The God-builders in pre-tevolutionary Russia: Social democracy as a religion

Engels thought highly of Dietzgen.) But perhaps more than any external influence, the main reason that Russian socialism had a religious interpretation lay in the Russian intellectual tradition and the place of religion in that tradition. For example, A.V. Lunacharsky (1875-1933), who wrote the most important and thorough treatise on the religious roots of socialism at this time, and Berdyaev, both recorded that in their early development religion played an important role as a phenomenon that had to be faced and explained.