This book explores the historical relationships between socialist ideologies and religious or secular beliefs and cultures that shaper the modern socialist. Portraying the cultural preferences and existential attitudes of leading Marxists, exploring the British tradition of ‘the religion of socialism’ and excavating the forgotten interwovenness of Wagnerism with social democracy as well as Bolshevism, it brings to the fore how socialists have aspired to revolutionize modern art, culture and forms of living.

Since the birth modern socialism in the first decades of the 19th century, socialism has been represented by its enemies as an intoxicating, seductive form of religion. The fact that this is an anti-socialist trope does not mean that socialists themselves haven’t given voice to the same idea. This book examines the views of socialists who have held that their political views are grounded in a special view of life and think of this in terms of its being a form of immanent humanism.

Offering an evaluation of the usefulness of terms such as ‘religion’, ‘myth’ and ‘ritual’, Humanist Socialism and the Religion of Socialism explores the history of modern socialist movements. It will therefore appeal to scholars of intellectual history, political theory, political philosophy and cultural history with interests in varieties of socialism and its connection with ‘ultimate concerns’.