When a hardened Soviet thief broke down in tears after a four-hour ideological persuasion session, historian Sheila Fitzpatrick described it as a moment of personal “conversion.”
For some observers, such episodes reveal Marxism’s deeper character—not just a political system, but a totalising worldview that seeks to supplant Christianity and reshape the human soul itself.
“During the Soviet Union, [the process] where people come to believe in the Marxist’s ideology was described not as a change in economic thinking, but in terms of a ’religious conversion,'” said Paul Barnes, lecturer at Emmanuel College Sydney
“Discovering the power of ‘work’ as part of the proletariat was seen as life changing,” he said during a lecture called, “The Tenets of Marxism,” in West Ryde, Sydney in late January on the 31st.
Transforming or ‘Coming Out’
Barnes said that the ultimate aim of Karl Marx and his ideology Marxism is to provide a “transformative worldview” that competes directly with Christianity.
The ideology tries to explain history (through the lens of class warfare), current political and social challenges, and the purpose of life.
He quoted an example given by Fitzpatrick, a Soviet and communist historian at the University of Melbourne, in her book, “Everyday Stalinism:”
“Anna Iankovskaia, a former professional thief with a long arrest record … was sent to the White Sea Canal camp in 1932. As Anna related, she was initially skeptical of the NKVD [People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs’s] promise that the prisoners would be re-educated, not punished. She found the physical work intolerably hard and initially refused to work.
“One of the camp educators, herself a former inmate, then had a four-hour conversation with her about their lives that brought Anna to tears. This was the crucial conversion moment—the discovery that, for the first time, she mattered as an individual. After this, Anna could start working and begin her new life.”
“Marxism was transformative,” Barnes concluded. “You find similar descriptions today when someone ‘comes out’ or ‘discovers who I am’ when they transition—all of which are framed in conversion language.”
“Whether they realise it or not, this is the Marxist worldview replacing the Christian worldview in the West.”
Marxism’s New Face in Modern Times
The academic also spoke about newer strains of Marxist ideology now prevalent in the West.
“As Kevin Vanhoozer, from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, writes ‘we wrestle not against flesh and blood … but against ‘isms,’ against the powers that seek to name, and control, reality,’” Barnes said.
“Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric today of being open-minded and tolerance and love, today’s ideologies seek as much control as in the past.”
He quoted a 2025 example where New South Wales Attorney-General Michael Daley said the government could decide which kinds of prayer were lawful under the state’s Conversion Practices Ban.
In September 2025, Daley reaffirmed the ban on praying over those who are part of the LGBT community, confirming that praying for or with individuals with the hopes of them “changing their sexual orientation or gender” is against the law.
When asked about the connection between this ban and religious freedom, Daley said the law does not prohibit prayer in general or infringe on religious freedom.
He clarified that actions, including prayer, are lawful unless they “offend[s] the statute,” meaning they fall into the category of conversion practices.
“And you can pray with a person and do all those sorts of things. But if you pray in a way that it becomes … a sustained practice directed to a person with a view to changing their sexual orientation or gender, that’s against the law,” said Daley.
Religious communities and conservative commentators expressed concerns about this.
“Prayer is at the heart of religious freedom,” said Lyle Shelton, national director of the Family First party. “If someone asks for prayer to live in line with their faith, it is an extraordinary overreach for the government to make that illegal.”
Faith Undermined to Allow Marxism to Spread
The discussion echoes arguments presented by The Epoch Times’ editorial series, How the Spectre of Communism Is Ruling Our World.
The series outlines how Marx knew his ideas could not spread as long as people still believed in God and the divine, so from the get-go he advocated for atheism.
“Marx vilified religion and the divine in his theories, while Vladimir Lenin was able to use the machinery of the state to attack religion after seizing power in 1917,” reads Chapter Six: The Revolt Against God.
Later, Marxist theorists would also influence and create religious doctrines.
“In various parts of the world, many emerging theologies similar to liberation theology have appeared, such as ‘black liberation theology,’ ‘feminist theology,’ ‘liberal theology,’ ‘queer theology,’ and even ‘Death of God theology.’ These distorted theologies have greatly disrupted Catholic, Christian, and other orthodox beliefs around the world.”
Eric Louw, a retired professor and Marxism expert, pointed to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s nihilistic 1880s quote: “God is dead.”
“He [Nietzsche] predicted that this ‘killing’ of Christianity would have devastating consequences for the West. Turns out, he was correct because Christianity was the foundation of Western civilisation,” Louw told The Epoch Times.
“Consequently since the ‘death of God,’ Western civilisation has been in steady decline. As this decline unfolds Westerners have invented new religions. One of these was Marxism. The latest religion is ‘wokeism.’”
