We are at the fourth subdivision of the first part of our presentation. The first part reads: “No sensible person, let alone a Christian, can take part in the efforts of the Communists and Socialists, much less become a member of one of their associations, because they are against reason, nature and experience.” There it says then:
4. It is a matter of experience that the Communists never achieved their goal and only caused misery and heartbreak. [page 26]
All the beautiful fantasy pictures that the Communists create of the future are of no use, nor is the representation of the golden age that will come when they have finally organized the world. History must decide. But history has judged Communism. And there the word of Schiller can probably be applied, which is admittedly used by him in a godless sense: “World history is the judgment of the world.” Yes, indeed, there are things that are already judged by history, and to these belong also these new systems, which are, however, already old.
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Spartan theater, Pythagoras, Plato |
So if we go back in history, we find the first state that was reasonably Communist was that of the Spartans. There was general distribution of goods, but I doubt whether the Communists and Socialists will regard the Spartans as their real ancestors, because in addition to their Communist institutions they also had slavery, and a horrible one at that. So-called Helots had to work in agriculture, trade and the arts, and a Spartan of high nobility had nothing to do with any of these. He did nothing but the craft of war. So the Spartan was obviously not a truly Communist state. It was 800 years before Christ, when Lycurgus gave Sparta this constitution.
600 years before Christ, Pythagoras gave his philosophical school a Communist arrangement. But I believe that the Communists will not recognize him for a true ancestor either. For first of all, no one was accepted into society until he had observed silence for years — and the Communists will hardly understand themselves for this. But secondly, the Pythagoreans did not want to organize the whole society of men [1947-39] according to these principles, but only regarded his principles as a higher standpoint on which a philosopher should stand; he regards nothing for the earthly, the visible, but only regards the idea that was in his head.
400 years before Christ lived the famous philosopher Plato. Plato wrote a book which is explicitly about the state, about the republic. In it he also says that the most beautiful and perfect form of the republic is the Communist one. But strangely enough, he demanded that only the higher classes should not have private or personal property; the people, on the other hand, should not be organised in a Communist way. If one today wants to speak of an unworkable theory, one usually says: “Oh, that is a Platonic idea,” or: “This is the Platonic Republic!” Even in our Lutheran symbolical books, the word appears in the article about the Church [Ap VII/VIII “Of the Church”, 20: “Neither, indeed, are we dreaming of a Platonic state…”], because the enthusiasts imagined the church as a Platonic republic, whose description looks beautiful on paper, but which in reality cannot be carried out. [page 27]
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| Essenes Monks and Nuns Müntzer |
200 years before Christ we finally find among the Jewish people the sects of the Essenes, who also lived together in community of property. But even they had no intention of recommending this constitution to the whole world, as our Communists do. They did not mean that this constitution would bring happiness to the people, but on the contrary, they wanted to live in this community of property in order to earn something by their renunciation before God. They did it out of self-righteousness, out of false holiness.
As far as the first Christians are concerned, we will find an opportunity to speak about them in the second main part, and we will see that the first Christians were not at all, as some have tried to pretend, also for Communism.
In the Roman Catholic Church there is a strong Communist tendency; for all orders of monks and nuns are built on Communist principles. But even our Communists will hardly ever call on them. The Roman monks and nuns also say explicitly that they went to the monastery not so that they could participate in the general happiness, but rather because they were running away [1947-40] from the happiness of the world, because they were leading a life of self-denial, because they wanted to attain a higher level in heaven by this way of living. So these too do not belong here.
It may well be said that it is only at the time of the Reformation that we see that Communism, as it is now, flourished somewhat and was already stirring. The first Communist to show himself at the time of Luther was Thomas Müntzer, a Lutheran preacher, a very talented man, but an enthusiastic and at the same time desolate character. History tells us the following about him:
In 1524, a Lutheran preacher in Thuringia, named Thomas Müntzer, appeared with Communist principles, which he summarized in the short words: “Omnia simul communia”, which he described in German as: “All things shall be common and shall be distributed to everyone according to need upon occasion; and whichever Prince, Count or lord will not do so, and being forewarned, their heads shall be cut off or hung.” *) He travelled around Germany and Switzerland, fanned the flame of revolt everywhere, carrying out this theme, returned to Thuringia, took possession of the city of Mühlhausen, had cannons cast in the Franciscan monastery, issued a proclamation to all the princes, calling on them to abdicate, finally gathered a bunch of 8000 men of peasantry, plundered the monasteries and the houses of the rich, and finally, after the peasants had refused the offer of mercy if they turned over the ringleaders, he gave the princes near Frankenhausen a battle under the chant: “Now we pray the
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*) Luther, W1. XVI, 157 ff. [St. L. ed., 16, 125, § 22; not in AE; “The confession of Thomas Münzer…”]
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Holy Spirit”, but was beaten miserably. His whole army was wiped out, about 7000 perished, he himself was captured and executed. This was the beginning and the end of the first Communist movement at the time of the Reformation. [Münzer: Father of modern Communism]
During the same time a peasant uprising [Peasant Revolt] in Swabia caused by Communist ideas was also staged. [see “Twelve Articles”] They had simply misunderstood Luther's teaching on Christian freedom. What Luther had preached about freedom in the kingdom of God was also applied to the kingdom of this world. The peasants had their demands set out in “Twelve Articles” by a preacher. In them they demanded, among other things, free [1947-41] hunting, free fishing, free wood cutting, freedom from bondage, compulsory labor, etc.; but without waiting for the articles to be accepted, they roamed the land scorching, burning and murdering, storming and destroying castles and monasteries; everything wearing spurs had to die. [Again, this was not reported in the Wikipedia article] They caused a terrible bloodbath, some of it in the most cruel way. Count Ludwig von Helfenstein was driven into the peasants’ spear to the sound of drums and shawms. His wife, who kneeled down with her little son before the peasants and begged for mercy, was carried away on a dung cart under mockery and derision. Many of the nobility bowed down.
How Luther felt about this movement can be seen from a text that he published about it: “Admonition to Peace, A Reply to the Twelve Articles of the Peasants in Swabia.” [StL 16, 45-71; AE 46, 3-43] The peasants themselves had sent him a request, asking him to give his judgment; for they had seen how he had scourged all oppression, tyranny, and injustice. So they also hoped that he would stand on their side, and to some extent Luther did. For in the writing mentioned he first takes the princes and prelates, nobles and rich, and shows them that they, and no one else, are actually to blame for this misery. — This is a strong warning to us Lutherans of the present time that we must not allow ourselves to be misled when we see that the Communists and Socialists are not acting rightly in taking sides with all those against whom this struggle is being waged, without exception; for truly, if justice and love had always reigned in the world, such agitation would never have occurred. But injustice is the source of it; only that is wrong, that one should go too far and not take the right means to bring about better conditions. — [page 29]
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