalitarian nature of the communist regimes was unusual, however, and harder to produce than mere authoritarian kings -- in China, it resembled Qin rule two hundred years before Christ, but not the layered and multi-faceted system of Confucian rule, based on family and clan, several interlocking spiritual traditions, and state exams.  In Das Kapital, Marx implies total control over the economy, religion, media, and government.  Totalitarianism is best sustained by a powerful ideology.  Chinese peasants had been farming for thousands of years: movement to communes was a huge move away from their normal lifestyles, and took great energy, which Marxist ideology inspired.  (Works like "Living" and "Life and Death are Wearing Me Out" and "Frog" depict the difficulty of those transitions.)  It also went against human nature to abandon supernatural beliefs, and required great ideological energy to accomplish this.  Clearly, "dialectic materialism" created that energy.  

Lenin's revolutionary magazine was called "the Spark," denoting an intellectual source of energy.  

Conclusions

It is clear, then, that ascribing the effects witnessed during the Soviet, Chinese, and other communist movements to Karl Marx is vastly more plausible than ascribing the KKK to Jesus.  It is not merely that on five of six differentiating criteria (the five most important), Marx's influence is more evident.  The difference on individual criteria is exponential.  Communist revolution followed Marx by a single generation: the KKK followed Jesus by 50.  Numerous central doctrines in Marx were emphasized in later communism, while Jesus' ethical teaching seem to be ignored in KKK practice or doctrine. (You find crosses in the New Testament, but no Christians who ritually burnt them!)  Marx was avidly read and often cited by leading later communists as central to their programs, who scrambled to find and translate his writings, and set up Marxist academies on state campuses.  I am not aware (yet, please cite any such evidence if you can) of any evidence of such sincerity from KKK leaders, though they called themselves Protestant.  Furthermore, while KKK practices exhibit fairly common practices among secret societies and ritualists, Jesus exposed scapegoating and was himself scapegoated.  In this and many ways, the KKK acted the opposite of Jesus in the gospels.  

Communist practices also mark a sharp break from the cultures in which the parties embedded themselves, requiring a heavy expenditure of intellectual energy to force society uphill against its inclinations to farm as families, engage in commerce, and worship God or the gods.  That energy clearly came from Karl Marx and the ideology he developed with colleagues.  Marx' arrogant and angry personality, remarked on by many who knew him, can also be plausibly seen as the seed which grew into the Cult of Personality and the deification of rulers so common and destructive in communist countries.  (Precedented in ancient tyrannies, true, but recognized as a sin in Christian and Confucian societies.) 

The CCP seems to have followed Marx and Engel's program in the Communist Manifesto quite closely.  Most of the items they listed on the communist agenda, were in fact enacted in later communist societies -- or heroic attempts were made.  Marx completely restructured society, and the impact of that restructuring continues to be felt -- often in ways not predicted by Marx, since he was no prophet.  The KKK did not follow Jesus' program, by any stretch of the imagination, as the folks at Bible Hub briefly explain here.  (If so obvious a fact requires even a short explanation.)

So yes, Karl Marx is very much to blame for later communism.  He set the world up for just the sort of self-worshipping, ruthless, tradition-smashing Promethean monsters who appeared in the 20th Century.  He might even plausibly be partly credited for Adolf Hitler, in a somewhat different manner, worth exploring another day.  Yes, Leo Tolstoy, I do believe in the Great Men theory of history -- even when the 'great man" turns out to be not very good.  

As for Jesus inspiring the KKK?  It seems like a 1900-year stretch, both absurd and unnecessary.  But let's see your argument.  

---

[1] For a chronological overview of thinking about science from early sources, see Timothy McGrew, Marc Alspector-Kelly, and Fritz Allhoff, Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology (Wiley-Blackwell: 2009).

[2] For an argument that he did so, see Tara MacArthur, Unveiled: The Nineteen Wives of Muhammed, Volume 1: Merchants of Mecca, 2014, 367-398.

[3] Tom Wolfe, The Kingdom of Speech (Back Bay Books: 2017)

[4] “Zeus has not so much power as he has: he rules the elements, he rules the stars; he rules his fellow gods more completely than you rule your goats and sheep.  All the flowers are the work of Love; all the plants are his creation; thanks to him, the rivers flow, the winds blow.”  Longus, “Daphnis and Chloe,” translated by Christopher Gill, in B. P. Reardon, Collected Ancient Greek Novels (University of California Press: 1989), 306