Anti-Religion

Nothing so maddens Marxists as to have Marxism called a religion (hence by their definition, opium). Nevertheless, Marxism has its bible (Das Kapital), its god (dialectical materialism), its pope (Stalin), saints (Marx, Engels, Lenin), martyrs (Liebknecht, Luxemburg), doctrine (communist "line"). As in other religions, heresies and schisms occasionally crop up. Heretics are sometimes exiled, often handed over to the secular arm (shot), always excommunicated. Most serious heresy in the eyes of Stalinist true believers is Trotskyism, whose heresiarch is Leon Trotsky, now an exile in Mexico. Trotsky's heretical sect styles itself the Fourth International (5,000 communicants). Until last week its U. S. congregation was the Socialist Workers Party (membership: 2,000), of which hardbitten James Patrick Cannon and full-lipped Max Schachtman were co-pastors.

Heresy's chief weakness is that it begets further heresies. Last week the heretical Trotskyites read their own heretics out of the fold. Schism started when orthodox Russian Communists invaded Poland and Finland. Schachtmanites declared that the Stalinists had thus blasphemed against the revolutionary religious content of Marxism, made an imperialist mockery of the holy Marxist doctrine. Comrade Cannon sided with Prophet Trotsky, who in long epistles to the infidels condemned the Stalinists' means but condoned their ends. Soon Marxists Cannon and Schachtman were as doctrinally tangled as two Fundamentalist preachers, one of whom is a dipper and the other a sprinkler. Wroth, Trotsky called Schachtman "the floating kidney of the working class."

Last month U. S. Trotskyites convened in Manhattan to thresh out their theological differences. The Cannonites mustered a 3-to-2 majority, expelled the protestants. Last fortnight the Schachtmanites retaliated by hurrying into print their edition of the New International, the Trotskyite diocesan monthly. Not to be outdone, the Cannonites got out an edition too, retitled the magazine Fourth International. The Cannonites managed to retain the Socialist Workers Party name. At a rousing rally last week the schismatics christened themselves the Workers Party. Both sects, though by this time as far apart as Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists and hardshells, declared their undying faith in god (dialectical materialism) and the Fourth International.

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