Tactics? Whose tactics?
communism was simply a more virulent form of the rational-techincal materialism which dominates western man since about 1600 or earlier. nothing more.
I have no idea what rational-techincal materialism is. Would you please define it?
To be materialistic is a part of man's nature. That wlll not change.
"Tactics? Whose tactics?"
The tactics by which the goal of the application of science to the relief of the human condition could best be brought about; what has been called "the enlightenment project"; the dispute with communism was a dispute within the Western tradition.
"I have no idea what rational-techincal materialism is. Would you please define it?"
Materialism is the belief that that which cannot be measured and manipulated in the physical realm does not exist; "rational-technical" modifies this term, meaning the application of the modern technical sciences, which are wholly materialistic, to the problem of Man. If all problems are physical ones, then all solutions must be physical as well. Communism was simply a more radical expression of this belief.
"To be materialistic is a part of man's nature. That wlll not change."
A part, yes; but modern (post 16000 materialism) denies the existence of the non-material altogether.
what I'm getting at is this: Communism represented a variant of what the West had been building up to for a long time. Commies were'nt democratic, but they thought, as we do, that the problem is that people just don't have enough stuff. we differed on how to get that stuff, that's all.