This essay was unsuccessfully submitted to a Catholic website in July 2020. The first Black Lives Matters link no longer works, but it supported the assertion made at that time.
Like, I am sure, other Catholics who have undertaken to learn our tradition, I pay more attention to the apparitions at Fatima. The warning from our Blessed Mother that the “errors of Russia” would spread throughout the world absent a consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart is worrisome. Taking the errors of Russia to include the social system called communism, it would help to define the system so we can tell if it is spreading.
In my opinion, communism has three characteristics. There are other characteristics which identify various species of communism, but these define the genus.
1. One-Party Rule.
The one-party rule found in communism can be illustrated by comparing it with two forms of government found in the Western tradition, republics and monarchies.
Whatever the faults of the American revolution, it did bring forward the republican idea in a fairly classical form. “Republic” comes from the Latin “res,” meaning thing, and “publicus,” meaning public. In a republic, the government is a public thing, held publicly for the public benefit.
Monarchy has much less respect in the American tradition, but ideally a monarchy could be as committed to the public benefit as a republic. A dynastic monarchy is even democratic in the sense identified by Chesterton—it innocently assumes that anyone can rule by merely plopping the next in line on the throne! Office selection in a republic, usually based on purported merit, is in that sense less democratic.
The true distinction between a republic and a monarchy is the status of public office. In a republic, the office remains the property of the public and is entrusted for a time to a holder selected by regular means. In a monarchy, at least one not subject to constitutional modification, the office is held so personally that it becomes in some sense the property of the holder. The office, for example, is typically subject to inheritance within the holder’s family.
The dynastic arrangement is not vicious, but it does come from a different age. Corporate forms of ownership were not common in medieval Europe. Monasteries were the best example, but outside of that outstanding institution, ownership was generally a personal thing, not a corporate thing. Business corporations as we know them did not exist, and government seemed to disappear with the death of a king. For the crown to survive, it had to be inherited.
Turning now to political parties, they are far more personal than either a republic or a monarchy. The latter two are forms of government, and their leaders are necessarily public officials. A political party, however, remains private because it is distinct from the government itself.
That is not particularly threating, but when one-party rule emerges, the leader of the political party is also the leader of government. An essentially private person controls the public weal. The paradox is demonstrated every time a leader in a one-party state is cast out of the party. The rejected leader automatically loses public office, showing it is the private interest which controls. The arrangement is fundamentally vicious.
The point can be clarified by again considering medieval Europe. With some exceptions, medieval Europe was Catholic. And at least in theory, being cast out of the Church meant losing public office. Was medieval Europe thus subject to one party rule?
No, because the Catholic Church is not a political party. Our Lord’s instruction to render to Caesar distinct from what we render to God ensures that Church leaders are not, by that fact, also government leaders. All sorts of rhetoric was deployed about the question, and certain exceptions arose, but Catholics of serious mind never held for unification of Church and State during the Middle Ages. The constant conflict between the two is sufficient proof of the lived distinction.
In contrast, where is the conflict in a one-party state between the political party and the government? It does not exist, because the two are united. The government has been seized by a private interest and is being used for the benefit of party members. The arrangement is criminal, not Catholic, but as always is the case with evil, it does ape the good.
2. Loss of Property Rights
Karl Marx said property could be maintained collectively, but that never seems to happen. Instead, communist party members, operating through whatever government they control, simply take property which belongs to others. This is called “theft.”
A dissonance immediately arises, however. Theft is a very old thing, and communism is a relatively new thing. How can communism be new if its aim is so old?
The dissonance only increases when we consider how the theft is accomplished. Theft on the scale practiced by communists is not easy. They must seize control of government to achieve it, as already described. How, then, do communists seize control of government?
Communists use another very old trick—divide and conquer. The particular tactic used by communists to divide and conquer is addressed next. The point here is to see clearly what is happening despite the familiarity of it all: communists want what other people have, and they use government to take it.
3. Conflict Über Alles
The particular tactic communists use to divide and conquer gives the system its identity. In the 19th century, Marx alleged that two social classes are implacably set against each other, the bourgeoise and the proletariat. In the 20th century, Antonio Gramsci argued that social conflict expresses itself as the cultural hegemony of one group over another. Communists associated with the Frankfurt School extended the doctrine of fundamental conflict to race, sex, and sexual orientation/identity via so-called “critical theory.” Black Lives Matter, for example, does not limit itself to race conflict but alleges oppression under all three categories.
Communism therefore postulates a world in which class or group conflict is essential. Communists do not identify social conflicts and work to resolve them, as though the conflicts were accidental in the philosophical sense—they might or might not exist. Communists insist that conflict is intrinsic to society, which nicely sets up the divisions they seek.
St. John Paul II, a man who had lived under communism, discussed this dynamic in his Encyclical Centesimus annus:
“[W]hat is condemned [by the Church] in class struggle is the idea that conflict is not restrained by ethical or juridical considerations, or by respect for the dignity of others (and consequently of oneself); a reasonable compromise is thus excluded, and what is pursued is not the general good of society, but a partisan interest which replaces the common good and sets out to destroy whatever stands in its way. In a word, it is a question of transferring to the sphere of internal conflict between social groups the doctrine of “total war”, which the militarism and imperialism of that time brought to bear on international relations. As a result of this doctrine, the search for a proper balance between the interests of the various nations was replaced by attempts to impose the absolute domination of one’s own side through the destruction of the other side’s capacity to resist, using every possible means, not excluding the use of lies, terror tactics against citizens, and weapons of utter destruction (which precisely in those years were beginning to be designed). Therefore class struggle in the Marxist sense and militarism have the same root, namely, atheism and contempt for the human person, which place the principle of force above that of reason and law.” Sec. 14.
The Pope also addressed the specific claim that communists make to justify their dominance:
“In modern times, this concept [the rule of law] has been opposed by totalitarianism, which, in its Marxist-Leninist form, maintains that some people, by virtue of a deeper knowledge of the laws of the development of society, or through membership of a particular class or through contact with the deeper sources of the collective consciousness, are exempt from error and can therefore arrogate to themselves the exercise of absolute power. It must be added that totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for selfish ends. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.” Sec. 44.
When John Paul II wrote these words in 1991, he referred to “the fall of Marxism.” He asserted that “[e]xploitation, at least in the forms analyzed and described by Karl Marx, has been overcome in Western society.” He concluded, “[t]he Marxist solution has failed.” Secs. 27, 41-42.
Soviet state communism did end in 1991, but has communism itself stopped spreading? Well, is there broad acceptance of opposition political parties, or does the political scene suggest a belief that opposition is inadmissible? Do the rulings and decisions of government protect property rights, or does one have less and less control over one’s own property? Are the divisions in society healing, or are they being exacerbated?
Black Lives Matter, for its part, provides an answer: “This is the revolution. Change is coming.” We will see, but communism does seem to be spreading. When will we have the consecration for which Our Lady asked?