Saturday, 22 September 2018

Marxism Took on Properties of a Religious Conviction

By the turn of the century, as a consequence, a variety of Marxisms had made their appearance—each arguing that it was true to the ideas of the founders. Marxism had begun to take on some of the properties of religious conviction.

Like religious beliefs, in general, the Marxism of Marx and Engels was subject to regular reinterpretation by adepts, with each precipitating outcries of heresy and unorthodoxy. The faithful of whatever “orthodoxy” were convinced that a “true” faith might be discerned amid the growing confusion. Whatever their interpretation, the faithful tended to believe it to be the one true expression of inherited doctrine. Each community of believers conceived their own construction to be impeccably true—and that of others grievously, and perhaps maliciously, flawed.

--A. James Gregor, Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 50.

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