Philosophical Collaboration of Social Christians and Communists during the Cold War
Toby Terrar
Abstract
This article, Philosophical Collaboration of Social Christians and Communists During the Cold War, examines the intellectual and political tradition of “social Christians” who sought principled cooperation with communist movements on the basis of shared commitments to justice, materialism, and human emancipation. Centering on the work of Father Jean Boulier — known as the “Red Priest” — Toby Terrar traces how a current within Catholic thought embraced a Thomistic, dialectical, and materially grounded philosophy compatible with Marxism–Leninism. The article explores how these Christian activists, clergy, and scholars challenged both the Church’s neo-Thomist idealism and Western anti-communism, advocating instead a return to the materialist foundations of Thomas Aquinas and a recognition of common cause with socialist movements. Terrar demonstrates that this collaboration was not merely theoretical: social Christians ministered to communist communities, engaged in resistance against fascism, and contributed to socialist societies in Eastern Europe through movements such as PAX in Poland and the Association of Priests for Peace in Hungary. Breaking from official Vatican positions, they argued that dialectical materialism and Christian humanism could be mutually enriching rather than antagonistic. By retrieving this largely overlooked history, the article challenges dominant Cold War narratives that cast Christianity and communism as inherently opposed, offering instead a model of cross-tradition philosophical synthesis. This study expands existing scholarship by documenting a concrete historical case of Christian–Marxist collaboration grounded in shared materialist ethics and revolutionary commitment.
Keywords
social Christianity, Thomism and Marxism, dialectical materialism, Christian–Communist collaboration, Cold War theology, Toby Terrar
