The Catholic-Marxist ideological dialogue in Poland (1945-1980)

Abstract

In this thesis I examine first the attitudes of the Catholic groups toward Marxist ideology and the policy of the Party and secondly the attempts of Marxists to overcome a crisis of their philosophy by discussing the Catholic ideas. In the last chapter I discuss the philosophies of Karol Wojtyla and Leszek Kolakowski - the two outstanding philosophical outcomes of the Catholic-Marxists dialogue. The arguments discussed in this thesis fall into two groups: those contributing to the process by which Catholicism developed into a philosophy of opposition and those illustrating the disintegration of Catholic and Marxist social doctrines. I argue that the nature of the dialogue significantly influenced political and intellectual life in Poland. Show more