New Backpacking Journey to Trace the History and Consequences of Marxism
Passport, check.
Laptop, check.
Massive green backpack loaded with three months’ worth of ridiculously heavy supplies, check.
I hoisted the backpack—did I mention it was ridiculously heavy?—and headed to the car, bound for the airport. Which direction would the plane be taking me?
The journey begins!
I’ll explain everything . . . but first, let me back up.
The Backstory: Meeting Marx on Campus
Three and a half years earlier, I’d hoisted the same backpack and set off on a journey to travel 360° around the world in 180 days, documenting Christian students’ university experiences. As I was first exploring Canadian universities for that project, I found a poster telling students to join Canada’s Young Communist League, declaring that “capitalism is war, climate crisis, racism, patriarchy, colonialism” and so on. Many people don’t realize how these and other major issues are being exploited to promote a divisive Marxist agenda that is anti-God, anti-family, anti-gospel, and ultimately rooted in man’s futile agenda to make himself the authority for truth—an agenda as old as Eden.
A poster displayed at a Canadian university campus in 2018
As a quick overview, Karl Marx (1818–1883) viewed history as the story of struggle, conflict, and oppression between economic groups.1 Marx believed that in his era, this struggle waged between two main classes: the wealthy (bourgeoisie) who controlled society’s means of producing consumer goods,2 and the workers (proletariats) who laboured for business owners.
Karl Marx viewed history as the story of struggle, conflict, and oppression between economic groups.
According to Marx, labouring for others leads humans to be alienated, or cut off, from themselves, from each other, from the ability to follow their own productive pursuits, and from being fully human.3 Marx viewed this system as inherently exploitative—an argument made more forceful by the reality that, in societies like Industrial Revolution-era England, factory owners often mistreated their workers.4
Biblically, the answer to exploitation calls for humans to return to God’s Word, which both commands and provides a foundation for upholding justice, practicing righteousness, and loving our neighbours—a solution made possible through Jesus. But according to Marx, the solution is revolution. Marx believed human freedom can only be attained when workers realize their oppressed status and revolt, seizing power from the oppressors “by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”5
This revolution, Marx believed, would coincide with the abolition of “bourgeois” institutions like organized religion6 and nuclear families.7 The result was supposed to be an atheistic, communistic heaven on earth,8 where everyone would have equal access to society’s resources—and nobody would own “bourgeois private property.”9 Summarizing these views, Marx wrote,
The positive transcendence of private property as the appropriation of human life, is therefore the positive transcendence of all estrangement—that is to say, the return of man from religion, family, state, etc., to his human, i.e., social, existence.10
Karl Marx's flat at 38 Rue Vaneau in Paris, where Marx wrote the manuscript quoted above.
In other words, Marx believed that by “freeing” people from property, religion, family, and government, communism would make people fully human.
Marx’s Worldview Foundation
Biblically, Marx was right in recognizing that humanity is broken, estranged from being who we’re meant to be. But while God’s Word reveals that humanity’s root problem is sin, requiring a Saviour, Jesus,11 Marx attributed humanity’s problem to the division of labour, requiring revolution. Marx ultimately preached a completely unbiblical gospel for humanity’s supposed redemption—a gospel founded on an evolutionary, materialistic worldview.12
This unbiblical worldview enabled Marx to redefine his own version of morality. After all, if we evolved without God, then we are not accountable to a Creator. A biblical view also presupposes principles which Marxism actively fights against, including private property ownership (e.g., “You shall not steal”13), nuclear family units,14 and allegiance to God’s Word above man’s word.15 By rejecting God’s Word, Marx developed his own religion where man creates himself through revolutionary action.16
By rejecting God’s Word, Marx developed his own religion where man creates himself through revolutionary action.
As the twentieth century unfolded, various takes on Marx’s false religion precipitated the deaths of millions17 and led to losses of fundamental rights and freedoms for humans created in God’s image.18 The history of Marxian-inspired communism reminds us that no solution to humanity’s problems—even genuine problems—can ultimately succeed if it is based on the wrong foundation. And Marx’s solution is no exception. Unlike the foundation of God’s Word, Marxism’s evolutionary foundation does not provide a basis for the justice, morality, and human rights which Marxism supposedly pursues.19 The consequences are consistently disastrous. Yet we’re seeing similar ideas being pushed again, with brands of neo-Marxism gaining rapid traction today.20
The courtyard of the home where Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany
Today’s Neo-Marxist Revival
To understand the goals of neo-Marxism, let’s backtrack nearly 100 years to a prison cell in southern Italy. Here, we find a man named Antonio Gramsci, former leader of the Communist Party of Italy. He sits before a notebook, filling its pages with writings that apply Marx’s ideas to culture in ways that will radically influence Western society.
Bari, Italy, about a 30-minute drive from the prison where Antonio Gramsci was held in the nearby town of Turi.
Because Marx’s beliefs that revolutions would inevitably happen as workers awoke to their oppressed status didn’t unfold the way Marx had prophesied, later thinkers like Gramsci focused on seeding revolutions not by political force, but by cultural subversion. Gramsci applied Marx’s ideas of conflict between economic groups to describe conflict between cultural groups, where groups with the most mainstream influence (say, in today’s terms, European Christian males) have power to dominate others.21 Gramsci called this power “cultural hegemony.”22
The key to political revolution, according to Gramsci, begins with capturing the culture.23 This cultural transformation requires subverting the institutions of “civil society,” including church, media, and schools, which Gramsci believed serve to keep oppressive systems in power.24 (Notably, other neo-Marxists also emphasize disrupting the God-ordained institution of family for the same reason.25) Meanwhile, the media26 and public education systems27 can be harnessed to influence a generation of new revolutionaries which will overturn the old social order. In all of this, Gramsci’s explicit goal was to establish a new religion of Marxist secular humanism.28
The Need for a Biblical Response
Today, we don’t need to look far to see how successfully these ideas are taking hold in classrooms, culture, and even church circles. Bible-believing Christians are being painted as the oppressive majority which must be overthrown, paving the way for a “progressive” society founded on evolutionary humanism. Now more than ever, Christians must be able to understand what (neo-)Marxism teaches, to think biblically and critically about neo-Marxist claims, and to know practical ways to respond.
A Marxist poster displayed at a British university campus in 2022.
Bible-believing Christians are being painted as the oppressive majority which must be overthrown, paving the way for a “progressive” society founded on evolutionary humanism.
That’s why I embarked on a new investigative backpacking mission—this time, to trace the history and consequences of Marxism. I plan to journey through parts of Europe (and possibly other regions), working from locations that are significant to the history of Marxism and its roots in evolutionary secular humanism. I’ll also be seeking Christians from former Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries to interview so they can share practical insights with churches today.
Along the way, I plan to release short videos to my social media pages, while also collecting footage and materials for longer videos and blog posts that I can use to create resources for helping Christians respond biblically to new brands of Marxism. These resources won’t be exhaustive but are meant to provide an introductory overview with practical applications, tying in real-world stories and scenes. After all, it’s one thing to read about people like Marx, Gramsci, and the thinkers before them in textbooks. It’s another to see the places they lived, the universities where they lectured, and the individuals they impacted.
I don’t yet know 100% where I’ll be going or who I’ll meet as my (ridiculously heavy) backpack and I make our way across the continent. But that’s what makes this journey an adventure—trusting God to guide every step. Stay tuned!
To follow the unfolding journey and access its associated resources as they’re released, you can find my social media pages (Facebook and Instagram) @pengleraig, or keep an eye on my blog. Thank you for coming along!
Footnotes
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, trans. Samuel Moore, ed. Fredrich Engels, (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1910), 12.
- The term bourgeoisie referred to the upper-middle class in France—mainly lawyers and state officials—who revolted against the nobility in the French Revolution. However, despite the way “bourgeoisie“ later became synonymous with “capitalists,” the French Revolution was not a conflict between lower classes and capitalists, as capitalism had not yet developed in France. (See George Comninel, Alienation and Emancipation in the Work of Karl Marx, [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019], 165–173.)
- Karl Marx, “Estranged Labour,” in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Martin Milligan (New York: International Publishers, 1964), 106–119.
- Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1 (1867), trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, ed. Frederick Engels (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1887).
- Marx and Engels, Manifesto, 58. Note that Marx believed factory reforms alone would not be an adequate solution because he viewed the system of wage labour itself as humanity’s problem.
- Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1844), accessed May 20, 2022, from www.Marxists.org. See also David Myers, “Marx, Atheism and Revolutionary Action,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11, no. 2 (1981): 309–331.
- Marx and Engels, Manifesto, 36–38. See also Richard Weikart, “Marx, Engels, and the Abolition of the Family,” History of European Ideas 18, no. 5 (1994): 657–672.
- Although Marx did not consider himself a utopian socialist, he believed the final stage of communism would lead humanity to become fully human, emancipated from all forms of inequality. In this sense, Marx held a utopian vision for communism. (See David Lovell, “Marx’s Utopian Legacy,” The European Legacy 9, no. 5 [2004]: 629–640.)
- By “bourgeois private property,” Marx was referring to the ownership of the means of production—like mills, factory machinery, etc. According to Marx, these assets would be seized from the bourgeoisie and collectively owned by the proletariat in the first stage of communism (a stage usually called “socialism,” according to Lenin, 1917). In later stages, private property would be “transcended” altogether. (Marx, “Private Property and Communism” in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, 132–146; see also Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution [New York: International Publishers, 1932], 75–78.)
- Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, 136.
- E.g., Genesis 3:15–19; Romans 5:1–21; 1 Corinthians 15:21–26, 45–57; 1 Peter 3:18.
- See Dr. Jerry Bergman, “The Darwinian Foundation of Communism,” Journal of Creation 15, no 1 (April 2001): 89–95, https://answersingenesis.org/charles-darwin/racism/the-darwinian-foundation-of-communism/.
- Exodus 20:15; see also Exodus 20:17 and 22:1–15. Even the institution of personal sacrifice, visible already in Genesis 4:3–5, presupposes private ownership. (Some may argue that the sharing of property amongst believers in Acts 4:32 was a type of socialism; however, the Acts model consisted of voluntary generosity using one’s own property under the authority of God, motivated by love—not the involuntary seizure of others’ property under the dictatorship of humans motivated by revolution.)
- E.g., Genesis 2:24; Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 11:19; Matthew 19:4–6; Ephesians 5:21–33.
- E.g., Acts 5:19; Daniel 3:16–18, 6:10; Hebrews 11:23.
- Dr. James Lindsay, a self-professed atheist, has described the inherent religious nature of Marxism in detail. (James Lindsay, “The Theology of Marxism,” https://newdiscourses.com/2022/01/theology-marxism/. Note that not all the language is “G-rated.”)
- Some estimates for unnatural deaths due to communist regimes in China alone between 1949 and 1970 range from three to four million (based heavily on statistics supplied by Mao Zedong’s government) to over 60 million (based on information published by the Subcommittee on Internal Security of the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary). See Thomas Bernstein, “Reviewed Work: Deaths in China due to Communism: Propaganda versus Reality by Stephen Rosskamm Shalom,” The China Quarterly 104 (1985): 718–720. Estimates of deaths in the Soviet Union have also been hotly contended; while official Soviet records estimate roughly one million “repression deaths” (see Michael Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies 54, no. 7 [2002]: 1151–1172), a recent analysis states that over 23 million experienced execution, imprisonment, or deportation under Stalin (Khlevniuk, 2022, cited in Stephen Wheatcroft, “Towards a More Critical Understanding of the Statistical Indicators of Soviet Repression and What They Tell Us,” Cahiers du Monde Russe 63, no. 1 [2022]: 187–204), and the Encyclopedia Britannica states that “Stalin’s political victims were numbered in tens of millions.” (Ronald Francis Hingley, “Joseph Stalin,” Britannica.com, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Stalin.)
- See also Andrea Graziosi and Frank Sysyn, “Communism and Hunger: Introduction,” East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies 3, no. 2 (2016): 5.
- Some may wish to counter with a tu quoque argument, saying that millions have also been killed in the name of Christianity. However, the mass killing of innocent lives is opposed to a biblical worldview but consistent with an evolutionary Marxist worldview. For more information, see, “Haven’t Christians Done Bad Things?” (Another tu quoque would be to point out how capitalism too, especially in its early stages, has led to mass grievances and deaths. And certainly, any system—including capitalism—which a society employs apart from the foundation of God’s Word is bound to carry problems due to human sin. So, the point here is not to defend capitalism but the worldview foundation of God’s Word, which is opposed in many respects to the atheistically grounded principles of Marxism and communism.)
- For more information, see the resources linked under “6 Principles Skeptics Borrow from the Bible.”
- For examples, see Dr. Owen Strachan, Christianity and Wokeness (Washington: Salem Books, 2020). See also Brandon Clay and Frost Smith, “Critical Race Theory in the Church,” Answers in Genesis, September 29, 2020, https://answersingenesis.org/racism/critical-race-theory-church/; and Brandon Clay, “Three Biblical Problems with Critical Race Theory,” Answers in Genesis, May 19, 2021, https://answersingenesis.org/racism/three-biblical-problems-critical-race-theory/.
- Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, trans. and ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Smith edition (New York: International Publishers, 1992, originally published 1971), 57–58. For a summary of Gramsci’s concept of oppressed classes, see also Marcus Green, “Gramsci Cannot Speak: Presentations and Interpretations of Gramsci's Concept of the Subaltern,” Rethinking Marxism 14, no. 3 (2002): 1–24.
- Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, 258. For more on Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, see Jackson Lears, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,” The American Historical Review (1985): 567–593.
- Green, “Gramsci Cannot Speak.” See also Rosario Forlenza, “Antonio Gramsci on Religion,” Journal of Classical Sociology 21, no. 1 (2021): 38–60.
- For examples of the strategies Gramsci proposed for subverting these institutions, see Green, “Gramsci Cannot Speak,” and Forlenza, “Antonio Gramsci on Religion.”
- Marxian feminists have been especially vocal about the abolition of family and marriage; see for example Debora Halbert, “Shulamith Firestone: Radical Feminism and Visions of the Information Society,” Information, Communication & Society 7, no. 1 (2004): 115–135.
- For Gramsci’s observations on media, popular culture, journalism, and art as hegemonic forces with counter-hegemonic potential (that is, forces that supposedly keep the oppressive system in power, but which can be applied to transform culture from the inside), see Antonio Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 363–402.
- For examples related to education, see Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, 35–36. See also Manojan K. P., “Capturing the Gramscian Project in Critical Pedagogy: Towards a Philosophy of Praxis in Education,” Review of Development and Change 24, no. 1 (2019): 123–145.
- Forlenza, “Antonio Gramsci on Religion,” 38–60.
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