Socialism Announced Its Intention of Becoming the Religion for the New Humanity; the Heart of Marxist Socialism Is Neither Science Nor Philosophy but Religion

[In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries] socialism . . . announced its intention of becoming the religion for the new humanity, and its intrinsic link to religion cannot be doubted. . . . It is a complete dogma, a solution to the question of the meaning of life, the purpose of history. It is the preaching of socialist morality [as well as a] religion of self-deification. . . . The heart of Marxist socialism . . . is neither science nor philosophy but religion.

--Nikolai Berdiaev

In 1906, Nikolai Berdiaev, himself initially a Marxist, spoke of the socialism of Lenin and his followers as a surrogate religion, as a belief system “that lays claims to replacing religion.” Lenin’s Social Democracy, Berdiaev insisted, was “the most perfect and finished form of . . . religious socialism.” It found itself in conflict with all forms of religion, he went on, because it was in direct and implacable competition with them.

--A. James Gregor, Totalitarianism and Political Religion: An Intellectual History (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), e-book.