For some years I deserted religion in favour of Marxism. The republic of goodness seemed more attainable than the Kingdom of God.

Blue contrasts two kinds of hope: a transcendent, faith-based promise (“the Kingdom of God”) and a this-worldly political project (“the republic of goodness”). The line suggests a period in which Marxism, with its program for social transformation, felt more concrete and actionable than religious belief. Yet the phrasing “deserted” and the comparative “seemed” imply a later reassessment: what once looked attainable may have proved morally or practically insufficient, or at least incomplete. The quote captures a common twentieth-century tension between religious ethics and secular ideologies that claim to deliver justice, and it frames political commitment as a substitute—temporarily—for spiritual belonging.