Today daily life has certain difficulties. Marxists experience the effects of industrialization, sickness, of unhappy and unanswered love, sometimes senseless death and killing, Sometimes it is easier to die in battle than in bed. Often you die enthusiastically on the battlefield. But I have not found any Marxist who on his deathbed was reading Marx’s Das Kapital, or the writings of Lenin. That does not, of course, mean that we dismiss the writings of Marx and Lenin. But hundreds of thousands of people are realizing that they are not enough, that there is more to life than organization, politics, and certain views of history. Many times I have had the opportunity to talk to the so-called Aparatzik. When I talk to these people about the experience of Christmas, I always discover that there is a tremendous longing for that kind of experience. Even the toughest atheist discovers that to celebrate Christmas only with a special meal and with the visit of the mother-in-law is just not good enough. So we discover that the liberation of the working man which Marx stood for has certain other aspects.

Also, we have hundreds of thousands of Christian people in our country as well. The Marxist does not find detailed outlines of economics and political constructions of society in Christianity. But he finds, for instance in the Psalms, much which can help him to be in dialogue with his inner self. This does not happen overnight for everybody, but we certainly can say there are hundreds of thousands of atheists, and Marxists for whom Christianity has become of interest. Fifteen years ago, most Marxists would agree that reli­gion and Christianity are total nonsense and really the opiate of the people. I am a convinced atheist. But in spite of this fact, I had said already ten or twelve years ago that religion is not all nonsense, that there is certainly an element of truth in it. Ten years ago my position was one as Isaiah describes it as “One crying in the wilderness”. But in the so-called Prague Spring in 1968, there were hundreds of thousands of people who tried to get a new understanding of what the Christian Church stood for. Two or three years ago the question was raised like a flood, Why should we leave the Christian tradition only to the Christians? And why should not the atheists and Marxists try also to understand in a political way the treasure of Christianity?

Of course, most Christians do not take Biblical cosmology very seriously any more. But already on the second or third pages of the Bible you find the question, Where is your brother, Abel? Actually all ethics can be reduced to this question, Where is your brother, Abel? Communists had experiences, especially under Stalin, when this question was raised, even though he would not have put it in the same words—therefore the search for this contact, for dialogue, for cooperation. In Czechoslovakia it was not a once-a-year affair. Cooperation and working together on common topics and subjects in which both sides were interested was continuous.

Now the question can be raised, Why particularly Christians and Marxists? We have to be concerned also about dialogue with positivists, agnostics, and existentialists. We have to prepare ourselves for the dialogue with the Oriental cultures, Chinese, Hindu, etc. Fifty years from now maybe that dialogue between the Orient and the Occident may be the most important dialogue. Both of us in the so-called West and East are very poorly prepared for that kind of dialogue.

Most Czech theologians would emphasize that they have learned much from Marxists. For instance, the historical-materialist methodology for radical orientation towards this world. Christianity is trying to get out of the philosophy influenced by Plato and, of course, by the Constantinian era. It is not a hopeless but a very difficult struggle.

My present task is to emphasize what we as Marxists can learn from Christians. We do not accept Christian ideology or a Christian world-view, which seems to be somewhat antiquated. And it is our view that much mythology is part of the Christian tradition. But mythology is not necessarily mythology, that is, it is not all negative. Greek mythology does not have the same value as, for instance, the value of the myth of the Exodus from Egypt and other mythologies in the Jewish tradition. We can learn from the Christians especially in respect to existential and so-called ultimate questions. Of course, the prophetic element is another one, too—the element of metanoia, which means repentance, and social turnabout. But Church history is full of examples of how not to do it. There was tension, for instance, between the Church theologian and the Church executive, and between the inquisitor and the heretic. All these things we really have taken over, unfortunately. Internal Christian problems have some­thing to do with Marxism, and at the same time Marxist-Communist internal problems have something to do with religion and Christianity, especially when you think today of the struggle between Prague and Moscow. We can say that it is a struggle between the first country of the Reformation—as you know, a hundred years before the general Reformation, we had a reformation in Czechoslovakia—and a country which never really has had a reformation, the country of the Russian Orthodox Church. Many Russians simply cannot understand what it means to have some initiative taken from below. This is a tragic fact for Czechoslovakia. And I would like to finish my brief talk with a question: Is this a Marxist or is this a Christian problem?

QUESTIONS

Question: Do you anticipate the possibility of some people embracing Marxism and Christianity simultaneously? Or is the atheist issue in Marxism so central that as with certain dissident groups in Christianity they no longer are recognizably Christian? Would not the Jewish- Marxist dialogue be a more logical dialogue than the Christian-Marxist dialogue?

Answer: Atheism is a negation, and one cannot continuously live with negation. Historically this negation plays a rather important role for Marxists, But in the last analysis, most Marxists have realized today that it is really not important what we do not believe but what we do believe. In certain respects it is really not our problem, it is a Christian problem. And I have to say that, if we see today how Christian theologians are fighting with each other to discover who God is and what He is, then I really do not know whether we Marxists are atheists. Marx opposed and negated certain models of the understanding of God as they existed in the 19th century. He was a radical critic in the time of Pius IX and not in the time of John XXIII. It is not necessary to negate all models of God, for instance, the understanding of Bultmann and Rahner can be quite interesting to Marxists. And I would like just to summarize and conclude that historically it plays a certain role, but “not against God, but against certain models of God that were alive and presented in the 19th century”. But the most important dogma of Marxism is not that there is no God. We have had no cosmic experience. The center of Marxist dogma is that man shall prevail, and that he shall live on the deepest possible level. In this way the question of atheism is really a secondary question. In respect to the Jewish-Marxist dialogue, whatever has been said about it is quite correct and logical, and we should not forget that Marx was very much influenced by Jewish tradition. It is not nonsense, as some people have said, that Marx was a type of Jewish prophet. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said of his successors. I have to say at the same time: there is the obvious fact that there are more Christians than Jewish people. Of course, in our small country, about 99 per cent of the Jewish people were exterminated under the German occupation. So either the Christians or Marxists today have to substitute for the Jewish tradition and also carry that tradition. I was once at a meeting where certain Christians and certain Marxists discussed aspects of the Israeli experience today. I said the Christians and Marxists have more in common. But one thing we both definitely have in common is the fact that we are both successful Jewish sects.

Question: What does the Marxist actually think of the Person of Jesus and His life?

Answer: I have not found a Marxist who has had no respect for Jesus. Even in the Stalinist period Christians were persecuted by Marxists not because they followed Jesus, but exactly because they did not follow Him. Of course, Marxists can have great respect and even adore Jesus as one of the most important people who ever lived. The difference really then remains that for the Marxist Jesus is not God and not the center of history. There is no qualitative difference between Jesus and maybe five or six other great per­sonalities in history. This is a basic difference, but this does not mean that we have to burn and destroy each other.

Question: Is there any indication, if it is not already happening, there will be a tripartite or a three-way dialogue between Jews, Marxists and the Christians?

Answer: Of course. Actually, we are all much too similar, too related; we are relatives. We hate each other sometimes the way brothers hate each other. And the foreigner who really does not relate to us is not quite as hated. I personally believe that the dialogue with the Indian and Chinese traditions will be much more difficult. But this is already an existential question simply because of the numbers of people and population in these countries. Marxism, Judaism, and Christianity really have the same roots in Western civilization. With Leibniz we could say there are actually only three forms of dynamic universalism. The Eastern religions know something about the adoration of the universe. But they really have no personal relationship either to the individual or the state or nation and country through this universal view of things, while in the Western religions this is the case and might somewhat explain our intolerance to others.

Question: Does an antagonism between Marxist and Communist parties exist in your country (Czechoslovakia) as I have found it to exist in Asia, and if it does, can you explain it, and if it does not, can you explain it in Asia?

Answer: Of course, it is related but it is not the same; when we speak of Marxism, we really speak in theoretical terms—the theory of Marxism. When we speak of Communism or the Communist Party, we speak of an institution, or movement or party. And therefore there are some Communists who do not have a clue as to Marxist ideology and philosophy. We have Marxists who are only Marxists on Sunday, just as there are Sunday Christians. And then there are Marxists who are not organized communists. So we have really to differentiate between the kind of Marxism about which we are talking, whether Marxism related to Marx himself, or Marxism as it was developed by his successors, some of whom were not always geniuses. Among Marxists there are the sources of the early Marx, and then there are textbooks which are really unbelievable in their dogmatism. There is a certain analogy here if you compare the medieval scholasticism with the Ser­mon on the Mount. Both have something to do with Christian tradition, but it is not the same thing. Every great movement, unfortunately, has too many stupid people, and we are a rather large movement.

Question: Do you have any insights to share with us about the possible Maoist-Christian dialogue, or not, and secondly, what understanding do you have of the significance of the Christian understanding of forgiveness, of love of the enemy, of reconciliation, of non-violence and non-resistance?

Answer: Both are very important questions. I would like to talk about each of them for a whole afternoon. In a minute it is a rather difficult task. First of all, to the question of reconciliation and guilt and humility, etc., viz. Augustinian categories. In the first and second stages of the development of Marxism as I have described it, these questions are of no interest at all. Marxism was very much influenced by Hegel, and Hegelianism was very different. There you really have a self-adoration and adulation of historical man, man as the center of things. Christians might understand the analogy of the expected parousia and the coming of Christ in the second-century which did not take place in the way expected. First it had to be very clear to the Christian Church that Jesus was not coming as expected, immediately, and only then, after that was realized, were they willing to engage in a dialogue with the world of antiquity, and that means Stoicism, Platonism, etc. Many Europeans and Asian Marxists are still in that first century situation. Many of them still believe that the public ownership of the means of production will solve all problems. But this is only a question of time, and success and lack of success. One has to have patience. You cannot expect the same thing from the Chinese Marxists as from the Czech Marxists. In spite of this, I believe that Chinese Marxism has rather important elements which are not represented by Czech or Soviet Marxism. Two examples; the cultural revolution has brought much chaos and a lot of nonsensical behavior. But it could be compared to some extent to what has been called the Prague Spring, where we attempted not to let all the decisions be made by the bureaucrats. It is really a question of making the Revolution permanent, as Lenin and Trotsky wanted it to be, but this is just another way of saying: ecclesia semper reformanda, the Church is in constant need of reform. We constantly have to revolutionize ourselves.