"The Necessary Resource if History Was to Be Understood as a Theatre of Revolutionary Possibility"

"It was Walter Benjamin, the Berlin-born literary and cultural critic who sustained an important affiliation with the Institute, who tried to explain the relationship between Marxism and religion with a memorable image: Marxist theory, he wrote, is like the chess-playing automatism first presented at the imperial court in 18th-century Vienna, whose movements seemed to be governed by nothing but the mechanical operation of levers and wheels. But the true animus of Marxist theory is theology, which in the modern era must hide itself from public view but still lends Marxism its apparently autonomous power, much like the individual who was cleverly concealed within the chess-player's cabinet and assured its victory." 

Peter E. Gordon at New Statesmen explores the relationship the Frankfurt School had with religion.