Lebow, Katherine. Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1945–56 (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 575 Lebow, Katherine. Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1945–56. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London 2013. xiv + 233 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. $45.00. Unfinished Utopia is an impressively researched and beautifully illustrated book which draws on a wide range of archival, primary and secondary sources. Though rich in detail, Unfinished Utopia never seems cluttered and the main themes and arguments are always clearly apparent. Katherine Lebow presents a history of the new town and steelworks at Nowa Huta, but she also uses her case study to offer many insights into Stalinism in general and the book presents a fascinating portrait of the lives of Polish peasants in the process of becoming industrial workers. Lebow begins her history of Nowa Huta by discussing the projects of Polish urban planners between the two World Wars — plans realized most spectacularly in the creation of Gdynia on the Baltic Coast, but which also included an ambitious project for poverty-stricken south-east Poland. The post-war authorities picked up the project, and in 1947 placed an order with a Chicagocompanytodesignthenewsteelworks.However,theshifttofull-blown Stalinism in 1948 led to the re-conceptualization of Nowa Huta as a gigantic Soviet-style plant, a ‘signature investment to represent the Six-Year Plan, a focal point for popular mobilization and a showcase for socialist production’ (p. 25). The final choice of site was made by a visiting Soviet delegation against the advice of local planners and ‘with dizzying speed’ confirmed by the Polish government (p. 26.) However, ‘since the socialist city could not wait for its architects’ (p. 35), workerswererushedtostartbuildingontheclayeymudandsobeganthechaotic and inefficient process of construction. Although the Russian steelworks was duly built, creating the socialist city was a much more haphazard affair: the budget was drastically cut, everything was done as cheaply as possible (often pulling things down and beginning all over again) and in the end many of the planners’ dreams remained unrealized. Perhaps oddly, the Polish leaders did not even seem particularly interested in fully exploiting the opportunities for social engineering and Nowa Huta was unceremoniously annexed as a suburb of conservative Kraków. Nonetheless, Lebow charts how Nowa Huta, for all its shortcomings, did in fact offer a life-changing opportunity for thousands of peasants, although this was largely because conditions were so miserable in the countryside: ‘the push of the village as a motivating force could be as strong as, or even stronger than, the pull of Nowa Huta (which, in any case, was a fairly abstract concept for most of the young people described here)’ (pp. 50–51). Although many were disappointed with Nowa Huta and passed on to other places, and SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 576 though propaganda about labour competition and cultural enlightenment was accompanied by considerable cynicism and disorganization, nonetheless the autobiographical evidence and contemporary sociological research suggest that Nowa Huta also inspired enthusiasm and affection. This was especially true by the 1960s, when the infrastructure had finally been built, living standards had improved considerably and ‘skilled workers almost universally aspired for their children to gain a university degree’ (p. 158). On the other hand, for some groups opportunities closed in parallel with de-Stalinization. Lebow shows how both women and Roma benefited from equal opportunities campaigns during the Stalinist period but saw these gains rescinded after 1956. ‘Nowa Huta, meant to have led the way toward women’s equality at work, now exhibited the reverse trend: by the late 1950s, the district had one of the lowest rates of female employment in urban Poland. […] The shift was officially framed as a return to a traditionally Polish understanding of women’s essential role as a mother and a rejection of the “foreign” [i.e. Soviet] idea that women should perform the same work as men’ (p. 122). Although the book’s title suggests that it ends in 1956, in fact chapter six continues the story through to 1989 and beyond. Lebow suggests that ‘Nowa Huta’s embrace of Solidarity in the 1980s […] cannot simply be seen […] as a shedding or rejection of the Stalinist experience, a kind of prodigal son’s return’ (p. 154). Instead, there was always opposition, most...