The People’s Republic of Poland as a Stage on the Way to Freedom

Abstract

1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS The People's Republic of Poland (the PRL, in Polish), that is, the period of Polish national and state history between 1944 and 1989 will remain a subject of discussion and controversy for decades and maybe even for centuries to come. It belongs to one of the most complex and ambivalent periods in Polish history. The complexity of these times is best expressed by the title of Krystyna Kersten's book Between Liberation and Subjugation, which discusses the first twelve years of the PRL.1 Authentic, deep debates about the PRL were present from its inception; the best example seems to be the debate going on in London between Stanislaw Grabski and Stanislaw Stronski,2 two leading Polish politicians in exile. One of them chose to come back to the new Poland while the other decided to remain an emigrant. Krystyna Kersten defines the quintessence of arguments about the phenomenon of the PRL in the following way: Was there an alternative, more advantageous from the Polish point of view and at the same time realistic? Everything seems to show that there was no such alternative. This would mean that-ideological entanglement of Communists and their allies set aside-their coming to power on the mandate of Stalin should be perceived as the Polish raison d'etat and their activities assessed in the frames of leeway given to them by the Soviets. The difficulty lies in that we do not know if and to what extent these frames could have been enlarged, how many crimes and cases of lawlessness could have been prevented if Polish Communists had had will and courage. How much of what was done stemmed out of doctrinal rigor, how much from zealousness and fear? Today historians are not ready yet to answer these questions...3 It seems to me that in the passage quoted above, the author has very aptly shown the gist of the debate; the gist that not all polemicists seem to realize. On the other hand, one can be more skeptical about the phrase claiming that historians are not yet ready to answer questions asked. One can fear if they will ever be able, or to be more exact, in answering these questions in a satisfactory way. Leaving aside significant difficulties with finding reliable sources, the debate over the PRL was begun more due to ideological, ethical premises and ordinary emotions, than to a quest for historical truth, sine ira et studio, truth which is sometimes entirely inaccessible. I do not believe, for example, that it will ever be possible to say if the Red Army would have invaded Poland if General Jaruzelski had not introduced martial law. Quoting documents of various origins, we are not able to solve this issue categorically and definitely. Counterfactual analysis indicates, however, that the Russians still would have entered Poland, but it is only a conjecture. It is obvious that in this short paper I am not going to solve any of these issues. I will only point to a noticeable logic of events accompanying the process of the recovery of Poland's independence as well as to the fact that certain Polish activities and ways of thinking about independence were-in the light of that logic-more rational and therefore more pragmatic than others. I would also like to point out that even the most rational activities might sometimes bring only a limited outcome, if not one contrary to what is expected. They depend not only on the actors, but also on external conditions and circumstances. This is why all social processes, the whole structure of the social world, are always more complex and less manifest than they seems to us. 2. WORLD WARS AND THE POLISH QUESTION The rise and fall of the PRL cannot be described and understood only in the categories of contemporary Polish-Soviet (Russian) relations, nor even European or world relations (e.g. Yalta). The rise and fall of the PRL were the result of at least two centuries of historical processes in which Poles were largely only passive participants, but which they occasionally influenced significantly and to their advantage (although the contrary may also be true). …