The trial of John Scopes for teaching evolution in Dayton, Tennessee was a major social event of the 1920s. Epitomizing ‘culture wars’ since, lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan seemingly representing the larger divide between progressives and conservatives in the country. Yes, says ‘John Brown’ of the Daily Worker; however the debate is not over Darwin, but how best to battle Marxism.

‘Darwinism on Trial’ by John Brown from the Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No, 154. July 11, 1925.

IN the camp of the American bourgeoisie a struggle is raging around the Darwinian theory of evolution. In the bourgeois newspapers of all shades of opinion a discussion is going on concerning the origin of animals and man, concerning the origin of earth, of god, of religion, of the Bible and the New Testament. Learned professors, clergymen and bishops, cartoonists and journalists, reporters, interviewers and foreign correspondents, even statesmen, finally even judges, are mobilized for this discussion.

Even the old man Darwin, himself, is not left in peace. Lord Northcliffe who has died a few years ago and who was during his life the king of the English bourgeois press (this main instrument for misleading and deceiving the masses) has sought out, as reported by the Chicago Daily Tribune, in the other world, Darwin and upon instruction of the latter has communicated with the outer world that after a few discussions in heaven on the theory of evolution, Darwin convinced himself that (the ape is the anti-thesis of man) “the evolution theory is wrong.” Apparently Darwin, as well as Nortcliffe, continue to occupy themselves in the other world with the same affairs as they did upon earth. The first one, with the theory of evolution, the second with newspaper reporting.

The bourgeoisie has become divided into two parts: the evolutionists and the anti-evolutionists, both sides gathering their forces for the struggle. National leagues are being formed of the evolutionists and the anti-evolutionists. Meetings and lectures are being arranged. Strategic positions in the press are being conquered. In one word, the struggle is assuming an imposing character and the general battle is forthcoming in an American court between the evolutionists and the anti-evolutionists. In other words, this “theoretical” struggle is clearly assuming the character of a political struggle between two sections of the bourgeoisie and it becomes sharper with every day.

THE working class cannot remain an idle onlooker of this struggle that is going on in the camp of its class enemy, for a number of reasons. First of all, because the split in the camp of the enemy is weakening the strength of the latter and is increasing the latter’s chances in the struggle for its class interests. It is necessary to study the enemy and his forces. It is necessary to know his strong and weak side. It is necessary to do this work in the same manner as it is being done by all the bourgeois states when they study the forces of their possible military enemies. It would be very important, for example, to determine what part of our bourgeoisie exactly stands for Darwinism and what part against, and also to clarify whether this struggle which has flared up “unexpectedly” is not a manifestation of the former divisions within the bourgeoisie, whether this struggle does not merely represent a new form of the old struggle “for a third party,” a new rising of the LaFollette petty bourgeoisie or of its ideologists against the old parties, or a new offensive of the latter against the LaFollette farmer-labor masses, and also against the Communist farmer-labor masses.

Indeed, Darwinism is a part of the Communist conception of the universe. That what Marx has accomplished in relation to the human society, Darwin has accomplished in relation to the animal world. Marx has discovered the laws of the human society, Darwin has discovered the laws of evolution of the animals and plants. The revolutionary significance of Marxism and Darwinism is enormous. Darwin has overturned god and the “eternal laws” (religion) which he established. Marx has overturned the eternal laws of the capitalist system established by the bourgeois scientists and their doctrine of the “eternity” of capitalism and proved that capitalism is developing an elemental power towards Communism.

PRECISELY because of the revolutionary character of Marxism and Darwinism, the overwhelming majority of the bourgeois scientists is conducting a stubborn struggle against both tendencies, for when the broad masses of workers and farmers will free themselves from the power of religion and will understand that capitalism is not eternal and that Communism is coming to take its place–nothing, no power will be able to stave off the socialist revolution. And the best proof of that is Soviet Russia in whose schools Marxism and Darwinism are compulsory subjects and out of which religion is banished.

THE struggle against Darwinism (and Marxism) which is flaring up in our country is nothing new. It has been dragging on thru decades upon the old continent. Thousands of books have been written against Darwinism and not only religious but also would- be scientific books. The numerous flock of bourgeois professors has thought out a serious of roguishly subtle “objections” against Darwinism and Marxism. They have applied all the tricks of sophistry, of falsification and casuistry in order to overturn these theories so hated by the bourgeoisie. The difference is only in that in this country only the very crudest and most primitive methods are being applied.

One must not over-rate the importance of this struggle and expect that it can lead to the separation of the revolutionary “Darwinist” (and “Marxist”) wing from the camp of the bourgeoisie. Amongst the bourgeois and petty bourgeois partisans of Darwinism there will be found only a very insignificant number of thoroly consequential Darwinists, capable of assimilating the atheistic and anti religious deductions which flow out of Darwinism. The overwhelming majority of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois Darwinists do not wish to split with the dear old god. They would wish only to “rejuvenate” him and to make him more modern. A typical sample of such petty bourgeois, semi-Darwinists, semi-believers, is Prof. Chamberlain, an interview with whom was given by the Chicago Daily Tribune.

Let us listen for while to this respectable scientists.

He begins his interview with a statement that “He does not dispense with god. On the contrary, he sees science coming to accept the idea of god thru all nature.” But the old Jewish god (the special patron of the Jews) does not appeal to the professor. For our times he is antiquated. “The enormous enlargement in the reach of things,” states the professor, “must be accompanied by an enlargement of the idea of god.” In what then consists this “enlargement of the idea of god,” in the opinion of the respectable scientist? In the following: “We had a monarchial god. Now let us look at the republican god.” (The respectable professor wishes to see that at the present time a bourgeois god is needed.) Prove then, if you wish, after such a statement of a believing, bourgeois scientist to affirm that these people are wrong who say that the man has created for himself a god in his own image.

After all this there is no wonder that Prof. Chamberlain does not wish to break not only with god but also with his representatives upon earth. “We have no right,” so he states, “to throw stones at the theologians nor they at us.”

But the opponents of Darwinism do not agree even to the considerable concessions which are made by Prof. Chamberlain. “The Bible and the old god must remain unchanged and unshaken,” recently declared one of our statesmen. (We shall add upon our part, that this is not a careful statement: Mr. Statesman apparently doesn’t know well the Bible which he takes upon himself to defend, and has forgotten that it, the Bible, includes strictest injunctions concerning the seventh day of rest.) In order to clarify thoroly the political position of Prof. Chamberlain, it is necessary to make the following quotations from his interview and thereby one must remember that this venerable geologist has studied the history of earth for five million years:

“The old doctrine of geology was that we were on the verge of freezing up, but now we find, under the natural working of things, the system will run on. Man will have a chance to show what is in him. Some will go to the bad and try to carry the rest of the world with them, as the Soviets. Others will try to do better.”

So speaks Prof. Chamberlain. The connection between atheism, Darwinism, Marxism and the proletarian revolution, on the one hand and between religion, anti-Darwinism, anti-Marxism and bourgeois counter-revolution, on the other has been shown by Prof. Chamberlain with a remarkable clarity. A cowardly Darwinist has given out the secret of all the modern offensive against Darwinism and has thrown open the political secret of all this savage campaign. This campaign is being aimed directly against that spirit of criticism which is awakening in the American proletarian revolution in our country is impossible.

Our proletariat begins to throw off, under the influence of the revolutionary events of the last decade, many of its old traditional viewpoints, it begins to criticize the existing social system. (And yet Marx said that every criticism begins with the criticism of religion.) This is the greatest danger threatening our bourgeoisie.

Hence this fury which we observe during the last weeks in the struggle against the theory of evolution. This struggle represents a new way of reaction, aimed at the beginning of revolutionary rising of the proletariat. The rejuvenated “republican god” is needed by Prof. Chamberlain for the struggle against Soviet Russia, and against the revolutionary movements of our proletariat. The discussion between Prof. Chamberlain and the anti-evolutionist is essentially a discussion as to what are the best measures for the suppression of the proletariat revolution. Prof. Chamberlain is for a “republican” god, because the spirit of democracy inherent in such a god, will be a better means against the revolutionists than the “spirit of reaction” defended by the anti-evolutionists and which is inherent to the old “Jewish god.” Precisely in this question lies the political center of gravity of the entire dispute between the “evolutionists” and “anti-evolutionists.”

THE matter of methods of the suppression of the revolutionary movement of the workers and farmers is the most important matter for the bourgeoisie of all countries. Precisely in that question lies the essence of all the struggle between the democratic pacifists and the reactionary wings of the bourgeoisie. From the experience of all revolutions we know well that when arguments on this question arise within the ruling class, be it even in a very veiled form (as we are observing now in our country). this is the surest sign that the underground forces of revolution begin to work.

Our proletariat has always suffered from an extreme theoretical backwardness, in comparison with the proletariat of the European countries and particularly with the Russian proletariat. Now the very march of events is drawing our workers into the sphere of theoretical questions. THEORY is concentrated practice.

The theory of the proletariat (Marxism, Leninism, Darwinism) is concentrated practice of the proletarian struggle of all countries, the science of proletarian struggle, without which the arch of the proletarian struggle is impossible and now, when the very march of events has tied up the theoretical (scientific) questions with the practical (political) and had made the study of theory a practical necessity the further indifference to the theoretical questions becomes an intolerable crime.

Our party, as a whole, and every member of our party individually, must place in the center of their attention, theoretical questions, must put broadly the study of theory.

Otherwise it will be too late. But before the party stands also another immediate practical political task. Shortly there is forthcoming a shameful trial over a Darwinist because he has preached his viewpoint. Such a trial is the greatest menace to the freedom of speech in our country. Today a Darwinist is tried for his views, tomorrow they will try Communists, anarchists, “La Folletteists” and everyone who is not in agreement with the mediaval viewpoints imported from England and officially acknowledged and permitted by the bourgeois courts. All who are against this unheard-of scandalous trial which differs very little from the mediaval inquisitional trials of the witches must protest with all their forces against such monstrous mockery of the freedom of speech.

Our party must organize this protest.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1925/1925-ny/v02b-n154-supplement-jul-11-1925-DW-LOC.pdf