Authors

George Bocean¹;  ¹ Durham University, UK

Discussion

Russian Marxism and religion, two concepts that have often been regarded by mainstream academia as either incompatible philosophies at best, or political adversaries at worst. While events such as the Russian Civil War and Soviet anti-religious policies attest to such statements to a certain extent, the cultural heritage of collectivist ideas, such as sobornost' and obshchina to name a few, demonstrate a more nuanced approach towards a cultural understanding of the struggle for social justice through moralistic and ethical motivations. Indeed, such heritage had also bridged the leap from the mass consciousness of the populists to the class consciousness of the Marxists, an aspect most suitable to the political interests of the Marxists in Russia, alongside the longing of the Russian people for social change and equality. In critiquing the Marxists' approach to the religious question in Russia, alongside analysing the revolutionary movements and struggles from the 1905 Revolution to the Russian Civil War in accordance with a social historical perspective, this paper will not only demonstrate the goals shared between Marxism and religion, but it will also argue for the fact that the pre-existing cultural ideals and values of common ownership, equality and social justice have permitted the rapid development of revolutionary ideas in a pre-industrial and religious society such as that of late Tsarist Russia.