"Can a Christian Be a Socialist?" The (Ir)reconcilability of Christianity and Socialism in Revolutionary Russia

Abstract

The article investigates debates about the (ir)reconcilability of Christianity and socialism among Orthodox clergy and intelligentsia in late Imperial Russia. The first part of the paper focuses on anti-socialist texts by radical right Orthodox clergy who argued for the impossibility to reconcile Christianity and socialism, and interpreted them as rigid categories. The second part of the paper discusses various intellectual experiments by left-wing Orthodox clergy and by Marxist intelligentsia who looked at Christianity and socialism as fluid ideas under contestation. The paper argues that these projects highlight two interlinked issues: the social(ist) nature of Christianity and the religious nature of Marxist socialism. The article concludes with a short reflection on these projects: Orthodox Social Gospel (or Christian social action) and the Marxist God-building movement.