Marxism has developed a patriotism of its own, if indeed it has not yet
been completely crystallized into a religion. Like the "capitalistic"
governments it so vehemently attacks, it demands self-sacrifice and even
martyrdom from the faithful comrades. But since its strength depends
to so great a degree upon "conversion," upon docile acceptance of the
doctrines of the "Master" as interpreted by the popes and bishops of
this new church, it fails to arouse the irreligious proletariat.
The Marxian Socialist boasts of his understanding of "working class
psychology" and criticizes the lack of this understanding on the part
of all dissenters. But, as the Socialists' meetings against the
"birth strike" indicate, the working class is not interested in such
generalities as the Marxian "theory of value," the "iron law" of wages,
"the value of commodities" and the rest of the hazy articles of faith.
Marx inherited the rigid nationalistic psychology of the eighteenth
century, and his followers, for the most part, have accepted his
mechanical and superficial treatment of instinct.(5) Discontented
workers may rally to Marxism because it places the blame for their
misery outside of themselves and depicts their conditions as the result
of a capitalistic conspiracy, thereby satisfying that innate tendency
of every human being to shift the blame to some living person outside
himself, and because it strengthens his belief that his sufferings
and difficulties may be overcome by the immediate amelioration of his
economic environment. In this manner, psychologists tell us, neuroses
and inner compulsions are fostered. No true solution is possible, to
continue this analogy, until the worker is awakened to the realization
that the roots of his malady lie deep in his own nature, his own
organism, his own habits. To blame everything upon the capitalist and
the environment produced by capitalism is to focus attention upon merely
one of the elements of the problem. The Marxian too often forgets
that before there was a capitalist there was exercised the unlimited