Religion and Socialism: A. V. Lunacharsky and the God-Builders. Issue 2 (24th February 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Boer, Roland
• Is Part Of: Political theology. Volume 15:Issue 2(2014)
• Page Start: 188
• Page End: 209
• Publication Date: 2014-02-24
• Subjects: Anatoly Lunacharsky -- Christian communism -- God-building -- religion and socialism -- revolution; Christianity and politics -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; Political theology -- Periodicals; Christian socialism -- Periodicals; 261.7094105
• DOI: 10.1179/1462317X13Z.00000000074
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1462-317X

Abstract

Abstract : This article offers the first full engagement in English with Anatoly Lunacharsky's near lost work, Religion and Socialism (2 vols, 1908, 1911). Suffering from criticisms by Lenin, it has lain in obscurity in the Lenin archive in Moscow. Yet it is a crucial document, for it provides a "missing link" in the tradition of Marxism's engagement with religion, anticipating in many ways the work of Ernst Bloch. In this critical exposition of a work that is to be republished in Russian, and translated into English and Chinese, I focus on Lunacharsky's effort to recover the emotion and passion of Marxism (the "warm stream"), his poetic style and appreciation of texts, the understanding of human beings as raw material on a long path to an ideal image, his engagement with Christian communism, the crucial role of revolution in the "God-building" project, and his perception of the political ambivalence of religion. On that last matter, he seeks, like Bloch was to do, the revolutionary promise of religion and its engagement with socialism.