Publication Details

Abstract

The studies concerned with the history- of Marxian thought in Slovakia carried out up to the present in Slovak historiography of philosophy cover almost all periods following the foundation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. However, attention is to be paid also to the first years of penetration of Marxism into Slovakia. This is necessary hot only because socialistic ideas represent an integral part of the given period but also because the cognition of the peculiarities of connecting Marxism with workging-class movement is always of great importance; the peculiarities of this process become manifest also in the later stage of development of the communist movement. At the turn of the 19th and 20 th century, wheen the first socialistic periodicals and other kind of socialistic literature written in Slovak language have been published, there was no philosophical tradition suitable for the propagation and development of Marxism. The Slovak intelligentsia took a rejective standpoint towards Marxism even in the period when it was already penetrating into Slovakia. Hence Marxism was mediated to the Slovak working-class movement mostly by workers-autodidacts, a fact which negatively influenced its theoretical niveau However, compared with previous philosophical thinking the philosophical thought of the first Slovak socialists certainly was a step forward; it was the most consequent materialistic thought of its era as compared with the past. Giving the world a materialistic explanation, the Slovak socialists endeavour to explain the reasons of the contemporary situation in society, and to illuminate and demonstrate its dealings. They propagate in Slovak environment the Marxian view at the world either by means of their own publications or by first Slovak translations from the works of Marx and Engels. They explain social injustice, poverty and inequality with the existence of capitalistic relations from which they deduce also the necessity of social struggle and the need of an organized procedure of the Slovak working class. The most interesting opinions of the first Slovak socialists from philosophical viewpoint are those concerned with religion and moral. The first Slovak socialists were very anxious to propagate and develop their views first of all with the aim to protect socialism against the attacks of the clericals and of bourgeois ideologists. They disclosed the class function of religion, they demonstrated the class character of morals and tried to determine socialistic morals. The views and the activity of the first Slovak socialists are to a great extent marked by the opportunism and reformism of the 2nd Internationale; anyhow, their activity can be considered as a stage in the creation of preconditions for a higher degree of socialistic thought and deed in Slovakia.