Wang Chen: National and Class Struggles Hidden Beneath the Guise of Religion

By the 1840s, nationalism had already become a vital emotional bond for the German people. During this period, anti-Semitic thought—which originated in the Middle Ages and was sown by Martin Luther during the Reformation—flourished, becoming a typical characteristic of Germany at the time. Against this backdrop, in November 1842, Bruno Bauer authored two articles, "The Jewish Question" and "The Capacity of Negotiating Freedom for Modern Jews and Christians," in which he argued that Jews should attain their own liberation within a Christian state by renouncing their religious faith. In response, Marx noted in a March 1843 letter to Arnold Ruge: "However much I dislike the Jewish faith, Bauer’s view seems to me too abstract." In February 1844, he published On the Jewish Question as a critique of Bauer's perspective. Although this diverged from Marx’s original intention to critique [Johann Baptist] Hermes ^[1], the text not only achieved his goal of critiquing Bauer but also showcased his reflections on the problems of German nationalism and anti-Semitism of the era. From the perspective of foreign scholars, On the Jewish Question is not only a significant expression of Marx's nationalist thought but also a key piece of evidence used to argue that the young Marx was an anti-Semite. However, the dispute between Marx and Bauer lay in this: Bauer emphasized that the religious problem was the essence of the "Jewish Question," treating it as a national issue demarcated by religious belief; Marx, by contrast, emphasized that the Jewish Question should be a social question. He argued one should not proceed purely from a religious perspective to examine only the "Sabbath" Jew, but should rather examine the "everyday" Jew, resolving the Jewish Question within secular society by breaking free from religious constraints. Thus, the dispute between Marx and Bauer’s views was actually a debate hidden beneath the religious appearance of Judaism versus Christianity: a debate over whether "nationality" or "class" is the "way out for humanity."

I. Bauer: "Privilege" as the Key to Resolving the Jewish Question

In Bauer’s view, the antagonism between Judaism and Christianity was the root of the Jewish Question, caused by the exclusionary nature of both religions. Therefore, as long as the problem of Judaism—the source of Jewish nationality—was resolved, the oppression faced by Jews at the time would be easily settled. Within the Christian state, the contradiction between Judaism and Christianity manifested directly as the "privileges" held by Jews and Christians respectively. Consequently, as the direct manifestation of Judaism within civil society, "privilege" became the key to resolving the Jewish Question.

First, Jewish "privilege" arises from Jewish Law. For Bauer, religious law is the "expression" of the true essence of various nations based on their reality. Thus, law is the unity of a nation’s essence and the inherent principles contained within its real environment; nations manifest and develop themselves within the law. The core of Jewish nationality lies in its adherence to Judaism, which is the "privilege" granted to Jews by Mosaicism ^[2]. Under the constraints of Jewish Law—the Mosaic Law and the Talmud—Jews established regulations for every aspect of their arbitrary and contingent lives, causing the law to detach from the real environment and ascend to become the sole content of Jewish identity. Law is the core of Judaism, the national spirit (Volksgeist) of the Jews, and the very determinancy of the Jews themselves. The Law emphasizes that the Jews, "as the chosen people, are the only true nation; they as a nation are everything and should occupy the whole world." Under the stipulations of the Law, other nations are illegitimate; thus, Jews deny other nations in faith but are forced to acknowledge their existence in reality—this is precisely the manifestation of Judaism's exclusivity and its own internal contradiction. Christianity, as the result of Judaism, is its completion: "Its morality is the result of Judaism carried to its logical conclusion; its view of the world and human history is the result of Judaism; but since it is the completion of Judaism... it must also simultaneously be the negation of the specific Jewish essence." Christianity used its love to transcend a single nation and embrace the whole world, dissolving the contradictions of Judaism within its own dogmatic stipulations, thus forming a sublation (Aufhebung) and transcendence of Judaism. In Christianity, all nations are equal, and the differences between them are negated. It transcended the narrow "chosen people" quality of Judaism, abolished traditional national boundaries, and facilitated the emergence of a "universal community" centered on religious faith. Therefore, the exclusivity of Christianity is manifested in its exclusion of non-Christian believers, rather than non-Christian nations. As faiths with a relationship of succession, Judaism and Christianity stand in opposition; faith is "the most universal yet most exclusive privilege." Thus, within the Christian state, on one hand, Christians use their own privileges as the criteria for life, and Christians as privileged persons become the foundation of the Christian state; on the other hand, Jews also adhere to the essence stipulated by the Law, viewing "essence as a privilege." Thus, the antagonism between Judaism and Christianity in civil society is the mutual opposition and exclusion between Jewish "privilege" and Christian "privilege."

Second, the form of "privilege" is determined by Jewish Law. Jewish "privilege" manifests in two different forms: "religious privilege" and "civil privilege." Here, "religious privilege" is the proof of "civil privilege" transcending the secular, while "civil privilege" is the concrete manifestation of "religious privilege" in civil society; its exclusivity is determined by "religious privilege." On the one hand, "religious privilege" is determined by the exclusivity of Jewish Law. During the Reformation, the state liberated itself from the Church; the influence of religion descended from the level of the state into civil society, and faith became a private matter. Consequently, for the Jews, adhering to the Jewish faith in civil society gained legitimacy; this was their right. Yet, according to the stipulations of Jewish Law, only fellow Jews are the closest people—their brothers and family—while other nations are not protected by the Law. Thus, the exclusivity under the Law manifests in real life as Jews excluding the existence, continuation, and development of any other nation. Adherence to the Law not only caused a persistent contradiction within the Christian state between the minority Jews and the majority Christians, but also created a contradiction between observing religious Law and fulfilling state obligations. On the other hand, "civil privilege" is the Law's stipulation for individual real needs. Bauer pointed out that Jewish Law did not advance with history; therefore, Jews, defined by the Law, only wished to maintain their status quo, were abandoned by history, and ultimately cared for nothing but their own interests rather than universal human interests. The sole concern of the Jew is the preoccupation with private interests. In civil society, where "need" acts as the driving force for development, egoism is the most important constituent element. The Jewish focus on private interest combined with the egoism of civil society and, through the tool of usury, turned money into the exclusive professional "privilege" of Jews in civil society. Thus, in the Christian state, Jews not only distinguished themselves from other citizens by virtue of "religious privilege" and existed as an independent national form, but also acquired a "privileged" status in civil society through the form of a "specialistic corporation" (guild).

Third, the "betrayal" of Jewish Law resulted in the oppressed state of the Jews. Jews revere Mosaicism as the purest doctrine and most powerful guarantee of conduct, morality, and ethics. However, Mosaicism is the unity of the internal laws of the old world and the Jewish essence; it is "the anchor that binds the Jewish nation to time and eternity." Consequently, in the modern environment, both Mosaicism and the Talmud are old things; by adhering to these Jewish Laws, Jews ignore historical development and even oppose historical progress. Although Jewish Law made some adjustments alongside historical development, its core remains tightly integrated with the era that produced it; thus, Jewish Law is not a "new creation," and its final destination can only be idealism. Under the guidance and constraint of Jewish Law, the unified Jewish community has, on one hand, failed to keep pace with the times and has become detached from the development of human history; on the other hand, this has led to their essence remaining continuously under oppression and restraint. Ultimately, they are confined to tableware, furniture, clothing, and holy oil vessels; the highest essence of the Jew is bound within an "exclusive, special, and accidental existence," leading the real-life Jew to live in an illusion. Even if Jews achieved development in actual social history, this development was not recognized because Jewish Law is hell-bent on escaping development. Jews became "martyrs of the past"; though they have a history, "it is in opposition to the intentions of their own history... simply put, the Jew is in opposition to history." The Jewish Law, which should have been born from the inner and national life of the Jews and unified with their essence, has become the alienation of the Jews themselves—a sacred will imposed upon them. Jewish Law is both the oppression of the Jews and the primary cause of their status as an oppressed people.

Therefore, in Bauer’s view, the antagonism between Judaism and Christianity is precisely the manifestation of Jewish "privilege" in civil society in the forms of "religious privilege" and "civil privilege." Jewish Law, which stands in opposition to development, is the source of Jewish "privilege." The mutual contradiction between the Law and the Jewish people ultimately leads to their oppression within the Christian state, which embodies the requirements of historical development.

II. Marx: "Jewry" as the Key to Resolving the Jewish Question

In On the Jewish Question, Marx clearly states that the liberation of the Jews is their liberation from "Jewry" (Judentum) ^[3]. In Marx's view, "Jewry" contains both a religious and a secular meaning, and it is the secular meaning of Jewry that plays the key role.

First, freedom of religious belief is a right inherent to people in a Christian state. Diverging from Bauer’s analysis of "privilege," Marx points out that Jews do not need to renounce their religious faith to achieve political liberation. This is determined by the nature of the Christian state following political liberation. In The Jewish Question, Bauer used the term "Christian state" to describe two different state forms: categorized by political liberation, both the pre-liberation and post-liberation states were called Christian states. Marx adopted this terminology in On the Jewish Question and pointed out that the two different forms of the Christian state are represented in reality by Germany and France. Through political liberation, the state liberates itself from religion; religion is no longer the faith of the state and does not exist in the state as a state religion. Religion descends from the spirit of the state into civil society, becoming the spirit of civil society and existing as individual belief; religion is driven into the private sphere of the state. Therefore, in the second form of the Christian state, people no longer join together through a common faith as the medium or with the status of a Christian as the marker; instead, they join together through the mediation of the state as citizens. People escape the limitations of the former religious community to live in a new political community; hence, this form of the Christian state can also be called the political state. In the Christian state after political liberation, because the political state and civil society are severed from each other, the antagonism between the state and civil society becomes the primary antagonism. Man is thus split into the dual identities of citizen (citoyen) and individual (bourgeois), living a double life: the life of the real individual existing as a private being, and the life of the species-being (Gattungswesen) existing as a community.

Bauer asserts that within the liberated Christian state, there exists a mutual antagonism between Jews and Christians, emphasizing that an individual's status as a religious believer affects the exercise of their civil rights. For the Jew, his religious faith stands in opposition to his citizenship: “The Jew himself will recede behind the citizen, and yet remain a citizen… He is and remains a Jew, even though he is a citizen and lives in universal human relationships: his Jewish and narrow essence ultimately triumphed over his human and political obligations.” Therefore, when civil duties conflict with Jewish law, the Jew will inevitably abandon his civil duties to observe Jewish law. For the Christian, “religious freedom consists not in all religions having equal rights, nor in different religions having equal status, but in a religion practiced by almost everyone enjoying a monopoly position.” Thus, Christians can leverage their numerical advantage in the state to influence state policy; the state after political liberation remains a Christian state, within which Jews are oppressed by Christian-believing citizens.

In Marx's view, the contradiction between Jews and Christians identified by Bauer is merely a simple conflict of faith that does not prevent them from uniting with one another in their capacity as citizens. Marx believes this problem arises in Bauer’s theory because Bauer ostensibly treats the contradiction between the political state and civil society as a contradiction between religion and the state. On one hand, Bauer sees liberation from religion as a prerequisite; on the other, he believes the mere political abolition of religion constitutes its total abolition—that as long as Jews renounce their religious faith, they can become true citizens, and the post-liberation Christian state thereby becomes a "real" state. But for Marx, the crux of the issue is not political liberation, but rather the “critique of political liberation itself... alone allows the problem to truly become a 'universal problem of the age.'” When political liberation is complete, religion migrates to civil society to survive; it appears that the real human being has not been fully liberated from religion, but in Marx’s framework, this is merely a matter of the individual's political rights within the state. Therefore, although religious liberation is not achieved in the private sphere, this does not hinder the Jew from participating in the activities of the political community; within the state, the Jew can exercise rights and assume civil obligations just like anyone else. Religious belief, along with liberty, private property, equality, and security, is an important component of human rights within civil society, manifesting the needs and private interests of real human beings. In this form of the state, individuals profess religion because religion is the spirit of civil society, the consciousness of their ideal, and a means for individuals to satisfy their own needs. Neither the Jew nor the Christian gains "privilege" or suffers oppression due to their own religious beliefs; the freedom of religious belief is a right inherent to human beings.

Second, the Jewish question can only be resolved through liberation from the real "Jewish spirit." In the post-liberation Christian state, religious belief is no longer the shackle of Jewish oppression; therefore, one cannot look to the abstract Jew, but must look to the real Jew to find the causes of their oppression. Marx points out that because political liberation freed the state from religion while simultaneously freeing civil society from feudalism, the Jews also liberated themselves in their own way alongside this process. In the feudal state, only the ruler could truly achieve the unity of political power and private interest; thus, the relationship between the state and classes or corporations ^[4] was the relationship between the ruler and the people. Estates ^[5], corporations, and territorial rights became the existential elements of the feudal state itself, within which human relations were constrained and the political nature of man was defined by these elements. However, with the improvement of labor methods and the increase of private property, the status of property gradually rose within the feudal state. Although it did not yet ascend to a social element, civil society—taking property as its constituent element—gradually expanded, prompting the separation of estates and corporations from the feudal state. Thus, when political liberation overthrew the power of feudal rulers, it also destroyed all the estates, corporations, guilds, and privileges that served as elements of the feudal state. The dispersed political spirit of man within these elements was gathered together to form the political community of man within the state. Civil society was also liberated from the shackles of feudal politics, becoming the field of activity for man’s private attributes. The purpose of human existence became the satisfaction of one's own needs; man’s essence is egoistic, manifesting in real civil society as a craving for private property. The liberty they yearned for could only be obtained by overthrowing feudal rulers. In the process of satisfying their own needs, people also continuously pushed the civil society they composed to accumulate strength, the ultimate goal being to carry out a political revolution. Because civil society is both the goal and the prerequisite of political liberation, the political revolution is, in essence, a revolution of civil society. The reason Jews could become special members of civil society is that "practical need and egoism"—the principles of civil society—are also the secular basis of the Jew, the secular Jewish spirit. Therefore, the Jewish spirit was maintained throughout history through civil society.

But why, if the Jews have already liberated themselves through the secular Jewish spirit, do they remain oppressed in the Christian state? Marx marks that in civil society, every person is an "atomistic" existence; all their goals are for the satisfaction of individual needs. Money, by virtue of its characteristic ability to define the value of all things, enables people to use it for exchange to satisfy their needs. Thus, money, originally created within human labor and social relations, becomes an alienated existence and rules over man with this "alien essence." Money is not only the god of the Jews but also the god of civil society, within which man can only act under the dominion of money. Therefore, it is not that the Jew is oppressed in the Christian state, but rather that "the true essence of the Jew has reached universal realization in civil society." The oppression the Jew suffers is not located in the Christian state, but within their secular Jewish spirit. Hence, "the social liberation of the Jew is the liberation of society from Judaism [Jewish spirit]."

III. Nation and Class: Two Different Modes of Resolution

When Bauer and Marx respectively demonstrated the path to resolving the Jewish question, both centered their arguments on the religious beliefs of the Jews. Bauer emphasized that Jews were oppressed because they persisted in their "privileges" within the Christian state; the antagonism between religious faiths was actually the result of Jews insisting on their nationality and distinguishing themselves from others. Marx, on the basis of demonstrating the freedom of religious belief, emphasized that Jews had already become alienated within the Jewish spirit of civil society. He argued the root of the Jewish question lay in the antagonism between civil society and the political state, which could only be resolved through class struggle. Thus, Marx’s critique of Bauer was essentially the replacement of nationalism with the concept of class.

The Jewish question in Germany was not only a matter of religious belief but also a contradiction between Jews as a nation and citizens as part of a state—a contradiction between an original ethnic group and the nascent nation-state. The concept of the modern "nation" originated in 16th-century England and gradually developed the concepts of a "sovereign people" and a "unique people"; the absolute monarchy of the 17th century prepared the way for the emergence of the modern nation. With England becoming the first nation to appear in the world, the era of nationalism began. In the process of its dissemination, nationalism displayed a characteristic of combining an external concept of national identity with local traditional elements. National identity gradually became the ideological weapon of the domestic bourgeoisie—including the aristocracy and the intelligentsia—developing within various countries. The "nation" was legitimized as a form of compromise between the old and new systems chosen by people in the process of reforming the monarchy. The French Revolution, as the "first great revolution in modern history," initiated the gradual establishment of modern nation-states in Europe. The European wars of religion finally "ceased only after each state chose its own official religion." It was upon this foundation that the Christian state emerged as a new form of state that further liberated the state from the "state religion." Therefore, the Christian state after political liberation was essentially a burgeoning modern nation-state that transcended the original concept of ethnic groups. In analyzing the "resilience of the Jewish national spirit," Bauer also pointed out: "There were some ethnic groups that formed the French nation in the process of integration; they gave up and lost their independence... they dedicated themselves and merged into the whole... proving their ability to contribute to the cultivation of the national spirit of a specific historical period." Only thus was France reborn in the form of a nation-state.

Contrary to these ethnic groups that voluntarily merged into the new national spirit and dedicated themselves to the new nation-state, the Jews persisted in their nationality. By insisting on their "commandments, language, and entire essence," the oppressed Jews satisfied the three elements of national composition emphasized by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities: language, real connections, and self-imagination. In the reality of civil society, Jews utilized usury and specific corporations to achieve real connections; they used Jewish law as the root of national exclusivity to obtain their independent national "privilege" within the Christian state. The essence of the Jewish question is the contradiction between the citizenship of the state and the nationality of the Jew; it is a contradiction between the nation-state, which became independent from feudalism through political liberation, and a nation that developed from an ethnic group and demands to maintain its own exclusivity. Jews maintained their nationality throughout historical evolution and were opposed and excluded because of it. Thus, Bauer’s path to resolution was: only by abandoning the Jewish faith and no longer insisting on their own nationality—by Jews merging into the new nation-state as an ethnic group—could the Jewish question be resolved.

However, in Marx’s view, Bauer made a major error. Although Bauer recognized the alienation of man in civil society—namely, that in a civil society driven by "need," man reduces others to tools while being reduced to a tool himself—Bauer’s solution relied purely on the power of the political state, using estates and a system of honor to constrain the egoistic essence of civil society. Within the estate, on the one hand, the egoistic power of the individual is manifested because the estate combines various ways of satisfying needs; on the other hand, the individual must respect the universal interest of their estate, which is the duty of its members. The political state uses a sense of honor to liberate man from his own needs; man is no longer an atomistic existence, as his sense of honor makes him combine his individual needs with the needs of his estate—that is, the needs of civil society. But Bauer failed to realize that estates and corporations, existing as human communities, were elements of feudal state life. While political liberation freed man from the estates, Bauer still wanted to retain the illusory connections of man within the feudal state. This is because Bauer did not realize that it was precisely the egoistic essence of civil society that overthrew feudalism and achieved the fundamental goal of "the dissolution of the old society on which the state system alienated from the people—the power of the ruler—was based." Therefore, the Jew, being essentially homogenous with civil society, is not—as Bauer saw it—a nation in opposition to the nation-state, but rather an important driving force that allowed the nation-state to be established.

As an essential component of civil society within the old society, the middle class birthed the bourgeoisie through a "repetition of historical fractures." In the process of worshipping money, the bourgeoisie accumulated a substantial material foundation and, guided by egoistic needs, initiated the opening chapter of the political revolution, overthrew the feudal hierarchy, and established the nation-state. They liberated the productive forces from feudal ownership and promoted the further development of civil society. In this process, the Jews—who regarded money as their sole object of worship—leapt into the position of a capitalist class within the political state by virtue of the monetary power they wielded, guided by the thoughts and habits of chasing money to satisfy egoistic needs. Under the guidance of the principle of "practical need and self-interest," individuals in civil society became enslaved by money and viewed others as tools for securing their own interests. This caused alienation between individuals and ultimately led to the separation of man from his species-essence ^[6] and the alienation of man from the species-essence of others. The realization of political liberation was built upon the development of the bourgeoisie—that is, built upon "selfish" egoism—which was also the root cause of the oppressed status of Jews within actual civil society. Therefore, political liberation cannot truly achieve the emancipation of the Jews. Simply abandoning Jewish faith to integrate into the citizenry of a modern nation-state cannot bring about real liberation. This is because, although Jews have become members of the bourgeoisie, they are simultaneously tools used by other members of the bourgeoisie to amass wealth. Their status within the political state is no different from that of the "Court Jews" ^[7] during the feudal period who raised funds, supplied materials, and collected jewels for monarchs and marquises. Consequently, the solution to the Jewish question demands the negation of private property and the liberation of humanity from private ownership. This is no longer an opposition between a nation and a nation-state, but a fundamental contradiction inherent in the existence of the nation-state itself, which can only be resolved through class struggle.

Just as the bourgeoisie overthrew the feudal system and established the Christian state following political liberation, the secular contradictions between the political state and civil society within the nation can only be overthrew through revolution. Marx pointed out that political liberation is essentially a utopian dream. This is because while the bourgeoisie can stir up its own fanaticism and that of the masses within civil society, it simultaneously transforms its own needs and rights into the rights and needs of society itself; the bourgeoisie becomes the head and heart of society. Through this illusion of universal social rights, the bourgeoisie forms a general barrier within the nation-state established after political liberation—namely, the universal rule of the bourgeoisie within the nation-state. The egoistic nature of the bourgeoisie makes it impossible for them to relinquish the special privileges they already enjoy. Therefore, the Jewish question in this arena is essentially nothing more than a microcosm of the opposition between civil society and the nation-state. This problem can only be resolved by starting from the premises of the state system rather than its results. While the bourgeoisie struggles against the feudal landlord class, the bureaucracy, and the nobility, it also becomes entangled in a struggle with a class lower than itself—the proletariat. The proletarians have already begun their struggle against the bourgeois. Thus, only the proletariat, which takes the complete restoration of man as its goal, can resolve the injustices that the bourgeoisie cannot. The proletariat takes private ownership as the object of its struggle and demands the total negation of private property. "The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons; material force must be overthrown by material force." Just as the religious revolution began in the brain of the monk, Marx pointed out that the political revolution must begin in the brain of the philosopher. Only when the philosopher takes the proletariat as the object of study, making philosophy the material weapon of the proletariat and achieving the union between philosophy and the proletariat, can the proletariat exert true material force. Only by aiming the weapons left by the bourgeois political revolution at the bourgeoisie itself can humanity be liberated from alien forces. Therefore, only the proletariat—as the gravediggers of the bourgeoisie—can use such weapons to abolish private property, the foundation of civil society, truly solve the plight faced by the Jews, and ultimately achieve the emancipation of humanity.

As Marx pointed out, the plight faced by the Jews in the 19th century could only be eliminated through the class struggle of the proletariat. Under the basic national condition that our country will remain in the primary stage of socialism ^[8] for a long time to come, and today as we promote the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, we must face the treacherous international situation externally and confront complex and volatile problems and difficulties internally. This requires our Party to uphold the principal status of the people, remain people-centered, and seek happiness for the people; it requires our Party to attach great importance to the issue of religion. On one hand, we must be vigilant against external forces interfering in our country's internal affairs under the banners of "freedom of religious belief" and "narrow nationalism." We must consistently uphold the principle of independence and self-management ^[9] of our country's religions and correctly handle the relations between various ethnic groups, and between each ethnic group and the community for the Chinese nation. On the other hand, while strengthening the "Four Confidences" ^[10], we must enhance the construction of the "Four Consciousnesses." ^[11] By further promoting the theoretical construction of the Sinicization of Marxism and cultivating and practicing the Socialist Core Values, we shall combine the "historical mission of the proletariat" with the "Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," follow the Chinese path, and tell the China story well.

Web Editor: Tongxin Source: Science and Atheism, Issue 2, 2022