Original scientific paper
Kvirin Vasilj’s Views on Certain Aspects of Marxist Philosophy
Draženko Tomić
; Učiteljski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
Examined in this article are some of the views of Kvirin Vasilj (1917–2006) on Marxism, under which this philosopher understands the conceptional, political and economic followers of Karl Marx (1818–1883), socialists and communists. A comprehensive survey of Vasilj’s writing on these topics remains beyond the goal of this study, considering that each of his 22 books touch upon the issue of Marxism in one way or another.
The first part of the article deals with Vasilj’s book Marksizam i kršćanstvo [Marxism and Christianity] (1976), which on the other side of the Iron Curtain must have had readers among Croatian intellectuals in exile, in the same manner as the works by Branko Bošnjak, Janez Janžekovič, Mijo Škvorc and Tomislav Vereš had on this side.
The second part discusses some of Vasilj’s philosophical comments on dialectical materialism, with emphasis on philosophical anthropology. Expectedly, Vasilj views man in the light of transcendence, whilst dialectical materialism views man as a physical being encapsuled in a mere time-space framework. Vasilj has no objection against Marxist understanding of man as a social being, yet he rejects the thesis that man is essentially determined by the production means only: man manages the production means, and not the other way round. Eventually, this Marxist thesis enabled the transformation of the dictatorship of the proleteriat into the tyranny of the supra-proletarians.
Least attention Vasilj devoted to the Marxist negation of religion. He is convinced that it results from a principally fallacious concept of divine reality, which the Marxists treat as some hostile political party. Apparently, he cannot hide his joy over the fact that the Marxists have not chosen any particular religion through which they would communicate their views―in which case great harm would have been done to that religion. In reality, the Marxists fervently rejected and persecuted religion (in which some sort of communitarianism is inherent). Thus Vasilj concludes that Marxists do not need religion, because they themselves act as a fanatic religion which worships its communist party and its leader.
The third part addresses Vasilj’s standpoint on Marxism accomplished in the form of a totalitarian regime, in which, similar to other totalitarian systems, lust for honour, power and wealth prevail. Blinded individuals in the highest party ranks were unable to see that people felt far better if they participated in power rather than if they had common ownership over the production means. These individuals turned into power holders who not only managed the private but also the public good, and irresponsibly impoverished whole nations. That is in direct contradiction to what they declare: social justice, brotherhood and equality, as well as general well-being.
Keywords
Kvirin Vasilj; dialectical materialism; Marxism
Hrčak ID:
221187
URI
Publication date:
12.3.2019.
Visits: 1.352 *