Marxist Confrontations and Political Practices 1944-1956: Structuration of the Social Sciences in Postwar Poland

and Adam Schaff (1913-2006). The study aims to address two fundamental questions.

Firstly, the project will focus on the evolution of the main lines of theoretical and methodological disagreement, and the associated shifts that define the beliefs, values, and aspirations of the selected actors. Secondly, through the prism of ongoing conflicts and divisions within the scientific community, the project will reveal the relationship between the field of power and science, and its impact on structuring the social sciences in post-war Poland.

In contrast to the totalitarian perspective of the study of communism, Marxists were not an ideological monolith; like representatives of other scientific paradigms, they underwent a

process of evolution. This can be seen in the intense debates in the early post-war years

about the shape and direction of reconstruction of the Polish state and society, which formed Polish Marxist thought. The representatives of the emerging intellectual formation had institutional autonomy in the newly established socio-literary journals. The so-called “soft revolution” period enabled the intensive dissemination of ideas, during which authors tackled a broad spectrum of issues, including education policy, political transformation, and the genealogy of the Polish intelligentsia. The following years brought further debates on the relevance of Marxism in the epoch, the model of scientific practice, and the history of Marxist historiography. An important point of reference is the confrontation with the Lvov-Warsaw School and the Catholic neo-Thomist milieu.

An investigation of social and political practices will provide insights into how Marxists positioned themselves in the fields of power and academia and, through an analysis of polemics, which arguments were dominant at a particular time. Some may mark an increase in prestige in the intellectual field, while others may indicate a decline in it. These were intellectuals who knew each other, which, on the one hand, mitigated the conflicts but, on the other hand, raised the stakes.

A preliminary review of the literature on Polish sociology shows that the phenomenon of

Marxist polemics has received limited attention among sociologists and has not yet been the subject of a systematic study; it appears mainly as a side issue in historians’ discussions. The project aims to fill this gap. Firstly, it will extend research on the history of Polish Sociology over the years, considering both the individual biographies of Polish Marxists and the Marxist collective as a whole. Secondly, it will provide a novel perspective on the intellectual history of this movement’s social thought, which still strongly resonates in the present Polish socio-political imaginary.

The research is based on the analysis of five types of sources: archival queries (e.g., Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Archives of the University of Łódź); socio-literary periodicals (Kuźnica, Odrodzenie) and academic journals (Myśl Współczesna, Myśl Filozoficzna, Kwartalnik Historyczny); books and publications on the subject related to Marxism; scientific congresses (First Polish Congress of Science, First Methodological Conference of Polish Historians); in-depth

interviews with students of Assorodobraj, Hochfeld and Schaff and other individuals who