Most people primarily imagine communism as some kind of utopian economical and social system, and only after this – an ideology. Actually communism is primarily an ideology, and only afterwards an economic system. In other words, the preachers of communism in their battle for people’s souls have created a streamlined doctrine that gives answers to all questions that have been fascinating mankind back from the depths of unrecorded time, such as the origin of the universe and life on earth, basic laws of nature, principles of societal development, and so on. The economic communist system, logically (from the communist point of view) derives from the basic philosophical ideas of communist ideology.
In the modern world has rejected communism as a brutal, irrational and inhumane form of governmental rule. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the former republics that formed this largest in the world country have regained their independence and abandoned their old principles of the proletarian regime. The word proletarian originates from the Latin word “proles”, which means offspring. It was initially used to identify the lower class of people, who had no material wealth, besides their sons. Later on Karl Marx – one of the founders of the communist theory had used it to identify the working class of people who he believed were a firm ground for economic, social, and governmental well being and prosperity. The modern world has not left us with many communist strongholds at the current time.
One of the few countries that are still practicing this regime is Cuba. During the cold war which lasted for over 50 years, the geographic location of this country was advantageous to the communist side, and was effectively transformed into a constant threat for the western democracy. Cuba was founded by Spanish explorers and the main part of its population has Hispanic roots. If we were to say that the only attribute remaining from the Hispanic culture is the language, then we would not be saying anything. The Cuban nation profoundly retains its Hispanic heritage, based on the traditions of Roman Catholic Church, and it is unlikely to remain communist for much longer. The communist doctrine officially advocates atheism. This makes the Cubans creates an ideological barrier between the Cubans and other Hispanic nations, however how much longer this state is going to last is unknown.
In order to determine the condition in which the country is in under the communist rule, the peculiarities of the communist ideology should be discussed in order to define its multiple faults and weaknesses and stress the advantages of liberal democratic government with freedom of religions.
The founder of the modern communism Karl Marx considered that in order to build an ideal communist society, two conditions should be met. The first condition includes a complete elimination of any type of opposition, existing governments, religions, and economic/social systems. After this, Karl Marx wrote: “then, I will arise from this devastation as a creator”. The second condition involves the creation of a human being of a new type. Marx imagined the citizens of a communist society as some type of Pavlovian robots, whose minds could be guided in the desired direction using conditioned signals, given by the government. He though of a human race that did not rely on the free will, moral, and conscience.
Communism and the above conditions are not a novelty. During the course of the last 4000 years exactly the same plans were proposed to the humanity. Starting from the Biblical Nimrod, who created a prototype of communist society; Plato, who developed and slickened the earlier propositions; Saint-Simon who developed those propositions in detail; Karl Marx appeared in the 19th century and managed to gather the disembodied thoughts of the previous philosophers in one integral teaching.
Being an ideology that offered final answers to all questions that were taking up human minds from the beginning of time, communism laid a claim to be the one and only right ideology, which did not limit itself by any moral restraining factors. This way, the preachers of communism considered that it was morally correct to physically eliminate all otherwise-minded. In other words, communism according to its nature does not sustain any ideological concurrence.
If we understand the aforementioned, it is easy to comprehend why any religion is to be eliminated, when the communist party rises to power. It is also easy to understand the naivety of people who say: “It’s strange, why the communists shut down all churches and killed all ministers in Russia. The churches did not do any harm to the communist party”. The same could be said about Cuba, China, and North Korea, which are currently practicing this type of government regime. The ideology of these countries cannot stand the church with its divine theory of the world’s creation and origin of life on earth. Therefore according to communist theory such preacher of false and harmful ideas, as the church must be eliminated, as it prevents the creation of the new human type – the “Marxist human”. In Cuba’s case the Proletarian Marxist-Leninist ideology has collided with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. From what we have discussed in this paper, it is hard to imagine how these two ideologies could coexist, especially in the environment like Cuba. Undoubtedly communism and Christianity are not able to coexist because of their complementary negation.
From the point of view of Christianity, the “Marxist human” is a great riddle, as his behavior appears to us irrational, and therefore is full of surprises. In reality the mentality of a Marxist human appears to be at an aboriginal state, being formed on the basis of primitive understanding of nature’s laws. The Marxist human lives according to the laws of the jungle, where all is sacrificed for self-preservation. From this point of view, the mentality of such human being stops being mysterious, and his actions can be predicted with mathematical preciseness. He considers himself to be one of the earthly animals, who was gifted with great intellect according to happy coincidence, and does not appear to lay claims on anything more. He denies the existence and immortality of the soul. He does not believe in the creation of man by God and explains his arrival to this world and current existence as coincidental set of certain material facts. The Marxist Human does not comply with any moral laws, and solves all problems directly and plainly. Considering his self-preservation as the basic factor that determines his behavior he thinks that self-preservation also designates the behavior of all the people that surround him. Since 1917 the western block has been outraged at how the Soviet Union had infringed international agreements in almost 100% of the cases. This outrage is as reasonable, as being outraged by watching a tiger that is killing a deer and eating him. Just like the tiger, the Marxist human being acts according to plain laws of self-preservation. From the tiger’s point of view and from the point of view of the Marxist human, such actions are quite natural. In other words the Marxist human sincerely believes that all that serves to his self-preservation is “good”. He has completely freed himself from moral and honor, which were the limiters of mankind according to Christian and panhuman considerations.
Observing the modern Cuba, with its Hispanic Roman-Catholic traditions it is clear that its modern society will not stand such a disgrace of human principles and standards. Its communist theory that claims the superiority of human beings over the material world, in a sense covers a feeling of own defectiveness. A Marxist man considers himself an incidental occurrence in this world that does not have any final purpose, and constantly attempts to subdue this world and this universe. From the communist point of view the universe is entropy – meaning that it is chaos. From the very beginning communism strived towards subduing not mankind, but the whole universe, attempting to establish order in chaotic (from its point of view) material. The communist theory considers this to be its duty, as the Marxist man is the only intelligent creature in the universe (as there is no God!). Furthermore, the Marxist human thinks that he is the possessor of the absolute truth, and must take the responsibility of organizing the future of the world – a communistic world. He is completely sure in his righteousness, claiming that he should in the end become the ruler and god, on earth, and then in the universe.
This way, the destructive activity of communism in the whole world, its ruthless battle with any religions, elimination of otherwise-minded, and other incomprehensible as it appears actions of communist dictators are the logical result of their thinking process. Moreover, from the Marxist human’s point of view, the actions of those dictators are based on the only scientific theory of social structuring.
In other words, the Christian culture, in our case – the Roman Catholic Church on Cuba in the eyes of a Marxist human is an object of hate and is subject to erasure. A German anti-Christian philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, many ideas of whom were used by Karl Marx, wrote: “The turning point of human history will be the moment, when human beings shall acknowledge that the only God for a man is man himself”. When Karl Marx was asked a question, what is the aim of his life, he replied: “We must fight religion – this is the basic truth of materialism, and consequently, Marxism”. It is interesting to note that having rejected God, Holy Scripture, Catholic moral, immortality, and the preciousness of human life and soul, the Marxists have claimed themselves as gods.
Marx and Engels have arrived at conclusion that the task of remodeling the world according should be carried out by communist dictators, as they were the only ones keeping the keys from scientific structuring of the world. Considering this, they have indicated that it will be an uneasy assignment that will require physical elimination of all opposers. These cruel measures are necessary for the communist administration to get rid of all social and economical inequalities at one fling, and afterwards build an ideal society that would allow the humanity to live according to “scientific’ laws in happiness and harmony. The possibility of killing millions of objectors did perplex neither Marx nor Engels, nor their followers. Lenin as the first Marxist dictator of the first Marxist state imagined the proletarian dictature this way: “organization for systematic violence of one class over another, one part of the population over another”. The victims of proletarian dictatorship were measured in millions and the proletarian dictators have considered them as victims of war for the perspective future of all mankind.
According to the ideology of Marx and Engels which dominates in Cuba, the solution to all problems consists in destruction. The moral problems of the society are solved through cancelling the moral; the problems concerning religion – by eliminating the religion and implementing atheism; problems of marriage and family – through destroying marriage and family; issues of private property – by eliminating the right of private property; the issue of equal work salary – through eliminating salary; the issues of competition in work and distribution – by cancelling work and distribution. They basically offer to solve all problems faced by the modern society by eliminating this society. It is certain, that such principles do not have a place in the modern dictator free world of liberal politics and rights of free religion. It appears that communism can originate from the ashes of the society known to us. Such government rule exists only for one purpose – total destruction and elimination. Only after such universal destruction the communists will hope that they will be able to give freedom, equality, and rights to their followers.
Cuba had a puppet like government that completely subjected to the instructions of the Soviet Union during the cold war, as they had common points of interest. Now there is no more cold war and if Cuba will remain communist, it shall have gloomy and indefinite future. Before the coming of the promised “heaven on earth”, the Marxist leaders require the population to undergo bloody fire of revolutionary terror, repression and physical elimination of existing and non existing opposers, seizure of property, dictature of proletariat, cancellation of all human rights, constant surveillance of citizens, total military obligation, and an economic policy that gives just about enough not to die of hunger.
In order to reach its goals the communist Cuban government practices inhumane methods of tortures and concentration camps which cannot be accepted in the modern world. Cuban nation has a strong moral base of Catholic traditions that appear to be much more potent than the current unstable communist government state. It is clear that with the death of the current Cuban dictator the society will realize its need for basic human freedoms. In this case this country has high chances of peaceful democratic revolution.
Works Cited
- Frank, Marc. Cuba Looks to the Year 2000. New York: International Publishers, 1993.
- Jennings, Glen. “Karl Marx.” Melbourne Journal of Politics (1999): 161+.
- Koont, Sinan. “Cuba: An Island against All Odds.” Monthly Review. 1994: 1+.
- Peterson, G. Paul. “Karl Marx and His Vision of Salvation: The Natural Law and Private Property.” Review of Social Economy 52.3 (1994): 377+.
- Riemer, Neal. Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1987.
- Smith, Tony. Thinking like a Communist: State and Legitimacy in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.