Theory of the Polish People's Democracy

Abstract

SSENTIALLY a dictatorship operating behind a constitutional faqade, the people's democracy of Poland conceals its true nature by establishing governmental bodies which outwardly resemble traditional democratic ones. Thus, the postwar governmental apparatus has carried over many pre-1939 features.1 These vestiges of the era would seem to have been retained on grounds of expediency and probably are in line with the familiar Communist policy of maintaining national form while simultaneously infusing it with a socialist content. In striving toward the goal of socialism in Poland, the Communists have admittedly emulated the U.S.S.R. and copied from the latter's experience. This experience involves four points: (1) destruction of the capitalist state; (2) establishment of a new political structure along the lines of a proletarian state; (3) reconstruction of the country and the introduction of new relationships in production, providing an impetus along the path to socialism; and (4) indoctrination of the population in the Marxist-Leninist ideology as a step on the road to socialism.2 The first point was attained in part by the end of 1947 when the last legal opposition to the Communists (the Polish Peasant party led by Stanislaw Mikolajczyk) was broken. Partial achievement of the second point was announced with the adoption of a new constitution in 1952,3 although some traditional Polish nomenclature was retained in this document. The third point was launched after the conclusion of the Three Year Economic Plan in 1949, when Poland started upon its Six Year Plan (1950-55) which had as its goal the establishment of a foundation for socialism. In operation since 1944, the fourth point will probably be increasingly intensified as time goes by. The theoretical aspects of the people's democracy in Poland were authoritatively laid down in an article by Hilary Minc, Politburo member and first deputy premier.4 His thesis is that the people's democracies arose as a result of the victory of the U.S.S.R. over Hitlerism, that they develop on the basis of Soviet experience (but do not necessarily use identical