Communism: economic and social theory which argues that only the community is entitled to own property, and which makes claims for the common (lat.  communis) utilization of the means of production and the common consumption of goods.

The roots of communism go back to ancient times, however regarding communism as an ancient, natural state of affairs is incorrect.   According to the results of contemporary ethnographic studies (Schmidt, Koppers, Gusinde) family and private property (the private possession of tools, arms, clothes) characterised ancient cultures and communities as well.   Therefore one can speak about ancient communism only in a very limited sense.

Christianity proclaimed spiritual liberty and equality between slave and lord, urged love among the citizens of God’s empire and the responsibility of the richer towards the less fortunate.  Yet the communism of the ancient Church was voluntary, not mandatory, and ancient egalitarian communities existed only in Jerusalem.  In the major cities and in Rome usually the aristocrats and the rich people adopted Christianity.  In the writings of the Holy Fathers there is not a single reference to social reforms or political utopias.  Moreover the ancient Church had already excommunicated some heretic sects (i.e. the Manicheus) that put the terror of communism into practice.  The Christian spirit of community is led not by actual social or economic demands but by the desire for spiritual perfection.  The religious communism of zealot heretic sects of the Middle Ages (Husites, Cathars, etc.) had soon faded away.  The German peasant movement demanded social reforms (Bundsuch, 1476).  Following Luther’s incitement (1524) those demands developed into open revolt in which some fanatic communist sects (i.e. the Anabaptists) also appeared.  (…)

The modern theory of communism was elaborated by Karl Marx who was of Jewish origin, and who, together with Friedrich Engels and Ferdinand Lassale, propagated crude materialism and envisioned a world-wide proletarian revolution.  In Russia poverty and social oppression were aggravated by religious backwardness and lack of education and this created a fertile ground for communism.  In 1917 Lenin, Stalin and their companions were able to mobilize the anti-war sentiments of the masses and after a military coup they established and stabilized a communist regime.  In Hungary the Socialist revolution of Mihály Károlyi raised communism to power, but despite the brutal terror it applied patriotic resistence soon led to its collapse.

The basic error of communism is its crude materialistic approach which denies the role of moral and spiritual forces in history.  Its main thesis, the class-struggle, is also undetectable in real history: the Roman empire fell as a result of moral crisis, while the Hungarian nobility renounced their priviliges voluntarily in 1848.

Moreover it is clear that all communist regimes have in practice perverted the original principles of Marxism.  The communist regimes are the cruellest and most tyrannical examples of class-rule.  The state did not whither away either since power is held by the Peoples Council and it is this, rather than the law, which is the ulitimate source of authority.  This arrangement resulted in the crudest dictatorship in history.  Instead of organised production and growing wealth we witness the total collapse of production, with famine and poverty everywhere.  Besides these negative effects only a few things can be said in favor of communism: it refuted and fought against the perverted individualism of modern economic liberalism; it recognised the role of economic factors in history and raised social issues by laying bare and condemning the selfish nature of capital.  However it could not solve the problems of social injustice since it forgot that society consists of real people, and it neglected the fact that not only material issues determine society, but moral and spiritual forces also play a very important role.