Do Mormonism and the former German democratic republic have anything in common?: An examination of Marx's concept of the Asiatic mode of production

Conclusion

While both Mormonism and the GDR state promoted conformity and obedience in their respective populaces, these two centralized bureaucratic systems also fostered high levels of education which often stimulated critical thought. Needless to say, the paternalistic outlooks of both Mormon Church leaders and SED elites clashed increasingly in recent decades with the views, respectively, of many rank-and-file Mormons (particularly those who earned advanced degrees at secular universities) and many rank-and-file SED members as well as ordinary GDR citizens. The paternalistic posture of SED elites produced a deep cynicism and resentment towards public statements made by the former. At some level, most GDR citizens believed that serious contradictions existed between the ideals and realities of socialism in their country. Bahro went so far as to state: “Ours is a state-machine the likes of which Marx and Engels wanted the proletarian revolution to smash.”³⁸ Since SED elites routinely suppressed the publication of critical historical and social scientific studies of the GDR, many GDR intellectuals expressed critical views of their society in literature, poetry, and theater. Other GDR citizens found a forum for their critical views within the sanctuary of Protestant church-based peace and environmental movements. Intellectuals played key roles within these movements as well as in small clandestine circles within the SED. These intellectuals functioned as a vanguard for events that led up to the “revolution” or Wende (“turn”) in the former GDR. While the reformers wanted to create a democratic and ecologically-sensitive socialist society, the East German masses clamored for rapid unification which they believed would give them access to the D-Mark (West German currency) and the capitalist culture of consumption. The split between intellectual/social activists and the working class served as one of the crucial factors that contributed to the present status of East Germans as second-class citizens in the new Germany.

Other than a few out-spoken feminists and gays/lesbians, however, comparable protest movements have been virtually nonexistent among Mormons. Nevertheless, the summer of 1992 saw the formation of the Mormon Alliance (briefly called the Mormon Defense League), a group designed to “uncover, identify, define, name, and chronicle, resist, and even combat acts and threats of defamation and spiritual abuse perpetuated on Mormon individuals and institutions by Mormon and non-Mormon individuals and institutions.”³⁹ More recently, however, the hierarchy struck out against not only intellectuals but also gays/lesbians and feminists within the church. In May 1993, Apostle Boyd K. Packer spoke to the All-Church Coordinating Committee, which consists of department heads and senior personnel in the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City, about the presence of three “dangers” which allegedly “make major invasions into the membership of the Church”: “the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement ... and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals.”⁴⁰ In September 6, six Mormon scholars were disciplined by the church hierarchy for “apostasy.”⁴¹ Anthropologist David Knowlton was dismissed by Brigham Young University (BYU) allegedly for academic reasons but in all likelihood for his critiques of the policies of his church in the Third World. Michael Quinn, an eminent Mormon historian and a former BYU professor, was excommunicated from the church for his unorthodox interpretations of Mormon history and later resigned from his teaching position at BYU. As Omar M. Kader astutely observes, such infringements on academic freedom have transformed BYU into “a pariah among academic institutions.”⁴² While a few Mormon intellectuals have threatened to form a schismatic group, most Mormon intellectuals, particularly those functioning within church offices and Brigham Young University, find themselves bewildered by the increasingly suppressive tactics employed by the church hierarchy. Indeed, one of the editors of an anthology of social scientific studies of Mormonism which consists largely of essays by Mormon scholars writes that the “contributors to this volume who have BYU affiliations could face serious consequences if their analysis is deemed overly critical by church leaders or BYU administrators.”⁴³ BYU recently added an additional step in its hiring process of faculty members. Whereas the former policy required only one review by the board of trustees, the new policy requires that candidates must receive both preliminary and final approval before a job offer is made.⁴⁴ Even Mormon academics who do not teach at BYU feel the brunt of the Mormon hierarchy's attack on intellectuals within the church. Armand Mauss, perhaps the foremost contemporary sociologist of Mormon social life, recently wrote: “I have come to feel increasingly marginal to the Mormon community during my adult life, at least in a social and intellectual sense, despite my continuing and conscientious participation in church activity (including leadership), and despite my own deep personal faith in the religion itself.”⁴⁵ Such observances poignantly illustrate that the “cultural wars” within Mormonism may in reality function as a microcosm of growing conservative assault on progressive and even liberal intellectuals in U.S. society as a whole. While the “Asiatic” component of Soviet-bloc societies, such as the GDR, appears to by and large have ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, late capitalist societies continue to retain this component in the centralized bureaucratic structure of corporate life.