R

religion

art as substitute for, 8

capitalism as a force weakening, 206

decline, 7, 72, 73, 206

God replaced by History, 31

peasant ties to, 7, 8

in people's democracies, 72–73, 205–209, 212

replaced by philosophy, 7–8

in Russia, 207, 212

See also Catholicism, Catholics; Christianity, Christians

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 11–12

Russia, Russians

as alien conquerors of Baltic States, 227

art, 38, 48

characterized, 36, 52

its collapse predicted, 221–222

disdain for Western sophistication, 47

distrust of Communists elsewhere, 152

dogmatic thinking, 71

downfall expected, 48–49

hunger for strangeness, 67

Ketman of Revolutionary Party, 63

lack of moderation, 48, 51

non-European, increasingly, 227

Polish army officers interned in, 156

religion, 207, 212

science emphasized, 34–35

standard of living compared to Baltic States, 226, 231–232, 240

view of in people's democracies, 62

Warsaw uprising, actions during, 96–97

S

Sadra (Avicenna's disciple), 59, 60, 61

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 127

Sceptical Ketman, 71–72

schizophrenics, likely persistence of, 22

science

popularization of, 199–200

Russian emphasis on, 34–35

and Stalinism, 200–201

self-criticism, 108–109

sentimentality, 237

Shakespeare, 67, 68, 74

shock workers, 145

social democrats, 146

Socialist Party (Poland), 169

socialist realism

allegory forbidden, 42

artists' response, 12–16

concentration camps, proper way to depict, 126

conversion to, artists' experience of, 17–20

didacticism, 216–217

literary politicians, 151

national literatures and, 22

novels as ideological exercises, 169

in Poland, 106, 164

politically correct themes, 126

in post-1945 Poland, 106

proletariat in, 217

psychological processes in writers, 131

"slime of he West," 124

spontaneity in creative process, attempts to eliminate, 189

talent, 161

tragedy anathema, 73–74

Sorel, Georges, 145

Soviet Union. See Russia, Russians [on this page]

Stalin, 63–64, 208

Ode to Stalin, 157

Stalinism ("the Method," "the New Faith")

aberrations it leads to, 49–50

acceptance by intellectuals, reasons for, 7–20, 41, 50–51, 52–53, 220

adopting, recompense for, 16

arguments for, source of their power, 14

Christianity compared to, 208–209, 233–234

collapse of "natural" order in the West predicted, 30

as a common thought system, 8–9

defined, 52

deviations from, 60, 73, 213–214

dialectical materialism as anesthetic preparation for, 220

ethics in, 75–77

freedom in, 239–240, 247

Hegelian philosophy not synonymous, 219

History, its proclaimed mastery of, 218

human psychology, understanding of, 203–204

individuals treated as types, 211, 215, 217

intellectual terror, 214

intellectuals made useful, 9

limits of its appeal, 6

lives sacrificed to the future, 233–234

Marxism not synonymous, 69, 74

as a material force, 221

mental opposition to, 167

nationalities, nationalism in, 240–246

"new man," 10, 75–76, 208, 217, 239–240, 249

proletariat in, 209, 247

proof of its rightness, 15

reactionaries in, 202–205, 209, 247

resistance to, emotional basis of, 201–202, 213

revolt against it predicted, 221–222

as a revolution, its uniqueness, 234–235

science, Russian superiority in, 241

science vulgarized, 200–201

significance it gives to thought, 12

the state in, 219

subjective impotence and, 14–15

total rationalism in, 215

tragedy anathema, 73–74

Western criticisms, 42

Standé (Polish poet), 152

the state, withering away of, 219

Stendahl (Marie-Henri Beyle), 130

strangeness, hunger for, 67

Stravinsky, Igor, 48

stupidity, 210

Sweden, 68

Swift, Jonathan, 130

T

Tito (Josip Broz), 61, 62

Titoism, 46

Tolstoi, Count Leo, 47, 130

totalitarianism. See Stalinism [on this page]

tragedy (literary genre), 73–74

U

Ukraine, 242

Union of Patriots (Poland), 154–155, 156, 157, 159

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. See Russia, Russians [on this page]

unions (trade), 197

United States, Americans

Communism compared to, 36

Europe, Western Europe equated by, 44

intelligentsia lacking, 33–34

view of in people's democracies, 25, 29, 31–33

See also the West, Westerners [on this page]

V

Vega, Lope de, 68

Vilna, 134–137, 145, 150, 159, 169

W

W. B. (Polish poet), 153, 157

Ode to Stalin, 157

Wandurski, Witold, 152

Warsaw, destruction of, 95–98, 160–161

Warsaw ghetto uprising, 184–185

the West, Westerners

Christianity in, 212

collapse of its "natural" order predicted in people's democracies, 30

Communists in compared to Eastern Communists, 234, 235–236

as depicted in Soviet books, 218

disdain for Eastern Europe, 44–45

fear in compared to people's democracies, 239

intelligentsia lacking in, 93

irrelevant in post-1945 Poland, 167

misjudgment of intellectual life in people's democracies, 78–79

neuroses, 218–219

schools in compared to people's democracies, 199

view of in people's democracies, 25, 29–48, 52

See also United States, Americans [on this page]

Whitman, Walt, 66

Witkiewicz, Stanislaw Ignacy

Farewell to Autumn, 3

Insatiability, 3–5, 15, 21–22

suicide, 5

Wordsworth, William, 74

workers, 195–197

Writer's Union (Poland), 172–173, 174

Y

Yalta Conference, 100

Z

Zbyszek, Lieutenant, 94–95

Zeus, 251