by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
One of the biggest wins of red propaganda is convincing many people that today’s large, anonymous crowds are eager for communism. However, nothing could be further from the truth. A wealth of facts shows these crowds actually view communism with suspicion and even hostility.
Let me give one proof: there is no better way to gauge public opinion than a truly free election. No one can deny that elections in most non-communist European countries are free. The same applies to several nations in the Americas. In all these countries, the communists do not let any election pass without mobilizing their sophisticated and expensive propaganda machinery. They work hard to incite the majority—which is not made up of the wealthy—to take property from the minority. And the outcome is always the same: the majority rejects the incitement and withholds votes from communist candidates. This pattern has remained consistent since the mid-19th century, when Marx published his manifesto, up to today. The communists have never won an election during this entire period.
Further evidence comes from the communist world. The inauthentic results of the elections held there are notorious. Why do communists fear free elections? Because they fear losing.
It is a constant in the world behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains that the masses reject communist doctrine. The only consolation for communists is that they manage to divert the attention of a large part of humanity from this humiliating failure.
Even so, the myth of hungry and rebellious masses is fading across different parts of public opinion. When Jangoism[1] raised the banner of land reform among us, and the TFP opposed it with the book Agrarian Reform, a Question of Conscience. Many land reform hotheads threatened a general revolt by rural workers if land redistribution did not happen soon. A few days ago, I listened to a recording of lectures given in Chile by Most Rev. Helder Câmara, an outspoken and passionate land reform advocate. He no longer talks about the masses’ revolt as an imminent threat. Instead, he says the masses are indifferent toward reforms because they are hungry. Thus, once used to add credibility to social revolution, hunger now explains people’s well-known apathy!
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To understand the true issues with communist propaganda, one must always return to the core idea of the Red Creed’s unpopularity.
If communism causes horror when promoted openly, how can they make it succeed? Clearly, by teaching it secretly. How? Starting movements with a non-communist label, infiltrating anticommunist groups, and stealthily changing their mindsets.
Labels change based on the psychology of the environment to be infiltrated. Therefore, to infiltrate Catholic circles, the label must be religious. The goal of the infiltration is to cause an ideological transformation of its targets by bringing them very close to communism without actually making them communists.
What we have just stated characterizes the “Prophetic Groups” as highly suspicious (to say the least) of being tools in the diabolical effort to “communize” the world’s 500 million Catholics. Let us compare some key points of the “prophetic” doctrine (based on data published by the magazine Ecclesia, which I have shared with our readers) and the communist doctrine.
Communist Doctrine:
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Any subjection of a rational being to another, for any reason, is alienation—an exploitation that evolution must eradicate.
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Belief in a personal and transcendent God is an illusion; only the cosmos exists, fueled by the immanent and scattered energies of evolution within it.
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All authority is alienating. The bourgeoisie—the ruling oligarchy in civil society—must surrender to the class struggle waged by manual laborers, who make up the exploited and alienated masses.
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Only this life exists. There is no reality except matter. Because of this, humans focus solely on Earth’s problems, such as progress and development driven by science and technology. Religions that steer the human mind toward spiritual ideals should be prohibited.
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Religion is only acceptable if it promotes social revolution.
“Prophetic” Doctrine:
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Any subjugation of a rational being to another, for any reason, constitutes alienation—an exploitation that evolution must eradicate.
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Belief in a personal and transcendent God is an alienating myth. God is not personal, but is dispersed and immanent in the universe, of which He is the evolutionary energy.
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All authority is fundamentally alienating. The pope, monarch of the universal Church, along with its local monarchs, the bishops, and clergy—the Church’s ruling class—must submit to the class struggle waged against them by the laity, who are the exploited and alienated masses within the Church.
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Humanity’s only real problems are here on Earth. Science and technology are the main tools to solve them. The Church must no longer focus on the extraterrestrial and should instead dedicate itself fully to this work.
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The Church must give up its sacred status, become a secular organization, and spearhead a de-alienating revolution against the exploiters. Otherwise, humanity will turn away from it.
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Is there anything more advantageous to communism than the successful spread of these “prophetic” principles among 500 million Catholics? Clearly, communism would have taken over the world the moment the “prophetic movement” turned most Catholics into followers of a “prophetic” New Church.
[1] A reference to the policies of the late President João Goulart, deposed in 1964.