Light Your Lamps, No. 3 of 11) (opening missing

The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations, in cooperation with the National Council of Catholic Men present, my Catholic Hour. Today on our program, the right reverend Muns senior Fulton J. Sheen will deliver the third in his series of addresses generally entitled, Light Your Lands. The title of today's addresses, the Philosophy of Communism. Friends, I'm very grateful to the National Council of Catholic Men for making an exception today, allowing me 23 minutes to develop the Philosophy of Communism, in its viewer history, ethics and religion. The Communist Attitude toward Man, we will discuss in another broadcast, and even for a development of today's theme will be sent to free if you request it. I suppose it is safe to say that about 99 and 44, 100% of the American people think that Communism is just an economic system. It is not. Communism is a complete philosophy of life. What the Germans call a Veltan Shalom, a total view of the world, different from all other secular systems, in that it seeks to dominate not only the economic periphery of life, but to control man's inner life as well, his intellect, his will and his heart. Communism has a theory and a practice. It wishes to be not only a state, but a church judging the consciences of men. It is a doctrine of salvation, and as such claims the whole man, body and soul, in this sense it is totalitarian. Last Sunday we told you that Communism was Western in its origin, and today we will prove it. Communism had its origin in the brain of a German, Karl Marx, who was born of Jewish parents on the 5th of May in the year 1818 in the city of Trave Germany. At the age of 6 Karl Marx, along with his family, were baptized and became members of one of the Christian sects, not for religious, but for political reasons. His mental development came from three countries. He took his philosophy from Germany, his sociology from France, and his economics from England. Our concern is with the first two. The first stage in the development of his thoughts began at the age of 19 when he enrolled at the University of Berlin to study law, but in his own language to wrestle with the problems of philosophy. At that particular time all the German universities were obliged to teach the philosophy of Hegel, who had died in the year 1831. Now in order to understand the philosophy of Communism I have to bore you with this philosophy of Hegel for just a minute or two, and Bore is the word, for it is very difficult, and Hegel is responsible for a great deal of modern nonsense. Marx began studying Hegel and plunged into his almost unintedigible abstractions, and intensified his study of the philosophy of Hegel that was known as dialectical idealism, because it was concerned with thought, ideas, mind, spirit, dialectical, because that was the method by which thought's ideas developed, namely by dialectics, or debate, or contradiction. For Hegel there was no such thing as an unchanging truth. Ideas are fluid, and they are liable by a debating or dialectical process in which, like a tennis ball, they are battered back and forth over a net until finally a point is scored. First there is the affirmation of an idea, then, yes, negation by another idea, and finally a synthesis or a union of the two. Suppose the problem under discussion was the decoration of a room. Here's an example of dialectics. One group says, let us do it in blue. Another group argues, no, green. And then, finally, out of the conflict of ideas, there comes a synthesis of opinion and one settles for red. Now this I know is an over simplification of the philosophy of Hegel, and if he heard me state it this way, he would probably turn over in his grave. But remember, it's often the business of philosophers to complicate and obscure the simple things of life. It's a very peculiar world in which we live. And when you are clear, people think you are simple. And when you are very confusing, people think you are learned, or even a philosopher. Now Marx was tremendously impressed with this dialectics of Hegel. In fact, so much so, within the year 1841, Marx presented to the University of Yehna a doctoral thesis that was so dialectically in character, that the second sentence contradicted the first and the third United, the first two, and on and on and on. In this crazy piece of writing, Marx wrote, I hate all the gods. Now begins the second stage in the development of Marx's philosophy. The very year that he received his doctorate, 1841, there appeared the most popular attack on religion, which had been delivered in Germany after that time. While other Germans, like Strauss and Bauer, were trying to destroy Christianity through historical criticism, Ludwig Feuerbach, in his essence of Christianity, tried to destroy philosophy with materialism. Marx read his book, and he said his enthusiasm was unbounded. For a book had killed the idealism of Hegel, which Marx never liked anyway, and destroyed all religion by showing that it was an illusion projected by the brain of man. And that pleased the irreligious Marx tremendously. For about did all this by denying that there was such a thing as thought, or idea, or mind or spirit, and by affirming that the only thing in the world is madness. As for about put it, man is what he eats. Now that the gods are dethroned, Marx got what he thought was a brilliant idea. What did not be wonderfully thought to take this dialectical method, which Hegel applies to ideas and apply it to matter, or to history? Marx then patched the dialectics that he took from Hegel to the materialism that he took from Feuerbach, and out of that arch-parch, of dialectical materialism, there came the philosophy of Communism. From now on, Marx would say not ideas, but matter, expands by contradiction, which he felt was at the very core of the universe. Hence, there's no need of God to explain matter because matters and dowry's motion, and developed by shocks, oppositions, clashes, struggles, catastrophes. Old universe that Marx is dialectical or contradictory. Can't you see what is coming? Just suppose you change one word dialectical into revolutionary, what have you? Matter, he is revolutionary. So just as soon now as Marx begins to apply his ideas to society, he will say society is revolutionary. Where did he get that idea? Well, just as he stole his first idea from Hegel, stole his second idea from Feuerbach, so now he steals his third from Proudon, who was a Frenchman. Marx had read and was tremendously impressed with a pamphlet that was written by a French printer, Proudon, on the subject of property, to which Proudon was trying to apply the dialectics of Hegel. And one night at the Paris lodgings of a famous Russian revolutionist, Buchanin, Marx met Proudon and expounded to him dialectical materialism and his application to politics. Proudon, the Frenchman said to Marx, Marx, you're a typical German. You're way up in the air with your abstractions. Now, when he's interested in these problems, the big problem today is that Proudon is economic, not political. It is social, not hegelian. He said to Marx, if you want to keep your dialectics, you would better begin applying it to property. When this Proudon did by suggesting that perhaps capital was the affirmative side of dialectics, and that in its turn begot its negation, which was labor. Somewhere there ought to be a synthesis in which both would disappear. Marx called this synthesis coming his way. And where the Frenchman led, the German followed. Inspired by Proudon, Marx now decided to apply his dialectics to history as he had applied it once before it mattered, and he came up with the idea that history is nothing but the story of class struggle or contradiction between those who own property and those who do not own property. Or what we today would call capital and labor. If you have a private property system said Marx, then you get a literature, an art, a philosophy, and a religion to support the iniquitous system. And these things are just like foam said Marx upon the beer of private property. Take for example the command that thou shalt not steal. How do that come into existence? Well, that's the concoction of capitalists, they're the communists. They invented it in order to defend their ill-gotten goods. Doesn't it follow then that if you do away with free enterprise and private property, you no longer need morality and religions? How do the way with private ownership and production by violent confiscation of that property under the leadership of communists? Let Marx tell you I am quoting him here verbatim. This will be done by revolution in which the working class will use its political supremacy to rest by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state. It may be taken for granted that bloody conflicts are coming far from opposing so-called excesses and making examples of hated individuals or public buildings to which hateful remembrances are attacked by sacrificing them to the popular rage. Such examples must not only be tolerated but their direction must ever be taken in hand. The army of the workers with rifles and ammunition must be carried out at once and steps be taken to prevent the rising of the army which would be directed against the workers. The workers need not be misled by democratic platitudes about freedom. Their battle cry must be revolution in permanence. That brings us to the communist theory of ethics. It has a negative and a positive side. Negatively it denies that morality which is based on the eternal law of God and we've reflected in conscience. Since it is not God but economics which make morality. As Lenin put it, we deny all morality taken from superhuman or non-class conceptions. We say that this is a deception, a swindle, a befogging of the minds of the workers and peasants in the interests of landlords and capitalists. From a positive side communism teaches that the end justifies the means. The needs of the revolution determine morality. Hence whatever fosters the revolutionary overthrow of democracy or the violent dispossession of those who own property is a morally good act. Whatever hinders the revolution, such as the refusal to take orders from a dictator or a refusal to think the way that you are supposed to think is a morally bad act. That is the ethics of communism. Neumalkerites do not seem to understand why communism extends a friendly hand to religion one year and then the next year first it you'd say. Why it alice itself at one time to democracy and then at another time seeks to overthrow it? Why at one time it's tied with the Nazis and then fights against it? This is very easy to understand if you know anything about communism. It happens that these contradictory attitudes were developed as techniques. Each one being sought best at the time for furthering world revolution. Is there any limit to chr�tainery, duplicity and devilry? None. Have solvutly none. I do not want you to take my word for it. I think perhaps I'd better quote Lenin at this point. He says it is necessary to use any rules, cunning, unlawful methods, evasion, concealment of the truth. Stalin has the same idea. dictatorship means nothing more and or less than the power which directly rests on violence which is limited not by any laws or restricted by any absolute rule. And from ethics we pass on to the subject of religion. It is sometimes said that communism is not supposed to religion. Do not believe it. This is untrue. It may happen that communism will give the orthodox church a right to worship, provide it. It becomes an instrument of pan-slavism for the communication of communism. But this conception and conception is for tactical purposes only and is granted at the cost of freedom of religion. Atheism and communism are as inseparable as a head and a body. Two statements of Marx prove it. Marx argues. Man has been divorced from himself in two ways. By religion and by private property. Religion divorces a man from himself by subordinating him to God. Private property divorces a man from himself by subordinating him to an employer. It follows that if man is ever to be restored to himself. Both religion and private property must be destroyed. That was why Marx intended that the transformation of society must begin with the criticism of religion. A statement of Marx that is not generally known. But which puts Communism's attitude toward religion in a nutshell is this. Now this is Marx speaking. Communism begins when atheism begins. Let's our educators and our legislators ponder well over that statement. Such is the philosophy of Communism. I am not going to offer any criticism. You know whatever. Because I believe that I am talking to intelligent people. Who can immediately see all of its fallacies. You can also see that the philosophy of Communism or dialectical materialism is nothing but a crazy quilt. Made up of patches of haggle and forabok and through dawn. All sown together to cover up the nakedness of Marx's own feelings. One might just as well try to make a living organism out of the head of an ox. The body of a canary and the tail of a dinosaur has to try and make sense out of this intellectual stew. Note that there is not a single Russian idea in this whole philosophy of Communism. Not a one. It is bourgeois, western, materialistic and capitalismistic in its origin. It was a creature of its age and could never have arisen in the 13th or even the 18th century because the influence of Christianity then was too strong in the world. Only when the organism of the western world began to weaken could the germ infect it. Well if the intellectual origin of Communism is western, how did it ever get into Russia? The concrete way in which it became effective there in its final form happened during the First World War. Germany was anxious to save herself and she felt that her cause could be helped if she could win Russia away from the allies. One way of doing this was to start a revolution in Russia. Accordingly the German general staff tossed 31 revolutionists into a box car marked extraterritorial, attached it to a train leaving indirectly for Russia. In this box car was Vladimir Yulanov. Better now until the world is leaning. One arriving in Petrograd, mounted an armored car and began preaching the revolution. There was something sitting about Germany assisting in the birth of Communism in Russia. Germany had already given birth to the theory of Communism, so now it would give birth to its practice. And Russia in its turn paid back its death to Germany in 1939 when the ignominious treaty between the Nazis and the Communists was signed, which allowed the Nazis for two years to overrun Europe and which proved that there is no radical opposition between Nazism and Communism. Do not take my word for it. Take Molotovs, who on that occasion said, fascism is only a matter of taste. And our friendship has been sealed in blood. Unfortunately it turned out to be the blood of Poland. Now we know from captured Nazi documents that in 1940 Russia was actually winning to join with the Nazis to gain the Dardenels in the Middle East. And in 1943 it was ready again to sign a separate peace with Germany. So now make up your mind. There are only two philosophies of life, from which you can choose. Only two. Philosophy of those who believe in God, those who follow anti-God, in each has its symbol. The symbol of the one is the clenched fist, the stands for hatred and for violence and for destruction. The one gesture that turns the hand of man, which was meant to be an instrument of art, into that which most closely resembles the claw of the beast. And the other symbol, the symbol of the folded hand. They cannot strike, for they were not made for offense. They cannot protect, for they were not made for defiance. They can only imprecate, only praise. A carnal decade, ten goth expires, aspiring heavenward for the souls of men. And by and through these folded hands, may the race of king be brought beneath the cross, where there is a man untoweled upon it like a wounded eagle. And through our charities and our prayers, may their clenched fist as it were open, and release their hate. Then when hate has gone out of the world, those hands which were nailed by hate will detach themselves, and pull themselves together, not in judgment but in embrace. But all the world may know, how sweet is the love of Christ. God love you. Now we invite you to join Monsignor Sheen as he offers this prayer. We are the Lord and Lord and Master. We thought so long we forgot what we were fighting for. When we left the light, like tiny gods we paraled in the twilight of our petty rivalries. Give us in thy tender mercy that peace which we do not deserve. We pray for our president, our congress, and our court. The famous sustain and defend religion and morality, without which no nation can long endure. Save us most of all from ourselves. Restore love to our broken homes. The joy of a good conscience to our frustrated lives. The poor freedoms to the enslaved peoples of the world and to our foolishness give the wisdom of thy ways. Make us new men and light our lives. In particular, we pray for the people of Russia. That individually end as a nation. They may realize their fondest hopes. And know thee freely and openly, O Christ, whom they now love and serve in secret. Not for our worthiness, but for thy mercy. Grant us these petitions, O Christ Jesus, son of the living God. The Lord of the world. The Lord of the world. Today the Catholic hour presented in the dress by the right Reverend Muncie E. Fulton's H.G. entitled, The Philosophy of Communism. Our listeners may obtain a complimentary copy of this dress in expanded form by writing to the National Council of Catholic Men, Washington 5 BC, or to their favorite NBC stations. And now we hear the Reverend Cornie E. C. Tumey at the organ as he plays, writing of hot hits. The King of the World. The King of the World. The King of the World. The King of the World. The King of the World. We cordially invite you to join us next week at the same time when Muncie E. Fulton will be with us again. The music will be provided by the Catholic diocesan choristers of Brooklyn. Your announcer has been Don Fartle. The National Council of Catholic Men has presented the Catholic hour through the facilities of the National Broadcasting Company and its independent affiliated stations. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.