ABSTRACT
Entire people find themselves in danger of falling back into a barbarism worse than that which oppressed the greater part of the world at the coming of the Redeemer, this all too imminent danger. The historical legacy which the Bolsheviks inherited from the stars in regard to the Catholic Church did not predetermine the relationship between the Catholic Church and subsequent Communist governments and parties in the former Russian Empire and in other countries, but it did influence that relationship. It is difficult to reconcile Communism and Catholicism philosophically. Each is an universal creed based upon principles irreconcilable with one another; and it is on doctrinal, not political ground that Marxism-Leninism has always been denounced by the Popes. In November 1917, when the Communists took power in Russia, the basic ingredients for the creation of a totalitarian government were present: an ideology which worshipped power and a disciplined elite who were determined to implement that ideology.
