We live in a polarized, atomized society where any reflections on our adversaries positions lead to ostracism, visceral attacks, and demonization of “the other”. Both poles on the modern American political continuum accuse each other, on a daily basis, of bringing America one step closer to dictatorship, be it Marxist or Fascist. Yet both sides miss an essential point: to understand the architecture of modern totalitarianism, one must examine its foundational mythos: dialectical materialism. As popularized by Friedrich Engels and codified by Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, this worldview reduces reality to matter in motion, driven forward not by divine providence, moral choice, or human creativity, but by blind, internal contradictions.

When applied to the sweep of human history, this philosophy mutates into historical materialism. Here, society is cast as a giant apparatus driven by the friction between productive forces (raw materials, technology, and labor) and relations of production (property ownership and class structures, such as the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat).

For the conservative, the Christian, and the free-market economist, this framework is deeply flawed. It treats human beings not as souls imbued with free will, but as cogs in an economic engine. However, in our critique of Marxism, intellectual integrity demands that we separate factual history from sensationalist folklore. Before examining the robust Christian and free-market refutations of historical materialism, we must first clear away a persistent distraction: the academically unsound claim that Karl Marx was a proven, practicing Satanist.

In certain conservative and Christian circles, a popular narrative suggests that Karl Marx was not merely an erroneous philosopher, but an occultist initiated into a secret Satanic church, pointing to early poems like Oulanem or dark verses where he wrote of wishing to "avenge myself against the One who rules above." This argument was notably popularized by the heroic Romanian pastor and confessor Richard Wurmbrand in books like Was Karl Marx a Satanist?

While Wurmbrand’s suffering under communist persecution is a matter of profound historical record, modern historians and rigorous scholars—including Christian academics—agree that the claim of literal Satanism is historically unfounded.

The dramatic poems and verses written by a young Marx (such as Oulanem) mirror the Sturm und Drang and Romantic literary tropes of 19th-century German universities. Influenced heavily by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, young bohemian intellectuals frequently used rebellious, gothic, and Promethean imagery to express existential angst, youthful rebellion, and anti-establishment frustration.

True Satanism requires a theological inversion—a belief in the actual existence of God and Satan, paired with the active worship of the latter. Marx was a strict, ontological atheist from his young adulthood onward. He did not believe a literal devil existed any more than he believed a literal God existed. His animus toward religion was rooted in Feuerbachian critique: the belief that man created God as a psychological projection, not that God existed to be fought via black masses.

Resorting to occult conspiracy theories to explain Marxism weakens conservative intellectual arguments. Marx did not need to be an agent of supernatural darkness to wreak intellectual havoc; his errors were thoroughly human, rationalistic, and rooted in flawed economic and philosophical premises. Conflating fierce atheism with literal demon worship obscures the actual nature of his philosophical error, which was an over-materialistic denial of the transcendent order.

Stripped of sensationalism, dialectical materialism stands exposed as a purely secular, mechanistic philosophy. From a Christian perspective, historical materialism commits a fundamental error: it denies the reality of the human soul and the sovereignty of God.

Historical materialism views man primarily as an economic animal—defined entirely by his relationship to the means of production. Whether one is categorized as bourgeoisie or proletariat, human identity is flattened into a function of class struggle. Christianity teaches the exact opposite through the doctrine of the Imago Dei (Image of God). Every human being possesses inherent dignity, moral agency, and spiritual freedom that transcends economic systems. History is not propelled by the cold friction of factories and raw materials, but by the moral choices of free individuals acting under the judgment and grace of God. Sin, redemption,

By reducing consciousness to a mere byproduct of social existence ("It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness"), dialectical materialism strips away objective morality. If ideas, laws, and ethics are merely superstructures reflecting the shifting economic interests of the ruling class, then justice ceases to be an eternal, God-given standard. It becomes whatever advances the revolution. This moral relativism directly birthed the totalitarian horrors of the 20th century, where human lives became entirely expendable in the service of the historical "process."

Economically, historical materialism fails to understand how human societies actually create wealth, cooperation, and social progress.

Subjective Value Versus the Labor Theory of Value

At the root of Marxist productive forces is the discredited Labor Theory of Value—the notion that the economic worth of an object is determined solely by the amount of socially necessary labor time embedded within it.

Free-market economics, built upon the marginal revolution of the late 19th century, proved that value is subjective. People trade because they value things differently; a good is worth what a willing buyer and seller agree upon in a free exchange. Wealth is not a static pie generated exclusively by physical labor and raw materials, but an expanding universe created by human ingenuity, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and capital investment.

Historical materialism views society as an arena of permanent, mutually antagonistic class conflict ("unity of opposites") that can only be resolved through violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In contrast, free-market thinkers like Friedrich Hayek demonstrated the concept of spontaneous order. Through the price mechanism, free markets allow millions of individuals with opposing interests to cooperate peacefully without central planning or violent coercion. Trade is not a zero-sum game of exploitation, but a positive-sum game of mutual enrichment.

Dialectical and historical materialism seek to lock humanity inside a cage of iron and matter, driven by relentless, inevitable conflict. While we must reject the hyperbole that Karl Marx was a literal Satanist, we must just as vigorously dismantle his philosophy and all its applicative flaws.

History is neither a blind mechanical reaction of productive forces nor a march toward a socialist utopia born of blood and contradiction. It is the unfolding theater of human freedom, moral responsibility, and divine purpose—a realm where spirit matters far more than matter, and where true liberty flourishes only when individual dignity and free enterprise are preserved.

The author is a retired Advanced Placement Teacher from the Babylon Union Free School District. Holding an earned doctorate in Modern World History, he is currently an adjunct professor at Nassau Community College and Southern New Hampshire University.

References & Further Reading

1. Wurmbrand, Richard. (1976). Was Karl Marx a Satanist? Living Sacrifice Book Co. (For historical context on the myth vs. reality debate, see modern scholarly refutations of this thesis on platforms like Reddit's CapitalismVSocialism analysis and Philosophy StackExchange).

2. Marx, Karl. (1859). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. (The foundational text outlining the relation between social existence and consciousness).

3. Hayek, Friedrich A. (1944). The Road to Serfdom. University of Chicago Press. (A premier free-market critique of historicist and collectivist determinism).

4. von Mises, Ludwig. (1949). Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. Yale University Press. (Comprehensive refutation of Marxist economic theory and the labor theory of value).

5. Wheen, Francis. (1999). Karl Marx. Fourth Estate. (A definitive biography providing critical context on Marx's student poetry and romantic literary influences).