“Old” Women and “Old” Revolution

Abstract

The chapter explores the role of the categories of gender and generation in shaping communist women’s political carriers in post-World War II Poland. In the years 1945–65, women who played a significant role among the party elites almost exclusively represented old Polish Communist Party members, active in the interwar period. An analysis of their political trajectories shows that women were assigned to specific spheres of political activity. Some of these spheres can be labeled as traditionally “feminine.” At the same time, women were often related to activities that suited their “qualities” as “old revolutionaries”: party control commissions, history of the party, and party schooling. This gender division of political work was related to how women were perceived but also to their identities and self-perception. The author argues that women in postwar Polish communist parties (Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) and Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR)) played a symbolic role as preservers of the communist revolutionary past and ideological orthodoxy.