Obituary: Professor Leszek Kolakowski →
Leszek Kolakowski’s academic field was hard to pin down. He was at once philosopher, historian, theologian, political scientist and literary critic. As a philosopher he radically changed his views several times during his life in ways that reflected the postwar political developments of his native Poland.
He began as an enthusiastic Marxist, becoming chair of Warsaw University’s philosophy department. Later, he became one of the regime’s most outspoken revisionists, advocating a democratic, humanist Marxism. But he then rejected that too, concluding that a democratic communism would be like “fried snowballs”.»
