I have to strongly disagree there. There may have been some anti-establishment satire in his writing, but that is not the main thing he wrote about.
Lem was probably one of the most pure sci-fi authors out there. He was not that interested in using sci-fi as a metaphor for everyday issues, but he genuinely wanted to explore issues that were outside of our everyday lives. Such as what would an artificial intelligence or an artificial consciousness look like, what would an alien intelligence or consciousness look like, how could we possibly communicate with a being that is truly alien, i.e., it is completely different than everything we know about life and biological development on earth. His two most famous novels -- Solaris and Fiasco were both about communicating with an alien intelligence, and did not have any anti-communist or anti-soviet satire in them.
I agree he is a great writer. But I do not like it when people say "he was not really a sci-fi writer" as a precursor to saying "he is a great writer", as if one could not be a great writer while being a sci-fi writer. Lem is a great writer and a sci-fi writer. He possessed the most important thing in a sci-fi writer he could think up of interesting and/or important ideas, and he could describe them in an engaging manner and explore the consequences.
By the way, now that sci-fi is a billions of dollars a year business, sci-fi writers still have not bothered to deal with the ideas suggested by Lem. Aliens in modern sci-fi are almost always based on humans in one way or another. Today's sci-fi authors are committing the same mistake the scientists of Fiasco did by thinking too much about themselves when trying to imagine a being that is truly alien to humanity.
And just to get at the topic of anti-establishement satire in poish literature, the prime example has always been Janusz Zajdel. Especially his late two most aacknowledged works, "Limes Inferior" and "Pardyzja" primarily depict totalitarian, dystopian systems and the means of people to game them. It is a great shame that he has been taken by cancer at a relatively young age because the world view he presented in his books was darker and more bitter compared to Lem.
Lem was probably one of the most pure sci-fi authors out there. He was not that interested in using sci-fi as a metaphor for everyday issues, but he genuinely wanted to explore issues that were outside of our everyday lives. Such as what would an artificial intelligence or an artificial consciousness look like, what would an alien intelligence or consciousness look like, how could we possibly communicate with a being that is truly alien, i.e., it is completely different than everything we know about life and biological development on earth. His two most famous novels -- Solaris and Fiasco were both about communicating with an alien intelligence, and did not have any anti-communist or anti-soviet satire in them.
I agree he is a great writer. But I do not like it when people say "he was not really a sci-fi writer" as a precursor to saying "he is a great writer", as if one could not be a great writer while being a sci-fi writer. Lem is a great writer and a sci-fi writer. He possessed the most important thing in a sci-fi writer he could think up of interesting and/or important ideas, and he could describe them in an engaging manner and explore the consequences.
By the way, now that sci-fi is a billions of dollars a year business, sci-fi writers still have not bothered to deal with the ideas suggested by Lem. Aliens in modern sci-fi are almost always based on humans in one way or another. Today's sci-fi authors are committing the same mistake the scientists of Fiasco did by thinking too much about themselves when trying to imagine a being that is truly alien to humanity.