Pope Pius IX Called It

Yet we did not listen:

On Nov. 9, 1846, Pope Pius IX issued an encyclical titled “Qui Pluribus,” a Latin phrase that translates as “to the many.” Pius was writing during a period of great political and social upheaval. Across the continent, food shortages, unemployment, and rapid industrialization were fueling discontent among peasants and factory workers.

Amid the strife, European newspapers began to talk about communisme (French for communism), an economic system that had bewitched prominent French intellectuals a half-century before. Against this backdrop, Pius issued a stark warning on the economic system, which he described as one of the “fatal errors of our time,” alongside socialism and nihilism.

Of the two writings, Marx’s manifesto is far more famous today. Though Marx died little known and virtually penniless, his ideas were later discovered by a young Russian revolutionary named Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov—better known by his pseudonym, Vladimir Lenin.

Lenin came to power following the October Revolution of 1917, and the Bolshevik leader would make Marx’s ideas the official doctrine of the Soviet Union—and prove Pius eerily prophetic.

 

Now try putting the genie back in the bottle.