Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The text addresses the problem of the contemporary Polish left’s abandonment of its unique 20th century ideological sources, as one of the hypothetical sources of its political weakness.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The research problem of the text is the ideological phenomenon of the Polish “revisionist left” of the second half of the 20th century. Selected political and social concepts of Jacek Kuroń and Jan Strzelecki are analysed. The theoretical perspective of political anthropology is used in the analysis.

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: As for Jacek Kuroń’s thought, his concept of social self-organization with its critical dimension towards real socialism, but also towards some mechanisms of mass democracy, is analysed. In the case of Jan Strzelecki’s thought, the analysis focuses on an attempt to reconstruct his political ethics.

RESEARCH RESULTS: The conducted analysis reveals not only the humanistic, but also the personalistic dimension of Kuroń’s and Strzelecki’s social thought. Its manifestations include: emphasis on the dignity of person as a subject of the social process, distance and distrust towards the mechanisms of the world of politics, and the proposal of a kind of secular transcendence, also open to metaphysical experience.

CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The 20th century Polish political thought remains an important, forgotten and unused reservoir of contemporary Polish politics. One of the reasons for this may be the dysfunctional shape of the contemporary Polish political conflict.