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Karol Wojtyla, Marxism and the Marxist-Leninists
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Karol Cardinal Wojtyla's encounters with Marxism-Leninism, the official ideology of the Polish state run by the Communist party, have taken place on two levels: theoretical-philosophical and political-practical. As a person living in the country ruled by the Marxist-Leninists, the Cardinal had to be concerned with the reality of his own situation as well as the power structure of the Party-state. As a priest he had to deal with the concept of alienation that is at the center of Marxist anthropology, realizing that the fundamental precondition for abolition of alienation is not abundance of material goods, but an internal improvement of people. As a philosopher Wojtyla had to cope with Marxist concepts of man, nature, society, economics and culture. A neo-Thomist scholar, the present pope believes in human liberty and rejects deterministic philosophies such as Marxism.
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References
1. The best known work of Wojtyla, Karol is The Acting Person, Translated by Andrzej Potocki (Reidel, Analecta Husserliana, 1979). Among his other works in which he deals with those issues are “Osoba: podmiot i wspolnota”, Roczniki Filozoficzne, (XXIV, 2, 1976); Sign of Contradiction (New York, 1979); and “Humanizm a eel czlowieka”, Tygodnik Powszechny (31, 1957).Google Scholar
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25. The two priests in question were Msgr. Jan Šrámek, the former Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London during World War II, and Rev. František Hála. Msgr. Šrámek was the leader of the People's Party, one of the four Czech political parties participating in the National Front government established in Košice, Czechoslovakia, in April 1945. He and Rev. Hála assumed that the Communist party was “just another policital party” and that a modified pre-World War II regime would be reestablished in Czechoslovakia under the presidency of Dr. Eduard Beneš. This belief in the possiblity of coexistence of democratic and Marxist-Leninist forces was shattered in February 1948, after which events both Šrámek and Hála attempted to escape abroad, were apprehended and spent the rest of their lives in detention. After the February 1948 putsch the country's bishops instructed priests not to take an active part in politics. Rev. Josef Plojhar, however, refused to obey his bishop and held a post in the Communist government of Czechoslovakia. For a detailed explanation of the Marxist-Leninist strategy and tactics in Czechoslovakia see Chapter X, “The National Democratic Revolution and the Socialist Revolution” in Josef Kalvoda, Czechoslovakia's Role in Soviet Strategy (Washington, D.C., 1978), pp. 199–218.Google Scholar
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