THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT 4 IIthree-volume survey, Gtowne nurty Marksizmu (1976—8) presented a brilliant
critique of the rise and fall of a system of ideas and beliefs which he already took
to be dying. And it was dying because it was unworthy. 'Mendacity,' he repeated
on many occasions, 'lay at the core of Communism.'^20
Kolakowski's experiences over the two decades following 1948 marked the
brief period when Polish Marxism showed signs of life. At first, during the
infancy of the communist regime, a measure of confrontation was only to be
expected. It says much for the maturity of Polish philosophy that the debate was
conducted in a much more civilized fashion than elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
Although political conditions clearly favoured the outbursts of ambitious
Marxist firebrands like Schaff, non-Marxists were allowed to express their
opinions, and to voice their protests, in public. Established figures such as
Tadeusz Kotarbiriski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, and Stanislaw Ossowski pub-
lished withering attacks on the cruder forms of official ideology.^21 Later on,
indeed, there was reason to suppose that the cohabitation of a relatively stable
Communist regime and of a staunchly Catholic population would provide ideal
conditions for a Marxist—Christian dialogue. In effect, attempts to establish this
dialogue in Poland have proved peculiarly unfruitful. Experience would suggest
that "Polish Marxism' was a circle that could not be squared. The guardians of
Party truth never felt sufficiently certain about their principles, or about the
reactions of their Soviet masters, for a sustained debate to take place.
Increasingly, they placed their trust in policemen rather than in philosophers.^22
In the context of the Communist world as a whole, it was a sad irony that a
Party which saw itself as the culmination of Poland's anti-authoritarian, anti-
conformist, and therefore anti-Russian revolutionary traditions, should find
itself obliged to advocate the Soviet brand of Communism. Inevitably, there was
a wide discrepancy between the Polish Party's theoretical pronouncements,
which had to pay lip-service to the Leninist and Stalinist phraseology of the
Soviet model, and its practical policies. As Gomulka and other determined spir-
its knew from the start, the Polish Road to Socialism could not possibly, follow
the Russian signposts. They would have concurred wholeheartedly with Stalin's
dictum that Communism in Poland resembled 'a saddle on a cow'. Unlike Stalin,
however, they would have preferred to trim the saddle to fit the cow, instead of
hacking the cow to fit the saddle. Unfortunately for them, their subordinate
position within the Soviet alliance always inhibited them from any active
expression of their ideological preference. Left to itself, the Polish Party would
probably have adopted a position closer to that of the Communist parties of
Western Europe than to that of the CPSU. Such a course would be guided by a
number of objective circumstances. The transformation of an industrializing
society dominated by traditional Catholic values would seem to demand prior-
ities more akin to those developed beyond the Soviet pale by Communists in