or, "Long live the Glorious Revolution against the
Infernal Feudal-Imperialist Fascist Deluded Running
Dog Lackeys of Lucifer!"
Yes, there are Marxists Up There, and there will be as
long as the achievement of one's Destiny/Fate remains
even slightly independent of one's religious beliefs.
Of course, not all Marxists are atheists, but quite a
few were ... and the Lord knows enough of them were
selflessly getting themselves killed for various
causes in the 20th Century anyway. Apparently, God
doesn't really care too much if you believe in Him,
Her, It or They: do the Right Thing, and you get your
reward.
This has caused some problems for his loyal servants,
naturally.
Now, Heaven is very good at keeping the Pax Dei (and
keeping various ethnic, religious, cultural and social
groups from each others' throats until everybody
learns to behave), due to long, long experience.
However, classical Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyite-(insert
political thinker here) have always been a ... unique
... problem. First off, many of them weren't really
consciously expecting an afterlife. Second, most of
them find the political structure of Heaven to be
archaic, imperialist and (worst of all) annoying
feudal. Third, just about all of them are big on
revolutionary movements.
And let's not even bring up Marc.
However, there are some mitigating factors. First of
all, there's the Pax Dei. This (coupled with the lack
of explosives, firearms and/or other weaponry among
the general population) has made armed revolution
somewhat ... tricky. Then there's the fact that you
can't actually tell a lie in Heaven, which keeps down
the ideology a tad, or possibly a tad and a half.
Also, a Truly dispassionate observer - good thing that
there's a lot of them among the Host - will readily
affirm that the core aims of most communist and/or
socialist movements are worthy. It would be a good
thing if everybody worked together for the common good
and ignored external differences while doing so, and
most angels will cheerfully admit that - even if they
aren't Servitors of Stone. As a result, there are
several Heavenly socialist/communist groups engaged in
helping to fight the War.
Much to everyone's bemusement.
The Red Guards
Actually, these guys found it really, really easy to
acculturate themselves: Michael and David have that
effect on people, especially soldiers secretly worried
that they'll have to spend the rest of eternity
playing on some bourgeois harp while wearing a
ridiculous, archaic halo and wings. Being told that
they can instead get to play with in the mud with
large armored vehicles and larger artillery pieces is
usually deeply reassuring. The lack of political
officers isn't anything to sneeze at, either: there's
more than one former Soviet tank general blessed soul
who can't believe his luck. The head of the Red
Guards (Marshall Zhukov) feels this way, only more so:
it's almost as if this part of Heaven was designed
this way especially for him.
The Red Guards have thus found themselves comfortably
ensconced in the Heavenly Host. Like the rest of the
blessed souls who have volunteered for Armageddon,
they spend most of their time in gloriously difficult
maneuvers in the Glades (which have the most
interesting microclimates, by the way), honing their
already impressive skills and engaging in comradely
solidarity on their generous leave times. The
highlight of the Red Guards' training cycles are the
'annual' war games against the Eagle Brigades (their
main rivals): both Zhukov and his opposite number
(General George Patton, not-so-oddly enough) pull out
all the stops for this one. So far, they're pretty
much running dead even on points.
The Committee for Social Justice
It's an innocuous enough name, but the individuals are
anything but.
You see, socialism in Meso and South America has
always had an odd sort of love-hate relationship with
organized religious groups. There's been a lot of
anticlerical, Marxist movements, but a lot of times
they were spearheaded (or at least figureheaded) by
actual clerics who were able to reconcile the
teachings of Marx and the teachings of Christ. As the
next logical step was to insist that their higher-ups
on the greasy pole of rank do the same, well, let's
just say that there's been a steady stream of radical
priests suddenly arriving in Heaven.
This makes them Laurence's headache ... excuse me,
'responsibility'. It isn't so much the interesting
interpretations of Scripture, or the odd doctrinal
positions. That's old hat to the Archangel of the
Sword: indeed, theological and ethical arguments are
one of his favorite pastimes. It isn't the fact that
they keep a rigorous watch on corruption in the
Church-in-Heaven. They won't find any, but they're
welcome to keep themselves amused by continuing to
look. It isn't even that they universally and
continuously argue for Heaven to take a more active
role in running the Church-on-Earth. Laurence would
love to be able to intervene more openly.
No, the major problem is that, once someone explains
to them about the concept of Saints, every single one
of them invariably volunteers for the honor, usually
in triplicate, with a neatly-typed list of possible
missions attached (complete with the estimated
firepower needed to accomplish each). Experience has
shown that agreeing to this can end ... awkwardly.
Laurence is trying to work around this problem by
allowing the most energetic of these special martyrs
to form a Committee for Social Justice. Their task is
to analyze various regions where the Church is
powerful, determine where a bit of pressure or
influence will do the most good and pass their
analyses along to the Archangel of the Sword. It's
had mixed results: while the data is very useful, the
Committee is notoriously leaky. For some reason, more
than one Committee analysis (complete with
especially-egregious violators of the social compact,
and the aforementioned ordinance estimates) have
unaccountably made their way into the hands of
grinning Servitors of War and/or Divine Fire...
The People's Glorious Revolutionary Celestial
Collective
And, well, these are the odd ones. Technically,
they're in open revolution against the bourgeois,
capitalist, imperialist and feudal authority of
Heaven. They've got barricades, guard posts, posters,
pamphlets, newspapers, a radio station and a lot of
slogans.
What they do not have is an actual Revolution, so much
as a perpetual piece of performance art. When it
comes down to it, every blessed soul in the Collective
knows that the wicked entities that are oppressing
them are neither wicked nor oppressive - in fact, they
all know that Heaven has absolutely no intention of
acting against the group unless they start bothering
people. Furthermore, the alternative to angelic rule
is worse. Much, much worse. The Revolution isn't
going to happen any time soon.
However, there's something to be said about arguing
about the Revolution, debating it, drawing and
sculpting it, writing songs about it - all fueled by
extremely strong triple expresso (Marc may be a
running dog lackey of the capitalist warmongers, but
his coffee connection is excellent). It's something
to do - and, after all, it's Heaven. People here are
entitled to do what pleases them, as long as it
doesn't hurt anybody else. Besides, there's always
the chance that actually living the classless society
up here will provide insights that could be useful
down on Earth. In Heaven, you can experiment with
theory until you get it right. And, of course,
there's the fact that being a revolutionary is often a
good way to meet members of the opposite and/or
desired sex.
Like the Committee, the Collective doesn't have a
leader - that would be elitist. Oh, there are some
blessed souls that people will listen to (or at least
not call names), but no real leaders. Indeed, getting
the entire Collective to agree on anything beyond the
most general concepts is usually an exercise in
futility. Usually: one thing that the Collective
agrees about is that a symbolic act is necessary to
show that the revolutionary movement is still strong.
Plans have been hatched: a silent cabal plots and
schemes. This one will prove the might of the
Collective: they will stealthily infiltrate and claim
a Superior's Cathedral for the Revolution! That will
show the Seraphim Council that they will not be
trifled with and marginalized!
Needless to say, it would be irrelevant to note that
the Cathedral in question is Eli's. Or that it's got
plenty of space, art supplies and good lighting which
nobody's using. Or that its few, lonely caretakers
have been begging someone - anyone - to drop in and
keep them company for about five decades now. Or that
the Archangel of Creation is undoubtedly going to bear
with profound equanimity the embarrassment of having a
horde of fanatical artists 'capturing' his Cathedral.
Or even that Genetrice, Kyriotate director of the
Passion Play, is rumored to have offered to pay all
shipping costs, just so long as she gets some reliable
performers out of the deal...
Back to the INC Mainpage.
Back to the Resources page.
Send mail to the Curator