However, in the account of the rich man and the poor Lazarus, Jesus wanted to say that a rich person does not enter into the kingdom of God (Luke 16:19–31). A Marxist theoretician, Joseph Dietzgen, who was a despiser of Christianity, was right in saying that the original sin of the human race is self-seeking. The similarity between Barth’s argumentation and that of a more Marxist approach is shaped in his passion for the socialistic spirit of solidarity. In view of The Communist Manifesto of 1848, Barth argued that socialism proceeds from solidarity and it emphasizes solidarity “as the source of his power and progress” to the social consciousness of the worker. Furthermore, he argued, “Solidarity is the law and the gospel of socialism.” As a socialist, one ceases to be an individualist and thus ceases to think, feel, and act as a private person, so he or she should become a class-conscious worker. “To be a socialist means to be a ‘comrade’ in consumer’s unions, in labor unions, and in political parties” “as a member of the forward-striding, fighting totality.”92
Dietzgen has argued that “conscious and planned organization of social work is what the longed-for savior of the modern period is called.”93 Therefore, should the socialist call to solidarity and Jesus’s gospel stand in contrast to one another? By no means, because there was only “a social God, a God of solidarity” for Jesus. “There was also only a social religion, a religion of solidarity.”94 On the basis of the “awareness of the collective, solidarity, communal, social God” Jesus’s call to discipleship, namely, the rule of corresponding action follows. As Barth said passionately and convincingly, “Let him take it in who can, that one must lose one’s life in order to find it, that one must cease being something for oneself, that one must be a communal person, a comrade, in order to be a person at all.”95 Jesus is the partisan of the poor. “Real socialism is real Christianity in our time.”96 Certainly the correct socialism for Barth is not that which the socialists now do, but rather what Jesus does—and what the socialists want to do. At a minimum, the demands of the socialists cannot be realized without the gospel. The kingdom of God was close to the poor, and Jesus identified himself with them.
Be that as it may, Barth would be hesitant in terms of the manner in which socialists act to attain it. Concerning the socialistic manner necessary for attaining the goal, Barth distanced himself from secular socialists because his socialism is theological in light of the gospel of Jesus and the kingdom of God. The socialist’s concern is in line with what Jesus wanted to do. “Leave the superficiality and the hatred, the spirit of mammon and the self-seeking, which also exists among your ranks, behind. . . . Let the faithfulness and energy, the sense of community and the courage for sacrifice found in Jesus be effective among you, in your whole life; then you will be true socialists.”97 As a pastor, Barth had to stand in the forefront of the class struggle. These writings reflect a belief that theology and social questions are not in conflict, but complement each other in light of the gospel. Theology and national economy, sermons and politics, are not separated from each other but belong together. Barth’s sense of the identification of God’s kingdom with true socialism—“real socialism is real Christianity in our time”—does not mean at this time that we can strictly identify our socialism with God’s kingdom through our utilization of God to serve human interests or to exploit God for human purposes. Rather we follow the movement of the kingdom of God, serving, believing, and obeying its promise for the poor, alienated and wrecked.98 “Jesus is more socialist than the socialist.” Seen from the divine side, the gospel is “wholly and completely a movement from above to below. It is not that we go to heaven, but that heaven comes to us.”99 For this reason, Barth did not agree with the manner in which socialists acted to attain their goal.
After this socialist speech, Barth was ridiculed and attacked sharply as an ignorant idealist by the manufacturer, Walter Hüssy, a nephew of the Safenwil church board president. His “Open Letter” (February 1, 1912) was printed on February 3 in the Zofinger Tagblatt. It declared Barth’s lecture to be “a long rabble-rousing speech, garnished with an incredible number of religious quotations,” and he heard from it the demand “Private property must fall—not private property in general, but private property as a means of production.”100 According to Walter Hüssy, what Barth wants is his ideal of a future state!101
Barth responded in “Answer to the open letter of Herr W. Hüssy of Aarburg on February 6, 1912,” by arguing that Hüssy’s response was a fundamental misunderstanding of his speech. Barth would carry on the fight with Hüssy stating, “despite the prevailing coldness, I enter the fray in my shirt sleeves rather than my frock coat and reply with equal clarity.”102 Against the charge that his lecture was “a ‘rabble-rousing speech’ with the purpose of ‘sowing discord between employer and employee,’” Barth clarified that his speech was directed objectively about capitalism as such, and it did not refer to specific capitalists.103 Barth’s response sounds harsh because he regarded Hüssy’s protest as “pathetically naïve.”104
Regarding the problem of private property, Barth’s idea was in line with the official program of the Swiss Social Democratic Party even although he was not yet a member. Barth explained that what led him, as a pastor, to the side of socialism lay “in the idea of a socialist state of the future.”105 His concise definition of capitalism reads: “The net profits of the common work of the entrepreneur and the worker now become the private property of the former, because he is the private owner of the means of production. This is the essence of the capitalist economic system.”106 Socialism fights against this economic system on grounds of inequality and dependence. The private profit that Hüssy stands for is opposed to the justice of socialism and the Bible.
Barth also wrote a letter to the father of Mr. Hüssy, Mr. Hüssy-Juri in Safenwil. In it Barth announced that his sharp response was not directed personally to either the father or the son. Barth was seeking to attack the economic system of capitalism objectively, not its particular, individualistic expressions. In the interest of the congregation, Barth hoped that his speech would not cause any disturbance to friendly relations between the pastorate of Safenwil and the house of Hüssy. Barth’s official answer was one of the clearest texts using Marxist argumentation emerging from a biblical paradigm. In protest of Barth’s attitude, the president of the Safenwil church board, Gustav Hüssy-Zuber, who was a cousin of Walter Hüssy, resigned.107
A number of attacks poured upon Barth in the Zofinger Tagblatt. The first “letter to the editor” (on February 12) was under the polemical headline “Concerning the Red Danger in Safenwil.” The writer sought “to catch Barth in the fly of his pants,” insulted him as “a Red Doctrinaire,” as “a Red Messiah,” as “the Messiah from Safenwil,” as “a combative little pope,” as “Mr. Trade Pastor,” and as “an Ivory Tower Wise Man.” The second anonymous letter (on February 14) with a more moderate tone was sent to the editors of the Zofinger Tagblatt.108 There was also criticism from Marburg about Barth’s lecture as “the superficiality of Barth’s theology!”109 However,
