COMMUNISM AS THE TWENTIETH­CENTURY ISLAM

Jules Monnerot's 1949 Sociologie du Communisme was translated into English and published as Sociology and Psychology of Communism in 1953.— Monnerot elaborated at length upon a brief, but remarkably prescient observation by Bertrand Russell from his The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, published already in 1920,— Russell compared emerging Bolshevism to Islam, noting their shared fanaticism, impervious to reason.

Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution with those of the rise of Islam.. Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and commit intellectual suicide. Even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination of them is tolerated.. Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism [Islam] rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world.⁴⁴

G. K. Chesterton shared the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell's views, and prescience, also comparing nascent Bolshevism and Islam, in 1921, albeit from the radically different perspective of a devout Catholic thinker. Chesterton emphasized how the ideologies of both the Muslim creed and Bolshevism were antithetical to the Western Judeo- Christian ethos that produced constitutions protecting individual freedom:

Now a man preaching what he thinks is a platitude is far more intolerant than a man preaching what he admits is a paradox.

But it was Jules Monnerot who made very explicit connections between pre-modern Islamic and twentieth-century Communist totalitarianism. The title of his first chapter dubbed Communism as “The Twentieth-Century Islam.”⁴⁶ He elucidates these two primary shared characteristics of Islam and Communism: “conversion”—followed by subversion— from within, and the fusion of “religion” and state.

There is a resemblance between the use made of Marxism by the present masters of the totalitarian world and the conversion of nomadic barbarians.such as the Turkish mercenaries Mahmud of Ghazna [Ghazni; modern Afghanistan], [and the Turcomen of Asia Minor] Togrul Beg, and Alp Arslan to the universal religion[s] of the civilization[s] they threatened, namely.. Like Stalin’s Marxism, their conversion [to Islam] gave them the pretext for disrupting civilization [from within] as converts they were able to attack in the name of the true Faith the very societies which had brought the Faith to them. In the same way the Marxist chiefs of totalitarian Russia attack Western society from within, attempting to destroy the social structure of European countries for the sake of the socialism to which these countries themselves gave birth.. Communism takes the field both as a secular religion [emphasis in original] and as a universal State [emphasis in original]; it is therefore.comparable to Islam.Soviet Russia (to use the name it gives itself, although it is a mis-description of the regime) is not the first empire in which the temporal and public power goes hand in hand with a shadowy power which works outside the imperial frontiers to undermine the social structure of neighboring States.⁴⁷

Monnerot's compendious analysis supplements these apposite examples from Islam's enduring legacy of jihad—the exploits of Sunni Muslims Mahmud of Ghazni, Togrul [Tughril] Beg, Alp Arslan⁴⁸—with additional jihad campaigns waged by the Fatimids of Egypt and the Shi'ite Persian Safavids, whose efforts featured collaboration by Sufis.⁴⁹

The Islamic East affords several examples of a like duality and duplicity.

the whole of Persia and Asia Minor. It recruited “militants” and “adherents” and “sympathizers.” These were the Sufis.⁵⁰

Monnerot invokes another relevant historical example of Islam's paradigmatic fusion of religion and state—the Ottoman Empire, and its brutal jihad enslavement and forced conversion to Islam of subjected Christian children for the slave soldier devshirme-janissary system.⁵¹

Islam has provided the type of society in which the political and the sacred are indissolubly merged. The law of the Koran was religious, political, and civil all in one; and an infidel could be no more than a tributary. In history and in law he appeared as an object, but not as a participating subject; and the Ottoman Empire was interested in the children of infidels only because they could be recruited as janissaries.⁵²

Citing Stalin (circa 1949) as the contemporary personification, Monnerot elaborated on this totalitarian consolidation (“condensation”) of power shared by Islam and Communism, and the refusal of these universalist creeds to accept limits on their “frontiers.”

During the great period of Islamic conquests the State, in so far as it existed in our sense of the word, participated in the sacred doctrine of the prophet [Muhammad] and was its embodiment and life. The companions of the prophet, partakers in the revolutionary legitimacy, did not constitute a Church; nor do the secular religions inherent in 20th century absolutisms, but the power of the prophetic elite (which is what the party's “summit” is at the moment when the new State is created) is all the more absolute for being, as it were, a condensation of the power of the whole society.

As rulers, their sympathies were recognized by other sovereigns in the same way that Stalin, head of the State, is recognized by other heads of States, and rightly, as the leader of world communism. This merging of religion and politics was a major characteristic of the Islamic world in its victorious period. It allowed the head of a State to operate beyond his own frontiers in the capacity of the commander of the faithful (Amir-al-muminin); and in this way a Caliph was able to count upon docile instruments, or captive souls, wherever there were men who recognized his authority. The territorial frontiers which seemed to remove some of his subjects from his jurisdiction were nothing more than material obstacles; armed force might compel him to feign respect for the frontier, but propaganda and subterranean warfare could continue no less actively beyond it. Religions of this kind acknowledge no frontiers. Soviet Russia is merely the geographical center from which communist influence radiates; it is an “Islam” on the march, and it regards its frontiers at any given moment as purely provisional and temporary. Communism, like victorious Islam, makes no distinction between politics and religion.⁵³

Monnerot further observes that to those who did not accept their ideology, or self-proclaimed “mission,” Communism—and Islam before it—were viewed as imperialistic religious fanaticisms.

To an educated European or American, unless he is himself a communist, it appears that communists are religious fanatics in the service of an expansionist empire which is striving for world dominion. But communists see it differently: for them communism is what ought to be, and the whole of history, the whole past of humanity, takes its meaning from this future event.. Communism is a faith, and it has in Russia a sort of fatherland; but such a fatherland cannot be a country like any other. Russia is to communism what the Abbasid empire was to Islam.

Finally Monnerot (invoking Ernest Renan [d. 1892]⁵⁵) underscores how incoherent Western intellectual apologists for totalitarianism—whether Communist or Islamic—promote the advance of these destructive ideologies.

Renan’s saying, “the principle of mythology consists in giving life to words,” applies literally to these “isms.” Thus “communism” may possess a vitality, a prestige, and an authority which do not depend upon the actions of “communists.” One has heard “sympathizers” in all sincerity reproaching communists for being unfaithful to communism, and one might conclude that these “intellectuals” attribute priority and superiority, or in any case primacy, to “essence” over “existence.” Thus communism is no longer the sum or epitome of the morals and behavior and beliefs and customs of communists, but a sort of self-subsistent entity which can be known by contemplation and in the light of which the behavior of communists can be judged; so that the intellectual whose good intentions place him, in his own eyes, upon a pedestal, can remonstrate, “Communists, what have you made of communism?”⁵⁶

A half century later, the esteemed French scholar of Islam and ex-Communist Maxime Rodinson (d. 2004),

reaffirmed the essential validity of Monnerot's comparison. Rodinson, during a September 28, 2001, interview with Le Figaro, acknowledged that while still a Communist, he had taken umbrage with Monnerot's assessment.⁵⁷ But having long since renounced the Communist Party, Rodinson (circa September, 2001) conceded that there were “striking similarities”⁵⁸ between Communism and Islam, noting that like Communism, contemporary “Islamic

fundamentalism”⁵⁹ promulgated “an ideology that claims to explain everything, drawing on a vision of the world that is fiercely paranoid [and] conspiratorial.”⁶⁰

Karl Wittfogel's seminal 1957 analysis of pre­modern Eastern totalitarianism, Oriental Despotism—A Comparative Study of Total Power, contains insights on Islam that are especially illuminating, and ever-relevant to present-era tribulations deriving from the unreformed (and even unexamined) mandates of Islamic supremacism.⁶¹ Wittfogel's views are of particular importance because like Chambers (and Rodinson, above, as well as Arthur Koestler, below), he had embraced and then abandoned the Communist movement.

Underpinning Islamic “absolutism,” Wittfogel notes, is the same Koranic injunction (Koran 4:59)—cited by Islamic legists from Mawardi (d. 1058) to Mawdudi (d. 1979)⁶³*—as legitimizing the totalitarian Caliphate system. Al-Mawardi, from his seminal treatise Al-

Akham as-Sultaniyyah [The Laws of Islamic Governance], maintained,

It is the Law...which has delegated affairs to those who wield authority over them in matters of the deen [religion]—Allah, may He be exalted, has said: “O you believe, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority amongst you” (Koran 4:59). Thus He has imposed on us obedience to those in authority, that is those who have the command over us. Hisham ibn ‘Urwah has related from Abu Salih from Abu Hurairah that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “After me the governors will rule over you and those who are corrupt will rule you by their corruptness: listen to them and obey them in everything which is compatible with the truth—if they are correct in their dealings then it will be to your benefit and theirs, and if they act incorrectly then that will still be to your benefit (in the next world) but will be held against them.”⁶⁴*

Mawdudi, one of most important twentieth-century Sunni thinkers, provided a modern vision of Mawardi's classical formulation which demonstrates its remarkable consistency across a millennium of time:

This verse [Koran 4:59] is the cornerstone of the entire religious, social, and political structure of Islam, and the very first clause of the constitution of an Islamic state. It lays down the following principles as permanent guidelines: (1) In the Islamic order of life, God alone is the focus of loyalty and obedience..

(2) Another basic principle of the Islamic order of life is obedience to the Prophet.. (3) In the Islamic order of life Muslims are further required to obey fellow Muslims in authority.. (4) In an Islamic order the injunctions of

God and the way of the Prophet constitute the basic law and paramount authority in all matters. Whenever there is any dispute among Muslims or between the rulers and the ruled the matter should be referred to the Qur’an and the Sunnah [traditions], and all concerned should accept with sincerity whatever judgment results.

The basic difference between a Muslim and a non­Muslim is that whereas the latter feels free to do as he wishes, the basic characteristic of a Muslim is that he always looks to God and to His Prophet for guidance, and where such guidance is available, a Muslim is bound by it.. [T]he Qur’an is not merely a legal code, but also seeks to instruct, educate, admonish, and exhort.. Two things are laid down. First, that faithful adherence to the above four principles is a necessary requirement of faith. Anyone who claims to be a Muslim and yet disregards the principles of Islam involves himself in gross contradiction. Second, the well-being of Muslims lies in basing their lives on those principles. This alone can keep them on the straight path in this life, and will lead to their salvation in the Next. It is significant that this admonition [Koran 4:59] after the section which embodies comments about the moral and religious condition of the Jews. Thus the Muslims were subtly directed to draw a lesson from the depths to which the Jews had sunk, as a result of their deviation from the fundamental principles of true faith just mentioned. Any community that turns its back upon the Book of God [the Koran] and the guidance of His Prophets, that wittingly follows rulers and leaders who are heedless of God and His Prophets, and that obeys its religious and political authorities blindly without seeking authority for their actions either in the Book of God or in the practice of the Prophets, will inevitably fall into the same evil and corruption as the Israelites.⁶⁵*

Wittfogel succinctly highlighted these conceptions and the inevitable character of the Islamic states they engendered:

The Koran [Koran 4:59] exhorts believers to obey not only Allah and his prophet, but also “those in authority amongst you.” In the absolutist states established by Mohammed’s followers, this passage was invoked to emphasize the importance of obedience in maintaining governmental authority.⁶⁶

Wittfogel’s candor extends to these unapologetic observations contrasting Ottoman and Medieval western European regulation of guilds, and the nature of Islamic religious “tolerance”—more aptly, non­Muslim dhimmitude under Islamic law:

In Ottoman Turkey officials inspected the markets and controlled the prices, weight, and measurements, thus fulfilling functions which in the burgher-controlled towns of Medieval Europe were usually the responsibility of the urban authorities. Furthermore, the state, which in most countries of feudal Europe collected few if any taxes from the urban centers of strongly developed guild power, was able in Turkey to tax the guilds and, as elsewhere in the Orient, to employ its fiscal agents the headmen of these corporations, who distributed the tax­quotas of their members and who were personally responsible for their payment.

..,[F]ollowers of these creeds [Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism] had to accept an inferior status both politically and socially, and they were prevented from spreading their ideas. The laws forbade conversion from Christianity to Judaism or vice versa; and penalties for apostasy from Islam were severe. Christians were not permitted to beat their wooden boards (these boards were used as bells) loudly, or sing in their churches with raised voices, or assemble in the presence of Muslims, or display their “idolatry,” “nor to invite to it, nor show a cross,” on their churches. No wonder that the religious minorities—who during the Turkish period were set apart in organizations called millet—vegetated rather than throve. The head of the millet was nominated by the millet but appointed by the sultan; once in office he was given just enough power to enable him to collect the taxes imposed on his community by the state.⁶⁷

Nearly three decades earlier, another ex-Communist, Arthur Koestler, writing in Die Vossische Zeitung (June 7, 1928), had compared the Wahhabi ascendancy in Saudi Arabia to the revolutionary triumph of Bolshevism in Russia.⁶⁸ Koestler contended that the “omnipotent Wahhabi brotherhoods of the Ikhwan,” with “iron support of the omnipotent party” were a source of danger and fear for the neighboring Arab states—just as Bolshevism was for the capitalist countries of Europe.⁶⁹ He added,

What is new in this situation today, is that this danger no longer threatens, as previously, only from outside—from beyond the borders of the Arabian desert. Rather, the Wahhabis have begun to proselytize among the Muslims of neighboring countries—onsets of, so to speak, a “Wahhabi Internationale,” which are already becoming noticeable.⁷⁰

Koestler befriended Chambers in 1950, and the two shared a great mutual admiration.⁷¹ (Koestler described Chambers in a 1953 letter to Andre Malraux as “one of the most outstanding, most maligned, and most sincere characters whom I have ever met,” the victim of “a bizarre and symbolic 20th century martyrdom.”⁷² Whittaker Chambers’s biographer Sam Tanenhaus, in turn, notes that Chambers’s summer 1959 Austrian visit with Arthur Koestler was “a culminating moment,” because Koestler was “the contemporary he esteemed most.”⁷³)

Lastly, Bernard Lewis, the doyen of living Western Islamic scholars, in his 1954 essay “Communism and Islam,” expounded upon on the quintessence of totalitarian Islam, and how it was antithetical in nature to Western democracy, while sharing important features of Communist totalitarianism—most notably, global domination via jihad:

I turn now from the accidental to the essential factors, to those deriving from the very nature of Islamic society, tradition, and thought. The first of these is the authoritarianism, perhaps we may even say the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition.. Many attempts have been made to show that Islam and democracy are identical—attempts usually based on a misunderstanding of Islam or democracy or both. This sort of argument expresses a need of the up-rooted Muslim intellectual who is no longer satisfied with or capable of understanding traditional Islamic values, and who tries to justify, or rather, re-state, his inherited faith in terms of the fashionable ideology of the day. It is an example of the romantic and apologetic presentation of Islam that is a recognized phase in the reaction of Muslim thought to the impact of the West.. In point of fact, except for the early caliphate, when the anarchic individualism of tribal Arabia was still effective, the political history of Islam is one of almost unrelieved autocracy.. [I]t was authoritarian, often arbitrary, sometimes tyrannical. There are no parliaments or representative assemblies of any kind, no councils or communes, no chambers of nobility or estates, no municipalities in the history of Islam; nothing but the sovereign power, to which the subject owed complete and unwavering obedience as a religious duty imposed by the

Holy Law. In the great days of classical Islam this duty was only owed to the lawfully appointed caliph, as God's vicegerent on earth and head of the theocratic community, and then only for as long as he upheld the law; but with the decline of the caliphate and the growth of military dictatorship, Muslim jurists and theologians accommodated their teachings to the changed situation and extended the religious duty of obedience to any effective authority, however impious, however barbarous. For the last thousand years, the political thinking of Islam has been dominated by such maxims as “tyranny is better than anarchy” and “whose power is established, obedience to him is incumbent.”

Quite obviously, the Ulama [religious leaders] of Islam are very different from the Communist Party. Nevertheless, on closer examination, we find certain uncomfortable resemblances. Both groups profess a totalitarian doctrine, with complete and final answers to all questions on heaven and earth; the answers are different in every respect, alike only in their finality and completeness, and in the contrast they offer with the eternal questioning of Western man. Both groups offer to their members and followers the agreeable sensation of belonging to a community of believers, who are always right, as against an outer world of unbelievers, who are always wrong. Both offer an exhilarating feeling of mission, of purpose, of being engaged in a collective adventure to accelerate the historically inevitable victory of the true faith over the infidel evil-doers. The traditional Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, two necessarily opposed groups, of which—the first has the collective obligation of perpetual struggle against the second, also has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs. There again, the content of belief is utterly different, but the aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same. The humorist who summed up the Communist creed as “There is no God and Karl Marx is his Prophet” was laying his finger on a real affinity. The call to a Communist Jihad, a Holy War for the faith—a new faith, but against the self-same Western Christian enemy—might well strike a responsive note.⁷⁴

Lewis here reiterates Chambers’s more direct, experiential understanding, as a former Communist, of the secular totalitarian creed’s mandate for eternal warfare. And in Communism’s ceaseless war, like Islam’s unending jihad, apostates are deemed the worst enemies. Chambers provides this explanation in Witness:

Communism exists to wage war. Its existence implies, even in peace or truce, a state of war that engages every man, woman and child alive, but, above all, the ex­Communist.. In that war which Communism insists on waging, and which therefore he [the ex-Communist] cannot evade, he has one specific contribution to make— his special knowledge of the enemy.⁷⁵