My own stance is that I was raised as a Catholic, and once considered becoming a priest, but I became an Atheist Socialist instead. As a Socialist I can't pass up the opportunity to talk about the variations of “the ideology”; just as there are different types of Christianity there are different types of Socialism, the two main branches being the reformist and the revolutionary tendencies. About the only thing that all left-wingers agree on is that there is a need to change the world.

Whereas Christians would suggest that belief in God by everyone will improve life on earth, although they make no mention of what is going to happen to big business in the Kingdom of Heaven, reformists would argue that peaceful “democratic” one-step-at-a-time is the best road to socialism; the Labour Party, the SDP in Germany and the Democrats in the US all fall within this category. Revolutionaries, such as myself, believe that real power lies outside parliaments and that socialism can only be achieved by the working class itself, for itself by taking over the organs of state power, such as in the Russian Revolution.

Many of the principal arguments against socialism are based on the mistaken belief that Stalinist Russia was in some way Communist; it wasn't. The old Communist system was a violent, brutal dictatorship which killed millions and the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) of which I am a member grew out of socialists who rejected state capitalism. I don't have enough space here to go into the finer details but if anyone wants to know more the SWP on campus meets on Wednesday nights in Vanbrugh; you can come along and I'll spend about three hours trying to explain it more clearly.

Well, that's the ground work done.

There are many similarities between Christianity and Socialism, both ideologies founded by Jews who in their own lifetimes were hated by the authorities and had to flee to other countries. Marxism has its own “old and new testaments”: Das Kapital and State and Revolution respectively. There are direct comparisons between the letters of the apostles and those books written by exiles to “believers”in other countries giving advice etc. such as Lenin's “What is to be done?”.

Crimes have been committed in the name of the two ideologies by people who really didn't represent the movements; the Spanish inquisition, witch burning, and Stalinist terror.

More importantly, both want to change the world for the better, eliminate poverty of both lifestyle and health (even though Christ said that the poor would always be with us), restore and improve the natural environment and bring an end to wars. Even though we disagree on homosexuality, sex before marriage and abortion, in those issues on which we have common ground socialists and Christians have had a long and healthy tradition of working together in the past and no doubt will have in the future.

As a Socialist I have to add that I think that at worst Christianity gives succour to the “moral majority” and at best is a comfort to people in old age.

In the words of the “International”:

… no saviour from on high delivers,
No faith have we in prince or peer,
Our own right hand the chains must shiver.

This is the essential thought of Socialism: only we can save ourselves and only we can do it for ourselves. The choice before people at the start of this new century is between Socialism and capitalist barbarism, and sadly, spiritual ideas will have to wait for the time being.

All that said I still have a Bible and a Crucifix above my bed, and the Pope has a copy of the Communist Manifesto; perhaps we can save each other ?

Russell Sugden is a third year Chemistry student.