Rothbard-Karl Marx-Communist as Religious Eschatologist

8/3/2019 Rothbard-Karl Marx-Communist as Religious Eschatologist

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Karl Marx: Communist asReligious EschatologistMurray N. Rothbard*

Marx as Millennia1 CommunistThe key to the intricate and massive system of thought createdby Karl Marx is a t bottom a simple one: Karl Marx was acommunist. A seemingly trite and banal s tat ement set along-side Marxism's myriad of jargon-ridden concepts in philosophy, eco-nomics, and culture, yet Marx's devotion to communism was hiscrucial focus, far more central tha n the class struggle, the dialectic,the theory of surplus value, and all the rest. Communism was thegreat goal, the vision, the desideratum, the ultimate end th at wouldmake the sufferings of mankind throughout history worthwhile.History is the history of suffering, of class struggle, of the exploitationof man by man. In the same way as the return of the Messiah, inChristian theology, will put an end to history and establish a newheaven and a new ear th, so the establishment of communism wouldput an end to human history. And just as for post-millennia1 Chris-tians, man, led by God's prophets and saints, will establish a Kingdomof God on Earth (for pre-millennials, Je su s will have many humanassistants in setting up such a kingdom), so, for Marx and otherschools of communists, mankind, led by a vanguard of secular saints,will establish a secularized Kingdom of Heaven on ear th .

In messianic religious movements, the millennium is invariablyestablished by a mighty, violent upheaval, an Armageddon, a greatapocalyptic war between good and evil. After th is titanic conflict, amillennium, a new age, of peace and harmony, of the reign of justice,will be installed upon the earth.

Marx emphatically rejected those utopian socialists who soughtto arrive at communism through a gradual and evolutionary process,through a steady advancement of the good. Instead, Marx harkedback to the apocalyptics, the post-millennia1 coercive German and

* M u r r a y N . R o t h b a rd is S . J . Hall Dis t inguished Professor of E c on o m ic s a t t h eUn ive r s ity of Nevada in L as Vegas an d ed i to r o f th e Review of Austrian Economics.The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 4 , 1990 , p p . 123-79ISSN 0889-3047


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124 The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4

Dutch Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, to the millennia1 sectsduring the English Civil War, and to the various groups of pre-mil-lennial Christ ians who foresaw a bloody Armageddon a t the las t days,before the millennium could be established. Indeed, since the apoca-lyptic post-mils refused to wait for a gradual goodness and saihthoodto permeate mankind, they joined the pre-mils in believing that onlya violent apocalyptic final struggle between good and evil, betweensaints and sinners, could usher in the millennium. Violent, worldwiderevolution, in Marx's version, to be made by the oppressed proletariat,would be the inevitable instrument for the advent of his millennium,communism.

In fact, Marx, like th e pre-mils (or "millenarians"), went furtherto hold th at the reign of evil on earth would reach a peak just beforeth e apocalypse ("the darkness,before th e dawn"). For Marx a s for themillenarians, writes Ernest Tuveson,

Th e evil of th e world m us t proceed to i t s height before, in one gre atcomple te roo t -and-b ranch upheava l , i t wou ld be swep t away ...M illenarian pess imism abou t th e perfect ib i l ity of th e exis t ing worldis crossed by a s upr em e opt imism. H istory , th e m il lenarian bel ieves,so opera tes th a t , when ev il ha s reached i t s he igh t , th e hope lesss i tua t ion wil l be reversed . The o r ig inal , the t ru e harmonious s ta te ofsociety, in som e kind of ega li taria n,or der, wil l be re-established. 'In contrast to th e various groups'of utopia; socialists, and in

common with religious messianists, Karl Marx did not sketch thefeatures of his future communism in any detail. I t was not for Marx,for example, to spell out the number of people in his utopia, the shapeand location of their houses, the pattern of theiracities. In the firstplace, there is a quintessentially crackpotty air to'utopias that aremapped by their creators in precise detail. But of equal importance,spelling out th e details of one's, ideal society removes the crucialelement of awe and mystery from, the allegedly inevitable world 01the future.

But certain features are broadly alike in all visions of communismPrivate property is eliminated, individualism goes by the board.

' ~ r n e s tL. Tuveson, "The Millenarian Structure of 'The Communist Manifesto," irC. Patrides and J. Wittreich, eds., The Apocalypse in Englrsh Renaissance Thought anaLrterature (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 326-27. Tuveson speculate:th at M a n and Engels may have been influenced by the outburst of millenarianism irEngland during the 1840s. On th is phenomenon, particularly the flareup in England andthe U S. of the Millerites, who predicted the end of the world on October 22, 1844, see theclassic work on modem millenarianism, Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalrsm: Brrtzsh and Amerrcan Millenarranrsm, 1880-1930 (Chicago: University of ChicagcPress, 1970). See Tuveson, "Millenarian Structure," p. 340 n. 5.


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Y a rl M a r x 1 2 5individuality is flattened, all property is owned and controlled com-munally, and the individual uni ts of the new collective organism a rein some way made "equal" to one another.

Marxists and scholars of Marxism have tended to overlook the:entrality of communism to the ent ire Marxian system.' In the "offi-:ial" Marxism of the 1930s and 1940s, communism was slighted infavor of an allegedly "scientific" s tress on the labor theory of value,the class struggle, or the materialist interpretation of history, and thesoviet Union, even before Gorbachev, grappling with the practicalproblems of socialism, treated the goal of communism as more of anzmbarrassment than anything else.3 Similarly, Stalinists such asLouis Althusser dismissed the pre-1848 Marx's stress on "human-ism," philosophy, and "alienation," as unscientific and pre-Marxist.On the other hand, in the 1960s it became fashionable for new leftMarxists such as Herbert Marcuse to dismiss the later "scientificeconomist" Marx as a rationalistic prelude to despotism and a be-trayal of the earlier Marx's stress on humanism and human "free-dom." In contrast, I hold with the growing consensus in Marxiststudies4 hat, a t least since 1844 and possibly earlier, there was only3ne' Marx, that Marx the "humanist" established the goal that hewould seek for the remainder of his life: the apocalyptic triumph ofrevolutionary communism. In this view, Marx's exploration later intothe economics of capitalism was merely a quest for the mechanism,the "law of history," that allegedly makes such a triumph inevitable.

But in tha t case, it becomes vital to investigate th e nature of thisallegedly humanistic goal of communism, what the meaning of thisthe "freedom" might be, and whether or not the grisly record ofMarxist-Leninist regimes in the twentieth century was implicit in thebasic Marxian conception of freedom.Marxism is a religious creed. This sta tement has been commonamong critics of Marx, and since Marxism is an explicit enemy ofreligion, such a seeming paradox would offend many Marxists,

' ~ h u s , n t h e hi ghl y tou t e d w or k of T hom a s S ow el l, Ma r x is m : T he P h il os ophy a n dEconomics (London: Unw in Pap erback s , 1986) , th er e i s scarce ly an y considerat ionwhatsoever pa id to comm unism .3 ~ h ef fic ia l Sovie t t ex tbook on Marx i sm t rea t ed i t s own proc la imed goa l wi thbrusque d ismissa l , i ns i s t ing th a t a ll Sovie ts mu s t work ha rd an d no t sk ip any " st ages",n t h e long road to communi sm. 'Th e C PS U [ the Com mu ni s t Pa r t y o f t h e Soviet Union],being a pa r ty of sc ien t if ic comm uni sm, advances an d so lves t he prob lem of commu ni s t: ons truct ion a s t h e ma te r i a l an d sp i r i t ua l p re req ui s i t e s fo r t hem to become ready an dmature , be ing guided by th e fac t th a t necessary s tages of development m ust not be skippedw e r ..." Fun dam enta ls of Marx ism-len inism , 2nd rev. ed. (Moscow: Foreign L angu agesPublishing H ouse, 1963), p. 662. Also see ibid., pp. 6 45-46 ,666-6 7, a n d 674-75.4 ~ h u s ,e e t he i l lum i na t ing w or k o f R obe r t C. T uc ker , P h il os ophy a n d Myth i n K a r lUarx (1970 , New York : Cambr idge U nive rs i t y Pre ss , 1961) .


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126 The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4since it clearly challenged t he allegedly hard-headed scientificmate.rial ism on which Marxism rested. In the present day, oddly enough,an age of liberation theology and other f lirtations between Marxismand th e Church, Marxists themselves a re often quick to make t h i ~same proclamation. Certainly, one obvious way in which Marxismfunctions a s a "religion" is th e lengths to which Marxists will go tcpreserve their system against obvious errorsor fallacies. Thus, wherMarxian predictions fail, even though they ar e allegedly derived fromscientific laws of history, Marxists go to great lengths to change thcte rms of the original prediction. A notorious example is Marx's lawof the impoverishment of the working class under capitalismWhen it became all too clear that the standard of living of thtworkers under industrial capitalism was rising instead of fallingMarxists fell back on the view that what Marx "really" meant bjimpoverishment was not immiseration but re l a t i ve deprivationOne of the problems with this fallback defense i s th a t impoverishmen t i s supposed to be the motor of the proletarian revolution, ancit is difficult to envision the workers resor ting to bloody revolutiorbecause they only enjoy one yacht apiece while capitalists enjojfive or six. Another notorious example was the response of manjMarxists to Bohm-Bawerk's conclusive demonstration that thtlabor theory of value could not account for the pricing of goodsunder capitalism. Again, the fallback response was tha t what Marl"real l y meantv5was not to explain marke t pricing a t a ll, but mereljt o as se rt t h a t labor ho urs embed some sort of mystically inherent "values" into goods that are, however, irrelevant to th(workings of the capitalist market. If this were true, then it i!difficult to see why Marx labored for a great part of his life iran unsuccessful attempt to complete C a p i t a l and to solve thcvalue-price problem.

Perhaps the most appropriate commentary on the frantic defenders of Marx's value theory is that of the ever witty and delightfuAlexander Gray, who also touches on another aspect of Marx a!religious prophet:

To wi tn ess Bohm -Baw erk o r Mr . [H.W. B .] J o s e p h ca rv in g u p Marxi s b u t a p ed es t r i an p l ea s u re ; fo r t h e s e a re b u t p ed es t r i an wr i t e r s , wh oa r e s o p e d e s tr i a n a s t o c l u tc h a t t h e p l ai n m e a n i n g of w o rd s, n o tr ea l i s i n g t h a t wh a t M arx r eal ly m ean t h a s n o n eces sa ry co nn ect io nwi th w h a t M arx u n d en i ab ly s a id . To w i tn es s M arx s u r ro u n d ed b y h i sfr ie nd s is , however, a joy of a n ent i re ly d i fferen t order . Fo r i t i s fai rlyc l ea r t h a t n o n e of t h em rea ll y k n ows w h a t M arx r ea ll y me an t ; t h ey5 ~ h a tMarx Really Meant was the tit le of a sympathetic work on Marxism by G

D. H. Cole (London, 1934).


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Karl Marx 127a r e e ve n i n c o n sid e ra b le d o u b t a s t o w h a t h e w a s t a l k i n g a b o u t ; t h e r ea r e h i n t s t h a t M a r x him s el f d i d n o t k n ow w h a t h e w a s d o in g . I np a r ti cu l ar , t h e r e i s n o o n e t o t e ll u s w h a t M a r x t h o u g h t h e m e a n t b y"value." Capi tal i s , i n o ne s e ns e , a t h r ee -vo l ume t r e a t is e , e xpound i nga theo ry of value a n d i t s manifold app l ica t ions . Yet Marx nev ercondescends to sa y wh a t h e m ean s by "value ," w hich accord ingly i sw ha t anyo ne ca res to m ake i t a s he follows th e unfo ld ing sc ro ll f rom1867 to 1894. ...Are we concerned wi th Wissenschaft, s l oga ns, m y t hs ,o r i nc a n ta t ions ? M a rx , i t h a s be e n s a i d , w a s a p r o p h e t ... a n d p e r h a p sth i s suggest ion provides t h e bes t approach . One does no t apply toJ e re m i a h o r Eze k ie l t h e t e s t s t o w h ic h l e s s i n s p ir e d me n a r e s ub -j ec te d . P e r ha p s t h e m i s t a k e t he w orld a nd mos t of t h e c ri ti c s ha vema de i s j u s t t h a t t he y ha v e no t s u ff ic ie n tl y r e ga rde d M a rx a s aprophet -a m an above logic , u t t e r in g c rypt i c an d incomp rehens ib lew o rd s, w h ic h e v e ry m a n m a y i n t e r p r e t a s h e choose^.^

Reabsorption TheologyBut the nature of Marxism-as-religion cuts deeper than the folliesand evasions of ~ a r x i s t s ~r the cryptic and often unintelligiblenature of Marxian writings. For i t is the contention of this article th atthe crucial goal-communism-is an atheized version of a certaintype of religious eschatology; that the alleged inevitable process ofgetting there-the dialectic-is an atheistic form of the same reli-gious laws of history; and that the supposedly central problem ofcapitalism as perceived by "humanist" Marxists, the problem of"alienation," is an atheistic version of the selfsame religion's meta-physical grievance at the entire created universe.

As far as I know, there is no commonly-agreed upon name todesignate this fatefully influential religion. One name is "processtheology," but I shall rather call it "reabsorption theology," for theword "reabsorption" highlights the allegedly inevitable end-point ofhuman history a s well as its supposed star ting point in a pre-creationunion with God.

As Leszek Kolakowski points out in his monumental work onMarxism, reabsorption theology begins with the third-centuryGreek philosopher Plotinus, and moves from Plotinus to some ofthe Christian Platonists, where it takes its place as a Christianheresy. That heresy tends to bubble up repeatedly from beneath

' ~ l e x a n d e r Gray, The Socialist D ad iti on (London: Long ma ns G reen, 19461, pp. 321-22.7 ~ n o t h e rxample of wh a t m ay be t e rmed " re ligious" behav io r by Marx i s t s i s th eins is tence of th inkers who have c lear ly abandoned a lmos t a l l the essent ia l tenets ofMarxism on cal l ing themselves by t he magical na m e "Marxist ." A recent ca se in poin t i sthe Br i t i sh "analy tica l Marxis ts , " such a s Jo hn Roemer an d Jon Els ter . For a cr i t ique ofth is school by a n orthodox Ma rxis t , se e Michael A. Lebowitz, "Is 'Analytical M arxism 'Marxi sm?" Sc ience a n d Socie ty 52 (S um me r 1988) : 191-214 .


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128 The Review of Au stria n E conomics, Volume 4the surface in the works of such Chr istian mystics a s th e nineteenth-century philosopher John Scotus Erigena an d the fourteenth-centuryMeister Johannes ~ ck ha rt . '

The nature and profound implications of reabsorption theologymay best be grasped by contrasting this heresy to Chris tian ortho-doxy. We begin a t the beginning-with creatology, 'the science ordiscipline of the first days. Why did God create the universe? Theorthodox Chris tian answer is th at God created t he universe out of abenevolent and overflowing love for his creatures. Creation wastherefore good and wondrous; the fly in the ointment was introducedby man's disobedience to God's laws, for which s in he was cast out ofEden. Out of thi s Fall he can be redeemedaby th e Incarnation ofGod-in-human flesh and the sacrifice of Je sus on the Cross. Note thatthe Fall was a moral one, and th at Creation itself remains metaphys-ically'good. Note, too, that in orthodox Christianity, each humanindividual, made in the image of God, is of supreme importance, andeach individual's salvation becomes of critical concern.

Reabsorption theology, however, originates in a very differentcreatology. One of it s crucia1,tenets is that, before Creation, man-ob-viously the collective-species man and not each individual-existedin happy union, in some sort of mighty cosmic blob, united with Godand even with Nature. In the Christian view, God, unlike man, isperfect; and therefore does not, like man, perform actions in order toimprove his lot. But for the r ea bs~ r~ ti oni s ts ,od acts analogouslywith humans: GO^ acts out of what Mises called "felt uneasiness," outof dissatisfaction with his current lot. God, in other words, createsthe universe out of loneliness, dissatisfaction, or,Igenerally, in orderto develop his undeveloped faculties. God creates the universe out offelt need.

In the reabsorptionist view, Creation, instead of being wondrousand good, is essentially and metaphysically evil. For it generatesdiversity, individuality, an d separateness, and thereby cuts off manfrom his beloved cosmic union with God. Man is now permanently"alienated from God, the fundamental alienation; and also fromother men, and from nature. It is this cosmic metaphysical separate-ness that lies a t the hea rt of the Marxian concept of "alienation," andnot, as we might now think, personal griping about not controllingthe operation of one's factory, or about lack of access to wealth or politicalpower. Alienation is a cosmic condition and not a psychological com-plaint. For the reabsorptionists, the crucial problems of the world comenot from moral failure but from the essential nature of creation itself.

'~eszekKolakowski,Marn C urrents of Marxrsrn: Its O rig ms , Gr qw th an d Di ss oh -tron, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19811, pp. 9-39.'


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Karl Marx 129

Buddhism and various pantheistic religions, a s well a s manymystics, offer one partia l way out for this cosmic alienation. To such'pantheists, God-Man-and-Nature are and continue to be one, andindividual men can recapture that desired unity by various forms oftraining until Nirvana (nothingness) has been achieved and theindividual ego has been-at least temporarily-obliterated.g

But the Way Out offered by the reabsorptionists is different. First,it i s a way offered only to man-as-species and not to any particularindividuals; and second, the way is a religiously determined andinevitable Law of History. For there is one good aspect of creation, forthe reabsorptionists: that God and man each get to fulfill theirfaculties and expand their respective potentials through history. In.fact, history is a process by which these potentials are fulfilled, inwhich God and man both perfect themselves. Then, finally, and herewe come to eschatology, the science of the Last Days, there willeventually be a mighty reunion, a reabsorption, in which man andGod are at last not only reunited, but reunited on a higher, on aperfected level. The two cosmic blobs-God and man (and presumablyNature too)--now meet and merge on a more exalted level. Thepainful s ta te of creation is now over, alienation is a t last ended, andman re turns Home to be on a higher, post-creation level. History, andthe world, have come to an end.

A crucial feature of reabsorption is that all this "perfecting" and"reuniting" obviously takes place only on a species-collectivist level.The individual man is nothing, a mere cell in the great collectiveorganism man; only in that way can we say that "man" progresses orfulfills "himself' over the centuries, suffers alienation from "his"pre-creation sta te, and finally "returns" to unity with God on a higherlevel. The relation to the Marxian goal of communism is alreadybecoming clear; the "alienation" eliminated by the inevitable commu-nist end of history is that of the collective species man, each manbeing finally united with other men and with Nature (which, for

he gr ea t orthodox Ch ris ti an apologist G. K. Chester ton br i l l iantly i l luminated th edifference between Ch ris ti an individualism an d pan the istic collectivisin in th e followingcr i t ique of th e Bud dhis t Mrs . Annie B esant , one of th e founders of th e Fa bian Society:A cco rd i ng to M r s . B es a n t t h e u n i v e rs a l C h u r ch i s s i m p l y t h e u n i v e r s a l S e l f.I t i s t h e d o c t r i n e t h a t w e a r e r e al ly a ll o n e p e rs o n; t h a t t h e r e a r e no r ea l w a l l sof ind iv idua l i ty be tween m an a nd m an . ... S h e d o es n o t t e l l u s t o l ov e o u rne ighbor ; sh e t e l l s u s to be our ne ighbors . ... T h e i n t e l l e ct u a l ab y s s b e t w eenB u d d h i s m an d C h r i s t i an i t y i s t h a t , f or t h e B u d d h i s t o r t h e th eo s o p h i s t,per sona l i ty i s th e fa ll o f m an , fo r the Ch r i s t i an i t i s th e purpose of God , th ewhole po int of Hi s cosmic ide a.G. K . Ch est er t on , Or thodoxy (New York, 1927), pp . 244-45. Quoted in Th om as Molnar,Utopia: the Pere nn i a l Heresy (New York: Sheed and Ward , 19671, p . 123.


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130 The Review o f Austrian Economics, Volume 4Marx, was "created" by the collective species man, who therebyreplaces God as the creator).I shall deal later with communism as the goal of history. Here wefocus on the process by which all these events must take place, andnecessarily take place. First, there is the pre-creation cosmic blob.Out of this blob there then arises a very different state of affairs: acreated Universe, with God, individual men, and nature each exist-ing. Here are the origins of the magical Hegelian-Marxian "dialectic":one state of affairs somehow gives rise to a contrasting state. In theGerman language, Hegel, the master of the concept of the dialectic,used the crucial term aufhebung, a "lifting up," which is ambiguousenough to encompass this sudden shift into a very different state, thislifting up which is a t one and the same time a preserving, a trans-cending, and creating a sta rk contrast to, the original condition. Thestandard English translation for this process in Hegel and Marx is"negating," but such translation makes the theory even more absurdthan it really is-probably "transcending" would be a better term.''Thus, as usual, the dialectic consists of three stages. Stage One is theoriginal state of the pre-creation cosmic blob, with man and God inhappy and harmonious unity, but each rather undeveloped. Then, themagic dialectic does its work, Stage Two occurs, and God creates manand the universe. But then, finally, when the development of man andGod is completed, Stage Two creates its own aufhebung, its transcen-dence into its opposite or negation: in short, Stage Three, the reunion ofGod and man in an "ecstasy of union," and the end of history.

The dialectical process by which one sta te of affairs gives rise toa very different sta te, if not i ts opposite, is, for the reabsorptionists,a mystical though inevitable development. There was no need forthem to explain the mechanism. Indeed, particularly influential forHegel and later reabsorptionist thinkers was one of the later Chris-tian mystics in this tradition: the early seventeenth century Germancobbler Jakob Boehme. Pantheizing the dialectic, Boehme declaredthat it was not God's will but some primal force, that launched the

' O ~ l e x a n d e rGr ay h a s a lot of fun with t h e concept of "negation" in th e Hegelian an dMarxian d ia lect ic . He wri tes th a t the exam ples of the 'hegat io n of the negat ionVinEngels'sAnti-Diihring "may be sound H egelianism, b ut otherwise the y a ppe ar rat he r silly. A seedof barley fal ls into th e ground a n d germinates: negat ion of th e seed. In th e a utu m n i tproduces more gra ins of barley: negat ion of the n egat ion. A butterfly come s from an egg:negat ion of the egg. After ma ny transfo rmation s, th e but terfly ma tes an d dies: negat ionof th e negation . ... Hegel i s sure ly something more tha n th is." Gray ad ds a comment tha tMarx 's a dm ir ing summ ary of Hegelianism in h is Poverty and Philosophy is 'ho t withouten terta inm en t value": "yes becomes no, no becomes yes, yes becomes a t th e s am e t ime yesand no, no becomes a t the sa m e t ime no an d yes , the con t rar ies ba lance , neut ra l ize , andparalyze each other." (My own translation from Gray's original French quote, which hefound "especially" ente rtaini ng.) Gray, So cialis t Tradition, p. 300 n . 1 and n . 2.


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cosmic dialectic of creation and history. How, Boehme asked, did theworld of pre-creation transcend itself into creation? Before creation,he answered, there was a primal source, an eternal unity, an undif-ferentiated, indistinct, literal Nothing [Ungrundl. Oddly enough, th isNothing possessed within itself an inner striving, a nisus, a drive forself-realization. That drive, Boehme asserted, gave rise to i ts oppo-site, the Will, the interaction of which with nisus transformed theNothing into the Something of th e created universe."

Heavily influenced by Jakob Boehme was the mystical Englishcommunist, Gerrard Winstanley, founder of the Digger sect duringthe English Civil War. Son of a textile merchant who had failed in thecloth business and then had sunk to the st atus of agricultural laborer,Winstanley, in early 1649, had a mystical vision of th e ideal commu-nist world of the future. Originally, according to this vision, a versionof God had created the universe; but the spirit of "selfishness," theDevil itself, had entered into man and brought about private propertyand a market economy. The curse of the self, opined Winstanley, was"the beginner of particular interest," or private property, with menbuying and selling and saying "This is mine." The end of originalcommunism and its breakup into private property meant tha t univer-sal liberty was gone, and creation brought "under the curse of bond-age, sorrow, and tears." In England, Winstanley absurdly held, prop-erty had been communist until the Norman Conquest of 1066, whichcreated the institution of private property.12

But soon, declared Winstanley, universal "love" would eliminateprivate property, and would thus restore the earth to "a common prop-erty as it was in the beginning ... making the earth one storehouse, andevery man and woman to live ... as members of one household." Thiscommunism and absolute equality of possessions would thus bring tothe world the millennium, "a new heaven, and a new earth."13

At first, Winstanley believed that little or no coercion would benecessary for establishing and maintaining his communist society.

" s e e M. H. A br a m s , N a t u r a l S upe r na t u r al is m : T r a d i ti on a n d R evo lu ti on in R om a n-t ic Li teratu re (New York: Norto n, 197 1), p. 161." ~ o s t f t h e P r o t e s t an t s h eld t h e v er y d if fe re nt , a n d f a r m o r e co rr ec t, view t h a tt he N or m a n C onque s t ha d i m pose d a s t a te - c r ea t e d f e uda l- t ype l a nde d e s t a t e s on a nEngland which ha d been much c loser t o be ing a n idy ll of genuin e pr iva t e p rope r ty .E nge l s a nd o t he r h i s t o r ia ns a n d a n t h r opo l og i s ts s a w t h e o r i g ina l E a r l y C om m u-nism , or Golden Age, in pr im i t ive pr e-m ark et t r iba l soc ie t ies . Mo dern anthropologica lre sea rch , however , has demons t ra t ed t ha t mos t p r imi t i ve and t r i ba l soc i e t i e s werebased on pr iva t e p roper ty , money, an d m ark e t economies . Th us , see Bruce Benson ,"Enforcement of Pr iva te P rope r ty Righ ts in Pr imi t ive S ocie t ies : La w W ithout Govern-ment ," Jour na l of Liber ta r ian S tud ies 9 (Winter 1989): 1-26 .I31n M. H. A br a m s, N a l u r a l S upe r na t u r a l i s m , p. 517n .


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132, ,

The Review o f Austr ian Economics, Volume 4Soon, however, he realized, in the completed draft of his utopia, thatall wage labor and all commerce would have to be prohibited on thepenalty of death. Winstanley was quite willing to go this far with hisprogram. Everyone was to contribute to, and take from, the commonstorehouse, and the death penalty was to be levied on all use of money,or on any buying or selling. The "sin" of idleness would of course becombatted by forced labor for the benefit of the communist commu-nity. This all-encompassing stress on the executioner makes particu-larly grisly the declaration of Winstanley that "all punishments thatar e to be inflicted ... are only such a s to make the offender ... to livein the community of the righteous law of love one with another."Education in "love" was to be insured by free and compulsory school-ing conducted by the state, mainly in useful crafts rather than inliberal a rt s, as well a s by "ministers" elected by the public to preachsecular sermons upholding the new system.14Hegel as Pantheist ReabsorptionistEveryone knows that Marx was essentially a Hegelian in philosophy,but the precise scope of Hegel's influence on Marx is less well-under-stood. Hegel's dubious accomplishment was to completely pantheizereabsorption theology. It is little realized that Hegel was only one,although the most elaborate and hypertrophic, of a host of writerswho constituted the highly influential Romantic movement in Ger-many and England a t the end of the eighteenth, and during the firsthalf of the nineteenth, centuries.I5 Hegel was a theology student atthe University of Tiibingen, and many of his fellow Romantics, friendsand colleagues, such as Schelling, Schiller, Holderlin, and Fichte,began as theology students, many of them a t Tiibingen.16

The Romantic twist to the reabsorption story was to proclaim thatGod is in reality Man. Man, or rather the Man-God, created theuniverse. But Man's imperfection, his flaw, lay in his failure to realizethat he is God. The Man-God begins his life in history unconscious ofthe vital fact that he is God. He is alienated, cut off, from the crucialknowledge th at he and God are one, that he created, and continuesto empower, the universe. History, then, is th e inevitable process bywhich the Man-God develops his faculties, fulfills his potential, andadvances his knowledge, until th at blissful day when Man acquires

I 4 c h r i s to p h e r H i l l, T h e W orld T u r n ed U psrd e D ow n: R a d z c a l I d e ~ urzng theEng l l sh Revo lu t ion (London : Pen gu in Books , 1975), p. 136. Also see F.D. Dow, R ad l -ca llbm Ln the Eng l i sh Revo lu t~o n , 640-1660 (Oxford: Bas i l Blackwell , 1985), pp . 74-80.I s s ee t h e s u p e r b w o r k b y t h e l e ad l n g l i t e r a r y c r ~ t i c f R o m an t i c i s m , A b r am s ,N a t u r a l S u p e r n a t u r a l ~ s m .I 6 ~ e g e lw a s n o m in a ll y a L u t h e r a n , b u t L u t h e r a n i s m i n G e r m a n y a t t h a t t lm e w a s

ev i d en t ly l a t i t u d i n a r i an en o u g h t o en co m p as s p an t h e i s m .


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Karl Marx 133Absolute Knowledge, that is, the full knowledge and realization thathe is God. At that point, the Man-God finally reaches hi s potential,becomes an infinite being without bounds, and thereby puts an endto history. The dialectic of history occurs, again, in three fundamentalstages: the Pre-Creation stage; the post-Creation stage of develop-ment with alienation; and the final reabsorption into the state ofinfinity and absolute self-knowledge, which culminates, and put s a nend to, the historical process.

Why, then, did Hegel's Man-God (also termed by Hegel the "world-self' or "world-spirit" [Weltgeistl) create the universe? Not out ofbenevolence, but out of a felt need to become conscious of itself a s aworld-self. This process of growing consciousness is achieved throughthe creative activity by which the world-self externalizes itself. First ,this externalization occurs by the Man-God creating nature, andnext, by a continuing self-externalization through human history, Bybuilding civilization, Man increases the knowledge of his own divin-ity; in tha t way, through history Man gradually puts an end to hisown "self-alienation," which for Hegel was ipso facto th e alienation ofMan from God. Crucial to Hegelian doctrine is tha t Man is alienated,and he perceives the world as hostile, because it is not himself. Allthese conflicts are finally resolved when Man realizes a t long last thatthe world really i s himself.

But why is Hegel's Man so odd and neurotic that he regardseverything that is not himself as alien and hostile? The answer iscentral to the Hegelian mystique. I t is because Hegel, or Hegel's Man,cannot stand the idea of himself not being God, and therefore notbeing of infinite space and without boundary or limit. Seeing anyother being or any other object exist, would imply that he himself isnot infinite or divine. In short, Hegel's philosophy constitutes solip-sistic megalomania on a grand and cosmic scale. Professor Robert C.Tucker describes the situation with characteristic acuity:

For Hegel alienation is finitude, and finitude in t ur n i s bondage. Theexperience of self estrangement in the presence of an apparen t objec-tive world is an experience of enslavement, ... Spiri t, when confrontedwith an object or "other," is ips0 facto aware of itself a s merely finitebeing ... as extending only so far and no farther. The object is, there-fore, a "limit" (Grenze). And a limit, since it contradicts spirit's notionof itself as absolute being, i.e. being-without-limit, is necessarilyapprehended as a "barrier" or "fetter" (Schranke). ... In it s confronta-tion with an apparent object, spir it feels imprisoned in limitation. Itexperiences what Hegel calls the "sorrow of finitude."... In Hegel's quite unique conception of it, freedom means the con-sciousness of self a s unbounded; i t is the absence of a limiting objector non-self ...


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134 The Revieur of A us tri an Eco nom ics, Volume 4Accordingly, the growth of spir i t 's self-knowledge in history is a l ter-na t iv e ly descr ibab le a s a progress of the consc iousness of f reedom.17Hegel's dialectic of history did not simply have three stages;

history moved forward in a series of stages, each one of which wasmoved forward dramatically by a process of aufhebung. I t is evidenttha t the Man who creates the world, advances his "self"-knowledge,and who finally "returns" "Home" in an ecstasy of self-knowledge isnot puny individual Man, but Man as collective-species. But, for Hegel,each stage of advance is propelled by great individuals, "world-histori-cal" men, who embody the attributes of the Absolute more than others,and act a s significant agents of the next aufhebung, the lifting up of theMan-God's or "world-soul's" next great advance into "self-knowledge."

Thus, at a time when most patriotic Prussians were reacting vio-lently against Napoleon's imperial conquests, and mobilizing theirforces against him, Hegel wrote to a friend in ecstasy about having seenNapoleon, "the Emperor-this world-soul" riding down the street; forNapoleon, even if unconsciously, was pursuing the world-historicalmission of bringing a strong Prussian State into being.'' I t is interestingthat Hegel got his idea of the "cunning of Reason," of great individualsacting as unconscious agents of the world-soul through history byperusing the works of the Rev. Adam Ferguson, whose phrase aboutevents being "the product of human action but not of human design,"has been so influential in the thought of F. A. Hayek and his disciples.1gIn the economic realm, as well, Hegel learned of the alleged misery ofalienation in separation-that is specialization and the division-of-labor, from Ferguson himself through Friedrich Schiller and fromFerguson's good friend, Adam Smith, in his Wealth of ~ a t i o n s . ~ ~

1 7 ~ o b e r tC . T u ck er , P h i l o s o p h y an d M y t h, p p . 53-54.''see Raym ond Plan t , Hegel (Bloomington: Ind ian a Un ivers i ty Press , 1973),p. 120.19F er g u s o n , f u r t h e r m o r e , u s ed h i s p h r a s e i n a f a sh i on v e r y s i m i l a r t o t h a t o f H eg e l,an d w as o r i gi n al ly f a r f r om t h e H ay ek i an an a l y s is of t h e f r ee m ar k e t . F e r g us o n , a s ayou ng Calv in i s t m in i s te r , en l i s ted in t h e suppres s ion of th e J acob i te r ebe l l ion of 1745in Sco t land . After th e r ebe ll ion wa s a t l as t pu t down, Ferguson p reach ed a s e rmon inwhich h e t r i ed to so lve th e g rea t puzz le : why d id God perm i t the C a tho lics to pur suet h e i r ev i l g o a l s an d a l m o s t t r i u m p h ? H i s an s w er : t h a t t h e C a t h o l i c s , ev en t h o u g h

consciously pu rs ui ng evi l en ds , serve d a s th e unconscious ag en ts of God's good purpose:i . e. , rous ing t h e P res by te r ian C hu rch o f Sco t land ou t of i t s a ll eged apa thy . Hence , ap ro to type o f the "cunn ing o f Reason" in h i story , excep t for the i s t r a th er th an pan the i s tg o a ls . S ee R i ch a r d B . S h e r , C h u r ch a n d U n iv er si ty i n t h e S co t t i sh E n l i g h ten m en t(P r ince ton : P r ince ton Univer s i ty P res s , 1985), pp . 40-44.20A s P a u l C r a i g R o b e r t s h a s r i g h tl y em p h as i zed , " a li ena t io n " i n M a r x i s n o t s i m p l yth e ca p i ta l i s t wage- re la t ion , bu t , more deep ly , spec ia li za tion , t he d iv is ion of l abor , an dth e money economy i t s el f . Bu t a s we see , a l iena t ion i s even m ore roo ted ly t h e cosmiccond i tion of man ' s s t a t e un t i l th e r eabsorp t ion of co llec tive m an-a nd- na tu re un de rcomm unism. S ee Pau l C ra ig Rob er t s , A l iena tion a n d the Sov ie t Economy (Albuquerque :


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Karl Marx 135It is easy to see how the reabsorptionist-Hegelian doctrine of

unity-good, separation-bad, helped form the Marxian goal of commu-nism, the end-state of history in which the individual is totallyabsorbed into the collective, thus attaining the state of true collec-tive-man "freedom." But there are also more particular influences.Thus, the Marxian idea of early or primitive communism, happy andintegrated though undeveloped, and then burst apart by rapacious,alienating if developing capitalism, was prefigured by Hegel's histor-ical outlook. Following his friend and mentor the Romantic writerFriedrich Schiller, Hegel, in an article written in 1795, lauded thealleged homogeneity, harmony, and unity of ancient Greece, suppos-edly free of the alienating division of labor. The consequent aufhebung,though leading to the growth of commerce, living standards, and indi-vidualism, also destroyed the wonderful unity of Greece and radicallyfragmented man. To Hegel, the next inevitable stage of history wouldreintegrate man and the Sta te.

The S ta te was critical for Hegel. Again foreshadowing Marx, i t i snow particularly important for man-the collective organism-tosurmount unconscious blind fate, and "consciously" to take control ofhis "fate" by means of the State .Hegel was quite insistent tha t, in order for the S ta te to fulfill it svital function, it must be guided by a comprehensive philosophy, andindeed by a Great Philosopher, to give it s mighty rule the necessarycoherence. Otherwise, as Professor Plant explains, "such a s ta te ,devoid of philosophical comprehension, would appear as a merelyarbitrary and oppressive imposition of the freedom of individuals."But, on the contrary, if armed with Hegelian philosophy and withHegel himself a s its great leader, "this alien aspect of the progressivemodern sta te would disappear and would be seen not a s an impositionbut a development of self-consciousness.~'21

Armed, then, with such a philosophy and such a philosopher, t hemodern, especially th e modern Pru ssian, S ta te could take it sdivinely-appointed stand at the apex of human history and civiliza-tion, as God on earth. Thus: "The modern State, ... when compre-hended philosophically, could therefore be seen as the highest artic-ulation of Spirit, or God in the contemporary world." The Sta te , then ,is "a supreme manifestation of the activity of God in the world"; "TheSta te is the Divine Idea as i t exists on earth"; "The St at e is th e marchof God through the world"; "The State is the actually existing, realized

Univ ers i ty o f New Mexico, 1971); and Roberts and Matthew A. Stephe nson, Marx'sTheory of Exchange, Al ienation an d Cr is is , 2nd ed . (N ew York: Praeger , 1983).' l ~ l a n t ,Hegel, p. 96.


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The Review of k us tr i an Economics , Volume 4moral life"; the "State is t he reality of the kingdom of heaven." Andfinally: "The Sta te is God's

For Hegel, of all th e various forms of State , monarchy-as incontemporary Prussia-is best, since it permit's all its subjects to be"free" (in the Hegelian sense) by submerging their being into thedivine substance, which i s the au thor itar ian, monarchial State. ThepeoI;le a re only "free" a s insignificant particles of th is divine sub-stance. As Tucker writes: ,

Hegel's conception of freedom is total ita rian in a litera l sense of theword. The world-self must experience itself as the totality of being,or in Hegel's own words must elevate itself to a "self-comprehendingtotality," in order to achieve t he consciousness of fr eed~rn. '~,

Every determinist creed thoughtfully provides an8escape atch forthe determinist himself, sb that he can rise above the determiningfactors, expound his philosophy and convince his fellowmen. Hegelwas no exception, but his was unquestionably the most grandiose ofall escape-hatches. For of all the world-historical figures, those em-bodiments of the Man-God, who are called on to bring on the nextstage of the dialectic, who can be greater, more in tune with thedivinity, than the Great Philosopher himself who has brought us theknowledge of this entire process, and thereby was able to himselfcomplete man's final comprehension of the Absolute and of man'sall-encompassing divinity? And isn't the great creator of the crucialphilosophy about man and the universe in a deep sense greater thanthe philosophy itself? And therefore, if the species man is God, isn'the, the great Hegel, in a profound sense God of ~ o d s ? ' ~inally, as

22 See P l an t , Hege l , pp . 122, 123, a n d 181. Also se e Kar l R. Popper, T he Open Socretyan d ' r t s Enernres ,'vol . 2 (New York. H ar pe r Torchbooks, 1963), p. 31.2 3 ~ u c k e r ,h do so ph y a n d M y t h, p p. 54-55. E. F. 'Ca r r i t t po in t s ou t t ha t , for Hegel ," freedom" i s "des irmg above a l l th ~ n g so se rve th e succes s and g lo ry of the i r S ta te . Indes i r ing th i s they a r e des i r ing t ha t th e wil l of God shou ld be done. " If a n ind iv idua lth i nk s he shou ld do someth ing which i s not fo r th e succes s and g lo ry of th e S ta te , then ,for Hegel, "he shou ld b e 'forced to be free."' How does a person know w ha t action willr edound to t he g lo ry o f the S ta te ? To Hegel , th e answer w as easy . Wha tever the S ta terule rs dem an d, s lnce "the very fact of the ir being rulers is the surest s g n of God's will th at

they should be." Impeccable lo g c Indeed! See E. F. Ca m tt , "Reply" (1940), reprinted in W.K au ffm an n, ed., Hegel's Polrtrcal Phrlosophy (New York: Athe rton Pre ss, 19701, pp. 38-39.24 Tucker o f fe rs a n a m us ing comm ent on th e r eac tion o f th e emin en t Hege l ian W. T.S t ace , w ho h a d w r i t t en t h a t " w e m u s t n o t j u m p t o t h e p r ep o s t e ro u s con cl us io n t h a t ,accord ing to Hege l' s ph~ losop hy , , th i s par t i cu la r hu ma n sp i r i t , a m th e Absolute, nort h a t t h e A b so lu te i s a n y p a r t ic u l ar s p i r ~ t , o r t h a t it i s h u m an i t y In g en e r a l . S u chconc!usions would be l i t t le sh or t of shocking." Tucker a dd s th a t th is "argu me nt f romp r o p r ~ e t y " o e s no t an s w er t h e q u es t io n " wh y w e m u s t a s s u m e t h a t H eg el cou ld n o t b e' shockmg." ' Or , we mig ht add, prepo s terous , or megalo ma niaca l . Tucker, Phr losophy,p p . 46 n a n d 47 n .


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Karl Marx 137

luck and the dialectic would have it, Hegel was just in time to takehis place as the Great Philosopher, in the greatest, the noblest, an dmost developed authoritarian State in the history of the world: theexisting Prussian monarchy of King Friedrich Wilhelm 111.If the Kingwould only accept his world-historical mission, Hegel, arm-in-armwith th e King, would then usher in th e final culminating self-knowl-edge of the Absolute Man-God. Together, Hegel, aided by the King,would bring an end to human history.

For his part , King Friedrich Wilhelm I11 was all too ready to playhis divinely appointed role. When the reactionary powers took overPrussia in 1815, they needed a n official philosopher to call on Prus-sian subjects to worship the Sta te, and thereby to combat the FrenchRevolutionary ideals of individualism, liberty, reason, and naturalrights. Hegel was brought to the great new University of Berlin in1818, to become the official philosopher of th at academic monumentto the authoritarian Prussian State .

While highly influential in Pruss ia and the Protestant sectors ofGermany, Hegelianism was also akin to, and influential upon, theRomantic writers in England. Virtually all of Wordsworth's poeticoutput was designed to set forth what he called a "high Romanticargument" designed to transcend and counteract Milton's "heroic" or"great" argument expounding the orthodox Christian eschatology,that man, as individual men, will either return to Paradise or beconsigned to Hell upon the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. To this"argument," Wordsworth counterposed his own pantheist vision ofthe upward spiral of history in which Man, as species, inevitablyreturns home from his cosmic alienation. Also dedicated to theWordsworthian vision were Coleridge, Shelley and Keats. It is in-structive th at all of these men were Christian heretics, converts fromexplicitly Christ ian theology: Wordsworth had been trained to be anAnglican priest; Coleridge had been a lay preacher, and was steepedin neo-Platonism and the mystical works of Jakob Boehme; andShelley had been absorbed in the study of the Bible.

Finally, the tempestuous conservative statist British writer,Thomas Carlyle, paid tr ibute to Hegel's mentor Friedrich Schiller bywriting a biography of Schiller in 1825. From then on, Carlyle'sinfluential writings were to be steeped in the Hegelian vision. Unityis good, diversity and separateness is evil and diseased; science aswell as individualism constitutes division and dismemberment. Self-hood, Carlyle ranted, is alienation from nature, from others, and fromoneself. But one day, Carlyle prophesied, the breakthrough, theworld's spiritual rebirth , will arrive, led by world-historical figures


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138 The Review o f Au strian Economics, Volume 4("great men"), through which man will return home to a friendlyworld by means of the utte r "annihilation of self' (S elbs t - t~d tun~) . '~Finally, in Pas t and Present (18431, Carlyle applied his profoundlyanti-individualist vision to economic affairs. He denounced egoism,material greed, and laissez-faire, which, by fostering man's severancefrom others, had led to a world "which has become a lifeless other,and in severance also from other human beings within a social orderin which 'cash payment is ... the sole nexus of man with man."' Inopposition to this evil "cash nexus" lay the familial relation with natureand fellow-men, the relation of "love." The stage was set for Karl Ma x z 6Communism as the Kingdom of God on Earth: FromJoachim to MiintzerSo far we have dealt with reabsorption theology a s a crucial forerun-ner of Marx's religious eschatological communism. But there is an-other important strand sometimes woven in with the first, fused intohis eschatological vision: messianic millennialism, or chiliasm, theestablishing of a communist Kingdom of God on Earth.Throughout i ts history, Christianity has had to confront the ques-tion of the millennium: the thousand-year reign of God on earth.Particularly in such murky par ts of the Bible a s the book of Danieland the book of Revelation, there are suggestions of such a millennialKingdom of God on Earth before the final Day of Judgment and theend of human history. The orthodox Christian line was set by thegreat Saint Augustine in the early fifth century, and has been ac-cepted ever since by the mainstream Christian churches: RomanCatholic, Lutheran, and arguably by Calvin and a t least by the Dutchwing of the Calvinist church. That orthodox line holds that themillennial Kingdom of God on Ea rth [KGE] is strictly a metaphor forthe Christian Church, which reigns on earth only in the spiritualsense. The material realization of the Kingdom of God will only arriveupon the Day of Judgment, and is therefore to be confined to heavenalone. Orthodox Christians have always warned that taking the KGEliterally, what the late orthodox Christian theorist Erich Voegelincalled "immanentizing the eschatonV-bringing the eschaton down toearth-is bound to create grave social problems. For one thing, mostversions of how the KGE will come into being are apocalyptic. TheKGE is to be preceded by a mighty Armageddon, a ti tanic war of goodagainst evil, in which the good will finally, though inevitably, triumph.

250n th e in fluence o f Schiller's vie ws on organicism and alienation upon Hegel,Marx and later sociology, see Leon Bramson, The Political Context of Sociology(Princeton: Princeton U niv ersi ty Press, 1961),p. 30 n.26See Abrams, Natural S upern aturalism , p. 311.


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Karl Marx 139

One reason for the apocalypse is a fundamental problem faced by allKGE theorists. The KGE, by definition, will consist of a society ofsaints , of perfect people. But if th is is true , what h as become of thehost of human sinners, of whom alas there are legion? In order toestablish th e KGE there must first be some sort of mighty apocalypticpurge of the sinners to clear the ground for the society of saints ."Pre-millennial" and "post-millennial" variants of apocalyptics ac-complish this task in different ways. The pre-mils, who believe thatJesus's Second Advent will precede the KGE, and t hat Je su s will runthe Kingdom with the cadre of sain ts a t his right hand, achieve thepurge by a divinely determined Armageddon between God's forcesand the forces of the Beast and the Anti-Christ . The post-mils, whobelieve tha t man must establish the KGE as a precondition of Jesus'sSecond Coming, have to take matters more directly in their ownhands and accomplish the great purge on their own.

Thus, one disturbing aspect of the KGE is the preparatory purga-tion of the host of human sinners. A second problem is what th e KGEis going to look like. As we might imagine, KGE theorists have beenextremely cloudy about the nature of their perfect society, but onetroublesome feature is that , to the extent that we know its operationsat all, the KGE is almost always depicted as a communist society,lacking work, private property, or the division of labor. In short,something like the Marxian communist utopia, except run by a cadre,not of the vanguard of the proletariat, but of theocratic saints.

Any communist system faces the problem of production: whowould have the incentive to produce for the communal storehouse,and how would this work and its products be allocated? The first, andmost highly influential, communist Christian heretic was the latetwelfth-century Calabrian abbot and hermit, Joachim of Fiore.Joachim, who almost managed to convert three popes to his heresy,adopted the thesis tha t there are destined to be in history, not jus ttwo Ages (pre and post-Christian) as orthodox Christ ians believe, buta Third Age a-borning, of which he was the prophet. The pre-Chris-tian ara was the age of the Father, of the Old Testament; the Chris tianera the age of the Son, the New Testament. And now arrives the thirdapocalyptic age of th e Holy Spirit, to be ushered in during the nexthalf-century, an age of pure love and freedom, in which history wasto come to an end. The Church, the Bible, and the State would beswept away, and man would live in a free communist communitywithout work or property.

Joachim dispensed with the problem of production and allocationunder communism very neatly and effectively, more so than any


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1 4 0 Th e Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4communist successor. In the Third Age, he declared, man's materialbodies will disappear, and man will be pure spirit, free to spend allof his days in mystical ecstasy chanting praises to God for a thousandyears unt il the Day of Judgment. Without physical bodies, there i s ofcourse precious little need for production.27For Joachim, the path tothis kingdom of pure spiri t would be blazed by a new order of highlyspiritual monks, from whom would come 12 patriarchs headed by asupreme teacher, who would convert the Jews to Christianity asforetold in th e book of Revelation. For a blazing three and a half yearsa secular king, th e Antichrist, would crush, and destroy the corruptChrist ian Church, after which the Antichrist would be overthrown bythe new monastic order, who ,would promptly establish the millennia1age of the Spirit. It is no wonder tha t a rigorist wing of the Franciscanorder, which was to emerge during the firs t half of the thirteenthcentury, and be dedicated to material poverty, should see themselvesas the coming Joachimite cadre, .

At the same period, the Amaurians, led by a group of theologys tudent s of Amalric a t t h e ' u n i ~ e r s i t ~f Paris, carried on theJoachimite doctrine of the three Ages, and added a n interesting twist:each age, they declared, has enjoyed its own Incarnation. In the ageof the Old Testament, the divine Incarnation settled in Abraham andperhaps some other patriarchs; for the New Testament age, theIncarnation was of,course ~ e s u s ; ' a n dow, for the diwning Age of theHoly Spiri t, the Incarnation would emerge among the various humanbeings themselves. As might be expected, the Amaurian cadre pro-claimed themselves to be living gods, the ~ncarnationof the HolySpirit . Not t hat they would always remain a divine elite, among men;on the contrary, they were destined to be the vanguard, leadingmankind to its universal Incarnation.

During the following century, a congeries of groups throughoutnorthern Europe known as the Brethren of the Free Spirit addedanother'important ingredient to. th is brew: the mystical dialectic ofthe "reabsorption into God." But the brethren added their own elitisttwist: while the reabsorption of all men must await the end of history,and the mass of the "crude in spirit" must meanwhile meet theirindividual deaths, there was a glorious minority, the "subtle in spirit,"who could and did become reabsorbed and therefore living godsdurin'g their lifetime. This minority, of course, was the cadre of theBrethren themselves, who, by virtue of years of training, self-torture,

27A s t h e h l s t o r lan N o r m an C o h n p u t i t , t h e J o a ch ~ m i t e ew ," w o rl d w o ul d b e on evas t monas tery , In which a l l me n would be con templa t ive mon ks rap t in myst ica lecs tasy an d un l ted in s ing in g th e p ra i ses of God ." Norm an Cohn , The P u r s u ~ tof theMtllen nrurn, rev ed . (New York: Oxford Un ive rsity Pr ess , 19701, pp. 10 8-09.


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Karl M a r x 141and visions had become perfect gods, more perfect and more godlikethan even Christ himself. Furthermore, once this stage of mysticalunion was reached, it was to be permanent an d eternal. These newgods, in fact, often proclaimed themselves greater than God himself.

Being living gods on earth brought a lot of good things in i ts wake.In the first place, it led directly to an extreme form of the antinomianheresy; that is, if people are gods, then it is impossible for them to sin.Whatever they did is necessarily moral and perfect. This means thatany act ordinarily considered to be sin, from adultery to murder, becomesperfectly legitimate when performed by the living gods. Indeed, the FreeSpirits, like other antinomians, were tempted to demonstrate and flaunttheir freedom from sin by performing all manner of sins imaginable.

But there was also a catch. Among the Free Spirit cultists, only aminority of leading adepts were "living gods"; for the rank-and-filecultists, striving to become gods, there was one sin and one alone whichthey must not commit: disobedience to their master. Each disciple wasbound by an oath of absolute obedience to a particular living god. Take,for example, Nicholas of Basle, a leading Free Spirit whose cultstretched most of the length of the Rhine. Claiming to be the new Christ,Nicholas held that everyone's sole path to salvation consisted of makingan act of absolute and total submission to Nicholas himself. In returnfor th is total fealty, Nicholas granted his followers freedom from all sin.

As for the rest of mankind outside the cults, they were simplyunredeemed and unregenerate beings who existed only to be used andexploited by the Elect. This gospel of total rule went hand in hand withthe social doctrine of many of the fourteenth century cults of the FreeSpirit: a communistic assault on the institution of private property. Ina sense, however, this philosophic communism was merely a thinlycamouflaged cover for the Free Spirits ' self-proclaimed right to committheft a t will. The Free Spirit adept, in short, regarded all property of thenon-Elect a s rightfully his own. As the Bishop of Strasbourg summedup this creed in 1317: "They believe that all things are common, whencethey conclude that theft is lawful for them." Or a s the Free Spirit adeptfrom Erfurt, Johann Hartmann, put it: "The truly free man is king andlord of all creatures. All things belong to him, and he has the right touse whatever pleases him. If anyone tries to prevent him, the free manmay kill him and take his goods."28AS one of the favorite sayings of theBrethren of the Free Spirit phrased it: 'Whatever the eye sees andcovets, let the hand grasp it."

The following century, th e fifteenth, brought th e first attempt toinitiate th e KGE, the first brief experiment in totalitarian theocraticcommunism. This attempt originated in the left, or extreme, wing, of

" ~ o h n ,Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 1 8 2 .


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142 The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4the Taborites, which in turn constituted the radical wing of therevolutionary Hussite movement in Czech Bohemia of the earlyfifteenth century. The Hussite movement, led by J a n Hus, was apre-Protestant revolutionary formation that blended struggles ofreligion (Hussite vs. Catholic), nationality (popular Czech vs. upper-class and upper-clergy German), and class (artisans cartelized inurban guilds trying to take political power from patricians). Buildingon the previous communist KGE movements, and especially on theBrethren of the Free Spirit, the ultra-Taborites added, with consid-erable enthusiasm, one extra ingredient: th e duty to exterminate. Forthe Last Days are coming, and th e Elect must go forth and stamp outsin by exterminating all sinners, which means, a t the very least, allnon-ultra-Taborites. For all sinners are enemies of Christ , and "ac-cursed be the man who withholds his sword from shedding the bloodof the enemies of Christ. Every believer must wash his hands in thatblood." This destruction was of course not to stop a t intellectualeradication. When sacking churches and monasteries, the Taboritestook particular delight in destroying libraries and burning books. For"all belongings must be taken away from God's enemies and burned orotherwise destroyed." Besides, the Elect have no need of books. Whenthe Kingdom of God on Earth arrived, there would no longer be "needfor anyone to teach another. There would be no need for books orscriptures, and all worldly wisdom will perish." And all people too, onesuspects.

The ultra-Taborites also wove in t he reabsorption theme: a returnto the alleged early condition of Czech communism: a society lackingthe sin of private property. In order to return to th is classless society,determined the Taborites, the cities, those notorious centers of luxuryand avarice, must be exterminated. And once the communist KGEhad been established in Bohemia, the Elect must forge out from thatbase and impose such communism on the rest of the world.

The Taborites also added another ingredient to make their com-munist ideal consistent. In addition to the communism of property,women would also be communized. The Taborite preachers taughtthat "Everything will be common, including wives; there will be freesons and daughters of God and there will be no marriage a s union oftwo-husband and wife."

The Hussite revolution broke out in 1419, and in that same year,the Taborites gathered a t th e town of Usti, in northern Bohemia nearthe German border. They renamed Usti "Tabor," i.e., the Mount ofOlives where Jesus had foretold his Second Coming, was ascended toheaven, and where he was expected to reappear. The radical Taboritesengaged in a communist experiment a t Tabor, owning everything in


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common, and dedicated to the proposition that "whoever owns privateproperty commits a mortal sin." True to their doctrines, all womenwere owned in common, and if husband and wife were ever seentogether, they were beaten to death or otherwise executed. Charac-teristically, the Taborites were so caught up in their unlimited rightto consume from the common store that they felt themselves exemptfrom the need to work. The common store soon disappeared, and thenwhat? Then, of course, the radical Taborites claimed that thei r needentitled them to claim the property of the non-elect, and they proceededto rob others a t will. As a synod of the moderate Taborites complained:"many communities never think of earning their own living by the workof their hands but are only willing to live on other people's property andto undertake unjust campaigns for the sake of robbing." Moreover, theTaborite peasantry who had rejoiced in the abolition of feudal dues paidto the Catholic patricians, found the radical regime reimposing the samefeudal dues and bonds only six months later.

Discredited among their moderate allies and among their peas-antry, the radical communist regime at UstiITabor soon collapsed.But their torch was quickly picked u p by a sect known as the Bohem-ian Adamites. Like the Free Spirits of the previous century, theAdamites held themselves to be living gods, superior to Christ, sinceChrist had died while they still lived (impeccable logic, if a bitshort-sighted). For the Adamites, led by a peasant leader they dubbed"Adam-Moses," all goods were owned strictly in common, and mar-riage was considered a heinous sin. In short, promiscuity was com-pulsory, since the chaste were unworthy to enter the messianicKingdom. Any man could choose any woman a t will, and that willwould have to be obeyed. On the other hand, promiscuity was a t oneand the same time compulsory and severely restricted; since sex couldonly take place with the permission of the leader Adam-Moses. TheAdamites added a special twist: they went around naked most of thetime, imitating the original st ate of Adam and Eve.

Like the other radical Taborites, the Adamites regarded it a s theirsacred mission to exterminate all the unbelievers in the world,wielding the sword, in one of their favorite images, until blood floodsthe world up to the height of a horse's bridle. The Adamites were God'sscythe, sent to cut down and eradicate the unrighteous.

Pursued by the Hussite military commander, J a n Zizka, the Ad-amites took refuge on an island in the river Nezarka, from which theywent forth in commando raids to try their best, despite their relativelysmall number, to fulfill their twin pledge of compulsory communism andextermination of the non-elect. At night, they raided the mainland-in forays they called a "Holy Warn-to rob everything they could lay


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144 The Review of A us tri an Econom ics; Volume 4their hands on and to exterminate their victims. True to their creed,they murdered every man, woman, and child they could find.Finally, in October 1421, Zizka sent a force of 400 hundred trainedsoldiers to beseige the Adamite island, soon overwhelming the com-mune and massacring every last Adamite. One more hellish Kingdomof God on Ear th had been put to the sword.The moderate Taborite army was, in tu rn , crushed by the Hussitesa t the Battle of Lipan in 1434, and from then on, Taborism declinedand went underground. But Taborite and millennialist ideas contin-ued to pop up, not only among the Czechs, but also in Bavaria and inother German lands bordering Bohemia.Sometimes Martin'Luther must have felt that he had loosed thewhirlwind, even opened the Gates of Hell. Shortly after Luther launchedthe Reformation, Anabaptist sects appeared and spread throughoutGermany. Anabaptists believed that they were the Elect, and that thesign of that election was a n emotional, mystical conversion experience,the process of being "born again," or baptized in the Holy Spirit. Forgroups of the Anabaptist elect finding themselves within a corrupt andsinful society, there were two routes to take. One, the voluntary An-abaptists, such as the Amish or Mennonites, became virtual anarchists,striving to separate themselves as much as possible from a sinful Stateand society. The other wing, the theocratic Anabaptists, sought to seizepower in the State and to shape up society by extreme coercion. AsMonsipor Knox has pointed out, this ultra-theocratic approach mustbe distinguished from the sort of theocracy (what has recently beencalled theonomy-the ride of God's Law) imposed by Calvin in Genevaor by the Calvinistic Puritans in the seventeenth century NorthAmerica. Luther and Calvin, in Knox's terminology, did not pretendto be "prophets" enjoying continuing personal divine revelation; theJwere only "pundits," scholarly experts in interpreting the Bible, and inapplying Biblical law to man." But the coercive Anabaptists were ledby men claiming mystical illumination 'and revelation and deservingtherefore of absolute power.The wave of theocratic Anabaptism that swept over Germany andHolland with hurricane force may be called the "Muntzer-Miinsterera," since it was launched by Thomas Miintzer in 1520, and endedin a holocaust a t the city of Munster 15 years later. l learned youngtheologian and graduate of the Universities of Leipzig and FrankfurtMiintzer-was selected by Luther to become a Lutheran pastor in thccity of Zwickau. Zwickau, however, was near the Bohemian borderand there Muntzer was converted by the weaver and adept Nikla~

29~ona l d. Knox, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of keligion (1950; N euYork: Oxford U niver s i ty Press, 1961),pp. 132-34.


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Storch, who had lived in Bohemia, to the old Taborite creed. Inparticular: continuing personal divine revelation to the prophet of thecult, and the necessity for the elect to seize power a nd impose a societyof theocratic communism by brutal force of arms. I n addition, therewas to be communism of women: marriage was to be prohibited, andeach man was to be able to have any woman a t will.

Thomas Muntzer now claimed to be the divinely chosen prophet,destined to wage a war of blood and extermination by the elect againstthe sinners. Muntzer claimed that the "living Christ" had perma-nently entered his own soul; endowed thereby with perfect insightinto the divine will, he asserted himself to be uniquely qualified tofulfill the divine mission. He even spoke of himself as "becoming God."Having graduated from the world of learning, Muntzer was now readyfor the world of action.

Muntzer wandered around central Germany for several years, gain-ing adepts and inspiring uprisings that were quickly suppressed. Gain-ing a ministerial post in the small Thuringian town of Allstedt, Muntzergained a wide popular following by preaching in the vernacular, attract-ing a large number of uneducated miners, whom he formed into arevolutionary organization called "The League of the Elect." A turningpoint in Muntzer's career came in 1524, when Duke John, brother of theElector of Saxony and a Lutheran, came to town and asked Muntzer topreach him a sermon. Seizing his opportunity, Muntzer laid it on theline: the Saxon princes must take their stand a s either servants of Godor of the Devil. If they would do the former, they must "lay on with thesword" to "exterminate" all the "godless" and "evil-doers," especiallyincluding priests, monks, and godless rulers. If the Saxon princes failedin this task, Muntzer warned, "the sword shall be taken from them. ...If they [the princes] resist, let them be slaughtered without mercy. ..."Such extermination, performed by the princes and guided by Muntzer,would usher in a thousand-year-rule by the Elect.

Duke John's reaction to this fiery ultimatum was surprisinglyblase, but, warned repeatedly by Luther t ha t Muntzer was becomingdangerous, the Duke finally ordered Muntzer to refrain from anyprovocative preaching unti l his case was decided by the Elector.

This reaction by the Saxon princes, however mild, was enough to setThomas Muntzer onto his final revolutionary road. The princes hadproved themselves untrustworthy: it was now up to the mass of the poorto make the revolution. The poor, the Elect, would establish a rule ofcompulsory egalitarian communism, where all things would be ownedin common by all, where everyone would be equal in all things and eachperson would receive according to his need. But not yet. For even thepoor must first be broken of worldly desires and frivolous enjoyments,


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146 The Review of Au stria n Econom ics, Volume 4and they must recognize the leadership of a new "servant of God" whc"must stand forth in the spirit of Elijah ... and se t things in motion.'I t was not difficult to guess who that Leader was supposed to be.Seeing Allstedt as inhospitable, Muntzer moved to the Thuringiar!city of Muhlhausen, where he found a friendly home in a land irpolitical turmoil. Under Muntzer's inspiration, a revolutionary groultook over Muhlhausen in February 1525, and Muntzer and his alliesproceeded to impose a communist regime upon th at city.The monasteries of Muhlhausen were seized, and all property wardeclared to be in common; as a consequence, as a contemporagobserver noted, t he regime "so affected the folk that no one wantecto work." As under the Taborites, the regime of communism and lowsoon became, in practice, a systemic excuse for theft:

when anyone needed food or clothing he went to a rich man anddem anded i t of him in Ch rist's nam e, for Christ had commanded thatall should s har e with the needy. And what w as not given freely w astaken by force. Many acted t hu s. ...Thom as [Miintzer] instituted thisbrigandage and m ultip lied it every day.30At that point, the great Peasants' War erupted throughout Germany, a rebellion by the peasantry in favor of their local autonomyand opposing the new centralizing, high tax rule of the Germarprinces. In the process of crushing the feebly armed peasantry, thtprinces came to Muhlhausen on May 15, and offered amnesty to thtpeasants if they would hand over Muntzer and his immediate followers. The peasants were tempted, but Muntzer, holding aloft his nakecsword, gave his l ast flaming speech, declaring that God had personally promised him victory; that he would catch all the enemy cannonballs in the sleeves of his cloak; and that God would protect them allAt a climactic moment in Muntzer's speech, a rainbow appeared irthe heavens. Since Miintzer had adopted the rainbow as t he symboof his movement, the credulous peasantry naturally interpreted thi:event as a veritable Sign from heaven. Unfortunately, t he Sign failecto work, and the princes' army crushed the peasantry, killing 5,00(while losing only half a dozen men. Miintzer himself fled and hid, bulwas captured soon after, tortured into confession, and duly executed

Communism as the Kingdom of God on Earth: The Takeoverof MiinsterThomas Muntzer and hi s Sign may have gotten short shrift , and hisbody be a-mouldrin' in t he grave, bu t his soul kept marching on. Hi!cause was soon picked up by a Muntzer disciple, the bookbinder Hanr

3 0 ~ u o t e dn Igor Shafarev ich, The So cialist Phenomenon (N ew York: Harper amRow, 1980),p. 57.


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Hut. Hut claimed to be a prophet sent by God to announce that Christwould return to ea rth a t Whitsuntide, 1528, and would give the powerto enforce justice to Hut and to his following of rebaptized saints. Thesaints would then "take up double-edged swords" and wreak God'svengeance upon priests, pastors, kings, and nobles. Hut and his menwould th en "establish th e rule of Ha ns H ut on eart h," withMuhlhausen, as one might expect, a s th e world's capital. Christ, aidedby Hut and company, would then establish a millennium of commu-nism and free love. Hu t was captured in 1527 (unfortunately beforeJesus had a chance to return) , imprisoned at Augsburg, and killedallegedly trying to escape. For a year or two, Huttian followers poppedup throughout southern Germany, threatening to se t up a communistKingdom of God by force of arms. In 1530, however, they weresmashed and suppressed by the alarmed authorities. Muntzerian-type Anabaptism would now move to northwestern Germany.

Northwestern Germany was dotted by a number of small ecclesi-astical sta tes, each run by a prince-bishop, bishops who were seculararistocratic lords not ordained as priests. The ruling clergy of thestate exempted themselves from taxation, while imposing heavytaxes on th e rest of the populace. Generally, the capital cities of eachstate were run by a n oligarchy of guilds who cartelized their crafts,and who battled the state clergy for a degree of autonomy.. .The largest of these ecclesiastical states in northwest Germanywas the bishopric of Miinster; i ts capital city of Munster, a town ofsome 10,000 people, was run by th e town guilds. During and after thePeasants' War, the guilds and clergy battled back and forth, until , in1532, the guilds, supported by th e people, were able to take over th etown, soon forcing the Catholic bishop to recognize Miinster officiallyas a Lutheran city.

Munster was not destined to remain Lutheran for long, however.From all over the northwest, hordes of Anabaptist crazies flooded intothe city of Munster, seeking the onset of the New Jerusalem. Anabap-tism escalated when the eloquent and popular young minister BerntRothmann, a highly educated son of a town blacksmith, converted toAnabaptism. Originally a Catholic priest, Rothmann had become afriend of Luther and a head of the Lutheran church in Munster. Butnow he lent his eloquent preaching to the cause of communism as ithad supposedly existed in the primitive Christian Church, witheverything being held in common, with no mine or thine, and eachman receiving according to his "need." Rothmann's widespread repu-tation attracted thousands more into Munster, largely the poor, therootless, and those hopelessly in debt.

The leader of the horde of Miinster Anabaptists, however, was


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148 The Review of Austr ian Economics, Volume 4destined to be not Rothmann but a Dutch baker from Haarlem, JanMatthys. In early 1534, Matthys sent out missionaries or "apostles'to rebaptize everyone they could into the Matthys movement, and hiapostles were greeted in Munster with enormous enthusiasm. EvenRothmann was rebaptized once again, followed by many former nunsand a large part of the population. The leader of the Matthys move.ment soon arrived, a young Dutchman of 2 5 named J a n Bockelsor(Jan of Leyden). Bockelson quickly married the daughter of thcwealthy cloth merchant, Bernt Knipperdollinck, the leader of thcMiinster guilds, and the two men, leading the town in apocalypticfrenzy, led a successful uprising to dominate the town. The twcleaders sent messengers outside the town urging all followers to comcto Munster. The rest of the world, they proclaimed, would be destroyed in a month or two; only Munster would be saved, to becomtth e New Jerusalem. Thousands poured in from as far away as Frisiain the northern Netherlands. As a result, the Anabaptists were abltto impose absolute rule on the city, with th e incoming Matthys, aidecby Bockelson, becoming the virtual dictators of Miinster. At lastAnabaptism had seized a real-life city; the greatest communist experiment in history to that date could now begin.

The first cherished program of this new coinmunist theocracy wasof course, to purge the New Jerusalem of the unclean and the ungodlyas a prelude to the ir ultimate extermination throughout the worldMatthys, therefore, called for the execution of all remaining Catholicrand Lutherans, but Knipperdollink, slightly more politically as tutewarned Matthys th at such immediate slaughter might bring dowrth e wrath of the rest of the world. Matthys therefore did th e next besithing, and on February 27 th e Catholics and Lutherans were driverout of th e city, in th e midst of a h'orrendous snowstorm.'Prefiguringthe actions of communist Cambodia in the 1970s, all non-Anabaptistsincluding old people, invalids, babies, and pregnant women, were driverinto the s'nowstorm, and all were forced to leave behind all their moneyproperty, food, and clothing. The remaining Lutherans and Catholic!were compulsorily rebaptized, all those refusing being pu t to death. Thcmass expulsion of non-Anabaptists was enough for the bishop, whcbegan a long military siege of Miinster the next day.

With every person in the city drafted for siege work, Ja n Matthyrlaunched his totalitarian communist social revolution. The first s t e ~was to confiscate the property of the expellees. All their worldly goodrwere placed in central depots, and th e poor were encouraged to takt"according to their needs," the "needs" to be interpreted by severappointed "deacons" chosen by Matthys:When a blacksmith protesteca t these measures imposed, particularly gallingly, by a group of Dutd


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CarlMarx 149

breigners, Matthys arrested the courageous smithy. Summoning themtire population of the town to be witness, Matthys personally;tabbed, shot, and killed the "godless" blacksmith, and then threwnto prison several leading citizens who protested his t reatment. The:rowd was warned to profit by this public execution, and they obedi-mtly sang a hymn in honor of the killing.

A crucial par t of the Anabaptist reign of terror was their decision,tgain prefiguring that of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, totbolish all private ownership of money. With no money to purchasetny good, the population became slavishly dependent on handouts or.ations from the power elite. Accordingly, Matthys, Rothmann andhe rest launched a propaganda campaign tha t i t was un-Christiano own money privately; and that all money should be held "in:ommon," which in practice meant t hat all money whatsoever must)e handed over to Matthys and his ruling clique. Several Anabaptistsvho kept or hid their money were arrested and terrorized into:rawling to Matthys on their knees, begging forgiveness, whichvlatthys graciously granted them.

After two months of unremitting propaganda, combined withhreats and terror against those who disobeyed, the private owner-,hip of money was effectively abolished in Miinster. The government;eized all the money and used i t to buy goods or hire workers fromhe outside world. Wages were doled out in kind by the only employer:he theocratic Anabaptist State.

Food was confiscated from private homes, and rationed accordingo the will of government deacons. Also, to accommodate the host ofmmigrants, all private homes were effectively communized, withweryone permitted to quarter themselves everywhere; it was nowllegal to close, let alone lock, one's doors. Compulsory communallining-halls were established, where people ate together to the read-ngs from the Old Testament.

The compulsory communism and reign of terror was carried out inhe name of community and Christian "love." This communization was:onsidered the first giant steps toward egalitarian communism, where,1s Rothmann put it, "all things were to be in common, there was to belo private property and nobody was to do any more work, but simplyrust in God." Somehow, the workless part never seemed to arrive.

A pamphlet sent by the Matthys regime to other Anabaptistmommunities hailed their new order of Christ ian love through terror:

For not only have we put all our belongings into a common pool underthe care of deacons, and live from it according to our need; we praiseGod through Chris t with one hear t and mind and ar e eager to helpone another with every kind of service.


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150 The Review of A us tr i an Economics, V olume.And accordingly, ev ery thi ng which h a s se rved th e purp oses of se lf -seek ing a nd p r iva te p roperty , such a s buying a n d se l l ing , working formone y, t a k in g in t e r e s t a n d p r a c t i c ing usu r y ...or e a t ing a n d d r ink ingthe swea t o f the poor ... an d indeed eve ry th ing which offends u saga ins t love -a ll such th ing s a re aboli shed am ongs t u s by th e powerof love an d com munity.At the end of March 1534, however, Matthys's swollen hubri

brought him down. Convinced at Easter time that God had orderelhim and a few of the faithful to lift the Bishop's siege and liberate thtown, Matthys and a few others rushed out of the gates at thbesieging army, and were literally hacked to pieces in response.

The death of Mat thys left Miinster in the hands of young Bockelson. And if Matthys had chastised th e people of Miinster with whipsBockelson would chastise them with scorpions. Bockelson wastelittle time in mourning his mentor. He preached to the faithful: "Gowill give you another Prophet who will be more powerful." How coulthis young enthusiast top his master? Early in May, Bockelson caughthe a ttention of the town by running naked through the streets infrenzy, falling then into a silent three-day ecstasy. When he rose othe th ird day, he announced to th e enti re populace a new dispensatiothat God had revealed to him. With God a t his elbow, Bockelsoabolished the old town offices of Council and burgermaster, aninstalled a new ruling council of 12 Elders headed by himself. ThElders were given total authority over the life and death, the propertand spirit, of every inhabitant of Miinster. The old guilds werabolished, and a strict system of forced labor was imposed. Aartisans not drafted into the military were now public employee:working for the community for no monetary reward.

Totalitarianism in Miinster was now complete. Death was now thpunishment for virtually every independent act. Capital punishmenwas decreed for the high crimes of: murder, theft, lying, avarice, anquarrelling. Death was also decreed for every conceivable kind cinsubordination: the young against the parents, wives against theihusbands, and, of course, anyone at all against the chosen representstive of God on ear th , the government of Miinster. Bernt Knipperdollincwas appointed high executioner to enforce the decrees.

The only aspect of life previously left untouched was sex, and thideficiency was now made up. The only sexual relation now permitteby the Bockelson regime was marriage between two Anabaptists. Sein any other form, including marriage with one of the "godless," waa capital crime. But soon Bockelson went beyond this ra ther old-fadioned credo, and decided to enforce compulsory polygamy in MiinsteSince many of the expellees had left their wives and daughter


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lehind, Miinster now had three times as many marriageable women1s men, so tha t polygamy ha d become technologically feasible.3ockelson convinced the other rather startled preachers by citing~olygamy mong the patriarchs of Israel, reinforcing this method of~ersuas ion y threatening any dissenters with death.

Compulsory polygamy was a bit a much for many of thediinsterites, who launched a rebellion in protest. The rebellion,iowever, was quickly crushed and most of the rebels put to death.h d o, by August 1554, polygamy had been coercively established inVIiinster. As one might expect, young Bockelson took a n ins tan t liking.o the new regime, and before long he had amassed a harem of 15vives, including Divara, the beautiful young widow of Jan Matthys.rhe res t of the male population also began to take enthusiastically,o the new decree. Many of the women reacted differently, however,ind so the Elders passed a law ordering compulsory marriage for?verywoman under (and presumably also over) a certain age, whichisually meant becoming a compulsory th ird or fourth wife.

Since marriage among the godless was not only invalid but alsollegal, the wives of the expellees became fair game, and they were'orced to "marry" good Anabaptists. Refusal of th e women to complywith the new law was punishable, of course, with death, and a number)f women were actually executed a s a result. Those "old wives whomesented the new competitors in thei r households were also crackedlown on, and their quarrelling was made a capital crime; manywomen were thereupon executed for quarrelling.

Bockelsonian despotism could only reach so far, however, and;enera1 resistance forced the regime to relent and permit divorce. Inin aboutface, not only divorce was now permitted, but all marriagewas now outlawed totally, and divorce made very easy. As a result,Miinster now became a regime of what a

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Rothbard-Karl Marx-Communist as Religious Eschatologist

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