>A lot of people who come to socialism or communism from elite
>backgrounds, like Marx himself, come to it first through their
>personal confrontation with dominant culture -- in many cases
>religion, as was partly the case with Marx himself, which Richard
>Price, in his introduction to an American Trotskyist Felix Morrow's
>diatribe against religion, emphasizes: "The 'Marxism' of the young
>Karl Marx evolved in large part out of the criticism of religion"
>(<http://www.workersaction.org.uk/23Articles/23Morrow&Religion.htm>)
>-- and only later develop their criticism of the material social
>structures that they think give birth to it. Based on their personal
>experience, they often mistakenly believe that, for workers, peasants,
>and others below their own stations in life to "convert" to socialism
>or communism, they, too, must first develop criticism of religion,
>just as they did.
>
Couldn't agree more. For an illustration, see Tillie Olsen's "O Yes."
Joanna