Poland's Communist Research Articles

The Polish Olympic Committee’s Subjection to the Communist Authorities in the Stalinist Period: An Inside Story

The article, based on archive materials and press publications, as well as major academic studies, contains information on attempts by the Communists in Poland to take control over the Polish Olympic Committee (POC) in the Stalinist period. After the Olympic games in London in 1948 they ‘closed’ the POC’s activity in order to nominate a ‘new’ POC in June 1950 created by people connected with the dominant Communist Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP). The POC even included two Soviet officers of Polish origin, while the people’s power forced the previous president of the organization to resign. However, throughout the whole Stalinist period in Poland the Communists did not manage to deprive Professor Jerzy Loth of his membership in the International Olympic Committee, whom they were planning to replace with their trusted people. For that reason, they sent to Lausanne the names of their candidates at least four times. They did so even when the POC was formally ‘closed’. In spite of that, until 1956, the people’s power did not manage to implement the plan of taking full control over the POC. This fact is largely thanks to the management of the POC and Professor Loth.

Amnestia Romana Romkowskiego. Udział pomocnika ministra bezpieczeństwa publicznego w przygotowaniu, przeprowadzeniu i ocenie akcji amnestyjnej z 1947 roku

Roman Romkowski’s amnesty: The role of an assistant to the minister of public security in the preparation, execution and evaluation of the 1947 amnesty The article presents the significant influence of Colonel Roman Romkowski (an assistant to the minister in the Ministry of Public Security) on the organization and course of the amnesty, which was announced in Poland shortly after the elections in 1947. The hidden purpose of the amnesty was elimination of the independence underground, the greatest enemy of the communists in Poland. In order to accomplish this task, Romkowski had to implement special working methods in the public security services. They made it possible to obtain information on a large number of exposed underground soldiers and subject them to strict invigilation by the security service. Despite Romkowski’s critical assessment of the final results of the amnesty, it was considered a great success.

HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN TOTALITARIAN TIMES – CASE STUDY OF WROCŁAW (BRESLAU)

Based on examples from Wroclaw (Breslau), we show the fate of archaeologists living in countries under totalitarian regimes. We present cases of bright scientists sent by the German Nazis to the war fronts and the persecution of the “enemies of the system” by post-war communists in Poland. German scholars were killed in the war. Persecuted during the Stalinist period, Polish professor E. Bulanda lost his job and the Chair of Classical Archaeology was closed after the war.

Review: The Palace Complex: A Stalinist Skyscraper, Capitalist Warsaw, and a City Transfixed, by Michał Murawski

Review: <i>The Palace Complex: A Stalinist Skyscraper, Capitalist Warsaw, and a City Transfixed</i>, by Michał Murawski

Judging the Communist Past: Historians and Cultural Expertise in Polish Administrative Courts

Since 1989, cultural expertise has emerged as a crucial factor in navigating Poland's communist past. The use of cultural expertise provided by historians was institutionalized in 1999, when the Institute of National Remembrance was created and charged with prosecuting Nazi and communist crimes, as well as assisting with the belated decommunization. Expert historians are requested by courts and other institutions to provide opinions in cases ranging from alleged collaboration with communist secret services, withdrawal of veteran status bestowed to soldiers of communist military units fighting the Polish resistance movement, awarding compensation to victims of German concentration and labour camps, to changing names of places named after prominent Party activists. Using this expertise requires the courts to understand the intricacies of recent Polish history, such as the operational methodology and archival practices of communist secret services, or the complex interplay of motives to collaborate (or not) with foreign oppressors. In this paper, the new salience of historical expertise for the Polish courts is analysed within the framework of Honneth's (1995) ‘struggle for recognition’ and Haldemann's (2008) work on the symbolic role of courts in transitional justice contexts.

Dwuetniczność międzywojennej Warszawy w świetle wyników wyborów

Na wyniki wyborów, w tym ich zróżnicowanie przestrzenne, bardzo często wpływa różnorodność kulturowa wyborców. Widać to wyraźnie w Polsce w okresie międzywojennym. Potwierdzają to również wyniki wyborów w Warszawie – mieście zamieszkiwanym przez Polaków (70%) i Żydów (30%). Polacy głosowali na ogólnopolskie partie o różnych cechach ideologicznych, członkowie mniejszości etnicznych wybierali natomiast partie podkreślające ich pochodzenie. Partie żydowskie miały także zróżnicowany wizerunek ideologiczny, choć można dostrzec, że żydowscy wyborcy wyrażali większą sympatię dla partii lewicowych niż Polacy, aby przeciwstawić się wpływowi nacjonalistycznej prawicy. Jedynym ugrupowaniem, które w pełni przełamało podziały etniczne, byli komuniści. Segregacja przestrzenna, zarówno etniczna, jak i społeczna, spowodowała silne zróżnicowanie wyników wyborów. Polska prawica dominowała w centralnych dzielnicach miasta, polska lewica – na suburbiach. Wyjątkami od tej regularności były dzielnice północne (Muranów, Powązki, Grzybów) i część Pragi, gdzie dominowały partie żydowskie. Największą koncentracją wyborców żydowskich był okręg północny. W jego wschodniej części wygrywała prawica żydowska, w zachodniej części – żydowska lewica i komuniści.

The People’s Republic of Poland — a Sketch for Reflections on the Laicization of the State

The intention of this article is to consider, and attempt to resolve questions whether and to what degree the laicization policy and atheization campaign conducted by communists in Poland after the Second World War contributed to the de-Christianization of Polish society, a process observed also in other European countries.

An economic model of religious organization under oppressive regulation

This paper aims to explain the behavior of certain religious organizations in countries with severe regulation that limits the religious market, such as those under communist rule. Religious organizations in those countries sometimes choose to operate both legally and illegally. The model proposed here shows that such behavior may increase the consumer welfare of religionists compared to solely legal or illegal provision of religious services. It assumes that religious organizations maximize the consumer surplus of their adherents. The choice of a religious organization between legal and illegal provision of religious services depends on the costs of religious participation imposed by the government and the set-up costs of dual operation. As an illustration, the paper accounts for the different response of the Catholic Church to restrictions imposed by the communists in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Fantazmat Julii Brystiger

The ‘Kike Communism’ cliche holds a special position in Polish antisemitic discourse, where it has different functions. Having been replicated over time, it has been reinforced and become a social platitude, a matrix of popular thinking about history, a descriptive category applied by journalist and academic discourses and a keyword in discussions on Polish-Jewish relations. “Kike Communism” is a cultural topos and a condensation of meanings and interpretations that have been adopted and familiarized so well that it is difficult to see, let alone undermine its roots. Apart from the narration about the harm suffered by Polish patriots at the hands of Jewish Communist torturers the names of those torturers hold an important place in the structure of this topos. It is actually difficult to imagine its content without the symbolic figures such as Jakub Berman, Anatol Fejgin, Roman Romkowski, Stefan Michnik, Helena Wolinska-Brus, Julia Brystiger and Jozef Rozanski. For years they have played the iconic roles assigned to them in the Polish antisemitic discourse. Julia Brystiger, or rather her mythologized image, deserves particular attention in this group. Nicknamed ‘Bloody Luna’ she surely is among the most demonized female Communists in Poland. The objective of the considerations in this paper is to try to demonstrate the construction of the phantasm surrounding her on the basis of a thorough analysis of different texts in Polish culture, ranging from literature to film.

Andrzej Paczkowski, Revolution and Counterrevolution in Poland, 1980–1989, trans. by Christine Manetti. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015. 387 pp. $99.00.

Andrzej Paczkowski, <i>Revolution and Counterrevolution in Poland, 1980–1989</i>, trans. by Christine Manetti. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015. 387 pp. $99.00.

Kwestia białoruska w polityce Rządu RP na uchodźstwie w latach 1939-1944

The paper discusses the Belarusian issue in the policy of the Polish Government-in-Exile and its national agencies in 1939–1944. That period covered the years of the Soviet Union and Nazi German occupation of the north-eastern provinces of the Second Republic of Poland, inhabited by Belarusians. The Belarusian issue sometimes is marginalized, or presented in the shadow of the Ukrainian and Lithuanian questions, despite the fact that was a very important part of the Polish national policy. The World War II did not conducive to creating a model of the Polish-Belarusian relations that would been acceptable to the both sides. The new the Polish-Soviet border in 1944, and overtaking the rule by the communists in Poland made outdating actions of the Polish Government-in-Exile. However the considerations on the Belarusian issue in the policy of the Polish Government-in-Exile was very important contribution to the Polish political thought and the idea of the Polish-Belarusian relations in modern history.

Between the Brown and the Red: Nationalism, Catholicism, and Communism in Twentieth-Century Poland: The Politics of Boleslaw Piasecki. By Mikolaj Stanislaw Kunicki. Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2012. xxix + 266 pp. $39.96 cloth; $28.95 paper.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Between Brown and Red: Nationalism, Catholicism, and Communism in Twentieth-Century Poland: The Politics of Boleslaw Piasecki . By Mikolaj Stanislaw Kunicki . Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series. Athens : Ohio University Press , 2012. xxix + 266 pp. $39.96 cloth; $28.95 paper.Book Reviews and NotesPolitical biography has fallen out of fashion, so Mikolaj Stanislaw Kunicki's fascinating biography of Boleslaw Piasecki is a welcome reminder of how genre can provide insight into larger political issues. Between Brown and Red is also a reminder of pitfalls of biography, which inevitably struggles to balance role of individual with whirlwind of complex social, cultural, and political forces. While Kunicki is not always successful in striking this balance, merits of this book far outweigh its shortcomings.Kunicki recounts career of Polish right-wing nationalist, sometime fascist, sometime communist, and always Catholic Boleslaw Piasecki. He was a remarkable--and despicable--political opportunist whose public career began in far right student movements of 1930s and ended with his elevation to Poland's Council of State in 1970s. As Kunicki convincingly asserts, Piasecki's story reveals the persistence of right and of pluralistic rather than totalitarian nature of East European communism (181).Piasecki's success came from his ability to position himself as a broker between Catholic Church, communist government, and, perhaps, Soviet influence. Piasecki was a devout Catholic, but his relationship with his Church was a contentious one. As founder and leader of PAX, a lay-Catholic organization that championed an alliance between Catholic Church and Poland's communist government, Piasecki struggled to retain influence with both institutions. When he championed communism, most notably in his 1956 book Essential Issues , he alienated Catholic Church and barely avoided excommunication. Without his Catholic credentials, he equally risked losing influence with Party, which tolerated his Catholicism precisely because it valued his influence with Church. As he scrambled to retain influence in both worlds, his life became a metaphor for struggle to balance nationalist, Catholic, and socialist forces in Poland.Piasecki's survival, and his persistent political influence for over forty years, is a testament to both his political savvy and his execrable opportunism. …

English in contemporary Poland

ABSTRACTBecause of its association with the West, English became a symbol of modernization and freedom during Poland's communist chapter. Since 1989, English has achieved an even higher status, as the language of international business, research, and media. Today, Polish advertisements are filled with English loan words, English‐language movies reign in theaters, and most young people study English in school. As relatively little research has examined the impact of English on contemporary Poland, this paper is an effort to begin filling this gap. I start by offering a concise history of Poland and Polish, as well as a history of English in Poland. I then provide examples of changes in Polish that are likely motivated by Poles’ use of English. In the following sections, I outline the rise to fame of English in Polish classrooms, advertisements, and media. From this review emerges a somewhat incongruous image of English, as both an economic asset and a corrupting agent on the Polish language and culture. To illustrate these dichotomous attitudes, the subsequent section reports on the findings of my preliminary, Internet‐based study of contemporary Polish discourses about English. I end the paper by identifying some unanswered questions and suggesting directions for further research.

From ethnic cleansing to affirmative action: exploring Poland's struggle with its Ukrainian minority (1944-89)

. The ambivalent attitude of Poland's communist leadership towards Poland's minorities – on the one hand violent and severely repressive, while on the other hand allowing for controlled liberties and offering protection – is the main focus of this article. In the mid-1940s, Poland's new communist leadership proceeded to expel and deport millions of Germans, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians from their native territories. A decade later, the communist government adopted a policy that aimed at the reduction of discrimination and the creation of equal social and economic opportunities for the country's residual minority populations. This article explores the background of the wavering communist nationalities policies by focusing on Poland's Ukrainians. It demonstrates how the seemingly contradictory policies of ethnic cleansing and affirmative action were prompted by the same underlying political motivations.

:A Clean Sweep? The Politics of Ethnic Cleansing in Western Poland, 1945–1960.(Rochester Studies in Central Europe, number 7.)

Most studies of Eastern Europe's postwar ethnic cleansing wrap up their narratives with the departure of the expelled in the 1940s or with the imposition of high Stalinism in the early 1950s. T. David Curp, by contrast, extends his inquiry deep into the period of post-Stalinist Poland. In doing so he illustrates not only the immediate role the expulsion may have played in communist victory—a common theme of the literature on the topic—but also the long-term corrosive effects that ethnic cleansing had on communist legitimacy. In addition to offering a new perspective on the construction of communist Poland, Curp's approach compels us to consider the legacies of postwar forced migrations. The book concentrates on the region around Poznań, an ethnically mixed area that Germany lost to Poland in 1918. The anticommunist National Democratic movement of Roman Dmowski (the Endecja) was especially strong here in the interwar period. During the German occupation the Nazis expelled more than one million Poles from the region. Thanks to their Catholic and conservative ideology, the war's Polish survivors might have been expected to resist communist rule. In fact, Poznanians did not participate in the brief and futile postwar anti-communist insurgency. To the contrary, Curp argues, “The fiercely anti-Communist but highly nationalistic society of Poznań, the church, and the Endecja together pioneered collaboration with Poland's Communist rulers—to ethnically cleanse their country” (p. 8).

Themed Section on Social Policy in Central Europe

The transition to democracy and markets in the post-communist countries has produced many losers. Survey research has indicated that the populations of most of these states look back to the later decades of these regimes as ones of relative security and prosperity. The gainers have been those who valued freedom, and possessed the material resources (because of political or mafia connections) or social capital (because of their experience in the second economy under communism) to use it to their advantage. The recent electoral victory of the former communists in Poland, and the routing of Solidarity, indicate the depth of anxiety about the social consequences and costs of transition.

The phoenix out of the ashes: The rise to power of Poland's post-communist SdRP

While the 1989 political transition swept away Poland's communist party, the PZPR, out of its rubble and ashes emerged a much smaller inheritor party, the now-social democratic SdRP. This article traces the evolution of this new party from its relative political marginality in 1990 to its electoral triumph and return to power in 1993.

Elected Communists in Poland

During the years of Solidarity-led government, Poland’s former communists decided that their political survival depended on portraying themselves as moderate reformers with bureaucratic expertise. Now voted back to power, they have so far continued Poland’s transition away from communism.

The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists of Poland. By Jaff Schatz. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. x, 408 pp. Bibliography. Index. Hard bound

The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists of Poland. By Jaff Schatz. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. x, 408 pp. Bibliography. Index. Hard bound

ECONOMIC REFORM IN RUSSLA AND JAPAN'S EXPERIENCE IN POST-WAR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Grand designs are associated with great risk. So it was with Communism, so it with Liberal capitalism.The victory of former communists in Poland, and more recently in Hungary's parliamentary elections, and strategic retreat of pro-reform parties and politicians in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine could mean that countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are trying to achieve too much too fast in their market reforms.This paper supports the gradualist position in Russia and maintains that transition can be managed more gently, with better protection for those who stand to lose. The Paper also claims that Russia should learn more from the East Asian model of economic and social development. From different aspects, especially because of the legacy of state-led command economy, can-style libertarian approach to reforms.