Shults, E. E. Marxism as the Religion of Revolution

Abstract: The article is devoted to the religiosity of the revolutionary ideology and evaluation of Marxism teaching from the point of view of its religiosity and religiosity of public consciousness as well as the analysis of why Marxism was popular as an ideology of radical forms of the social protest of the XXth. Despite eclecticism, Marxism became almost a ‘religious teaching’ not only for the revolutionists of the second half of the XIX – XXth centuries but also for signifi cant amounts of population in underdeveloped countries of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The author of the article used comparative analysis and systems analysis as the main research methods. The author analyzed the elements of Marxism such as the economic theory, social utopia and protest ideology (religion). The scientifi c novelty of research is in studying Marxism from a completely different point of view, i.e. not as the economic theory and a historical and philosophical teaching but as an ideological teaching for radical forms of the social protest. This is how the author explains why Marxism has been so popular. Marxism was not a principally new teaching from the poi of view of each element present in that teaching. However, due to well selected and combined elements, relations between them and orientation at the revolutionary ideology, Marxism became a teaching and a religion and a popular ideology of the social protest. What has made Marxism so demanded as an ideology of the protest and what has defi ned its durability? Many philosophers have tried to answer that question from different points of view and from different positions but nobody has ever taken a chance to make a special study of Marxism for the purpose of analyzing all its elements as a whole.

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