| It is a common assumption, held by both his critics and admirers alike, that Reinhold Niebuhr was a "qualified" Marxist in the early 1930's and that his engagement with Marxist thought and his perception of the failures of communist practice in Soviet Russia precipitated a theoretical shift by the 1940's to his "mature" period of Christian realism. The thesis of this dissertation is that, although Niebuhr was a self-avowed socialist in the 1930's, his views were never based upon a Marxist theoretical perspective. On the contrary, I contend that the fundamental assumptions of Niebuhr's work, which I define as the anthropology of his Christian realism, were developed in the late 1920's before he began his candid dialogue with Marxism.;Part Two is a discussion of Niebuhr's interpretation and critique of Marxism. I clarify the specific areas of difference between Niebuhr's and a Marxist theoretical perspective in what I take to be the major topics or themes of Niebuhr's writings: science, religion, social theory and economic analysis. I conclude that the anti-Marxist, Christian-realist theology of Niebuhr's "mature" writings after 1940 was premised upon the anthropological assumptions he developed before and during his "Marxist" period of the 1930's. Marxism was never a new "faith" for Niebuhr. It was a secularized version of prophetic religion which preserved crucial insights neglected in liberal Christianity but which was dangerous as a total philosophy of life.;In Part One, I argue that the crucial elements of Niebuhr's anthropology are sharply divergent from those anthropological assumptions which underlie Marxist theories. In order to justify this contrast, I attempt to demonstrate that there is a theory of human nature which supports all Marxist theories, including economic theory. Furthermore, I argue that this anthropology is essential for understanding any form of Marxism and also for understanding how a Marxist perspective differs from other perspectives such as Niebuhr's. My conclusion is that Niebuhr's early assessments of Marxism, which include his positive appropriation of Marxist language to criticize the values and social effects of capitalism, as well as his criticisms of Marxism, were formed on the basis of a serious misunderstanding of the fundaments of Marxist theory. |
