MiŁowit Kuniński

Stefan Kisielewski’s intellectual struggle with Polish communism: Stefan Kisielewski a Polish novelist, composer, music critic, essayist, feature writer and a politician, was an exceptional personage in post‑World War II Poland. In his features, published in Tygodnik Powszechny since 1945, in a light, ironic and allusive way to prevent censorship, he described the Polish reality that his readers were acquainted with, in a way that revealed the real causes of the phenomena he observed. The truth was simple: the communist reality was the result of politico‑economic system that was imposed based on a Marxist theory of economy. Kisielewski’s criticism of communism was not just a matter of a keen observation and sensible conclusions; it was based on his studies of Marxism that he began before World War II. In turn, in Wilhelm Röpke’s Die Gesellschaftskrisis der Gegenwart, he found an accurate characterisation of the socialist economy and an explanation for its non‑functioning. The second important reason for his criticism of communism was Kisielewski’s Catholicism, which operated as a counter‑balance to Marxism, combined with the idea of a liberal‑democratic regime. In his later years, Kisielewski criticised the social teachings of the Catholic Church, and suggested a new idea that they were based on “the theology of profit” as an ideological justification of the attitudes necessary for the functioning of the market economy in Poland. He even suggested the implementation of a dictatorship to avoid long parliamentary democratic procedures, and in this way to establish a quick and effective market economy on the ruins of socialism.

Certainly we are dealing with a profound and long-lasting crisis at the core of the Western World, caused by the fall of the communist system – as many have already pointed out – which changed the previous distribution of power and enabled a clearer and more open redefinition of the interests of its main political actors. This crisis will be characterized by irregular outbursts of aggressive activity, often far exceeding the norms of diplomatic correctness, by periods of collaborative effort, particularly if the West faces serious threats on a more global scale and has to deal with serious political games. It is certain that the main source of this present crisis is the rivalry that has been waged on various fronts between the US and the European Union. It can be therefore affirmed that, from the point of view of the logic of political transformation, the Union must aim toward an external sovereignty. This process will certainly be a long one, and will undoubtedly involve recurring frictions between the European Union and the United States. This will be the symptom of the process of building the sovereignty in opposition to a state whose legal and international sovereignty cannot be questioned, and whose practical sovereignty has been expressed in the active participation in the international arena for almost 200 years.

In the article two seminal theories of global justice are compared: one concerned with individuals, the other with peoples. The striking feature of Pogge’s theory is that noble aims are to be achieved through the implementation of global justice for the permanent betterment of the situation of people living in extremely severe conditions. It is not entirely clear, however, whether helping them is a moral obligation or is due rather to a sense of guilt towards the descendants of the exploited. Justice among peoples, in turn, is a set of rules of the well-ordered society of peoples based on a social contract decided upon by the representatives of peoples. Rawls’s theory of relations among peoples is realistic, although he unconvincingly argues in favour of peoples as moral agents, neglecting the fact that the representatives play a governmental role, and that the social contract is in the end achieved by states rather than peoples.