Evaluation

This concluding chapter examines whether socialism can be understood as a form of religion. Proceeding through questions about science, secularism, life stance, and humanism, it argues that while socialism has developed secular and humanist ideals – grounded in immanence, ethics, and culture – it cannot be classified as a new religion. Nonetheless, socialist visions often contain mythic and existential dimensions akin to religious imagination, particularly in dreams of immortality and collective salvation. The chapter proposes a refined terminology for analysing socialism&s;s cultural and religious intersections, distinguishing “religio-socialism”, “socialist religion”, “religious socialism”, and “Religion of Socialism” as distinct yet overlapping phenomena within modernity&s;s mythic politics.