Suicide of the Liberals

When I saw the title, "Suicide of the Liberals" in the October, 2020, First Things, I thought it would be "our" liberals who wave their little flags at "peaceful" protests led by BLM, and donate to racial justice causes, and meet with other faculty at the university to promote reeducation workshops on American history. But, no. It was about what happened in Russia in the first 20 years of the 20th century--i.e. the Russian Revolution. As the author points out:

"Revolutions never succeed without the support of wealthy, liberal, educated society. Yet revolutionaries seldom conceal that their success entails the seizure of all wealth, the suppression of dissenting opinion, and the murder of class enemies.

There were many groups colluding and cooperating in bringing down the Russian government--the Maximalists, the Socialist Revolutionaries, Kadets, Mensheviks, populists, anarchists, and the Bolsheviks, who finally gained control. The author reports that the liberals in Russian society (referred to as the intelligents) well-educated, not particularly wealthy or of high social class, with a regulated life and obligatory beliefs for a "moral" person, with a devotion not unlike a strict religion.

The Russian liberals of the early 20th century had great distain for anything conservative and could excuse all manner of violence and intolerance as noble and understandable. Like robbery, extortion, murder and demands to abolish the police. Better to side with people a mile to one's left than be associated with anyone an inch to one's right.

There wasn't a word in this article by Gary Saul Morson about 2020 and what is happening in our country, but it certainly sounded familiar. Like Twitter and Facebook yesterday shutting down the Biden China story and the President's press secretary. Or critical race theory appearing in government departments and medical schools attached to major universities. People being threatened or having careers destroyed over a different opinion in politics. Or a candidate for vice president twisting history to fit her wish for a liberal supreme court justice. The willingness to move a mile left and not an inch to the right. Yes, very familiar indeed.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/suicide-of-the-liberals?

BLM believes private property, the family and religion must be destroyed

Divini Redemptoris , On Atheistic Communism

Pope Pius XI – 1937 https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius11/p11divin.htm

The Catholic Church has recognized the danger of Communism for over a century and three quarters.  It was speaking out about the atheistic concepts in 1845.  These paragraphs are from a 1937 encyclical—before I was born, and perfectly outlines the methods and goals and beliefs of Black Lives Matter, BLM—the messianic fervor, the ideals of “justice, equality and fraternity” (inclusion, equity and diversity), the deception, the violent hate and destruction and the eradication of private property. You don't need to reinvent an argument against the destruction of the family and private property--it's been done for you.

The Pope in this encyclical, 20 years after the Bolshevik Revolution, mentions the “world wide economic crisis” and of course, then it was a world depression, now a world pandemic. But Communists take advantage of our pain and real problems to achieve their goals. The whole racism, reparations, police chants are just a means to an end. Destruction of our society. There is no intention by BLM to return to an orderly society with injustices solved.

8. The Communism of today [1937], more emphatically than similar movements in the past, conceals in itself a false messianic idea. A pseudo-ideal of justice, of equality and fraternity in labor impregnates all its doctrine and activity with a deceptive mysticism, which communicates a zealous and contagious enthusiasm to the multitudes entrapped by delusive promises. This is especially true in an age like ours, when unusual misery has resulted from the unequal distribution of the goods of this world. This pseudo-ideal is even boastfully advanced as if it were responsible for a certain economic progress. As a matter of fact, when such progress is at all real, its true causes are quite different, as for instance the intensification of industrialism in countries which were formerly almost without it, the exploitation of immense natural resources, and the use of the most brutal methods to insure the achievement of gigantic projects with a minimum of expense.

9. The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.

10. Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man’s relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement .