{"id":8014,"date":"2012-07-09T07:30:35","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T14:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=8014"},"modified":"2012-07-09T13:45:40","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T20:45:40","slug":"russian-orthodox-warns-on-demonic-roots-of-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/russian-orthodox-warns-on-demonic-roots-of-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Orthodox Warns on Demonic Roots of Socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Karl by John Couretas –
\nIn Rome to address a conference sponsored by the Dignitatis Humanae Institute<\/a> (Institute for Human Dignity) on June 29, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov [an Orthodox Christian] expressed amazement for the support that socialism gets in some quarters in the West even though it has \u201cnever worked in world history.\u201d In an interview with the Zenit<\/em> news service<\/a>, Komov pointed to how this ideology had caused such great pain and suffering \u201call in the name of social reform, progress and improvement.\u201d His criticism was also leveled at the \u201csofter version of socialism\u201d of administrations in the West led by President Barack Obama and recently Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero, the former prime minister of Spain.<\/p>\n

Komov believes that if you \u201cdig deep enough into the ideological roots of these socialist movements, you end up finding satanic roots in them.\u201d And although only a softer version is prevalent now, \u201cit is still very dangerous,\u201d he says. \u201cI would warn all those people fascinated by socialist ideas that they have never worked in human history \u2014 never worked.\u201d <\/p>\n

The traditional nuclear family is a particular enemy of socialism, he says, because it is the basic institution that preserves values and passes them on to the next generation. \u201cThe state, if it wants to dominate life and the individual from birth to death, needs to destroy the family, because the family is independent of the state,\u201d he argues. \u201cAs Marx and Engels said, the family is a repressive, bourgeois institution that needs to be destroyed; they need to get rid of its patriarchal power and that of Christianity because they are the main obstacles of the social revolution.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Komov\u2019s witness against socialism is all the more timely because of a growing fascination with Marxism in the West. That\u2019s especially true of young people who seem not to have heard a thing about the gulags and the oceans of blood shed by communist regimes (their parents may be willfully ignorant). Of course, few schools teach lessons about the Gulag or add writers such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to required reading lists, which should also include selections from The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression<\/a><\/em>. The Guardian<\/em>, a UK paper, examines this new enthusiasm in an article titled, \u201cWhy Marxism is on the rise again.\u201d<\/a> The article links to the Marxism Festival 2012<\/a>, now underway in London.<\/p>\n

The Zenit<\/em> article also quotes Rocco Buttiglione, recipient of the 2004 Acton Institute Faith & Freedom Award<\/a>, on \u201cthe importance of truth and authentic tolerance in politics.\u201d Buttiglione \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 noted that the meaning of tolerance has subtly changed over the years, so subtly, in fact, that it has escaped people\u2019 s notice. \u201c\u2018Don\u2019t be judgemental,\u2019 people say, but you can translate that as \u2018Don\u2019t think\u2019 because to think means to pass judgement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said that to think means to create hierarchies, to put things in order, to make distinctions between good and bad, truth and falsehood. \u201cIf you do this, you are considered intolerant,\u201d he said, \u201cThat\u2019s bad, because it destroys real participation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read \u201cDangerous Flirting: Russian Wonders Why West Is Enamored With Socialism \u2014 What Christians Should Do in the Public Square\u201d<\/a> on Zenit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

HT: Acton PowerBlog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by John Couretas – In Rome to address a conference sponsored by the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity) on June 29, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov [an Orthodox Christian] expressed amazement for the support that socialism gets in some quarters in the West even though it has \u201cnever worked in world history.\u201d In … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,133,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communism","category-leftist-hypocrisy","category-leftist-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}