Marksizm w rozumieniu Czesława Miłosza

Abstract

Marxism as understood by Czesław Miłosz

The article presents Marx’s and Engels’ views on nature and history, as well as the views of the Polish Nobel laureate on Marxism. Miłosz remained under the spell of the Marxist way of understanding the world for quite a long time. The notions that the reality on the move is a constant struggle, that history is the process of human self-fulfilment and extension of nature were very close to him. In the 1930s, the author of The Captive Mind remained “musical” to Marxism. Later, he would consistently analyse it, revealing it as weak and evil. He was never comfortable with leftist totalitarianism. He always rebelled against the “metaphysics” of Marxism-communism and “letting the devil in by the side entrance”, i.e. replacing God with history, with the doctrine of its all-powerfulness, despite being, after all, convinced that history, just as nature, was governed by iron historical necessity and that the universal killed the particular. When analysing the effects of the overwhelming influence of the “snowballing force” of history on the individual, he tried to capture “the eternal moment” in the “movement” and attempted self-definition in the river of time.