The Enlightenment, Communism and political religion: reflections on a misleading trajectory

This article concerns itself with the application of the idea of 'political religion' to Communism and totalitarianism of the Left. It argues that, when the idea is understood in terms of a trajectory whereby Enlightenment faith in reason finds its apotheosis in the Gulag, it commits itself to a series of unsustainable contentions. It outlines the case that there are two usages to which the political religion approach is put which are inadequately differentiated. Its usage by historians--extendable also to Nazism/fascism--is, and should be, restricted to the metaphorical illumination it affords. The alternative usage--primarily the domain of political theorists and historians of political thought--refers to a mode of storytelling whereby radical political aspirations and expectations have their origins in supposedly religious attitudes and dispositions. This latter application is misleading and the article traces its origins and examines its substantive content in order to question its coherence.