Communism’s Insidious Change of Priorities

Philosophy and Christianity base themselves on goals. Communism has another basis entirely.

E. Jeffrey Ludwig | September 5, 2026

Greek philosophy was defined by goals of life as communicated by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and, following them, by the Stoics such as Zeno, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, and others.  With the acceptance and spread of Christianity, we see many erudite lights of wisdom, such as Augustine, Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and others.  These and others advanced the idea that the Word of God and men’s faith in that Word and in Christ are the source of a living, true knowledge of God.

Many of the Catholic and Orthodox doctrines were modified by the Protestant Reformation, but the Christian overarching goals of loving the Lord Our God with all our hearts, minds, and souls and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves remained two overarching principles and goals.

The panorama of life represented by pre-Christian Greek and Roman thought and the goals of Christian theology and philosophy together constituted the fabulous panorama of philosophy until the second half of the 19th century up through our present time.  But by the mid-19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels came out with their masterwork The Communist Manifesto.

These two creative devils turned away from the goals of philosophy that had held sway for thirteen hundred years.  Instead of claiming to name and describe the goals of life and the competing claims of those goals, they claimed that goals such as love, faith in God, and following God all one’s days, or raising families with Christian goals at the center of the family enterprise, are not the basis for a meaningful life.

Rather, for the founding fathers of communism, a true understanding of life should be established based on meeting human (economic) needs.  The heroics of peacemaking and self-sacrifice on behalf of others (like........

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