Communist Poland Research Articles

Opting out of Socialism: For-Profit Mobility from Communist Poland

This article presents the history of for-profit mobility from communist Poland, that is, transnational labor migrations and the movement of cross-border petty traders. On the basis of primary research in archives and new scholarship on the history of communist Poland, it presents the scale and dynamics of cross-border movements since the partial opening of the borders in the mid-1950s to the final erosion of the communist regime in 1989. It analyzes the main factors and patterns of the expansion of mobility in both its legal and irregular streams, including the relevant policies of the Polish government and the governments of migrants’ destination countries, the mechanisms of the gray and black markets, especially of hard currencies, and the development and diffusion of social practices of migration. It argues that for-profit mobility was a large part of the second economy as well as a form of disengagement from the communist state and its first economy, a way of selective opting out of socialism. Analyzing the relations between its expansion and the evolution of the communist regime, the article claims that for-profit mobility produced un-communist social spaces and was an important factor eroding the regime’s legitimacy and control over its subjects, thus paving the way to the post-1989 stage of Poland’s transformation.

Anna Ziębińska-Witek: Muzealizacja komunizmu w Polsce i Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej [The Musealisation of Communism in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe], (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2018), 341 pp. ISBN: 978-83-227-9149-3, photographs. Anna Ziębińska-Witek’s critical approach to the musealisation of communism

What do we learn about communism while studying its museums? Do the musealisations of communism make it an experience similar to the museological study of other regimes or an experience which is exceptional? How do contemporary musealisations shed light and how do they obscure sight of the experiences of communism of the inhabitants of Central and Eastern Europe? Are these experiences identical or different, from the point of view of the museums of communism in the various places of Central and Eastern Europe where communism was installed and where it is today musealised? Anna Ziębińska-Witek answers such questions in her latest work, entitled The Musealisation of Communism in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe [Muzealizacja komunizmu w Polsce i Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej]. After reading this work I have to express my appreciation for its author, as well as undertaking some discussion on communism, which, even if belonging to the past, has not disappeared completely and which, studied by historians, still arouses extreme emotions in both its witnesses and heirs.

Zofia Dwornik: Becoming a Female Film Editor

In this article the author intends to recall the figure of Zofia Dwornik, one of the most appreciated and nowadays rather forgotten female film editors of post-war communist Poland. For the twenty-five years of her creative activity, Dwornik cooperated in the production of more than thirty films with the most important directors of the Polish cinema in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In the Polish post-war cinema, the profession of film editor was strongly feminised. In the case of Dwornik, her decision to choose this particular profession was, however, based on additional objective considerations, closely related to the context of the Stalinist period in Poland, and was not her first choice of career – she had wanted to become a film director. In this article the author takes a closer look not so much at the achievements of Dwornik in the 1960s and 70s, but at the complex circumstances that influenced her later career. Therefore, the author tries to reconstruct the most important moments in Dwornik’s student and professional life in the first years after WWII and analyse one of the film études she made at the Film School in Łódź, in order to examine the reasons for her decision to become a film editor. This allows also to formulate some hypotheses how her career might have developed, had she been given the chance to graduate and try her hand at directing.

Playing the Law: The Attitude of Polish Dissidents towards Post-Stalinist and International Law before the Period of Solidarity

This article shows how dissidents in the latter half of the 1970s “played the law” in the Polish People’s Republic. Laws established by an undemocratic government, and thus theoretically lacking democratic legitimacy, were used by the opposition to delegitimize the government. The author describes the goals of the opposition and the lines of argument it employed, and how the Communist party—the other player in this peculiar game—made reciprocal efforts to exploit the law in order to weaken the opposition. The article discusses the specific international and Polish legal documents referenced by both sides of this game—the opposition and the government. The law was an important resource for both sides. This analysis nuances and demythologizes popular claims about the “Helsinki effect” by illustrating the role and legal context of the Helsinki Accords against the backdrop of local laws and the strategies undertaken by both actors. Furthermore, it describes the important institutional setting that influenced the types of actions undertaken by the protest movement in communist Poland.

US political and military involvement in the security of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 – the example of Poland

The article discusses how the United States of America has contributed to the security of Central and Eastern Europe, both politically and militarily, since the end of the Cold War, using Poland’s example. It shows that the United States committed itself to the security of both Poland and the region, following the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989, albeit to a varying degree in different countries. America played a pivotal role in NATO enlargement in the 1990s, and in extending security assurances to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, as well as to other countries in the subsequent years. It has continued to assist Poland with its defence reform, thus enhancing its military capabilities. It was also instrumental in strengthening NATO’s eastern flank after 2014, a salient point on Poland’s security agenda since it acceded to the Alliance. It is argued that American political and military involvement in Poland’s security has been both substantial and beneficial, and there is a real need for continued political and military cooperation with the USA and its presence in the region. In the article, the determinants of Poland’s post-Cold War security policy are outlined. Next, the roles that both countries have played in each other’s policies are explained. After that, the US contribution to Poland’s security, both in the political and military spheres, is presented. Finally, an attempt is made to evaluate American involvement, and the author’s perspective on the future of the Poland-US cooperation is offered.

Harold Pinter on Polish Radio and Television: Between Tradition and Innovation

This article examines Polish radio and television adaptations of Harold Pinter’s dramatic works. The emphasis is put both on the overall reception as well as aesthetic and technical aspects of four selected productions. The analysis is carried out within four contexts which are crucial for the understanding of Pinter’s presence in Poland: the chronologically-oriented reception of selected major theatre stagings of Pinter; major developments in Polish radio and television theatre; the political and social milieu of pre-1989 Communist Poland; and finally the revival of Polish theatre in the 1990s and 2000s. In this way it is possible to trace the changing approach to Pinter in Poland through the lens of radio and television adaptations which – when set against the stage premieres in Polish theatres – provide insightful reflections of major developments in Polish theatrical life.

Participatory Budget as a Tool Supporting the Development of Civil Society in Poland

Abstract Although three decades have passed since the fall of communism in Poland, the observed level of social activity in the country is relatively low. Participatory budget emerged as an idea to increase the involvement of citizens in decision-making processes concerning their immediate surroundings. In addition to their inclusion in the activity of local government, this form of citizen participation is expected to have a positive impact on residents’ involvement in activities for the benefit of the local community. The aim of this article is to indicate the conditions that influenced the implementation of the idea of the first participatory budget in Poland and emphasizing the importance of the civic budget in managing public administration through partial decentralization involving local communities in social dialogue for local investment initiatives, especially in large provincial cities in Poland. The following research question was adopted in the paper: has the introduction of a participatory budget in Poland increased social activity and has it been conducive to the development of civil society. In Poland, the initiative to create a civic budget met good political conditions in the relatively small city of Sopot, which had the resources to implement the project. After successful implementation, this initiative was relatively quickly adopted by other Polish local governments, which then on their own introduced social consultations called the civic budget. Not all poviats introduced the civic budget of their own volition. The government, seeing the possibility of political discounting of this new solution, decided to introduce a mandatory participatory budget in town counties and ordered the allocation of funds from their budgets, no less than 1 % of budget expenditure. The article relies on the case-study method, comparative analysis and trend analysis, qualitative and quantitative methods of description, document analysis and statistical data. The analysis focuses on the town of Sopot and provincial capitals. Local conditions are important for understanding the processes of shaping active civic attitudes in Poland, because cities are the poles of development of civil society and give impetus to innovative changes in the entire socio-economic system. The materials used in the article include reports, documents and legal acts regarding the functioning of the town of Sopot. The study showed that the participatory budget indeed activates the local community around various projects. At the same time, the question of directly translating this activity into an increase in the number of organizations, associations and foundations remains debatable. The introduction of the participatory budget to administrative management practice in local-government units in Poland should be considered in terms of the soft power impact of administration on the shaping and development of civil society, which is still in the development stage in Poland.

Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland: Cross-Border Flows in Gay and Lesbian Magazines

Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland: Cross-Border Flows in Gay and Lesbian Magazines

The De-legitimization of General Jaruzelski's Government by Official Mass Media

In this article, I present the results of an analysis of print media reporting on the spectacular trial in 1984 against the murderers of Jerzy Popiełuszko in communist Poland. The aim of my research is to show how the coverage contributed to the de-legitimization of the Communist Party despite the mass media system's tight structures of control. Because of mass media functionality, the coverage of this event contributed to political transformation not only by publicizing a hitherto tabooed topic but also by establishing an initial point for informed public criticism of the government.

Justice Behind the Iron Curtain: Nazis on Trial in Communist Poland. By Gabriel N. Finder and Alexander V. Prusin. German and European Studies, volume 32. Edited by Jennifer J. Jenkins.Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. Pp. xvi+380. $90.00 (cloth); $34.95 (paper or e-book). Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice. By Mary Fulbrook.New York: Oxford University Press,

<i>Justice Behind the Iron Curtain: Nazis on Trial in Communist Poland</i>. By Gabriel N. Finder and Alexander V. Prusin. German and European Studies, volume 32. Edited by Jennifer J. Jenkins.Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. Pp. xvi+380. $90.00 (cloth); $34.95 (paper or e-book). <i>Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice</i>. By Mary Fulbrook.New York: Oxford University Press,

Revival? Rebirth? Renaissance?

Drawing on personal experience, the author discusses the vicissitudes of Jewish identity formation in the last two decades of Communist Poland and the first two decades which followed. He addresses the role of religion in the Jewish revival which occurred in that period, and sets it against other models of Jewish identity – Zionist, Yiddishist and assimilationist - on one hand, and the twin pressures of anti- and philosemitism in Polish society at large. This discussion is placed within the broader framework of the Polish political transformation. He finally suggests that the survival and revival of the Jewish community in Poland offers a more general lesson for the continuation of Jewish peoplehood.

The Time Is Now

Like many Americans, I greeted Donald Trump’s presidential run announce-ment in 2015 with bemusement. However, my reaction changed quickly. Trump’s candidacy looked and sounded too familiar. Raised in communist Poland, the first post–World War II generation, I was in the cohort that grew up with the wounds of Nazism always vivid in our collective consciousness. The questions of good and evil, and the desire to understand our human capacity for compassion and cruelty, have preoccupied me as long as I can remember. Watching Trump pulverize his stunned opposition on both political sides to the wild enthusiasm of the expanding army of his supporters left little doubt in my mind about the outcome of the election. I imagined that, as it progressed, there would be a chorus of voices warning about the consequences of Trump’s inevitable presidency. Surely Americans understood the dangers in store for them—and if by any chance they did not, then experts in psychology and history would be able to warn them. Naively, I waited to see such warnings in mainstream media, but there were none. At best, we were treated to articles portraying Trump’s apparent narcissism as a personality trait typical for all politicians and not posing a threat to democracy or the world. He would pivot, the conventional wisdom went, and/or surround himself with qualified people. This reasoning, of course, turned out to be profoundly wrong.

If the Walls Could Speak: Inside a Women’s Prison in Communist Poland

If the Walls Could Speak: Inside a Women’s Prison in Communist Poland

On Haltof's Screening Auschwitz

On Haltof's Screening Auschwitz Michał Oleszczyk Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration. By Marek Haltof. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018. 198 pp., ISBN 978-0810136083. US $34.95. With his latest book, devoted entirely to a single film but drawing on years of studious research, Marek Haltof confirms his stance as the leading historian of Polish film working abroad. Based at Northern Michigan University, Haltof has significantly contributed to the field of Polish film studies (with his 2002 Polish National Cinema still serving as the basic single-volume history of Polish film, reissued in an expanded edition in 2018), and he has done much to remain in touch with the latest developments in Polish arts and politics, making him a uniquely equipped commentator on Polish film culture past and present. That Haltof should devote a nearly 200-page study to a film not currently available from any major distribution companies or streaming services is indicative of the film's richness and the dire need of reintroducing it to a wider public in a worthy edition that would highlight its aesthetic qualities and political significance. The work in question, Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage (Ostatni etap, 1948), is no ordinary film. Shot and released within three years after the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp (which has since become a metonymic symbol of the Holocaust), the film was made by a survivor and shot on the very location the horrific events took place. Co-written by Jakubowska and a fellow political prisoner Gerda Schneider, The Last Stage was not just a pioneering work of feature-length narrative cinema dealing with the still-recent [End Page 104] Nazi genocide but also a fierce act of faith in filmmaking's power to write history (and stop history from replaying itself). Haltof 's approach is multidimensional and methodical. He offers a detailed production history of the film (significantly indebted to Alina Madej's archive findings and featuring a number of freshly unearthed facts) and Jakubowska's meticulously rendered biography as a political prisoner in a number of camps. The film receives a close reading, leaving practically no scene uncommented on, after which Haltof draws attention to the film's reception (in communist Poland and abroad), its implications for the wider politics of preserving Auschwitz-Birkenau as a historical site, and its eerie afterlife through other films in which it has been quoted—often as supposed documentary footage (Alain Resnais's Night and Fog [1955] and George Stevens's The Diary of Anne Frank [1959] provide just two famous examples of such self-effacing appropriation). Perhaps the most interesting reading Haltof provides has to do with the film's ideological aspects, none of which could have been discussed freely in the director's homeland (and were largely ignored by international audiences) at the time of its original release. As Haltof reminds us, Jakubowska (who died in 1998 and thus saw the fall of communism) stayed a lifelong communist stalwart. She inscribed her vision of history into The Last Stage, in which the horror of the death camps is ultimately shown as an environment in which the power of the human spirit is forged and from which the new communist mindset emerges into its postwar dominance of Eastern Europe (here equated with salvation). In this respect, the key character of the film is Marta Weiss (played by Barbara Drapińska), a Jewish communist political prisoner whose multilingual skills save her from immediate death in the gas chambers and allow for her gradual gain of ideological awareness, culminating in a neophyte revolutionary confession: "It's only here in the camp that I understood how things are." Within the multibranched and rather unfocused narrative of The Last Stage, which doesn't follow any single conflict and doesn't focus on any particular character's arc, Marta serves as the closest thing to a stand-in for the audience. Through her eyes we learn about the inner workings of the camp. Her bravery and martyrdom is celebrated in the much-discussed final reel, in which the imminent Soviet intervention is seen not only as bringing about the dismantling...

Justice behind the Iron Curtain: Nazis on Trial in Communist Poland. By Gabriel N. Finder and Alexander V. Prusin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. xiv, 377 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Maps. $34.95, paper

Justice behind the Iron Curtain: Nazis on Trial in Communist Poland. By Gabriel N. Finder and Alexander V. Prusin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. xiv, 377 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Maps. $34.95, paper

Strony życia – o „Dworcu Gdańskim. Historii niedokończonej” Henryka Daski

The article discusses the autobiographical volume by Henryk Dasko – a writer, journalist and well-known activist among the Polish émigrés in Canada. The book, although it was produced in tragic circumstances of Dasko’s strugglle with terminal illness, describes his childhood in communist Poland, forced emigration in 1968 and the years spent later on in Canada.

The origins of the Special Olympics Movement in Poland in the 20th century

Since World War II, sport involving people with disabilities has gradually evolved in Poland, and people with intellectual disabilities had not participated in any sporting events until the end of the 1960s. They were treated as second-class citizens having no rights that they should be entitled to. The reason behind this was the State’s policy towards sport, where high-performance sport, especially Olympic sport, played a vital role that was supposed to testify to the high level of civilisation in communist Poland. People with disabilities were regarded as a shameful problem and were practically kept hidden away. They, therefore, did not participate in social life, including athletic activities. The first competition held in Poland under the name of the Special Olympics was not organised until 1969 in Poznan. On May 26, 1973, the first national sporting event for mentally retarded children (as they were referred to at the time) was called Spartakiad and was held in Warsaw. That was around that time that the sports movement in Poland began to draw on American practices, and in the 1980s it adopted the form of the Special Olympics, both in terms of organisation and sporting activities. This period was marked by active cooperation with the USA and other countries, where Polish athletes with intellectual disabilities began to compete in international competitions.

Self-Patronage versus State Patronage: Polish and Polish-Jewish Artists React to the Trauma of March ’68

Social tensions in communist Poland were exacerbated with the launching of anti-Zionist propaganda in June 1967. Warsaw students organized numerous protests after the authorities tightened censorship, and later banned the staging of Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady at the National Theater, considering it to be anti-Soviet. Government forces stifled student protests with numerous arrests, at times causing serious injuries, dismissals from the university, and ultimately the expulsion of Polish citizens of Jewish origin from Poland. The restrictions affected Holocaust survivors who were employed in art schools and cultural institutions. This group included Artur Nacht-Samborski, Jonasz Stern, Eugeniusz Eibisch, and Gizela Szancerowa, among others. Notable artistic testimonies of the experience of March ’68 events and their effects were left by painters and sculptors from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, its students, graduates, and lecturers: Witlod Masznicz, Artur Nacht-Samborski, Krystiana Robb-Narbutt, Ewa Kuryluk, Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, and others in his studio - Barbara Falender, Henryk Morel, Grzegorz Kowalski, and Krzysztof M. Bednarski. In Cracow, artists belonging to the Wprost (Explicit) group, including Maciej Bieniasz, Zbylut Grzywacz, Leszek Sobocki, and Jacek Waltoś, commented on the events of March ’68 boldly and on an ongoing basis.

On Haltof's &lt;em&gt;Screening Auschwitz&lt;/em&gt;

On Haltof's Screening Auschwitz Michał Oleszczyk Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration. By Marek Haltof. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018. 198 pp., ISBN 978-0810136083. US $34.95. With his latest book, devoted entirely to a single film but drawing on years of studious research, Marek Haltof confirms his stance as the leading historian of Polish film working abroad. Based at Northern Michigan University, Haltof has significantly contributed to the field of Polish film studies (with his 2002 Polish National Cinema still serving as the basic single-volume history of Polish film, reissued in an expanded edition in 2018), and he has done much to remain in touch with the latest developments in Polish arts and politics, making him a uniquely equipped commentator on Polish film culture past and present. That Haltof should devote a nearly 200-page study to a film not currently available from any major distribution companies or streaming services is indicative of the film's richness and the dire need of reintroducing it to a wider public in a worthy edition that would highlight its aesthetic qualities and political significance. The work in question, Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage (Ostatni etap, 1948), is no ordinary film. Shot and released within three years after the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp (which has since become a metonymic symbol of the Holocaust), the film was made by a survivor and shot on the very location the horrific events took place. Co-written by Jakubowska and a fellow political prisoner Gerda Schneider, The Last Stage was not just a pioneering work of feature-length narrative cinema dealing with the still-recent [End Page 104] Nazi genocide but also a fierce act of faith in filmmaking's power to write history (and stop history from replaying itself). Haltof 's approach is multidimensional and methodical. He offers a detailed production history of the film (significantly indebted to Alina Madej's archive findings and featuring a number of freshly unearthed facts) and Jakubowska's meticulously rendered biography as a political prisoner in a number of camps. The film receives a close reading, leaving practically no scene uncommented on, after which Haltof draws attention to the film's reception (in communist Poland and abroad), its implications for the wider politics of preserving Auschwitz-Birkenau as a historical site, and its eerie afterlife through other films in which it has been quoted—often as supposed documentary footage (Alain Resnais's Night and Fog [1955] and George Stevens's The Diary of Anne Frank [1959] provide just two famous examples of such self-effacing appropriation). Perhaps the most interesting reading Haltof provides has to do with the film's ideological aspects, none of which could have been discussed freely in the director's homeland (and were largely ignored by international audiences) at the time of its original release. As Haltof reminds us, Jakubowska (who died in 1998 and thus saw the fall of communism) stayed a lifelong communist stalwart. She inscribed her vision of history into The Last Stage, in which the horror of the death camps is ultimately shown as an environment in which the power of the human spirit is forged and from which the new communist mindset emerges into its postwar dominance of Eastern Europe (here equated with salvation). In this respect, the key character of the film is Marta Weiss (played by Barbara Drapińska), a Jewish communist political prisoner whose multilingual skills save her from immediate death in the gas chambers and allow for her gradual gain of ideological awareness, culminating in a neophyte revolutionary confession: "It's only here in the camp that I understood how things are." Within the multibranched and rather unfocused narrative of The Last Stage, which doesn't follow any single conflict and doesn't focus on any particular character's arc, Marta serves as the closest thing to a stand-in for the audience. Through her eyes we learn about the inner workings of the camp. Her bravery and martyrdom is celebrated in the much-discussed final reel, in which the imminent Soviet intervention is seen not only as bringing about the dismantling...

The Occupational Strikes in the Dąbrowa Basin of April 1951: Stalinist Industrialization Against the Traditions of the Polish Working Class

AbstractGiven the significance of strikes in the history of communist Poland, the strikes that occurred during the era of high Stalinism (1948-53) have received remarkably little scholarly attention. This article deals with one of the most significant strike waves of that period: the occupational strikes that broke out in the Dąbrowa basin after the regime extended the working day in the mines by one hour in April 1951. What lent additional salience to these strikes was that the Dąbrowa basin, nicknamed the “Red Basin” on account of its radical traditions of industrial protest, had been a communist stronghold in interwar Poland and that many card-carrying communists participated in the strikes. The article demonstrates that the strikes were the culmination of a process whereby the “aristocracy of labor” of seasoned activists turned against a regime that increasingly relied on younger migrants from the rural provinces in its campaigns to raise production. If the historical struggles of the miners in the Dąbrowa basin were instrumental in triggering the strikes, however, the article also makes clear how representatives of the regime could invoke these struggles to bring the strikes to an end.