And was it not Marx himself who coined the slogan, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program? It is from this slogan that the Socialist states' model of centralized socialist planning started which resulted in the deprivation of the masses, while members of the Communist Party apparatchik lived in obscene luxury. Meantime the wealth of the Socialist nations was exported for hard currency, rather than uplifting the well-being of their peoples.
There has been no successful socialist state that I can think of in the modern era that I can think of that has succeeded in uplifting the quality of life of its people. On the contrary, it is worldwide socialism, and not capitalism that has been dumped into the dustbin of history.
The PKP and the CPP-NPA have been around for most of the last century in this country, and they have never come close to attaining their so-called strategic offensive stage (perhaps the closest was between 1983 to 1986). Even in this country it is clear that people want something else than what socialism has to offer.
It of course behooved Marx to undermine the authority of the established church (in this case, the Catholic Church, since he was German), since he regarded this institution as being a competitor for hearts and minds, and thus power of the masses. It is important to understand the motivation of this author in writing the way that he did.
The Catholic Church is a living, organic entity, obviously made up of fallible human beings. But if the Church was so bankrupt, it would have fallen by the wayside of Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, etcetera two thousand years ago. It never has. Scientific Materialism, or even dialectical maeterialism can never adequately satisfy the human being's intrinsic hunger for faith and God.
It is impossible to reduce the component parts of the DNA molecule, for example to mere physics and chemistry. It is so obvious that there is something that animates mere matter that science itself has been unable to explain. Put another way, "Although a DNA molecule cannot exist without physical properties, these properties are constrained by higher level ordering principles." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism). That higher level principle is God himself.
And so some of us continue to believe in the primacy of the Catholic Church: exploitative though it has been; obscene and immoral as it can be. It has admittedly been an albatross around our necks in this country for many centuries, as has been vividly described by Jose P. Rizal in his Noli and Fili. But going back in time, minus the doctrine and the dogma of centuries, the power of the Church, especially the early Church, harkens back to the faith of simple fishermen which Jesus liked to a rock or a foundation. In Matthew 16:18 scripture says that Jesus told Peter: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church."
It is on the strength of this phrase that some of us recognize the primordial primacy of the Catholic Church over derivative sects.
But going back to dialectical materialism, let us not forget that the Communists, once they had imprisoned and murdered the Orthodox priests in their native Russia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Catholic priests in East Germany, Poland and so on also banned all forms of "superstitious" rituals, worship of religious icons, saints, etcetera. Once they had done this, they had to invent their own empty meaningless rituals, which is itself a criticism of dialectical materialism which sought "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness."
Marxism had the opportunity to provide so-called "real happiness" to the people of Poland, East Germany, Romania, USSR which fell like dominoes at the hands of the disgruntled masses whom their masters claimed they were serving.
The bottom-line is this: People are hungry for faith. They want to believe in a force larger than themselves. They want to believe in a God: because neither ideology nor wealth, nor any other form of materialism is enough to satisfy this intrinsic hunger. This is why the Communist regimes were toppled. This is why people still go to Church. This is why Communism cannot succeed in this country.
And focusing on the issue that truly matters, as in what is worth living and dying for, we are faced with the historical reality and the simple truth that, 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4).
(Chanda Shahani)
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