As a first point of logical non-sequitor, the generative work for communism is the Communist Manifesto, by Freidrich Engles and Karl Marx. It was published in February of 1848. Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1859. For the home schooled reader, Darwin came 11 years LATER than Communism.
Do the Cretin Science types want to credit Darwin with time travel so that his work might have influenced the founding fathers of Communism? That is one plausible deduction from this outlandish Cretin Science claim. The other is to credit Marx and Engles with being psychic.
The second point illustrating the absolute absurdity of this new piece of Cretin Science illogic is history. Outside a narrow audience of intellectuals and biologists, Darwin's Theory had its greatest initial public influence in its MISapplication in the “Social Sciences” as “Social Darwinism.” Dating to the mid 1870’s or so and during the peak of “Robber Baron Capitalism”, Social Darwinists justified the accumulation of capitalistic wealth and power in the hands of a few and the particular wealth of a few nations as “survival of the fittest.”
If you think Darwinian thought spurred “Godless Communism”, you might look at its misapplication in Andrew Carnegie's book The Gospel of Wealth (published in 1889). Carnegie, buying Spencer's Social Darwinist view that the fittest are those that accumulate great wealth, of course thus defining himself as about the most fit man in America, then reconciles that with a Christian vision by pointing out the special obligation of unusually fit people to share their wealth with others. As at least some know, Carnegie put his money where his mouth was. Since the Carnegie Foundation is still in the business of giving today, a more correct view of Darwin might be that he is the origin of the modern Christian flavor of capitalism derivative of Adam Smith as elaborated upon by the likes of Herbert Spencer and as manifest in the good works of an Andrew Carnegie. Now as to any influence upon the Soviet expression of Communism, I would point out that that is still roughly 40 years in the future.
And, I would also point out that the non-godless among the left usually claim Christ as the first Communist. They have been doing so for a long time.
But the biggest absurdity is this business is the inclusion of Stalin in the list. Stalin was a ruthless architect of state power, not an “ism.” Anyone that thinks otherwise knows little of both Communism and history. But more importantly, from the 1930’s Lysenko was Stalin's “official” biologist/cum evolutionist and Lysenko had his own bizarre and distinctly non-Darwinian theory of evolution. The theory is actually quite involved but is probably best known for advocating “inheritance of acquired characteristics.” Lysenko's view of evolution, given power by proxy from Stalin, kept Soviet advances in biology 40 years behind the west (much as Cretin Science retards its followers). And the domain of Darwin's Theory is biology, not political system, governmental structure or pop social science.
Were Communists aware of Darwin's Theory and did the more intelligent and educated among them think it a superior scientific theory to Lysenko's absurdities? The answer is yes. They were aware of and influenced by Newton's Theory of gravity too. Some forty plus years after Spencer did some of them misapply Darwin's Theory to communism in the same way that the Social Darwinists did to capitalism? Probably. Certainly I have seen no shortage of godless politicians quote from the Bible as well.
The important point is that Darwin's Theory also has nothing to say about religion except to those that are made insecure by its existence as a challenge to their narrow view of the Bible and how it should be interpreted. If you are in this category, perhaps your time would he better spent in examining why your faith is so weak.
As to the pseudo science that constitutes Cretin Science, I say once again this stuff is an embarrassment to your intellect, knowledge, and integrity.
wow!
One thing both the Capitalists and the Communists agreed upon at that time was that Darwin's theory was philosophically antithetical to Communism.