ABSTRACT
Like a religion Marxism offers explanations of the origins, history, and future of human life and explains the causes of evil and misery. And like a religion Marxism promises the ultimate realization of a peaceful and joyous existence for all humankind. Neither Marxism nor religious chiliasm offers a blueprint for the construction of the future perfect world. A search for religious elements in Russian Marxism is further discouraged by a historiographical emphasis upon the appeal of Marxism's "inevitability" to Russia's disillusioned populists. The motivation to act--to actively promote the socialist revolution--is a motivation that must have its source outside Marxism. In theory, Marxism avoids the question of idealism: the ideal socialist future that Marxism promises is nothing more than a supposed prediction of fact. Axelrod's statement of religious commitment to the socialist movement was written in reaction to Eduard Bernstein's revision of Marxism. Few Marxist revolutionaries in Russia made the same explicit confession of idealism as Axelrod did.
