East Europe: Intellectual Trends in Poland
Labedz, L.
When doctrinal doubts begin to arise, Communist intellectuals frequently tend to revise more than the political framework of their system of beliefs. This tendency has been evident in the case...
...Szacki, "Some remarks on the history of Marxism," Poprostu, No...
...Dubious or risky pronouncements were boldly put forward in the guise of attempts to carry out the decisions of the XXth Congress...
...12, 1955) . These heretical demands were likewise censured in the theoretical organ of the Party by H. Eilstein, who insisted that "the fight against dogmatism cannot become a fight for the acceptance...
...2) Its crisis theory is inapplicable to contemporary capitalism...
...What is to happen to the Party if one Communist tells the masses one thing, and another something else...
...The movement snowballed into a general assault on orthodoxy, far beyond the previous borders of licensed criticism...
...Chelstowski and W. Godek, "The first patrol," Poprostu, No...
...Poprostu openly pointed to the new distinguishing mark: "The writers are divided into those who discuss errors and distortions, and those who discuss so-called errors and distortions...
...Circumlocutions were sometimes abandoned, notably by the young er writers, who often began to call a spade a spade, in doctrinal as well as political matters...
...Writing in the columns of Nauka Polska, he advanced the daring thesis that a supporter of historical materialism is not necessarily bound to accept uncritically every assertion made by the founders of Marxism...
...Kulaczkowski starts from the assumption that the importance of the intellectuals for Communism should be particularly obvious because of "the impasse in which Marxist theory finds itself at present...
...The political expression of this is the dictatorship of the ruling group over the proletariat" (S...
...Chalasinski, "Problems of Contemporary Culture in Polish Humanities," Nauka Polska, No...
...Captive minds began to sprout heretical thoughts, using the prescribed jargon in the interest of genuine criticism...
...but the real cost and the real price: the economic price, the social price, the moral price...
...While their proclaimed aim was to bring it up to date, they appeared in fact more interested in getting it out of the way...
...6, 1956) , although he hedged by insisting that nothing should be done to "undermine the domination of Marxist methodology in science...
...Rather, "it is the outcome of Keynesian doctrines which are underestimated and not properly studied (in Poland) ." He concludes by suggesting that "the thesis concerning the absolute impoverishment of the working-class can be sustained only by statistical jugglery...
...This intellectual ferment had a notable effect on the still continuing academic debate between orthodox defenders of the faith and their revisionist critics...
...At the same time, revolts like the one in Poznan take place in Poland in order to improve elementary living conditions...
...Although rebuked by the Literary Journal, he went on to criticize the part played by Marxist orthodoxy in the humanities during the past decade...
...Another author (Poprostu, No...
...Marxist economics come under fire...
...History has to be tortured in order that it should give birth to the next formation as quickly as possible (But) is it really worth while paying any...
...that Marx ist ethics has remained until today where Marx left off and Marxist aesthetics does not exist at all...
...Is it possible to maintain the thesis on its struc• tural crisis...
...We shall then have two or more parties, instead of one Party acting as the vanguard of the working-class...
...The line between "false consciousness" and false pretenses or between honest doubt and deliberate camouflage is not in all cases easy to draw...
...Its teleological assumptions were questioned...
...nal, Poprostu, transformed itself in September, 1956, into the organ of the critical elements among the intelligentsia...
...No, the fact that it is socially cheaper" (ibid...
...This, in broad outline, was the tenor of discussion on the eve of the eighth plenum of the Central Committee which saw Gomulka's return to power...
...The "adventures of the dialectic" are likewise castigated...
...Having thus replaced the infallible leader by the infallible party, he later (after the XXth Congress) went so far as to state that no institution could be considered infallible (Nowe Drogi, No...
...It was mainly the young who tended to fall back on fundamentalism, stressing the revolutionary aspects of Leninism, reviving memories of the Spanish civil war,* and appealing for a "pure" form of proletarian dictatorship, i.e...
...R. Zimand: "The Controversy on the Future of Socialism...
...one free from bureaucratic domination...
...If the intellectual Communist milieux want to remain Communist, they should uphold not the slogan of freedom of scientific enquiry from the Party, but rather the slogan of freedom of scientific enquiry within the Leninist Party...
...2, 1956) . These attempts to throw up a dyke against the "thaw" suffered a drastic blow when the Khrushchev report on Stalin reached Poland...
...Zolkievski, the Minister of Culture (since replaced) , while conceding some of the critics' charges, reminded them that the abolition of the "cult of the individual" did not imply a retreat from Marxism-Leninism, or the abandoning by the Party of its controlling position in the arts and sciences (Nowe Drogi, No...
...Ideology can serve as a cover for political aims—consciously or otherwise...
...It would not be entirely surprising if, notwithstanding the continued purge of Stalinist diehards from key positions in Poland, the victory of the revisionists should witness an attempt to terminate popular revisionism...
...3) The doctrine of socialist revolution stands in need of revision...
...Even if one abstracts from such cases, it is already apparent that the new phenomenon we are dealing with cannot be adequately described as "Polish Titoism...
...One of the most important among them, the Party philosopher A. Schaff, began by defending the "unambiguousness of Marxian ideology," the class character of the criteria of truth, the class conditioning of cultural phenomena, and the consequent need for "full domination of Marxism" through Party control of the physical and social sciences...
...to impose upon scientific circles a direction of enquiry...
...Such admissions or discoveries give rise to second thoughts on old slogans...
...43, October 21, 1956) . Even the Marxist notion of historical progress towards socialism did not escape derision...
...The articulation of their demands and effectiveness of their pressure was made possible by the split within the Party of which the doctrinal crisis was only one reflection...
...The movement started as a protest against the strangulation of cultural activities, and more generally against excessive interference by the Party in non-political fields...
...history is written backward, from the end to the beginning, often a very distant beginning" (ibid...
...13, 1956) which the orthodox can hardly have relished...
...There is no dictatorship of the proletariat as long as the worker is the hired employee of a State enterprise, and not its master" (Poprostu, No...
...But this was mere face-saving...
...Some of the old taboos, which still remained in force, had an obviously hampering effect on the discussions, as did the prolonged isolation from the West...
...came perilously close to disbelief in the essentials of doctrine...
...We demand responsibility to the present, and not to history...
...And thus the twin pillars of Stalinism, political terror and forcible accumulation of capital, fall under critical, if indirect, scrutiny: "It is high time to apply Marxism to ourselves and enquire what are the real social costs of laying the foundations of socialism in the technically and economically undeveloped countries...
...Its courageous stand soon won it enormous popularity, its circulation reaching the astonish ing figures of one hundred and fifty thousand copies which were sold within the hour of publication...
...what was a matter of cynical readjustment for aged careerists was plainly an overflow of conscience for many of the young...
...Po prostu, June 24, 1956...
...22-53: "Intellectuals and the Communist Movement") stressed the role of the intellectuals in the working-class movement...
...Ossovski, on the development of individual creativity (Przeglad Kulturalny, No...
...At best only the interpretation changes, and not the facts as well...
...Kott, op...
...Deploring its fruits, he pointed to the prevalence of an enforced unanimity, an impersonal style, moral emptiness combined with megalomania, and a general absence of real achievements...
...He questions its validity in relation to four traditional themes: (1) There is no absolute pauperization of the working-class under capitalism...
...that Marx ist sociology has nothing to say on the most crucial problems...
...It is harmful," he proceeds, "to limit the scope of scientific enquiries...
...It now became impossible to limit the scope of criticism to the official framework...
...The effect was shattering...
...The new ritual was not spared...
...This passage was not lost on the Moscow Pravda of October 20, 1956 ("Anti-Socialist Pronouncements in the Polish Press") , which attacked "Mr...
...Replying to Kolaczkowski in the same number of Nowe Drogi, R. Werfel ("The Place of the Communist Intellectual is Within the Framework of the Party") employs the familiar arguments concerning the class character of ideology, and accuses his opponent of "setting the intellectual Communist centers against the Party of the working-class...
...The Party's monopoly of intellectual control was now questioned in the light of its sorry achievements in the cultural field, and this led to the question how far Marxism could be held responsible for what even the orthodox had to admit was an unsatisfactory state of affairs...
...for the well-paid categories of workers in many countries comprise not an insignificant section of the working-class, but a considerable part of it...
...Certain statements...
...He was now found ready to condemn "authoritarian solutions of scientific problems, on the basis of one's position in the hierarchy" (Nowe Drogi, No...
...But in the case of the more youthful participants at least there seems to have been a genuine outburst of long-suppressed feelings and thoughts...
...This, the first revisionist manifesto to appear in the Party's official organ, was at the same time the most comprehensive of any yet published...
...When doctrinal doubts begin to arise, Communist intellectuals frequently tend to revise more than the political framework of their system of beliefs...
...40, September 30, 1956...
...Such elements were noticeable in the flood of criticism which erupted, but the more sophisticated spokesmen of the Communist intelligentsia did not rest content with simple fundamentalism...
...This tendency has been evident in the case of Poland, a country with an ancient and powerful European cultureconsciousness, reinforced by national resentment and politico-economic revulsion against the established system which also embodied the established doctrine...
...It is not surprising that one day we woke up to find ourselves Hegelians once more...
...To deny (the necessity of) such unity of action (and propaganda is also a form of action) signifies the end of the Party...
...Intellectual rigidity is held responsible for the growth of a dogmatic and quasi-religious attitude in Communist circles, culminating in worship of the infallible leader...
...37 [211], September 13-19, 1956) give rise to the awkward question: "What is that constitutes the superiority of one road to socialism over another...
...For Stalin, the dispossession of the capitalists was not the last but the first act of the State...
...The debate thus imperceptibly involved the fundamentals of doctrine, and even the official propagandists were compelled to retreat from previously maintained positions...
...But history cannot make mistakes, and in consequence every new stage requires a new interpretation of all the preceding phases...
...they went beyond the terms licensed by the XXth Congress...
...4) The doctrine of the Party and its role in the State is incorrect...
...The latter now make more frequent use of the term: "Stalinism...
...It seems preposterous to have to explain that not all inventions are to be attributed to one particular nation...
...Chalasinski's attack on "partiinost" in science gave the signal for similar utterances in the literary field and in other intellectual domains...
...In this situation, embarrassing platitudes are proclaimed as theoretical achievements...
...The revisionists were emerging as the victors in the debate which now en tered upon a fresh phase...
...Wojnar in Poprostu, No...
...4, 1956) . There were other attemps to halt the revisionist wave...
...Surprise was expressed that Marxism is described "as a flourishing and universal theory" despite the fact "that for many years },ears (it) has turned somersaults in one and the same place...
...2, 1955) . This scarcely veiled assault on the Party's monopoly in the intellectual field set the ball of criticism rolling...
...we should enquire into the cost of our history...
...He also suggested that values cannot be deduced either from the physical sciences or from Marxism...
...Other writers are no less outspoken on this and related topics...
...43 [343], October 1, 1956, "Conversation with the West") , raises the awkward question: "What is the present meaning of the vague slogan 'proletarians of all lands' "?, and adds, "It is more than doubtful if (the Australian prole tarians) want to unite with the proletarians of Poland...
...Embarrassing questions were asked (cf...
...These formulations by one of the critics (Y...
...The problem of its control transcends, however, the narrow framework of party doctrine...
...In Poland by contrast, the "revisionists" tried to bring about a change and have in many instances gone further than the ex-Titoist heretic, Djilas, though they have so far refrained from publicly expressing doubts about the monopolistic position of the Party in the political sphere...
...Other writers seem to have been in doubt —official assurances notwithstanding—whether Marxism was still relevant to all the topics under discussion...
...Y. Kossek, R. Turski, and W. Wirpsza, "Workers' Control") . IV While these syndicalist notions were taken up in response to the aspirations of the workers, a young philosopher, L. Kulaczkowski, in an outspoken essay (Nowe Drogi, No...
...41 [403], October 7, 1956...
...at the same time he urged scientists to seek the truth, without troubling to explain how this was to be done if the two desiderata should come into conflict...
...The fact that it is more rapid...
...Brodski, ibid...
...On behalf of the former, A.Schaff fell back on a new line of defence...
...41, October 7, 1956) . One of the causes of this state of affairs is that "the system of incentives is perhaps the most imperfect that could have been devised" (St...
...ibid...
...From attacks on Stalinist practice, the movement of criticism spread to criticism of Marxist theory...
...Every petrification of doctrine necessarily leads to its transformation into a mythology, surrounded by a ritual cult, turned into an object of devotion, and safeguarded from criticism...
...Whereas in the U.S.S.R...
...the struggle for power does not exist, the privileged stratum does not manifest a tendency towards stabilization, and ideological incentives can permanently take the place of material ones...
...According to another writer "at present, under socialism, we have retrogressed in the domain of scientific enquiry on social problems even in comparison with the inter-war period" (Przeglad Zagadnien Socjalnych, July, 1956) . The fault lay in the monopoly accorded to MarxismLeninism, the absence of freedom, and the consequent lack of genuine discussion (J...
...The Titoist doctrine was a post hoc rationalization on the part of the excommunicated leaders, an ideology made to measure and constantly refashioned to suit a changing political situation...
...Kott, Przeglad Kulturalny, No...
...Here and there attempts were made to condemn the "hysterical petty-bourgeois elements," but they proved unavailing...
...Yet the political significance of the whole debate on fundamentals is apparent now...
...Poprostu, No...
...to proclaim any truths within the scope of scientific enquiry 'politically correct...
...The chief political weapon used in the struggle was not the clumsy ideological jugglery of Khrushchev's opening address to the Congress, but his "secret" report on Stalin...
...Yet he conceded some points to his opponents, and even delivered an attack on the "cult of the individual" and its harmful consequences three months before Khrushchev's report to the XXth Congress, thus causing a minor sensation...
...But their attitudes inspired some of the more striking formulations put forward by the critics...
...price to history so that it should run quicker...
...of revisionism and eclectic compromises on the fundamental questions" (ibid., No...
...Poprostu, No...
...The answer is emphatically negative...
...Among the more striking was an article by another sociologist, St...
...One of its survivors, recalling the Stalinist liquidation of rivals in Republican Spain, raised the question of whether the 1937 "putsch" in Barcelona 'was needed by the organizers of the Moscow trials' U. Waka, "Spanish and Polish Affairs...
...Although this revisionist current was invariably qualified by references to Marx, and presented as a "return to Leninism," in terms appropriate since the XXth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, it soon overflowed the banks...
...In Australia the minimum wage is so high that it even affects the workers' willing ness to raise their standard of living...
...I17 Theoretical acrobatics are sharply condemned: "It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that we have done everything to stand Marxism on its head...
...In reality, the political function of the doctrine of non-antagonistic contradictions (which logically are, and are not, contradictions at the same time) consisted in throwing a mystical veil over the real contradictions...
...Hitherto repressed critical attitudes began to find their way to the surface and were voiced with growing intensity...
...Zimand, ibid., No...
...Florczak" for trampling underfoot the sacred banner of proletarian internationalism...
...responding call for a "return" to the essentials of the true faith...
...Soon after the triumph of Gomulka, the Central Committee of the United Workers' Party, in a melancholy appeal to the "Hungarian brothers," declared: "You and we had undertaken a struggle for socialist democratization in our countries, for equality and sovereignty in relations between socialist countries" (Trybuna Ludu, October 29, 1956) . When Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to reinterpret this doctrine, Gomulka proclaimed himself a "realist...
...He does not attribute this prosperity to rearmament, an argument he no longer takes seriously...
...This in turn raised the problem of what, in technical terms, should perhaps be called the Engels-Plekhanov version of Marxist epistemology, and from there the critics advanced, albeit with due caution, to the premises of Marxist theory as such...
...It was not long before the ghosts of Bernstein and Rosa Luxemburg, of Bukharin and Trot sky, stalked the scene...
...its full text was not very widely divulged, in Poland it was circulated in printed form to every party cell in the country by the Central Committee itself—apparently in order to forestall its disclosure by Western broadcasts, which are widely listened to...
...W. Godek and R. Turki: "Is this the decline of Marxism...
...Can one go on talking even about the relative pauperization (of the working class) in Britain and the U.S.A...
...For many of the younger intellectuals already educated in the Party spirit, the outcome is likely to be a crisis of faith...
...The advocacy of Titoist practices is buttressed by Titoist arguments: "Stalinism, being one of the most radical revisions of Marxism, found its particular expression in its treatment of the role of the State and its functions...
...Yet though there was much talk of standing for the interests of the workers against the bureaucracy, the debate was essentially over culture...
...Along with this there went the fundamentalist critique of "mistaken interpretations" of revealed truth which frequently accompanies a revolt against orthodoxy and the cor...
...43, October 21, 1956) . 11 The first writer to put forward a boldly revisionist thesis was the distinguished sociologist J. Chalasinski...
...43, October 21, 1956) . Two other writers go even further and define it as "a socio-economic system...
...One of them confronts the officially inspired enthusiasm with the drab facts of economic life, and remarks with bitter irony: "Our economic position is good, but not hopeless" (B...
...October 28, 1956) . Correctives are sought in the introduction of workers' control, the transformation of State property into social ownership, reinvigoration of market relations, profit-sharing schemes, and the improvement of cost-accounting...
...in which there is a relationship of economic dependency of the popular masses on the group of administrators...
...to lay down truths that are taboo and excluded from discussion...
...This doctrine leads to the metaphysical thesis that under the regime in which socialism is being constructed...
...Poland first and Hungary later provided a pattern of anti-totalitarian revolt: the literary ferment was followed by a movement among students heading the discontented intelligentsia and joining forces with the workers in what became a nation-wide protest against foreign domination and internal oppression...
...III The lead was taken by the student youth, whose weekly jour...
...9 [87], September, 1956, pp...
...Brodski: "Reflections on a Journey") , after a visit to Western Europe, discusses its "striking prosperity," a remark inconceivable not long ago...
...At the same time, debating clubs—the equivalents of the Petofi and Kossuth circles in Hungary—sprang up and rapidly became a vehicle for the voicing of public complaints...
...The younger elements of the population provided its dynamic force: the students from the Warsaw Technical High School, the young workers from the Zheran and Zispo factories, etc...
...History was turned into an account of congresses, resolutions, deviations, and fresh resolutions to correct such deviations...
...43, October 21, 1956...
...Thus Z. Florczak (Nova Kultura, No...
...At the ideological level, confusion reigned, with reformist and revolutionary attitudes simultaneously professed by the critics of orthodoxy, who in some cases seem not to have realized that they were putting forward incompatible ideas...
...The bolder critics now referred to "the so-called cult of the individual," i.e...
...By imperceptible gradations, some of the hitherto terrorized "engineers of the soul" recovered some of their liberty to think, and even admitted that they had previously been outraging their own consciences...
...More than once were these historic figures men tioned by name, although to the younger generation their writings may be little known...
...What are the limits of economic planning under contemporary capitalism...
...Another writer affirms that "the chief obstacle to the development of the productive forces are the relations of production," by which he means "the socio-political system called Stalinism" (R...
...One side attempted to reduce the discussion to the problem of power, while the other protested bitterly that "after many years of proclaiming that we live under the most democratic regime possible, we have to invent a new term: democratization" (Y...
Vol. 4 • April 1957 • No. 2
