Bolshevism, the Islam of the Atheists

July 28, 2010 10:49 PM

There are many similarities between Islam, the worldwide religion with a political ideology, and Marxism-Leninism, the political ideology which is being propagated world-wide as if it were a religion. I have written about both before; now it is time to document the uncanny parallels which have brought about a natural, if temporary alliance between the two.

First, though, let's define terms: Islam, an Arabic word meaning submission, means that adherents are expected to submit to the will of "The God," Allah, as delivered by God's messenger, Muhammad. Marxism-Leninism, aka Bolshevism, is an international movement combining the doctrine of Karl Marx with Marx' Soviet-era "messenger," Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

The Arabic scholar Ibn Warraq, a Pakistan-born secular critic of his native religion, Islam, describes "three Islams:" Islam One. Muhammad's doctrine as written in the Qur'an; Islam Two. The written tradition combining Islam One with ideas not originally in the Qur'an, as put forth by Muslim jurisprudence; and Islam Three. Real-world Islam as practiced since the year 632 CE, ranging from a comfortable semi-secular Islam influenced by Persians and Turks, to the hard-core "Islamism" of Usama bin Ladin and Iran's Ayotollah Khomeini, which, in fact, incorporates some traits from Marxism-Leninism.

Ibn Warraq's three categories of Islam can also be transposed to Marxism. Marxism One would be the written work and lectures of Karl Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels. Marxism Two would be Bolshevism, that is Marxism combined with Leninist-Soviet principles of how to wage the class struggle and how to propagate Marxism-Leninism around the world. Marxism Three would therefore designate the actual world Marxist "community", ranging from US "Liberals" to the slave state of North Korea and the former killing fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot.

Of these three categories, I prefer to focus on Marxisms Two and Three. I also prefer the term "Bolshevik" to "Marxist-Leninist" because it is shorter and less confusing. However, in my mind, "Bolshevism" can and should be extended to the more extreme versions of Marxism Three, including the New Left doctrine of the Frankfurt School, which was moved lock stock and barrel to New York, where it was renamed the New School of Social Research. Although New Left doctrine is radically different in superficial detalis (more nihilistic, less "scientific") from the Bolshevism of Lenin, I believe that its core values and assumptions are fundamentally Marxist-Leninist, and therefore Bolshevik.

Table One documents the similarities between Islam and Bolshevism. I call the latter the "Islam of the Atheists" because on the one hand, both are militant political ideologies of world conquest; but on the other hand Bolsheviks profess a rejection of any kind of god-worship or belief in the existence of any kind of God. However, in my opinion, the Bolsheviks and Marxism One adherents have found a substitute for a God in the principle of "historical inevitability." This comes from the German philospoher Hegel, who inspired Marx, and who wrote of a "World Spirit" and a "dialectic" process by which history advances inexorably. Hegel's beliefs were a bridge between old-time religion and the modern world; Marx crossed over that bridge to the materialistic, atheist side which characterized Modernism.

Just as a Muslim is exhorted to submit to the Will of God, a Bolshevik is pressured to submit to Historical Inevitability. Just as it occurs in some manifestations of Islam, those who refuse to submit are murdered: in the former Soviet Union, and at present, in North Korea, those who have refused to submit to Historical Inevitability as interpreted by the Dear Leader, have also suffered the death penalty. Throughout the history of both Islam and Bolshevism, countless corpses of the non-submitters have littered the ideological battlefields.

Just as the Muslims have the Qur'an and its extension, the Hadith, the Bolsheviks have the collected works of Marx, Lenin, and their New Left revisionists. Just as the Muslims have a category of tolerable non-Muslims, called dhimmis, the Bolsheviks have their "fellow-travelers," including, of course, "liberals," and, unfortunately, "moderate" Republicans such as David Brooks, Lindsey Graham, and Colin Powell. These are exempt from the vituperation suffered by non-submitters such as Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and the government of the State of Arizona. Some Muslims have expressed such vituperation in the form of a fatwa, such as the death contract on the writer Salman Rushdie. In the USA, Bolshevik-inspired death threats are made, such as those against Rush Limbaugh, and minimized in the mainstream media, which also make unfounded allegations of violence against Tea Party event participants.

Just as the Arabs who conquered Roman Syria and Persian Iraq in the seventh century endowed converts to Islam with ruling class status, the Bolshevism of Marxism Three has accorded "moderates" ruling class status. The closer to the Bolshevist hard core, the higher the status conferred: thus Nancy Pelosi outranks any Blue Dog Democrat, the New York Times outranks USA Today, and Barack Hussein Obama outranks Hillary Clinton.

There are other similarities detailed in Table One. As I have written before, if the Bolsheviks (who now call themselves "Progressives") succeed in holding on to power in the USA, ultimately, the Muslims will convert them to Islam. In addition to reasons I described, Muslims, who since the year 632 CE have had more political experience, and are more consistent, will eventually prevail over the Bolsheviks, just as they did in Soviet Afghanistan.

In the meantime, I think we should learn, and learn from, the similarities.