The Politics of Culture in Poland’s Worker Paradise: Nowa Huta in the 1950s

Abstract

Poland’s state authorities hoped that their model Marxist city, Nowa Huta, would become an agent of socialist civilization in the 1950s. State-sponsored edifying opportunities would transform Nowa Huta’s illiterate and unworldly peasants into literate, urbanized, highbrow Marxists. Because of the promotion of high culture, many Nowa Hutans became attracted to high culture in general but, ironically, not the government version of it. These persons consciously rejected attempts at political/cultural engineering and instead molded a unique environment and social identity that was authentic, avant-garde, and revolutionary. This group of independent-minded cultural trailblazers rejected the government’s attempt to engineer politically loyal citizens through the manipulation of culture, and instead formed an elite class of revolutionary citizens, a cultural vanguard that ultimately would help undermine the regime’s legitimacy and eventually help bring an end to communism in Poland.