CHANGING ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN POLAND 1

Abstract

UNDER Communism history either races or stands still. In 1956, as we know, it raced. The quite normal delay in reaching (British) print has rendered these notes totally out of date. Mr. Gomulka's return to power has conferred on Polish academic economics a very Western look indeed. Opinions here said to be advanced are now commonplace, and their defenders have been joined by others indistinguishable from British economists, who put forward views still more 'advanced'. Nor is the situation yet stabilized. In what follows, the present tense refers to June 1956, the month of Poznan, the third year of slow thaw and the fourth month of quick thaw. Mr. Gomulka's return is still four months ahead. Pre-war Polish economics was a backward province of continental classical economics. Work tended to be derivative from foreign models; there was nothing self-generating and original like Polish logic. Marx was of course as well known as in any neighbouring country, and a few economists had a tincture of right-wing Marxism like the 'economism' of the Russian Tugan-Baranowsky. So there was some non-Communist intellectual Marxism-that phenomenon that Britons find so difficult to understand, and too readily confuse with simple dishonesty. Communism itself was also small. The marginal analysis was not much known, the Keynesian scarcely at all. After the war Communism was imposed. While generally Party members are 8-9 per cent. of academic teachers, in this theologically central field they are about 30 per cent. Pre-war economists have succeeded in subsisting, at the cost of public allegiance to the dogma. If they pay this price they lose prospects of promotion rather than present emolument. Actual loss of office has been attended by compensation, it is not clear to me in what proportion of cases. Young economists have all been brought up as good Communists since 1949 (which is the year when Poland was finally frozen over). But the effect of all this must not be exaggerated. For almost no member of the Polish Party was ever a true-believing Stalinist. Many are non-Communist Marxists, some are positively anti-Communist, very many are simple careerists, some of the young are genuine social idealists. And of the non-party teachers some again are careerists while the majority are, I presume, like the vast majority of all Poles-simple and uncomplicated anti-Communists. As to the students since 1949, the