COMMUNISM AND HISTORY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22904, 11 June 1936, Page 7

COMMUNISM AND HISTORY

TO THE EUITOB

Sib,—Under the above heading you referred to the experiences of the Christian Communists as recorded in the Acts o the Apostles, in the course of which you state that Communism could only succeed if all men were ns saintly and as unselfish as the apostles themselves, imt statement by you appears to imply that the reason the modern Christians have now abandoned the ideals of Christian Communism, once practised by the apostles themselves, is because modern Christianity is too selfish and too unsaintly to carry it out. That may explain why the Russian Communists temporarily suppressed the Christian churches—that it was to remove the unsaintly and selfish dements that obstiuct the carrying into effect of high ideals which require such noble qualities as unselfishness” and “saintliness" as Communism does. You state that “human nature that defeated bo many Christian and Utopian schemes of Communism is also opposed to modern Communism, but jou omitted to state that the only type of “ human nature ” to which that applies is the type described by Henry rathe type that is actuated bv the ‘ profit motive,” that lives on what be calls “ dead capital,” and that has a predatory effect on industry. Against that sort of human nature the Russian Communists appealed to have successfully united a different type of “ human nature ” comprising those workers who have “ the will to live” by “the service motive.” i'hua one finds that in the struggle for existence “the human nature of the Russian workers, being collectively inspired by the belief that the workers “ were Hie fittest to survive ” if they adopted Communism, has demonstrated to the world that evervonc can survive “who will work ” when the doors of opportunity are opened for him by the Communist key of knowledge and protected by the chair of unionism.—l am, etc., J. E. MacManus.

Mosgiel. [Wo cannot accept any other correspondence on this subject.— Ed. 0.D.1.;