Summary
Jerzy Holzer: Communism in Europe
The genesis of communism can be sought in Europe in different epochs and in different phenomena of an ideological, social and political nature. In fact, depending on their own opinion about what communism was, its researchers and interpreters judge its genesis in ways that are far from consensus.
Looking for the ideological roots of communism, the historian will first recall the dream of achieving absolute and lasting good, which has been constantly present in the history of mankind since antiquity. In such a historical order, communism would be a modern continuation of gnosis in its Manichean interpretation, which assumed a struggle between absolute Good (in this case communism or in the class formula - the proletariat) and absolute Evil (in this case the opponents of communism or in the class formula - the bourgeoisie). The perspective of that struggle should be similar to the one accepted by the supporters of the Chiliastic (in Greek terminology) or Millenarian (in Latin terminology) vision, which in both cases was linked to the thousand-year, and in fact eternal, supremacy of Good after its final victory over Evil.1 It should be noted that communism was not the only one in presenting such Chiliastic visions that related to modern times, because National Socialism also stood out perspective of the Millennium Reich as the realization of the highest Good (albeit in a completely different form).
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