Sermon “What the Communist Manifesto

Has to Teach Us” The Rev. Rali Weaver

I want to start right off the bat by saying I am no expert in politics of any sort and I do not stand here in support or condemnation of any system of thought be it communist or capitalist or socialist or any other ist.

Today is simply the 162^nd anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, which, was first, published by a group of German political refugees on this day, February 21 in1848.

While we could have a heated debate about the value of that philosophy or the success of the communist system in practice-- whatever side we are on it would be difficult to deny that the Communist Manifesto was one of the most influential manuscripts of all time both felling and forming governments as well as inspiring acts liberation and destruction.

This publication arrived in history just 28 years after the much smaller revolution of our own church and parish when in 1818 they called Alvan Lamson and in 1820 the State Supreme Court ruled in the Dedham Decision. Suffice it to say that in the 1800’s creation of new forms of thought fueled by rational critique and liberal thinking was the order of the day.

Marx who, Frederick Engels credited with most of the thoughts in the Communist Manifesto, analyzed the conditions of the disenfranchised working class or Proletariat through the lens of history, sociology, philosophy and economy and called for a more radical approach than even our new liberal systems of that day were striving to attain.

We know those same class structures and limitations existed within the Massachusetts at the time of the Dedham Decision and we need to look no further than the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti to understand the class antagonisms that Marx was describing had continued to exist for over 100 years. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti they were Italian Immigrants living and working in Massachusetts. They met in 1917. They were arrested and after a controversial trial they were convicted of armed robbery. They were and were executed here in Dedham on August 23^rd 1927.

Whether we agree with the decision of the jury or not we know these men were followers of Luigi Galleani, an Italian communist anarchist who advocated bombings and assassinations. Whether these two were guilty or whether their trials were fair is still debated to this day but one thing is for certain, the issues of “class antagonisms” and privilege played a role in this conflict. And just as Marx words suggest in our reading, “one fact is common to all past ages, namely, the exploitation of one part of society by the other.”

An important awareness offered by the Communist Manifesto, that inspired Galleani and we might assume Sacco and Vanzetti to take such violent extremes against the establishment, was this idea that all throughout history one part of society internally and unintentionally exploits another for their own gain. This is the wrong the Communist Manifesto strove to right with a ten-point program with such radical departures from the status quo as calling for the abolition of all property and rights to inheritance including a heavy and graduated income tax as well as centralization of production, transportation and all services.

Marx claimed that in order for equilibrium between classes to occur the proletariat (which Marx considered the working class) must have power and then centralize all power to eliminate class distinctions.

Zip ahead another 83 years to our day and we know while those class distinctions are more muted their continues to be a discrepancy between the political power granted to a small population and the freedoms of basic civil rights such as education and equal representation under the law that are granted or denied to the wider majority based on political whims.

We need look no further than to glance at the recent Supreme Court Decision to abolish laws against corporate and union spending in federal elections. For most of us I suppose this law might not have raised any concern if the President of the United States had not chosen to mention this change in his State of the Union Address. And truthfully we might not even have noticed if in an unprecedented curmudgeonly response by a sitting Justice, Judge Samuel Alito had not chosen to mouth the words “not true”.

Now I don’t want to take sides in any argument between a sitting President and a Supreme Court Justice but I think it is important that we pay attention to the tensions this interaction highlighted. Make no mistake what President Obama and Justice Alito were publicly arguing about were the same concerns Marx outlined between the bourgeois and the proletariat. Who has representation under the law? How much influence their voice can have or not have are all things necessary to consider if we are to have a true democracy.

And this brings me to my final point I believe there is great spiritual benefit in following the gist if not the letter of the Communist treaty not in setting up a communist regime but in following our own Democratic one.

Marx pointed out that it is easy in any society to think we have moved on from the old ways of doing things when in truth we are constantly building on the ways things used to be. To truly construct new paradigms it is essential to remove ourselves completely from our old ways of doing things.

I assure you I am not advocating that we go so far as to abolish all property or all inheritance we would be in a sorry state if we did not benefit from such things. I only want to suggest that it might help us to imagine who we are without our privilege. Who are we without these buildings we love so much, without our endowments? How might we proceed in the face of the perceived destruction of all our security?

Look around you. Sitting here in this dining room instead of the Meeting House for these few weeks it seems evident that the beauty of this Church and Parish does not rest in our property but in these real and beautiful faces around you.

As we go forward if it were our people and not our property that helped us to decide what is right in every situation how might that shift our perspective? If we turned our eye to those who are the least heard from, our newest visitors and our youngest children and our elders and those in the most need how might this shift our priorities as a church? If it was our leadership responsibility to gather voices from all corners how might that enliven our discussions and help us to garner more grassroots support?

With a slight shift of focus and by opening our arms we will build with our democracy what Marx aspired to but never manifest with communism and that is the “association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

May it be so.