JP Martín, El Movimiento de Sacerdotes para el Tercer Mundo.

Un debate argentine

p.105

C. Interpretation of MSTM Documents

1st Encounter no public declaration, but well defined in terms of “true socialism” –
MSTM relates itself to an old ideal of Christianity, living in a community of goods
(‘comunidad de bienes’) and moves toward the revolutionary winds blowing through
the continent

2nd Encounter “formal rejection of the ruling capitalist system” and “search for a Latin
American socialism” (basic coincidences)

p.182

A. Catholic-Marxist Dialogue and Economic Analysis

What are the historical relations of the MSTM with Marxist culture?

From 1962, ‘the encounters and dialogues between Christians and Marxists in
Argentina’

‘the pioneers are Conrado Eggers Lan, Juan García Elorrio and the Italian priest
Arturo Paoli.’

1966: Eggers Lan delivers three lectures conferences to student auditorium in

Cordoba organised by priests later part of MSTM

BUT Eggers Lan also became fed up of the Christian Marxist dialogue – felt that only
the Christians took it seriously

FFyL meeting between Catholics, Mugica and Guillermo Tedeschi, and Marxists,
Juan Rosales and Fernando Nadra

p.183

Mugica and Paoli enter MSTM, but the dialogue is already in crisis – in Nueva Era
(and in his 1970 book, see p.36), Juan Rosales criticises Mugica’s position; and
Nadra condemns the “idealist” position of Eggers Lan in 1973
[though the Nadra link is arguably understated here given his influential 1973
Socialismo Nacional]

Moscow line becomes more distanced from foquismo, seeing it as romantic, elitist
and utopian, while the MSTM displays generalised sympathy with the Cuban
Revolution (and to a lesser degree the Chinese Revolution)

‘The path by which the movement [MSTM] arrives at an option for socialism has
more to do with a joint evolution of ideas and experiences of Catholicism of the
sixties than with an intellectual or political rapprochement with Marxism, or with a
specific politico-economic study.

What is the principal gate of access of the men of the movement to the issue of
Marxism? In the first place, the massive presence of the issue in the Catholic
publications of the decade. In the second place, the literature of Marxists that moved
towards the dialogue with Catholicism, like Roger Garaudy, who, moreover, is
expelled from the French Communist Party at the start of 1970. In the third place,
very limitedly, Marxist texts and technical studies. Probably the most widely read in
this category is the edition of the Manuscripts of 1944 [sic] of Karl Marx, in the
ediciones mexicanas from 1962. Rubén Dri, Belisario Tiscornia and other Third
World Priests from the northeast show a greater dedication to specific titles about
Marxism’

Literature disseminated among MSTM of philosophers who sought a radical solution

to the confrontation between Christians and Marxists, ‘affirming that this
confrontation is the fruit of an interested misunderstanding’ – Giulio Girardi, cited or
recommended in Enlace, sustains that society sacralised the forms of class division

p.184

Gramsci, who the MSTM might have shared a concept of historical consciousness,
almost does not appear in MSTM studies/discussions

MSTM scarcely mentions Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia

MSTM doesn’t take part in discussions between a Marxism that considers itself a
science and a Marxism that considers itself a philosophy

From the Frankfurt school, peripheral works of Marcuse and Fromm were read, but
Horkheimer was never discussed

With respect to the main sources of Marxism, the aspects discussed are centred
primarily in its critique of religion as “opium of the people” – Mugica and Dri e.g. both
emphasised that this was a challenge that must be met and not dismissed.

p.185
Total absence of discussion of 18th and 19th century utopian and Christian socialisms