The paper analyses the young Lukács' religious belief in the light of the late Lukács' understanding of religion. Lukács was born in an unreligious assimilated Jewish family and had contacts with Jewish and Lutheran religions. The need for something t o believe in lead young Lukács to Marxism and communism in the messianistic-revolutionary movement of 1918–19 Hungary. There was a direct connection between Lukács' Marxian messianism and his former Christian messianism, which in his later works is almos t but concealed. Therefore, in Lukács' later Marxism the moment of suspension predominates over that of preservation while in his whole life work the reverse was the case.
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