Socialism vs. Religion: for many socialists, Marx is a prophet and communism is the gospel. Literally.

The two central mysteries of socialism are these: How did an idea which, whenever put into practice, showed itself to be incongruent with human nature spread faster and further than any other political philosophy? And how did an idea that called on so many humane sentiments lend its name to the cruelest regimes in human history? The key to these riddles lies in socialism's role as a redemptive creed, a substitute religion--with a twist.

One of its most important founders was Moses Hess, the "father of German socialism" who played the major part in winning Marx and Engels to communism. After fleeing the cudgels of a benighted rabbinic teacher who tried to beat the Talmud into him, Hess had turned away from religion and immersed himself in the ideas of the Enlightenment. But his spirit was uneasy. He confided in his diary: "I worked without rest to rediscover my God, whom I had lost.... Nor could I remain a skeptic for the rest of my life. I had to have a God--and I did find him, after a long search, after a terrible fight--in my own heart."

The God he found was communism. In a catechism composed in 1846, he contrasted his new faith with the one that prevailed in the society around him. Christians invest their hopes "in the image of ... heavenly joy.... We, on the other hand, want this heaven on earth."

Hess was renowned for his "purity of character" and "saintly" ways. But the circle he joined in pursuit of his God consisted of men of a different sort, foremost among them, Karl Marx. Although he was Marx's senior by several years, and led him in the embrace of communism, Hess soon deferred to the younger man's superior polemical gifts, calling Marx his "idol" who "will give the final blow to all medieval religion and politics." Marx, however, was full of scorn for Hess's persistence in trying to ground socialism on an ethical basis rather than …