1.1.3 Marxist Anthropology

Definition – Anthropology is the study of humanity (from the Greek word anthropos, meaning ‘human being’).

The Marxist understanding of what it is to be human can be summarised as the Myth of the New Man – a transformed human being who functions according to the principles established by the Marxist ‘religion’ in order to create a new type of society. This ‘new man’ is in fact nothing other than the re-elaboration in secular and ‘scientific’ terms of a similar Christian project for the transfiguration of the human being. Why is there a need for a ‘new’ man? Obviously, this is because the ‘old’ man is not good enough. Christianity and Marxism agree on this point. Yet the solutions they propose are diametrically opposed and totally incompatible. Thus, Marxism avoids talking about personal sin. It prefers to use the term alienation, seen as a social concept – human beings are seen as victims of an unjust economic system, based on private property and controlled by those who own the ‘means of production’.

According to Marxism, religion is nothing but a weak ‘means of escape’ for people exploited by ruthless capitalists. This is why, instead of rising up against those who exploit them, the working class, encouraged by their exploiters, have conceived of a God ‘according to the image of man’ who they suppose can save them, not in this life but rather in the world to come. Viewed from this perspective, religion becomes a means of undermining the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat, and as such it has to be uprooted by all means, so that the working class can be truly saved, that is, can overcome its alienation.

Marxist anthropology involves a complete reversal of the Christian view of the human condition. Human beings (particularly the working class) are viewed as basically innocent (in the tradition of J. J. Rousseau). Evil as a social reality appeared on this earth when at a particular moment in time during the ‘primitive commune’, certain leaders decided to grab for themselves what had until then been the common property of the group or tribe. As a consequence, the evil present in society through the allegedly destructive mechanism of private property needs to be removed through the violent means of revolution. According to Marxism, this radical change in the social and economic structure of society will create the conditions for the formation of the ‘new man’.