Marxism and Religion

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis of this article is that Marxism and religion are philosophically incompatible — dialectical materialism leaves no room for supernatural entities, souls, or life after death — but that this incompatibility must not prevent Marxists from uniting with religious believers in the practical struggle against capitalism. The argument proceeds on two levels simultaneously. On the philosophical level, Woods insists that materialism rules out any transcendent realm: mind is a product of matter organised in a particular way, and the desire for immortality is an understandable but ultimately egotistical illusion that diverts energy from the task of transforming this world. On the political level, however, he argues that Marxists must treat religion as a private matter in the party, avoid sectarian attacks on religious workers, and welcome anyone — Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew — who accepts the programme of socialist transformation. The article's polemical edge is directed not against believers as such but against the institutional churches, which have historically functioned as bulwarks of reaction, and against the "alternative" spiritual movements of the capitalist epoch, which offer only individual escape routes and thus leave capital untouched.

The article also makes a historical-materialist argument about the origins and evolution of religion. Early Christianity was a revolutionary movement of the poor and oppressed, with communist practices and a clear hostility to wealth. But because the material conditions for a classless society did not exist, this primitive communism was doomed, and the Church was gradually absorbed into the state apparatus — a process symbolised by Constantine's hijacking of the Council of Nicea. From that point onward, the institutional Church has been a servant of the ruling class, a pattern that holds across Christianity, Islam, and other world religions. The article thus distinguishes sharply between the revolutionary potential of religious feeling among the oppressed and the reactionary role of religious institutions.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on several distinct Marxist traditions and concepts. The philosophical foundation is Engels's dialectical materialism as developed in Anti-Dühring and Ludwig Feuerbach, supplemented by the more recent Reason in Revolt (Woods and Grant). The argument that religion is a form of false consciousness rooted in class society and the experience of powerlessness is directly indebted to Marx's early writings on alienation and the famous formulation that religion is "the opium of the people" — a consolation that numbs pain without removing its cause. Lenin's 1905 writings on religion provide the strategic framework: the state must treat religion as a private matter, but the party must carry out a struggle against religious ideas; Marxists must never insult the religious convictions of workers, but must fight against opportunists who try to smuggle religion into the party's ideology.

The historical sections on early Christianity draw heavily on Engels's essay "On the History of Early Christianity," which drew explicit parallels between the early Christian movement and the modern working-class movement. The analysis of the Reformation and the peasant wars follows Engels's The Peasant War in Germany, with its treatment of Thomas Müntzer and the Anabaptists as precursors of revolutionary communism. Trotsky's writings on religion — particularly his observation that the Russian workers and peasant milkmaids shook off religious thinking along with the tsarist apparatus — provide the model for understanding how rapidly religious consciousness can dissolve under the pressure of revolutionary events.

The article also situates itself within the Marxist tradition's long polemic against reformist and opportunist distortions of the religion question. The distinction between the party's attitude to religion (principled struggle) and the state's attitude (neutrality, separation) is taken directly from Lenin's polemics against the "god-builders" (Bogdanov, Lunacharsky) who sought to reconcile Marxism with mystical philosophy. The rejection of anarchist demands for atheism as a condition of party membership is likewise a settled position of the Bolshevik tradition.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in 2005, but its analysis connects to several features of the current conjuncture that have only intensified since. The rise of religious fundamentalism across all major faiths — Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu — is treated not as a spontaneous religious revival but as a symptom of capitalist decay and imperialist devastation. Woods argues that when capitalism destroys the fabric of communities and families without putting anything in their place, people seek solace in the supposed eternal truths of an imaginary past. This analysis applies directly to the growth of the Christian Right in the United States, the rise of political Islam in the Middle East and South Asia, Hindu nationalism in India, and the role of religion in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The article's treatment of the Creationist movement in the United States — which it describes as "a graphic expression of the intellectual consequences of the decay of capitalism" — has only become more relevant with the continued influence of evangelical fundamentalism in American politics, the battles over school curricula, and the erosion of scientific rationality in public life. The observation that "in the most technologically advanced country in the world, the minds of millions of men and women are sunk in barbarism" captures a contradiction that has deepened in the two decades since the article was written.

The discussion of the Catholic Church's role in Latin America and the Theology of Liberation connects to a conjuncture that has shifted dramatically. The article was written when figures like Camillo Torres and the murdered Salvadorian priests were still relatively recent history; today, the Vatican under Pope Francis has made gestures toward the poor while maintaining the Church's fundamental hostility to Marxism, and the liberation theology movement has been systematically suppressed. The article's analysis of the Church's institutional conservatism — its wealth, its political alliances, its opposition to contraception and abortion — remains accurate, but the specific balance of forces within Latin American Catholicism has changed.

The treatment of Islam is relatively brief but pointed: the article notes that the Koran prohibited usury while Islamic countries have banks, and that the oppressed masses of the Middle East, Iran, and Indonesia are beginning to look for a programme of struggle. Written in 2005, this anticipates the Arab Spring and its aftermath, though the article does not — and could not — predict the specific forms that Islamic political movements would take in the subsequent period.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is explicitly presented as an initial contribution, and several threads are left underdeveloped. The relationship between Marxism and Islam receives only a few paragraphs, though the article mentions being in contact with groups describing themselves as "Islamic Marxists." This thread is taken up in other IDOM articles, particularly those dealing with the Middle East, Iran, and the question of political Islam. The article's treatment of the Theology of Liberation is similarly brief, though it points toward a larger literature within the Marxist tradition on religion and revolution.

The philosophical argument about materialism and science — particularly the discussion of the human genome project and evolution — is developed at greater length in Reason in Revolt, which Woods co-authored with Ted Grant. The historical material on early Christianity and the Church's evolution is drawn from Engels and from the broader Marxist tradition, but the article does not engage with more recent scholarship on early Christian communism or the social composition of the early Church.

The article's strategic conclusions — that Marxists should unite with religious believers in struggle while maintaining philosophical clarity — are applied to specific cases in other IDOM articles dealing with liberation theology in the Philippines, the role of religion in the Palestinian struggle, and the question of religion in the labour movement. The broader question of how to build united fronts with religiously motivated activists without diluting Marxist theory is a recurring theme in the RCI's literature.

Connections

This article should be read alongside several key Marxist texts on religion. Engels's "On the History of Early Christianity" and his The Peasant War in Germany provide the historical framework. Lenin's On Religion (a collection of his writings on the subject) provides the strategic and tactical framework. Trotsky's remarks on religion in Brailsford and Marxism and his discussion of the Russian Orthodox Church in Stalin are directly quoted. James Connolly's polemics with the Catholic Church — particularly his Labour, Nationality and Religion — are mentioned and provide a model for Marxist engagement with religious workers.

Within the IDOM corpus, Reason in Revolt is the essential companion text for the philosophical argument. Articles on the Theology of Liberation, on religion in the Middle East, and on the rise of fundamentalism in various contexts develop the conjunctural analysis. The article also connects to the broader Marxist tradition's treatment of religion as a form of alienation, which runs from Marx's early writings through the Frankfurt School and into contemporary Marxist philosophy.

Key Quotes

1. "Religion is what Marxists would call a false consciousness, because it directs our understanding away from the world and towards an otherness, about which we can know nothing and about which it is useless even to ask questions."

2. "The whole history of science sets out from two fundamental assumptions: a) The world exists outside myself and b) I can understand this world, and even if there are things which I do not know at present, at least I am capable of knowing them in the future. To establish a limit beyond which human knowledge is not supposed to trespass is to open the door to all manner of mysticism and superstition."

3. "Rather than waste time striving for a non-existent 'other world', it is necessary to strive to make this world a fit place to live in. Because for the great majority of men and women who are born into this world, the question is not whether there is a life after death, but rather is there a life before death?"

4. "The roots of modern religion are deeply embedded in the social oppression of the working masses, and in their apparently complete hopelessness before the blind forces of capitalism... no amount of reading matter, however enlightening, will eradicate religion from the consciousness of the masses, until the masses, themselves, learn to fight against the social facts from which religion arises."

5. "The rise of so-called religious fundamentalism is only a concrete expression of the impasse of capitalist society, which drives people to despair and madness. But, as we see in Iran and Afghanistan, the promises of a religious heaven on earth is an empty dream that ends in a nightmare."

6. "When the human race finally fulfils its destiny and is able to stand on its own two feet and live life to the full, it will no longer require the prop of religion, a supernatural being to whom to pray or the false consolation of life in another world than this. When that moment arrives, humanity will cast off religion with the same ease that grown people put aside the fairy stories which they so loved in childhood, but which have outlived their usefulness."