The preface to Dr. Paul Kengor’s 2020 book The Devil and Karl Marx includes the following assertion: “Any ideology (and, here, he is talking about communism) with a trail of rot like this is not of God but of the forces against God. It is not of God’s creation but a fallen angel’s anti-creation. It is not of the light but of the dark.” The impact Karl Marx and his pernicious ideology has had on the world as we know it cannot be understated. Famously calling religion “the opium of the people,” Marx disdained the Christian Church with a passion that is difficult to fathom To him, the Church served to dupe the poor masses – the Proletariat – into settling for the crumbs left by the upper class, the Bourgeoisie. What Marx wanted was a revolution. The Proletariat needed to rise up against the Bourgeoisie and reclaim what was theirs all along. From there, the Proletariat would act as a temporary dictator until the new world order would naturally evolve into a classless and, notably, Godless society. What Marx likely purposefully missed, however, was the reality of human nature. Humans do not readily give up power after they have secured it. The state dominated. It was the new godhead. And anybody who dared to deviate from the script was viciously punished. Disappeared even. This is why Stalin, for example, received such long and energetic applause during his speeches. Nobody wanted to be the first to stop clapping as this might be seen as disloyalty to the party.
A common thug in his youth, Stalin knew how to use brute force to get his way, which, it turns out, is quite ironic given whose ideas he used to gird his cult of personality. Karl Marx, Kengor notes, was a “slob.” He continues, “[Marx] was sloppy in his home life, in his desire to earn an income, in his keeping of papers, and even in his research. He avoided the factories and farms for which he devised prodigious plans for their mass nationalization and collectivization. ... He embodied the worst stereotype of isolated academics who never deign to intermingle with the rubes they profess to represent. The champagne socialist at Columbia University sees no need to actually sit at a kitchen table in Peoria with some farmer-bumpkin who votes Republican and clings to his God and guns.” To be sure, it seems to be apparent that Marx was a beta male who sought to weasel power for himself any way he could. The alphas won battles. The alphas created great industries. The alphas were inventive and hardworking. Marx’s answer? Take it. Confiscate it. Redistribute the wealth. And then lie to the revolutionary powers that made it happen by saying that the dictatorship of the proletariat is only temporary.
A part of me is struck by the sheer ignorance of many across college campuses in the United States who openly embrace Marxism and its fraternal twin, Socialism. But another part of me is able to make sense of this embrace of Marxism. Is it not easier to take than to earn? To let others do the hard work?
Years ago, I was offered firewood. A few trees had fallen in the backyard of the house of some friends. All I had to do was cut them into chunks then split them with a go-devil. I labored by myself all day – cut and split and generated a sizable pile – and toward the end of that day, I noticed something peculiar, something that was not a part of the agreement. One by one, my friends started taking the split wood away, stacking it up next to their house. I said nothing. It was not a big deal. But I could not help but understand Communism a bit more in that experience. Without asking, without renegotiating the terms, they left me half the pile and two questions: What proclivities are greenlit by Marxism, and how does a right relationship with God keep these same proclivities at bay? I certainly have my answer and the callouses on my hands to back it up.
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Karl-Marx-Communisms-Infiltration/dp/1505114446
