Marxism- Leninism as the Civil Religion of Soviet Society: God's Commissar

Examines the phenomenon of Marxism-Leninism from a perspective of the history of religions, in order to cull the lessons that students of both religion and society might draw from the collapse of that once seemingly impregnable ideology. After considering the reasons advanced by a variety of scholars for calling Marxism-Leninism a religion, as well as at Marxism-Leninism's own claim to be a science, the author suggests that a more fruitful way of looking at is would be as a form of civil religion. It examines the way Marxism-Leninism sought to supplant the historic religions and develop its own ritual system, as well as those features which are not only mythological, but also ideological in precisely the same sense in which Marx himself saw religions as ideological phenomena.