On this anniversary of the Bloody Week, something has struck me, how come socialism and more specifically marxism, in its history since its inception, has been so similar to early christian history ?
I mean think about it, a movement that is mostly aimed towards popular, first kind of chaotic but quickly unified by a main theory, this being Marx. The movement born from this (and other writing, arguably stands for other socialist movement, be they formed from Marx' works or completely separate in origin), with the birth of disparate and not always so united communities, which for a good while were usualy persecuted by the established power. With the development of studies surrounding socialism further on, we see the birth of dogmas, notably in the established socialist states like the USSR, where those established theories becomes official policy. Meanwhile in non socialist states, the communities stay either persecuted or at best tolerated. With the variety of movements and ideas, I find it quite close to early christianity and its oh so varied theological takes.
On another note, I do find interesting how much leftist organization do use religious speech patterns in general, with key words carrying their almost self evident meaning, with a common ideal and struggle and so on. The idea came to me as I was thinking about future history, how will, in say 400 years, these leftist communities be studied ? Could a comparison to medieval/early modern jewish communities also be drawn out ?
Any opinion on the matter ? The comparison could probably be expanded. I'm just kind of curious.