Socialist Eschatology and Russian Terrorism

In the scholarship on terrorism, a distinction is often made between secular ideologies of terrorism (such as anarchism or nationalism) and religious ideologies (stemming from fundamentalist Islam, Judaism, Christianity).  The purpose of my talk will be to demonstrate that secular ideologies such as socialism can incorporate religious frameworks that can, in turn, justify terrorism as “saintly.”  Borrowing from the analysis of scholars of Marxism such as Igal Halfin, I will show that nineteenth-century Russian socialism was essentially eschatological in nature, driving toward a world of peace, prosperity, and equality – a “kingdom of heaven on earth.” These socialist millenial aspirations were decisive in justifying terrorist acts of violence against the state and allowed many Russian terrorists to view themselves as martyrs to the cause.