Marxism and religion in Eastern Europe

papers presented at the banff international Slavic conference, september 4–7,1974

Édité parRichard De GeorgeJames Scanlan

Since the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, two of the most significant but at the same time least understood areas of that revolution's cultural impact have been philosophy and religion. The impact has of course been massive, not only in the Soviet Union but, after the second World War, in Soviet­ dominated Eastern Europe as well. Yet the consequences of Communism for philosophy and religion throughout the Soviet orbit are far from having the simplicity suggested by the stereotypes of a single, monolithic 'Marxism' and a consistent, crushing assault on the Church and on re­ ligious faith. Unquestionably Marxism is the ruling philosophy throughout Eastern Europe. In the Soviet Union, 'Marxism-Leninism' or 'dialectical ma­ terialism' is the official and the only tolerated philosophy, and most of the other countries of Eastern Europe follow the Soviet lead in philosophy as in other fields. But in the latter countries Marxism was imposed only after W orId War II, and its deVelopment has not always copied the Soviet model. Original thinkers in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary have thought their own way through the writings of Marx and his followers, and have arrived at Marxist positions which are consider­ ably at variance with the Soviet interpretations - and often with each other. Moreover in recent years the Soviet philosophers themselves have been unable to ignore the theoretical questions raised by the other East of Marxism in the West.