Marxism’s alliance with vulgar materialism responded to popular religious culture

Evidence

A further aspect of the question is even more interesting. Why is it that even the so-called orthodoxy has combined the philosophy of praxis with other philosophies, and prevalently with one in particular rather than with others? In fact the one that counts is the combination with traditional materialism; the combination with Kantianism has had only a limited success and only among certain restricted intellectual groups. … One of the historical reasons can, it seems to me, be looked for in the fact that the philosophy of praxis has been forced to ally itself with extraneous tendencies in order to combat the residues of the precapitalist world that still exist among the popular masses, especially in the field of religion. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1395

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains why ‘philosophy of praxis’ (Marxism read as a philosophy of practice rather than dogmatic materialism) historically combined with traditional materialism rather than Kantianism.
• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s core toolkit concept of ‘philosophy of praxis’ and how theory adapts to the cultural level of its audience — a mechanism the reader can carry into later theorizing about how movements speak to masses.