Does Human Emancipation Require the Abolition of Religion for Marx?
[Written by Connor for a philosophy Masters]
Perceptions on Marxist thought in regards to religion, as with Marxist thought in general, is a convoluted topic. The popular conception of Marx on religious faith is one of grand narratives, often ones that are almost holistically critical and hostile of social structures; religion being no exception to these critical theories. This apparent hostility to religion is most frequently exemplified through his famous description of it as the ‘opium of the people’ found in Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.[1] This is perhaps the most frequently paraphrased statement of German philosopher and economist Karl Marx, yet almost definitely one of the most decontextualised and therefore widely misunderstood quotations. This misunderstanding is owed to a myriad of historical reasons. At the very least an accurate reading of Marx will tell us that, to contrary, Marx’s true opinion on religion is much more complex, nuanced and philosophically underpinned.
Principally, understanding Marx requires engaging with one critical reality – that is the reading of Marx as part of the philosophical tradition and not, as history may tempt us to, within the later historical realms of sociological Marxism or political Communism. This decontextualising of his philosophical contributions is partly due to problems with ‘the reception of Marx’, with many of his papers posthumously released in the 60s and 70s and thus his economically-focused work receiving more significant recognition.[2] This separation of Marx the economist and Marx the philosopher is also vital to contextually unpack this proposed idea of “emancipation”.[3] We might ask another question before answering whether Marx required the abolition of religion for such emancipation. That is what we are to take in understand term religion, and indeed what Marx himself would have understood by it. So, while there are shades of truth in the conception of Marx as anti-religious, the reality is that Marx appears to be somewhat sympathetic to religiosity as a true response to human suffering.
To fully explore Marxist thought we must first provide a contextual backdrop for Marx’s ideas - something which is most accurately done in a philosophical context. Despite that this reading of Marx has been historically neglected, through his ancestral political and sociological connotations, Marx is principally best understood as a philosopher. Even the thinker’s most socio-economic of writings such as Das Kapital, there is still this conceptually underpinning philosophy, notably borrowed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the form of historical materialism.[4] Swain supports this view and reminds us that Marx must be understood under the established philosophical paradigm of Hegel, who’s ‘ideas dominated the philosophical scene’.[5]
Marx can be seen as a philosophical response to Hegel, who in turn offers a critique of Immanuel Kant. In contradistinction to Kant, Hegel felt it was necessary to ‘map social history’ in an attempt to provide an explanation of human alienation; in essence an estrangement to one’s own true nature and expressions of freedom caused by class conflict.[6] Particularly adverse here are the philosophers’ notions of ethics; the former of which is grounded in reason alone, operating in absolutes. This is something which Hegel rejects as failing to reflect the subjective and socially grounded nature of material existence. Yet in the view of his critics Hegel still relied too much on ideas, particularly those pertaining to divinity as the solution to social issues. Not to mention that Hegel, in works such as his Philosophy of Right, underestimated the market of capitalism’s potential to undermine the sittlichkeit or ethical life. Though his reading of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations gave Hegel some concern in this area, it could be argued that in Marx’s view he was expressly optimistic about the State as ‘a transcendent power over society’, believing institutions could remedy the economy and its resulting moral individualism.[7] Hegel seems to suggest that conceptual remedies were enough to prevent alienation, while Marx believed it needed political and social confrontation, if only for his assessment of the historical fact that the state had aligned itself with the market. As Luke Bretherton writes, Marx attempted to confront ‘market-protecting states’ that had made civil society a ‘battleground’ – a reality which Hegel could not anticipate.[8]
In this way of Left Hegelianism, a more radicalised and reactionary succession of Hegel’s ideas, thinkers like Ludwig Feuerbach and Marx principally engaged in social realities, rather than more traditional abstract ideas. For this Left Hegelianism, to which Marx belongs ‘there is a rejection of the transcendent and the abstract and a reaffirmation of the worldly and the concrete’.[9] Taking the idea of freedom and emancipation - this is a property of the social and not the natural world for materialist philosophy, and therefore its existence is contingent upon our practical living, not just cognitive and conceptual thinking. As such, this is an organic, moral or political notion of freedom as supposed to a conceptual one. As Feuerbach would advocate, and Marx would expand upon, the world of ideas is not directly relevant to the human condition. Hunger and alienation are not solved by the mere thoughts of food or emancipation, respectively. Dissatisfied with Hegel’s views on religiosity and its origination, Marx’s considerations took more to Feuerbach in that ‘spiritual expression (was the) result of alienation’ not its solution.[10] For this continuing conversation on freedom, one that continues from a dialogue begun by Kant, this Left Hegelianism is concerned with the freedom from oppression and championed ‘individual freedom’.[11]
Unlike in Feuerbach however, education was not enough to solve alienation and philosophy required an engagement in material, social reality. Feuerbach saw religion simply as the externalisation of consciousness in this way, and God as a projected being, the simple realisation of which would abolish the phenomenon. This is what Feuerbach meant by ‘god is the mirror of man’.[12] For Marx and his contemporary Frederic Engels, not only is our experience foremost grounded in the reality of social living before idealist philosophy, but it must be met with action.[13] Hence Marx’s famous comment that ‘the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways, the point is to change it’.[14] Subsequently we can see why his philosophy is often regarded as a kind of anti-philosophy, as it rejects the prior tradition in favour of a more grounded and proactive thought, even that of other Left Hegelians such as Feuerbach in its social engagement beyond mere conceptualisation.[15]
So, having utterly rejected the pure idealism of Kant and the more material yet positive view of religion by Hegel, Marx’s view on religiosity and its solution even goes as far as to reject Feuerbach. Thus, even deconstructing religious ideas through education was not enough. For Marx, the end of religion lay in tackling the underlying socio-economic roots. According to Marx, the alienating lack of control and freedom that comes from the sudden threats of ‘ruin, pauperism, prostitution (or) death from starvation’ that forms the ‘root of modern religion’.[16] The Marxist notion of emancipation is therefore grounded in this historical conversation on freedom, from Kant to contemporary times, and requires material change. It is not that he necessarily had a fundamental disagreement with anything Feuerbach argued therefore, but nevertheless felt that his solution was insufficient. Tackling religion and other symptoms of class conflict alienation meant a notion of true human emancipation and not a political one that is explicitly dependent upon the state.
When Marx talks of religion he is typically referring to either a broad notion of classical monotheism or more specifically Nineteenth Century Lutheran Protestantism (and perhaps The Church of England). The lexis and notions employed by Marx certainly seem to expressly apply to ‘Judeo-Christian theism’.[17] The philosopher thus projects a ‘fairly static concept of religion’, which Fitzgerald argues as ‘unsurprising’ given the word’s contextual meaning.[18] Indeed, we should note that this is not necessarily a product of any kind of ignorance and that Marx’s critique of religion is part of a wider societal analysis; other notions of religiosity simply weren’t that relevant to his writing. For instance, in works such as his piece in the Cologne based newspaper Rheinischer Beobachter he challenges the state’s association with Christianity, in that the Prussian aristocracy continue to justify the oppression of the proletariat through a distortion of ‘Christian social principles’.[19] We could even say that Marx presents himself almost as a kind of secularist in this way. Therefore, to understand Marx on religion is to understand Nineteenth century conceptions of religious belief.
Indeed, Marx himself speaks very little of Eastern religiosity or any contextually obscure religions that may have conceptual difficulty fitting into more orthodox definitions. Newman comments how ‘Marx neglected the variety of religions and religious experiences’, focusing predominantly on Christianity.[20] Furthermore, Ling comments how Marx’s analysis of Indian religions, mainly that of Hinduism and Islam, are characterised by ‘incompleteness’ and suggests that Max Weber’s accounts could make up where Marx was ‘lacking’.[21] It is suggested that the hierarchical nature of Brahmanism would have given Marx cause to see parallels with Bourgeoisie class conflicts, given more attention. Ling notes how much of Marx’s thought on these religions (perhaps inaccurately in many cases) strays from his classic critique and perhaps this, alongside a lack of ’adequate recourses’, is the reason why we see little substantial commentary from Marx here.[22] As far as Buddhism is concerned, we can see that its practical approach at solving dukkha, the truth of which it or suffering, ‘sets out to solve, is similar to Marxist thought (theory is not sufficient and can only be understood through practice).[23] However, Buddhism’s ultimate response to dukkha is to transcend it rather than engage with its apparently immutable causes; often with in less secularised and classical forms this is done with reference to metaphysical notions such as samsara. As such, it appears that Marx would see Eastern religion in a similar light to Christianity insofar as they are a response to suffering. Ling observes how in the cases whereupon Buddhism shares a relation with the state this gives a greater relevance to Marx’s critique and indeed the multiplicity of ‘various examples of religion outside Europe’.[24]
As previously stated, the understanding of Marxism as an ideology has been influenced by the evolution of Marx’s more political legacy. This historiography distorts the philosophical nature of his position. These historical extensions of Marx’s ideas however, whether addressing religion in particular, can be seen as adverse to Marx’s own ideas and indeed utterly converse to their ideational roots. It is not difficult to imagine why readers of Marx, without the necessary contextual understanding may imagine such a specific conflict, especially with rhetoric alluding to ‘the struggle against religion’.[25] There is also some cause for us to imagine that, as more conventional conflict-theory Marxism would tell us, religion fits neatly into Bourgeoisie attempts to control production, alienate and even supress society. Yet modern Neo-Marxism seems to suggest a stronger degree of agency in this than Marx did. To expand, the character of religion cannot simply be one of purely dictated practice – it is not enough to simply preach faith for it to take hold. This relationship of power must exploit the ethic of submission by compelling based on needs.[26] Some views however, seem to neglect this perceived underlying causality of religion or indeed its positive role in identifying alienation (albeit through illusionary means). The historically mediated, elementary and basic view of Marx’s intellectual ancestry seems to imagine that religion is this forceful and dominating force which pacifies the masses, explicitly in the service of the ‘dominant classes’.[27] Religion is not some kind of brutish oppressive force in itself, but the ‘sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions’ and thus a response to oppression, it does not typically cause it.[28]
In the more extreme ideational branches of this thought we have Communism. We can see this ideology as principally a discontinuity of Marx’s ideas, separated from the ‘philosophical approach’ of Marx himself as an ‘ideology of political action’.[29] This is perhaps best exemplified in his own direct comments when confronted with Stalinist Communism in Russia that ‘if this is Marxism, then all I know is that I am not a Marxist’.[30] Though the concept is based from a notion Marx himself advocated, its exaction as a political ideology seems adverse to Marx’s philosophy, as a kind of alienating state-based capitalism. In contrast, Ian Fraser and Lawrence Wilde note how Marx’s notion of communism encourages human potential, despite the fact it has been distorted.[31] They even go as far as to call the global communism of later decades a ‘travesty of Marx’s vision’.[32] Conversely, Marx’s notion of communism is informed by his conceptions of democracy, freedom and true cooperative human nature.[33]
The philosopher’s revulsion at historical communism is unsurprising given its rejection of heteronomy and alienation. If we take historical examples such as forced collectivisation, which lead to famine in Soviet Russia between 1932-1936, it seems bizarre that Marx would think this a solution to alienation when such conditions are the cause of religion for him. Many writers have drawn comparisons with communist totalitarianism to the detriments of both religion and Capitalism which Marx himself targets. As Martin Krygier aptly puts, ‘Marx’s ideological descendants (…) have created the very thing they hate’.[34] Particularly, in their brutal attempts to rid the world of religion these regimes were as alienating as their forebears. As such the state-atheism of such regimes appears more Bourgeois than its ideological antiphrasis of Capitalism, strangely enough. It would appear that the further back we go in the history of Marxism, a greater conceptual purity is found along with a stronger notion of emancipation. Despite this Marx continues to be associated with this political movement, and as a consequence, inherits its critical views on religion. Therefore, whatever communism may say of religion it can be generally regarded as contrary to Marx’s ideas, despite what the spoon-fed textbook reading of Marx may offer.
Though in contrast, it is true that there could perhaps be a partial case for Marx as a true critic of religion, but even these points are limited in their antagonism. As far as religion’s role in Bourgeoisie-Proletariat relations goes it is capable, in Marx’s view, of a kind of political suppression. This is evidenced by the thinker’s secularist tones in attacking particular instances of the state’s association with religion.[35] Yet this is limited by the fact that, if we look at Marx more deeply, as noted before, this suppression is not a dictated and predicated on socio-economic issues, not to mention this is the attack of a weapon and not its wielder. Such critiques are generally directed at the Prussian aristocracy (or other elites) as is the case in A Contribution to Hegel’s Critique of Right and his Rheinischer Beobachter piece and so we must examine religion as a device and not a concept.
Veritably he also sees some delusional quality to religious claims, with the given analogy of an opiate, insofar as they are metaphysically false. Though this metaphysical rejection is probably best seen against the backdrop of his overall rejection of transcendental reality (in itself a continuing rejection of Kant) and the grounding of his thought within a material social reality. Yet, even without context, the likening of religion to a hallucinogenic drug is not necessarily an overtly hostile sentiment and neither is Marx’s view of religion. Much like drug-taking, religion arises from a need or desire. Marx did not fault those who were compelled by their conditions to engage in these illusions. Indeed, Engels notes how purposeless and fruitless the persecution of religious people would be to the cause of Marxism.[36] That is, his argument is not one that condemns believers of religion in any moral or intellectual sense; religious people are not immoral or unintelligent. In this way, it makes sense for a person to be religious given their constraints and unfulfilled existence. One could say that religion’s untruth is not an intellectual position but deterministically defined by its causal social problems. The metaphysical criticism of religion has more to do a rejection of anything beyond the material, not an invested argument in the claims of Christianity, such as the existence of God. Marx is clearly not interested in the classical debates of whether belief in God is justified or any sort of theological problem. Suffice to say, Marx’s interest in metaphysics only goes as far as a focused engagement with material needs.
So, if we see this interpretation of Marxism as a discontinuity and ultimately an opposition to Marx’s true position on religion, how exactly did Marx perceive religiosity in relation to emancipation? Contrary to popular belief, the view of Marx as a ‘militant’ atheist seems misplaced; particularly given that he cared little for ontological or metaphysical problems with religion.[37] His critique is almost anthropological and thus is incommensurable with most kinds of classical atheism, which traditionally have focused on more abstract arguments of logic and reason.[38] We can say that Marx is therefore not engaging in the philosophy of religion in a conventional sense. This thought has subsequently very little to do with truism or even atheism for that matter. While Marx did see religion as a distraction from alienation, one could say that it was a welcome one; a true and genuine response to the suffering of people. In this way, rather than being a product of the Bourgeoisie it was often one of the Proletariat. And as such, a production that need not be abolished, but one that would cease to exist once true emancipation had been reached. That is to say, for Marx, religion is an ‘sigh’ or outcry of suffering - the elimination of that which causes this suffering, rather than the implicit abolition of the resulting religiosity will end religion.[39]
In Marx’s view, religion in itself is not a worthwhile problem – Any commentary on religion is part of a larger societal critique. The illusionary happiness of religion after all is the demand for real happiness.[40] Ultimately, religious belief creates this misrecognition, expressing ‘real needs and at the same time misconstrues the needs it expresses’.[41] As such, it is simply the consequence of deeper issues, though not necessarily verdantly. In fact, contrary to those who may imagine him as some great champion of antitheism, Marx viewed religion with relative indifference – as a comparative irrelevance in part of his wider theory of alienation.[42] Building on Hegelian commentaries of religion Marx notes how religions status as a manifestation characterises its distraction – we fail to notice that we are its cause and not the other way around. As Marx puts it - ‘man makes religion, religion does not make man’.[43]
There is even an argument to be made that elements of Christianity are, in some sense, Marxist themselves. Marx and Engels even found appreciation for this realty, though ultimately discard its significance for various reasons. This is demonstrative of the nuance in Marx’s philosophical view in contrast to the vexatiously barbed textbook sociological Marx. Many who advocate this Christian Communist view often attempt to offer Christ and Christian community as a symbol of the roots of communism. Here are the examples of ‘communal living, shared property, and rejected wealth (or) private property.[44] This is not only grounded in theological and scriptural examples but the sociological/political reality of religion also. One of the most frequent examples used (if not over-used) to this effect is the Cleansing of the Temple in Mathew (21:12-17), Mark (11:15–19), and Luke (19:45–48) and near the start in the Gospel of John at John (2:13–16). whereupon Jesus expels the merchants and money changers from the Temple, accusing them of turning the Temple into "a den of thieves" through their commercial activities.[45] This in conjunction with Jesus’ claim that ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven’ (Mathew 10:25) seem to form a strong basis for similitude between Marx’s notion of communist and Christian community. Surely there is no reason why elements of both Marx’s view of religion as reactive escapist fantasy, and this perception of religion as inspirational to social emancipation can both be true? Engels provides a response to this line of thought and rejects this view, ultimately arguing that religiously inspired communism is ‘not rooted in real history’, and is thus invalid and illusionary in contrast to the kind of social insight Marx would offer.[46]
This addresses religion’s misrecognition of its causal alienation and this notion of Christian Marxism, claiming that theologically based responses to alienation are conceptually spurious, not being ‘rooted in the analysis of the concrete and real possibilities of revolution placed on the real agenda of history by the social conditions of the time’.[47] That said, both philosophers noted exceptional cases to this general claim of invalidity on behalf of religion to proactively engage with alienation. Engels even commented on the positive contributions to revolution that religiosity could potentially provide, allowing us to perceive utopic outcomes in political reality, even if syncretically mingled with supernatural notions. Turner notes this perceived appraisal of the example of Munzer's revolutionary Christianity yet resides to say that Marx and his contemporaries felt there was ‘no place for religion in a genuine revolution’.[48] Thus, though we may see theological attempts to engage with alienation and advocate emancipation and that these may be along a similar vein to Marx’s own ideas (or indeed alongside them), for Marx these conceptually fall short of providing any real and meaningful value due to their grounding. We could say then that in this narrative religion is a false solution to a real need. As mentioned before, it is incommensurable to think that the supernatural can be applied to the domain of the political. Moreover, that is to make no mention of the fact that it seeks to solve the problem of its own cause.
It is interesting to speculate what Marx may have thought of ironic or fiction-based religions. Indeed, if we expand our definitions of religions we can see that they would not have fit so neatly into Marx’s interpretation of religion and it is curious to imagine how Marx may have felt about it in relation to our question. Of course, popular examples of such religions include Jediism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But surely these cannot be alluded to as religious in any honest or meaningful sense - surely these groups are “just joking” or invalid on account of having been “made up”, and therefore not religious? As Taira proposes, some warrant attention as ‘fiction-based religions’ rather than “invented religions”[49] that simply exist in the realm of “make-believe” and “absurdity”. That is to say that some are fiction… others are fiction based – and there is a conceptual differentiation worth noting here. The purpose of this distinction is that, through satirical commentary and ritualistic behaviours we can ascertain some critique or comment on modern society and human behaviour. Singler writes how Jediism, for instance, raises questions of defining legitimacy.[50] As such, Marx’s criticisms of religion as an illusionary misdirection seem to fall short here – in this sense he may have been given pause. Here it is the obvious and more importantly, conscious use of metaphoric content which seems to deny the escapism and invalidity of Christian socialism in Marx’s religion, no different than utilising literature.[51] This phenomenon is aptly described by Tom Williams, a priest of CAW (Church of All Worlds) in advocating that ‘It is from the oppression of overwhelming consensual reality constructs that the mythology of science fiction/fantasy so frees us. It does this in two ways: one, the most obvious, by offering us alternate reality constructs, and two, by revealing to us the way in which realities are made’.[52] Alternatively, upon further speculation we could argue that Marx may have simply seen such religions as extensions of capitalism as opposed to genuine existential movements which offer socialist commentary. Either way however, they seem to avoid the critique of illusion… as to their causation this is less clear. Of course, such considerations are entirely anachronistic, as Marx would not have understood such concepts nor had the opportunity to witness their manifestation.[53]
Ultimately the question of the abolition of religion in Marx’s philosophy depends on not only how we are to imagine what Marx meant by both emancipation and religion, but whether we regard his dispelling of religion’s underlying causes as abolition of religion itself. If we take a close and contextualised reading, we see that both religiosity and emancipation from alienation are best understood as largely contrary to the naïve meta-narratives and barbed brush-strokes of his intellectual successors. Given his admission that ‘abolishing with religion does not solve its problems’, it seems Marx’s true opinion lies beyond these somewhat clumsy conceptualisations.[54] As Ling reminds us, ‘one would not expect (religion) to survive in a communist society’.[55] Thus, despite the framing of this question, it is not explicit that the abolition of religiosity is required for human emancipation, but rather that emancipation eliminates the need for religion entirely, and as such any critique Marx has to offer religion is part of a far wider one. In Marx’s worldview religion is symptomatic of class conflict and peripheral to the revolution.
[1] Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy Of Right' (Cambridge: CUP Archive, 1977) p. 131
Depending on the translation there are variations of this phrase, with alterations being made – “opiate” or “masses”, respectively.
[2] Dave Webster and Will Large, University of Gloucestershire, YouTube, Marx and Religion, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVQymoY5kyQ&feature=youtu.be [Accessed 24 March 2017] (1:21-1:41)
[3] And indeed, what one may consider the detriments of capitalism or religion as it this underpins how we are to understand Marxism.
[4] Serge L. Levitsky in Karl Marx, Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2009) p. xii
[5] Dan Swain, Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory (London: Bookmarks, 2012 p. 18
[6] Swain, Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory p. 19
[7] Fred Mosley and Tony Smith, Marx’s Capitalism and Hegel’s Logic (Boston: Brill, 2014) p. 17
[8] Luke Bretherton, Resurrecting Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) p.202
[9] John Marmysz, The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress (Andover: Cengage Learning: 2012) p. 262Top of Form
Bottom of Form
[10] Swain, Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory p. 20
[11] Marmysz, The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress p. 262
[12] Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (Massachusetts: Courier Corporation, 2012) p. 54
[13] Given Engels and Marx’ intellectual partnership and collaboration we can regard their views as somewhat synonymous in their worldview... at least as far as the question of religion goes. This is especially true given their frequent co-authorship, research, editing and contributions in one another’s works. Though there has been some attempt at disseminating their partnership as a piece of politicised history this is largely agreed to be over the eventual question of positivism and considerably late in the thinkers’ lives.
[14] Marx, The Marxists Internet Archive, Theses On Feuerbach, 1969 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm [Accessed 29 March 2017]
[15] Etienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx (Brooklyn: Verso, 1995) p. 2
[16] Vlladmir Llich Lenin, Marxism, Socialism and Religion (Broadway: Resistance Books, 2001) p. 91
[17] Timothy Fitzgerald, Religion and Politics in International Relations: The Modern Myth (London: A&C Black, 2011) p. 257
[18] Ibid.
[19] Marx in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, On Religion (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972) p. 73
[20] Bob Jessop, Russell Wheatley, Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought, Volume 8 (Abington: Taylor & Francis, 1999) p. xx
[21] Trevor Ling, Karl Marx and Religion In Europe and India (Hong Kong: The Macmillan Press, LTD., 1980) p. 77-78
[22] Ibid. p. 77
[23] Jay L. Garfield, Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) p. 281
[24] Ling, Karl Marx and Religion In Europe and India p. 31
[25] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' p. 3
[26] D. Turner in Terrell Carver, The Cambridge Companion to Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991) p. 321
[27] John A Perry and Erna K Perry, Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Social Science (London: Routledge, 2012) p. 282
[28] Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right p. 1
[29] Ling, Karl Marx and Religion In Europe and India p. 4
or indeed Marxism as a sociological method.
[30] Karl Marx in Ludomir R. Lozny, Archaeology of the Communist Era: A Political History of Archaeology of the 20th Century (New York: Springer, 2016) p. 92
[31] Ian Fraser, Lawrence Wilde, The Marx Dictionary (London: A&C Black, 2011) p. 2-3
[32] Ibid.
[33] David Held, Models of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006) p. 112-113
[34] Martin Krygier, Marxism and Communism: Posthumous Reflections on Politics, Society, and Law (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994) p. 49
[35] Bukharin and Preobrazhensky, Marxism, Socialism and Religion p. 137
[36] Turner, The Cambridge Companion to Marx p. 322
[37] Webster and Large, Marx and Religion (2:40-2:50)
[38] Ibid. (4:30-6:11)
[39] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right’ p. 3
[40] Ibid.
[41] Turner, The Cambridge Companion to Marx p. 323
[42] Ibid. p. 325
[43] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' p. 1
[44] Tom Lansford, Communism (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2007) p. 25
[45] Jose P. Miranda, Communism in the Bible (Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publisher, 2004) p. 76-77
[46] Turner, The Cambridge Companion to Marx p. 328
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid. p. 329
[49] Teemu Taira, The Category of ‘Invented Religion’: A New Opportunity for Studying Discourses on ‘Religion’ – Culture and Religion, 2013 14(4): 477-493
[50] Beth Singler, ‘”See Mom it is real” The UK census, Jediism and Social Media’, Journal of Religion in Europe, 7 (2014), 150-168
[51] This notion of the invented religion has some natural link to ideas of hyper-realism and postmodernism; the presentation of relativistic and localised truth and the construction of reality and identity politics are integral here. Most people who roleplay fictions, when pressed will, alongside being irritated, admit to a symbolic affiliation to such organisations over a literal one and this has partially always been an element of religions; only fundamentalism insists on explicit literalism.
[52] Tom Williams in Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America (Penguin: London, 2006)
[53] Though it is curious to see how far Marx’s notion of religiosity will bend and still retain its validity within his critique.
[54] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' p. 3
[55] Ling, Marx and Religion In Europe and India p.119
Ling attempts to explain why religion continued however… this can most likely be attributed to the fact that historical ‘communism’ failed to truly escape the detriments of capitalism that Marx described.
Principally, understanding Marx requires engaging with one critical reality – that is the reading of Marx as part of the philosophical tradition and not, as history may tempt us to, within the later historical realms of sociological Marxism or political Communism. This decontextualising of his philosophical contributions is partly due to problems with ‘the reception of Marx’, with many of his papers posthumously released in the 60s and 70s and thus his economically-focused work receiving more significant recognition.[2] This separation of Marx the economist and Marx the philosopher is also vital to contextually unpack this proposed idea of “emancipation”.[3] We might ask another question before answering whether Marx required the abolition of religion for such emancipation. That is what we are to take in understand term religion, and indeed what Marx himself would have understood by it. So, while there are shades of truth in the conception of Marx as anti-religious, the reality is that Marx appears to be somewhat sympathetic to religiosity as a true response to human suffering.
To fully explore Marxist thought we must first provide a contextual backdrop for Marx’s ideas - something which is most accurately done in a philosophical context. Despite that this reading of Marx has been historically neglected, through his ancestral political and sociological connotations, Marx is principally best understood as a philosopher. Even the thinker’s most socio-economic of writings such as Das Kapital, there is still this conceptually underpinning philosophy, notably borrowed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the form of historical materialism.[4] Swain supports this view and reminds us that Marx must be understood under the established philosophical paradigm of Hegel, who’s ‘ideas dominated the philosophical scene’.[5]
Marx can be seen as a philosophical response to Hegel, who in turn offers a critique of Immanuel Kant. In contradistinction to Kant, Hegel felt it was necessary to ‘map social history’ in an attempt to provide an explanation of human alienation; in essence an estrangement to one’s own true nature and expressions of freedom caused by class conflict.[6] Particularly adverse here are the philosophers’ notions of ethics; the former of which is grounded in reason alone, operating in absolutes. This is something which Hegel rejects as failing to reflect the subjective and socially grounded nature of material existence. Yet in the view of his critics Hegel still relied too much on ideas, particularly those pertaining to divinity as the solution to social issues. Not to mention that Hegel, in works such as his Philosophy of Right, underestimated the market of capitalism’s potential to undermine the sittlichkeit or ethical life. Though his reading of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations gave Hegel some concern in this area, it could be argued that in Marx’s view he was expressly optimistic about the State as ‘a transcendent power over society’, believing institutions could remedy the economy and its resulting moral individualism.[7] Hegel seems to suggest that conceptual remedies were enough to prevent alienation, while Marx believed it needed political and social confrontation, if only for his assessment of the historical fact that the state had aligned itself with the market. As Luke Bretherton writes, Marx attempted to confront ‘market-protecting states’ that had made civil society a ‘battleground’ – a reality which Hegel could not anticipate.[8]
In this way of Left Hegelianism, a more radicalised and reactionary succession of Hegel’s ideas, thinkers like Ludwig Feuerbach and Marx principally engaged in social realities, rather than more traditional abstract ideas. For this Left Hegelianism, to which Marx belongs ‘there is a rejection of the transcendent and the abstract and a reaffirmation of the worldly and the concrete’.[9] Taking the idea of freedom and emancipation - this is a property of the social and not the natural world for materialist philosophy, and therefore its existence is contingent upon our practical living, not just cognitive and conceptual thinking. As such, this is an organic, moral or political notion of freedom as supposed to a conceptual one. As Feuerbach would advocate, and Marx would expand upon, the world of ideas is not directly relevant to the human condition. Hunger and alienation are not solved by the mere thoughts of food or emancipation, respectively. Dissatisfied with Hegel’s views on religiosity and its origination, Marx’s considerations took more to Feuerbach in that ‘spiritual expression (was the) result of alienation’ not its solution.[10] For this continuing conversation on freedom, one that continues from a dialogue begun by Kant, this Left Hegelianism is concerned with the freedom from oppression and championed ‘individual freedom’.[11]
Unlike in Feuerbach however, education was not enough to solve alienation and philosophy required an engagement in material, social reality. Feuerbach saw religion simply as the externalisation of consciousness in this way, and God as a projected being, the simple realisation of which would abolish the phenomenon. This is what Feuerbach meant by ‘god is the mirror of man’.[12] For Marx and his contemporary Frederic Engels, not only is our experience foremost grounded in the reality of social living before idealist philosophy, but it must be met with action.[13] Hence Marx’s famous comment that ‘the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways, the point is to change it’.[14] Subsequently we can see why his philosophy is often regarded as a kind of anti-philosophy, as it rejects the prior tradition in favour of a more grounded and proactive thought, even that of other Left Hegelians such as Feuerbach in its social engagement beyond mere conceptualisation.[15]
So, having utterly rejected the pure idealism of Kant and the more material yet positive view of religion by Hegel, Marx’s view on religiosity and its solution even goes as far as to reject Feuerbach. Thus, even deconstructing religious ideas through education was not enough. For Marx, the end of religion lay in tackling the underlying socio-economic roots. According to Marx, the alienating lack of control and freedom that comes from the sudden threats of ‘ruin, pauperism, prostitution (or) death from starvation’ that forms the ‘root of modern religion’.[16] The Marxist notion of emancipation is therefore grounded in this historical conversation on freedom, from Kant to contemporary times, and requires material change. It is not that he necessarily had a fundamental disagreement with anything Feuerbach argued therefore, but nevertheless felt that his solution was insufficient. Tackling religion and other symptoms of class conflict alienation meant a notion of true human emancipation and not a political one that is explicitly dependent upon the state.
When Marx talks of religion he is typically referring to either a broad notion of classical monotheism or more specifically Nineteenth Century Lutheran Protestantism (and perhaps The Church of England). The lexis and notions employed by Marx certainly seem to expressly apply to ‘Judeo-Christian theism’.[17] The philosopher thus projects a ‘fairly static concept of religion’, which Fitzgerald argues as ‘unsurprising’ given the word’s contextual meaning.[18] Indeed, we should note that this is not necessarily a product of any kind of ignorance and that Marx’s critique of religion is part of a wider societal analysis; other notions of religiosity simply weren’t that relevant to his writing. For instance, in works such as his piece in the Cologne based newspaper Rheinischer Beobachter he challenges the state’s association with Christianity, in that the Prussian aristocracy continue to justify the oppression of the proletariat through a distortion of ‘Christian social principles’.[19] We could even say that Marx presents himself almost as a kind of secularist in this way. Therefore, to understand Marx on religion is to understand Nineteenth century conceptions of religious belief.
Indeed, Marx himself speaks very little of Eastern religiosity or any contextually obscure religions that may have conceptual difficulty fitting into more orthodox definitions. Newman comments how ‘Marx neglected the variety of religions and religious experiences’, focusing predominantly on Christianity.[20] Furthermore, Ling comments how Marx’s analysis of Indian religions, mainly that of Hinduism and Islam, are characterised by ‘incompleteness’ and suggests that Max Weber’s accounts could make up where Marx was ‘lacking’.[21] It is suggested that the hierarchical nature of Brahmanism would have given Marx cause to see parallels with Bourgeoisie class conflicts, given more attention. Ling notes how much of Marx’s thought on these religions (perhaps inaccurately in many cases) strays from his classic critique and perhaps this, alongside a lack of ’adequate recourses’, is the reason why we see little substantial commentary from Marx here.[22] As far as Buddhism is concerned, we can see that its practical approach at solving dukkha, the truth of which it or suffering, ‘sets out to solve, is similar to Marxist thought (theory is not sufficient and can only be understood through practice).[23] However, Buddhism’s ultimate response to dukkha is to transcend it rather than engage with its apparently immutable causes; often with in less secularised and classical forms this is done with reference to metaphysical notions such as samsara. As such, it appears that Marx would see Eastern religion in a similar light to Christianity insofar as they are a response to suffering. Ling observes how in the cases whereupon Buddhism shares a relation with the state this gives a greater relevance to Marx’s critique and indeed the multiplicity of ‘various examples of religion outside Europe’.[24]
As previously stated, the understanding of Marxism as an ideology has been influenced by the evolution of Marx’s more political legacy. This historiography distorts the philosophical nature of his position. These historical extensions of Marx’s ideas however, whether addressing religion in particular, can be seen as adverse to Marx’s own ideas and indeed utterly converse to their ideational roots. It is not difficult to imagine why readers of Marx, without the necessary contextual understanding may imagine such a specific conflict, especially with rhetoric alluding to ‘the struggle against religion’.[25] There is also some cause for us to imagine that, as more conventional conflict-theory Marxism would tell us, religion fits neatly into Bourgeoisie attempts to control production, alienate and even supress society. Yet modern Neo-Marxism seems to suggest a stronger degree of agency in this than Marx did. To expand, the character of religion cannot simply be one of purely dictated practice – it is not enough to simply preach faith for it to take hold. This relationship of power must exploit the ethic of submission by compelling based on needs.[26] Some views however, seem to neglect this perceived underlying causality of religion or indeed its positive role in identifying alienation (albeit through illusionary means). The historically mediated, elementary and basic view of Marx’s intellectual ancestry seems to imagine that religion is this forceful and dominating force which pacifies the masses, explicitly in the service of the ‘dominant classes’.[27] Religion is not some kind of brutish oppressive force in itself, but the ‘sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions’ and thus a response to oppression, it does not typically cause it.[28]
In the more extreme ideational branches of this thought we have Communism. We can see this ideology as principally a discontinuity of Marx’s ideas, separated from the ‘philosophical approach’ of Marx himself as an ‘ideology of political action’.[29] This is perhaps best exemplified in his own direct comments when confronted with Stalinist Communism in Russia that ‘if this is Marxism, then all I know is that I am not a Marxist’.[30] Though the concept is based from a notion Marx himself advocated, its exaction as a political ideology seems adverse to Marx’s philosophy, as a kind of alienating state-based capitalism. In contrast, Ian Fraser and Lawrence Wilde note how Marx’s notion of communism encourages human potential, despite the fact it has been distorted.[31] They even go as far as to call the global communism of later decades a ‘travesty of Marx’s vision’.[32] Conversely, Marx’s notion of communism is informed by his conceptions of democracy, freedom and true cooperative human nature.[33]
The philosopher’s revulsion at historical communism is unsurprising given its rejection of heteronomy and alienation. If we take historical examples such as forced collectivisation, which lead to famine in Soviet Russia between 1932-1936, it seems bizarre that Marx would think this a solution to alienation when such conditions are the cause of religion for him. Many writers have drawn comparisons with communist totalitarianism to the detriments of both religion and Capitalism which Marx himself targets. As Martin Krygier aptly puts, ‘Marx’s ideological descendants (…) have created the very thing they hate’.[34] Particularly, in their brutal attempts to rid the world of religion these regimes were as alienating as their forebears. As such the state-atheism of such regimes appears more Bourgeois than its ideological antiphrasis of Capitalism, strangely enough. It would appear that the further back we go in the history of Marxism, a greater conceptual purity is found along with a stronger notion of emancipation. Despite this Marx continues to be associated with this political movement, and as a consequence, inherits its critical views on religion. Therefore, whatever communism may say of religion it can be generally regarded as contrary to Marx’s ideas, despite what the spoon-fed textbook reading of Marx may offer.
Though in contrast, it is true that there could perhaps be a partial case for Marx as a true critic of religion, but even these points are limited in their antagonism. As far as religion’s role in Bourgeoisie-Proletariat relations goes it is capable, in Marx’s view, of a kind of political suppression. This is evidenced by the thinker’s secularist tones in attacking particular instances of the state’s association with religion.[35] Yet this is limited by the fact that, if we look at Marx more deeply, as noted before, this suppression is not a dictated and predicated on socio-economic issues, not to mention this is the attack of a weapon and not its wielder. Such critiques are generally directed at the Prussian aristocracy (or other elites) as is the case in A Contribution to Hegel’s Critique of Right and his Rheinischer Beobachter piece and so we must examine religion as a device and not a concept.
Veritably he also sees some delusional quality to religious claims, with the given analogy of an opiate, insofar as they are metaphysically false. Though this metaphysical rejection is probably best seen against the backdrop of his overall rejection of transcendental reality (in itself a continuing rejection of Kant) and the grounding of his thought within a material social reality. Yet, even without context, the likening of religion to a hallucinogenic drug is not necessarily an overtly hostile sentiment and neither is Marx’s view of religion. Much like drug-taking, religion arises from a need or desire. Marx did not fault those who were compelled by their conditions to engage in these illusions. Indeed, Engels notes how purposeless and fruitless the persecution of religious people would be to the cause of Marxism.[36] That is, his argument is not one that condemns believers of religion in any moral or intellectual sense; religious people are not immoral or unintelligent. In this way, it makes sense for a person to be religious given their constraints and unfulfilled existence. One could say that religion’s untruth is not an intellectual position but deterministically defined by its causal social problems. The metaphysical criticism of religion has more to do a rejection of anything beyond the material, not an invested argument in the claims of Christianity, such as the existence of God. Marx is clearly not interested in the classical debates of whether belief in God is justified or any sort of theological problem. Suffice to say, Marx’s interest in metaphysics only goes as far as a focused engagement with material needs.
So, if we see this interpretation of Marxism as a discontinuity and ultimately an opposition to Marx’s true position on religion, how exactly did Marx perceive religiosity in relation to emancipation? Contrary to popular belief, the view of Marx as a ‘militant’ atheist seems misplaced; particularly given that he cared little for ontological or metaphysical problems with religion.[37] His critique is almost anthropological and thus is incommensurable with most kinds of classical atheism, which traditionally have focused on more abstract arguments of logic and reason.[38] We can say that Marx is therefore not engaging in the philosophy of religion in a conventional sense. This thought has subsequently very little to do with truism or even atheism for that matter. While Marx did see religion as a distraction from alienation, one could say that it was a welcome one; a true and genuine response to the suffering of people. In this way, rather than being a product of the Bourgeoisie it was often one of the Proletariat. And as such, a production that need not be abolished, but one that would cease to exist once true emancipation had been reached. That is to say, for Marx, religion is an ‘sigh’ or outcry of suffering - the elimination of that which causes this suffering, rather than the implicit abolition of the resulting religiosity will end religion.[39]
In Marx’s view, religion in itself is not a worthwhile problem – Any commentary on religion is part of a larger societal critique. The illusionary happiness of religion after all is the demand for real happiness.[40] Ultimately, religious belief creates this misrecognition, expressing ‘real needs and at the same time misconstrues the needs it expresses’.[41] As such, it is simply the consequence of deeper issues, though not necessarily verdantly. In fact, contrary to those who may imagine him as some great champion of antitheism, Marx viewed religion with relative indifference – as a comparative irrelevance in part of his wider theory of alienation.[42] Building on Hegelian commentaries of religion Marx notes how religions status as a manifestation characterises its distraction – we fail to notice that we are its cause and not the other way around. As Marx puts it - ‘man makes religion, religion does not make man’.[43]
There is even an argument to be made that elements of Christianity are, in some sense, Marxist themselves. Marx and Engels even found appreciation for this realty, though ultimately discard its significance for various reasons. This is demonstrative of the nuance in Marx’s philosophical view in contrast to the vexatiously barbed textbook sociological Marx. Many who advocate this Christian Communist view often attempt to offer Christ and Christian community as a symbol of the roots of communism. Here are the examples of ‘communal living, shared property, and rejected wealth (or) private property.[44] This is not only grounded in theological and scriptural examples but the sociological/political reality of religion also. One of the most frequent examples used (if not over-used) to this effect is the Cleansing of the Temple in Mathew (21:12-17), Mark (11:15–19), and Luke (19:45–48) and near the start in the Gospel of John at John (2:13–16). whereupon Jesus expels the merchants and money changers from the Temple, accusing them of turning the Temple into "a den of thieves" through their commercial activities.[45] This in conjunction with Jesus’ claim that ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven’ (Mathew 10:25) seem to form a strong basis for similitude between Marx’s notion of communist and Christian community. Surely there is no reason why elements of both Marx’s view of religion as reactive escapist fantasy, and this perception of religion as inspirational to social emancipation can both be true? Engels provides a response to this line of thought and rejects this view, ultimately arguing that religiously inspired communism is ‘not rooted in real history’, and is thus invalid and illusionary in contrast to the kind of social insight Marx would offer.[46]
This addresses religion’s misrecognition of its causal alienation and this notion of Christian Marxism, claiming that theologically based responses to alienation are conceptually spurious, not being ‘rooted in the analysis of the concrete and real possibilities of revolution placed on the real agenda of history by the social conditions of the time’.[47] That said, both philosophers noted exceptional cases to this general claim of invalidity on behalf of religion to proactively engage with alienation. Engels even commented on the positive contributions to revolution that religiosity could potentially provide, allowing us to perceive utopic outcomes in political reality, even if syncretically mingled with supernatural notions. Turner notes this perceived appraisal of the example of Munzer's revolutionary Christianity yet resides to say that Marx and his contemporaries felt there was ‘no place for religion in a genuine revolution’.[48] Thus, though we may see theological attempts to engage with alienation and advocate emancipation and that these may be along a similar vein to Marx’s own ideas (or indeed alongside them), for Marx these conceptually fall short of providing any real and meaningful value due to their grounding. We could say then that in this narrative religion is a false solution to a real need. As mentioned before, it is incommensurable to think that the supernatural can be applied to the domain of the political. Moreover, that is to make no mention of the fact that it seeks to solve the problem of its own cause.
It is interesting to speculate what Marx may have thought of ironic or fiction-based religions. Indeed, if we expand our definitions of religions we can see that they would not have fit so neatly into Marx’s interpretation of religion and it is curious to imagine how Marx may have felt about it in relation to our question. Of course, popular examples of such religions include Jediism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But surely these cannot be alluded to as religious in any honest or meaningful sense - surely these groups are “just joking” or invalid on account of having been “made up”, and therefore not religious? As Taira proposes, some warrant attention as ‘fiction-based religions’ rather than “invented religions”[49] that simply exist in the realm of “make-believe” and “absurdity”. That is to say that some are fiction… others are fiction based – and there is a conceptual differentiation worth noting here. The purpose of this distinction is that, through satirical commentary and ritualistic behaviours we can ascertain some critique or comment on modern society and human behaviour. Singler writes how Jediism, for instance, raises questions of defining legitimacy.[50] As such, Marx’s criticisms of religion as an illusionary misdirection seem to fall short here – in this sense he may have been given pause. Here it is the obvious and more importantly, conscious use of metaphoric content which seems to deny the escapism and invalidity of Christian socialism in Marx’s religion, no different than utilising literature.[51] This phenomenon is aptly described by Tom Williams, a priest of CAW (Church of All Worlds) in advocating that ‘It is from the oppression of overwhelming consensual reality constructs that the mythology of science fiction/fantasy so frees us. It does this in two ways: one, the most obvious, by offering us alternate reality constructs, and two, by revealing to us the way in which realities are made’.[52] Alternatively, upon further speculation we could argue that Marx may have simply seen such religions as extensions of capitalism as opposed to genuine existential movements which offer socialist commentary. Either way however, they seem to avoid the critique of illusion… as to their causation this is less clear. Of course, such considerations are entirely anachronistic, as Marx would not have understood such concepts nor had the opportunity to witness their manifestation.[53]
Ultimately the question of the abolition of religion in Marx’s philosophy depends on not only how we are to imagine what Marx meant by both emancipation and religion, but whether we regard his dispelling of religion’s underlying causes as abolition of religion itself. If we take a close and contextualised reading, we see that both religiosity and emancipation from alienation are best understood as largely contrary to the naïve meta-narratives and barbed brush-strokes of his intellectual successors. Given his admission that ‘abolishing with religion does not solve its problems’, it seems Marx’s true opinion lies beyond these somewhat clumsy conceptualisations.[54] As Ling reminds us, ‘one would not expect (religion) to survive in a communist society’.[55] Thus, despite the framing of this question, it is not explicit that the abolition of religiosity is required for human emancipation, but rather that emancipation eliminates the need for religion entirely, and as such any critique Marx has to offer religion is part of a far wider one. In Marx’s worldview religion is symptomatic of class conflict and peripheral to the revolution.
[1] Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy Of Right' (Cambridge: CUP Archive, 1977) p. 131
Depending on the translation there are variations of this phrase, with alterations being made – “opiate” or “masses”, respectively.
[2] Dave Webster and Will Large, University of Gloucestershire, YouTube, Marx and Religion, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVQymoY5kyQ&feature=youtu.be [Accessed 24 March 2017] (1:21-1:41)
[3] And indeed, what one may consider the detriments of capitalism or religion as it this underpins how we are to understand Marxism.
[4] Serge L. Levitsky in Karl Marx, Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2009) p. xii
[5] Dan Swain, Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory (London: Bookmarks, 2012 p. 18
[6] Swain, Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory p. 19
[7] Fred Mosley and Tony Smith, Marx’s Capitalism and Hegel’s Logic (Boston: Brill, 2014) p. 17
[8] Luke Bretherton, Resurrecting Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) p.202
[9] John Marmysz, The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress (Andover: Cengage Learning: 2012) p. 262Top of Form
Bottom of Form
[10] Swain, Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory p. 20
[11] Marmysz, The Path of Philosophy: Truth, Wonder, and Distress p. 262
[12] Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (Massachusetts: Courier Corporation, 2012) p. 54
[13] Given Engels and Marx’ intellectual partnership and collaboration we can regard their views as somewhat synonymous in their worldview... at least as far as the question of religion goes. This is especially true given their frequent co-authorship, research, editing and contributions in one another’s works. Though there has been some attempt at disseminating their partnership as a piece of politicised history this is largely agreed to be over the eventual question of positivism and considerably late in the thinkers’ lives.
[14] Marx, The Marxists Internet Archive, Theses On Feuerbach, 1969 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm [Accessed 29 March 2017]
[15] Etienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx (Brooklyn: Verso, 1995) p. 2
[16] Vlladmir Llich Lenin, Marxism, Socialism and Religion (Broadway: Resistance Books, 2001) p. 91
[17] Timothy Fitzgerald, Religion and Politics in International Relations: The Modern Myth (London: A&C Black, 2011) p. 257
[18] Ibid.
[19] Marx in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, On Religion (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972) p. 73
[20] Bob Jessop, Russell Wheatley, Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought, Volume 8 (Abington: Taylor & Francis, 1999) p. xx
[21] Trevor Ling, Karl Marx and Religion In Europe and India (Hong Kong: The Macmillan Press, LTD., 1980) p. 77-78
[22] Ibid. p. 77
[23] Jay L. Garfield, Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) p. 281
[24] Ling, Karl Marx and Religion In Europe and India p. 31
[25] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' p. 3
[26] D. Turner in Terrell Carver, The Cambridge Companion to Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991) p. 321
[27] John A Perry and Erna K Perry, Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Social Science (London: Routledge, 2012) p. 282
[28] Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right p. 1
[29] Ling, Karl Marx and Religion In Europe and India p. 4
or indeed Marxism as a sociological method.
[30] Karl Marx in Ludomir R. Lozny, Archaeology of the Communist Era: A Political History of Archaeology of the 20th Century (New York: Springer, 2016) p. 92
[31] Ian Fraser, Lawrence Wilde, The Marx Dictionary (London: A&C Black, 2011) p. 2-3
[32] Ibid.
[33] David Held, Models of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006) p. 112-113
[34] Martin Krygier, Marxism and Communism: Posthumous Reflections on Politics, Society, and Law (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994) p. 49
[35] Bukharin and Preobrazhensky, Marxism, Socialism and Religion p. 137
[36] Turner, The Cambridge Companion to Marx p. 322
[37] Webster and Large, Marx and Religion (2:40-2:50)
[38] Ibid. (4:30-6:11)
[39] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right’ p. 3
[40] Ibid.
[41] Turner, The Cambridge Companion to Marx p. 323
[42] Ibid. p. 325
[43] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' p. 1
[44] Tom Lansford, Communism (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2007) p. 25
[45] Jose P. Miranda, Communism in the Bible (Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publisher, 2004) p. 76-77
[46] Turner, The Cambridge Companion to Marx p. 328
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid. p. 329
[49] Teemu Taira, The Category of ‘Invented Religion’: A New Opportunity for Studying Discourses on ‘Religion’ – Culture and Religion, 2013 14(4): 477-493
[50] Beth Singler, ‘”See Mom it is real” The UK census, Jediism and Social Media’, Journal of Religion in Europe, 7 (2014), 150-168
[51] This notion of the invented religion has some natural link to ideas of hyper-realism and postmodernism; the presentation of relativistic and localised truth and the construction of reality and identity politics are integral here. Most people who roleplay fictions, when pressed will, alongside being irritated, admit to a symbolic affiliation to such organisations over a literal one and this has partially always been an element of religions; only fundamentalism insists on explicit literalism.
[52] Tom Williams in Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America (Penguin: London, 2006)
[53] Though it is curious to see how far Marx’s notion of religiosity will bend and still retain its validity within his critique.
[54] Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' p. 3
[55] Ling, Marx and Religion In Europe and India p.119
Ling attempts to explain why religion continued however… this can most likely be attributed to the fact that historical ‘communism’ failed to truly escape the detriments of capitalism that Marx described.