Abortion as a Marxist Tool in the Context of the Cultural and Sexual Revolution

Dr Julio Loredo de Izcue, the President of the Italian TFP, spoke at the International Congress 40 Days for Life, in Rome, on February 3, 2024 of the history of abortion as a marxist tool in the context of the cultural and sexual revolution. He described how deeply engrained the culture of abortion was in communist culture, from Lenin who he quoted desiring women to be anti-maternal, to the cultural hegemony of Gramsci, the Frankfurt school and the Freudian marxism of the 1960s. Dr Julio also described how in Freudian theory the father is seen as a repression of the alter ego, religion seen as a hotbed of neurosis and how cancel culture today is connected to communist culture. Here is the text of his presentation:

The Soviet Revolution and Abortion

It is known that the first country to implement abortion was Soviet Russia. In October 1920, the Bolsheviks made abortion legal within the then-called Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, with the “Decree on Women’s Healthcare” (I call your attention to the fact that, already then, abortion was presented as a women’s health issue). In July 1921, abortion was introduced in Ukraine, and then in the remainder of the vast territory that, in December 1922, became the Soviet Union.

As Communism spread, so did abortion. Scholars have created the expression “abortion culture” to describe the situation in Communist countries. A paper published by the University of Minnesota, and aptly titled “Abortion is Communism”, says: “‘Abortion culture’ is a term applied to communist and post-communist countries wherein abortion is considered widespread. It is a term used to describe places where abortion is not viewed as a last resort, but as an everyday method of controlling pregnancy.” [1]

The question naturally arises: was not the Soviet Revolution supposed to be a political movement? What does abortion have to do with Communism? To answer this, we have to briefly delve into the Communist doctrine.

In the book «The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State», Friedrich Engels explains that the root of all evils was the emergence of the individualistic conscience: the idea of “I,” “me” and therefore “mine.” This gave way to the private property of women and children, that is, the Family. Then, to the private property of the means of production, that is, Capitalism. And, finally, to the private property of authority, that is, the State.

So, the Family, Private Property and the State share a common, evil, origin.

The abolition of the very idea of Property

Engels affirmed that Communism would not be fully implemented until the antiquated idea of family based on “consanguinity” was abolished. He thus proposed promiscuous relationships that included incest.

When, in the «Communist Manifesto», Marx & Engels affirm: “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property,” they were not referring only to the bourgeois ownership of the means of production, but to the abolition of the very idea of property, in order to obliterate the problem at the root. This would be achieved through the development of a collectivistic conscience, which would take mankind to its final stage of evolution: advanced or upper-state Socialism. This is clearly utopian, since the idea of “I” is ingrained in human nature.

As we saw, the first realm in which the individualistic conscience arose was the family. Its abolition is, therefore, an essential feature of the Communist doctrine and strategy.

When, in 1917, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia under the aegis of Vladimir Illich Ulianov, they immediately took the task in hand. This is the beginning of the modern sexual revolution, and was due principally to the influence of People’s Commissar Aleksandra Michajlovna Kollontaj, who believed that the family was the origin of all oppressions and, consequently, had to be abolished. She is considered a pioneer of women liberation and of abortion.

In December 1917, Soviet Russia was the first country in modern history to introduce no-fault divorce.

That same month, Lenin abolished the Legal Code of Tsarist Russia, thus decriminalising homosexuality. The legalisation of homosexuality was later confirmed in the Penal Code of 1922. Indeed, Lenin included in his Government some known homosexuals.

In 1922, Soviet Russia legalised euthanasia.

The first government in Europe to legalise abortion

In October 1920, as we saw, with the “Decree on Women’s Healthcare,” Soviet Russia became the first government in Europe to legalise abortion on request. The Government then launched a massive propaganda drive in order to “educate” women in their “reproductive rights.”

Yes, dear friends, Margaret Sanger did not coin this expression. She borrowed it from Soviet Russia, which she visited in 1935. Returning from this trip, Sanger wrote:

Russia today is the country of the liberated woman. The attitude of Soviet Russia toward its women...would delight the heart of the staunchest feminist. [2]

Sanger praised that the Soviets gave out free contraceptive devices to women. She did criticise, however, the Soviet use of abortion as a means of mass population control. She did not object to abortion, of course, but thought that the Soviets used it a bit too frequently.

Communism is about a change of mentality

So, beyond the social, political and economic aspects, Communism is about a change of mentality, which has to begin with the abolition of the maternal instinct.

For the Revolution to triumph we need the women – said Lenin – And the only way of having them is to remove them from their homes. We have to destroy the individualistic maternal instinct. A woman who loves her children is nothing but a bitch. [3]

Excuse the roughness of the language, but that is the verbatim quote. In Lenin’s view, the practice of abortion meant that women were losing their maternal instinct and, thus, becoming more socialist.

Is Communism over?

Someone may object: Communism is over. It died with the downfall of the Soviet Union and the crumbling of the Iron Curtain. So you’re speaking of ancient history...

Such an objector ignores what Communism is. Just as Soviet Communism had forerunners, it also produced offspring. Already in the 1920’s, far-sighted Marxists began to explore the next steps of the revolutionary process, framing what we now call “Cultural Marxism” or “Cultural Revolution.” Let me mention two schools.

The Cultural War

One was initiated by Antonio Gramsci, co-founder of the Italian Communist Party. Going beyond the old Marxist idea of economic hegemony, from where comes political and social hegemony, he studied the concept of cultural hegemony, much deeper and insidious. Cultural hegemony encompasses realities as broad as the concept of culture itself.

In this sense the form of a car, an architectural style, women’s fashions, or a popular music, to the extent that they implicitly reflect a certain value system, that they implicitly convey a certain spirit, may serve as vehicles for an ideology, that is, as instruments of cultural revolution.

Inverting the Leninist conception of a proletarian revolution that, then, uses the powers of the State to subvert culture, Gramsci proposed to first infiltrate and subvert culture, in order to change the mentalities. He especially proposed to infiltrate the media, the arts and education. Sounds familiar?

Cultural Revolution – writes French Marxist thinker Pierre Fougeyrollas – means a revolution in our ways of feeling, of acting and of thinking, a revolution in our way of life, it is a revolution of our entire civilisation. [4]

I shall return to this.

Then we have the Frankfurt School, a name given generically to the members of the Institut für Sozialforschung of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt, in Germany. Most of them moved first to France and, then, to the United States. They explored the new frontiers of Revolution, like for example the manipulation of language and of architecture in order to instil a revolutionary spirit. They also perceived the great revolutionary potential of the sexual revolution then in its early stages.

The Frankfurt School made ample use of Freudism in order to explore the means of “liberating” people from the “oppressions” imposed by morality and by the institutions, in primis the family. Whence the current known as “Freudian-Marxism,” which is the philosophy behind the 1960’s outburst.

According to Freud, man has unconscious basic instincts – the so-called id – which comprise eros – sensuality – and thanatos – the sense of death. This is his real self, his true personality. In order to build civilisation, however, man had to repress his basic instincts. He accordingly generated a repressive super-ego. Repression leads to neurosis, as man would be subject to constant conflict between his basic instincts and the requirements of civilisation. Modern civilisation would therefore be based on neurosis; it would be a “sick society,” to use Eric Fromm’s expression.

Marxism's worst enemies: Tradition, Family...

The first place where repression is acted is the family. According to Freud, the father is the very incarnation of the repressive super-ego. As are all those who detain authority in society: teachers, proprietors, political leaders and so forth. We have to do away with “patriarchalism.” To impose pro-life laws, for example, would be an act of patriarchalism, because they oppress women, who are no longer free to act out their eros.

The repressive super-ego reaches its highest expression in religion, which creates the idea of a transcendental God in order to justify all rules and laws. Religion would be a hotbed of neurosis. God would be the origin of all neurosis, the ultimate “Father” who sustains and justifies all the “fathers” in society.

Whence the dislike of the Left for religion in general, and for Christianity in particular. It is a deep-rooted rejection that stems from the very nucleus of its ideology.

In order to solve his neurosis, and thus permit his real self to surface, man must liberate his instincts. As I said, Freudian-Marxists understood the tremendous potential of the sexual revolution then in its early stages. In 1936, Wilhelm Reich published his famous book « Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf. Zur sozialistischen Umstrukturierung des Menschen» – Sexuality in the Cultural War. For the Socialist Restructuring of Man, later called «Die Sexuelle Revolution».

The "Socialist Restructuring of Man"

Rightly so, Wilhelm Reich begins his analysis of the sexual revolution with the developments in Soviet Russia, which he then proposes for the rest of the world, using a Freudian approach. Reich identifies five areas in which the bourgeois repression is visible:

• the lifelong, monogamous marriage;
• the suppression of infantile sexuality;
• the lack of sexual freedom for adolescents;
• the persecution of homosexuality;
• the illegality of abortion.

In order to move from this to an actual sexual liberation, we must change our mental structures and destroy our moral inhibitions. We must also do away with any structure that perpetuates these neurosis-producing repressions. The first to go down the drain is the family. “I reject the family institution as such,” says Reich. Then we have to do away with all the institutions of the “authoritarian State” that perpetuate “patriarchalism.” [5]

We also have to do away with any religious belief.

At the end, as Herbert Marcuse proposes in «Eros and Civilisation», we have to do away with the very idea of civilisation. Arguing that “civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts,” he proposes to advance towards a “non-repressive society.” Of course, the path towards this non-repressive society goes through the legalisation of abortion as a means of “liberating” sex life.

By separating sex from procreation, contraception opens the way for sexual liberation. Abortion then solves a posteriori any “problem” that may have appeared.

This is why abortion ranks high in all left-wing programmes, as part of their overall effort to destroy Western civilisation. Last September, for example, the French Socialist Party hosted in Paris the “Journée internationale pour le droit à l’avortement,” the International Congress for the Right to Abortion. “We socialists are in the first line in the promotion of abortion”, they concluded. [6]

We are engaged in an spiritual and intellectual war in defence of Christian Civilisation

And thus I reach the end of my lecture, having shown how abortion is a Marxist tool in the context of the cultural and sexual revolution.

So, dear friends of life. Yes, we are saving children. Yes, we are defending innocent life from the snares of the “culture of death,” as Pope John Paul II called it. And, more broadly, we are engaged in an all-out spiritual and intellectual war in defence of religion and of civilisation.

Permit me to close with the famous war cry of Saint Joan of Arc: “We must fight. Then God gives the victory!”.

Presentation at the international congress 40 Days for Life, Rome, 3 February 2024

Source: atfp.it

Notes

[1] Heather Nicole Bradford, Abortion is Communism: A Genealogy of “Abortion Cultur”, Minnesota State University - Mankato, 2015, p. 62.

[2] In “Margaret Sanger,” Classical Storian, 3/18/2021.

[3] Quoted in Leonel Franca, SJ, O divórcio, Editora ABC, Rio de Janeiro, 1937, p. 187.

[4] Pierre Fougeyrollas, Marx, Freud et la révolution totale, Anthropos, Paris, 1972, p. 402.

[5] I take most of these ideas from Boris Fraenkel’s introduction to the Italian edition: Wilhelm Reich, La rivoluzione sessuale, Erre Emme, Roma 1992.

[6] https://www.parti-socialiste.f...

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