Abandoning Stalinism in Housing Policy of the People’s Republic of Poland. Legal Regulations with Respect to ‘Roof over Head’ vs. the Reality at the Turn of the 1950s and 1960s Based on the Example of the Housing Policy in Selected Municipalities at District Level

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to characterise some aspects of housing policy applicable in the People’s Republic of Poland with particular consideration of new legal regulations concerning the housing market in the post-Stalinist period. Also, to present a more complete picture (of the situation), key aspects of the housing policy in the Stalinist period are presented/discussed. The article also presents the actual condition of the housing economy using the examples of selected towns. Sources included subject matter literature, legal acts, and archival documents linked with the social and economic history of selected towns/cities. In the beginnings of communist Poland, the decree of 7 September 1944 and of 21 December 1945 from strictly political and even ideological perspective as they constituted the frame for the actual control over the making over an important sphere of life such as housing management, of great significance in cities and towns. The political thaw of the mid-1950s created better prospects. The state was now able to finance the constructions sector on a much broader scale. The culminating point of the changes introduced by the postOctober team with respect to the legal foundations of the housing policy was the Act of 30 January 1959, the Tenant Law. The Landlord and Tenant Law repealed the following: Decree of 21 December 1945 on Public Flat Management, Decree of 28 July 1948 on Flat Rental and Decree of 18 February 1955 on Authorities and Their Jurisdictions with Respect to Public Flat Management.