I have a simpler explanation, at least for most Marxist elites. Marxism provides a useful disguise for many leftists for a gnawing ambition to grasp as much State power as possible, which is at least as old as the pharaohs.   Traditional morality is done away with: cooperating with the inevitable historical process, the ultimate triumph of Marxism, is moral, and anything that opposes it is immoral. Thus morality becomes a mere matter of political labels. How convenient that this has allowed movements dedicated to Marxism to commit any crime, no matter how vile, in the scramble for supreme power. That Marxism has never been anything but a transparent fraud, with no more intellectual validity than a tale from The Arabian Nights, is a damning indictment of the human capacity to embrace any fable if it gives an excuse to engage in wretched conduct with an ostensibly clean conscience.
I like his invocation of “the Cain-like nature of the human spirit” for the struggle of Cain & Abel is one that goes on within each of us.
Of course, Don, you’re right that obviously the leaders like the idea for its promise of power, but that’s never enough for any movement. I could invent “Nate-ism” as an idea for putting me in charge, but I doubt anybody else would bother joining the movement. The question is always: what motivates the soldiers – the true believers – because in them is the power of the idea.
The interesting thing Nate is that most Communist movements, prior to their seizure of power, don’t have much in the way of footsoldiers. The two exceptions were China and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was almost entirely a result of events in World War II, and but for the Japanese invasion I doubt Mao’s forces would ever have seized power. Vietnam was a partial exception since Ho disguised his movement as nationalist and patriotic prior to their seizure of power in North Vietnam. Communism is largely a movement of coups against unpopular regimes and the imposition of Communist regimes by outside foreign military force as happened in Eastern Europe and Mongolia.
Marxism is strongest where Christianity took no pastoral interest in the industrial working class. In England and Wales, the Established Church didn’t even bother creating new parishes as villages became industrial centers, but the Methodists, to their credit, moved in with the result that here was the most church-going working class of anywhere in Europe. Russian Orthodoxy had no interest in evangelizing industrial workers (except for Father Gapon). We know what happened there. It is no accident that Cuba is the only Communist country in the New World. The Catholic Church, sadly, would send a priest once a year to baptize the peasants and they would never see him again until next year. In Germany, Kolping probably saved the German working class from Communism. There was no Kolping in Spain, and the expected result.
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Kurt, Latin American countries generally have about 1 tenth the number of priests for Catholics per-capita than does the United States. In some countries the Catholic priests are even more scarce. If “the Catholic Church (in Cuba sent) a priest once a year to baptize the peasants” then you know the number of priests was very few there. What alternative course would you propose, Kurt?
A fair point, Don. But then that’s what I come here for, new things to think on. 😉