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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 36-2-1
TITLE:             Co-Operation and Dialogue
BY:                
DATE:              1977-1-4
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  RAD Background Report/3
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1976-1989, Church and State, Marxism

--- Begin ---

RADIO FREE EUROPE Research

This material was prepared for the use of the
editors and policy staff of Radio Free Europe.

RAD Background Report/3
(Hungary)
4 January 1977

CO-OPERATION AND DIALOGUE
(A translation with comment by the Hungarian Unit)

Summary and Introduction: Jozsef Lukacs a university
professor of philosophy, editor-in-chief of the monthly
Vilagossag, and a leading proponent of the atheistic
Weltanschauung in Hungarian cultural life, was recently
interviewed by the party daily Nepszabadsag (4 December 1976).
He is the author of many articles on atheism and has set
the HSWP's policy line on religion. Recently he also
became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Coming in the wake of several articles on the socialist
state and the Churches, the interview deals with some
current questions concerning religion and socialism. The
interview merits study because of the ongoing dialogue
between the Churches and the state. Although Lukacs
recommends that the Churches become less conservative, he
adds that Marxism must rid itself of all Messianism and
dogmatism, not underestimating its own possibilities or
overlooking the real contradictions existing in society.

X X X

Jozsef Lukacs is the head of the Second Department of Philosophy
in the Faculty of Arts at Eotvos Lorant University, editor-in-chief
of Vilagossag, and the author of a number of books and studies on
philosophy, religious criticism, and the history of religion. He
was elected this year to be a corresponding member of the Academy
of Sciences. We talked to him about some current problems involved
in the relations between religion and socialism.

Nepszabadsag: In our country, there has for decades been
co-operation between the Marxists and religious believers in defending peace
and building socialism. What are the forces that impel the Churches
and religious believers thus to co-operate?

Lukacs: The effect of objective social development -- the
increase of the forces of socialism, the signs of crisis in
capitalism, the historical process taking place in the third world -- not
only in Hungary and in the other socialist countries, but in Italy,

[page 2]

France, and Latin America, all of which also have a strong religious
tradition, and where the increasing endeavor of the religious to
get their Churches to alter their earlier, overwhelmingly
conservative and regressive standpoint, adapt to the demands of the era,
and search, in the struggle for social renascence, for contact with
the nonreligious, democratic, and socialist forces has made telling
impact.

The fact that, in the last decade, relgious Weltanschauung has
become considerably weakened, indifference to religion is increasing,
that in many places the practice of religion has become solely a
matter of form and that the influence of the materialistic
Weltanschauung is undeniably strengthening have also all impelled the
Churches to reform. All these reasons have made traditional
methods questionable.

The latest conference organized by the Pecs Academy Committee,
which examined trends in the development of religiousness under
Hungarian conditions, established the fact that the Churches are
making major efforts to break away from the outcome of some
ideological events in their historical past. In our country, too,
the ties between the people and religion have weakened. According
to surveys made among the younger generation, even those who still
request the blessing of the Church for events marking turning points
in their lives, such as birth, marriage, and death, have no real
religious Weltanschauung, and often are not even consciously
religious.

Nepszabadsag: Sociologists call this process secularization.
Would this be identical with the fading away of religion of which
the classic authors of Marxism wrote?

Lukacs: Secularization has produced a recession in
traditional religiousness, but this does not exclude the continuance of
various types of religious subsidizing of modern myths -- to say
nothing of indifference to all sorts of Weltanschauungen. So far as
the general fading away of religiousness goes, Marx established that
this is possible only "when, in future, practical, everyday
conditions of life will, day by day, clearly produce for the people
visibly rational relationships to each other and to nature." He
was referring here to communism, not to the transitional stage of
socialism. One thing is certain: a major ferment and re-evaluation
are taking place in our world, not only in politics, but also in the
ideological respect, and, in the last analysis, its direction is
being determined by the ideas of socialism.

The Marxists, too, must consider this new situation and examine,
as materialists, the objective historical processes that are molding
the religious person's way of thinking. Even today, religiousness
is not a negligible force, and the political and moral attitudes
the Churches urge upon their followers are hardly a matter of
indifference to us. When the recently held Berlin confrence of
European communist and workers' parties officially supported "a
constructive dialogue with every democratic force -- while acknowledging
that each such force has its own typical features and independence" --

[page 3]

it also emphasized that a dialogue of this sort is not encouraged
merely because of tactical considerations. Janos Kadar adopted the
same tone when he spoke of the rallying of people with differing
Weltanschauunqen: "We communists interpret this mobilization as
an outcome of the fact that in the process of building communism
we are all equal, regardless of party affiliations, and that we
will also be united in the developed socialist society that is
coming into being as the fruit of that building, as we will also
be in the socialist future of our people." Consequently, the
Marxist side is not surrendering by either giving up its
materialistic Weltanschauung or for tactical considerations produced by
circumstance.

Nepszabadsag: But there is a contradiction. How can common
objectives be achieved while we support a materialistic
Weltanschauung in contradiction to belief in God? Or, how can one remain
religious while co-operating with atheists?

Lukacs: Lenin wrote: "The contradiction which disturbs
those who bring up such questions is the existent contradiction of
real life, that is, it is a dialectic contradiction, not a
trumped-up and concocted contradiction:." What is mainly involved here is
the fact that today a part of the people say yes to socialism
while also saying yes to God. Marxism regards the peoples' objective
interests as primary, and not a form of consciousness in which this
interest is expressed.

It is not enough that a Marxist, as an atheist and a materialist,
should be able to do so; it is not enough to deny fancies about God.
This would be a repetition of the standpoint of bourgeois atheism.
A Marxist's attention must be concentrated primarily on the problems
occurring in the real course of life, problems whose insolubility
leadsman to consider himself as a defenseless and dependent being.
If a Marxist takes a critical stand against religiousness, he does
so primarily so that people should not delay solving real problems,
expecting some supernatural force to do it for them, but should
shoulder their responsibility as the sole authors and players of
history.

What concerns religious people and the Churches? Socialism does
not want to deprive people of real values, but to show them the road
by which they will be able to realize, in the course of a long
historical process, everything that had previously appeared only as
faith, wish, and moral endeavor. People who take their religion
seriously and honestly but who endeavor to progress have to reach
the point where they will consider co-operation with socialism not
only as possible, but also as expedient politically and necessary
morally. These people feel that it is necessary to have social
conditions that are more just than capitalism makes possible, and
they also want to help create a world in which labor can gain its
true dignity. Such endeavors can encourage the present efforts of
religious believers within the framework of socialist building
working together with nonbelievers for the achievement of joint
objective aims.

[page 4]

It is self-evident that the Churches' standpoint and activities
are considerably influenced by their own followers and traditions.
But it is even more obvious that it is those believers who speak out
in the whole world for the creation of a life more worthy of humanity
who exert increasing influence on the formulation of this standpoint.

This is why Churches, in our country, too, speak up in support
of peaceful coexistence, general and full disarmament, against the
war in Vietnam; repeatedly voice their agreement with the state's
social policy, the effort to, raise the standard of living, and also the
endeavors to solve the problems of women and youth and -- as on the
30th anniversary of our liberation -- in general positively evaluate
the process of building socialism.

All this, however, does not mean that there are no disputed or
unsolved problems between the socialist state and the Churches that
await solution. Nevertheless, within the framework of the good
relations that have developed, both sides consider fundamental those
things that link them together in everyday activities, not those
that still separate them.

Nepszabadsag: Does not all this create the semblance that Marxism
prefers to avoid discussion with those holding a religious
Weltanschauung?

Lukacs: The debate is going on in any case, only because both
sides are interested in the propagation of their ideas. But what
lies at the core of this discussion cannot be a matter of indifference.
One can and must discuss the truthfulness of the content of religion,
one must critically analyze its historical role. It is, however,
difficult to engage in direct debate on such questions as the
religious faith of an individual, a matter that is of an emotional nature
and, as such, outside the realm of the intellect and science. This
problem will be solved, in the last analysis, by the improvement of
people's living conditions, knowledge of the world, and by history.

But far more important than abstract debate is the struggle
over the rules and regulations deriving from religion and their
observance, on the basis of which rests the relationship between
the religious person, the individual, and the community, his
relationship to his homeland and to humanity, to the great problems of
humanity waiting to be solved -- which, in people with a religious
orientation, mostly appear in the form of morals. The solutions
to these problems can comprise many kinds of social contents, and
it is these that the Marxist is primarily concerned with. Indeed,
even the orientation of one's Weltanschauung can be judged only on
the basis of such standpoints. It is for this reason that Lenin
distinguished between the religiousness of a worker approaching
socialism and the religiousness of a person who manipulates
religion precisely for the very purpose of setting himself apart from
socialism.

Marxism's dialectic materialism would be simply giving up if
it were to disregard the practical democratic process in which
cooperation between people with different Weltanschauungen can be

[page 5]

accomplished, but it remains faithful to itself if it endeavors to
focus the attention of relgious people on the material and cultural
conditions necessary for the solution of social problems which
partly depend on them; by supporting scientific theory,
they can help make possible an acceptable solution of these
problems.

If Marxism is to understand the true content of religiousness,
it, too, must shed every kind of Messianism and dogmatism. It may
not overlook true social contradictions and may not absolutize its
own potential, nor underestimate the need to present acceptable
historical outlooks. The function of this dialectic materialistic
Weltanschauung is not -- as alleged by its bourgeois critics -- to
suppress in the people that which would raise their horizons. On
the contrary, its purpose is to lead them, so that they may move
from mere faith to well-founded conviction, to a conscious and
dialectic approach to living conditions in which man considers himself
the element that molds these conditions and is able to put this
conviction into practice in everyday life.

- end -

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