CATHOLIC-COMMUNIST

COLLABORATION

IN ITALY

Edited by

Leonard Swidler

Edward James Grace

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

 OF

AMERICA

Lanham New York London

Copyright  ©  1988 by

Leonard Swidler

Published by

University Press of America, Inc.

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Lanham, MD 20706

3 Henrietta Street

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All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

British Cataloging in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Catholic-communist collaboration in Italy / edited by Leonard Swidler

and Edward James Grace.

p. cm.

1. Communism and Christianity-Catholicism Church-Italy.

I. Swidler. Leonard J. II. Grace, Edward James.

BX1396.4.C364 1988

261.2'1-dc 19 88-14371 CIP

ISBN 0-8191-7044-5 (alk. paper)

ISBN 0-8191-7045-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

All University Press of America books are produced on acid-free

paper which exceeds the minimum standards set by the National

Historical Publications and Records Commission.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

v

THE DIALOGUE DECALOGUE

Ground Rules for Interreligious, Interideological. Dialogue

Leonard Swidler

1

CHRISTIAN-MARXIST DIALOGUE:

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS

Leonard Swidler

7

THE ITALIAN EARTH AND ITS CATHOLIC LEFT

FROM A NORTH AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

Edward James Grace

27

THE HISTORY OF A DIALOGUE

Alceste Santini

69

CATHOLIC COMMUNISTS 1938-1946

Antonio Tatò

79

FROM A CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT TO A

CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST

Luciano Benadusi

91

OPEN LETTER TO ENRICO BERLINGUER

Luigi Bettazzi

99

REPLY TO AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF IVREA

Enrico Berlinguer

103

COMMUNIST PARTY CATHOLICS IN ITALY

Osservatore Romano

111

REPLY TO THE OSSERVATORE ROMANO

L'Unita

115

NON-IDEOLOGICAL MARXISM

Lucio Lombardo Radice

121

DEMOCRACY IN THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY

Alberto Scarponi, with Margaret Cotroneo

and Leonard Swidler

129

CHRISTIANS AND MARXISTS: AN EXPERIENCE BASED

ON DAILY ENCOUNTER

Sergio Aquilante

145

COMMUNISM, CATHOLICISM AND WOMEN

Giglia Tedesco

116

CONTRIBUTORS

173

PREFACE

The essays in this volume tell the story of Catholic-Communist collaboration in Italy, and for the most part it is told by Italian Catholics and Communists themselves-with the exception of us two American Catholics. The image of Catholics and Communists collaborating is in itself a very difficult one for most Americans even to conjure up. What will be even more mind-stretching for Americans, and especially Catholic Americans, is the fact that not only are some of these essays written by Catholics and some by Communists, but some of them are written by Catholics who are Communists-and extremely highly placed Communists at that. It will also doubtless come as a surprise, even a shock, to most to learn that at one time there was even an Italian political party called the "Communist Catholic Movement." One of its founders, who is still an active Catholic and a high-ranking Communist, tells that story here.

These essays, with the exception of the introductory ones by Leonard Swidler and Edward James Grace, were all written in 1978-80, but have not been published until now. With the exception of the one by Alberto Scarponi (translated from the German by Leonard Swidler) and the two written directly in English by Leonard Swidler and Edward Grace, all were translated from the Italian by Edward Grace.

Although the Communist Party of Italy has never been in power, it has long been powerful. Since the end of World War 11 it has always been the second most powerful political party in Italy on the national level. Moreover, it controls many of the town and city governments, including those of the most important cities, such as Rome. As a consequence these essays have lost none of their relevance, even for today.

Leonard Swidler

Edward James Grace

THE DIALOGUE DECALOGUE^*

Ground Rules for Interreligious,

Interideological Dialogue

Leonard Swidler

Dialogue is a conversation on a common subject between two or more persons with differing views, the primary purpose of which is for each participant to learn from the other so that he or she can change and grow. This very definition of dialogue embodies the first commandment of dialogue.

In the religious-ideological sphere in the past, we came together to discuss with those differing with us, for example, Catholics with Protestants, either to defeat an opponent, or to learn about an opponent so as to deal more effectively with him or her, or at best to negotiate with him or her. If we faced each other at all, it was in confrontation--sometimes more openly polemically, sometimes more subtle so, but always with the ultimate goal of defeating the other, because we were convinced that we alone had the absolute truth.

But dialogue is not debate. In dialogue each partner must listen to the other as openly and sympathetically as he or she can in an attempt to understand the other's position as precisely and, as it were, as much from within, as possible. Such an attitude automatically includes the assumption that at any point we might find the partner's position so persuasive that, if we would act with integrity, we would have to change, and change can be disturbing.

We are here, of course, speaking of a specific kind of dialogue, an in­terreligious, interideological dialogue. To have such, it is not sufficient that the dialogue partners discuss a religious-ideological subject, that is, the meaning of life and how to live accordingly. Rather, they must come to the dialogue as persons somehow significantly identified with a religious or ideological community. If I were neither a Christian nor a Marxist, for example, I could not participate as a "partner" in Christian-Marxist dialogue, though I might listen in, ask some questions for information, and make some helpful comments.

It is obvious that interreligious, interideological dialogue is something new under the sun. We could not conceive of it, let alone do it, in the past. How, then, can we effectively engage in this new thing? The following are some basic ground rules, or “commandments,” of interreligious, interideological dialogue that must be observed if dialogue is actually to take place. These are not theoretical rules, or commandments given from “on high,” but ones that have been learned from hard experience.

FIRST COMMANDMENT: The primary purpose of dialogue is to learn, that is, to change and grow in the perception and understanding of reality, and then to act accordingly. Minimally, the very fact that I learn that my dialogue partner believes “this” rather than “that” proportionally changes my attitude toward her; and a change in my attitude is a significant change in me. We enter into dialogue so that we can learn, change, and grow, not so we can force change on the other, as one hopes to do in debate-a hope realized in inverse proportion to the frequency and ferocity with which debate is entered into. On the other hand, because in dialogue each partner comes with the in­tention of learning and changing herself, one’s partner in fact will also change. Thus the goal of debate, and much more, is accomplished far more effectively by dialogue.

SECOND COMMANDMENT: Interreligious, interideological dialogue must be a two-sided project--within each religious or ideological community and between religious or ideological communities. Because of the “corporate” nature of interreligious dialogue, and since the primary goal of dialogue is that each partner learn and change himself, it is also necessary that each participant enter into dialogue not only with his partner across the faith line-the Lutheran with the Anglican, for example-but also with his coreligionists, with his fellow Lutherans, to share with them the fruits of the interreligious dialogue. Only thus can the whole community eventually learn and change,

moving toward an ever more perceptive insight into reality.

THIRD COMMANDMENT:  Each participant must come to the dialogue with complete honesty and sincerity. It should be made clear in what direction the major and minor thrusts of the tradition move, what the future shifts might be, and, if necessary, where the participant has difficulties with her own tradition. No false fronts have any place in dialogue.

Conversely--each participant must assume a similar complete honesty and sincerity in our partner. Not only will the absence of sincerity prevent dialogue from happening, but the absence of the assumption of the partner’s sincerity will do so as well. In brief: no trust, no dialogue.

FOURTH COMMANDMENT: In interreligious, interideological dialogue we must not compare our ideals with our partner’s practice, but rather our ideals with our partner’s ideals, our practice with our partner’s practice.

FIFTH COMMANDMENT: Each participant must define himself. Only the Jew, for example, can define what it means to be a Jew. The rest can only describe what it looks like from the outside. Moreover, because dialogue is a dynamic medium, as each participant learns, he will change and hence continually deepen, expand, and modify his self-definition as a Jew-being careful to remain in constant dialogue with fellow Jews. Thus it is mandatory that each dialogue partner define what it means to be an authentic member of his own tradition.

Conversely--the one interpreted must be able to recognize herself in the interpretation. This is the golden rule of interreligious hermeneutics, as has been often reiterated by the "apostle of interreligious dialogue," Raimundo Panikkar. For the sake of understanding, each dialogue participant will naturally attempt to express for herself what she thinks is the meaning of the partner's statement: the partner must be able to recognize herself in that expression. The advocate of "a world theology," Wildred Cantwell Smith, would add that the expression must also be verifiable by critical observers who are not involved.

SIXTH COMMANDMENT:  Each participant must come to the

dialogue with no hard-and-fast assumptions as to where the points of disagreement are. Rather, each partner should not only listen to the other partner with openness and sympathy but also attempt to agree with the dialogue partner as far as is possible while still maintaining integrity with his own tradition; where he absolutely can agree no further without violating his own integrity, precisely there is the real point of disagreement-which most often turns out to be different from the point of disagreement that was falsely as assumed ahead of time.

SEVENTH COMMANDMENT: Dialogue can take place only be­tween  equals, or par cum pari as Vatican II put it. Both must come to learn from each other. Therefore, if, for example, the Muslim views Hinduism as inferior, or if the Hindu views Islam as inferior, there will be no dialogue. If authentic interreligious, interideological dialogue between Muslims and Hin­dus is to occur, then both the Muslim and the Hindu must come mainly to learn from each other; only then will it be "equal with equal," par cum pari. This rule also indicates that there can be no such thing as a one-way dialogue. For example, Jewish-Christian discussions begun in the 1960's were mainly only prolegomena to interreligious dialogue. Understandably and properly, the Jews came to these exchanges only to teach Christians, although the Christians came mainly to learn. But, if authentic interreligious dialogue between Christians and Jews is to occur, then the Jews must also come mainly to learn; only will it then too be par cum pari.

EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: Dialogue can take place only on the basis of mutual trust. Although interreligious, interideological dialogue must occur with some kind of "corporate" dimension, that is, the participants must be involved as members of a religious or ideological community-for instance, as Marxists or Taoists-it is also fundamentally true that it is only persons who can enter into dialogue. But a dialogue among persons can be built, only on personal trust. Hence it is wise not to tackle the most difficult. problems in the beginning, but rather to approach first those issues most likely to provide some common ground, thereby establishing the basis of human trust. Them, gradually, as this personal trust deepens and expands, the more thorny matters can be undertaken. Thus, as in learning we move from the known to the unknown, so in dialogue we proceed from commonly held matters-which, given our mutual ignorance resulting from centuries of hostility, will take us quite some time to discover fully-to discuss matters of disagreement,

NINTH COMMANDMENT: Persons entering into interreligious, interideological dialogue must be at least minimally self-critical of both themselves and their own religious or ideological traditions.  A lack of such self-criticism implies that one's own tradition already has all the correct answers. Such an attitude makes dialogue not only unnecessary, but even impossible, since we enter into dialogue primarily so we can learn-which obviously is impossible if our tradition has never made a misstep, if it has all the right answers. To be sure, in interreligious, interideological dialogue one must stand within a religious or ideological tradition with integrity and conviction, but such integrity and conviction must include, not exclude, a healthy self-criticism. Without it there can be no dialogue-and, indeed, no integrity.

TENTH COMMANDMENT: Each participant eventually must at­tempt to experience the partner's religion or ideology “from within"; for a religion or ideology is not merely something of the head, but also of the spirit, heart, and "whole being," individual and communal. John Dunne here speaks of “passing overt' into another's religious or ideological experience and then coming back enlightened, broadened, and deepened. As Raimundo Panikkar notes, "To know what a religion says, we must understand what it says, but for this we must somehow believe in what it says": for example, "A Christian will never fully understand Hinduism if he is not, in one way or another, con­verted to Hinduism. Nor will a Hindu ever fully understand Christianity unless he, in one way or another, becomes Christian."

Interreligious, interideological operates in three areas: the practical, where we collaborate to help humanity; the depth or "spiritual" dimension where we attempt to experience the partner's religion or ideology "from within"; the cognitive, where we seek understanding and truth. Interreligious, interideological dialogue also has three phases. In the first phase we unlearn misinformation about each other and begin to know each other as we truly are. In phase two we begin to discern values in the partner's tradition and wish to appropriate them into our own tradition. For example, in the Buddhist-Christian dialogue Christians might learn a greater appreciation of the meditative tradition, and Buddhists might learn a greater appreciation of the prophetic, social justice tradition-both values traditionally strongly, though not exclusively, associated with the other's community. If we are serious, persistent, and sensitive enough in the dialogue, we may at times enter into phase three. Here we together begin to explore new areas of reality, of meaning, and of truth, of which neither of us had even been aware before. We are brought face to face with this new, as-yet-unknown-to-us dimension of reality only because of questions, insights, probings produced in the dialogue. We may thus dare to say that patiently pursued dialogue can become an instrument of new "re-velation," a further "un-veiling" of reality-on which we must then act.

There is something radically different about phase one on the one hand and phases two and three on the other. In the latter we do not simply add on quantitatively another "truth" or value from the partner's tradition. Instead, as we assimilate it within our own religious self-understanding, it will

proportionately transform our self-understanding. Since our dialogue partner will be in a similar position, we will then be able to witness authentically to those elements of deep value in our own tradition that our partner's tradition may well be able to assimilate with self-transforming profit. All this of course will have to be done with complete integrity on each side, each partner remaining authentically true to the vital core of his/her own religious tradition. However, in significant ways that vital core will be perceived and experienced differently under the influence of the dialogue, but, if the dialogue is carried on with both integrity and openness, the result will that, for example, the Jew will be authentically Jewish and the Christian will be authentically Christian, not despite the fact that Judaism and/or Christianity have been profoundly "Buddhized," but because of it. And the same is true of a Judaized and/or Christianized Buddhism. There can be no talk of a syncretism here, for syncretism means amalgamating various elements of different religions into some kind of a (con)fused whole without concern for the integrity of the religions involved-which is not the case with authentic dialogue.

CHRISTIAN-MARXIST DIALOGUE:

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS

Leonard Swidler

Recently Christianity (and even more recently the other world religions) has been moving from an attitude of debate to dialogue in its relations with religions and ideologies. Ideology is here understood in its value-neutral sense as an “explanation of the meaning of life, and how to live accordingly,” which is not ultimately based on a transcendental element. Such ideologies tend to be some kind of non-theistic humanism. Sometimes these will have an organized expression, as in ethical and humanist societies, and sometimes they will not. Clearly the most organized, thought-out and widespread such ideology is Marxism. However, with Marxism the situation is somewhat ambiguous in that there are many persons who identify themselves as Marxists, and even very active and influential members of Communist parties, who do not espouse the atheistic philosophy of Marx, and might even be prominently practicing Christians. This of course complicates the situation for the “purists” of both the Marxist and the religious camps, but for the rest it presents a very interesting reality, one which offers a great deal of potential for creativity or destructiveness, depending on one’s perspective.

There has in fact been, and is now, a very substantial Christian-Marxist dialogue going on. In some ways it has been similar to the interreligious dialogues, but in other ways it has been quite different-both of which aspects should become clearer in the development of this essay. Because of this wide disparity and the further complication that Marxism is essentially very intimately bound up with politics-whether in power or striving to be in power (this distinction makes a huge difference in the dialogue)-I will first deal briefly with the history of the dialogue as it has developed in different countries and parts of the world. Secondly, in summary fashion I will then look at the major attitudes taken toward the very idea of Christian-Marxist dialogue, and lastly I will reflect on some of the major themes discussed in the dialogue.

What we today call the Christian-Marxist dialogue began in 1964. Of course there were roots of the dialogue that went back earlier, but before that time conditions simply were not favorable to the growth of interideological dialogue between Christianity and Marxism. Things happened on both sides in the early 1960s which provided the atmosphere for a fruitful encounter wherein persons from both sides sincerely wanted to learn from each other-in short, an atmo­sphere conducive to dialogue: de-Stalinization and the development of “peaceful coexistence” on the one hand, and the pontificate of Pope John XXIII (1958-63) and Vatican II (1962-65) on the other. Pope John XXIII’s two encyclicals Mater et magistra and Pacem in terris, both of which breathed a much more irenic attitude toward socialism and also those who espoused differing ideologies, as long as they were “persons of good will,” contributed significantly to the new, positive atmosphere. So too did his receiving of Soviet leaders, and other sympathetic actions and statements. Vatican II of course had an immense positive impact on the attitude first of all of Catholics, but indirectly also on many more Christians, and even non-Christians, toward interreligious and interideological dialogue. Three Vatican Secretariats were set up to foster dialogue:  with fellow Christians, with members of other religions, and with non-believers.

It was this latter Secretariat for Non-believers that issued an extraordinary document on dialogue with non-believers whose whole purpose was to encourage Christians to engage in serious dialogue with non-believers. It is worth recalling some of its most salient points here:

All Christians should do their best to promote dialogue between persons of every class, as a duty of brotherly and sisterly charity suited to our progressive and adult age. . . . The willingness to engage in dialogue is the measure and the strength of that general renewal which must be carried out in the Church, which implies a still greater apprecia­tion of liberty . . . recognizing the truth everywhere, even if the truth demolishes one so that one is forced to reconsider one’s own position, in theory and in practice, at least in part. . . . In dialogue the truth will prevail by no other means than by the truth itself. Therefore the liberty of the participants must be ensured by law and reverenced in practice.¹

As a consequence, in 1964 Christian-Marxist dialogue “broke out” almost simultaneously in a number of European countries: Czechoslovakia, Italy, West Germany, and France. I will look at developments in that order.

Joseph Hromàdka, a theologian of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren, was a pioneer of this dialogue on the Christian side. Already in the early 1930s he initiated a number of discussions on the relationship between Christianity and Marxism. The Czech Communist Party did not respond then; however, a practical cooperation did ensue during the Nazi occupation period. After the Communist take-over of the Czech government in 1948 the oppressive mood of the Communists was too dominant to allow for any dialogue. Still, Hromàdka took a largely positive attitude toward the virtues of socialism, as exempli­fied, for instance, in his 1958 book, The Gospel for Atheists, and his 1964 book The Field Is This World,² which also encouraged direct dialogue with Marxists.

In the meanwhile, the Marxist philosopher Milan Machovec of the Charles University of Prague began in 1957 to treat the work of outstanding Christian thinkers in his seminars-despite internal resistance. In the same year he wrote his The Meaning of Human Life, but he did not venture to publish it until 1965.³ Actual face-to-face dialogues began in 1964 when Machovec invited prominent foreign Christian theologians to his seminars for dialogue, including Charles West of Princeton, Albert Rasker of Leiden, Herbert Braun of Mainz and Gustave Wetter of Rome; Czech Christians like Hromàdka, Jan Lochman, Milan Opocensky and others were also involved. “Machovec is one of the giants of the Christian-Marxist dialogue and perhaps its most seminal thinker. His own intellectual productivity is one of the main reasons for the brightness of the meteoric stage of the dialogue. . . . his most significant [book] is A Marxist Looks at Jesus, undoubtedly the best Marxist scholarly study of Jesus written to date.”⁴ A number of other Marxist scholars also began to get involved in the dialogue, perhaps the most prominent being Vitezslàv Gardavsky, who published “one of the most profound Marxist series of essays on Christianity in Literarny Noviny (Prague)” during 1966-67.⁵ The dialogue intensified rapidly both qualitatively and quantitatively as Czech society liberalized.

A high point was reached in 1967 when on April 27-30 an international dialogue was cosponsored by the Section for the Theory of Sociology of Religion of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and the Paulus-Gesellschaft of West Germany and Austria and was held in Czechoslovakia at Marianské Lázne (Marienbad). Around 170 of the most prominent Christian and Marxist scholars attended; in the lectures there was not only criticism but also appreciation of the dialogue partners, and self-criticism as well. Liberalization continued explosively as Dubcek came to power and the Czechs tried to create “socialism with a human face” in the “Prague Spring” of 1968. During that Spring many Christian-Marxist dialogues took place, with thousands of participants. The first public dialogue was held in Prague on April 29, with twelve panelists participating. Paul Mojzes reported that somewhere between 1200 and 3000 persons attended, and James Will of Evanston, Illinois, who was present, said the dialogue was “very open and spirited.”⁶  Other such public dialogues continued throughout the “Prague Spring,” until August 21, 1968, when the invasion by Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops brought them to an end.

The invasion was a terrible blow to the dialogue not only in Czechoslovakia, but also throughout the world. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Machovec was stripped of all his teaching functions and expelled from the Party, along with his like minded Marxist colleagues, and that “it became clear that the devastating change would turn the country into the most oppressed Soviet satellite,” a number of Czechs, both Christians and Marxists, have continued the dialogue-mostly from exile.⁷ Within the country silence and oppression reigns:

Many Christians and Marxists remember with longing the days when they carried out a mutual engagement in the spirit of constructive criticism. . . . Such conditions would arise again almost immediately if the heavy hand of Soviet intervention were lifted. For the time being prospects for that are very bleak. It remains the destiny of the protagonists of the dialogue to suffer together.⁸

In Italy too the Christian-Marxist dialogue began in a public way in 1964, this time with the publica­tion of a book (Il dialogo alla prova) with essays by five Christian thinkers and five Marxist thinkers and edited by a Marxist, Lucio Lombardo Radice, and a Christian, Mario Gozzini.⁹  Lombardo Radice was a professor of mathematics and a member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party and has been described as “one of the initiators and most vigorous promoters of the dialogue between Marxism and Chris­tianity.”¹⁰ Among his many subsequent writings and lectures for this cause is the 1968 book he authored in conjunction with Milan Machovec and Roger Garaudy, Marxisti di fronte a Gesu (Marxists Face Jesus).¹¹

But the roots of the dialogue go much further back in Italy. To begin with, Antonio Labriola, “the father of Italian scientific Marxism who laid the theoretical basis for an original Italian Marxism,” had already in a 1897 letter to Sorel attacked “the sterile anti-clericalism of the radical Socialists and insisted strongly that the Catholic world be taken seriously.”¹² The great intellectual of Italian Communism, Antonio Gramsci, also pushed the ideal of dialogue with Catholicism during the 1920s and 1930s, though with little success; that began to come only with the cooperation in the anti-Fascism/Nazism efforts during the war. There an extraordinary thing happened.

A group of young Catholic activists became involved in the resistance movement and in 1941 they founded the “Sinarchic Cooperative Party” (Partito Cooperativista Sinarchico). After a year they changed their name to the “Communist Christian Party,” and after the fall of the Fascist government on September 8, 1943, they changed it once more to the “Communist Catholic Movement.” Under intense pressure from the Vatican they changed their name for a last time to the “Christian Left Party,” but even then, under the threat of excommunication by the Vatican-which of course would have made their party politically ineffective-they dissolved the party in December, 1945, and urged their members to join the Communist Party of Italy (PCI).¹³ In the national assembly of the PCI from December, 1945, to January, 1946, the following article was inserted into the constitution of the party: “All Italian citizens of 18 years of age can be members of the PCI, independently of their race, religious faith, and philosophical convictions, provided that they accept the political program of the party and bind themselves to work for its realiza­tion.” Hundreds of thousands of practicing Catholics and Protestants have since joined the PCI. For example, the President of the Protestant Church of Italy, Rev. Sergio Aquilante, has been a life-long member, as were his parents before him; Antonio Tatò  and Giglia Tedesco, husband and wife, were among the members of the above described Communist Catholics who joined the PCI, and in 1961 both became members of the Central Committee of the PCI; he also became the personal political secretary of Enrico Berlinguer, the Secretary General of the PCI, and she a Senator of Italy since 1962, and a Vice-President of the Italian Senate. In Italy, the dialogue continues.

In West Germany and Austria the dialogue was initiated and led by the Paulus-Gesellschaft under the leadership of the Catholic priest Erich Kellner. The German Marxist Ernst Bloch spoke at the Munich conference of the Paulus-Gesellschaft in the Spring of 1964, and that Fall the Polish Marxist philosopher and member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Worker’s Party (Communist), Adam Schaff, spoke at another of their conferences in Cologne. There was another conference at Salzburg, Austria in 1965, Herren Chiemsee, West Germany in 1966, Marianské Lázne, Czechoslovakia in 1967. The number of Marxist participants was one apiece at each of the first two conferences, but the Marxist participation steadily increased, reaching its highpoint at the 1967 confer­ence. The Paulus-Gesellschaft also sponsored a youth congress in Bonn in the Fall of 1968, but since that was just after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia Marxist participation dropped off dramatically and afterward the Paulus-Gesellschaft suspended meetings until 1975. That year they sponsored a conference in Florence, and in 1977 another one in Salzburg, but Marxist involvement was modest.

Politically Marxism has been more or less absorbed and significantly modified by the Social Democratic Party in West Germany; there are also various splinter communist parties, but they are politically ineffectual-much as in the United States. Hence, the dialogue in West Germany has been conducted largely by intellectuals on both sides.

In France, however, the Communist Party is a significant political force-the socialists are even more so, of course, as is visible in the presidency of François Mitterand. In 1936 the then Secretary General of the French Communist Party (PCF), Maurice Thorez, made a radio speech in which he said that, “We stretch out our hand to you, Catholic worker, employee, tradesman, peasant; we who are laic stretch out our hand to you because you are our brother and you, like us, are burdened with the same cares.”¹⁴ However, because the PCF followed the Moscow line so closely in the years after World War II, this invita­tion was viewed with extreme skepticism. With the new conditions of the early 1960s, however, French Marxists, particularly in the person of Roger Garaudy, also joined in the public dialogue. Garaudy had been a Senator and a Vice President of the French National Assembly, Director of the Center for Marxist Study and Research in Paris, member of the Politbureau of the PCF and Professor of Philosophy at the University Institute of Poitiers. He, along with the Christian theologians Johannes Metz and Karl Rahner, spoke at the 1965 Salzburg dialogue sponsored by the Paulus-Gesellschaft, and later that same year his lecture was published in greatly expanded form as a book, De l’anathème au dialogue.¹⁵ Also in 1965 Garaudy was invited to lecture at the Catholic university at Louvain, Belgium, and at St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto on the Christian-Marxist dialogue. For the next several years he carried on an intense dialogue with a number of Christian theolo­gians on both sides of the Atlantic, including a dialogue with Paul van Buren at Temple University in 1966.¹⁶

However, despite his powerful position within the PCF, because after the August, 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia he was outspokenly critical of the Soviet Union, he was expelled from the PCF. He continued to be active in the dialogue for a number of years thereafter, but of course with much less effectiveness, until in 1975 he ceased identifying himself as an atheistic Marxist. Nevertheless, his impact was massive and his contribution substantive, and hence will merit some reflection below.

In many ways Yugoslavia is the country where the most creative and continuous Christian- Marxist dialogue had been carried on. The first “quasi- dialogue” took place on March 28, 1967, in the Student Center of Zagrab between the Catholic theologian Mijo Skvorc and the Marxist philosopher and author of the book Philosophy and Christianity, Branko Bosnjak, on the topic of his book. “About 2,500 people attended. Though the two speakers were polite to one another the conversation can be best described as a polemic. Yet the symbolic value of the meeting, attesting to the openness of Yugoslav society, was great.”¹⁷ A number of Christian and Marxist thinkers, however, subse­quently attended some of the dialogues sponsored by the Paulus-Gesellschaft and learned there what a dialogue really should be like. Then, just as the Christian-Marxist dialogue closed down everywhere else in the world in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, a most creative dialogue was launched in Yugoslavia and lasted in its public, relatively unfettered form until 1972.

It should be noted that in the beginning it was the Marxists who initiated the dialogue, which, since they were in the position of power, was quite under­standable. However, after 1972, when through restraints placed on the Marxist participants by their Party the dialogue was forced out of the public into the private sphere-though it also continued to some extent in print-it was the Christians who showed a greater willingness to continue the dialogue. In this case they had less to lose by going counter to Party directives. Also important to keep in mind is the fact that for all practical purposes it is only the Catholic Christians who have engaged in the dialogue. The Orthodox churches, comprising about 40% of the population, and the tiny Protestant churches, making up less than 1% of the population, have avoided the dialogue.

Despite the various restrictions, the dialogue continues creatively in Yugoslavia, and also spills over into the wider world, largely through the efforts of Paul Mojzes and the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Mojzes noted that,

the Yugoslav dialogue has an astonishingly broad base among intellectuals. . . . Though the dialogue is still dependent on the internal political situation it is by no means dead. It is agreed by nearly all participants in the dialogue that there are no lasting theoretical obstacles to it. Only political circumstances and historical encumbrances hinder it. The de-dogmatization of theology and of Marxist theory has largely taken place among thinkers, who, however, are not fully trusted either by the party bureaucracy or ecclesiastical hierarchy. . . . Only through a long and protracted struggle will forces favorable to the dialogue have a chance to assert themselves and tilt the precarious dialogue in the direction of taking a firm hold as the main means of Christian-Marxist interaction.¹⁸

There has also been some dialogue in both Spain and England, but not sufficiently extensive to merit detailing here, nor does the situation in the rest of the Eastern European Socialist countries. Besides Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia where true dialogue existed (and still does in Yugoslavia), there are countries where no dialogue has ever existed, namely, the USSR, Bulgaria, Rumania and East Germany. In Poland and Hungary there was a “carefully managed dialogue in order to facilitate cooperation in recognition of each other’s strength.”¹⁹ It might be added that in China there has also been no dialogue, although recently the tiny Christian population, along with Buddhists, Taoists, etc. have been enjoying considerable religious freedom. However, for the first time, in August, 1987, at Igls, Austria, a Chinese Marxist philosopher, Ming Zhan Che, partici­pated in a Christian-Marxist dialogue, which was organized by Paul Mojzes.

In Latin America there has indeed been an encounter in the past dozen years between Marxism and Christianity, but not so much in dialogue as in a certain amount of collaboration and the assimilation of Marxist social analysis without its atheistic philosophy by Christian theologians in Liberation Theology. All this took place in the wake of the European dialogue and, indeed, was clearly in part made possible by it-it is not irrelevant to note here that Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff and other prominent Liberation theologians were theologically trained in Europe. Also in Africa the Christian-Marxist encounter has been by way either of mutual opposition or practical collaboration, rather than dialogue.²⁰

It remains to say something about the involvement of Americans in the Christian-Marxist dialogue. To begin with, the Institut für Friedensforschung of the University of Vienna (prompted by the Catholic Theological Faculty and led by the theologian Rudolf Weiler) and the International Peace Institute of Vienna (under the leadership of Vladimir Bruskov from Moscow) jointly sponsored a conference in Vienna in 1971. That was followed by conferences almost each year, usually alternating between socialist and non-socialist countries. In 1977 this European dialogue branched out to include Americans for the first time. That year the conference took place at Rosemont College (near Philadelphia). Already since 1975 the leadership on the American side has come from Paul Mojzes, and is supported by “Christians Asso­ciated for Relationships with Eastern Europe” (CAREE) and the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, with confer­ences continuing to occur almost annually. The American participation in the international confer­ences (twelve between 1971 and 1984) has been substan­tial ever since they joined in 1977.

What is par­ticularly interesting, indeed unique, about this series of dialogues is that Soviet partici­pation has also been heavy-between five and ten persons each time, most often Marxists, but recently also a single representative of the Russian Orthodox Church. Mojzes describes their involvement as follows:

The Soviet participants in these conversa­tions are highly placed scholars or eccle­siastical leaders. They tend to explain their party or church position intelligently and straight­forwardly. They do not try to dominate the meetings nor do they engage in surreptitious tactical moves. But their presentations rarely take into account the contributions of the partners beyond perhaps a few quotations used in a “proof-text” manner. They speak and they listen, they defend their positions when under attack, but they are never self-critical and show no indepen­dence from the official position [except sometimes in private after a few vodkas-Swidler].²¹

Since September, 1986, Paul Mojzes has organized another series of Christian-Marxist dialogues which have been sponsored by New ERA, an ecumenical outreach organization of the Unification Church (“Moonies”) in the U.S.-this despite the fact that in general the “Moonies” are strongly anti-Communist. The series is continuing at least through 1988.

ATTITUDES TOWARD DIALOGUE

In the dialogues between Christians and Marxists each participant has most often felt the need to defend his or her participation and describe what they thought they were doing and why. Thus, “dialogue” was the most discussed topic in the dialogue. Next most discussed has been the one partner’s reassessment of the other, that is, the Marxist analysis of religion and the Christian analysis of Marxism. Then came joint concern for the human being, followed by such topics as alienation and sin, theism and atheism, Jesus and Marx, history, creativity and freedom, immanence and transcendence, evolution and revolution of society, and the search for peace. Some partici­pants think that dialogue should be only for the sake of practical cooperation, that is, ideological dialogue is to be excluded, where others believe both practical and ideological dialogue should take place. Still others, without denigrating the need for practical cooperation, see the ideological dialogue as a constant need of both Christianity and Marxism.

The Czech Marxist Machovec clearly values ideological dialogue very highly:  “The way to truth takes the form of dialogue . . . truth itself consists in dialogue. It may be that the metaphysics of human existence can be realistically grasped only when it is expressed in terms of dialogue.”²² The Yugoslav Marxist sociologist Esad Cimic similarly finds that it is impossible for Marxists, or anyone else, to enjoy a continuous development of their thought if they do not engage in dialogue with those who differ from them, providing thereby the needed correctives and stimuli for a critical reevaluation of their own presuppositions and goals.²³ Another Yugoslav Marxist sociologist, Zdenko Roter, believes dialogue to be a creative act which leads to an ever richer growth in a dynamic system by providing continuous interaction, complementarity and fecundation.²⁴ Andrija Kresic, a Yugoslav Marxist philosopher, argues that dialogue must lead us beyond co-existence-which he finds to be just a forced pause in what is ultimately a position of contra-existence-to what he calls pro-existence: “Pro-existence means finding common ways to transcend basic social contradictions by forming a true human community of persons regardless of their ideological or religious orientation.”²⁵

The Czech theologian Jan Lochman argues that “the spirit of authentic Christianity and of authentic Marxism is the spirit of dialogue.”²⁶ Bishop Joszef Cserháti of Pecs, Hungary, believes the purpose of the Chris­tian-Marxist dialogue is to share values, promote the happiness of the people and to respect each other.²⁷ Archbishop Frane Franic of Split, Yugoslavia, sees no biblical or theological barrier to Christians being involved in the dialogue with Marxists; he believes that if both Marxism and Christianity “work more selflessly for the people and live for the other, then there is more hope that some day, which is probably still far off, Marxists and Christians can reach full understanding and agreement.”²⁸

It is clear, as the Marxist Kresic explicitly pointed out, that there can be no dialogue between dogmatic Marxists and traditio­nalist Christians, for they will only reinforce each other’s prejudices.²⁹  If there is no minimally “deabsolutized” understanding of truth-that is, perceiving that no one’s statement about the meaning of reality is ever complete, “absolute” in the sense of being unrelated to one’s stance in the world -t­here can be no dialogue. Related to this insight is the observation made by the Marxist Roter that, “for politicians, both ecclesias­tical and societal, dialogue is treated as an instru­ment which is to be turned off when those in power perceive that it does not suit their interests.”³⁰ One notorious example on the Christian side is that of the Salesian priest Guido Girardi who for his conti­nued dialogue with Marxists was fired from the Salesian University in Rome and in September, 1977, was expelled from the Salesian Society. A similar fate overtook Roger Garaudy, Milan Machovec, Adam Schaff and scores of other Marxist scholars. Dialogue is obviously perceived by the power brokers as an activity dangerous to them-and correctly so.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a growing number of Christian theologians, church leaders and activists moved to embrace varying elements of a program of social justice and societal reform, not despite their being Christians, but because they were Christians. To this extent they could be said to have embraced much of the program of Marxism and other kinds of socialism. With the massive growth of the influence of Marxist thought after 1917 the Marxist analysis of society, and to some extent even its critique of religion itself, was taken more and more seriously by a growing number of Christian thinkers and activists.

But what about thought movement in the other direc­tion? Has the dialogue produced any reflection on the part of Marxists that was prompted by what they encountered in Christianity? The answer is yes, at least for those Marxist thinkers who have taken the dialogue seriously-at considerable risk of course, especially, though not only, in Eastern Europe. Because Garaudy’s dialogic work was both so widely influential and also so fundamental and penetrating, I will concen­trate below on a few of the major insights developed by him.

CAPITALISM VS. SOCIALISM

However, before turning to the questions about the fundamental meaning of human life and the thought of Garaudy in the dialogue with Christianity, a few reflections on human rights and economics would, I believe, be helpful in setting the parameters of an authentic Christian-Marxist dialogue, and reflecting on who and what the participants represent.

Too often in such dialogues there is an assump­tion on the Marxist side that capitalism and Chris­tianity are identified:  if one is a Christian, one is a capitalist. Given the writings and actions of thousands, even millions, of anti-capitalist Chris­tians, that is obviously an egregiously false assump­tion. It should be obvious from empirical data that one can be an authentic Christian and at the same time a very convinced socialist, or a very convinced capitalist, or anything in between.

A second serious misperception often present in these dialogues, and this is as often true on the Christian side as on the Marxist side, concerns what passes for capitalism. Capitalism is far too often described in almost outrageously outdated and extreme fashion, making it the cesspool of all the most self-centered vices humankind is capable of, while often at the same time it is assumed that in the evolutionary progress of humankind full socialism is the ultimate goal. Clearly, a fundamental part of the problem here is an unclarity in the definition of the key terms, socialism and capitalism.

Basically capitalism means the private ownership and control of the means of production. Socialism, on the other hand, basically means the collective ownership and control of the means of production. The important term to notice here is “the means of production”-understood, of course, to include both the production of goods and of services.

Socialism does not necessarily include the elimination of all private property, such as clothes, house, furniture, etc. That it does necessarily mean that, has been a frequent serious misperception of socialism.

On the far extreme of capitalism is a rather complete laissez faire attitude which would reject any outside interference by the state, except possibly action in support of the capitalist. Such a complete restriction on state involvement, however, is no more necessary to capitalism than the elimination of all private property is necessary to socialism.

In fact, not only did the “father” of capitalism, Adam Smith, reject such a rejection, so too, in fact, does every existing capitalist society. In brief, what might be comprehensively described as “welfare” systems can be and are part of both capitalist and socialist societies-e.g., East Germany of the latter and West Germany the former.

Similarly, the notion that monopoly is the natural end and goal of capitalism is a fundamental error that is too frequently entertained by its opponents. Monopoly would in fact be the end of capitalism-in a quite different sense than that of the previous sentence. The essence of capitalism is the notion that free competition is good for the capitalists and society in general, and it is precise­ly at this point that the action of the state is sometimes called for: to ensure free competition by preventing monopoly.

It can be said that the basic dispute between capitalists and socialists is over which system will more effectively provide more and better goods and services for the whole of a society. It is not over whether an effective welfare and civil rights system should be set up or not. Both humane capitalists and socialists advocate that it should. This was not, however, always so, e.g., in the USSR concerning civil rights and the US concerning welfare rights. Nor is there always satisfaction and agreement about the effective­ness of the particular welfare or civil rights system, again, e.g., in the USSR and US. (It might be noticed, however, that this was and is not so in Germany, where shortly after the formation of the united state of Germany in the late nineteenth century an effective welfare system was installed by a state, under Bismarck, which hardly could have been called socialist in its orientation. In fact, the opposite was the case.)

If an effective welfare and civil rights system is in fact in place, then the debate between capital­ism and social­ism will focus on the quality and quantity of production of goods and services for all the people. If, for example, in a capitalist society the lower income population has more and better goods and services than in a socialist society, then the possible wide disparity between the wealth of the higher and lower income populations in the former as compared to the latter should not necessarily be seen as a negative aspect of the capitalist society; in fact, it may be seen as a necessary element to make the system work, and, hence, a positive aspect.

A basic characteristic of human nature, and therefore a basic human right, is freedom. To the extent that it is restricted, except by the freedom and rights of other human beings, to that extent one’s humanity is restricted. It would seem obvious, however, that the setting up of an effective welfare system will to some extent act in a freedom-restric­ting manner on those who have to pay for it; however, the argument is made that a well-working welfare system effectively ensures the freedom of the whole of society in transitional and crisis situations, and therefore is not an improper restriction of the freedom of those who pay for the system. In fact, to the extent they are producers of goods and services, they are the ultimate beneficiaries, for an efficient­ly running society provides more demand which the capitalists and their workers can then profitably fulfill.

A related issue is the freedom and humaneness of the work situation of the producers of goods and services. How much participation in the decision-making in production should there be in an optimally human work situation?  Said otherwise, how much freedom should workers exercise, individually or in groups, in their work? The question will then arise: Should all means of production be worker-owned and worker-managed? On the face of things the proper answer might seem to be, yes. But what then about efficiency, creativity, motivation, ambition, jealousy? In light of those questions, especially based on experience, the answer no longer seems to be an automatic yes, for to date such attempts have been far from universally satisfactory. It would seem that here much more testing and experi­mentation is in order-as well as a great deal more pluralism.

But pluralism essentially means freedom. The basic question is: What system will produce the greatest degree of freedom (including, of course, “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear,” as Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed it in 1941) for all the population? How Christians, or any responsible human beings, answer that question will determine whether they opt for capitalism or socialism or something else. On the issues of social justice and effective welfare systems there can be no fundamental disagreement-among Christians, or Marxists, or anyone else; they must be affirmed-although on many of the specifics there can, and should be, all kinds of proper debate.

Therefore, the dialogue between Christians and Marxists is not between capitalists and socialists, as such, but could well, among other things, focus on which system will best produce goods and services for the whole population and at the same time foster the human rights of all. But that is a discussion that goes on between Christians, among others, and not just between some Christians and Marxists. However, questions about the fundamental meaning of life are questions about which Christians and Marxists tend to have basic disagreements, and since the answers to those questions will shape all subsequent dialogue and relationship, they need to be addressed first, and continuously.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUNDAMENTAL MEANING OF LIFE

To begin with, Garaudy sees in the positive attitude toward matter, evolution, the immanent force within matter rising unendingly up to the level of conscious­ness and beyond, as expressed preeminently in the thought and writings of the Jesuit scientist- theolog­ian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Copernican turn in Christian thought that enables Marxists not only to join with Christians in “building the earth,” as Teilhard put it, but also to learn something from them in their efforts to relate the immanent and transcen­dent in the universe. As Garaudy cited Teilhard: “The synthesis of the [Christian] God of the Above and the [Marxist] God of the Ahead:  this is the only God whom we shall in the future be able to adore in spirit and in truth.”³¹

This Teilhardian idea is also much like the notion of Karl Rahner’s that the Ultimate of humankind is the Absolute Future, the ever receding, ever beckoning Horizon within which humankind lives and moves forward. Garaudy understands Marxism as seeing the future of humankind similarly:

Yes, man will always be capable of an always greater future. For us, Communism is not the end of history, but the end of pre-history, man’s pre-history which is made up of the jungle-like encounters common to all class societies. “This social forma­tion,” Marx writes in his “Contri­bution to the Critique of Politi­cal Economy,” “constitutes . . . the closing chapter of the prehistoric stage of human society.”³²

For Garaudy Marxism is not static or pre-determined, but dynamic, relational, and unendingly so:

The in­dividual for Marx is defined by the whole of his social relations just as the object is defined infinitely, inexhaustibly by its rela­tions with the totality of other objects. The reality with which the physicist has to deal is already, as Lenin wrote, inexhaustible. How much more inexhaus­tible is the human reality which with life, con­science, society has crossed so many other thresholds of complexity.³³

Such a position is very much like the position of relation­ality which Christians are stressing more and more.

Garaudy also stresses the dynamic, non-deter­mined core of reality in his emphasis on the Marxist notion that praxis is the fountain of history and truth. He cites Marx as saying that “men make their own history,” and goes on to ask, “How, in spite of such insistence, has it been possible to ascribe to Marx a supposed ‘economic determinism’ which is so contrary to the basic spirit of his doctrine?” He answers that, “superfi­cial disciples or excessively hasty or ill-intentioned opponents have frequently mistaken the true original­ity of Marx’s materialism. . . . under­standing ‘scientific’ history to mean a history in which the future has already been written. This is a distortion of the very spirit of Marxism which is essentially a methodology of historical initiative.”³⁴ (This stress on the formative quality of praxis was also elaborated by the Italian Marxist Gramsci, and was picked up largely through him by a number of the Latin American Liberation theologi­ans.³⁵ Garaudy secures the validity of his inter­pretation by a citation of Engels:

Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that younger writers sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We had to emphasize this main principle in opposition to our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time, the place or the opportunity to allow the other elements involved in the interaction to come into their rights.³⁶

For a quarter of a century there had been an “intel­lectual hardening of the arteries within Marxism,” but then there was a “vigorous reap- pearance of the problems of subjectivity, choice and spiritual responsibility.³⁷Garaudy insists that, “this development has occurred because of the inescap­able abandonment of old values and the birth-pangs which accompany the creations of new ones,” but grants that “to the extent that Marxism has failed to answer these questions adequately, youth has turned elsewhere to seek the answer which it is our job today to seek, though we may not yet fully discover it.”³⁸ He emphasizes that in seeking for answers to these critical human questions Marxism, at least in part, cannot evade the quest for what it “owes to Chris­tianity as a religion of the absolute future and as a contributing factor in the exploration of the two essential dimensions of man: subjectivity³⁹and transcendence. We cannot, without impoverishing ourselves, forget Christianity’s basic contribution: the change in man’s attitude toward the world, preparing a place for subjectivity.”⁴⁰ Moreover, he claims that he is not alone in “this realization of the Christian contribution to civilization and culture, and of the revolutionary potential of the faith,” which he says has been “operative not only within the French Communist party since the great step forward in 1937 but also within all . . . those countries where progressive movements were taking shape within the Catholic Church,” meaning especially Italy and Spain.

Garaudy says that Marxism has an interest in the questions raised by women and men “about the meaning of their life and their death, about the problem of their origin and their end, about the demands of their  thought and their heart,”⁴¹and grants that there is much that “Marxists must assimi­late from the rich Christian heritage.” However, he goes on to claim that although the greatness of religion is displayed by its awareness and concern for these fundamental human questions, its weakness is in its fixing of its once-given answers as always-gi­ven answers, despite humanity’s advances in thought and ways of under­standing. Marxism and Christianity, he states, both live under the same exigencies, but they differ in their answers:

If we reject the very name of God, it is because the name implies a presen­ce, a reality, whereas it is only an exigency which we live, a never-satisfied exigency of totality and absolute­ness, of omnipotence as to nature and of perfect loving reciprocity of consciousness.

We can live this exigency, and we can act it out, but we cannot conceive it, name it or expect it. Even less can we hypostatize it under the name of transcendence. Regarding this totality, this absolute, I can say everything except:  It is. For what it is is always deferred, and always growing.⁴²

Garaudy then wants to stake out a claim for Marxism of both a doctrine of subjectivity and of transcendence, an unendingly self-transcending future for humanity: “I think that Marxist atheism deprives man only of the illusion of certainty, and that the Marxist dialectic, when lived in its fullness, is ultimately richer in the infinite and more demanding still than the Christian transcendence.” But, “it is undoubtedly such only because it bears within itself the extra­ordinary Christian heritage, which it must investigate still more,” and in the end it “owes it to itself in philosophy to work out a more profound theory of subjectivity, one which is not subjectivist, and a more profound theory of transcendence, one which is not alienated.”⁴³

Most Christian theologians will today admit that the old arguments for the existence of God do not have the rational force of a demonstration that they were once thought to have had. Many will with Hans Küng claim that in the end it is reasonable to affirm the existence of God, not ineluctably so, but in fundamen­tal trust, although in the very affirmation one is confirmed in the reasonab­leness of one’s affirmation.⁴⁴ The transcenden­tal theologians and philos­ophers, like Karl Rahner and Joseph Marechal, however, have argued that the very presence of the open-ended thirst for knowledge, for being, found in the inner nature of humankind, demands that there be an open-ended Source and Goal of that spiritual drive. Garaudy takes that idea up when he says, “my thirst does not prove the existence of the spring.”⁴⁵ But ultimately doesn’t it?  It is conceivable in this world as we know it that there could develop a being which has a need for something, say, water, if there were no such thing as water? No, it would die aborning. But humankind has not died aborning. Therefore....⁴⁶

In any case, Garaudy takes serious­ly the Teilhardian-Rahnerian notion of God as no-thing, as the unendingly, infinitely creative, absolute future: “In such a perspective God is no longer a being nor even the totality of being, since such a totality does not exist. Being is totally open to the future to be created. Faith is not the possession of an object by cognition.” He then adds that, “the transcendence of God implies its constant negation since God is constant creation beyond any essence and any exis­tence. A faith which is only assertion would be credulity. Doubt is part and parcel of living faith. The depth of faith in a believer depends upon the force of the atheist he bears in himself and defends against all idolatry.”⁴⁷

For his part, of course, Garaudy did not find what theists call a divine presence, but only its absence. Still, he was aware that his affirmation of absence was also not an ineluctable rational affirma­tion, but likewise a choice of his whole being, and in that sense, a “faith”: “We thus reach the highest level of the dialogue, that of the integration in each of us of that which the other bears in himself, as other. I said earlier that the depth of a believe­r’s faith depends upon the strength of the atheism that he bears in himself. I can now add:  the depth of an atheist’s humanism depends on the strength of the faith he bears in himself.”⁴⁸

In the end Garaudy pleads-to both sides obviously­-for the dialogue to continue and deepen- both the ideological and practical dialogue. He says that it would be one of the tragedies of history “if the dialogue between Christians and Marxists and their co-operation for mutual enrichment and for the common building of the future, the city of man, the total man, were still longer to be spoiled, perhaps even prevented, by the weight of the past.”⁴⁹ He is not asking for “conversion” of one side to the other, but rather, “we offer a dialogue without prejudice or hindrance. We do not ask anyone to stop being what he is. What we ask is, on the contrary, that he be it more and that he be it better.”  He then adds that, “we hope that those who engage in dialogue with us will demand the same of us.”⁵⁰

CONCLUSION

All this is rather stunning stuff, coming as it does from a Marxist philosopher and French Politbureau member of such prominence and profundity. Still, it is only a beginning, as Garaudy himself admonishes us: “Let us be clearly aware of the fact that we are still only at the start of a great turning point in the epic of man. The turning point itself will not be reached until we have graduated from the meetings of a few lonely scouts, possibly even suspect in their own communities, to the authentic dialogue of the commu­nities themselves.” Then in words that were much too painfully prophetic he continues: “The road is heavily ambushed and . . . we must confess that present political conditions do not make any the easier the requisite clarification of the problems.⁵¹ That was 1965. Then came 1968, and Garaudy’s expul­sion from the Communist Party in 1970, and similar retrenchments elsewhere.

How again there is reasonable hope that movement in this dialogue will begin once more under the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost (“Openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”). In the area of economics there is clear movement in many Communist countries away from rigid central planning toward more free enterprise. That is what the Gorbachev-policy is aiming at. China under Deng Xiao Ping has long since moved in that direction. Even the new Party leader of Viet Nam is pushing in the same direction. Of course free enterprise in economic matters does not automatically guarantee freedom in other human areas. But on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to contain the freedom of the human spirit in one area once it has been set loose.

It is clear that the Chris­tian-Marxist dialogue has tremendous potential; both sides have much to learn from each other, and togethe­r-and it is happening to a limited extent. But authentic dialogue is threatening to those in posi­tions of power, and this is all the more so when the power is also a political power with physical force behind it. If, as is claimed in ground rule two of my “Dialogue Decalogue,” interideological dialogue must be “a two-sided project-within each religious or ideologi­cal community and between religious or ideological communities. . . . Only thus can the whole community eventually learn and change, moving toward an ever more perceptive insight into reality,” then we must both continue to press for the freedom of members of all communities to be able to engage in dialogue, and at the same time be patiently aware that some dialogue participants must move extremely cautiously, that they not be cut off from their communities. But the dialogue, at whatever level possible, cannot wait-lest we find one day there is no one left to dialogue.

THE ITALIAN EARTH AND ITS CATHOLIC LEFT

FROM A NORTH AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

Edward James Grace

The contemporary lack of a Catholic Left party in Italy does not mean that there are no democratically-minded, Italian Catholics on the Left. On the contrary, today, there are more than ever before. An exact number is difficult to give but judging conser­vatively from recent events and statis­tics, it is not a question of hundreds of thousands but of millions. At the very least five million Catholics who go to Mass with some regular­ity voted in 1976 and again in 1983 for parties having Marxist origins; an estimated 25% of these would identify themselves as both “Cathol­ic” and “Communist,” “Socialis­t” or “Indepen­dent.”¹  Many are both active members of their parishes and their respec­tive parties. Well a