As part of a series of commentaries on Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira’s book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the Lafayette center of TFP-Louisiana sponsored a lively illustrated talk December 11th, 2020.
Revolution and Counter-Revolution, by Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira
After a quick review of the previous talk titled Liberalism, Socialism and Original Sin, Mr. Thomas Drake proceeded into the subject of The Apogee and Crisis of the Third Revolution, which is Communism and Socialism. Outlining the ideological journey from Gracchus Babeuf, the Jacobin-Communist at the end of the French Revolution, to Utopian Socialism, then the so-called Scientific Socialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Mr. Drake showed the repeated failure of those promoting the egalitarian dream. This was not a failure in conquering nations by violence or ruse, but in building a socialist paradise.
He next explained how the French Revolution’s battle cry of absolute liberty and absolute equality, was and is an unachievable utopia. Where there is absolute liberty, there will be inequalities. Where there is absolute equality, there will be no liberty. Two hundred years of communistic experiments clearly prove that. Even the many utopian socialist communes established in the USA during the 19th and 20th centuries, failed in their goals to change human nature.
First were the warning words of Our Lady at Fatima months before Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in St. Petersburg: “If men do not heed my requests, Russia will spread its errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church…” We did not heed those words.
In no time, the new Soviet Russia plunged into an invasion of Europe, the Red Army being stopped at the gates of Warsaw in what is known as the Miracle of the Vistula. On the feast of the Assumption of Mary, August 15th 1920, the Catholic resistance of Poland defeated the overwhelming forces of Trotsky, Stalin and Lenin. But the many-headed hydra of Socialism and Communism continued its course, and as Our Lady prophesied in Fatima, thousands of Catholics were martyred by Communists in Red Mexico, Republican Spain, and many other lands during the 1920s and 1930s. In this talk we took a look at some of the saints and martyrs of that time: St. Maximilian Kolbe, Blessed Miguel Pro and the Spanish-American Dominicans from Louisiana among others.
The Second World War began with the invasion of Poland by the ideological cousins of the Third Revolution: national socialism (Nazi Germany) and international socialism (Soviet Russia), two sides of the same coin. And – as Our Lady warned in Fatima – another World War more devastating than the first, set the world on fire.
The talk built up to Mr. Drake’s important question: what was the death toll of Socialism in the 20th century? Answer: hundreds of millions. Charts of this death toll – right up to the genocide of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge – were displayed, shocking many in the audience.
Concluding his presentation, Mr. Drake showed that as the Communist Revolution built the greatest empire ever seen, its power of persuasion declined. Communist capacity of leadership of the Revolution also declined. This Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira explains further in Revolution and Counter-Revolution: In an attempt to bypass its growing failure to convince Western public opinion, different forms of “smiling Communism” made their appearance after Yalta. More and more the Cultural Revolution began to supersede in importance the brute force and political manipulations of earlier Communist and Socialist leaders. From the mid-20th century until today, revolutionary psychological warfare has become the weapon of choice of the Third Revolution and its fellow-travelers.
A college student attending the talk eagerly commented that he had attended numerous talks on Socialism and Communism, but never understood clearly until this talk how much Karl Marx hated God, the family, traditional marriage, and property. Another attendee was deeply impressed by a comment of Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira that St. Ignatius of Loyola loved the Church more than Fr. Martin Luther hated the Church. And that we are called to do the same.
The next talk will look more into the recent failures and successes of the Third Revolution, as well as its offspring – the Fourth Revolution – now carrying the banner of radicalism.
by Alvaro Zapata