COMMUNISM

A DIDACTIC POEM

BY TORSTEN SCHWANKE

DEDICATED TO OUR LADY OF FATIMA

WRITTEN OCT 13, 1937

Communism today,
To a greater extent
Than has been the case
With other similar movements of the past,
Contains within it a false idea of salvation.
A false ideal of justice,
Equality and fraternity in labour
Suffuses all its teaching and activity
With a certain mysticism,
Which inspires the masses,
Won over by deceptive promises,
With the suggestive enthusiasm
Of a rousing movement.
This could happen all the more easily
In our time, which is beset
By extraordinary misery
As a result of a faulty distribution
Of the world's goods.
This false ideal also boasts
Of having been the stimulus
Of a certain economic progress,
Which in truth, in so far as it is genuine,
Is derived from quite different causes,
Such as the increase
Of industrial production in countries
Which were little developed in this respect,
Or from the exploitation
Of an immense wealth of mineral resources,
Or even from the use of brutal methods
Of labour to achieve gigantic
Achievements at depressed wages.

The doctrine, which communism

Often enough conceals
Under deceptive covers,
Still stands essentially today
On the principles of so-called
Dialectical materialism
And historical materialism
Promulgated by Marx,
The only correct interpretation
Of which the theoreticians
Of Bolshevism believe they represent.
According to this doctrine,
There is only one original reality,
namely matter with its blind forces,
From which plants, animals
And man have developed.
Human society, too,
Is nothing other than a manifestation
Of this matter, which develops
In the manner indicated
And strives with inescapable necessity
In a constant struggle of forces
Towards the final balance:
The classless society.
It is obvious that in such a system
There is no longer any place
For the Idea of God,
That there is no longer any difference
Between spirit and matter,
Between body and soul,
That there is no longer any survival
Of the soul after death,
And therefore no hope for another life.
Appealing to the dialectical side
Of their materialism,
The communists maintain
That the struggle which leads the world
To the final balance
Can be accelerated by man.
That is why they strive to intensify
The class antagonisms in society,
And so the class struggle,
With all its spitefulness and destructiveness,
Becomes a kind of crusade
In the service of the progress of humanity.
But all powers, whoever they may be,
That oppose these
Systematically practised acts of violence
Must be destroyed as enemies
Of the human race.

Furthermore, communism
Robs man of his freedom,
Of the spiritual basis
Of his moral conduct of life;
It deprives man's personality
Of all dignity and moral support
In the turmoil of blind instincts.
As far as the relation
Of the individual to the community
Is concerned, it does not recognise
Any natural rights
Of the human personality,
That according to it it is nothing
But a simple wheel
In the structure of a machine.
In the relations of human beings
With one another, it proclaims
The principle of absolute equality,
Denying any superordination
And any authority that might be
Founded by God,
Including parental authority;
But whatever so-called authority
And subordination exists
Among human beings
Derives exclusively from the community
As its sole source.
In this system there is no longer
Any right of ownership for the individual,
Neither to the treasures of nature
Nor to the means of production,
Since such a right would have to lead
To the acquisition of further goods
And thus to the power
Of one human being over another.
Precisely for this reason,
This form of private property
Must be radically eradicated,
Since it is the beginning and source
Of all economic enslavement.

For a doctrine which in this way

Ddeprives human life
Of all consecration and spirituality,
Marriage and the family
Are consequently a purely arbitrary
And bourgeois institution,
Or even the result
Of a certain economic development;
One denies the existence
Of the marriage bond
With legal-moral obligation,
Which would be withdrawn
From the discretion of the individual
O society, and consequently
Also its indissolubility.
In particular, for communism
There is no bond of any kind
Between woman and family and home.
It proclaims the principle
Of the emancipation of woman,
Snatches her away from domestic life
And the care of her children,
Rather draws her into the public sphere
And into collective production
To the same extent as man,
And shifts the care of the home
And the child to society.
Finally, the right of education
Has been taken away from the parents
And made an exclusive right
Of the community, in whose name
And on whose behalf alone
It may be exercised by the parents.

What would become of human society

If it were to be built
On such a materialistic basis?
It would become a collective being,
Structured solely according
To the requirements of the economic system.
Its sole task would be the production
Of goods by collective labour
And the enjoyment of the earth's goods
In a paradise
In which each person would give
According to his strength
And receive according to his need.
Communism grants the community the right,
Or rather the unlimited authority,
To force individuals
Into the yoke of collective labour,
Without regard to their personal welfare,
Even against their own will
And even to the use of force.
The moral and legal order
Would be nothing other
Than an outgrowth of the respective
economic system,
Thus of purely earthly origin,
Changeable and invalid.
In short, a new epoch
And a new civilisation
Would be brought about,
The fruit of a blind development:
A humanity without God.

In this utopian society

Without class distinctions,
When all have finally become
True collective human beings,
The political state, which today
Is only a means of power
In the hands of the capitalists
To subjugate the proletarians,
Will lose the precondition of its existence
And dissolve; in the meantime, however,
As long as this happy state
Has not yet been reached,
The state and state violence
Are for communism the most effective
And universal means of reaching its goal.

This, venerable brethren, is

The new gospel
That Bolshevik and atheistic communism
Offers as a message of salvation
And redemption to humanity!
A system full of error and fallacies
That contradicts common sense
As well as divine revelation.
It is the overthrow of every social order,
Because it destroys its last foundations!
It is a misjudgement of the true origin,
Nature and purpose of the state!
It is disenfranchisement, degradation
And enslavement
Of the human personality!

But how was it possible that a system

Which has long been scientifically outdated
And disproved by actual development,
How was it only possible, I ask,
That such a system could spread
Wth uncanny speed
Throughout all the countries of the world?
The explanation is the fact
That few have fully seen through
The true nature of communism;
Most thus succumb to the temptation
That approaches them with dazzling eyes.
Under the pretence that one only wants
To improve the lot of the working class,
To eliminate the real abuses
Of liberal economic management
And to achieve a better balance
Of property relations on earth
(Aims which undoubtedly
Have their full justification),
Tking advantage, furthermore,
Of the economic crisis,
It is possible to draw into the sphere
Of influence of communism
Even those circles of the population
Which fundamentally reject
All materialism and all terror.
Just as every error always contains
A grain of truth, so this same piece of truth
Which I have designated,
And which is skilfully brought
To the fore at the right time and place
In order to conceal the repulsive
And inhuman cruelty of the principles
And methods of Bolshevik communism,
Also seduces more than usually gifted people
And makes them in their turn apostles
Among the young intelligentsia,
Who are still too little able
To perceive deeper errors.
On top of this, the standard-bearers
Of communism know how to take advantage
Of the principles between the races
And the various opposing political systems,
Even exploiting the perplexity
Of a science without God
For themselves in order to nestle
In the universities and support
The principles of their system
With bogus arguments.

In order to be able to explain

How communism succeeded
I gaining acceptance
Among very large masses of workers
Without any examination,
One must bear in mind
That they were already prepared
For this by neglecting their religious-moral life
Under the demands of liberal economy:
With work shifts even on Sundays,
They were not even given time
To fulfil the heaviest religious duties
On Sundays and feast days.
No thought was given to building churches
Near the workplaces
Or to facilitating the work of the pastors.
Yes, they even continued to promote
And cultivate secularism.
Today one sees the fruits
Of those errors ripening
Which were often enough marked
By the Popes,
And one should not be surprised
That in a world which has already been
Widely alienated from Christianity,
The communist heresy is spreading.

Furthermore, the rapid spread

Of communist ideas,
Which are penetrating into all countries,
The large and the small,
The highly cultivated and the less developed,
So that no corner of this earth
Is any longer free of them,
Is explained by a truly demonic propaganda,
Such as the world has perhaps not yet seen,
A propaganda directed by a single centre
And extremely skilfully adapted
To the living conditions
Of the various peoples,
A propaganda which works
With great financial means,
With gigantic organisations,
With international congresses,
With innumerable well-trained forces,
A propaganda which advertises
With leaflets and magazines,
In cinemas, in theatres, with the radio,
In the schools, in the universities even,
And which gradually seizes
All circles of the population,
Even the better ones,
Without their even being aware
Of the poison which is gradually
penetrating their minds and hearts.

Another powerful tool

For the spread of communism
Is a veritable conspiracy of silence
Among much of the non-Catholic world press.
I speak of a conspiracy,
For there is no other explanation for the fact
That a press so eager to bring
Even minor daily events before its audience
Has brought itself to remain silent
For so long about the crimes
Committed in Russia, in Mexico
And in a large part of Spain,
And to report relatively so little
About such a vast world organisation
As Moscow's communism.
This silence is partly due
To political short-sightedness;
It is also abetted by various secret powers
Which have long been bent
On destroying the Christian social order.

Meanwhile I have before mine eyes

The sad effects of this propaganda.
Wherever communism has had
The opportunity to establish itself
And to establish its rule -
I think here with special fatherly sympathy
Of the peoples of Russia and Mexico -
It has endeavoured (by its own admission)
By all means to radically destroy
Christian culture and religion
And to erase every memory of them
Even in the hearts of the people,
Especially the youth.
It expelled bishops and priests from the country,
Sentenced them to forced labour,
Shot them, killed them in inhuman ways;
It suspected, oppressed, persecuted,
Dragged simple lay people into prisons
And before the judge
Because they had stood up
For the true religion.

Even where the scourge of communism

Has not yet found time to take full effect,
As in my dearly beloved Spain,
It has unfortunately appeared,
As if in recompense,
With an even cruder violence.
Not only has this or that church,
This or that monastery been destroyed,
But possibly every church and every monastery,
Eery trace of the Christian religion,
Even where outstanding monuments
Of art and science were concerned!
The communist rage of destruction
Was not limited to the murder
Of bishops and thousands of priests,
Religious and nuns,
Always looking for those
Who were especially zealous
For the workers and the poor;
No, it has made its victims
Of laymen of all ranks
In even greater numbers,
Has slaughtered them in droves up
To the present time, yes,
Oe can say day after day,
And this solely because they were
Good Christians, or at least
Enemies of communist atheism.
And this gruesome work of destruction
Has been carried out with a hatred,
A barbarity and a cruelty
Such as one would not have thought possible
In our century before.
There can no longer be a prudent private citizen,
A statesman, if he is only conscious
Of his responsibility,
Who would not shudder at the thought
That what is happening in Spain today
Might perhaps be repeated tomorrow
In other civilised nations.

It cannot be said
That these wild riots are merely
A temporary phenomenon,
Such as accompany great revolutions,
Isolated outbreaks of bitterness
Which occur in every war.
No, they are the natural fruits
Of a system that lacks any inner restraint.
Restraint is necessary for the individual,
But it is also necessary for the whole.
Even the uncultivated peoples
Pssessed it in that natural law
Which God has implanted
In the heart of every man.
Wherever this law of nature
Was truly observed,
The nations of antiquity were seen
To rise to a greatness which even today,
More than is actually right,
Astonishes certain easily inspired historians.
But if the very Idea of God
Is torn from the hearts of men,
Then they are necessarily driven
By their passions
To the cruellest barbarism.

This is precisely what we are

Unfortunately experiencing today:
For the first time in history
We are witnessing a coldly planned
And precisely prepared struggle
Of man against all that is divine.
Communism is anti-religious by nature
And regards religion
As opium for the people,
Because supposedly the religious
Doctrine of a life beyond the grave
Distracts the proletarian
From his commitment
To the Soviet paradise,
Which is of this earth.

But one does not resist with impunity

In defiant hatred the law of nature
And its Author.
Communism has not even managed
To achieve its aim
In the purely economic field
And will not manage to do so.
While it is true that in Russia
It has helped to rouse men and things
From centuries of dormancy
And to achieve a certain progress
In the material field
By all kinds of means,
Often unscrupulously applied,
I know from unsuspected testimonies,
Even from the most recent times,
That even here it has not been able
To fulfil its aim
According to the promises made,
Despite the slavery
Into which terrorism has forced
Millions of people.
In the field of economics, too,
There is a need for a moral sense
Of responsibility, which, however,
Has no place in a purely materialistic
System such as communism.
The only substitute for this is terrorism,
As we see in Russia,
Where the old comrades
Of common conspiracies and struggles
Are killing each other;
A terrorism which is not even able
To stop the decay of morals,
Let alone the dissolution
Of the social fabric.

In saying this, however,

I do not in any way wish to condemn
The peoples of the Soviet Union
In their entirety,
For I feel the deepest fatherly love towards them.
I know how many of them groan
Under the hard yoke imposed on them
By force by people who, for the most part,
Do not care about the true good of the country.
I also realise that many have allowed themselves
T be deceived by deceptive hopes.
I denounce the system,
Its creators and its promoters,
Who thought Russia
Was the most suitable country
To practically apply there a system
They had devised for decades,
And from there spread it tirelessly
Throughout the world.