The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-21
By V. |. LENIN.


Whoever has not thought out fully the fund
amental principles of dialectical materialism-
that is, of the philosophy of Marx and Engels
can misunderstood this basic principle, or
at least not understand it at once. How is
this? Shall the propaganda of the spirit,
the propagation of certain ideas, the fight
against the thousands f-years-old enemy of
culture and progress-that is, the fight against
religion-be subordinated to the class struggle
that is to the fight for definite practical aims
in economics and politics.
An objection of this character belongs to
those customary objections to Marxism which
rise from a complete ignorance of Marxist
dialectic The contradiction which troubles
those who argue thus is the living contradic
ton of living life, ie. dialectcal not verbal
or artificial contradiction. To place an abso-
lutte unbridgable barrier between the theoretical
propaganda of atheism-that is, the annihila-
ton of religious belief in certain sections of
the proletarat-and the success, progress and
conditions of the class struggle of these ele-
ments means not to argue dialectically, but to
turn what is a movable relative barrier into an
absolute barrier, to separate forcibly what in
living reality is inseparably bound. Let us
take an example. The proletariat of a given
place and industry is divided, let US suppose,
ir1&b the progressive section of conscious Social
Democrats, who are naturally atheists, and
backward workers, who are still bound to the
village and peasant traditions, who believe in
god, go to church or are at any rate still under
the influence of the local priest who has, let
us suppose, formed Christian trade union.
The Marxist must Internationally place in the
foreground the success of the strike movement,
must resolutely in this struggle work against
any division of the workers into atheists and
Christians and actively expose any such div-
sion. In such circumstances atheist propa-
ganda can be seen to be both superfluous and
harmful, rot from the point Of view of the
philistine whs does not want to brighten off the
backward sections, or to forfeit an electoral
seat, but from the standpoint of the real prog
ress of the class struggle, which under the con-
ditions of modern capitalist society will bring
the Christian workers over to Social Democ-
racy and atheism hundred times better than
bare atheist propaganda The preacher of athe
ism would at such moment and in such con-
ditions only be playing into the hands OF the
priests, who would wish nothing better than
a division of the workers, not according to
their participation in the strike, but according
to their belief in gol. The Anarchist, who
breaches war on god at any price, would in
reality only be helping the priests and the bour-
geoisie Gust as the Anarchists in their action
already helped the bourgeoisie). The Marxist
must be materialist--that is, an enemy of
religion-but dialectica materiaist--that is,
one who takes up the fight against religion,
not abstractly, not on the basis of an abstract,
purely theoretical, Interchangeable preaching, but
correctly, on the basis Of the class struggle,
who practically accomplishes his object and
teaches the masses most widely and best. The
Marxist must be able to take into consideration
the whole concrete situation, must know how
to find the border line between anarchism and
opportunism this border line is relative, NOV
able changeable; nevertheless it exists; he
must neither fall into abstract phrase-making
empty "revolutionarism" Of the anarchist nor
into the philistinism and opportunism Of the
small bourgeois or liberal intellectual. who
shrinks from the Fight against religion, for