Page 19 - The Struggle Against the Religion of Irreligion

An American botany professor, Conway Zirkle, explains why the

founders of communism, Marx and Engels, adopted Darwinism:

Marx and Engels accepted evolution almost immediately after

Darwin published The Origin of Species… Evolution, of course,

was just what the founders of communism needed to explain

how mankind could have come into being without the

intervention of any supernatural force, and consequently it could

be used to bolster the foundations of their materialistic

philosophy. In addition, Darwin's interpretation of evolution –

that evolution had come about through the operation of natural

selection – gave them an alternative hypothesis to the prevailing

teleological explanations of the observed fact that all forms of

life are adapted to their living conditions. Actually, natural

selection made it possible to drop teleology completely and, as a

result, the scientists could explain the organic world in

materialistic terms. 9

As these statements make clear, the sole reason why Marx and

Engels supported Darwin was the aversion they felt for religion. That

is why they held on to mechanisms which had no scientific value and

were merely figments of the imagination. Indeed, Friedrich Engels

9 Evolution, Marxian Biology and the Social Science, pp. 85-86.

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