Ok a bit crappy now, but i think it still raises some valid points as to the religious tendency of many marxists.
This considers the question as to whether Marxism can be defined as a religion and I will argue in the course of this that this is the case. I will begin this by demonstrating that Marxism and its believers (Marxists) along with substantive and functional definitions of religion can be fitted into Ninian Smart’s seven dimensional model (S.D.M). I will then go on to acknowledge the counter-argument to that claim, by acknowledging the limitations of the S.D.M. It will then become necessary to go on to show the parallels between Marxism and Judeo-Christianity to the point where Marxism can be viewed as an offshoot from these doctrines and this, it is hoped, will prove that there is in fact a substantial basis to my claim.
Before continuing on however it should be noted that when I argue that Marxism is a religion I am not merely referring to the writings of Marx, I include in this discussion Marxists also, this is because it is more meaningful to talk of a religion being an interaction between its doctrine and its believers, e.g. the tendency of believers to form institutions around a teaching, to split into sects regarding different interpretations of the doctrine, and the sense of identity and purpose adherents of religion have. This of course raises problems since one could come with the claim that since we are discussing Marxists as well as Marxism then it is meaningless to talk of Marxism being a religion since we are dealing with Marxists rather than the writings of Marx. However, it could be countered that it is a part of Marx’s writings that those who are conscious of History’s development should form a communist party i.e. a group of people (an institution) as a means of educating the emerging proletariat of their historic role1. This therefore creates the very kind of vehicle which gives rise to the interaction between believers and doctrine that constitutes a religious character. This interaction is therefore intended by the doctrine of Marxism which thus gives the writer legitimacy in analysing the features of Marxists to gain an insight into the religious character of Marxism. Sometimes I will use the word Marxism when referring to something concerning its believers – this is merely for the sake of convenience.
It is ‘common knowledge’ that Marxists have a hostile opinion towards religion, but it has also been suggested that Marxism shares many features with religions, particularly of the Judea-Christian variety. Marxists would deny this saying that this is nonsense and it is easy to distinguish Marxism, a scientific discipline from the ‘superstitious baloney’ that is religion. However, when one actually attempts to define what a religion is, given the complexity of varying beliefs and practices within different religions, it soon becomes clear that it is difficult to draw a line between Marxism and religion. To see if the claim that Marxism can be defined along religious lines is justified, I will now discuss how religion can be defined by scholars to see if Marxism stands apart from religious doctrine, or if it is a religious doctrine.
Two main approaches to define religions by scholars have been proposed: substantive and functional. Substantive definitions pick out doctrinal and practitional characteristics of religions. An example of a substantive definition is ‘all religions have a supreme deity.’ Unfortunately substantive definitions can run into problems given the wide-ranging doctrinal differences between traditions. For example a common definition of religion would perhaps mention that religions have a supreme God i.e. YHVH in Judaism, Brahma in Hinduism, and Allah in Islam. However this definition would automatically exclude many Buddhists who do not believe in a Supreme Deity. Perhaps one could put forth a substantive definition that religions believe in some kind of afterlife, whereas Marxism does not, as a means of defining religion apart from Marxism but again many Taoists do not subscribe to a belief in the afterlife. So, if one defines Taoism as a religion (which some do – others define it as a philosophy) then the question of Marxism being a religion continues to be open. Functional definitions look to what religions do for its adherents. For example, a functional definition may say that religion gives someone a sense of belonging to a particular group which has a great collective purpose and thus gives the individual meaning and purpose for his/her life. However, whilst someone may feel part of a great movement in the course of humanity’s history towards a great end, by being a member of the Catholic Church, they will also get that same feeling being a communist party member or perhaps even an avid football supporter. This is famously the problem of functional definitions they can be inclusive of almost anything.
A famous way of attempting to avoid the pitfalls of substantive and functional approaches to defining religion is Ninian Smart’s seven dimensional model. It looks to a combination of seven substantive and functional definitions called dimensions, and if a tradition meets the criterion of most of these dimensions they could be said to be a religion. The seven dimensions are:
The practical and ritual dimension – for example the catholic mass.
The experiential and emotionaldimension – e.g. mystical experience, awe etc
The narrative or mythic dimension – e.g. The Jewish history (both historical and allegorical interwoven in the Torah)
The doctrinal and philosophical dimension – e.g. doctrine of vicarious atonement, the trinity, etc.
The ethical and legal dimension – e.g. Shariah, the five Buddhist precepts, etc.
The social and institutional dimension – e.g. church, ummah, sangha, etc.
The material dimension – churches, idols, the Ganges, etc.
Smart reminds us that not every single dimension needs to be accounted for in a tradition to grant it religion status – just most. “Naturally there are religious movements or manifestations where one or other of the dimensions are so weak as to be virtually absent…. Buddhist modernists, concentrating on meditation, ethics, and philosophy, pay scant regard to the narrative dimension of Buddhism” 2
Marxism conforms to most of the dimensions within this model of definition. It has its doctrinal dimension i.e. one has to believe in the basic ‘scientific’ principle of dialectical materialism. It has a ritualistic dimension i.e. May Day, speeches at ‘religious festivals’ called protests. In the emotional dimension it holds emotions of “internationalism” and “revolutionary commitment” (Smart). Within the ethical dimension there is the notion of solidarity with the oppressed. The institutional dimension could be identified as the ‘party’. The artistic dimension encompasses “heroic music” (Smart) and statues and massive paintings of Communist leaders. A course of history dependent on dialectical laws ( a sacred history akin to the sacred history represented in the Torah), could be seen as part of the mythic dimension.
It could be argued that even using the seven dimensional model, trivial things that are clearly not what we would commonly understand to be religions (such as supporting a football team) can be interpreted as being a religion. I would accept that claim. It seems clear therefore, that this model has the facility to indicate that something under scrutiny may be religious. However, the model still has to have something built on top of it to prove the thesis that Marxism is a religion. The substance of my case has to rest, therefore, on the thesis that Marxism bears similarity to the abrahamic traditions. It indeed rests on the assumption that Marxism has inherited a lot of its teaching from the preceding Judeo-Christian teachings.
Marxism advances an idea that History is destined to go towards an order wherein injustice, inequality, etc will cease to be. This almost mirrors entirely Christian, Islamic and Judaic teachings of the messianic era, wherein this world of evil, sin, injustice and exploitation will end with the coming of the Messiah, or the second coming of Christ, or the Rise of Imam Mahdi. The above mentioned Marxist view of history, to a Marxist, will have the same comforting effect as the equivalent messianic teaching would to believers in the above religious traditions. One can counter this claim by saying that this is merely a coincidence that a scientific and secular subject parallels abrahamic teaching. However, if one looks at all the prevailing secular philosophies nowadays, one will not see the same confidence in the direction of history – it is only in religions (especially the abrahamic ones) where you see this occurring.
Marxism also bears similarity to the Judeo-Christian traditions in the sense that it proscribes practice to go with its philosophy. The programme offered in the communist manifesto as a means of uplifting society to a genuinely egalitarian communist one, has been justifiably compared to the beatitudes of Christ by George Patterson in the book Christianity and Marxism3. Its teaching that the bourgeois communist intellectuals of the Party should serve the masses parallels Christ’s exhortation to his disciples, and by extension the church, to serve the needs of the community.
The way that different creeds and sects have arisen since Marx’s texts were penned e.g. Marxist – Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Militant Labour, etc. shows that just as it can be observed that people have come up with different interpretations of a doctrine, within religions, for the different needs for their community, so the same can be argued for Marxism.
Another tendency where Marxism bears similarity to Christianity is the need its adherents have for proselytising its doctrine. For example, the Stop the War coalition which organised the marches against the Iraq war was a coalition between the SWP and the Muslim Association of Britain. During these protests, there were stalls with books critiquing ‘Islamism’ from a Marxist standpoint by Chris Harman (an SWP intellectual). Clearly Marxists of the SWP sect saw the Iraq war and the resultant growing political consciousness amongst British Muslims as an opportunity to convert/recruit Muslims to their cause. This underhand form of proselytising bears similarities to a lot of Christian sects.
To conclude, it is hard to distinguish Marxism from other religions by using either substantive or functional definitions, or Ninian Smarts SDM. However, other intuitively non-religious phenomena, such as supporting a football team, can be included in these definitions. Therefore, I have argued that Marxism can be defined as a religion using examples where it forms parallels with religions particularly of the abrahamic traditions. If this is convincing, then the implications could be that Karl Marx was somebody who couldn’t see in the present institutional religions something that could bring about the promise of justice that they argued for, and he, therefore, acted characteristically like a religious believer struggling with his faith, bringing forth a radical reinterpretation of the Judeo-Christian religions that could rationalise their teachings for the circumstances he perceived. This thesis, of course, would require more research.
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[1] Eddy, WCH, Understanding Marxism, pp14
[2] Smart: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations – cited from an Open University A103 textbook that was thrown out and thus I cannot get the exact page number.
[3] Scarfe & Sookhdeo. Christianity and Marxism pp24
