a trend in social thought that seeks to give the Christian religion a socialist coloration. The Christian socialist school of thought emerged in the 1830’s and 1840’s as a variety of feudal socialism. From the very beginning, Christian socialism took different forms in different countries and was variously interpreted by its proponents—for example, by F. R. de Lamennais in France, F. D. Maurice and C. Kingsley in Great Britain, and F. X. von Baader, V. Huber, and W. E. von Ketteler in Germany. Thus, while Lamennais held democratic beliefs, Bishop Ketteler’s views were extremely conservative. Many Christian socialists actively sought—and many still seek—to deliver the exploited from their misery and forced state of dependency, but at the same time they favored unrealistic ways and means of achieving their goal, such as the partnership of different classes or moral and religious self-improvement. In the course of its evolution, Christian socialism has turned into one of the basic types of bourgeois ideology that stands in opposition to scientific socialism and the revolutionary workers’ movement.
In the attempt to give the Christian religion a new social coloration and adapt it to modern historical conditions, a special role has been played by the Catholic Church and the various Christian Democratic parties that speak on its behalf, as well as by those trade unions and other secular Catholic organizations whose programs include many of the tenets of Christian socialism. The modernization of the social program of the Catholic Church (as exemplified by the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, adopted by Vatican Council II, 1962–65, and the encyclical of Pope Paul VI in 1967, Populorum progressio), together with recognition of the need to effect a number of social reforms, represent an attempt to offer an alternative to the communist program of world transformation and to split off some of the Communist parties’ adherents.
In altered form, Christian socialist ideas are held in our own time by those millions of believers who ever more actively participate in worldwide democratic movements—particularly the antiwar and class movements—and whose aspirations toward social prosperity, peace, and socialism are clothed in religious vestments.
The progressive dechristianization of large portions of the Catholic population, their increasing self-awareness, and the growing popularity of the ideas of scientific socialism have forced the ideologists of Christian socialism to critically reappraise various aspects of capitalist reality. In the final analysis, however, the position of the Christian socialist ideologists is one of social reformism, their goal being the improvement of the bourgeois system of social relations.
M. V. ANDREEV