The Search for Legitimisation in a Post-Stalinist Society: Polish Intellectuals and the Reconceptualization of the Marxist Project

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Starting from the late 1950s, the model of “real socialism” in the Eastern Bloc countries underwent significant changes. This was the period of exhaustion of the formula of extensive economic growth when visions of modernization different from Stalinism emerged. In the following years, socialist intellectuals in many state-socialist countries felt compelled to undertake a far-reaching reconceptualization of the socialist emancipatory project, in which new aims, means, and social subjects have come to the fore.
In our panel, we will focus on these reconceptualisations in one country, the Polish People’s Republic. However, we will treat Poland not as an isolated national case but as one in constant interaction with both other state-socialist countries and the capitalist West. We will study the reconceptualization of the socialist project in several areas. First, the philosophical one: we ask how Marxist thinkers tried to bring Marxism closer to Western analytical traditions and point to those who criticize that attempt. Second, the sociological one, in which we assess the assimilation of Western sociology as well as the turn to the category of the nation as a basis of social cohesion. Finally, the economic one, where we analyze Poland’s integration with the capitalist system that can be traced back to the 1960s. In all these cases, we ask to what degree we can interpret them as a socialist reconceptualization of the initial liberation project and a path toward alternative modernity, and to what degree they should be seen as a step toward capitalism.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Rudolf Kucera, Masaryk Institute and Archive, CAS (Czech Republic)

Papers

• Scientific Rationality between East and West: Leszek Nowak's Understanding of Marx’s Method - Adam Klewenhagen, U of Warsaw (Poland)

• Against 'Peaceful Coexistence' on the Ideological Front: Jarosław Ładosz Reads Polish Sociology - Monika Woźniak, Institute of Philosophy CAS (Czech Republic)

• Between Participation and Contestation: World Integration and Poland’s Bargaining with International Economic Organizations, 1956-1970 - Bartosz Matyja, U of Warsaw (Poland)

Discussant

• Jan Mervart, Institute of Philosophy CAS (Czech Republic)