In many ways, Karl Marx understood Hegel better than Hegel understood himself.Marx recognized Hegel's implicit (if paradoxical) materialism and brought it to the fore (thus "standing Hegel on his head").
He also opened the door to the "vulgar materialism" that insists upon a selective reading of his stated position on religion (found in his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right):
Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Clearly religion is more to Marx than a mere "opiate": it expresses real distress and offers protest against it; it is the "heart of a heartless world."
By "standing Hegel on his head," Marx did not attempt to dismantle Hegelian metaphysics but, rather, to reverse its priorities.
Liberation theologians have been more perceptive readers of Marx (and, likewise, of Hegel) than many self-appointed keepers of the Marxian legacy.
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