The Red and the Brown: Bolesław Piasecki, the Polish Communists, and the Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland, 1967-68

Abstract

This article complements studies on 1968 in Poland that have explained the anti-Semitic campaign by pointing to the Soviet factor, traditional Polish anti-Semitism, or factional conflict within the Polish Communist Party. The article attributes March 1968 to the communists’ growing reliance on Polish nationalism. It narrows the scale of historical observation to the case of Bolesław Piasecki (1915-79), a prominent nationalist politician. A fascist in the 1930s and a proregime Catholic activist after the war, Piasecki was the leading proponent of the mutual reinforcement of nationalism and communism. Melding Piasecki’s role in the 1968 drama with the ideological metamorphosis of the Polish Communist Party, the article argues that under certain conditions, not only did the communists utilize nationalism, but they also prolonged the existence of the nationalist radical right, which supplied the chauvinistic message during the anti-Semitic campaign.