ABSTRACT
IT IS an interesting paradox that large statements of doctrine are more usually aimed at heresies among one’s own adherents than at those who hold other doctrines. This is true not only of Christians. The recent papal encyclical on politics was aimed at easing and accommodating Christian Socialists rather than at setting out a polemic against Marxists. Similarly, the recent Soviet encyclical on Communism addressed itself only to those who already accepted the basic premises of Soviet orthodoxy. More than this, the tendency to official peaceful coexistence is present in both documents. The papal document affirms its own positions rather than denies those of what the English translation of an earlier encyclical called “Atheistic Communism.” And there have been Marxists who would have stressed in their description of the coming state of Communism the withering away of religion. The Soviet document notably does not.
