Propaganda Narratives of the Polish Feminist Press on the Functioning of International Women’s Movement (1946–1949)

Abstract

The Social and Civic Women’s League operated in communist Poland in the years 1945–1949. Its first official publication, Praca Kobiet, appeared in 1946. Periodicals were published by the Warsaw Regional Board of the association. The national magazine Nasza Praca, an organ of the General Board, reached the readers just before the start of 1947. The published texts provided information concerning the activity of international women’s movements and organizations such as the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF). The cognitive values of such publications greatly varied. This was significantly influenced by the language journalists used to communicate (‘newspeak’), and the propaganda (non-substantive) choice of recorded and omitted facts. Their analysis, however, helped to reveal the mechanisms of the functioning (interaction) of leftist women’s movements on the international arena in the second half of the 1940s.