The figures · Philosophers

Karl Marx

Marx influenced atheist and secular political thought through his critique of religion and social power.

BORN 1818 CE · Trier, PrussiaDIED 1883 CE · London, BritainERA Nineteenth-century political thought

NOTABLE CONTRIBUTION

Linked religion to social and economic alienation within a broader materialist critique of society.

THE RECORD

He treated religion as a response to real suffering and a symptom of alienated social conditions.
His materialist account of history shaped modern secular and revolutionary movements.
Later Marxist states and thinkers interpreted his religious critique in very different ways.