ABSTRACT
Your paper reminded me in some respects very much of the theses of
Michael Rohrwasser in his book, Der Stalinismus und die Renegaten. In the first two papers, it had already become evident to me that the concept of
political religions is related more to external phenomena; that is, it has been
transposed onto certain structures – to the church of Marxism, for example,
to the virtuoso religions, to the renegades, to the heretics, to the devia-
tionists from this church. Thus, it has been transposed not only upon the
truth model itself, upon the respective religion or political religion. One can
also conceive of the concept of political religion differently: not only in the
sense of externalised structures, but also in the sense that Marxism or Bolshevism – in their respective transformations – are very much also a
phenomenon of inner religious energy. I refer only to the phenomenon of
property. Certainly, the connection between religious currents and hostility
to property has always existed in European intellectual history – in the
Peasants’ Wars, for example. Thus, there is this inner religion, this inner
passion. This of course also to some extent shapes the currents of Marxism-
Leninism that are inimical to property. And understood in this sense, the
phenomenon of political religion is to be applied solely to Marxism and not to National Socialism – because, in the latter, the connection of inner religious
passion and currents that are hostile to property is lacking.
