Marx at the end of his life was only beginning to work on analysis of nonEuropean precapitalist societies. He was a great admirer of the work of anthropologist Morgan, whose work on native American societies such as the Iroquois he admired. Morgan classified the Iroquois society as "primitive communism," a society in which not only there was no bourgeoisie or proletariat, but there were no classes in general. I would presume that would not be applicable to Ibo society, where there was very little of a bourgeoise and even less of a proletariat, but I believe there was slavery? Though very different I am sure from the slavery of ancient Rome and Greece with which Marx was familiar. Nor, unlike say Ethiopia, could Ibo society be seen as similar to the feudalism of the European middle ages.

A Marx would not describe it using those categories. The class structure of the Bourgeois and the Proletariat are post-Industrial groups, both came into being with Industrialization.

B The economy in relation to the ideology may or may not be relevant. It would depend on the specific of the cultural context.

C As above - that question is only answerable knowing the specific of the social context. In general, Religion is a type of Ideology.

"What evidence would Marx site from TFA to show that colonial Christianity functions as Ideology?"

I would say the same type of evidence that shows Christianity in general functions as an ideology.

"Conversely, how might a Marxist argue the colonial Christianity in Ibo culture represents the historical dialectic of revolution?"

As a Marxist I am not sure I would argue that at all - in fact I would argue that it is an imposed (colonizing) ideology.

So, here's a quick sketch of how I might begin to make that argument.

I possibly could construct an argument about the Maori situation. Here, from shortly after contact to the present day, there have been a number of Maori Christian Prophets. In the sense that they engaged with the incoming Religion - Christianity - and in that dialectic process Christianity was adapted into Maori culture there is some sort of dialectics going on. Many of these same prophets were war leaders or at least promoted active armed resistance to the colonizers.

I can't (at this stage) take this argument much further, and in fact, I would suggest that this shows , rather, the imposition of a dominant/colonial hegemony aided by the prophets as sub-alterns (post-colonial - see Spivak).

However, there is a potential direction looking at this as forcing a social change (revolution). To make such an argument I would have to show that the adoption of Christianity was a historical necessity (not that difficult to make in the face of colonization), that the adoption was totally voluntary (i.e. not imposed) and that the outcome is a positive social revolution leading to the features of Marx's ideal society.

These last two are difficult to make for Maori culture - let alone for Ibo culture, which I know nothing about.

I hope that is helpful.

@ Ian Stuart

Thank you