Communism: A New Critique And Counterproposal
Questions & Answers

Communists maintain that in class society, all the old philosophies served to protect the benefit of a particular class. They say, for example, that the philosophy of Aristotle justified eternal rule by the ruling class in Ancient Greece, and that the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas defended the hierarchy centering on the Papal rule of the Middle Ages. But, the value of the philosophy itself should be evaluated by how precisely it deals with truth, even though it may have been utilized by a certain class as a result. The value of a philosophy should be decided by the degree of truth it contains, not by its partisanship.

(1) Mechanistic materialism

(a) It states that just as a machine is a complex entity composed of various parts, so each thing is a body constituted of its various constituents. Therefore, an individual thing (a constituent) is regarded as more important than the whole (the constituted body).

(b) It states that just as a machine begins to move only when it is given power from outside, so the movement of the universe receives its motive power of movement from an external source, that is, God. Therefore, mechanistic materialism must eventually fall into idealism.

(c) It regards movement only as a repetitive movement, and not as developing movement through which new quality ceaselessly appears

(2) Feuerbach's materialism

(a) Opposing Hegel's idealism, he maintained that God did not create man, but man created God.

(b) Spirit is a product of matter which comes into existence when matter is reflected upon in the brain. Man is a higher animal which developed from animals through the process of evolution.

(c) But, since man has will, emotion, and love it is possible to remodel societies by remodeling man.

(d) Marx accused Feuerbach of not applying materialism to the solution of social problems, and denounced him as being "a materialist from the waist down and an idealist from the waist up."

(1) Lenin maintained that, since matter is independent of man's spirit and is an objective substance, in philosophy matter should be dealt with by philosophical concept, not by the physical concept which requires seeking for the cause of matter physically.

(2) It is an unreasonable assertion that the physical concept cannot be the philosophical concept, because the attitude of seeking the cause of matter physically is the study of ontology (the philosophical explanation of the nature of existence), which deals with the natural substances.

(3) According to today's physics, the concept of matter is different from that held by Marx and Lenin. Physics has come to regard a wave of energy which has no mass as the ultimate cause of matter. According to the modern concept of matter, matter is no different from spirit, in the sense that the ultimate cause of matter is invisible substance which has no mass.

(4) If it should be proven in the future that a wave of energy has a purposeful nature, a scientist will have to conclude that matter and spirit are the two aspects of one substance which exists in the world of cause.

(1) Communist materialism insists that spirit is the product of matter, because man, who has spirit, came into being as the result of the development of the material universe over several billion years. But this assertion cannot tell what existed before the universe, nor has it any ground on which to reject the counter-hypothes is that the cause of the universe is spirit.

(2) They maintain that spirit is the product of matter because mental disorder results from damaged brain cells. But in the case of a radio, it is clear that the voice of an announcer is not created inside the apparatus, but that it comes from outside of the radio. The function of a radio is nothing but the transforming of the electrodynamic wave into sound. But, if the apparatus should be out of order, then the disorder of sound comes about. Likewise, it can be asserted that man's spirit is not created in the brain but rather manifests itself through the brain. Materialism cannot refute this.

(3) They say that spirit is the "product" of matter and at other times, the "function" of matter. It spirit is the product of matter, then spirit is separable from the brain once it is produced, just as an animal's offspring is a product of their mother. If so, spirit must be essentially the same thing as a soul.

On the other hand, if spirit is the function of a brain, then the function must be unable to react upon its mother body (the brain). But in reality, spirit gives stimuli to its mother body, the brain, and makes the physical body act.

(4) Therefore, we must conclude that spirit is neither the product nor the function of matter, but a phenomenon of consciousness resulting from the give-and-take action between mind and brain cells. Only based upon this proposition, can we explain these facts without contradiction.

(1) Communist materialism applies the concept of matter and spirit to production relations and ideological forms in society respectively. And they maintain that, as spirit is the product of matter, so ideological forms (the superstructure) are the product of production relations. But it is evident that this assertion is wrong because of the historical facts (for example, ideological forms such as religions, art, and parts of laws from the ancient ages still remain, even though iDroduction relations have changed completely).

(2) The concepts of matter and spirit should be applied to economic goods in society and man's consciousness (will) respectively. Both production relations and productive forces include the two parts of economic goods and man's will. We should regard the relationship between economic goods and man's will as that between object and subject, which have give-and-take action with each other

(1) Motility

(a) Communist materialism says that movement is the mode of existence of matter, and that there can be no matter separate from movement. They further maintain that movement is not given from outside, but results from unity and struggle of opposing elements in contradiction within matter. But, they cannot tell why this contradiction is produced within matter; furthermore, the concept of contradiction was originally used to explain the cause of development, but also they regard contradiction as the cause of circular movement and repetitive movement which are not development. This is unreasonable. In other words, they cannot explain why the same contradiction causes development at one time and at other times causes repetitive movement and circular movement.

(b) According to Unification Thought, all individual beings are regarded as beings which have mutual interaction, that is, they are connected bodies. Thus, their mode of existence is inevitably circular movement. If they are living beings, and if they multiply, their mode of existence turns into developing movement in the shape of a spiral. This happens as the result of the combination of circular movement and progressive movement, with the aim of moving toward some definite direction. The cause of movement is considered as the giveand-take action between subjective elements and objective elements. In case the subject has life, this action becomes the developing origin-division-union action and appears as developing movement.

(2) Historicity

(a) Communist materialism regards all things as the objects of human practice. Not only mountains, fields, grass, trees, animals and seas but also the sun, the moon and stars are the objects of human work and research which are human practice. Practice is connected with all the class struggles either directly or indirectly, because human history has been the history of class struggle. Since class struggle has historicity, all practice has historicity and therefore all things, which are the objects of practice have historicity. Consequently, Communists assert that in order to be able to deal with matter correctly, they must be engaged in historical class struggle.

(b) But, this is an erroneous view. It is true that matter (all things) is not only the object of cognition, but also the object of practice (dominion) and therefore has historicity, but the content of historicity is quite different. Human history is not the history of class struggle, but the history of struggle between good and evil. All things have been drawn into this struggle between good and evil and have been suffering damage and grief, while ''waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God" (Romans 8:19). The historicity of all things is not the historicity which is connected with class struggle, but the historicity which is connected with God's providence.

(1) The Communist view of man is based upon Darwin's theory of evolution (the theory of natural selection). According to the Communist view, while a species of ape was doing labor (social labor), language developed as a necessary tool of labor, and then reason developed. While living together, they came to set up rule, morality, religion, etc. for their own convenience, and slowly dignity of personality and rights came to be acknowledged. Therefore, man's significance as a man lies not so much in personality, freedom or rights as in social labor. Since Communist society is the society in which man's social labor is guaranteed and developed in the most perfect way, it is the greatest duty for man to participate in the Communist revolution in order to build the Communist society. Those who are against or are obstructing the revolution may be slaughtered like animals, as reactionary elements. This is because the Communists regard man as merely a higher animal.

(2) It is only a hypothesis that a species of ape evolved into man. Today the discontinuous mutation theory of evolution by DeVries is considered to be more appropriate than the theory of evolution by Darwin. If man is only a higher animal, there is no ground on which to reject the view that the weak should become the victim of the strong, nor ground to assert man's right to dignity and freedom.

Everyone, without exception, has desired to maintain freedom and dignity of personality as if they were life. ("Give me liberty, or give me death. "-Patrick Henry). What is the reason? It is because freedom, right and personality are derived from the sacred original human nature. Dignity is attributed only to sacredness. Personality and freedom were not authorized a posteriori for the need and convenience of social life but were inevitably required to satisfy the desires of the innate original human nature. Speaking from the viewpoint of the Unification Principle, personality, freedom, right, reason, etc. can be attributed to the Original Image and its Divinity. Reason is especially attributed to the spirit mind of the spirit man.

Therefore, a species of ape did not become man through labor, but man, the creation of God, began to work to attain dominion over all things. Through working, man's intelligence (creativity), innately given, gradually developed. Man was not created from some other things like an ape, but was created to be the lord of dominion over all things.