Free Republic

July 24, 2009, 0:00 p.m. Leszek Kolakowski, 1927–2009Remembering the great philosophical pathologist of Marxism. By George Weigel Cracow, Poland — Leszek Kolakowski, who died at 82 on July 17, will be remembered by the world of letters as one of the leading philosophers of the late 20th century, a man whose magisterial Main Currents of Marxism will be read centuries from now by anyone interested in getting at the intellectual roots of one of modernity’s most consequential — and lethal — bodies of thought. His native Poland will remember Kolakowski as one of a small group of intellectuals who,...

     Leszek Kolakowski & the anatomy of totalitarianism by Roger Kimball    It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.—Marx to Engels, 1857What socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything.—V. I. Lenin, 1917Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.—Pascal, Pensées Born in Radom, in eastern Poland, in 1927, the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski is closing in on his eightieth year. He has...