There is certainly a parallel between the leadership selection techniques and management styles of the Roman Catholic Church and those of the Soviet Communist Party.
Those who, unlike OPH, have a cutting edge sense of history would first note that the Roman Catholic Church has been selecting its leaders in the current fashion for at least a thousand years since the creation of the College of Cardinals which chooses the pope as the old Soviet Politburo chose the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. The reds imitated us.
The politburo also functioned as does the Roman Curia as a sort of cabinet for the General Secretary with specific executive responsibilities. The reds imitated us.
Generally, popes did not succeed their fathers as had been the case in secular absolute monarchies during much of the thousand years (and notably later than elsewhere in tsarist Russia). We never wanted to have leadership fall into the hands of such hapless and inept rulers as Nicholas II. Neither did the reds. The reds lasted only from 1917 to about 1987 and so it would be too small a sample to know whether they would have developed their own nobility such as the Medici and chosen numerous leaders from such families. The reds imitated us.
The relatively recent phenomenon of universal franchise and popular election of leaders which is becoming, beginning in 1992, a dangerous all too high stakes adventure in our own country is not standing the test of time. To those who think it is, read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights and see whether you still recognize your country as founded by people like Jefferson, Madison, Patrick Henry or even the Federalists like George Washington and John Adams. More importantly, would Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Henry recognize it? Of course not. The Soviet Union was still quite obviously communist at the end. The Roman Catholic Church is still quite obviously the Roman Catholic Church of the ages. Both much more so than the United States is now what it was originally.
The United States must remain a democratic republic of some sort or it will be too obvious that the basic principles have disappeared. In rejection of universal suffrage and democracy, the reds imitated the Roman Catholic Church. For a thousand years and more, no pope has been elected more democratically than the limited and special democracy of conclave in which only cardinal electors vote but in which they also determine the policy of the next papacy before voting. In conclave, the policy is a platform that will be carried out if humanly possible and with the assistance of God, not the usually ignored party platforms in secular democratic systems which basically serve as sucker bait although they are worth fighting over for organizing and propaganda purposes. The politburo behaved in much the same manner. The reds imitated us.
BUT, someone may say, that if the Soviet system collapsed after a mere 70 years, that means that the goddess of reason may yet dance nude on the altars of Rome (which would certainly delight some). Don't hold your breath. The Roman Catholic Church invented its leadership selection system and has used it, in one form or another for a very long time. The soviets recognized the merits of the system for any movement of hard-line beliefs. The reds, totally inexperienced with that system at the outset and making a rare prudential error in underestimating their most sophisticated opponent while emulating its leadership selection and operating methods, exposed their vulnerable vitals to Rome which was much more experienced in the system and its strengths and weaknesses.
No doubt there are also those who would regard this post as opportunistic Monday morning quarterbacking. I refer them to the 1977 novel The Final Conclave of the late master Catholic writer and novelist Fr. Malachi Martin who predicted that the next conclave (1978) would re-establish a policy of operational enmity toward the Kremlin with a purpose of destroying soviet power in response to the evident attempt of the soviets to infiltrate and seize control of the Church. Read the novel before allowing your knee to jerk. The first pope elected in 1978 was Albino Cardinal Luciani, a protege of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, who headed the Holy Office (former Inquisition and now Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). Luciani, elected as John Paul I, was the son of a communist father and Catholic mother. He rejected his father's political commitments and embraced his mother's faith, entering the seminary at 14 and was an absolute warrior against internal corruption of the Church. His very quick death was reasonably suspected to have been assassination by poison by someone on the household staff.
The second 1978 conclave chose JPII, a Polish cardinal who had been an active lay member of the anti-Nazi underground in his youth, went literally underground in Cardinal Sapieha's basement after the murder of his girlfriend by the Gestapo and who served his entire priesthood under the communist dictatorship in Poland which did not undermine his faith or his strength but augmented both. He would not forget Stalin's crack to FDR at Yalta responding to FDR's concerns about Catholic reaction to handing Poland over to Stalin: How many divisions has the pope? He fired the entire papal household staff immediately upon his election as the spinmasters assured us all that John Paul I had died a natural death.
The soviets would not ignore that background and attempted the assassination of John Paul II via Mehmet Ali Agca of the Turkish fascist Grey Wolves, trained and contracted by the Bulgarian KGB, instigated by Soviet KGB director Yuri Andropov and his deputy one Mikhail Gorbachev. JPII was grievously wounded but the attempt failed.
Not all wars are matters of bloodshed on a massive scale or military world wars. The Cold War had violent outbreaks in Korea, Vietnam, and in many "National Liberation" movements and in the brutal application of the knout and the gulag to those who resisted or merely disagreed. In the last analysis, however, at the end of the day, as our liberals are fond of saying, ideas have consequences in the formulation of Richard Weaver.
Ronald Reagan was motivated by the basic tenets of Western Civilization and American freedoms and dedicated to the destruction of the Soviet Union and its system of satellite nations. Margaret Thatcher was likewise motivated (so very rare among British PM's). She was ultimately done in for her courage by the despicable Tory elite. JP II added the moral and intellectual weight of the oldest of Christian faiths and its apparatus, however locally flawed, to surgically destroy the intellectual base of the soviets, even behind the Iron Curtain itself, as Reagan and Thatcher applied secular flamethrowers to the soviet enterprise and its crimes and as Reagan bankrupted the soviets.
Yes, communism survives in the Gramscian form of libertinism without other liberties as a pathetic ideal. The RCC has been there and done that in destroying far more powerful forces than the those who worship sensuality as the sole surviving "freedom." Our best is yet to come and we will not be deterred by AmChurch pygmies and their allies.
What does this mean to those not Catholic? To the Russian Orthodox in Russia and Eastern Europe, your bishops are no longer nominees of the soviet secret police. Your wonderful faith is again free and Rome does not interfere. No price is owed or exacted. We draft no one.
As to Protestants who do fervently follow the reformed path of sola gracia, sole fide, sola Scriptura (by grace alone, by faith alone, by Scripture alone), your steadfast practice of your faith has always played a role in that struggle, whatever our differences.
As to Jews, the destruction of any tyranny, much less the virulently anti-Semitic tyranny of the soviets, is always a benefit and a mitzvah and an intellectual legion of Jews waged magnificent warfare against the soviet beast. We draft no one and in this papacy, have witnessed particular and overdue tribute to our elder brothers and sisters in faith.
As to every other honest person of faith or otherwise, the destruction of the soviet system is a blessing, like a gentle rain falling upon us all.
And, OPH, please continue to post your obsessive insolence and ignorance for all to see. It helps Catholics to focus their attention and organize as it always has. You continually prove to be, in the words of Lenin, a useful idiot. Grow up and get over it!