Quaker and Marxist?

Muriel Seltman writes about reconciling the spiritual and the philosophical

I am a Quaker and a Marxist. Some Friends will find this puzzling, but it is no problem for me, as I moved seamlessly into this situation in the course of my life.

I was born in 1927 and, coming from a Jewish family, I heard heated arguments concerning the rise of Adolf Hitler, the Treaty of Versailles and everything that these entailed – including, of course, the treatment of Jews in Germany.

Later, I was reading voraciously, including The Socialist Sixth of the World by Hewlett Johnson (the ‘Red Dean’) and The Theory and Practice of Socialism by John Strachey. Both impressed me greatly, especially the former. It described what had been the case in Britain before the second world war: poverty, unemployment and engagement in imperialism. What were called ‘booms and slumps’ were the norm.

Russia had endured similar under tsarism, but her people had risen up, taken things into their own hands and built a planned economy in which exploitation was meant to be at an end.

As my life continued, I saw no reason to change my views, rationalised whatever happened in the Soviet Union, although sometimes with difficulty, and regarded myself as a Marxist hoping to build a better world. I accepted Marxist philosophy, particularly the materialist part, and believed myself to be in a material world in which there was no ‘transcendental admixture’, as Karl Marx’s friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels wrote. The other part was termed ‘dialectics’. That is, everything is interconnected and changing, and every process has its opposite aspects that form a unity.

Spiritual support

For some time, this was enough. However, circumstances changed and I came to realise that I have a (human) spiritual dimension, as has everyone else. It emerges from some sort of organisation of the material universe, which we do not as yet understand. This proved decisive. One day, about sixteen years ago, I found myself in despair. I thought: ‘I need some spiritual support.’

As students, my husband Peter and I had attended Quaker Meetings in Dublin. I rang Friends House in London and found myself the following Sunday morning in Blackheath Meeting, feeling completely at home.

This presented few problems. Quakerism and Marxism have much in common, in my view, beginning with opposition to injustice in every form – social and economic. There is that of God/good in everyone. (Does it matter which?) Quakerism is experiential. It looks inwards for truth and not outward to external authority. As a Quaker, I am on the side of the oppressed and also have a spiritual dimension (which is human).

It is in Karl Marx’s early writings that this reconciliation is underlined. He wrote the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts in 1844, other writings about the same time and all before 1848 when the Communist Manifesto was first published. In 1850-51, Marx started afresh on economics in order to discover the basis from which the immediate state of things would take society on to its bright future in a communist society.

He saw capitalism as a form of dehumanising exploitation (which he called alienation) that would inevitably lead to the proletarian majority taking things into their own hands in order to build a new and transformed society in which such dehumanising exploitation would be a thing of the past.

The two basic conditions for this to occur and be successful were that the proletariat all over the world (inevitably the majority in every country, Marx thought) would take over and, also, the productive forces would all be fully developed globally. This has not been the case in any country calling itself ‘socialist’.

Division and liberation

Karl Marx outlines the idea of ‘social man’ who will replace the dehumanised individual of the present time. There are two main conditions for this: the abolition of the division of labour and the abolition of private property. The division of labour emerged as technology developed. Workers became more specialised and, therefore, more stunted personally as their full creative potentialities went unrealised.

‘Social man’, liberated from the concept of private property, would identify his own needs with those of others and act accordingly. This would imply the abolition of territoriality and, therefore, of war (although Marx does not mention this).

Sadly, Marx does not explain how the end of the division of labour and private property will occur. Marx was probably wise not to predict too much detail, although he has been criticised for this. He would have been horrified at much in the Soviet Union. However, he was clear that the future transformed society would have its roots in the old – materially and with respect to change of hearts and minds.

Here, my own Meeting becomes relevant. Over and above the normal charitable giving for those in need was the mutuality of supportive love and concern shown in practice when a Friend was in need. No words could describe the support and help, both spiritual and practical, that I had from members of my Meeting when my health deteriorated. They remain unnamed, but know who they are. The needs (mine) of another became their own and they gave of their time and energy unstintingly.

The social and the individual seemed to interpenetrate. For me, they were Marx’s ‘social man’, or, rather, ‘social women’ in the here and now. We do not have to wait for the transformation of society.

Conflict and resolution

However, problems remain and have to do with class and class conflict. There is also the issue of pacifism (relative or absolute), which is an aspect of Quakerism, but definitely not of Marxism. Quakers, I think, tend to see all relationships as between individuals and see no difference between these and relationships involving classes. As a Marxist, I see Theresa May as an individual and also a member of the establishment (ruling class). I believe her relationships differ accordingly and inevitably.

Where war is concerned I am totally at one with Quaker methods of conflict resolution. However, I must declare an interest where world war two is concerned, as I hope I would have taken up arms in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, had I been there. Whenever there is class conflict, if there is a strike by workers for higher wages or better conditions, then my loyalties lie with them. I cannot be neutral with respect to what I see as a just cause.

I love my Quaker Meeting and feel proud to be a member of it. Quakers normally support the oppressed members of society, are anti-racist, anti-homophobic and anti-misogynist, and are opposed to injustice in all its forms. I am always on the side of working people against the establishment – the latter controls the military and police, and has deployed violence upon working people fighting for justice. I think this was certainly the case in the miners’ strike of the 1980s.

When resistance results in death or other casualties, I deplore this. However, it does not shake my support for working people struggling for a brighter future. Many of my Friends and friends largely agree with me on this. How, then, can I not be both a Quaker and a Marxist?

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Comments

I also have been a Quaker and Communist all my life. Formally I have never joined the CP but that was partly in boyish resistance to my father who had joined in 1937.
I joined and worked within the Labour Party until the latest internal wrangling became too much for an old man.
Good to hear from you!

By john0708 on 17th January 2019 - 16:36

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I’m a little late in coming to the conversation, but I was uplifted by Muriel’s ministry.

I’ve been a Marxist for a good fifty years and I’d be rudderless if I wasn’t.

On my reading of Marx, (and there’s been plenty of it), Marx had a concern for the less well endowed and tried to help us to understand how that had come to pass whilst offering some thoughts about what the future might hold.

As one of the less well endowed, I have an interest.

I was a member of the CPGB and, later, organisations to the left of the CPGB, and now I’m a Quaker.

It wasn’t much of a move.

Joseph E. (Ted) Brown

Pontefract LM (Central Yorkshire AM)

By ted@browns.myzen.co.uk on 30th January 2019 - 20:07

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