Reassessing Communism: Concepts, Culture, and Society in Poland 1944–1989 9789633863794

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Reassessing Communism

Reassessing Communism Concepts, Culture, and Society in Poland, 1944–1989

Edited by

Katarzyna Chmielewska Agnieszka Mrozik and Grzegorz Wołowiec

Central European University Press Budapest–New York

Copyright © by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Agnieszka Mrozik, and Grzegorz Wołowiec 2021 Published in 2021 by Central European University Press Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ceupress.com 224 West 57th Street, New York NY 10019, USA All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher. This publication was financed by the National Program for the Development of Humanities run by the Polish Ministry of Science and Education.

ISBN 978-963-386-378-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-963-386-379-4 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chmielewska, Katarzyna, editor. | Mrozik, Agnieszka, editor. | Wołowiec, Grzegorz, editor. Title: Reassessing communism : concepts, culture, and society in Poland, 1944-1989 / edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Agnieszka Mrozik, Grzegorz Wołowiec. Description: New York : Central European University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021058714 (print) | LCCN 2021058715 (ebook) | ISBN 9789633863787 (hardback) | ISBN 9789633863794 (adobe pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Communism--Poland. | Communism--Social aspects--Poland--History. | Poland--Intellectual life--20th century. | Poland--Politics and government--20th century. Classification: LCC HX315.7.A6 R393 2021 (print) | LCC HX315.7.A6 (ebook) | DDC 335.4309438/09045--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058714 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058715

Printed in Hungary

Contents

List of Acronyms Introduction Communism Studies in Central and Eastern Europe: A New Approach Katarzyna Chmielewska, Agnieszka Mrozik, and Grzegorz Wołowiec

vii 1

Part One: Critiques of the Dominant Narrative

15

1. The Red and the Brown: On the Nationalist Legitimation of Communism in Poland Once Again Grzegorz Wołowiec

17

2. Communist (Auto)biographies: Teresa Tora≈ska’s Them: Stalin’s Polish Puppets and the Contemporary Paradigms of Understanding the Past Anna Artwi≈ska

53

Part Two: New Analyses of Communism

79

3. Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish Katarzyna Chmielewska

81

4. Eroticism and Power Tomasz Żukowski 5. “’Cause a Girl Is People”: Projects and Policies of Women’s Emancipation in Postwar Poland Agnieszka Mrozik

115

141

vi

Contents

6. An Adventure in the Steelworks and in Mariensztat: Family and Emancipation of Women in 1950s Polish Cinema Aránzazu Calderón Puerta 7. The “Adolescent Sphinx”: (Post-)Thaw Novels for Girls Eliza Szybowicz 8. “Here I Stand, I Cannot Do Otherwise”: Around An Open Letter to the Party and the Notion of Revisionism in Discourse About the Political Opposition in 1960s Poland Bartłomiej Starnawski 9. Socialist Education Ideals and Models of Patriotism: Some of the Problems of Polish Pedagogics and the Education Policy of the People’s Republic of Poland in the 1970s Anna Sobieska

177

195

227

273

Part Three: New Analyses of Anti-Communism

311

10. The Waning of Communism in the People’s Republic of Poland: The Case of Discourse on Intelligentsia Anna Zawadzka

313

11. The Thought of Stanisław Brzozowski in Polish Academic Writing and Journalism in the Years 1945–1974: Currents, Parallels, Polemics Paweł Rams 12. Around Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Miazga, Kazimierz Brandys’ Nierzeczywisto√ć, and Polish Leftist Thought of the Late 1960s and Early 1970s Kajetan Mojsak

343

369

13. Scheming as a Business: “Communism” in the Language of the 1980s Opposition; The Example of The Little Conspirator Krzysztof Gajewski

401

List of Contributors

419

Index

421

List of Acronyms

CRZZ: FSO: KC PZPR: KEN: KOR: KPP: NSZ: ONR: PKWN: PPR: PPS: PRL: PZPR: ROPCiO: WIDF: ZBoWiD: ZMP: ZMS:

Centralna Rada Związków Zawodowych (Central Council of Trade Unions) Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych (Passenger Automobile Factory) Komitet Centralny Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej (Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party) Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (Commission of National Education) Komitet Obrony Robotników (Workers’ Defence Committee) Komunistyczna Partia Polski (Communist Party of Poland) Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces) Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny (National Radical Camp) Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Polish Committee of National Liberation) Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers’ Party) Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (Polish Socialist Party) Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa (People’s Republic of Poland) Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (Polish United Workers’ Party) Ruch Obrony Praw Człowieka i Obywatela (Movement for Defense of Human and Civil Rights) Women’s International Democratic Federation Związek Bojowników o Wolno√Δ i Demokrację (Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy) Związek Młodzieży Polskiej (Union of Polish Youth) Związek Młodzieży Socjalistycznej (Union of Socialist Youth)

Introduction Communism Studies in Central and Eastern Europe: A New Approach Katarzyna Chmielewska, Agnieszka Mrozik, Grzegorz Wołowiec

This book is the end result of research carried out by the members of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN) as part of the grant project entitled “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society,” awarded by the National Humanities Development Program in Poland (2013–2020). In this study, we analyzed the histories and uses of the term “communism” in Poland from 1944 to 1989 in the area of social and cultural phenomena, so important for the Polish past and present. We searched for changes in the senses of this term and in the fundamental categories connected to it, and took a close look at how they evolved with the passage of time: “communism” was something different in the 1940s and mid-1950s, something else again in the 1960s, and its meaning in the 1970s and 1980s was entirely new. We also traced the fluent constellations of concepts in which “communism” emerged, such as upward social mobility, revolution, and modernity. Our task was to unearth the conditions for constructing and applying the category of “communism.” We have attempted to objectivize this concept through reconstruction and analysis of the discursive practices that have grown around it. This called for rethinking and revision of the existing research instruments. It turned out indispensable to critically analyze concepts such as power, postmemory, historical experience, and identity. As a research team, we faced not only a wealth of material for analysis, but also a bounty of literature on communism, both Polish and foreign. The abundance and liveliness of narration on this subject, and especially the intensity of anti-communist discourse, made our job particularly difficult. Our ambition is to break through the hitherto dominant manner of approaching the history of communism in Poland primarily through po-

2

Introduction

litical history, separate from cultural phenomena and social processes. We do not espouse the type of history that only sees one main actor—the communist power and its shadow, that is, a society defending itself— although the second part of our book is partially dedicated to the construction of power, its legitimation, and its social and symbolic capital. But we also do not practice the type of cultural anthropology of communism that presents it as an isolated phenomenon of everyday life, separated from its social and political load. To us, People’s Poland and its history do not make for an area of research on peculiar, odd practices, inherently alien to modern people, nor did we analyze its behaviors, artifacts, and life conditions through such a lens: we did not try to orientalize communism. This book engages in a polemic with those approaches to communism that define it within categories of totalitarianism, evil, or Soviet colonization of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as with those that put an equals sign between communism and fascism. Such an approach is very frequent; it is for example embraced in The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (1999) or in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (2010). In Poland, it is very characteristic for many publications of the Institute of National Remembrance—Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation. We also contest the neoliberal view of communism as a project doomed to fail, after the collapse of which the only possible “end of history”—that is, the triumph of liberal democracy and the free market— could occur. This remains the overarching perspective within works inspired by Francis Fukuyama’s famous essay “The End of History?,” published in the international affairs journal The National Interest in 1989, greatly popular in Central Eastern Europe. At the same time, the authors of this publication are far from adopting nostalgic categories of thinking about socialism, which treat positive views of socialism as an expression of disillusionment with the transformation (an analysis of this phenomenon appears, among others, in Maria Todorova and Zsuzsa Gille’s 2010 edited volume Post-Communist Nostalgia). Our book does not separate politics from social and cultural phenomena; it does not view communism as a cynical power play by the party elites against society, with the elites employing the nationalist card more often than the social justice card in their fight for power.1 1

See, for instance, Marcin Zaremba, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm: Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja władzy komunistycznej w Polsce (Warsaw: Trio, 2001). English edition was published as Communism—Legitimacy—Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland, trans. Arthur Rosman (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019).

Introduction

3

What we propose is a new perspective for communism studies in Central Eastern Europe. Our main objective is to reconstruct and critically describe the communist project that we consider revolutionary in its attempt at changing and/or taking over the political–social–cultural field defined by Polish nationalism. This book approaches communist ideas and practices, programs and their realizations, as an inseparable whole, broaching the subjects of emancipation, upward social mobility, changes in the class order and cultural canons in Polish society, political opposition against communism, and the phenomenon of anti-communism. We show how communist ideas—of emancipation, upward mobility, equality, social justice—were pursued in various periods in agreement with different social groups (for instance, women), or in conflict with them; that they were pursued with a host of different material tools (agricultural reform, literacy campaigns) and symbolic tools (empowerment of groups previously marginalized, such as peasants). We view the communist project as a revolutionary one (above all in the period immediately following the Second World War and in the Stalinist era), striving for a radical transformation of the entirety of cultural and social relations, albeit with actual and symbolic violence, aporias and limitations, which we shed light upon and subject to critical reflection. We show how communism formed and presented itself, how communist power justified itself, and how it was inseparably connected to anti-communism. The structure of the anti-communist paradigm is a separate subject of our analyses. It not only informed communist practice, but also, from the very beginning, it affected its meaning and sense. Furthermore, it continues to do so to this day, to a large extent determining the modern dimension of culture in Eastern Europe. We do not approach anti-communism as only political or even cultural opposition, although we do dedicate separate space in this book to this issue; rather, we see it more broadly, as a field in which the communists played out their project. Thus, we try to reconstruct fields of discourse in which the most important social negotiations and disputes were held in order to describe the historical changeability of these discourses, the old and new stakes, as well as new points of departure that emerged in this conflict.2

2

There have been many publications in recent times that problematize the phenomenon of twentieth-century anti-communism. See, for instance, Enzo Traverso, “The New Anti-Communism: Rereading the Twentieth Century,” in History and Revolution: Refuting Revisionism, ed. Michael Haynes and Jim Wolfreys (London and New York: Verso, 2007), 138–55; Luc van Dongen, Stéphanie Roulin, and Giles Scott-Smith, eds., Transnational Anti-Communism and the Cold War: Agents, Activities, and Networks (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); and Norbert Frei and Dominik Rigoll, eds., Der Antikommunismus in seiner Epoche:

4

Introduction

Discursive practices that have grown around the term “communism” indicate the existence of a clear symbolic power, or even symbolic violence as a field of activity of this concept. Following Pierre Bourdieu,3 we use this term to describe a situation where parties of social disputes and games are forced to respect a certain symbolic and cultural order, an image of the world which constitutes a condition and expression of the dominance of one of these parties. In such situations, opposition against the norms of discussion may only be formulated in categories that consolidate this domination, and changing this state of affairs requires not so much deliberation on the subject of description, but stepping onto a meta-level in order to grasp the very rules of discourse, and thus legitimation of practices and judgments. We analyze a dual image of communism as symbolic power and as the subject of anti-communist symbolic power. This is because communism is certainly a field in which modern-day struggles for symbolic cultural hegemony are played out.4 From a methodological point of view, our research oscillates between cultural studies, discourse analysis, and memory studies. It is closely associated with works by the aforementioned Pierre Bourdieu, along with his concepts of field, symbolic violence, and cultural capital, as well as with Michel Foucault’s understanding of genealogy.5 This rejects the picture of linear development of metaphysically understood origins in favor of the study of competing forces from which ideas and states of affairs emerge. Of key importance for us is Hayden White’s theory of narrativism, which emphasizes the narrative, fabulistic, and linguistic aspects of all historical stories, while simultaneously peeking behind the specious neutrality of discourse to show its conditioning and radical perspectivism.6 We share his opinion that history is produced in the course of narration, and the rules of its construction render themselves to examination with the use of tools from literary theory. In the course of conducting our in-depth analyses, we availed ourselves of textual, narrativist, and Weltanschauung und Politik in Deutschland, Europa und den USA (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2017). 3 Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, trans. Richard Nice (London: Sage Publications, 1977); Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). 4 See Katarzyna Chmielewska and Grzegorz Wołowiec, eds., Opowiedzieć PRL (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2011). 5 Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Language, Counter-memory, Practice, ed. Donald F. Bouchard, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 139–64. 6 Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1973).

Introduction

5

rhetorical perspectives, and especially of Reinhart Koselleck’s historical semantics.7 Social historians, researchers of literature and culture, experts in film studies, sociologists, and anthropologists have also aided us in our research. Over the past few years, they have undertaken the effort to look at People’s Poland, or more broadly, at “real socialism”8 in postwar Central and Eastern Europe as a modernization project of social, economic, and cultural relations, which both had the possibility to materialize and actually materialized in many of its aspects. Drawing from various sources— written, spoken (oral history), audio/visual—they proved that “communism,” “real socialism,” and “people’s republics” must be viewed as historical phenomena, located within a broad spectrum of transformations, which affected not just this region or even just the European continent, but the entire postwar world.9 What is more, they have made it clear that it is also necessary to historicize the memory of “communism” itself, as well as research that concerns it; or, in other words, to subject the place, time, and position from which we look at the period that officially ended in our part of the world in 1989–91 to (self-)critical reflection.10 Our work often references their diagnoses, in the hope that this book will feed into the current of critical studies on communism that has been developing as of late, not only in foreign academic centers, but also in Poland. The present publication comprises thirteen chapters which oscillate around four themes: power, emancipation, communism and anticommunism, and oppositions. Some of these concepts are fairly rare in today’s literature on the subject (emancipation), or rare in such a juxtaposi-

7

Reinhart Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006). In the literature on the subject written in English, the term “real socialism,” and even more often “state socialism” refers to the period of 1944/5–1989/91 in Central Eastern Europe. In Polish literature, it is associated with the post-Stalinist period, free from revolutionary ambitions. 9 See, for instance, Padraic Kenney, Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945–1950 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996); Małgorzata Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Agnieszka Ko√cia≈ska, Płeć, przyjemno√ć i przemoc: Kształtowanie wiedzy eksperckiej o seksualno√ci w Polsce (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2014); Monika Talarczyk-Gubała, Wanda Jakubowska: Od nowa (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2015); Agata Zysiak, Punkty za pochodzenie: Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mie√cie (Krakow: Nomos, 2016), Magdalena Grabowska, Zerwana genealogia: Działalno√ć polityczna i społeczna kobiet po 1945 roku a współczesny ruch kobiecy (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2018). 10 See, for instance, Agnieszka Mrozik and Stanislav Holubec, eds., Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism (New York: Routledge, 2018). 8

6

Introduction

tion (communism and anti-communism); others are encountered frequently, but in a formulaic, stale meaning which seeks well-known antinomies (power and opposition). We tried to break up these semantic compounds to complicate the image of what may seem like an unambiguous whole: for example, choosing to use the plural where so far only the singular had functioned, thus “oppositions” and not “opposition.” In the first part, devoted to reconstruction and criticism of dominant narratives about “communism,” we face the problem of its contemporary reception. We deconstruct the notions of communism that are wellestablished, not only commonplace, but also deeply rooted in the study of history. We analyze the discourses that dominate in the public sphere and contemporary historical memory and define the framework of thinking about national community and social values, giving anti-communist features to the present day. The topic of ubiquity, obviousness, and transparency of the anticommunist discourse in present-day Polish public debate has been taken up by Grzegorz Wołowiec. Based on the example of literary, publicist, and scholarly texts produced by various hubs of rightist and central, national and liberal thought, the author reveals mechanisms of functioning of the anti-communist machine as shared by different (intelligentsia) actors in Polish public debate. He demonstrates how the concepts of People’s Poland, shorn of sociocultural context and isolated from history, became handy tools in the play for both symbolic and real power. He devotes a fair amount of space to Marcin Zaremba’s book Communism—Legitimacy— Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland (2001; English edition published in 2019) analyzing especially its narrative layer. Wołowiec brings out the contradictions and inconsistencies in the historian’s argument, and above all the way he “oriented” the concept of communism so as to make it congruent with his introductory claim about the foreignness of communism in Poland and about its need to grasp onto national content for the purpose of legitimizing the communists’ power. Thus, this author’s analysis addresses the problem of lack, or insufficiency, of methodological reflection in Polish historical research on communism. Moreover, it indicates the need to problematize the tools and categories of description, starting with the very term “communism,” but also the need for researchers to rethink their own situation within the contemporary anticommunist norm. Anna Artwi≈ska’s chapter addresses the anti-communism of the last decade of People’s Poland. It interprets one of the most notable books of the time published outside of the censor’s reach: the sensational series of interviews conducted by Teresa Tora≈ska with retired members of the communist elite from the Stalinist period, with the telling title of Oni (Them, 1985; published in English as “Them”: Stalin’s Polish Puppets,

Introduction

7

1987). The researcher treats Tora≈ska’s book as one of the founding texts (myths) of 1980s anti-communism, which to this day determine the ways in which People’s Poland is presented, alongside the so-called “settlement” with its enablers. Applying Philippe Lejeune’s category of collaborative autobiography, she directs her attention primarily at Tora≈ska as the interviews’ author. She is interested in the ideological predicates of the journalist’s work, rejecting the idea of dialogue, which is the nominal point of departure for the conversations. Artwi≈ska’s analysis reveals that the main objective of Tora≈ska, who believed herself to be speaking for the national community, was to discredit her interlocutors and to legitimize her own vision of the world, shaped by Catholicism. The journalist approached communism ahistorically, as a deviational disturbance of the natural order of things; she orientalized it and placed it on a par with Nazism, and she tried to fit the biographies of the interviewed communists within the expiatory pattern of guilt (crime) and penance (redemption). Widely viewed as canonic and myth-forming, according to Artwi≈ska, Tora≈ska’s work calls for a critical reappraisal from the contemporary point of view of historical interpretive standards. Part Two contains chapters that pose a serious challenge to traditional, well-established analyses of communism, proposing new interpretations and methodological approaches. The authors, on the one hand, focus on power—its manifestations, mechanisms, transformations—and on the other hand, on the category of emancipation, primarily of women, believing it to be one of the most important elements of post-WWII industrialization. With regard to power, the authors do not treat it exclusively in political categories, that is of parties, institutions, and people who took over and exercised control over society as a result of historical conditions.11 They instead understand power here in line with a Foucauldian approach: as discourses produced and reproduced by various institutions, centers, and peripheries, consolidated by virtue of tradition and transformed under the influence of new currents or sentiments. In this sense, both the ruling party and the Catholic Church, for example, were wielders of power, and their tools were institutions of education, culture, or science, where central and local forces clashed, and both national, Catholic traditions and socialist or internationalist ideas reverberated. These clashes and reverberations were also present in the message of the political opposition emerging after 1956,

11

See, for instance, Dariusz Stola and Krzysztof Persak, eds., PZPR jako machina władzy (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2012); Piotr Gontarczyk, Polska Partia Robotnicza: Droga do władzy (1941–1944) (Warsaw: Fronda, 2013); Mirosław Szumiło and Marcin Żukowski, eds., Elity komunistyczne w Polsce (Warsaw and Lublin: Uniwersytet Marii Curie Skłodowskiej and Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015).

8

Introduction

which aspired to the role of yet another dispenser of power and gradually strengthened this position. Katarzyna Chmielewska takes a look at historical politics produced in Poland in the period immediately after the war and in the Stalinist era, showing that the rhetoric of building (a new order) and of demolishing (the old world), used by Polish communists, functioned within a field of imagination, beliefs, and values from both the socialist and national orders. Unlike the aforementioned Marcin Zaremba or Krzysztof Tyszka, author of Nacjonalizm w komunizmie: Ideologia narodowa w Związku Radzieckim i Polsce Ludowej (Nationalism in Communism: The National Ideology in the Soviet Union and in People’s Poland, 2004), she does not present traditional references to the nation and the national imaginary as the only effective tool of mobilization and legitimation. Treating the national field as an important point of reference for the Polish communists, she sheds light on their (effective) attempts at breaking the monopoly of national discourse for the “reign of souls” in Poland. She underscores the efforts at creating a new language—class struggle, the clashing interests of various social groups—for naming phenomena of the new reality, and the effort to empower the previously marginalized social strata, such as workers or peasants of both genders. Chmielewska does not shy away from calling what took place in Poland by the end of the Stalinist period a revolution. This term is also employed by Tomasz Żukowski, who uses the example of romantic movie productions from the 1950s to the 1970s to show that one of the revolution’s tasks was not only to arouse, but also to satisfy the desires of its participants. The attraction of revolution was measured by its capability of fulfilling the desires of closeness, cooperation, and achieving goals. It had an erotic undertone, which is why it was embodied by a pair of lovers who, depending on the revolutionary stage, either accomplished the pleasure of satisfaction, or on the contrary, were doomed to go without it. Żukowski, for whom cinema is not only a tool for exerting an influence on viewers, but also of recording social and cultural changes, proves that the sweeping revolutionary impetus of the 1950s abated or in fact died out in the 1970s, when the satisfaction of desires of upward social mobility and independence were blocked. The 1970s as a significant moment of exhaustion of the revolution, or of its transformation and shift in new directions,12 is also central for Anna

12

The 1970s, as an interesting and certainly not terminal stage of socialist modernization, were the subject of an international conference entitled 1970s as a Source of Modernity, organized by the Institute for Advanced Studies of Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique) and by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Warsaw on October 22–23, 2015. See “Konferencja naukowa ‘Lata 70. jako źródło współczesno√ci,’” Krytyka Polityczna, http://krytykapolityczna.pl/instytut/

Introduction

9

Sobieska’s research on the educational policy in People’s Poland. Analyzing school textbooks, curricula, and classic pedagogical publications, such as that by prominent Polish pedagogue Heliodor Muszy≈ski, the author demonstrates how changes in the content of teaching and upbringing led to the transformation of the “socialist human” ideal. In the 1970s, he or she was primarily a Polish patriot, although, at the same time, still a proletarian internationalist as well; he or she was an egalitarian member of the collective, but simultaneously, through work and education, made his or her individual value seen. Somewhat contrary to the contemporary thesis on the unequivocally national inclination of public institutions, such as the school, Sobieska has shown that—at least within the area of educational policy—the image was a bit more complicated: socialist and internationalist content coexisted with elements of national patriotism, and Polish pedagogics was shaped by the weight of Soviet influences as much as the native tradition, also reacting to currents in Western thinking. The author points out that contemporary criticism of the state-socialist educational policy as “instrumental” and “ideological” clearly omits the reality of the schools’ “politicization” after 1989— the hegemony of national content in curricula, school textbooks, and educational materials. The anti-communist undertone of many of these analyses, by both publicists and scholars, thus supports the legitimation of the nationalistic project as “natural” and “objective.” Bartłomiej Starnawski addresses the leftist orientation of the first attempts to delegitimize the ruling party’s political monopoly after 1956, an inconvenient subject for contemporary anti-communist presentations of the history of the Polish political opposition. His main focus is on the most outright public manifestation of a broader tendency that strove to reform the political system of People’s Poland: the activity of the circle grouped around Jacek Kuro≈ and Karol Modzelewski. He offers a rhetorical analysis of the famous 1964/65 manifesto issued by this circle, List otwarty do Partii (published in English as An Open Letter to the Party, 1966), indicating the leftist point of departure for its harsh critique of the political and social reality in People’s Poland, and the social-democratic nature of its postulated reorganization. The author also addresses the reception of Kuro≈ and Modzelewski’s speech, pointing out efforts to marginalize its significance from both the state-socialist authorities and contemporary historiography, oriented toward the preservation and reproduction of the nationalist and conservative habitus. As Starnawski shows, the authors of the Letter, as prominent activists of the anti-communist opposition formed in the 1970s, also played a certain role in erasing the memory of leftist resistance in People’s Poland and in diminishing its significance. konferencja-naukowa-lata-70-jako-zrodlo-wspolczesnosci/, accessed August 21, 2018.

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Introduction

Regarding the category of emancipation, discussed in Part Two, the authors explore how and by whom it was constructed and used, and especially at whom it was directed. They demonstrate that literature and film played a significant role in shaping the emancipatory project, but so did the media, law, and social and political organizations. Following the definition of the term “emancipation” as formulated by Reinhart Koselleck,13 the authors observe that the process of empowerment was both a “top-down” one—one that occurred as a result of granting rights to groups that had been deprived of them before—and a “bottom-up” one, driven by those interested groups that stood up for their rights. Thus, they engage in a polemic with the thesis, popular in the literature on the subject, including feminist literature, according to which emancipation was exclusively a process directed from the top, that it was “specious,” and that it brought “additional burdens” with it. In making a claim for the agency of the women involved in the creation of the emancipation project and policies in postwar Poland, the authors simultaneously consider the forms that these projects and politics took, and their transformations: they note a continuity with the message formulated in earlier times, but also clear disassociations; and they observe the progressive and reactionary elements that coexisted throughout the entire period of existence of People’s Poland. Agnieszka Mrozik observes that the project of women’s emancipation, understood in the categories of professional activation, was one of the key elements of social politics in postwar Poland. The concept of empowering women through employment was rooted in pre-WWII feminist thought, but it could not come into being until the era of People’s Poland. The policy of women’s emancipation had gone through a number of stages by the end of the Stalinist period, and its ultimate goal was to empower women from all social strata. The author underscores that activists of the women’s movement used all types of tools—journalistic, literary, cinematographic, legal—to accomplish their goal. Aránzazu Calderón Puerta continues this thread and, based on the example of socialist realist film productions from the 1950s, she shows that emancipation of women did not boil down exclusively to the public sphere: that is, presence on the labor market and material independence. It also entailed the private sphere: a redefinition of gender roles within the family, or more broadly, the transformation of the very model of the family. The author devotes keen attention to a shift in what was expected of men, namely, the proposal to reevaluate their position within the family and public space, thus demonstrating that changes 13

Reinhart Koselleck, “The Limits of Emancipation: A Conceptual-Historical Sketch,” in The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts, trans. Todd Samuel Presner et al. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 248–64.

Introduction

11

concerning women also affected their husbands, fathers, and colleagues. She observes that socialist realist cinematography played an educational function in this respect. Its messages were of a reforming, yet not revolutionary nature: the family was to change, but not to collapse. Eliza Szybowicz also writes about shifts in gender roles in the private and public spheres. The author is interested in how literature for girls and young women addressed this issue in the (post-)thaw period. She notes that this genre was closely followed and widely commented upon by literary critics, publicists, and readers themselves, who wrote letters to editors not only to give their opinions about literature, but also to share their problems, the solutions to which they hoped to find on the pages of their favorite books. Tracing the history of the genre from the 1940s to the 1980s, Szybowicz observes that literature for girls was a veritable “battlefield” upon which various emancipation concepts clashed with socialist traditions and influences, and later also with Catholic, progressive, and reactionary ones. Her argumentation is thus in opposition to a thesis that has gained a considerable following in feminist research of late, according to which the progressive stage in gender politics ended with the onset of the thaw, to be replaced by a conservative, traditionalist backlash.14 She instead shows the complexity and ambiguity of messages concerning gender roles, sexual models, and family models, and argues that literature for girls made an active contribution to perpetuating this complexity and ambiguity. Anti-communism as a particularly significant point of reference for the revolutionary attempt to transform society, as well as the most frequent contemporary ideological interpretative framework for describing the history of the years 1944–89, is one of the main subjects of all the chapters in our book. Sometimes we address it directly, but more frequently it is introduced through a problematization of presented issues that contests the anti-communist perspectives on communism. Our critical approach regards both those presentations that express and propagate the anti-communist perspective in a programmed, affirmative way, as well as those that adopt it as an obvious, natural manner of speaking about People’s Poland, which is not always preceded by reflection. We devote the third part of the book specifically to the analysis of selected topics from the history of anticommunist attitudes among Polish intelligentsia in the postwar period. Anna Zawadzka explores the communists’ unsuccessful prospect of breaking the symbolic hegemony of the “old intelligentsia.” The author analyzes the legitimate—that is, official—discourse on this social group from the beginnings of People’s Poland until the 1970s. In her view, the attempt to rebuild the traditional, elite habitus of the intelligentsia and to 14

See Dobrochna Kałwa, “Post-Stalinist Backlash in Poland,” Clio: Women, Gender, History 41, no. 1 (2015): 165–74.

12

Introduction

change its social position in relation to workers and peasants from leading to servile, had already failed by the mid-1950s. The next two decades were a time in which the intelligentsia gradually regained its traditional position and prestige and, simultaneously, the communist egalitarian vision of society withered, in favor of a belief in the natural and functional character of social distinctions. Zawadzka’s explorations are built upon expert sociological analyses published in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as upon the popular culture of those times, especially film and TV comedies about statesocialist everyday life based on the grotesque topos of a world “turned upside down,” ridiculing the consequences of undermining the traditional social (including gender) hierarchy. In her opinion, these representations, created and distributed in the conditions of censorship, but still popular and watched today, were an expression of the intelligentsia’s counterrevolution in the symbolic sphere, which occurred in Poland in the 1970s. The course of this process, this time within the circle of researchers of the history of ideas, is followed also by Paweł Rams in his chapter dedicated to the 1945–72 reception of work by Stanisław Brzozowski, Poland’s foremost modernist philosopher. Rams sees the interpretations and evaluations of his work, which changed over time, as a gauge of broader social and cultural phenomena occurring in People’s Poland, and especially of ideological and political attitudes from representatives of the era’s intellectual elites. Analyzing selected understandings of Brzozowski’s philosophy within a broad historical context, Rams reconstructs the evolutionary process of their authors’ worldviews, and especially members of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas, from their adoption of a Marxist–Leninist (positivist) interpretation of Marx’s thought, through their interest in Brzozowski’s antipositivist, anthropologically-oriented approach to it (he was considered a heretic in Stalinist times), aligned with the so-called revisionist attempt at reforming Marxism after 1956, all the way to complete disillusionment with Marxism in the late 1960s. Rams points out that the road travelled by these intellectuals, from Marxism toward philosophy anchored in constant, universal and, above all, Christian values, was largely parallel to that travelled by the prematurely-deceased thinker. From the end of the 1960s, his work began to be treated primarily as an argument against Marxism. The position of the leftist Polish intelligentsia on communism, which crystallized in the 1970s, is analyzed in the chapter by Kajetan Mojsak. His focus is on two prominent political novels, representative for this entire ideological formation and published beyond the reach of the censors: Nierzeczywisto√ć (Unreality, 1977) by Kazimierz Brandys and Miazga (Pulp, 1979) by Jerzy Andrzejewski. These novels offered a cuttingly critical analysis of the social reality after the dramatic events of March 1968 and December 1970, one shared by a large portion of the society. The author notes the symptomatic change in language used to analyze the reality

Introduction

13

of “real socialism,” adopted in both books: from the language of politics and economics, applied in the first half of the 1960s, into categories of a broadly-understood social psychology, indicating the advanced social anomie (“the pulp”) and the fictional character of public life (“unreality”). Mojsak’s interpretation of the 1970s Polish leftist intelligentsia is polemical toward two contemporary historiographic approaches, which are in agreement in respect of the presented factography, but opposed in their evaluations: namely, that of Dariusz Gawin (rightist) and Michał Siermi≈ski (leftist).15 They track the same shift of intellectuals disillusioned with the left toward conservative, Catholic, and ethno-nationalist values, but they do so from different ideological perspectives. Unlike these two interpretations with clear political orientations, Mojsak indicates a far-reaching depoliticization of positions presented by both the writers he analyzes, treating this approach as their consciously-adopted moral reaction to the earlier negative experiences of political involvement, starting with the Stalinist period. This position revealed its further weakness when, under the conditions of political mobilization of the 1980s, the Polish non-communist left was unable to formulate a positive political proposal. The chapter by Krzysztof Gajewski, which analyzes a samizdat brochure entitled Mały konspirator (1983; published in English as The Little Conspirator, 1986) that offered practical tips for anti-state oppositionists, written by three well-known underground activists and members of the populist right after 1989, is also polemical toward the egalitarian (Solidarity) ethos of the anti-communist oppositional intelligentsia of the 1980s. As Gajewski demonstrates, both the language of this publication and its explicitly and implicitly expressed system of moral values and social beliefs made for an uncritical apology of liberal capitalism, along with its emphasis on individual financial success. In opposition to this, categories from the leftist glossary, such as “social justice,” were treated as a manifestation of political oppression or of intentions to limit individual liberty. Gajewski’s chapter, even though it focuses on the interpretation of a single publication, broaches the broader issue of idealistic convictions about economic capitalism, perceived as a natural and desirable way of organizing society, widespread in the 1980s. We give the readers this book in the hope that it will open up discussion about an already closed past, that it will liven up methodological disputes, and that it will serve as a point of departure for not only meta-discursive, but especially historical considerations. These elements are important not 15

Dariusz Gawin, Wielki zwrot: Ewolucja lewicy i odrodzenie idei społecze≈stwa obywatelskiego 1956–1976 (Krakow: Znak, 2013); Michał Siermi≈ski, Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980; Od demokracji robotniczej do narodowego paternalizmu (Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2016).

14

Introduction

only for the culture of our country, but also of our region: the phenomenon of communism determined not only the history of Poland, but of all the socalled people’s democracies, and it largely affected the history of Europe. The Polish case may thus be of help in thinking about universal history. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

Part One

Critiques of the Dominant Narrative

CHAPTER ONE

The Red and the Brown: On the Nationalist Legitimation of Communism in Poland Once Again Grzegorz Wołowiec

Nuremberg for communists The strong conviction that communism and fascism (using the broad meaning of the latter, entailing especially German national socialism) are one and the same thing is one of the fundamental tenets of anti-communist discourse in Poland, both in its version shaped in the 1980s and also that largely upheld after 1989. Numerous manifestations of this particular manner of conceptualizing the phenomenon of communism1 may be observed in the language of contemporary political and social discourse, as well as in literature, popular culture, and both professional and non-professional historiography concerning People’s Poland.2 The watchword of accountsettling with communist totalitarianism in today’s Poland, thirty years after the collapse of “communism,” has become one of the chief arguments legitimizing political claims to power over the country and a basis for radical projects of rebuilding social, economic, and cultural life. The vast majority of publications written after 1989 and to this day, dealing with the history of communism in Poland, support (not always intentionally) this type of political ambition, providing power claims with intellectual, moral, and symbolic justifications. 1

In this chapter I use the term “communism” in its broad meaning, that employed in contemporary public discourse and entailing both the philosophical doctrine and various political applications. Thus, it covers both the Polish Workers’ Party and its successor, the Polish United Workers’ Party, along with their members (“communists”) and the entire historical period of “communism,” when these parties ruled in Poland. I am aware that the use of this term has its complicated history, as does that of the “communist” party, but this issue falls beyond the scope of this chapter. 2 I cite examples further on.

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One of the most distinctive, recurring motifs of contemporary anticommunist Polish language is the motif of the “second Nuremberg,” in which the call to ethical, legal, and political settlement of Poland’s history of the years 1944–89 is accompanied by putting a symbolic equals sign between communism and Nazism. One outright example of such an approach is Wojciech Tomczyk’s play Norymberga (Nuremberg), first published in 2005 in the prestigious monthly Dialog (Dialogue),3 and reprinted in 2006 as a book (Wydawnictwo AA, Krakow). Jacek Kopci≈ski, an influential researcher of contemporary Polish theater, acclaimed it as “the most scathing accusation of the communist system in all of Polish dramaturgy”: The world in this drama is like scaffolding built out of rotten wood: wherever you place a foot, there’s a trap. While walking up, one keeps falling onto lower and lower stories. Nothing here is what it seems to be; evil is disguised as good, lies as truth, and the reality is in the hands of an unknown creator with unidentified intentions. . . . To call this simply “Polish hell” would be to repeat a truism and to miss the problem. It is much worse—this is actual hell.4

Kopci≈ski points out the “bitterly ironic” message of Norymberga stemming from the fact that the firm demand for the moral and legal settlement of communism in Tomczyk’s play is formulated by a retired functionary of the political police, Colonel Stefan Kołodziej, a diabolical figure of a synthetic communist actively participating in all the dramatic moments of People’s Poland from 1953 on. Over the course of a few meetings with a young journalist who represents liberal media, he tells of his sinister activity both in People’s Poland and after 1989, formulating the strongest accusations against himself in the language of contemporary rightist anti-communism: “I betrayed my country. I actively participated in the repression apparatus of a criminal system. I finished people off. Not only in the 1950s. I can be easily called a murderer from behind a desk”;5 “If only you knew what kinds of things I did in 1967, in 1968. And in the 1970s”;6 “In 1980 people straightened up, they raised their heads and started living like human beings. And then we broke those straight backs”;7 “I betrayed my country, I finished people off. I consciously worked to strengthen the Soviet Union and its influence in Poland.”8 3

Wojciech Tomczyk, “Norymberga: Sztuka w trzech aktach,” Dialog, no. 6 (2005): 5–36. 4 Jacek Kopci≈ski, “Pesymista,” Teatr, nos. 7–8 (2015): 4. 5 Wojciech Tomczyk, Norymberga (Krakow: Wydawnictwo AA, 2006), 43–44. 6 Ibid., 36–37. 7 Ibid., 111. 8 Ibid., 73.

The Red and the Brown

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The colonel readily accepts the opinion of the increasingly disturbed journalist, who calls him “the worst kind of man”; he refers to himself as a “criminal” and a “monster.” He says the “communist swamp” is a system that, by bringing out “the worst of each person,” strove to accomplish its premeditated task of “erasing the nation.” Based on these and many other self-denunciations, he categorically demands a “new Nuremberg” for himself and for communism in general: I want to be tried. I suppose I have the right to it? . . . I don’t mean a moral or political trial. I mean a normal, regular court trial. I want to be put on trial for a crime against humanity. With a prosecutor, a judge, a lawyer. A trial in the name of the Republic of Poland. Just a regular court hearing. The kind for murderers and rapists. I have the right to a fair trial just like them.9 This will restore the upended order of things. This will be justice.10

Kołodziej brings up “Holocaust denial” a number of times and demands an analogically strict legal approach to the crimes of communism, at the same time criticizing the existing, liberal attitude of the Polish state and its elites to the events from 1944 to 1989: “I was naive; I believed the new Poland would bring me and others like me to accountability. . . . I believed I would pay for the way I lived. That I would get this opportunity. . . . Memory can’t be amputated. Because it is replaced with a weed of lies.”11 The attempt taken up by the characters in Norymberga to restore moral order fails: everything stays the same, “order is brought to Warsaw,”12 and the resolution of the dramatic conflict turns out to be impossible in the reality of post-communism.13 Tomczyk’s play is an incisive literary update of the program pursued by the contemporary Polish right in their contention for power under the banner of completing the anti-communist revolution of the 1980s and accusing its former “liberal” comrades, now enemies, of betraying their shared ideals. It provides arguments for the delegitimization of the “liberal” political arrangement in place in Poland since 1989 and it justifies the need for establishing a new, national and conservative moral and symbolic order.

9

Ibid., 44. Ibid., 70. 11 Ibid., 86–87. 12 This is an allusion to the words of French Minister of Foreign Affairs Horace Sébastiani—“Order reigns in Warsaw” (“L’ordre règne à Varsovie”)—spoken after the Russian army took Warsaw during the November Uprising. 13 The version of Norymberga published in Dialog, a monthly with great merits for Polish culture, has a different ending than the later (canonical) book version from 2006 and from the earlier version, available on the Internet with the date 2004–05. This ending, in which the entire storyline of the play is treated as yet another staging by the colonel, provides Tomczyk’s work with a certain guise of artistic and intellectual depth. 10

20

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It is symptomatic that despite its ideological and even party unambiguity,14 Norymberga has been received with great enthusiasm by critics, regardless of their outlook and political leanings. This especially applies to theatrical performances of the play, including at the National Theater (directed by Agnieszka Gli≈ska in 2007), and the equally acclaimed TV production (directed by Waldemar Krzystek in 2006, with the highly popular actor Janusz Gajos as protagonist),15 which attracted millions of viewers. The undeniable success of Tomczyk’s work clearly testifies to the persisting endurance in Polish cultural life of a specific phenomenon from the confluence of politics and aesthetics, which Przemysław Czapli≈ski refers to as “anti-socialist realism”: “A fundamental feature of this current was such a presentation of the world in which every element of reality was an accusation against ‘socialism,’ ‘communism,’ ‘the system,’ etc.”16

14

I use the term “ideology” in this chapter in line with its postmodern definition, and thus not as a “biased vision of the world distorted by interests of individual and group outlooks,” in opposition to science, but as a system of meanings aiming to order or transform the world. See Jakub Muchowski, Polityka pisarstwa historycznego. Refleksja teoretyczna Haydena White’a (Warsaw and Toru≈: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, 2015). The cited quote is from page 95 of this book. 15 See, for instance, Tomasz Mo√cicki, “Genialny teatr telewizji,” Dziennik. Polska– Europa–Świat: Gazeta Codzienna, no. 198 (2006): 30–31: “Krzystek’s production is not only an aesthetically and psychologically sublime play, it is also a great settlement of accounts with Poland’s communist past. When Agnieszka Gli≈ska directed Wojciech Tomczyk’s Norymberga at the National Theater, she garnered much praise. Amongst the abundance of contemporary Polish plays there finally appeared a text that says something important about a world still hunted by specters of the past”; Joanna Derkaczew, “Bądź moim trybunałem,” Gazeta Wyborcza, October 18, 2010, accessed September 27, 2019, http://wyborcza.pl/ 1,90539,8501901,Badz_moim_trybunalem.html: “The author Wojciech Tomczyk and the director Waldemar Krzystek tell of the PRL’s afterlife through an intimate story. About the consequences that those years, processes and actions by the ‘people of the system’ turn out to have in the everyday lives of young, liberated Poles who are full-fledged Europeans. . . . Krzystek’s production is one of the best in the Scena Faktu series of Television Theater. It stands apart from the kitschy, hagiographic pictures and plays ‘with an agenda’ for its openness to interpretations. The authors steer clear of building a black and white world of perpetrators and victims. Instead, they invite the audience to a cozy home space, in which nightmares still lie in wait.” See also reviews by Marek Radziwon and Kalina Zalewska which retain a similar, laudable tone: Marek Radziwon, “Czy rządzi √wiatem tajny układ,” Teatr, no. 6 (2006): 32–33; Kalina Zalewska, “PRLowski bzik,” Teatr, no. 2 (2007): 20–22. 16 Przemysław Czapli≈ski, “O realizmie antysocjalistycznym,” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (1995): 44.

The Red and the Brown

21

Tendentious anti-communist literature emerged upon the collapse of Stalinism in Poland, and it bloomed in the 1980s. Although it was subject to some criticism around the breakthrough of 1989,17 it is still a dominant literary form of presenting communism, completely naturalized by most authors and readers, regardless of their current ideological and political orientation. As evidenced by the reception of Norymberga, equating communism and Nazism—which, in the context of Poles’ historical experience, is the gravest possible charge—is still accepted as an obvious, adequate description of the bygone reality. This is hardly surprising: the anti-communism of the 1980s played a formative role for the majority of today’s political, social, and cultural elites in Poland. Its influence was particularly strong on those who were born in the 1960s and 1970s, who largely define the shape of contemporary public life in Poland (the author of Norymberga belongs to this generation). It is also passed on to the following generations, especially via formal education and the media. This approach has taken on its most blatant form among the supporters of the national right, dominant on the Polish political scene (as of 2020), leading to the emergence of a specific, intellectually incoherent attitude of “integral anti-communism.” On the one hand, it makes it possible to brand communism as one of the forms of twentieth-century totalitarianism, and on the other, to attribute positive traits to even the most extreme manifestations of anti-communism in the dispute with the left and with liberalism (political correctness, feminism, multiculturalism, and so on). As Jakub Majmurek writes: Following the assumption that communism is the worst evil of twentiethcentury history and the chief misfortune of Poland in the past century, everything that fought against communism—the more fiercely, the better—becomes good and praiseworthy. Thus, the great fondness that the Polish right feels toward such figures as General Franco, Pinochet, or even the commander of the Belgian SS brigades, Léon Degrelle. To our integral anti-communists, Pinochet is not a murderous dictator, but a knight in shining armor leading a crusade against the communist beast. Franco is a hero who saved Spain from Stalin, and the soldiers of the Dąbrowski Battalion, who fought on the side of the Spanish Republic, are Stalinist agents unworthy of remembrance in the free Poland. Following the same logic, enemies of democracy, obsessive anti-Semites, and even NSZ soldiers who collaborated with the Nazis, can be raised to the pantheon of national heroes.18

17 18

Czapli≈ski, “O realizmie antysocjalistycznym,” 44. Jakub Majmurek, “Brygada Świętokrzyska to naprawdę nie są bohaterowie wolnej Polski,” wp.pl, February 19, 2018, accessed September 27, 2019, https://opinie.wp.pl/jakub-majmurek-brygada-swietokrzyska-to-naprawde-nie-sabohaterowie-wolnej-polski-6222000188106881a. Majmurek’s commentary was written in response to the tribute given by Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz

22

Grzegorz Wołowiec

The basis of the overelaborated historical politics, often referred to as identity politics and carried out since 2015 by the rightist-nationalist government through state institutions, both those established earlier and those founded during its rule, is the idea of the Polish nation as a victim of two totalitarian regimes: the Nazi one and the communist one. It is frequently visible in the activities of the Institute of National Remembrance (established by a law dated December 18, 1998). It is also, for example, the cornerstone of the ideological program pursued by the Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies, established in 2016 at the initiative of the Ministry of Culture. The Center aims to “promote the Polish historical experience abroad,” as one that is allegedly unique and misunderstood outside of the country. Magdalena Gawin explains the mission of the newly founded institution in the following way: Poland is one of few countries in our region that has a truly anti-totalitarian political identity. . . . Our objective is for Poland to be better understood by the world. We did not shy away from fighting in 1939, which was not standard at the time. Other countries took various stances: some remained passive or neutral, others sided with one of the two totalitarian regimes. We chose differently. Poles should be proud of this. We also need to make the price we’ve paid known. . . . Poland’s problems stem from the fact that we have not told the world about our twentieth-century history and we did not provide Western researchers with the proper tools for studying it on their own. The Center focuses not only on World War II, but on all consequences of the totalitarian regimes, which lasted until the collapse of communism.19

This type of interpretative approach to the twentieth-century history of Poland is not unique to the Polish nationalist right. The Institute of National Remembrance was founded by a coalition government formed by centrist political forces, largely in opposition to the nationalist-conservative circles that took power in 2015. A strong anti-communist stance is an important agenda component of almost all groups active on the Polish political scene after 1989 (with the exception of the so-called post-communists), including the liberals and even the new left, which likes to refer to itself as “non-post-communist.” Such an orientation is also exhibited in the 1997 Constitution of the Republic Morawiecki on February 17, 2018, near Munich, at the graves of fallen National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) soldiers. NSZ was a nationalist partisan formation which sided with the Germans in the face of the approaching Soviet army. 19 “Projekt ‘Zapisy terroru’. Cel: Rozpowszechnianie wiedzy na Zachodzie o losach Polaków,” an interview with Magdalena Gawin by Michał Płoci≈ski, Rzeczpospolita, July 28, 2016, accessed November 5, 2018, https://www.rp.pl/PlusMinus/307289937-Projekt-Zapisy-terroru-Cel-Rozpowszechnianie-wiedzy-naZachodzie-o-losach-Polakow.html.

The Red and the Brown

23

of Poland, which today’s nationalist right harshly contests, the Article 13 of which stipulates full symmetry between Nazism, fascism, and communism.20 It should also be noted that the Constitution’s preamble addresses the “Third Republic,” a formula universally adopted in the public language. The name “Fourth Republic” functions in opposition to it, underscoring the scale of political changes postulated and introduced by the nationalist right. By designating the legal system shaped after 1989 as the Third Republic of Poland, the authors of the new Constitution made two important symbolic gestures: first, they established a historical continuity between contemporary Poland, created after 1989, and the earlier forms of Polish state sovereignty (the First and Second Republics); secondly, and simultaneously, they put an equals sign between the period of the People’s Republic of Poland (1944–89)21 and the long period when Poland was stripped of its statehood under the partitions (1795–1918). From this perspective, communism is treated as a phenomenon external to what is inherently Polish, as a deviation that disturbed the “natural” course of national history, that has nothing to do with the authentic, internally Polish political, social, and cultural matters. Thus, the period from 1939 to 1989 becomes a separate historical whole, isolated from the time continuum, and if it is at all connected to what had been before—that is, the history of prewar and wartime Poland—it is only by way of sinister anticipations of the future communist rule over the country, its prehistory. Therefore, the Constitution is not only a momentous political act; it is also a historical declaration, laden with the existing and potential (implied by such an attitude toward the history of People’s Poland) consequences of ideological and symbolic, legal and administrative nature.

The totalitarian theory The theoretical grounds for the aforementioned approaches that equate communism with fascism and Nazism are provided by the so-called totalitarian theory, formulated in the 1950s in the United States within the field 20

The article in question reads as follows: “Political parties and other organizations whose programs are based upon totalitarian methods and the modes of activity of Nazism, fascism and communism, as well as those whose programs or activities sanction racial or national hatred, the application of violence for the purpose of obtaining power or to influence the State policy, or provide for the secrecy of their own structure or membership, shall be prohibited.” “The Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2nd April, 1997,” Sejm: Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, accessed July 30, 2019, https://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/angielski/kon1.htm. 21 Formally, People’s Poland existed from 1952, when the new constitution changed the previous name of the Polish state (Republic of Poland).

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Grzegorz Wołowiec

of Soviet studies. Gradually subjected to criticism under the influence of ideological and political transformations that took place in the Soviet Union following the death of Stalin, and especially under the rule of Leonid Brezhnev, it was kindled mainly within the circle of right-wing critics of communism.22 In the 1970s, it also gained great popularity among Central European dissidents, including the Polish anti-communist opposition,23 becoming one of the main components of the new anti-communist resistance strategy molded in the aftermath of the political events of 1968, 1970, and 1976. It rejected the earlier revisionist or neopositivist concepts that admitted the possibility of centrifugal democratization of the system in People’s Poland,24 instead presenting the position that communist rule had a quintessentially unchanging, inherently non-reformable, totalitarian essence: When we speak of totalitarian regimes, we have in mind not systems that have reached perfection, but rather those which are driven by a never-ending effort to reach it, to swallow all channels of human communication, and to eradicate all spontaneously emerging social life forms. In this sense all Soviet-type regimes have been totalitarian, yet they have differed from one another in the degree of achievement: in the distance separating their real conditions from the inaccessible ideal. The slow but real retrogressive movement of Soviet totalitarianism has nothing to do either with a lack of will within the system and its ruling class or with a “democratization” of the regime. It consists in some reluctantly given, or rather extorted, concessions to irresistible reality. . . . As long as the built-in totalitarian drive, supported by the powerful vested interests of privileged classes, operates in the Sovietized territories, there is little hope for the kind of progress that one day would imperceptibly cross the line separating despotism from democracy.25

The above-cited words by Leszek Kołakowski, reflecting the way of thinking about communism adopted in the 1970s and built upon over the next decade by the Polish opposition, were also a response to Andrzej Walicki’s concept that headed in the opposite direction.26 It postulated 22

Andrzej Walicki, “Totalitaryzm i posttotalitaryzm: Próba definicji,” in Społecze≈stwa posttotalitarne: Kierunki przemian, ed. Zdzisław Sadowski (Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Współpracy z Klubem Rzymskim, 1991), 14–15. 23 Piotr Wci√lik, “Totalitaryzm w my√leniu politycznym opozycji demokratycznej,” Wolno√ć i Solidarno√ć: Studia z dziejów opozycji wobec komunizmu i dyktatury, no. 5 (2013): 123. 24 Adam Michnik, “Nowy ewolucjonizm,” Aneks, nos. 13–14 (1977): 33–47. 25 Leszek Kołakowski, “Totalitaryzm i zalety kłamstwa,” Aneks, no. 36 (1984): 108– 9. 26 It was a direct response to Walicki’s “My√li o sytuacji politycznej i moralnopsychologicznej w Polsce,” Aneks, no. 34 (1984): 82–104, but also to his earlier

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limiting the scope of the term “totalitarianism” exclusively to the offensive phase of communism, which in the Polish case ended in 1956, when the policies of total ideological mobilization and mass terror were abandoned. It viewed People’s Poland after the collapse of Stalinism as a posttotalitarian authoritarian state whose authorities, de facto, gave up the goal of turning the ideological utopia into reality, thus initiating the process leading up to the gradual dismantling of the communist dictatorship.27 At the same time, Walicki called attention to the situational aspect of the totalitarian interpretation of communism adopted by the Polish opposition in the 1970s, pointing out its political pragmatism, aimed primarily at discrediting its adversary. In 1991 he commented on this strategy as follows: The delegitimation of the system had to be absolute, and thus it had to adopt the assumption that destabilizing transformations were either merely spurious or not significant enough. This is why the fight against the regime took on the form of an anti-totalitarian crusade. It was effective (which spoke volumes about the political and ideological weakness of the opponent), but it could not favor objective judgments. . . . The filling in of gaps in historical self-knowledge was accompanied by striving to shorten the distance to the horrors of the Stalinist past. This way, the Polish intelligentsia subjected itself to the processes of intensive anti-communist self-indoctrination.28

Walicki’s stance contrasted with the attitude of the Polish intelligentsia engaged in the political conflict with the authorities of People’s Poland, an attitude dominant in the 1980s and directly after 1989, which exposed the researcher to some harsh criticism.29 His stance was an expression of his clearly defined, then liberal-conservative ideological and political views, based on which he reformulated the program of political neopositivism, abandoned by its earlier followers from Catholic intelligentsia circles. It also stemmed from Walicki’s need to defend the life choices that he had made in the period of People’s Poland (that some saw as conformist), which he openly admits in his autobiography.30 His interpretation of compolitical work. Walicki expounded his interpretation of history of People’s Poland, polemical to the one endorsed by mainstream oppositional intelligentsia, in his book Spotkania z Miłoszem (London: Aneks, 1985). 27 He further elaborated on this concept in many other texts published after 1989, especially in Andrzej Walicki, Od projektu komunistycznego do neoliberalnej utopii (Krakow: Universitas, 2013). 28 Walicki, “Totalitaryzm i posttotalitaryzm,” 16. 29 See, for instance, Jan Józef Lipski, “W odpowiedzi Andrzejowi Walickiemu,” Aneks, no. 35 (1984): 119–24; Zygmunt Rafalski [Janusz Sławi≈ski], “Jeszcze jeden ukąszony, choΔ poranek √wita,” Kultura Niezależna, no. 33 (1987): 30–49. 30 Andrzej Walicki, Idee i ludzie: Próba autobiografii (Warsaw: Instytut Historii Nauki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2010): 280–83.

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munism (or anti-communism) is undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of the history of ideas in this area, still lively and worthy of discussion.31 Yet at this point, I am most interested in the portion of Walicki’s views concerning the contemporary consequences of the ways in which the Polish intelligentsia challenged the communist system. My intention absolutely is not to question the rationality of ideological and political choices made in the 1970s and 1980s from a contemporary, ahistorical perspective,32 but rather to critically ponder on the indirect effects of past events on the here and now. In his autobiography, Walicki reflects on the dispute he was engaged in with the anti-communist opposition in the 1980s: I rejected this circle’s uncritical use of the term “totalitarianism” in reference to 1980s Poland, as something leading to the demonization of the adversary and a fundamentalistic moralism that dismisses political compromises. I opposed the simplifications of “new evolutionism,” that is, a theory (created by Kołakowski and Michnik) according to which the method of dialogue with the authorities was a vestige of revisionism and should be replaced with “extortion” of concessions by way of unrelenting pressure and rhetoric of confrontation, not allowing the opponent to recede and save face. I showed them that ideals can turn against their creators.33 31

Walicki presented them most comprehensively in his book Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995). The author’s translation into Polish was published as Marksizm i skok do królestwa wolno√ci: Dzieje komunistycznej utopii (Warsaw: PWN, 1996). 32 I largely accept the arguments of erstwhile and contemporary critics of Walicki’s position, who point to his excessive faith in the possibility of constructive cooperation with the authorities of People’s Poland and of any real reform of the political system in the geopolitical circumstances of the time. These arguments were formulated in the following publications, among others: Krzysztof Pomian, “Pon się boją we wsi ruchu,” Aneks, no. 35 (1984): 125–36; Wci√lik, “Totalitaryzm w my√leniu politycznym opozycji demokratycznej,” 125–31. Walicki’s answer to this type of accusation was as follows: “The polarization of attitudes only does any good when there is a chance of winning in an open fight.” Andrzej Walicki, “Odpowiedź moim krytykom,” Aneks, no. 35 (1984): 148. 33 Walicki, Idee i ludzie, 277–78. See also Walicki’s comment on the “paradox of [Adam] Michnik”: “as a democrat, as the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, he paradoxically became . . . a victim of moralistic fundamentalism, and so the force he himself brought to life in the period of fight against the PRL’s authorities,” ibid., 339. An analysis of the ideological message of the “Solidarity” movement, conducted in the 1980s and showing this movement’s deep anchoring in the tradition of Polish political and cultural nationalism, also merits attention; see Sergiusz Kowalski, Krytyka solidarno√ciowego rozumu: Studium z socjologii my√lenia potocznego (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne, 2009; first edition in 1988).

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The political circumstances of the late 1980s changed the course of political events, unexpectedly leading to a peaceful (in the majority of state socialist countries) dismantling of the communist system. Solutions that had seemed rational in conditions of resistance against dictatorial rule suddenly lost their validity, negatively affecting the radically different reality. The persistence of the style of thinking about communism in a manner determined by the totalitarian theory, which coalesced in the 1980s, is demonstrated for example by a 1990 discussion in the Polish Association for the Club of Rome.34 Most of the participants, prominent representatives of Polish social sciences, supported a position contrary to that championed by Walicki.35 The history of People’s Poland was deemed to have been a period of “increasing totalitarization,”36 and the effects of these processes the main reason for problems that came to light in Poland during the political and economic transformation following 1989: “The apathy of a large part of society may be explained by the inability to take advantage of the suddenly regained freedom. The fact that freedom becomes something cumbersome is, I think, the most sinister consequence of the totalitarian period.”37 A certain change in views on the history of People’s Poland was caused by events in connection with the introduction of subsequent lustration procedures,38 which aimed to reveal secret collaborators with the political police from the period 1944–89. This was accompanied by a broader tendency to “settle accounts” with the history of People’s Poland, conducted in the spirit of integral anti-communism, a constitutive component of nationalist right-wing historical and identity politics.39 Fingers were pointed

34

Sadowski, Społecze≈stwa posttotalitarne, 35–51. See also Walicki, Idee i ludzie, 280. For more about the use of the concept of “totalitarianism” in Polish history writing, see Rafał Stobiecki, Historiografia PRL: Ani dobra, ani mądra, ani piękna . . . ale skomplikowana. Studia i szkice (Warsaw: Trio, 2007): 318–22. 36 See the statement by Edmund Mokrzycki: “The society has been subjected to such far reaching transformations that it may be said it largely approached the model of a totalitarian society. And if totalitarianism, as proposed by A. Walicki, is to be understood as the actually achieved degree of conformism in a society, then I think we will all agree that this actually achieved degree of conformism was greater in the 1980s than it was in the year 1955 or 1956.” Edmund Mokrzycki, “Czym był totalitaryzm i kiedy się sko≈czył w Polsce?,” in Sadowski, Społecze≈stwa posttotalitarne, 36. 37 Statement by Józef Niżnik, in Sadowski, Społecze≈stwa posttotalitarne, 50. 38 Resolution of the Sejm of May 28, 1992, Act of April 11, 1997, Act of December 18, 1998 (on the Institute of National Remembrance), Act of October 18, 2006. For more about lustration, see Andrzej Romanowski, Rozkosze lustracji (Krakow: Universitas, 2007). 39 These ideas were most comprehensively elaborated in publications by authors connected with the Center for Political Thought in Krakow and with the Teologia Poli35

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not only at actual or alleged collaborators with the secret police, but also at public figures who until then enjoyed widespread respect, dissidents (including Lech Wałęsa), and cultural personalities, whose biographies from before 1989 were vetted for divergences from the anti-communist paragon of virtue. Symptomatic in terms of the above is an exposing book by Roman Graczyk, which lustrated the editorial staff of Tygodnik Powszechny (The Catholic Weekly),40 a circle held in the highest esteem by the anticommunist Polish intelligentsia in People’s Poland. Even such outstanding personalities of Polish culture as Czesław Miłosz or Wisława Szymborska have been targets of these ruthless attacks.41 I have brought up only a few examples from a very long list. In his analysis of “transformations in the field of the dominant historical discourse” in Poland after 1989, Marek Czyżewski distinguishes two opposing approaches to the history of People’s Poland: “discourse of the history writing of the Third Republic of Poland” and “discourse of historical writing of the Fourth Republic of Poland.”42 The former liberal-leftist current, which enjoyed political support between 1989 and 2005, is marked by a proclivity to view the history of the People’s Republic of Poland as an “ambiguous area, which should be approached without moralizing,”43 a consequence of which is an “‘understanding’ attitude, to some extent justifying People’s Poland.”44 The competing rightist-conservative discourse, institutionalized in 2005, stands out for its rigorous moralism, “consistently applied to functionaries of the authorities and to citizens”: “Thus the image of People’s Poland is contrasting: on the one hand it entails a story of shame, and on the other hand, a heroic story of glory (unwavering resistance).”45 Isolation of traitors from heroes, postulated within this discourse, is also a means to describing the relationship between the Third Republic of Poland, viewed as a continuation of People’s Poland, and the Fourth tyczna (Political Theology) annual, such as Marek A. Cichocki, Tomasz Merta, Dariusz Gawin, and Dariusz Karłowicz (all of whom were born in the mid-1960s). 40 Roman Graczyk, Cena przetrwania. SB wobec Tygodnika Powszechnego (Warsaw: Czerwone i Czarne, 2011). 41 Michał Głowi≈ski wrote about attacks against Szymborska following her winning of the Nobel Prize: “Szymborska i krytycy: Kilka uwag na początek,” Teksty Drugie, no. 4 (1998): 177–99. For more about attacks against Miłosz, see Andrzej Franaszek, Miłosz: Biografia (Krakow: Znak, 2011), 723–24. 42 Marek Czyżewski, “Debata na temat Jedwabnego oraz spór o ‘politykę historyczną’ z punktu widzenia analizy dyskursu publicznego,” in Pamięć i polityka historyczna: Do√wiadczenia Polski i jej sąsiadów, ed. Sławomir N. Nowinowski, Jan Pomorski, and Rafał Stobiecki (Łódź: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008), 117–40. 43 Czyżewski, “Debata na temat Jedwabnego,” 135. 44 Ibid., 124. 45 Ibid., 136.

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Republic, presented as an heir to national glory. In the conclusion of his analysis, Czyżewski notes the ever-increasing disparity between interpretations of the People’s Poland past: “Differences in defining the subject of dispute, within the field of ‘philosophy of dispute’ and in the area of argumentative strategies, are so vast that the mutual entrenchment is deepening as the debate continues.”46 This analysis published ten years ago by Czyżewski, certainly one of the most competent experts in the area of Polish public discourse, remains up to date, as the historical discourse of the Fourth Republic therein isolated since 2015 has (once again) come to enjoy strong support from the revolutionary-conservative authorities of the country. I do not, however, concur with the researcher’s final conclusion, according to which there is a symmetrical opposition between the two approaches to the history of People’s Poland. I consider it a mistake to view them as being on a par with each other; the relation between them should be defined differently. In order to justify my stance, I would like to focus on one of the representative examples of Polish liberal history-writing that takes up the subject of People’s Poland: namely, Marcin Zaremba’s book Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm: Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja władzy komunistycznej w Polsce.47

Perpetual communism Zaremba’s book is the first Polish monograph dedicated to the problem addressed in the title. It is an influential work that belongs to the canon of contemporary Polish history-writing dealing with issues associated with communism, often treated as an authoritative basis for research on the history of the period from 1944 to 1989.48 It was first published in 2001 and reprinted in 2005; the German version was published in 2011;49 in 2019 the English version was released under the title Communism–Legitimacy– Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland.50 46

Ibid., 137. Marcin Zaremba, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm: Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja władzy komunistycznej w Polsce (Warsaw: Trio–Instytut Studiów Politycznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2001). 48 See Katarzyna Chmielewska, “Contemporary Historical Discourse on Polish Communism in a Narratological Perspective,” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (2016): 99– 115. Zaremba’s book is one of the historic publications analyzed in this article. 49 Marcin Zaremba, Im nationalen Gewande: Strategien kommunistischer Herrschaftslegitimation in Polen 1944–1980, trans. Andreas R. Hofmann (Osnabrück: Fibre Verlag, 2011). 50 Marcin Zaremba, Communism–Legitimacy–Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland, trans. Arthur Rosman (Berlin: Peter Lang, 47

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It is difficult to polemicize with Zaremba’s book, as the views presented therein are not coherent: at times, alternative or outright contradictory opinions are weaved into the historian’s mainstream argument, sometimes as citations of the opinions expressed by other researchers left without clear commentary from the author, either approving or polemical.51 Their role in Zaremba’s book is not evident. I would venture to say that they are a manifestation of the internal tension between two types of ideology organizing the historian’s argument: first, the ideology of Polish anti-communism, and second, the ideology of contemporary liberalism, with which the author undoubtedly identifies. The clarity of the historian’s stance is disrupted by another feature of his argument: the frequent lack of a clear boundary between his own opinion regarding the discussed facts and the recurring discursive doxa about the history of People’s Poland, both from the pre-1989 period and from today, delivered in reported speech. The author’s principal point of interest is how Polish communists attempted to counter their universal perception within Polish society as aliens,52 external to the national community: The concept of “nationalist legitimation” is something I understand as a positive evaluation of a political entity, which as ethnically “internal” guards the “national interest,” understood as the defense of national territories, the borders of the state, and the national economy; it also represents a national system of values acknowledged by the community, which includes the symbols and na2019). In the remaining part of the chapter, references to Zaremba’s book (in this edition) are given in the main text, in parentheses. 51 For instance: “It would be an oversimplification to judge that everything which came into being in the symbolic discourse between the authorities and society during the years 1944–1989 had merely an instrumental and utilitarian character. . . . I consider too simple the assessment that the motivations behind the actions of communist elites were only Machiavellian. . . . The ideological project did not go according to plan because it could not go according to plan, but does this give us the right to deny its creators even a little bit of patriotism? Within this context Krystyna Kersten asked the following question: ‘Is it possible to say that one patriotism was authentic and another false?’ . . . I will leave these questions unanswered” (36–37). 52 In this aspect, Zaremba’s history-writing reflects a broader tendency in the Polish history-writing concerning communism and People’s Poland. This issue is analyzed by Katarzyna Chmielewska: “This confusion of perspectives, shortening of distance, and an unclear relationship with the presented world lend themselves to a peculiar end—they bestow the credibility of science to past opinions and judgements without considering their merit, therefore objectivizing nationalistic and anti-Semitic attitudes as comprehensible to ‘our’ Polish outlook.” Chmielewska, “Contemporary Historical Discourse on Polish Communism,” 115.

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tional myths, remembrance of national heroes, a common historical past and a cultural legacy, and the customs common to this community. (26)

The old and contemporary social beliefs concerning communism and communists are not, however, a topic of the analyzed book, and Zaremba did not conduct any research in this respect, which he states explicitly: “In conclusion, I would like to stress that the object of my interest is exclusively the means of attaining legitimacy, rather than the considerations to what degree if at all, the Polish society legitimized the authorities, the system, or its political elites. All the observations about this last topic have merely the character of more or less grounded hypotheses” (10). The historian’s research focuses exclusively on communists and the political and cultural activities designed to win them national legitimation. Actions with the opposite vector, delegitimizing the power of communists and their national claims, are outside the scope of Zaremba’s interest. He is only concerned with the social effects of the communists’ politics, of which he is unambiguously critical: Even though the nationalist legitimation of power in the version of the Polish communists proved itself to be so ineffective, it did not fail to influence the lives of Poles themselves, or their relation to the world, other nations and cultures. In this measure the consequences are frightening. The party, through propaganda and its politics toward national minorities, shaped a xenophobic, ethnic, rather than a national, community of citizens, not only closed to the world but antagonistic toward it. (372–73)

The history and social consequences of anti-communist resistance, in turn, are not addressed at all by Zaremba. He does not deny a national legitimation to anti-communism, and he does not problematize its ideological foundations nor its methods of operation. Contrary to the methodological reservation made in the introductory part of the book, the historian not only formulates a straightforward opinion on the social view of communism in Poland between 1944 and 1989, but he also shares it, at least to a considerable degree. The belief that the communist power was a foreign body in Poland is essentially the bedrock of his interpretation. In stating that “today 1989 is nearly universally seen as the year when Poland regained the independence it lost in 1939” (372), he fully solidarizes with this impersonally-expressed stance, as a member of the broadly understood anti-communist ideological community. Zaremba is probably right in positing that the rule of Polish communists was seen by the majority of the society as lacking national legitimation, as being “non-Polish.” Nevertheless, it would be apposite to ask if adopting this opinion as one’s own, in lieu of a scholarly theoretical historical problematization, can serve as a basis for modern research, especially conducted

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by someone who embraces liberal values. The cognitive capacities and social effects of liberal anti-communism in Poland will be one of the chief subjects of my chapter. Put briefly, the objective of Zaremba’s book is “the description of the nationalist legitimation of communist power in Poland between 1944 and 1980” (7). The author advances the thesis that, contrary to the tenet of original Marxist communism, according to which “working men have no country,” within the system of validation of communist power in Poland national legitimation played an important role from beginning to end, one which was sometimes fundamental. It was used especially at times of political crisis, once the possibility to gain legitimation through Marxism had been completely exhausted in the 1960s, primarily to maintain the bond between the authorities and the society: whenever the system was rocked by a crisis, the rulers rescued themselves with nationalist argumentation and undertook legitimating efforts, whose main axis was the concept of the “nation,” which aimed to form a symbolic community between the rulers and the society. This does not mean that during periods between crises the authorities did not strive to guarantee support for themselves from the side of the society by using national slogans and symbols. (34)

The main purpose of the analyzed book is the search for an answer to the questions of why and how it was possible for People’s Poland to move “from the national nihilism to the nationalist legitimization of communist countries,” “how this metamorphosis ran its course,” and what was its basis (39). The striking contradiction between declared values and applied political practice becomes the foundation of Zaremba’s assessment of the communists and their ideology. Having adopted a chronological perspective, Zaremba analyzes in detail the place of nationalism within the program and political practice of the communist power in subsequent historical phases of People’s Poland, from the moment of the establishment of the Polish Workers’ Party in 1942 up until the year 1980. He believes that the long-lasting political crisis which began in that year, ultimately leading to the collapse of People’s Poland in 1989, brought on the final failure of all legitimation efforts of the communist power in the country, which is why he does not devote much attention to the last decade of People’s Poland. The key moment in the narrative constructed by Zaremba is March 1968, when the communist power adopted an ethnonationalist ideology, sparking an eruption of state-enabled anti-Semitism and resulting in the expulsion from the country of most citizens of Jewish origin who survived the war: “March crowned the work of the system’s evolution toward nationalism. Gomułka’s decade essentially brought the breakdown of Marx-

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ism in its hitherto form. The vacuum was filled by those in power with a nationalism in its most extreme form. . . . The national element became the leading source of legitimation for the party establishment and even shaped its self-consciousness” (329). Zaremba views these events as the capstone of the history of People’s Poland, the moment of revelation of the true “essence” of the communist project, which turned out to be completely opposed to the officially declared values of internationalism, egalitarianism, and liberty. The fact that following the collapse of Stalinism “the Polish authorities were not able to do anything to replace the waning ideology with anything, other than nationalism” (256) in the opinion of the author clearly proves the totalitarian—that is, equivalent to fascist—character of the communist project. The phenomenological approach to communism, typical of the totalitarian theory, is also one of the characteristic features of Zaremba’s interpretation. It does not stem so much from methodological assumptions adopted by the author;53 it is rather a spontaneous expression of a consolidated and widely held—not only in Poland—way of thinking about communism, which implies historical immutability, the sameness or constancy of its actual goals, regardless of the declared ideas and values. In this approach, communism is an “‘ideocracy’ same with itself in time and space,”54 while its various historical updates are merely “external manifestations of the same, essentially criminal, ideology.”55 Zaremba’s interpretation, which attributes the reasons for the moral catastrophe of March 1968 to the permanently criminal character of the communist project, whose objectives were identical to those of fascism or Nazism, provides further arguments for the legitimation of the “deviation” interpretative paradigm of communism.56

53

Zaremba does not bring up the totalitarian theory as one of the methodological premises of his work. 54 Enzo Traverso, Historia jako pole bitwy: Interpretacja przemocy w XX wieku, trans. Światosław Florian Nowicki (Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2014), 72. The approach toward communism exhibited by Traverso, as well as by some other authors presented in his book, such as Arno J. Mayer, in certain respects agrees with the historicized interpretative perspective presented by Walicki. 55 Traverso, Historia jako pole bitwy, 85. 56 I wrote about the consequences that the deviation perspective in studies of communism brings for biographical research in my chapter “Biografia komunisty jako temat wypowiedzi historiograficznej,” in (P)o zaborach, (p)o wojnie, (p)o PRL: Polski dyskurs postzależno√ciowy dawniej i dzi√, ed. Hanna Gosk and Ewa Kraskowska (Krakow: Universitas, 2013), 363–74.

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Decontextualization of communism In Zaremba’s book, the opinion on the constant, unchanging nature of communism is accompanied by a structurally related striving to decontextualize its history. I have already mentioned the phenomenon of excluding the history of People’s Poland from the national history, consisting of treating the period 1939–1989 as an interruption in the existence of the state, analogical to the period when it was partitioned by neighboring powers toward the end of the eighteenth century.57 Such an approach gives rise to specific consequences in the way of presenting the history of People’s Poland. One of them is the application of the same national-insurrection interpretative matrix as in the times of partitions. The history of People’s Poland is, thus, told primarily as a sequence of successive crises: insurrections leading to the regaining of national independence.58 The reconciliation of historical facts with this narrative model, its alignment, is one of the most interesting processes that can be observed in contemporary Polish history-writing, both professional and personal (autobiographical). The purpose of these efforts is to establish the belonging, or lack thereof, of certain historical events or biographies in the continuum of approved Polish history, their national (de)legitimation. Another consequence of applying the insurrectional problematization of the history of communism and People’s Poland is showing historical events in isolation from facts that preceded the birth of People’s Poland, outside of the social and political context prior to September 1, 1939. Separating the history of Polish communism from the context of the history of the Second Republic of Poland was a phenomenon characteristic of the anti-communist historical reflection of the 1980s. It favored the idealization of prewar Poland’s image, at the time perceived as a mythical paragon of a properly functioning society and state, an object of nostalgia and an inspiration for the current political endeavors. As Barbara Toru≈czyk noted, “a critical approach toward the problems of the Second Republic was ill-seen among the patriotic and national opposition, as was non-apologetic history and any type of association with communism— even in the past. The reflex of exteriorizing evil won, and with it won the

57

Rafał Stobiecki commented on this as follows: “The manner of understanding the principal categories present in this dispute [about the history of the PRL] determines how historians see the place of the PRL within the entire history of Polish nation and state. I will venture a thesis that it is perhaps this very layer of discussion that best lays bare a certain intellectual helplessness of researchers when it comes to the phenomenon of the PRL.” Stobiecki, Historiografia PRL, 330. 58 See Jerzy Eisler, “Polskie miesiące,” czyli kryzys(y) w PRL (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008).

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one-sided, simplistic judgement of the political reality and of the opponents.”59 Contrary to appearances, Zaremba’s work reiterates the aforementioned model of presenting communism in isolation from Poland’s pre-1939 history. Even though it does offer a short chapter devoted to the Communist Party of Poland (Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) and its stance on the “national issue,” these matters are considered by the author as components of the communist movement’s “internal history,” outside of the external social and political context. The historian is primarily interested in the attitude of prewar Polish communists to the political practice devised and implemented in Soviet Russia, consisting in instrumental combining of Marxism with nationalistic contents: “There were no doctrinal truths for the leader of the revolution. He was consumed by one idea, the idea of power. In order to rule he agreed to temporary compromises; he agreed to give the class revolution a national stigma” (56). Zaremba explains the abolition of the KPP in 1938 with the fact that Polish communists “remained hostile to nationalist legitimation” (72), thus weakening their own political efficacy. The historian ascribes the KPP’s “national nihilism” primarily to “the national makeup of this party as a whole, especially of its leaders” (66–67), although he softens this statement—reminiscent of the so-called “Żydokomuna” [Judeo-communism]60 stereotype—with a brief remark that “the communists did not lack Poles for whom an identification with the movement was closer than with their own nation” (67). The reasons which may have pushed some Jews, Belarusians, and Ukrainians living in Poland, but also ethnic Poles, to radically disobey the erstwhile state and society are hardly broached by the historian. He does, however, posit that the political practice of Polish communists, “those who survived” the banning of the KPP and the repressions of the Great Purge (72), fully agreed with the modus operandi and the nationalist interest of the Bolshevik party. Zaremba’s references to the phenomenon of prewar Polish nationalism must also be written off as merely specious contextualization. Whilst presenting and assessing the actions of communists in the People’s Poland era, the author mentions on numerous occasions the nationalist resentments widespread throughout Polish society, which acted as a growth medium for

59

Barbara Toru≈czyk, “Opowie√Δ o pokoleniu 1968,” part 2, dwutygodnik.com. Strona kultury, accessed June 30, 2018, http://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/ 329-opowiesci-o-pokoleniu-1968-2.html. This comment by Toru≈czyk, who was a significant member of the anti-communist opposition since the late 1960s, is of self-critical nature. 60 Anna Zawadzka, “Żydokomuna: Wstęp do socjologicznej analizy źródeł historycznych,” Societas/Communitas 8, no. 2 (2009): 199–244.

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communist rule, but he devotes little attention to the genesis and history of these moods. I have already addressed the ideological vector of the work analyzed in this chapter. The points of reference for the interpretation of communism offered therein are liberal-democratic values; they also presentistically, ahistorically affect the image of the Second Republic of Poland suggested in Zaremba’s book. Although the author invokes Roman Dmowski a few times as the chief ideologue and long-term leader of the nationalist movement in Poland—that is, the National Democracy—his focus is mainly on the organizationally separate61 radical branch of Polish nationalism, formed in the second half of the thirties, which grouped together young activists who overtly embraced fascist and Nazi models from Italy and Germany. He qualifies this formation as “extreme,” which addresses the specificity of its program, but also suggests that the position of this formation on the political scene of prewar Poland was marginal. Thus defined and narrowed down, nationalism/fascism becomes, in Zaremba’s interpretation, a symmetrical counterpart to communism, its mirror image. Pursuant to the logic of the totalitarian theory (and the Polish updates of this concept), nationalism and communism are deemed functionally identical extremisms, ideological blunders that disturb the political and social, implicitly democratic norm of the Second Republic. Although I fully share the author’s commitment to liberal and democratic values, I find this interpretation to be false. The ever-growing body of materials produced by research concerning Polish ethnonationalism does not allow us to perceive it as a mere freak act: something that threatens the public order, is dangerous, but still marginal in relation to the prewar Polish political norm. Its main component, antiSemitism, is also becoming increasingly difficult to view in this perspective, which presents its concrete manifestations in isolation from the erstwhile society’s dominant model of culture, as “antics” or exceptions to the social rule which had nothing to do with this prejudice.62 The nationalism of pre1939 Poland had its dynamics, and its apogee indeed occurred in the final years of the Second Republic, but the reflection on these phenomena can in no way be restricted to this period. The “Doctrine of Polish Majority,” according to which only “ethnic Poles” had the right to rule the country, was formulated by Polish nationalists in the early years of the Second Republic.

61

The National Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny, ONR), established in 1934, quickly disintegrated into smaller groups and circles. The acronym ONR became a mental shortcut to refer to the entire, internally divided, movement of young nationalists. 62 Elżbieta Janicka, “PamięΔ przyswojona. Koncepcja polskiego do√wiadczenia zagłady Żydów jako traumy zbiorowej w √wietle rewizji kategorii √wiadka,” Studia Litteraria et Historica, nos. 3–4 (2015): 165–71.

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Internalized by most actors on the political scene—ranging from the right to at least a part of socialists—it constituted one of the principal factors of interwar public life,63 vividly testifying to the symbolic hegemony (within the meaning of Pierre Bourdieu) of nationalism in Poland at the time. Even if the representatives of this political direction did not rise to power following the 1926 coup d’état by Józef Piłsudski, they certainly (also in their own belief) had reign of souls, increasingly so with the passage of time.64 The nationalists’ march toward power was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Polish nationalism was a much broader phenomenon than can be gathered from Zaremba’s argument, one that far surpassed the area of narrowly understood politics, actually in line with the concept championed by its leaders. It was a vast ideological formation, a broad “movement” and not just one or another party. Over time, it took on various, often incidental organizational forms. However, what truly determined its strength was, firstly, an enormous number of devoted, non-affiliated supporters who propagated and carried out the nationalist program in social and economic life, in culture and science, at both the national and local level. The second factor was its expressive discourse, whose numerous versions focused around the shared, ethnonationalistic, anti-Semitic core. And so, besides the plebeian variety of nationalist discourse, there was also a Catholic one,65 or ones embraced by the intelligentsia.66 This is why the colloquial Polish word “endek,” originating from the acronym of National Democracy (ND), one of the organizational forms of Polish nationalists, can also be applied to people who never formally joined this organization;67 similarly,

63

Paul Brykczynski, Primed for Violence: Murder, Antisemitism, and Democratic Politics in Interwar Poland (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), 83–105. See also Brian Porter-Szűcs, Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 90–104. 64 For more about nationalism and anti-Semitism in the political and social life of the Second Republic of Poland see, for instance, Szymon Rudnicki, Obóz NarodowoRadykalny: Geneza i działalno√ć (Warsaw: “Czytelnik,” 1985); Szymon Rudnicki, Falanga: Ruch Narodowo-Radykalny (Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza ASPRA-JR, 2018); Joanna Beata Michlic, Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2006). 65 See Ronald Modras, The Catholic Church and Antisemitism in Poland, 1933–1939 (New York: Routledge, 1994). 66 Małgorzata Domagalska, Antysemityzm dla inteligencji? Kwestia żydowska w publicystyce Adolfa Nowaczyńskiego na łamach “Myśli Narodowej” (1921–1934) i “Prosto z mostu” (1935–1939) (na tle porównawczym) (Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2004). 67 I have written about a significant example of a non-partisan in my article “Filologia i nacjonalizm: Stanisław Pigo≈ jako ideolog kultury ludowo-narodowej,” Teksty Drugie, no. 6 (2017): 107–41.

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the colloquial abbreviation “endecja” refers to a much broader phenomenon than a specific political party, becoming a synonym for anti-Semitic nationalism in Poland in all of its manifestations. Reducing the phenomenon of nationalism in interwar Poland to the National Radical Camp certainly fails to reflect the political reality of the Second Republic of Poland; it is a historical oversimplification that shows only a part of this problem. This convenient generalization appears in a certain type of history-writing dealing with People’s Poland, as some of the important members of this organization managed to remain active after 1945 in the PAX Association, endorsed by the communist authorities. This body unexpectedly became one of the permanent components of the political system in People’s Poland. This was a result of political pragmatism, the authorities’ appetite to influence the considerable part of the Polish society that embraced the national idea, especially the nationalistically inclined intelligentsia elites and Catholic clergy. PAX, above all, made it easier to control these circles, but also it allowed many of their representatives to continue their public and professional activities after the transformation.68 It must be emphasized that this organization never involved all of the Polish right; many of them perceived it to be an outpost of the secret police, an instrument of infiltration and diversion. It was also approached with caution by the Catholic Church hierarchs. In time, some PAX members abandoned its ranks as they modified their ideological and political views and established new organizations grouping secular Catholics, which became possible to a certain extent following the collapse of Stalinism. PAX—widely contested from various directions, including by many communists, and after 1956 also by liberals and leftist critics of Gomułka’s camp—functioned on the fringes of People’s Poland’s political life until the years 1967–68, when it took center stage as the main supporter and co-enabler of the anti-Semitic and nationalist political spin from the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR). Representatives of opinion-making circles, politicians, journalists, and publicists and writers associated with PAX and its magazine actively participated in the production and dissemination of anti-Semitic discourse. Such discourse, disguised as “anti-Zionism”69 to take into account the erstwhile political circumstances, appeared in the public space of People’s Poland on such a large scale for the first time.

68

For more about this topic, see, for instance, Magdalena Grochowska, “Dla swoich pobudką, dla wrogów przestrogą. Zygmunt Wojciechowski: endecja wobec Niemców, Żydów i komunizmu,” in Ćwiczenia z niemożliwego (Warsaw: Wielka Litera, 2012), 195–281; Daria Mazur, Realizm socpaxowski (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego, 2013). 69 See especially Dariusz Stola, Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967–1968 (Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2000).

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Contemporary historians rightly observe that the principal goal of this campaign’s political promoters was to give the party, increasingly mired in a deepening political and economic crisis, the image of a legitimate representative of the Polish nation, to shed its odium of a “non-Polish,” “alien” organization, and to rid it of the “Żydokomuna” stigma. Zaremba’s interpretation shares these premises. He treats the 1967–68 events “as a conflict about the character of legitimation through which the authorities, at any price, desired to convince the public of their own patriotism, while simultaneously deprecating the Polishness and national intentions of their real or imagined opponents” (319). The historian explains the mode of operations adopted by the authorities at the time with reference to the totalitarian nature of communism, its ideological identity that it shared with nationalism: While officially voicing slogans of internationalism, the brotherhood of people, the party’s politics essentially conserved the negative national stereotypes. Especially after the war, and in 1968, it relied upon the lowest instincts of the masses, only so, in their eyes, to finally become Polish, “their own.” In this way, it was reminiscent of the most extreme factions of Poland’s prewar right. Therefore, nationalism in the version of the Polish communists was mostly blunt, coarse, xenophobic, anti-German, and anti-Semitic, for the most part traditional, anti-civic, saber-rattling, and brazenly instrumental. It was probably not an accident that, during the end-stages of communism, in the bosom of the movement itself, not only in Poland, there came into being groups that were strongly chauvinistic. It became apparent that the politically “red” is capable of being very close to the politically “brown.” (373)

Reducing the phenomenon of Polish nationalism to the circles of the National Radical Camp (ONR)/PAX, characteristic of the interpretation presented by Zaremba, makes it possible to limit reflections on this topic to the boundaries of the internal history of People’s Poland, outside of the real, broadly understood context of the political, social, and cultural history of Poland. Nationalism identified with the ONR/PAX becomes an inherent part of communism’s history, ultimately complementing and revealing the totalitarian essence of this system in 1968. Thus, one of the main principles of anti-communist history-writing—namely, the complete isolation of the history of communism from the history of the nation—is upheld.

Communism as the Other As I have already mentioned, the vision of the history of communism in Poland as presented in Zaremba’s book is underpinned by a belief in communism’s “foreignness” in relation to the national political and cultural

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tradition. The foreignness of communism is brought up a number of times in his book, although whenever this term comes up directly, it is usually in reported speech—as a citation of a widespread opinion, and not as an expression of the researcher’s stance: “The thesis of this work is that nationalism was treated by the establishment ruling People’s Poland as a particularly ranging and effective, nearly indispensable, argument that counteracted society’s rejection of the communist authorities as ‘external’” (73). The category of “the other” is the point of departure for exclusionary ideas and practices, especially those with ethno-nationalist motives.70 The author seems aware of this, which is why he tries to avoid direct deployment of the term, or puts it in quotation marks. Nevertheless, the method of problematization adopted by Zaremba, and the axiologically loaded language he uses, indicate that he fully agrees with the claim of national alienation on the part of the communist power.71 Presenting the communists’ recurring efforts to break out of this national alienation, the historian shows how they “desperately,” “tactically,” “instrumentally” or even “cynically” appealed to nationalist legitimation; how they “reached for national slogans,” putting on or taking off (when “no longer needed”) the “national costume”; how they “dazzled with their connections to the nation” (or ceased to do so), “convolutedly” selected national symbols and “appropriated” them. These assertions are accompanied by the idealistic assumption that “a system that is legitimized does not strive for legitimation, at least not to such a high degree” (85).72 Zaremba’s language is not one of social and cultural constructivism, rejecting the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate users of national symbolism. The author consistently maintains this differentiation, refusing the communists the right to act in this area, while awarding that right to other actors. He deems all efforts undertaken by communists in this respect to be inauthentic, masking their true political intentions: “for most of the PPR’s leadership, the change of colors to white and red had, one can suspect, a purely tactical goal . . . (112). Efforts to gain, maintain, and then to monopolize power were the basic motives of Polish communists’ actions” (123). What jumps out here is Zaremba’s way of understanding the concept of nationalism. It is at odds with the Polish linguistic usage, which identifies

70

Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other, 15–20. In a few places, however, Zaremba does admit that there were times in the history of People’s Poland when the authorities gained some social support. See, for example, Zaremba, Communism–Legitimacy–Nationalism, 33. 72 The English translation does not always fully reflect the negatively loaded style of the Polish original. 71

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nationalism with national chauvinism, but rather compatible with the English understanding of the word: “My proposed definition of nationalism situates itself among these angles on, and concepts of, nationalism that see nationalism in [a] wide and neutral manner. Animosity toward other ethnic groups is not treated as a constitutive element of nationalism, but only as a possible aspect of the phenomenon” (24). Such a definition allows Zaremba to make a distinction, important for liberalism, between an exclusionary chauvinistic nationalism and an open civic nationalism. It serves as a basis for the historian’s charge against communists: that by cynically exploiting national contents, they caused intolerant or xenophobic attitudes to consolidate in Polish society. Employing a broad interpretation of the concept of nationalism also brought weighty consequences for the description of the history of People’s Poland as presented in Zaremba’s book. It allows for completely different phenomena, facts, and practices to be placed within a common set, treating them as essentially the same manifestations of the same political intention. Put most briefly: according to the logic adopted by Zaremba, the rebuilding of the Old Town and of the Royal Palace in Warsaw, mass editions of national literature classics, and similar actions within the area of culture, broadly understood, are nothing but instruments of the same political manipulation that led to the anti-Semitic campaign of 1968. The bedrock of this way of thinking is Zaremba’s already-mentioned assumption about the inauthentic (that is, inimical) character of all activities taken up by communists in the symbolic field of the nation. This is a cognitively unsatisfactory interpretation. The legitimacy of many facts and explanations offered in Zaremba’s book is absolutely unquestionable. The issue of including nationalist content in the theory and practice of Polish communists taken up by the author,73 which led to a shameful eruption of state-sponsored chauvinism in 1968, is a topic of great importance which deserves continued exploration. His approach to the history of Polish communism should, however, be complemented with another, opposing problematization: to wit, one that— in addition to the question of how Polish communists instrumentalized Polish nationalism for their own purposes—would also pose a question about how they tried to defend themselves against it, to counter its ideological hegemony in line with the universalist character of the idea they invoked. In other words, besides the valid problem presented in Zaremba’s 73

From this moment on, I employ the term “nationalism” in line with contemporary Polish linguistic usage, as well as in compliance with the theoretical proposal of Rogers Brubaker, formulated in his book Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

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book—that is, how and why Polish communists availed themselves of cultural dispositions or automatisms embedded in the society over which they ruled—historical research should also take a look at the opposite issue: of whether and how they tried to change the nationalist habitus (in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms74) of Poles. Many examples of such a political orientation can be found in the history of Polish communism: of active efforts, consisting of criticism of Polish nationalism and wide-ranging campaigns to reformulate the concept of nation, to imbue it with a new meaning—class, mass, or “people’s”—rather than the nationalist one; and passive efforts, whose aim was to exclude (including by way of censorship) nationalist content from the public space, which continued until 1967, save for a moment of serious political slackening in 1956. Such efforts also manifested in the area of national history and tradition, which were subjected to various attempts at revaluation in the spirit of communism. In the early days of People’s Poland, one of the principal activists in the area of culture and science of the Polish Workers’ Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR), Stefan Żółkiewski, offered the following diagnosis: Wyspia≈ski once wrote that it is not a good idea to solidarize with the worse part of the nation. The intelligentsia solidarized too often with the anti-national reaction. There have been two Polands throughout all of our history: a people’s one and a reactionary one. And it was the reaction that usurped the privilege of issuing certificates of Polishness. Kołłątaj was not a Pole to them. Neither were the progressives from the 1831 “Patriotic Club,” but Krukowiecki and Skrzynecki were. The “reds” were not Poles in 1863, but Count Zamoyski and Władysław Czartoryski were. The memory of Jarosław Dąbrowski was buried, and the memory of Langiewicz cherished. The demarcation lines have become even more visible in the new times. The fighters from 1905 have been dragged through muck and mire. Dmowski and his likes were held up as national saints. What we lack is the revolutionary tradition of France. The dedication to classless national community has taken excessive and perilous hold of the intelligentsia. We have not learnt that the fight for progress is usually waged against our own reaction. This is a typical error of social perspective, which still lingers after our time of enslavement. Any old thug can enjoy the privilege of impunity as soon as he wraps himself up in a brazenly stolen red and white flag. The intelligentsia has yielded to this terror for over a century. Foreign national reactionaries have monopolized Polishness here. . . . Our intelligentsia is not fascist. But a part of it has become desensitized to the effect of reactionary toxins. It does not see the danger, it cannot defend itself against it. That indeed is political innocence: to sleep soundly under the hanging hammer of fascist aggression. A reactionary did not raise any eyebrows in Poland, he did not bother anyone; he was 74

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

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ordinary, familiar, a daily encounter. . . . Nervous suspicion, natural xenophobia was instead ignited by a progressive. He was the other, he was the alleged agent.75

Without a doubt, Żółkiewski’s intention was to indicate the native origins of communism in Poland, its strong anchoring in the national history. At the same time, however, or perhaps even above all, it was to radically reframe the picture of this history, presenting an alternative angle to the traditional, “reactionary” one. Such revaluations were done in the most consistent and brutal way during the Stalinist period, a time when national history became a function of the history of communism, understood as the teleology of social progress leading the proletariat—that is, the communist party and its leader—to power.76 Within this perspective, selected components of the past were viewed as prefigurations of historical necessity. The construction of such a mythical, presentistically oriented whole was accompanied by sometimes drastic historical manipulations. For all these reasons, scientific publications from the Stalinist period disappeared from the academic space after its collapse. In the decade following 1956, when Stalinist ideological homophony was replaced with relatively varied stances represented in the public space— from a communist-national view (which was not yet overtly nationalist) to one critically oriented toward the national tradition (so-called “revisionism”)—the official language of the party leadership reflected the pragmatic course of the so-called “Polish path toward socialism,” abandoned in 1948 in favor of Stalinism and picked up again in 1956.77 It accounted for the specificity of local economic circumstances (private agriculture) and historical conditions (Poles’ sensitivity to the issue of independence), but the nation and its history were still interpreted with the use of Marxist class categories. The belabored anti-German propaganda, presented in Zaremba’s book as one of the most salient manifestations of the Polish communists’ nationalist inclinations, in many cases justifiably, had often a similar, Marxist orientation. It is worth noting that in this propaganda the motif of Poland’s return to “Piastian” Recovered Territories usually came hand in hand with the motif of victory over class-defined fascism, which imbued it with a revolutionary hue. At the same time, this topic made it 75

Stefan Żółkiewski, “Próba diagnozy,” Kuźnica, no. 12 (1945): 1. Katarzyna Chmielewska, “Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish,” in this volume. 77 For more about the ideological situation in the PRL between 1956 and 1968, see Porter-Szűcs, Poland in the Modern World, 231–57; and Grzegorz Wołowiec, “‘Barwy walki’ i polska droga do socjalizmu,” in Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014), 39–68. 76

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possible to justify the “alliance” with the Soviet Union, the east-facing political orientation of Polish communists, and their renunciation of the socalled Kresy after the war. The anti-German/anti-fascist propaganda undoubtedly favored the consolidation of the society/nation around the authorities. Nonetheless, it must be remembered that in 1970, after long negotiations, Gomułka finally managed to bring about the signing of the Warsaw Treaty, based on which the German Federal Republic recognized the existing border on the Oder-Neisse line, which certainly did not serve the communist interest when viewed exclusively as political cynicism. This achievement was also an expression of their measure of independence from Moscow, which at the time pursued a German policy that disagreed with the Polish raison d’état. The dramatic about-face in the ideological direction of the party leadership did not come until 1967–68, when openly nationalist, chauvinist, and anti-Semitic content began to appear in the speech of first Gomułka and then other party officials. This change was received with shock both in Poland and abroad, specifically because it was so divergent from the earlier political practice of Polish communists. Thus, in researching the relations between communist and nationalist ideologies in the period of People’s Poland, one must account for two different, largely opposing processes. On the one hand, there was the process of communization of the nation’s history, composed of the abovementioned various efforts undertaken by both the communist party leadership and the intellectuals associated with it, aiming to ideologically reformulate the Polish symbolic system in the spirit of a communist universalism opposed to the existing national tradition. On the other hand, however, there was the process of nationalizing communism, with a view of including Polish communists in the Polish symbolic universum, treated as historically unchanging; of recognizing them as its legitimate participants or even heirs and guardians. Throughout the history of People’s Poland, the issue of national tradition was addressed by tendencies both revisionist and conformist. Their mutual relations significantly affected the political dynamics between 1944 and 1989. Yet, to properly examine this topic would require a different type of problematization than that employed by Zaremba, who flat out refuses the communists any right to be active in the symbolic sphere of the nation. Conceiving the opposition between the national and the internationalist in a literal manner, he views such actions as non-compatible with the declared ideology: that is, purely instrumental. The way of thinking about the history of People’s Poland presented herein would also call for a more critical look at the history of Poland more broadly, stepping outside the insurrectional, national-anti-communist myths. As an aside, it would be helpful to clarify a certain confusion concerning the history of literature. The motto of the final chapter in Zaremba’s book is a catchy phrase, well-known in Poland, from Czesław Miłosz’s 1957

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Traktat poetycki (published in English as A Treatise on Poetry): “Let it be stated here clearly: the Party/Descends directly from the fascist Right.”78 These words, written by the future Nobel Prize winner, an émigré since 1951, are usually interpreted as a prophetic anticipation of later historical events, particularly those of March 1968. Deemed a condensed, poetic summary of the totalitarian theory, they also inform Zaremba’s book. The authority of the most outstanding Polish poet of the twentieth century confirms that the researcher’s interpretation is correct. It should be remembered, however, that Miłosz’s words were merely a quotation, a fragment of a longer utterance presented in reported speech. They do not express the views of the poem’s lyrical I, usually identified with the author by readers: they are someone else’s. They are specifically part of a literary portrait of Konstanty Ildefons Gałczy≈ski created by Miłosz, who is presented in A Treatise on Poetry as a model example of a political opportunist, who enjoyed the tutelage of the extreme right prior to the war, while collaborating with the new authorities in the first postwar years. An identical motif appears in Gałczy≈ski’s portrait disguised under the nickname “Delta,” who appears in Miłosz’s earlier work Zniewolony umysł, published in 1953 and the same year translated into English as The Captive Mind: “Where my readers go, there go I; what my readers want, I give them—this is what he confirmed in every poem. As the nationalist ‘movement’ began to take on mass proportions, he moved to keep in stride with the masses. . . . He could write on every subject—from the Madonna to Lenin and Moscow, just so long as his master demanded his services.”79 Precisely speaking, the phrase “the Party descends directly from the fascist Right”80 is primarily an element of Gałczy≈ski’s characterization as an author for hire: an outstanding writer but submissive to political power, and therefore failing in a poet’s fundamental duty, which—according to Miłosz—is to maintain internal liberty and independence of judgement. The desire to keep his spiritual sovereignty was the reason why the author of The Captive Mind refused his loyalty to the authorities of People’s Poland when writers were ordered strictly to follow the official ideology. Fully aware of the totalitarian—in some aspects, fascist—character of Stalinism,81 Miłosz still considered himself a man of the left. In 1951, already living in Paris, he said: “If I had to

78

Czeslaw Milosz, New and Collected Poems 1931–2001, trans. Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003), 122. Literally translated, the above fragment of the poem reads: “Let it be stated here clearly: the Party is an heir to the ONR.” 79 Czeslaw Milosz, The Captive Mind, trans. Jane Zielonko (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), 175, 181. 80 Milosz, The Captive Mind, 181. 81 Czesław Miłosz, “Nie,” Kultura, no. 5 (1951): 3–13.

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define myself, I would do it like so: to the left and anti-Stalinist.”82 Commenting the discussion around The Captive Mind he explained: I would like it to be noted that the object of my attack is the New Faith, Stalinism, socialist realism, and not “communism.” Already back then I fought tooth and nail against getting labelled as an “anti-communist,” for a number of reasons. Primarily, this phenomenon is too broad, too proteanic in its capability of changing; at each step one encounters hazy generalizations. . . . Secondly, “anticommunism” leads straight to mania and insanity, it has two bags and has to put everyone in either of them, and every ally can be good, even if it is Goebbels. Thirdly, the world is far too interesting and complex to continuously wade in the same muck. One can do better things with their time.83

In Miłosz’s belief, the greatest problem of Polish society and culture was nationalism. The poet had addressed this topic many times and in many ways, both in public and privately.84 After 1989, he dedicated a lot of work to demythologizing the image of prewar Poland,85 which made him the object of harsh attacks from the anti-communist right. In reaction to an attempt at revaluating the Polish tradition of nationalism, he wrote: Is the collective memory not willing to remember anything, learn anything? Is the heroic legend to replace thinking forever? . . . the Polish soul invariably turns to the right, as if it had a built-in magnetic needle pointing in this direction. . . . The experiences of this century—and I am especially thinking about the interwar period—are evidence enough that Polish culture becomes effete whenever rightist thinking takes over it. Whoever thinks that they serve the Nation with a capital N by marching to the right chooses a road that leads to its paralysis.86

Miłosz certainly is not cut out to be a patron of anti-communism, even in its liberal version presented by Zaremba. Yet, as a result of solidarity with 82

Czesław Miłosz, “Odpowiedź,” Kultura, nos. 7–8 (1951): 104. Czesław Miłosz, “Odpowiedzi,” Kultura, no. 4 (1959): 152. In this text, Miłosz accuses Gustaw Herling-Grudzi≈ski that in his critique of The Captive Mind he “had adopted rightist arguments.” 84 See Franaszek, Miłosz. The biographer discusses, among other things, a bitter dispute between Miłosz and Zbigniew Herbert concerning their attitudes toward national traditions (717–22). He also presents Miłosz’s distanced attitude toward the events of 1980–81: “the conflict regarded something more than the status of poet, his duties toward the nation. It also regarded the spiritual profile of this nation, which at a time when the communists became lax, according to Miłosz seemed to return to the nationalist, rightist current.” (702). Franaszek explains the poet’s approach with the fact that “he held an anti-nationalist grudge from the interwar period” (702). 85 See especially the voluminous anthology of source texts with Miłosz’s comments, Wyprawa w Dwudziestolecie (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1999). 86 Marek Skwarnicki, Mój Miłosz (Krakow: Biały Kruk, 2004), 169–71. Here I quote Franaszek, Miłosz, 900. 83

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the community to which he belonged, he allowed himself to be “‘consumed,’ that is used by the dominant [national] current of Polish postSolidarity consciousness.”87 In a letter to Andrzej Walicki dated March 28, 1984, he wrote: “How, then, could I say ‘no,’ even if I felt the atmosphere of the AK [Armia Krajowa, the wartime resistance forces] before the uprising at the Warsaw club ‘Stodoła.’ Same after December 13: was I supposed to stick with Moscow if there’s nothing except elementary either-or?”88

Anti-communist legitimation of nationalism in Poland The intention of my chapter is not to defend communism; it is not worthy of it. Fortunately, it is now in the historical past, but it remains so important that even though over thirty years have passed since its collapse, it still affects the contemporary reality through its interpretations. This is why disputes over the communist past spill out beyond university and academy walls; they concern the entirety of society. Undoubtedly, Polish communists were a minority without social legitimation when they took power in Poland. They also had no political sovereignty, coming into power as a result of the favorable international circumstances that emerged during World War II. Pulled out of political non-existence89 when it became advantageous to the Eastern superpower, they ruled the country at its appointment. With the geopolitical state of affairs that prevailed for half a century after 1939, there was no other option for Poland. They exercised power in an undemocratic way: in the first half of the 1950s they introduced the Stalinist model of social organization, perpetrating many crimes against their real and imagined enemies. Their economic politics would ultimately turn out to be unsustainable. The list of charges against Polish communists could run much longer. It could also be relativized, through the inclusion of certain positive effects of their rule, whether intentional or contingent. This is not my point, however. I base my critical attitude toward Zaremba’s book on a different plane: the metahistorical one,90 and not exclusively the factographic. 87

Walicki, Idee i ludzie, 191. Ibid. In this quotation Miłosz refers to a meeting with the public during his visit to Poland in 1981: “During the meeting at the ‘Stodoła’ student club he faced a crowd of nearly one and a half thousand young people, of whom many had to buy invitations on the black market.” See Franaszek, Miłosz, 696. 89 In 1938, the Communist Party of Poland was disbanded by the Comintern, and many Polish communists who were staying in the USSR at the time were murdered. 90 Within the meaning of this term which, following the path set out by Hayden White, began to account for the ideological, sociocultural, and situational dimensions of historical narration. 88

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Zaremba is certainly right to formulate harsh accusations against the Polish communists for contributing to the consolidation of xenophobic and chauvinistic attitudes in the Polish society with their nationalistically oriented politics. Yet, in my opinion, his manner of thinking about the history of People’s Poland paradoxically gives rise to an effect contrary to his intentions: it strengthens the ideological and political tendencies hostile to the liberal concept of society. Meant to bring about the complete moral discrediting of communists, who are presented as representatives of immanent, nearly metaphysical evil, Zaremba’s interpretation works in favor of all those who wish to use integral anti-communism as the ideological foundation of contemporary Poland. By narrowing down the perspective of historical analysis exclusively to the period of People’s Poland, shown in isolation from earlier events, not only does he impede any presentation of arguments by the communist anti-heroes of his book (consideration of the reasons behind their ideological and political choice), he furthermore bolsters the mythological notions about prewar Poland as the correct point of reference for modern times. By limiting his historical analysis to the activity of the communist party and its collaborators, and omitting other important actors addressing the symbolic field of nation during this period—especially the Catholic Church and the anti-systemic opposition—he legitimizes the antagonistic concept of the political (in Carl Schmitt’s terms), pursued today by the Polish right, mobilizing society against the allegedly stillthreatening internal and external communist enemies. On many key issues, the liberal vision of the history of People’s Poland as proposed by Zaremba supports the discourse of the Polish right rather than contests it. Thus, I am of the opinion that Czyżewski’s analysis of the situation of Polish history-writing concerning communism requires a certain correction. The relationship between the two types of historical approaches to People’s Poland, distinguished by this researcher, is not a relationship of equality. It has a different character: the rightist discourse is the dominant one, determining and imposing the manner in which the history of communism is presented. The leftist-liberal discourse at times adopts a defensive attitude against this dominant discourse, especially when this is called for in order to defend lustrated figures of authority;91 but usually, and often not fully consciously, it confirms it, adhering to their shared framework of radical anti-communism in a form shaped prior to 1989. Entrenched in this position, whether they like it or not, the supporters of this discourse feed into the process of “renationalization of collective 91

I have written more about this in my article analyzing the discussion around Artur Domosławski’s biography of Ryszard Kapu√ci≈ski, generally received as a lustration endeavor, against the author’s intention: Grzegorz Wołowiec, “O Domosławskim i jego krytykach,” Teksty Drugie, nos. 1–2 (2011): 279–88.

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memory,”92 characteristic of many post-communist countries, thus legitimizing antidemocratic ideas and practices. By presenting the communists’ efforts to win national legitimation as a masquerade of an alienated and morally depraved power, Zaremba shuts out any reflection on the issue that seems to be most important from today’s perspective. The problem of relations between communism and nationalism should be tackled differently than it has up to now. Namely, the history of People’s Poland throughout its lifespan should be approached not as a deviant disruption of the natural order of national history, but rather as an event taking place within the long history of Polish nationalism; not as a historical slip-up, but as another manifestation of a certain constant tendency, recurring in the history of Poland in the twentieth century, consisting in the invariable rebirth and proliferation of nationalist ideology in the political and social life of the country.93 The Second Republic of Poland grappled with its strength with diminishing success. A similarly oriented process targeted at a national-conservative transformation of the state and society marks the course of history of the Third Republic of Poland; this is increasingly evident. Unexpectedly, something similar happened in Poland under communist rule. In this respect, they did not represent a historical anomaly; on the contrary, it turns out that they followed a certain permanent cultural pattern. The tenacity of this tendency, not to say historical doom, is something to think about. The interpretation oriented primarily toward the moral depreciation of communism and communists completely excludes this type of problematization, thus impeding the much-needed reflection over both the definitively closed past of People’s Poland and the still-open history of Polish nationalism. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

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Traverso, Historia jako pole bitwy, 315. “This new description of the collective memory as a cleansing process of national martyrdom is beginning to acquire apologetic traits, which are an obstacle to working out a critical view of the past.” Ibid., 317. 93 The adoption of such an interpretative perspective also makes it easier to answer the question of why significant figures of Polish culture and social life played such an important role in the history of Polish communism at various points in time.

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Bibliography Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. Brubaker, Rogers. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Brykczynski, Paul. Primed for Violence: Murder, Antisemitism, and Democratic Politics in Interwar Poland. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016. Chmielewska, Katarzyna. “Contemporary Historical Discourse on Polish Communism in a Narratological Perspective.” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (2016): 99–115. Czapli≈ski, Przemysław. “O realizmie antysocjalistycznym.” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (1995): 31–48. Czyżewski, Marek. “Debata na temat Jedwabnego oraz spór o ‘politykę historyczną’ z punktu widzenia analizy dyskursu publicznego.” In Pamięć i polityka historyczna: Do√wiadczenia Polski i jej sąsiadów, edited by Sławomir N. Nowinowski, Jan Pomorski, and Rafał Stobiecki, 117–40. Łódź: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008. Franaszek, Andrzej. Miłosz: Biografia. Krakow: Znak, 2011. Głowi≈ski, Michał. “Szymborska i krytycy. Kilka uwag na początek.” Teksty Drugie, no. 4 (1998): 177–99. Janicka, Elżbieta. “PamięΔ przyswojona: Koncepcja polskiego do√wiadczenia zagłady Żydów jako traumy zbiorowej w √wietle rewizji kategorii √wiadka.” Studia Litteraria et Historica, nos. 3–4 (2015): 148–226. Kowalski, Sergiusz. Krytyka solidarno√ciowego rozumu: Studium z socjologii my√lenia potocznego. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne, 2009. Michlic, Joanna Beata. Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Milosz, Czeslaw. The Captive Mind. Translated by Jane Zielonko. New York: Vintage Books, 1955. ———. New and Collected Poems 1931–2001. Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. Modras, Ronald. The Catholic Church and Antisemitism in Poland, 1933–1939. New York: Routledge, 1994. Muchowski, Jakub. Polityka pisarstwa historycznego: Refleksja teoretyczna Haydena White’a. Warsaw and Toru≈: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, 2015. Porter-Szűcs, Brian. Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. Rudnicki, Szymon. Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny: Geneza i działalno√ć, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1985. ———. Falanga: Ruch Narodowo-Radykalny. Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza ASPRA-JR, 2018. Stobiecki, Rafał. Historiografia PRL: Ani dobra, ani mądra, ani piękna . . . ale skomplikowana. Studia i szkice. Warsaw: Trio, 2007. Stola, Dariusz. Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967–1968. Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2000. Tomczyk, Wojciech. Norymberga. Krakow: Wydawnictwo AA, 2006.

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Traverso, Enzo. Historia jako pole bitwy: Interpretacja przemocy w XX wieku. Translated by Światosław Florian Nowicki. Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2014. Walicki, Andrzej. Idee i ludzie: Próba autobiografii. Warsaw: Instytut Historii Nauki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2010. ———. Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. ———. Od projektu komunistycznego do neoliberalnej utopii. Krakow: Universitas, 2013. ———. “Totalitaryzm i posttotalitaryzm. Próba definicji.” In Społecze≈stwa posttotalitarne: Kierunki przemian, edited by Zdzisław Sadowski, 13–26. Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Współpracy z Klubem Rzymskim, 1991. Wci√lik, Piotr. “Totalitaryzm w my√leniu politycznym opozycji demokratycznej.” Wolno√ć i Solidarno√ć: Studia z dziejów opozycji wobec komunizmu i dyktatury, no. 5 (2013): 123–52. Wołowiec, Grzegorz. “‘Barwy walki’ i polska droga do socjalizmu.” In Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, 39–68. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014. ———. “Biografia komunisty jako temat wypowiedzi historiograficznej.” In (P)o zaborach, (p)o wojnie, (p)o PRL: Polski dyskurs postzależno√ciowy dawniej i dzi√, edited by Hanna Gosk and Ewa Kraskowska, 363–74. Krakow: Universitas, 2013. ———. “O Domosławskmi i jego krytykach.” Teksty Drugie, nos. 1–2 (2011): 279–88. Zaremba, Marcin. Communism—Legitimacy—Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland. Translated by Arthur Rosman. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019. Zawadzka, Anna. “Żydokomuna: Wstęp do socjologicznej analizy źródeł historycznych.” Societas/Communitas 8, no. 2 (2009): 199–244.

CHAPTER TWO

Communist (Auto)biographies: Teresa Tora≈ska’s Them: Stalin’s Polish Puppets and the Contemporary Paradigms of Understanding the Past Anna Artwi≈ska What is a communist?1 Let us for sake of the argument grant for a moment that a text on the Renaissance “refers” to the past. We should then ask exactly what past the text refers to. And here disagreement will arise.2

Teresa Tora≈ska’s collection of interviews with the Polish communist activists Jakub Berman, Edward Ochab, Wiktor Kłosiewicz, Roman Werfel, Leon Chajn, Stefan Staszewski, and Julia Minc first appeared as a book in 1985, published simultaneously by two publishing houses: the underground Przed√wit and the émigré London-based Aneks.3 Carrying the title Oni, meaning “them,” the book was awarded the Solidarity Prize in 1986. It almost instantly gained recognition as a distinct and unique work, both due to the topic itself—interviews with Party elites who had played a key role in Stalinist-era Poland—and due to the way they were conducted. Oni was translated into foreign languages, including English, German, French, Swedish, and Norwegian; after the 1989 political breakthrough, the book 1

Teresa Tora≈ska, Them: Stalin’s Polish Puppets, trans. Agnieszka Kołakowska (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). The English edition lacks interviews with Wiktor Kłosiewicz and Leon Chajn. Quotations from these interviews appear in my translation. If this is the case, reference to the Polish edition is provided: Teresa Tora≈ska, Oni (Warsaw: Agencja Omnipress, 1989). 2 Frank R. Ankersmit, Historical Representation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 40. 3 A number of Tora≈ska’s interviews first appeared in the press: for instance, the interview with Wiktor Kłosiewicz was published for the first time in the weekly Polityka (Politics) in 1981 (no. 22). The possibility of publishing interviews on a running basis came to an end with the introduction of martial law.

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was officially published in Poland. Subsequent editions of Oni were expanded to include interviews with Leon Kasman and Celina Budzy≈ska. Furthermore, in 2015—after Tora≈ska’s death—another volume, Aneks (An Annex), appeared. It contains the reporter’s unpublished interviews with select communist dignitaries, scientists, and cultural figures connected with communism.4 Tora≈ska’s interest in communist biographies was not at all episodic; one may even assume that it constituted one of the key topics of her journalistic career. Her goal was to understand the nature of the Polish version of communism, and to find a modal framework into which communist biographies could fit and through which they could be understood. Teresa Tora≈ska emphasized on multiple occasions the significance of Oni for explaining Poland’s past, as well as the unique position of this work among her other achievements. In an interview given to Remigiusz Grzela in 2012—one of her last public statements—she put it this way: “After Oni I was not able to write another piece: this book paralyzed me. . . . I was afraid that I would never be able to write anything as good as it.”5 In the author’s opinion, and also in the opinion of most critics—first from the underground, and later, those in post-socialist Poland6—the unique character of Oni lay in the fact that the interviews offered the first authentic insight into the mindset of Polish communists who held high functions in state, Party and trade union bodies from 1944 to 1956, and who, though later excluded from the Party,7 in most cases (except for Celina Budzy≈ska 4

Teresa Tora≈ska, Aneks, foreword by Andrzej Friszke (Warsaw: Świat Książki, 2015). In the 2006 book Byli (The Exes) Tora≈ska published interviews with Jerzy Urban and Wojciech Jaruzelski, among others. 5 Remigiusz Grzela, “Teresa Tora≈ska: ‘Nie mam czasu na marzenia,’” in Wolne (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2012), 105. 6 This seminal book was described by a Newsweek journalist in 2015 as follows: “In Poland, tormented by the last breaths of the dying regime, she revealed the backstage of the Communist rule, showing the way of thinking of those who held power. Tora≈ska’s book shed light on what most citizens of People’s Poland could guess: the intellectual weakness of the rulers, the weakness of their characters, hypocrisy or egoism. And it is still being read with great interest, despite the fact that the system has changed, archives have been opened, and not only professional historians have much more knowledge of those times than what Tora≈ska could have acquired three decades ago. Without her book, there would be no full picture of those times, because she probably managed to unearth the psychological complexities and spiritual dilemmas of the high-ranking apparatchiks directly.” Leszek Bugajski, “Tora≈ska i ludzie Gomułki,” Newsweek Polska, November 18, 2015, accessed June 10, 2020, https://www.newsweek.pl/kultura/ aneks-teresy-toranskiej-aneks-do-kultowej-ksiazki-oni/fxctrbc. 7 This thesis requires clarification: the biographies of Tora≈ska’s interlocutors were not identical. Jakub Berman was deprived of Party membership in 1956; in the

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and Stefan Staszewski) never doubted the correctness of their political decisions: in Tora≈ska’s words, they “never lost their faith in Communism.” Therefore, it was not the factual layer that determined the value of the book, but rather the fact that Tora≈ska managed to “get to” the eponymous “them,” ask them a few uncomfortable questions, compel them to confront their own vision of the world; essentially—as expressed in the title of Oni’s German translation—she would “force them to speak.”8 “The Solidarity events happened very quickly,” said Tora≈ska in her interview with Remigiusz Grzela, “and I was bothered by one thought. I wanted to look the Communists in the eyes. I believed the ideology collapsed.”9 In the present chapter I examine how exactly “looking into the communists’ eyes” proceeded and what it entailed, as well as at the results that this holds for us today, thirty-five years after Oni was published and thirty-one years after the political breakthrough in Central and Eastern Europe. In my opinion, Tora≈ska’s book greatly influenced the present mainstream media view and depiction of the People’s Republic of Poland, and furthermore, it quite precisely draws the modal framework of the so-called settlement with the communist past. It provides narrative schemes and lends its language, as well as indicates what can be said and how—even today—about communist biographies and lives: what is seen in them, what remains unseen, and what one simply does not want to see.10 I also believe Tora≈ska’s interviews constitute one of the founding myths of the Polish anti-communist movement of the 1980s, still valid today; understanding them, as Andrzej

same year Julia Minc was sent into retirement. Edward Ochab resigned from all posts in 1968 in protest against the anti-Semitic campaign. In 1968, Roman Werfel and Stefan Staszewski were removed from the Party. Wiktor Kłosiewicz retired in 1976, while Leon Chajn ended his political activity in the 1970s. 8 See Teresa Tora≈ska, Die da oben: Polnische Stalinisten zum Sprechen gebracht, trans. Martin Pollack (Munich: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1987). 9 Grzela, “Teresa Tora≈ska,” 92. 10 See Grzegorz Wołowiec, “Biografia komunisty jako temat wypowiedzi historiograficznej,” in (P)o zaborach, (p)o wojnie, (p)o PRL-u: Polski dyskurs postzależno√ciowy dawniej i dzi√, ed. Hanna Gosk and Ewa Kraskowska (Krakow: Universitas, 2013), 363–75. According to Wołowiec, biographical representations of the communist past in Polish culture exhibit two fundamental approaches to history, based either on a consensual or an antagonistic approach to politics. Tora≈ska’s approach falls within the antagonistic paradigm: the author’s intention is to “cleanse” history of all foreign elements, and thus also from communism. I would like to cordially thank Grzegorz Wołowiec for carefully reading my chapter and for all his inspiring remarks on the link between Tora≈ska’s writing and the practice of history “cleansing.” See Grzegorz Wołowiec, “PRL w biografii: Uwagi wstępne,” in PRL: Życie po życiu, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Agnieszka Mrozik, and Grzegorz Wołowiec (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2012), 43.

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Walicki rightly pointed out, is necessary for properly comprehending contemporary Polish problems and struggles with collective identity.11 From today’s perspective, it also seems interesting that Tora≈ska’s work concentrates and focuses the majority of elements of the anti-communist matrix, through the use of which contemporary science, historiography, and journalism try to explain the past. Knowledge of these roots is perhaps not essential, but it allows for a better understanding of the history of certain concepts and ideas that today are usually used as almost universal categories, regardless of their genesis and prehistory. Let us briefly summarize what ideas and concepts are meant here. As Tomasz Żukowski has already pointed out, the image of People’s Poland in the contemporary mainstream media is highly loaded with judgements: communism is invoked as a bogeyman and symbol of cultural backwardness, as a synonym for absurd and grotesque solutions in both social and purely technical spheres. It is often equated with Nazism and other totalitarian regimes; moreover, it is treated as an example of an “evil” revolution based on false premises.12 For my part, I would also like to emphasize the belief in the foreign character of communism, promoted by the Polish media, which presents it as a project without social legitimacy, introduced top-down, against the will of the Polish society. In this interpretation, the actors of communism were exclusively politicians belonging to the top Party leadership and high- or middle-level activists, while the so-called ordinary citizens were automatically treated as its opponents or even victims. The victimization practices go hand in hand with convictions about the historical continuity of Polish martyrdom, beginning with the partitions, through World War II, to People’s Poland. And although this anti-communist matrix has its own Polish specificity, its examination should account for the fact that anti-communism has become an important paradigm and point of reference for studying the past of many former Eastern bloc countries, including Czechoslovakia. As demonstrated by Birgit Hofmann and Christiane Brenner, the practice of distancing oneself from communism plays a key role in contemporary Czech strategies of remembering and evaluating the past.13 11

Andrzej Walicki, “Trudno√ci wzrostu, czyli dziecięca choroba prawicowo√ci w III RP,” in Od projektu komunistycznego do neoliberalnej utopii (Krakow: Universitas 2013), 197–261. 12 Tomasz Żukowski, “Lewica i PRL w dyskursie głównego nurtu,” in Opowiedzieć PRL, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska and Grzegorz Wołowiec (Warsaw: IBL PAN, 2011), 198–204. 13 See, for instance, Birgit Hofmann, “Don’t Talk to Communists: The Instrumentalisation of the Communist Past in the Czech Republic’s Political Crisis of 2006,” in Crises and Conflicts in Post-Socialist Societies: The Role of Ethnic, Political and Social Identities, ed. Sabine Fischer and Heiko Pleines (Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2008), 115–29; Christiane Brenner, “Das ‘totalitäre Zeitalter’? Demokratie

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Furthermore, I am interested in the epistemological situation of the conversation and the role played by Teresa Tora≈ska in the process of the communists’ formulation of their life stories. It is obvious that the answers given to the journalist by her interlocutors are not pure records of a stream of communist consciousness; rather, as in any other case of oral history, they are a construction, the product of unpredictable workings of memory. As theorists of autobiographical writing point out, nobody is completely transparent in relation to themselves.14 There is also no doubt as to the fact that what has (or has not) been said by the communists was greatly influenced by the interviewer herself asking the questions that she did. She was also the one to give the statements their final shape: “the transformation of conversation into text brings with it a tremendous amount of changes that are not usually emphasized, categorized, or marked.”15 Having borrowed the term “heterobiography” from Philippe Lejeune, which the French scholar used to refer to the texts of “life writing” created as a result of cooperation or collaboration between at least two persons, I observe how the journalist’s questions orient or even evoke certain statements and reflections in her interlocutors.16 I am also interested in the moment when Tora≈ska resigns from her role as a journalist asking questions, thereby entering the new role of a biographer exploring communist biographies and organizing them in accordance with her own vision of the world and system of values, in order to record them, prepare them for publication, and publish under her own name.17 In the case of Oni we are dealing with an extremely conflict-generating narrative, in

und Diktatur in Tschechiens Erinnerungspolitik,” Osteuropa, no. 6 (2008): 103– 16. 14 See Jerome Bruner, “Das Leben als Erzählung,” in Texte zur Theorie der Biographie und Autobiographie, ed. Anja Tippner and Christopher F. Laferl (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2016), 235–54. 15 Anja Tippner, “Ghostwriting i historia mówiona: teksty kolaboratywne jako przypadek graniczny pisarstwa autobiograficznego,” trans. Anna Artwi≈ska, in Autobiografie (po)graniczne, ed. Inga Iwasiów and Tatiana Czerska (Krakow: Universitas, 2016), 217. 16 Philippe Lejeune, “Die Autobiographie der Nicht-Schreiber,” trans. Thomas Stauder, in Texte zur Theorie der Biographie und Autobiographie, 191–218. 17 The problem of authorship of this type of collaborative text deserves separate attention; its comprehensive presentation would go beyond the scope of this chapter. In a nutshell, Tora≈ska’s interlocutors are authoring subjects to the same extent as the reporter asking questions is. The decision on double authorship influences our understanding of the text and differentiates the responsibility-related accents for what is written. An example of this type of writing practice is Andrzej Romanowski’s interview with the daughter of Jakub Berman, published under the names of both the interviewer and interviewee. See Lucyna Tychowa and Andrzej Romanowski, Tak, jestem córką Jakuba Bermana (Krakow: Universitas, 2016).

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which both parties represent highly divergent points of view, and are guided by an inherently different motivation to hold the conversation. There is a situation of permanent conflict between Tora≈ska and her respondents. Accordingly, the interviews can be described in terms of a symbolic struggle, where the possibility to validate one’s own (auto)biographical story of involvement in the communist cause is at stake. History on trial Teresa Tora≈ska’s interviews with representatives of the communist elites were written in the Solidarity period. The author never concealed that she conducted them from a clearly outlined ideological position—as an anticommunist and oppositionist, strongly against People’s Poland and the communist authorities. She met her interlocutors not only to “look them in the eyes” and find out how things really were, but also to confront them with her own knowledge and to hold them to account, at least on the discursive plane, for their actions. While in her later journalism and reportage Tora≈ska would refer to empathy as the basic category of conversation, in Oni empathy is replaced by anger, aversion, and extraordinary verbal aggression. In the 1988 introduction to Oni, Krystyna Kersten, a scholar amiable toward Tora≈ska and full of recognition for her interviews, wrote: “All of a sudden, the meeting of Teresa Tora≈ska, a journalist born and raised in Poland under communist rule . . . was not a simple contact between the Young and the Old. . . . There is a fair amount of tragedy in this meeting, as the young girl who asks the questions demands truth, and at the same time accuses and calls for a settlement.”18 Due to Tora≈ska’s accusing, almost prosecutorial tone, the interviews comprising Oni are classified as a kind of interrogation aimed at forcing the respondent to give the expected answer and admit his or her guilt. Especially in contemporary works, attention is drawn to Tora≈ska’s inquisitorial style. As media researcher Kaja Rostkowska points out, Tora≈ska often assumes the role of an investigator, always armed with a file containing the appropriate evidence on the matter at hand. Moreover, she eagerly uses yes-no questions characteristic for this form of linguistic act (such as, for example: “Did the motion to attach Poland to the Soviet Union come from the Katowice province?”) and, typical of an interrogation, clarifying and precise questions starting with the words “what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” “how,” and “who.”19 Some typical examples from the conversation with 18

Krystyna Kersten, “Kłopoty ze √wiadkami historii,” introduction to Oni, by Teresa Tora≈ska (Warsaw: Agencja Omnipress, 1989), 6. 19 Kaja Rostkowska discusses the persuasive and rhetorical strategies used by Tora≈ska in detail. See Kaja Rostkowska, “Oni Teresy Tora≈skiej—między wywiadem a przesłuchaniem,” Studia Medioznawcze, no. 4 (2014): 129–31.

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Jakub Berman include: 1) “Did you see [Alfred] Lampe and [Paweł] Finder frequently?” 2) “Whom did you deal with on an everyday basis?” 3) “With whom was she [Wanda Wasilewska] in contact?” 4) “Why the trust in [Marceli] Nowotko?” 5) “Where had you learnt Russian?” 6) “And on whose orders was [Bolesław] Mołojec himself acting?” 7) “What about Stalin—whom did he dance with?” 8) “But what right did you have to dispose of Polish territory?” 9) “Did you bring in Soviet advisers from the start?” 10) “Then who formed your security service?” 11) “Who gave [Roman] Romkowski his post as deputy minister in the Ministry of Public Security?” 12) “Who recruited [Józef] Róża≈ski, director of the investigative department of the Ministry of Public Security?” 13) “Did the idea of Poland becoming a seventeenth republic reappear then?” 14) “You arrested [Władysław] Gomułka because he also wanted to escape, didn’t you?” 15) “So [Vyacheslav] Molotov supported you to the end?”20 I would be rather cautious in classifying Tora≈ska’s interviews as interrogations, as even though the author does often behave like an interrogator and uses persuasion techniques typical of interrogations, her interviews are not based on violence; moreover, it is difficult to decide who holds the discursive power—the questioning author or her interlocutors. It is worth mentioning that all respondents agreed to the interviews voluntarily, perhaps treating them as the last opportunity to stand their ground: however, only Celina Budzy≈ska, a former communist turned Workers’ Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR) activist was informed by the author directly that the book would be published in samizdat, while the remaining respondents were convinced that the conversations would most likely never appear in print. The fact that the tone of the conversations is reminiscent of interrogation stems from the ideological attitude of the author: Tora≈ska plays the part that would later become the core element in Poland’s struggle with its communist past. It rests upon the conviction that communism is pure evil, that the communists’ arguments cannot be understood because they are based on lies, and that the communists permanently harmed Poland because their authority was vested upon them by alien powers. This conviction underpins the tragedy of these interviews: understanding is not possible here, as both parties not only speak different languages, but also represent diametrically different worldviews. In her interviews, Tora≈ska creates a clear division into “us” and “them,” between “Polish” reasons and “communist” reasons. She tells her interlocutors re20

Tora≈ska, Them, 212–342. Tora≈ska lists here the names of Polish communist politicians with whom Jakub Berman cooperated and/or competed for power during the war (primarily in the USSR, where there was a strong Polish center) and later, after the war, when various factions in the Polish party vied for the direction of action.

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peatedly that all communists are lying constantly and that the nation—and hence the vast majority—is against them: “Part of the nation spits on you, the other part curses you, and about 90 percent doesn’t want you.”21 “Did you realize that—to put it mildly—you were not loved?”22 Tora≈ska asks Wiktor Kłosiewicz. In turn, when Roman Werfel uses the phrase “reactionary forces,” he is swiftly corrected: “That was the majority of the population.”23 The author gives herself the right to speak on behalf of the community, the majority, assuming that her interlocutors have long been denied the right to social representation, or that they have never had it. Thus, the communists are being “looked in the eye” within a strictly defined framework. The journalist’s aim is not so much to transcend this frame, but to strengthen and legitimize it. After all, although Tora≈ska occasionally tries to complicate the discussed problems or supplement them with their less obvious aspects, she generally remains faithful to her convictions about communism as an empty place in Polish history. For this reason, she constantly disciplines her interlocutors: whenever they try to oppose her, they are held back by statements about betrayal, collaboration, or having sold Poland out. In her preface to the last edition of Oni, which appeared already in the twenty-first century, Tora≈ska recalls the ideological parameters according to which she sorted the interviews conducted in the mid-1980s. She writes about the erstwhile awareness and political views of her own generation as follows: The society was divided into US and THEM. WE were the good ones: wise, virtuous, righteous, capable of the highest sacrifices for the fatherland. THEY were the communists, who had served (with more or less loyalty) a foreign power, fulfilling the directives, and lying all the time. THEY were a foreign element, which had infected our weakened body after World War II, due to the Yalta betrayal and the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising. THEY were the foreign authority brought to us in Soviet tanks. I had never known THEM before. There was not a single communist in my family: nobody belonged to the Party, and my home was visited only by repatriates from the Vilnius region, from Volhynia or Odessa, who had learnt the Soviet system in the gulags, on deportations and forced relocations.24

The above reflection may indicate the journalist’s distance to her previous views and beliefs. The auto-ironic tone may indicate that in 2012 Tora≈ska was aware of the simplifications with which her interviews were riddled, 21

Ibid., 334. Tora≈ska, Oni, 245. 23 Tora≈ska, Them, 107. 24 Teresa Tora≈ska, “Wstęp,” in Oni (Warsaw, iSource S.A., 2012), 4, ebook. 22

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which was partially determined by her own biographical experience and mental shortcuts. However, a closer look at the above quotation quickly leads to the conclusion that both self-mockery and the strategy of distancing the author from her younger self are nothing more than rhetorical gestures. Mockery of the idealized self-image of her generation (“wise, good, righteous, capable of the highest sacrifices for the fatherland”) only means that Tora≈ska bade farewell to the idealized image of the anti-communist opposition, and not that she had changed her views on communist Poland and communism itself. Quite the contrary: in the same year, she published her interviews without major changes or amendments. Her anticommunism, well-established in the 1980s, smoothly turns into the anticommunist narrative of the twenty-first century.

Revolution vs. occupation: Guilt, penance, and repentance In order to properly understand the differences between Tora≈ska and her interlocutors, one should first realize a basic fact: for both parties involved in the project, the concept of communism evoked categorically different semantics and axiological contexts. As Edward Ochab said in his interview, “in spite of everything, I still think that this period, 1944–1955, was a period of the most important, historically significant, revolutionary stage of development, a breakthrough, and no one can erase it from the pages of our history.”25 For Teresa Tora≈ska in the 1980s, however, communism meant totalitarianism. The difference between her assessment of this period and the opinion of the majority of her interlocutors is well reflected in the sentence she uttered to Roman Werfel: “You keep talking about a revolution, while what I’m talking about is a new occupation.”26 While both parties agree that the implementation of the communist idea in postwar Poland left much to be desired, a consensus on the issue of communism as a social project and the reasons for adherence to it was not possible. For Tora≈ska, access to the communist movement is tantamount to treason or, at best, an ideological mistake, while for her interlocutors this same access was the defining decision of their lives, one in whose rightness they believed, and which set the trajectory of their subsequent biographies. The fact that the journalist cannot, or does not want to, understand the reasons of the generation of Stalinist dignitaries is also the result of a diametrically different assessment of the political, historical, and social situation of interwar Poland. Neither nationalism nor anti-Semitism, nor clericalism nor civilizational delay—and going further, not even the development of events during the Second World War—are suffi25 26

Tora≈ska, Them, 37. Ibid., 106.

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cient reasons for her to voluntarily attempt to organize the world according to the assumptions of Marxism-Leninism. Thus, she cannot look at communist biographies in historical context; she sees neither their complexity nor their dramatic rupture brought about by the gap between postulated ideals and the later social practice. In Tora≈ska’s view, a communist biography is a kind of flaw, an acquired and inauthentic identity, something which the individual has a responsibility to explain. Through her questions she tries to force her interlocutors to declare that they have organized their lives based on false premises, that they have committed cardinal errors both against themselves and, more broadly, against Poland. By asking questions about specific historical, political, and social decisions, Tora≈ska pursues two goals: she firstly tries to collect information about what happened in Poland after the war, and at the same time, she attempts to define the psychological, mental, and intellectual predispositions one had to have in order to voluntarily participate in the communist experiment. Within this context, there seems to be a purpose behind questions touching upon the private sphere: personal life, family relations, or reading preferences. By combining questions from the private and professional spheres, Tora≈ska tries to emphasize the cognitive dissonance the communists bring about in her; for example, that a single communist biography could encompass both ideological overzealousness and good parenting.27 Julia Minc was asked many questions of a private character (perhaps even a majority), thus reproducing quite a popular belief about the genderdetermined division of roles in the public sphere. Accordingly, Minc was first asked about how she spent free Sundays and about her theatrical and culinary interests, and only later was she able to talk about political and historical topics. It is impossible not to notice that in this interview, Tora≈ska confirms the gender stereotype of an ideologically blind communist madwoman, ready to do anything for the Party and struggling to distinguish reality from fiction. This stereotype is additionally strengthened by the apparent forbearance toward her interlocutor, described in one of the later conversations as a “tragic figure”: “She thought . . . that I had been sent by the KGB, NKVD, or by some forces. What for? In order to see what was in her head, to check if she had not betrayed. She took up the game, the stake of which was whether she still was a legitimate communist.”28 From today’s perspective, we may

27

This problem was taken up by Lucyna Tychowa in her interview with Andrzej Romanowski, in which she recalls Teresa Tora≈ska’s indignant remark that what most disturbed her picture of the communists was the fact that some of them had successful children. See Tychowa and Romanowski, Tak, jestem córką Jakuba Bermana, 219. 28 Małgorzata Purzy≈ska and Teresa Tora≈ska, Ja, My, Oni (Warsaw: Biblioteka Gazety Wyborczej, 2013), 28.

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wonder why, despite the passage of years, Tora≈ska did not revise her opinion about the meeting with Julia Minc and did not distance herself from the previously promoted image of “the Aunt of Revolution”; on the contrary, she continuously supported this image.29 As a result, the biography of the communist woman appears even more caricature-like and grotesque than the usual communist’s biography. As Andrzej Romanowski put it, “she [Julia Minc] appears in this book not only a possessed communist, but actually an idiot.”30 Recognition of communism as a “foreign” or “non-Polish” concept carries further consequences for the interviews conducted by the author. Tora≈ska refers to the religious concepts of examination of conscience, confession, and penance, aiming at organizing the communist biographies according to these categories. In Oni, access to communism is treated in a way that is almost model-like for Polish culture: as an act of ideological blindness, which is only appropriate to “confess” publicly.31 Tora≈ska, on almost every occasion, tries to force her respondents to admit their mistakes; when this does not work, she assumes the role of a priest and names the sins committed by the communists. Her strategy is to deliberately provoke, or to provide evidence discrediting the communist system and showing its distortions, usually in the form of dry facts, which the journalist throws at her interlocutors. Some characteristic examples are as follows: “Then let me be specific: why, when [Stanisław] Mikołajczyk came to see [Bolesław] Bierut in Moscow on August 7, 1944, requesting aid for War-

29

In the introduction to the digital edition of Oni from 2012, Tora≈ska wrote about Julia Minc as follows: “She sat on the bed in her dressing-gown all day. Once she got up and we went to the other room: ugly furniture from the early 1950s, high gloss, a large table, and heavy chairs. She was walking around the table, which had not been used for a long time. A sickly, vision-impaired, lonely woman.” (Tora≈ska, “Wstęp.”) Although Tora≈ska does not spare her other interlocutors from criticism as well, it is difficult to overlook that in the case of Julia Minc, the gender-biased stereotype of the woman-communist played a great role (in the same text Leon Chajn was described by Tora≈ska as a “refined, cultural gentleman”). 30 Tychowa and Romanowski, Tak, jestem córką Jakuba Bermana, 117. For more information about the function of “the Aunts of Revolution” in Polish public discourse after 1956, see Agnieszka Mrozik, “Communism as a Generational Herstory: Reading Post-Stalinist Memoirs of Polish Communist Women,” History of Communism in Europe 8 (2017): 261–84. 31 See Magdalena Bajer, Blizny po ukąszeniu (Warsaw: Biblioteka Więzi, 2005). These interviews also contain the “to and from communism” template; the author, however, is far from judging her respondents. As she writes in the introduction, “I have no right to pick up a stone, nor do I believe I deserve one myself.” Ibid., 6.

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saw when it was being destroyed, did Bierut give no reply?”32 (a question to Jakub Berman); “That year 1956, was the beginning of your great period, some people think your only good period. It began in March, did it not, at the sixth plenum?”33 (from the interview with Stefan Staszewski); “It is a fact, however, that many comrades in the Central Committee were of Jewish origin. I do not know what percentage of all members it was, but it was certainly large”34 (in an interview with Wiktor Kłosiewicz). The rift appears when the communists turn out to be right and are not afraid, as the earlier phrase has it, to look into their own eyes. It should be emphasized that the journalist gets answers to most of her questions, including the most sensitive ones on the torture of inmates in Stalinist prisons, the shooting of workers in Pozna≈ in 1956, or the anti-Semitic campaign of 1968. In the context of the latter, attention is drawn to Tora≈ska’s other strategy, that is, to isolate the communist policy from the views and actions of the broader society, or to present concrete decisions as if their implementation was not even to some extent dependent on public support. And so Tora≈ska recognizes and condemns Party anti-Semitism with great accuracy and precision (“even if there were no Jews, somebody would have had to invent them,”35 she says in the interview with Wiktor Kłosiewicz), but the fact that the anti-Semitic campaign of 1968 fell on exceptionally fertile ground and gathered a wide following among the so-called ordinary people is not mentioned at all.36 In Oni, anti-Semitism remains an issue of Party propaganda, a gloomy example of the nationalism of the time—still, however, not so much the problem of Poland and Poles as of “foreign” communists.

32

Tora≈ska, Them, 247. Ibid., 162. 34 Tora≈ska, Oni, 259. 35 Ibid., 259. 36 This may be because she did not have proper knowledge of the matter. The thesis about wide social support for the March campaign began to appear in historical research only in recent years. See, for instance, Hans-Christian Dahlmann, Antisemitismus in Polen 1968: Interaktionen zwischen Partei und Gesellschaft (Osnabrück: Fibre Verlag, 2013); Joanna Beata Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), especially the chapter “‘Judeo-Communists, Judeo-Stalinists, Judeo-antiCommunists, and National Nihilists’: The Communist Regime and the Myth,” 230–61. The thesis about wide social support for the March campaign among socalled regular citizens is also confirmed in the memories of Poles of Jewish descent, who had to leave Poland as a result of anti-Semitism. I have discussed it in Anna Artwi≈ska, “Zasłużona rodzina polska albo marcowe gry w genealogię,” in Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL, 2014), 361–79. 33

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In Tora≈ska’s interviews the semantics often revolve around the motive of guilt and penance. “Are there any mistakes that you have on your conscience?”37 is the last question she asks Edward Ochab. “Did you not feel well in the role of those who acted against the will of the nation?”38 is the question she directs to Wiktor Kłosiewicz, after which she ends the interview with a question referring to his leaving the Party: “Did you make the right decision?”39 “Any squaring of conscience?” she asks Stefan Staszewski; when he states that he does not mind sensitive topics, she paraphrases the question: “The whole of Warsaw knows about that, so let’s put it differently: what do you have on your conscience?”40 The choice of some semantics and not others was probably dictated not only by sociotechnical considerations (although the intention to influence potential readers must certainly be taken into account), but rather aimed at using language which would lead to a way of thinking about communism, in which the communist biography could be inscribed into a pattern of “faith and guilt.”41 The concept of examination of conscience allowed Tora≈ska to show communists as broken people, struggling with the sins they committed, as well as to show that due to her interviews, they received a unique opportunity to publicly confess their sins, and even partly redeem themselves. I am not saying, of course, that the Polish Stalinists did not have anything to redeem, as they certainly did. Instead, I would like to criticize Tora≈ska’s method of producing dichotomous, asymmetric divisions, leading not so much to an understanding of what happened in Poland after the war, but to convincing the reader that what had happened42 was wrong and worthy of the highest condemnation. It is also interesting how much Tora≈ska’s habitus of an opposition journalist associated with the Solidarity movement is rooted in the Catholic way of thinking, reflected in the clearly religious semantics of her interviews. It can be assumed that in a Protestant culture, the formula of an interview based on the practice of confession would not have been so successful.

37

Tora≈ska, Them, 84. Tora≈ska, Oni, 241. 39 Tora≈ska, Them, 333. 40 Ibid., 132. 41 I refer to the title of Jacek Kuro≈’s book Wiara i wina (Faith and Guilt), where the author begins with the following confession: “I have publicly accounted for my part in communism.” Jacek Kuro≈, Wiara i wina: Do i od komunizmu (Warsaw: Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza, 1995), 10. 42 Whereas, as Julia Brystygier’s biographer wrote, “understanding does not mean justifying.” Patrycja Bukalska, Krwawa Luna (Warsaw: Wielka Litera, 2016), 13. 38

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A bear roast—the communist perpetrators In her book Tora≈ska presents several variants of a model communist biography and simultaneously searches for common ground between them, which could in turn allow for the creation of a collective portrayal of the Polish communist. One may treat Oni as a story about a generation: that is, the so-called first generation of communists,43 born at the beginning of the twentieth century, whose political identity developed during the interwar period in confrontation with the political, social, and economic realities of that time. Some of them were of Jewish descent, some had been imprisoned for communist activities, some had spent some time in Soviet Russia; it is impossible not to notice that, at least in Tora≈ska’s interpretation, it was a generation dominated by men. After the war, all the protagonists of Oni continued their work for the Party and actively joined in the construction of communism in Poland. This activity was the thorn in the journalist’s side, as she perceived the years 1948–53 as the darkest period in postwar Polish history. Their political career had ended with the collapse of Stalinism in Poland, although not all the protagonists left the political scene or were sent into political retirement at that time. Through her interviews, Tora≈ska created a narrative template that, for many years to come, would determine the way in which the ideological identity of this first generation of Polish communists was spoken about. Although the book is characterized by polyphony—the communists’ answers inevitably occupy more space than the 43

In theory concerning generational categories, attention is drawn to the fact that generations are often a unit of time measurement; the model of a generation serves periodization and organization of history, and finally the generations are counted and their order is determined. See, for instance, Sigrid Weigel, “Die vergessene Geschichte des Generationskonzepts,” in Genea-Logik: Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwissenschaft (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2006), 107–38, esp. 108–17; Hubert Orłowski, “Wstęp,” in Pokolenia albo porządkowanie historii, ed. Robert Traba and Holger Thünemann (Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, 2015), 7–78. When analyzing the generational dynamics in a certain historical and social reality, it is often difficult to point out precisely which generation should be named the “first” and where to begin counting. Agnieszka Mrozik discusses the problem of the “first generation” of Polish communism by analyzing the autobiographical narratives of those female Party members active during the Stalinist years, and who inscribed their own life stories into the mythologized story of uniqueness and exceptional character of their own generation. See Mrozik, “Communism,” 265–68; and Anna Artwi≈ska and Agnieszka Mrozik, “Generational and Gendered Memory of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe: Methodological Perspectives and Political Challenges,” in Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, ed. Anna Artwi≈ska and Agnieszka Mrozik (London: Routledge, 2020), 9–29.

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journalist’s questions—it also denies any real dialogue, as the autobiographical statements of the interlocutors are subordinated to the journalist’s vision of the communist biography. There is a certain feature of oral history as a genre, which is very much visible here: So, the producer of spoken history takes up two different roles: while on the intradiegetic level of dialogue he or she remains receptive, in the extradiegetic plane they are productive. This is a pitfall which texts—in spite of all assertions—cannot effectively bypass. The more context is added by the author to spoken history, the more apparent his authorship becomes. Strategies and means of creating the narrative framework, its stylization and shaping, inevitably lead to fictionalization and aesthetization of what was said, thus contradicting the proper intent of dialogue and the oral description of the history of one’s life . . .44

In order to obtain a more objective picture, Tora≈ska’s Oni should be read alongside autobiographies, memories, or diaries of the book’s protagonists; though even if such sources existed, one could not speak of their authenticity or autobiographical truth. The only thing they would allow for would be an adjustment of the portrayal, which in fact is happening on its own thanks to new studies and publications on communism. As in the case of many other oral histories, we are dealing here with a subjective attempt to tell one’s own story and with an equally subjective attempt to archive and record it. In the context of generational considerations, it is worth recalling the findings of German commentators on the aforementioned text by Philippe Lejeune, who drew attention to the similarity of collaborative projects with the so-called Fallgeschichte: in both cases one of the goals is to present a story, which is in certain ways typical, providing insight into a specific biographical—or even wider existential—situation.45 Tora≈ska’s interviews, despite being conducted on an individual basis, can be read as an attempt to outline a collective biography, to capture the characteristics of a certain generation. “A combined analysis is justified,” wrote Krystyna Kersten, “because what stands out more than individual differences is the fact of belonging to the communist world and political activity at a high level.”46 The journalist is vitally interested in how her interlocutors define their historical role, how they define their identity as communists; hence why in this case Fallgeschichte applies to the worldview, beliefs, and habitus of the protagonists. Tora≈ska tries to direct her interlocutors onto the right track. 44

Tippner, “Ghostwriting i historia mówiona,” 219. Anja Tippner and Christopher F. Laferl, “Einleitung: Philippe Lejeune,” in Texte zur Theorie der Biographie und Autobiographie, 189. 46 Kersten, “Kłopoty ze √wiadkami historii,” 7. 45

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The topic of Oni is the eponymous “they”: Berman, Ochab, Kłosiewicz, Werfel, Chajn, Staszewski, and Minc, both in the individual dimension and as representatives of a cohort or a generation. The portrait of Oni was constructed according to specific rules. What draws our attention is the tendency to orientalize; I use this concept in the spirit of Edward Said, to refer to the strategy of description which extracts the otherness, strangeness, or even bizarreness of the described group.47 Tora≈ska’s communists are depicted as monsters entertaining themselves by night with Stalin over a bear roast, surrounded by luxury and extravagance, interested in attaching Poland to the Soviet Union as soon as possible; but more importantly, they are portrayed as monsters unable to recognize the absolutely basic principles and values that constitute human community. In an interview with Julia Minc, Tora≈ska picks on—and I dare say this is the right choice of words—her interlocutor for the fact that an orphan, Witek, whom Minc adopted and brought up, would call her “madam”: Tora≈ska: He called you Mrs. Minc? Minc: What was he supposed to call me? I wasn’t his mother. Tora≈ska: Well, Auntie, then. Minc: But I wasn’t his aunt. Tora≈ska: Is he a party member?48 Teresa Tora≈ska was, as we can see, a very active interviewer. The reader learns a lot directly through her questions, and not just due to the interviewee’s intentions; for instance, she would ask about the social life of Wiktor Kłosiewicz, or which tailor Julia and Hilary Minc would go to. These seemingly trivial questions pertaining to everyday matters were, on the one hand, supposed to show communists as normal people, but on the other hand, they were often simply bait. And so, when Kłosiewicz answered the question about his social life, mentioning who was present at his nameday party, the journalist immediately retorted with a question of a different caliber: “Did you and your guests speak about how many people were in prisons?”49 Tora≈ska orientalizes her interlocutors, deliberately emphasizing or even constructing their otherness, trying to compare their biographies to a certain norm of the standard Pole—an anti-communist and patriot—and to values such as faith, solidarity, and family. On the other side 47

For more information on the orientalized description of communists, see Katarzyna Chmielewska, “Contemporary Historical Discourse on Polish Communism in a Narratological Perspective,” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (2016), 105. 48 Tora≈ska, Them, 18. 49 Tora≈ska, Oni, 246.

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of the barricade stands deviation, foreignness, and, as a consequence, exclusion. What seems much more serious than Tora≈ska’s orientalization, which can ultimately be treated as a harmless exaggeration, are her attempts to establish parallels between Nazi and Stalinist perpetrators.50 It is worth recalling that the direct inspiration for Oni was a book by Krzysztof Kąkolewski, Co u pana słychać? (What’s New with You?) from 1975: a collection of interviews, carried out by the author in the Federal Republic of Germany with former military men, scientists, and officers of the Third Reich administration. As Tora≈ska recalls: “At some point, I remembered the book by Krzysztof Kąkolewski, Co u pana słychać? Twenty years after the war, he visited the former Nazis and asked them the question from the title. And then, suddenly, it dawned on me.”51 It must be stated clearly that Tora≈ska never directly compared communists to Nazis: however, she does represent the view that the ideological motivations and crimes of both were comparable. In an interview with Jakub Berman, she specifically lists the torture methods used in Stalinist prisons, the methods of investigation and public executions of people after the war. To Berman’s answer that Stalin allegedly committed his crimes “convinced that they were serving the cause of the revolution, and thus guided by ideological principles,” Tora≈ska replies: “So did Hitler, Mr. Berman.” The following dialogue then ensues. Berman: Don’t be silly. Stalin had an idea, a great idea—to defend the revolution at all cost. Tora≈ska: Hitler wanted to defend the purity of race. Berman: No! [shouting] No, you can’t compare those things. Tora≈ska: The effect was the same.52

50

In Bartłomiej Starnawski’s article entitled “Historia opozycji, my√l lewicowa, (post)dialog: Problemy z genezą społecze≈stwa obywatelskiego i my√lą mocną w interpretacjach współczesnej polskiej historiografii,” devoted to, among other things, strategies and methods of describing the historical past in order to legitimize the neoconservative ethos, the author wrote: “There is something wrong in putting on the same plane, in spite of some similarities, different paradigms of systemic governance, the history of national socialism in Germany and communism (in different variations), which is a false analogy, whose persuasive dimension must be considered reprehensible and rejected once and for all, as an overly easy anachronism, related to a certain convention of speaking about history.” Article in print. I would like to thank Bartłomiej Starnawski for letting me read the manuscript. 51 Grzela, “Teresa Tora≈ska,” 92. 52 Tora≈ska, Them, 345–46.

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It should also be stated clearly that in interviews with others, such juxtaposition appears rather rarely.53 The basis for comparing the Nazi dictatorship and Stalinism with each other is the crimes committed within the framework of both regimes, in particular the system of prisons and labor camps. The fact that some of the interviewed communists experienced the hell of Soviet camps themselves, and yet did not turn away from communism, or—in Celina Budzy≈ska’s case—turned away with considerable delay, is irreconcilable for Teresa Tora≈ska, and in her view confirms the criminality of Stalinist ideology. These fragments of Oni seem especially meaningful and fateful to me: it is difficult not to notice their impact on contemporary discourse concerning the communist past. Let it be said that I do not mean to whitewash Stalinism or to diminish the significance of what happened in Poland in the Stalinist era, because it cannot be whitewashed; rather, my aim is to speak differently about these problems. The procedures used by Tora≈ska in order to give meaning to past events are ideologically motivated and remain in accordance with what Grzegorz Wołowiec has called “a higher order structure: a means, dominant in the Polish public discourse—including the scientific one—of problematization of communism and People’s Poland as a deviation from the natural order of affairs.”54 Tora≈ska’s interviews are some of the first texts that build this higher order structure. They validate a way of thinking about the past in which there is no place for pursuing shadow or nuance, and in which the concepts of human life are understood quite narrowly, according to the dichotomous division into what is “good” and what is “evil.” The symbolic, discursive accusation of the communists is a kind of historical justice in Tora≈ska’s book, which the journalist doles out on behalf of the victims of the system and the Polish nation oppressed by the communists. “An interview is not only biography,” Tora≈ska stated much later in an interview with Małgorzata Purzy≈ska: “It must have some point. One needs to have something to communicate: firstly, something contemporary that will touch and interest people, and secondly, a problem. It must be something that gives the reader a chance to think. I am not interested in description-business.”55 In the case of Oni, the purpose was to present a communist biography that could become the basis for criticism of the system: the journalist assumed that her readers would initially be interested by the insight into the communists’ dark biogra53

A noteworthy example occurs in Tora≈ska’s interview with Artur Starewicz contained in the Aneks, in which she states: “Communism and Nazism are the same.” Tora≈ska, Aneks, 76. 54 Wołowiec, “Biografia komunisty,” 370. 55 Purzy≈ska and Tora≈ska, Ja, My, Oni, 19.

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phies, and through that, become intrigued by the secrets of the system itself. The place of “description-business” was taken by axiology.

“Oni” as a founding text: contemporary paradigms of reading the past Teresa Tora≈ska’s Oni must be read in the context of the political and social situation in which the interviews were recorded. It would be anachronistic to require the author to reason from the position of contemporary metahistory. The idea of talking to communists in the 1980s could have seemed “revelatory,” an attempt to go beyond the established paths of thinking, an effort to create a new paradigm: after all, nobody from the opposition had talked to them before. Tora≈ska had prepared well for this task, in both factual and ideological terms. She approached the communists armed with her knowledge, questions, and recording tape. With some of them she would regularly meet for almost two years. Her role, however, was not limited to being the medium through which oral history flowed: a journalist through and through, she aimed to control and manage her interlocutors’ (aside, perhaps, from Celina Budzy≈ska) autobiographical stories, and direct it to the tracks she had already staked out through questions highlighting certain selected moments of their communist biographies. A reliable definition of the place from which the author conducted her interviews is a condition necessary for understanding Oni, not only as a text organized according to specific rules of journalistic rhetoric, but also as a text having a significant impact on the contemporary understanding of the past half century. It should be remembered that just like a ghostwriter, who very often has greater cultural capital and writing competence than the athlete or actor presenting their story, Tora≈ska had a certain advantage over her interlocutors: it was entirely up to her whether and in what form the interviews would take place, and where and how they would be published. Being the initiator of the interviews with them, Tora≈ska had the right to raise problems which interested her and which seemed important from her point of view. Thus, she became not only a listener to communists, but also a co-author of their autobiographical projects. For a long time, the portraits of communists painted by Tora≈ska had not been questioned at all; Anna Sobór-Świderska was one of the first to question the credibility and full authorization of Tora≈ska’s interview, in her biography of Berman published in 2009.56 Thus, also in the case of Oni, it 56

“. . . the interview given to Tora≈ska is not fully reliable. Berman, as Tora≈ska states, died during the authorization of this ‘interview,’ which in my opinion additionally undermines the credibility of its content. One may have the impression that

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seems justifiable to raise an issue described by G. Thomas Couser,57 concerning the ethics, responsibility, and authenticity of autobiographical texts by more than one author. Despite Tora≈ska’s undoubtedly pure intentions, her interviews are a type of text in which the risk of distortion, modification, or simply misunderstanding the interlocutors’ intentions is particularly high. They feature the need to give voice to witnesses of the epoch contradicted by the need to create a “real” model portrayal of a Polish communist. Being a model, this picture shows types, not living people, whose vitae can be reduced to a few simple “biographemes”:58 facts, decisions, reactions, and behaviors. Reading Oni today in the context of anti-communist debates about the People’s Republic of Poland, it is impossible not to notice that this set of interviews itself contains numerous clichés delimiting the boundaries of what can and cannot be said about communism in modern Poland. It is no coincidence that all the interlocutors’ attempts to show their own reasons are doomed to failure, because the facts are against them: the Gulags, Yalta, the fourth partition of Poland, Stalinist investigations, the murders of Polish citizens, permanent lies. The popularity of Oni confirms a thesis by the Italian-French historian Enzo Traverso that we live in a period when “words such as revolution or communism have changed their meaning within culture, mentality, and collective imagination: instead of signifying an emancipatory aspiration or action, they now evoke a totalitarian world.”59 In such a discursive field there is no room for different at least some questions were written in response to Berman’s statements.” Anna Sobór-Świderska, Jakub Berman. Biografia komunisty (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009), 515. Jakub Berman’s daughter also addressed the interview with skepticism: “I do not deny the truthfulness of many of my Father’s words, but it seems to me that this interview was constructed mostly by Teresa Tora≈ska herself.” Tychowa and Romanowski, Tak, jestem córką Jakuba Bermana, 11. 57 G. Thomas Couser, “Making, Taking, and Faking Lives: Voice and Vulnerability in Collaborative Life Writing,” in Vulnerable Subject: Ethics and Life Writing (London and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 34. See also Tippner, “Ghostwriting i historia mówiona,” 209–12. Mark A. Sanders argues that the complex dynamics between collaboration and coauthorship must be taken into account especially in the case of dictated autobiographies, “instead of reading these works as cohesive unities—that is instead of reading them as self-created texts.” In my opinion also the answers in Oni should be treated in this way. See Mark A. Sanders, “Theorizing the Collaborative Self: The Dynamics of Contour and Content in the Dictated Autobiography,” New Literary History 25, no. 2 (2016): 446. 58 Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, trans. Richard Miller (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 9. 59 Enzo Traverso, L’histoire comme champ de bataille: Interpréter les violences du XXe siècle (Paris: La Découverte, 2011), 6.

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points of view: Teresa Tora≈ska does not approach the communists to understand them, but to discredit them, show their defeat, hold a mirror to their faces, remind them of the evil done over the last four decades. Thus, even if the journalist constantly enquires about the details of their political activity and is genuinely interested in their responses, the main intention of her interviews is still to seek guilt and formulate accusations, possibly suggesting the necessity of expiation, penance, and repentance. This is perhaps why Tora≈ska asks Celina Budzy≈ska so few questions, allowing her to conduct her own autobiographical story. Budzy≈ska was, at the time of the interview, on the correct side: she had cut herself off from communism, trying to atone for the sins committed in her previous communist life through her activity in support of the opposition.60 From the very beginning Oni was supposed to be a canonical book. As Tora≈ska said to Małgorzata Purzy≈ska, “I knew right from the start that I was writing an important document. Because these interviews cannot be omitted by any historian describing People’s Poland and the communist system. They have also entered the canon of literature at university departments of political studies worldwide.”61 It is difficult not to admit the author’s claims. Oni undoubtedly became part of the academic canon, both in Poland and worldwide. Every canon, however, must from time to time be revised, rewritten, and supplemented. As Hayden White has stated, historical studies only make sense if “they are able to correct, neutralize, and rectify the distortions, myths, and delusions concerning the past, which result from pragmatic interests.”62 At the same time, such a review would not serve to seek the positives of the Stalinist revolution or to marginalize all those political, legal, and social irregularities that took place within this system. Nor could it lead to undermining the role of the opposition or marginalizing the significance of the victims subjected to persecution during the era of People’s Poland. The point here is rather to understand what objectives the dichotomous picture of the past now serves, and why it offers a false alternative. Considering how the contemporary process of giving meaning to past events takes place, it seems that the right moment has come to try and read Teresa Tora≈ska’s interviews anew. If we ignore it, we risk our thinking about history being dominated

60

About Budzy≈ska’s attitude toward the communist past, see Anna Artwi≈ska, “A Communist Woman in the Gulag: Gender, Ideology, and Limit-Experience in Ginzburg and Budzy≈ska,” in Narratives of Annihilation, Confinement, and Survival: Camp Literature in a Transnational Perspective, ed. Anja Tippner and Anna Artwi≈ska (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 231–51. 61 Purzy≈ska and Tora≈ska, Ja, My, Oni, 29. 62 Hayden White, “Przedmowa,” in Proza historyczna, ed. and trans. Ewa Doma≈ska (Krakow: Universitas, 2009), 15.

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by old ideas that were shaped when we had not only incomplete knowledge about the People’s Republic of Poland, but also about interwar Poland, and—most importantly—about how our own lives would look once the age of communism ended. Translated by Kalina Iwanek-Malinowska This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

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Bibliography Ankersmit, Frank R. Historical Representation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. Artwi≈ska, Anna. “A Communist Woman in the Gulag: Gender, Ideology, and Limit-Experience in Ginzburg and Budzy≈ska.” In Narratives of Annihilation, Confinement, and Survival: Camp Literature in a Transnational Perspective, edited by Anja Tippner and Anna Artwi≈ska, 231–51. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019. ———. “Zasłużona rodzina polska albo marcowe gry w genealogię.” In Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, 361–79. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL, 2014. Artwi≈ska, Anna, and Agnieszka Mrozik. “Generational and Gendered Memory of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe: Methodological Perspectives and Political Challenges.” In Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, edited by Anna Artwi≈ska and Agnieszka Mrozik, 9– 29. London: Routledge, 2020. Bajer, Magdalena. Blizny po ukąszeniu. Warsaw: Biblioteka Więzi, 2005. Barthes, Roland. Sade, Fourier, Loyola. Translated by Richard Miller. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Brenner, Christiane. “Das ‘totalitäre Zeitalter’? Demokratie und Diktatur in Tschechiens Erinnerungspolitik.” Osteuropa, no. 6 (2008): 103–16. Bugajski, Leszek. “Tora≈ska i ludzie Gomułki.” Newsweek Polska, November 18, 2015. Accessed June 10, 2020. https://www.newsweek.pl/kultura/aneks-teresytoranskiej-aneks-do-kultowej-ksiazki-oni/fxctrbc. Bukalska, Patrycja. Krwawa Luna. Warsaw: Wielka Litera, 2016. Chmielewska, Katarzyna. “Contemporary Historical Discourse on Polish Communism in a Narratological Perspective.” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (2016): 99–115. Couser, G. Thomas. “Making, Taking, and Faking Lives: Voice and Vulnerability in Collaborative Life Writing.” In Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing, 34–55. London and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. Dahlmann, Hans-Christian. Antisemitismus in Polen 1968: Interaktionen zwischen Partei und Gesellschaft. Osnabrück: Fibre Verlag, 2013. Grzela, Remigiusz. “Teresa Tora≈ska: ‘Nie mam czasu na marzenia.’” In Wolne, 91–110. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2012. Hofmann, Birgit. “Don’t Talk to Communists: The Instrumentalisation of the Communist Past in the Czech Republic’s Political Crisis of 2006.” In Crises and Conflicts in Post-Socialist Societies: The Role of Ethnic, Political and Social Identities, edited by Sabine Fischer and Heiko Pleines, 115–29. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2008. Kersten, Krystyna. “Kłopoty ze √wiadkami historii.” Introduction to Oni, by Teresa Tora≈ska, 5–13. Warsaw: Agencja Omnipress, 1989. Kuro≈, Jacek. Wiara i wina: Do i od komunizmu. Warsaw: Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza, 1995. Lejeune, Philippe. “Die Autobiographie der Nicht-Schreiber.” Translated by Thomas Stauder. In Texte zur Theorie der Biographie und Autobiographie, edited by Anja Tippner and Christopher F. Laferl, 191–218. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2016.

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Michlic, Joanna Beata. Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Mrozik, Agnieszka. “Communism as a Generational Herstory: Reading PostStalinist Memoirs of Polish Communist Women.” History of Communism in Europe 8 (2017): 261–84. Orłowski, Hubert. “Wstęp.” In Pokolenia albo porządkowanie historii, edited by Robert Traba and Holger Thünemann, 7–78. Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, 2015. Purzy≈ska, Małgorzata, and Teresa Tora≈ska. Ja, My, Oni. Warsaw: Biblioteka Gazety Wyborczej, 2013. Sanders, Mark A. “Theorizing the Collaborative Self: The Dynamics of Contour and Content in the Dictated Autobiography.” New Literary History 25, no. 2 (2016): 445–58. Sobór-Świderska, Anna. Jakub Berman: Biografia komunisty. Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009. Tippner, Anja. “Ghostwriting i historia mówiona: teksty kolaboratywne jako przypadek graniczny pisarstwa autobiograficznego.” Translated by Anna Artwi≈ska. In Autobiografie (po)graniczne, edited by Inga Iwasiów and Tatiana Czerska, 209–21. Krakow: Universitas, 2016. Tippner, Anja, and Christopher F. Laferl. “Einleitung: Philippe Lejeune.” In Texte zur Theorie der Biographie und Autobiographie, edited by Anja Tippner and Christopher F. Laferl, 187–90. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2016. Tora≈ska, Teresa. Aneks. Foreword by Andrzej Friszke. Warsaw: Świat Książki, 2015. ———. Die da oben: Polnische Stalinisten zum Sprechen gebracht. Translated by Martin Pollack. Munich: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1987. ———. Oni. Warsaw: Agencja Omnipress, 1989. ———. Them: Stalin’s Polish Puppets. Translated by Agnieszka Kołakowska. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. ———. “Wstęp.” In Oni, 4–10. Warsaw: iSource S.A., 2012. Ebook. Traverso, Enzo. L’histoire comme champ de bataille: Interpréter les violences du XXe siècle. Paris: La Découverte, 2011. Tychowa, Lucyna, and Andrzej Romanowski. Tak, jestem córką Jakuba Bermana. Krakow: Universitas, 2016. Walicki, Andrzej. “Trudno√ci wzrostu, czyli dziecięca choroba prawicowo√ci w III RP.” In Od projektu komunistycznego do neoliberalnej utopii, 197–307. Krakow: Universitas, 2013. Weigel, Sigrid. “Die vergessene Geschichte des Generationskonzepts.” In GeneaLogik: Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwissenschaft, 107–38. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2006. White, Hayden. “Przedmowa.” In Proza historyczna, edited and translated by Ewa Doma≈ska, 9–18. Krakow: Universitas, 2009. Wołowiec, Grzegorz. “Biografia komunisty jako temat wypowiedzi historiograficznej.” In (P)o zaborach, (p)o wojnie, (p)o PRL-u: Polski dyskurs postzależno√ciowy dawniej i dzi√, edited by Hanna Gosk and Ewa Kraskowska, 363–75. Krakow: Universitas, 2013.

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———. “PRL w biografii: Uwagi wstępne.” In PRL: Życie po życiu, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Agnieszka Mrozik, and Grzegorz Wołowiec, 38–47. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2012. Żukowski, Tomasz. “Lewica i PRL w dyskursie głównego nurtu.” In Opowiedzieć PRL, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska and Grzegorz Wołowiec, 196–212. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2011.

Part Two

New Analyses of Communism

CHAPTER THREE

Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish Katarzyna Chmielewska

A few introductory remarks: Categories My area of interest is Polish culture in the years 1944–55.1 I slightly surpass the time frames of this varied and tumultuous period. The main topic of this chapter will be the historical policies/politics pursued at that time.2 The topic and the scope are not, of course, terra incognita. Especially in recent years, the 1940s have become a subject of consideration not only for historians or literary historians, but also for representatives of culture, artists, and journalists; they frequently recur in public debates.3 In turn, the

1

All time boundaries are, of course, a matter of convention. One might muse whether this era did not start with the 1943 “Declaration of the Polish Workers’ Party.” Nevertheless, I have chosen to adopt as my time limits the 1944 “Manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation” (PKWN) and the time just preceding 1956, which marked the withering of Stalinism. One could legitimately ask what was happening to the communist project and practice during the Polish October and immediately after: the political system and the general social conditions remained unchanged, and yet the transformation that took place within the project itself makes it possible to speak of the first post-communism. See my chapter “Ćwiczenia praktyczne z polityki historycznej: Narracje historyczne lat 60. w Polsce,” in Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014), 193–220. 2 The Polish term “polityka” is disaggregated in English into two different words: “policy” and “politics.” 3 Many recent exhibitions held in Warsaw addressed the period immediately after the war, including the issue of rebuilding Warsaw and the new communist order. See the exhibition Zaraz po wojnie (Right after the war), Zachęta, October 3, 2015–January 10, 2016, curated by Joanna Kordjak, Agnieszka Szewczyk; exhibition Zburzona historia: Warszawa w latach 1945–1948; Miastobójstwo za parawanem technicznych uzasadnie≈ (Demolished History: Warsaw in the years

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1950s—that is, the period of Stalinism in Poland—have enjoyed long and unwavering interest, as evidenced by numerous theses and elaborations in the area of history, literature, and cultural studies.4

1945–1948; Citycide behind a veil of technical justifications), Museum of Technology, February 15–May 30, 2015, curated by Janusz Sujecki; exhibition Spór o odbudowę (Reconstructions disputes), from the series Warszawa w Budowie (Warsaw under construction), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, October 10–November 11, 2015. See also Piotr Majewski, Ideologia i konserwacja: Architektura zabytkowa w Polsce w czasach socrealizmu (Warsaw: Trio, 2009). 4 These are just a few examples from this vast library of historical works: Tomasz Szarota, ed., Komunizm: Ideologia, system, ludzie (Warsaw: Neriton, 2001); Marcin Kula, Komunizm i po komunizmie (Warsaw: Trio, 2006); Marcin Kula, Religiopodobny komunizm (Krakow: Nomos, 2003); Marcin Zaremba, Communism— Legitimacy—Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland, trans. Arthur Rosman (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019); Marcin Zaremba, Wielka trwoga: Polska 1944–1949; Ludowa reakcja na kryzys (Krakow: Znak, 2012); Maria Hirszowicz, Pułapki zaangażowania: Intelektuali√ci w służbie komunizmu (Warsaw: Scholar, 2001); Włodzimierz Borodziej, Gdyby . . . całkiem inna historia Polski: Historia kontrfaktyczna (Warsaw: Demart, 2009); Andrzej Friszke, Opozycja polityczna w PRL 1945–1980 (London: Aneks, 1994); Andrzej Friszke, Przystosowanie i opór: Studia z dziejów PRL (Krakow: Więź, 2007); Andrzej Friszke, Anatomia buntu: Kuro≈, Modzelewski i komandosi (Krakow: Znak, 2010); Andrzej Garlicki, Stalinizm (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1993); Jerzy Eisler, Zarys dziejów politycznych Polski 1944–1989 (Warsaw: Polska Oficyna Wydawnicza BGW, 1992); Jerzy Eisler, “Polskie miesiące,” czyli kryzys(y) w PRL (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008); Krystyna Kersten, Między wyzwoleniem a zniewoleniem: Polska 1944–1956 (London: Aneks, 1993); Krystyna Kersten, Narodziny systemu władzy: Polska 1943–1948 (Pozna≈: Kantor Wydawniczy SAWW, 1990); Zbigniew Landau, Gospodarka Polski Ludowej (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1994); Zbigniew Landau, Polityka Gospodarcza II RP i PRL (Warsaw: PWN, 1995); Adam Leszczy≈ski, Skok w nowoczesno√ć: Polityka wzrostu w krajach peryferyjnych 1943–1980 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej and Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2013); Piotr Osęka, Rytuały stalinizmu: Oficjalne √więta i uroczysto√ci rocznicowe w Polsce 1944–1956 (Warsaw: Trio and Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2007); Piotr Osęka, Mydlenie oczu: Przypadki propagandy w Polsce (Krakow: Znak, 2010); Andrzej Paczkowski (co-author), Czarna księga komunizmu: Zbrodnie, terror, prze√ladowania, trans. Katarzyna Wakar, introduction by Krystyna Kersten (Warsaw: Pruszy≈ski i S-ka, 1999); Andrzej Paczkowski, Pół wieku dziejów Polski 1939–1989 (Warsaw: PWN, 1998); Andrzej Paczkowski, Od sfałszowanego zwycięstwa do prawdziwej klęski: Szkice do portretu PRL (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1999); Andrzej Paczkowski, Trzy twarze Józefa Światły: Przyczynek do historii komunizmu w Polsce (Warsaw: Prószy≈ski i S-ka, 2009); Paweł Wieczorkiewicz (co-author), Przez Polskę Ludową na przełaj i na przekór (Pozna≈: Zysk i S-ka, 2011); Jan Żaryn, Ko√ciół a władza w Polsce: 1945–1950 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo DiG, 1997); Jan Żaryn, Dzieje Ko√cioła ka-

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The category of historical politics is not an unexplored concept either. On the contrary, it has gained the status of a key category in contemporary times, and not only in theoretical or historical fields, but also as a practice that we deal with on a daily basis. Yet this category is relatively rarely applied to my own period of interest; it tends to be reserved for contemporary times, while the 1940s and 1950s are much more keenly considered in the categories of propaganda or newspeak.5 Both these research tools, which have borne fruit in the form of thorough and interesting studies,6 have exhausted their analytical potential and I would argue that using them today is too confining.7 The category of historical policy makes it possible to show more and with greater breadth: it allows for making connections between many aspects of social and cultural life, although I still believe departure from linguistic or communicational categories, as occurs in research on propaganda, to be a promising plane of considerations.

tolickiego w Polsce (1944–1989) (Warsaw: Neriton, 2003); Jan Żaryn, Ko√ciół w PRL (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2004); Katherine Lebow, Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1949–1956 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013); Brian Porter-Szűcs, Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014). In the area of literary studies, more recent works concerned with socialist realism include: Teresa Wilko≈, Kanony sztuki postępowej i jedynie słusznej: Socrealizm w poezji polskiej (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Śląsk, 2016); Anna Artwi≈ska, Bartłomiej Starnawski, and Grzegorz Wołowiec, eds., Studies on Socialist Realism: The Polish View (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016); Jerzy Smulski, Rozmaito√ci socrealistyczne (i nie tylko) (Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2015); Marek Hendrykowski, Socrealizm po polsku: Studia i szkice (Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2015); Daria Mazur, Realizm socpaxowski (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego, 2013); Wojciech Tomasik, Okolice socrealizmu: Prawie tuzin szkiców (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego, 2009). 5 A term invented by George Orwell, applied by Michał Głowi≈ski in reference to the Polish reality. It is usually applied in descriptions of later periods, but sometimes also to the analysis of phenomena from the years 1944–55. 6 See especially Michał Głowi≈ski, Nowomowa i ciągi dalsze: Szkice dawne i nowe (Krakow: Universitas, 2009); Osęka, Mydlenie oczu; Marek Ostrowski, Literatura obozowa w jej funkcji “oral history” a propaganda PRL (Łódź: Primum Verbum, 2013); Maciej Szymanowski, Warto√ci narodowe w komunistycznej propagandzie Czechosłowacji, Polski, Węgier w prasie 1949–1953 (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Księgarnia Akademicka, 2010); Marek Ryba, Szkoła w okowach ideologii: Szkolna propaganda komunistyczna w latach 1944–1956 (Warsaw: Fundacja “Servire Veritati” Instytut Edukacji Narodowej, 2006); Stanisław Dąbrowski and Barbara Rogowska, eds., Propaganda antyko√cielna w Polsce w latach 1945–1978 (Warsaw: Arboterum, 2015). 7 I will return to this issue toward the end of my chapter.

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Historical politics, even though the term itself was coined ex post,8 is a central issue to those times, and not merely a marginal topic. Whenever we consider communism, it turns out to be an irremovable element of the era: it permeates biographies and everyday practices, as well as the communist project itself in its early days. Thus, it is difficult to understand communism without taking a closer look at the sense and rules of past historical politics. In the contemporary literature and public discourse on the subject, in texts relating to the history of literature, and in exhibitions9 addressing the period of 1944–55, there is a clear division between an era of relative freedom (until 1948, sometimes up to 1950) and the times of dark Stalinism. It does not always seem to me that such a sharp distinction is justified; furthermore, these time frames, when strictly adopted, lead to a blurring of the picture, and disguise the logic of historical process. It would be difficult to claim that the period between the proclamation of the July 22 Manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego, PKWN) and the end of Stalinism10 was uniform: after all, political, social, and cultural conditions were changing, as well as the reality of daily life; it was a time of tumultuous transformation. Nevertheless, if one adopts the continuity of this period in time as the point of departure, it may be possible to grasp processes that were taking place athwart the proposed division, including the consistent transformation of the social structure, the postwar rebuilding of the country, changes in ownership structures, etc., and finally the continuity of historical politics dominant at the time.

8

The very concept of historical politics can be traced back to Germany. It emerged in debates held after 1990 and regarded problems in connection with the unification of Germany, the Nazi past, and the construction of a shared identity. See Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska, ed., Pamięć zbiorowa i kulturowa: Współczesna perspektywa niemiecka, various translators (Krakow: Universitas, 2009). 9 This is done by all curators listed in footnote 3, but also by the historians listed in footnote 4. History of literature often offers a division into the period before the Fourth Conference of the Polish Writers’ Union in Szczecin, held in January 1949, and the period after. In practice, this produces a division between a time of relative liberty with regard to literary topics and techniques, followed by a few years of declared socialist realism, respectively. See footnote no. 4, as well as Ewa Toniak, Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm (Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008). 10 The answer to the question of when Stalinism ended is not a simple one. We may assume that it ended in October 1956, along with the Polish political breakthrough, but we may also connect it to Stalin’s death, as a symbolic end to a certain era: that is, 1953. These time frames are obviously conventional, as some phenomena characteristic of the thaw were visible prior to 1956 (Adam Ważyk’s 1955 Poemat dla dorosłych), while the year 1953 did not bring any clear cultural changes. As I have already mentioned, I have decided to adopt the year 1956.

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Before I move on to discussing communism, I would first like to briefly explain how I understand the central category of historical policy and its relationship to memory. I connect historical politics and historical policy, much like historical memory, to the concepts of narration and fictionalization.11 I treat both as tales with a clear fictionalized plot, loaded with senses and valuations. I do not wish to naturalize memory, that is, to concede that it is a closed, autonomous sphere, where certain processes occur organically, “under their own weight” (natural forgetting, blurring, remembering). I also do not want to assess it from the perspective of its verity-related load alone (truth/falseness). Moreover, I do not intend to treat memory as a natural, collective or individual repository of experience, but rather as a practice consisting in repeating, change, alternation, exercise, recalling, staging, and embodiment. Memory selects its elements and positions others, it weaves in metaphors and comparisons, it fits into recognizable patterns. All this does not take place in a vacuum. Memory is a battleground of various forces, demarcated by divisions that are sometimes clear and obvious, sometimes invisible at first blush, crisscrossing through what is collective, social, intimate, and individual. Against the typical, intuitive approach, I do not treat historical policy as a distortion or “bending” of memory, nor as an attempt to mangle it for some immediate goal. The connection between collective memory and historical policy goes much deeper: policy establishes the order of memory, intentionally providing frameworks for what may and should appear in the sphere of memory—and how it should appear—as well as for what should not appear. Policy lends a pragmatic angle to the story of the past.12 It does so on many levels of the social bios, with the use of institutional tools (school, scientific centers, universities, cultural institutions, the field of art, and so on), and non-institutional ones, both group-based and private, yet it 11

See the following works, all by Hayden White: Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory,” History and Theory 23, no. 1 (1984): 1–33; “The Politics of Historical Interpretation: Discipline and De-Sublimation,” Critical Inquiry 9, no. 1 (1982): 113–37; The Fiction of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1957–2007, ed. Robert Doran (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). 12 Nonetheless, sometimes memory steps out of these boundaries and changes them. For more on connections between historical politics and collective memory, see, for instance, Aleida Assmann, Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik (Bonn: C. H. Beck, 2007); Harald Welzer, Das kommunikative Gedächtnis: Eine Theorie der Erinnerung (München: C. H. Beck, 2005); Étienne François, Kornelia Konczal, Robert Traba and Stefan Troebst, eds., Geschichtspolitik in Europa seit 1989: Deutschland, Frankreich und Polen im internationalen Vergleich (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2013).

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usually aims to acquire symbolic advantage. Most often, individual historical politics do not exist in isolation, but are rather entwined in a knot of competitive or mutually complementary actions, in opposition to previous politics, and thus in the form of dialectics or negative communication. This is not, however, a vision of pluralistic equality or multiple voices: the individual narrations aim to dominate, or even annihilate, any alternatives. Let us note another important element: historical politics always refers to the community not only as the subject of its activities, but also as an objective. It strives to shape, modify, or confirm the status of a community (political, social, or cultural), and sometimes even to create it. Historical politics makes reference to authorities, which is not always tantamount to centralized political authorities. In the case of interest to me, it is necessary to take into account the diversity of communist, non-communist, and anti-communist agents. Communism was not the only “producer” of historical policy. We may speak of the historical policy of the Catholic Church, of social classes that were subject to reduction, or whose social status changed considerably, including the landed gentry, the bourgeoisie, and a part of the intelligentsia. These were, to a significant extent, reactive politics: coupled with communist politics, but responding to them with narratives of the opposite signs. The strongest and most appealing was the rhetoric of how communism destroyed culture and disrupted the natural social and cultural order.13 This topic, while fascinating, remains on the peripheries of my considerations. We must also keep in mind the diversity of the “communist entity.” It was not always unanimous; decisions as to directions of action sometimes arose as a result of disputes and conflicts. One such example is the case of the future First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Komitet Centralny Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej, KC PZPR), Władysław Gomułka, accused of “national deviation.”14 The conflict between Gomułka and the President of Poland, Bolesław Bierut, 13 14

I cite other examples further on. Władysław Gomułka, first secretary of the Polish Workers’ Party; removed from this function, expelled from the Party and imprisoned. His case went on for years: initiated in 1947, it finally concluded in 1951. Gomułka pressed for a “Polish road to socialism,” in opposition to Bolesław Bierut. He was criticized for “rightist-nationalist deviation,” accused of supporting the nationalist traditions of the Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS), holding an unfavorable attitude to communist reforms and to the Soviet Union, and of resistance against the collectivization of agriculture. Bierut had the support of the Soviet leadership. This conflict is frequently depicted as factional frictions within the Party or as a power game played by Stalin with Polish communists to force them into submission and obedience. See Kersten, Narodziny systemu władzy, 380–420.

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must not be reduced to a factional friction, a mere attempt to replace some individual politicians with others: the crux of the dispute concerned divergent visions of the community and of historical politics, not just struggles for position within the Party. Gomułka’s vision entailed a continuation of the independence traditions, accentuating the society as a whole without the domination of the proletariat; it was thus, in actuality, a social democratic project. Bierut advocated a radical revolution, entailing a transformation of class structures; a fundamental change of the social adhesive, no longer premised on nationality. This simple example shows that there was no such thing as a single, unanimous “communist entity,” and that disputes formed part of the day-to-day practice. Moving on to communism itself, and omitting any semantic disputes as to what communism actually was,15 I wish to underscore a certain coherence of the theoretical and practical perspectives. I do not ask how the ideas of communism were distorted in practice, nor what revolutionary terror says about the very theory of communism. I also do not focus on depicting the sometimes obvious disparities between the theory and practice or the consequences of such a state of affairs. Instead, I would like to shed light on some theory in practices and practice in theories. I also do not engage in the discussion on whether communism is merely a certain unaccomplished (or misunderstood) concept that in reality was never consummated. I approach it as a project-practice, expressed in our specific case in Poland between 1944 and 1955. It must be first stated that the postwar history of communism did not play out, and still does not, in the word “communism.”16 In the Polish social and cultural practice of those times, the word “communism” was to an extent “a foreign word,” applied “externally.” We may even risk the hypothesis that “communism” was much more often a correlate of the anti-communist discourse than a term from the dictionary of communists, who preferred such expressions as “people’s state,” “socialism,” “people’s democracy,” “workers’ movement,” “progressive traditions,” and “system of people’s democracy.” The word “communism” did not emerge after the war in a social and historical vacuum; it was heavily loaded with meaning. It carried negative prewar connotations of rebellious acts, contrary to traditions, illegal, anti-state, “godless.” These acts were associated with prison, with something alien, but above all, they were an element of the strong, anti-Semitic package of “Judeocommunism” (Żydokomuna), which had lingered on at least since the 15

For example, a real socioeconomic system, or a utopian project by Marx, etc. I leave this debate aside as insignificant in terms of the issues covered here. 16 Thus, in order to get a relatively full picture of communism, it does not suffice to trace the application of the word.

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Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920.17 For this reason, communism as both project and practice faced numerous difficulties within its own semantic field, and the word was not thrown around liberally. If one takes a closer look at the early documents, for example those produced in the process of establishing the Polish Workers’ Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR) and People’s Poland, it will soon become obvious that the words “communism” or “communist” are not used even once in the PPR’s 1943 Declaration “O co walczymy?” (What Are We Fighting For?),18 in the 1944 “PKWN Manifesto,”19 or in the 1952 Constitution.20

Depictions of communism I am particularly interested in the pictures of communism from those times.21 They, of course, have various functions: they emerge in a specific situation of sharp social conflict; they function in communication channels with a clearly specified communicator and addressee; they are formulated from a certain social perspective, and sometimes move in closed communicational circuits. Some of these pictures can be listed off the top of one’s head: communism as terror, lawlessness, and repression; as an abnormal state; as an invasion from the outside; as an eradication of tradition and culture.22 These anti-communist representations, popular for decades and still holding strong today, consolidated in the 1940s, although their seeds, as I have already mentioned, had been planted earlier. At odds with them

17

See Ewa Pogonowska-Bezrąk, “Dzikie biesy”: Wizja Rosji Sowieckiej w antybolszewickiej poezji polskiej lat 1917–1932 (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2002); Ewa Pogonowska-Bezrąk, Czytanie Nowej Rosji: Polskie spotkania ze Związkiem Sowieckim lat trzydziestych XX wieku (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2012). 18 Quotations from Marian Malinowski, ed., Deklaracja programowa PPR “O co walczymy?” (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, 1979), 5–77. 19 Quotations from “Manifest Polskiego Komitetu Wyzwolenia Narodowego,” Rocznik Lubelski 2 (1959): 7–14. 20 I quote the text after “Konstytucja Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej uchwalona przez Sejm Ustawodawczy w dniu 22 lipca 1952 r.,” Dziennik Ustaw, no. 33 (1952), item 232. 21 These depictions are solidified with social imagery, produced by various group actors, but they also have their exponents in culture. Therefore, they are cultural depictions. The concept of depiction in my approach is closely related to the concept of social images applied by Bronisław Baczko. See Bronisław Baczko, Les Imaginaires sociaux: Mémoires et espoirs collectifs (Paris: Payot, 1984). 22 Plenty of such images can be found, for example, in a book published abroad by Stefan Mękarski, Przewrót obcy w kulturze polskiej (London: Gryf Publications, 1952).

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are illustrations that follow a different trajectory: communism as transgression,23 infraction, but also as a period of modernization, as a time of restoration or return to order, overcoming the wartime chaos, and so forth. These are the depictions present within the field of historical politics of the era. It is easy to notice that these chains of associations are contrary to each other, interdependent, and mutually exclusive at the same time. What seems particularly important is the picture of communism as something unavoidable, be it owing to the geopolitical lay of the land or historical necessity. We thus face diverse, opposing chains of images, motivated with involvement in the fields created by communism and anti-communism. The anti-communist discourse follows different paths than the communist one. The latter entails the circuits of official culture, education, and mass media, but not without some exceptions and not unconditionally. Anticommunist discourse flows through family, social, church and other informal channels, but it constitutes a powerful force in the field of historical politics, which acts as a counterbalance to the communist narration.24 Within the field of the conjured meanings and depictions, one obvious feature worthy of mention has been drowned out for a long time: the revolutionary quality of communism. Recently it has returned in a reshuffled configuration, namely as the first stage of bourgeois revolution in Poland which abolished the archaic feudal order, as professed by Andrzej Leder in his famous work Prze√niona rewolucja (An over-dreamed revolution, 2014).25 Yet, in this chapter, my goal is rather to offer a cultural reconstruction of the original horizon of references from the Stalinist times, rather than to weave communism into the contemporary perspective of the victory of liberalism.26

23

Today, we would call it transgression of the national-Catholic paradigm. This informal anti-communist circuit is not a topic of my reflections, but it seems to be an interesting research subject, albeit one difficult to grasp. Research on communicative memory, the paradigm of which had been shaped by Harald Welzer in relation to Germany, could also bring some intriguing results. See Harald Welzer, “Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi”: The Holocaust in German Family Remembrance, trans. Belinda Cooper (New York: The American Jewish Committee, 2005). 25 Andrzej Leder, Prze√niona rewolucja: Ćwiczenia z logiki historycznej (Warsaw: Krytyka Polityczna, 2014). 26 This problem is presented from an interesting angle in Enzo Traverso, L’histoire comme champ de bataille: Interpréter les violences du XXe siècle (Paris: La Découverte, 2010). Traverso shows the illusion of the liberal perspective, which approached the history of violence in the twentieth century as an aberration; a road, so to speak, toward a liberal conclusion as the inexorable and natural goal of history. The aforementioned work by Andrzej Leder may be seen similarly. 24

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A dual depiction of the revolution It merits a mention at this point that the imagination of revolution is not an unambiguous one. On the one hand, it is a violent change, which breaks with the existing repetition and reproduction of social relations and forms of ownership. Revolution is a novum that comes suddenly, bringing change that, in and of itself, is the revolution’s justification. Thus understood, revolution does not need the capital of the past; it is a bastard child that does not seek out its ancestors. As Michel Foucault stated,27 revolution has its genesis, but it does not need a source to justify it. There is, however, a flipside to this depiction, as pointed out by Hannah Arendt,28 who emphasized that revolution brings with it the promise of a break, but also the promise of restoration (here the term’s old astronomical meaning is evoked). This restoration is a figure of paradox, as it is impossible to restore an order that never existed before, and so to swing back to an assumed/symbolic/logical/necessary order.29 Restoration is not conservation in this case: it is not a continuation of the existing state of things, but an abolition of the actual state to make room for what should be, or toward where the logic of the historical process leads; a rational order, which had announced itself, made itself known, but never existed before.30 This opens up space for historical narration, but also for historical politics. This duality makes itself seen in the depictions consolidated in culture: of the breakup and strengthening of historical narrations. What emerge are two seemingly contradictory yet interlocking narrative strategies, two lines between revolution/communism as point zero which demolishes the previously existing order, and revolution/communism as the righteous heir to progressive tendencies that builds and rebuilds a new society. Historical policies of communism in the 1940s and 1950s In discussing historical policies of communism in this period I use the plural intentionally, as within historical politics, there was not a single policy. Their purpose was not solely to legitimize the new political order, which 27

Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Language, CounterMemory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 76–100. 28 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1963), 33, 40–57. 29 At the same time, however, these are emancipation desires, which have already clarified. 30 It is quite unlike the case of modern-day conservative strategy, which establishes order as something that continues to exist without interruption or as originating from the real past, even if this continuity is a fiction disguising the real intention of introducing a new symbolic and cultural order.

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met with strong resistance, as is usually detailed in historical works devoted to this issue (for example, in the books by Marcin Zaremba or Krzysztof Tyszka).31 Historical policies of that time went much deeper than that: they strove for deep changes, aiming toward a new cultural order and a new citizen, and as such they concerned the very core of the communist project. Throughout the decade under discussion, there were attempts— including institutional ones—at creating a new canon of culture and a new community, a new understanding of culture and new participation in it.32 The purpose of these attempts was to create new political and social actors. For this reason, historical politics took on an educational and therapeutic form, and not only a persuasive one.33 At this level it was also of an inclusive nature, even though exclusion and seeking out orthodoxy were rife at the time. The various historical politics of those times could be mutually complementary, allied, and exclusive—though not explicitly.34 I am not able to 31

Zaremba, Communism—Legitimacy—Nationalism; Krzysztof Tyszka, Nacjonalizm w komunizmie: Ideologia narodowa w Związku Radzieckim i Polsce Ludowej (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 2004). 32 It was a time of new publishing houses, press, the reactivation of Polish Radio, a film chronicle, new film studios, a new universal system of education, new teaching curricula for schools and universities, and new academic centers, such as the Polish Academy of Sciences. See Antonina Kłoskowska, “Socjalistyczna polityka kulturalna a rozwój kultury,” Kultura i Społecze≈stwo 34, no. 3 (1990): 47–65; Barbara Fijałkowska, Borejsza i Róża≈ski: Przyczynek do dziejów stalinizmu w Polsce (Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej, 1995); Rafał Habielski and Dominika Rafalska, eds., Aparat represji wobec inteligencji w latach 1945–1956 (Warsaw: Aspra JR, 2010); Jan Kurowicki, Biurokratyzm i władza (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1983). 33 Thus the emphasis on eradication of illiteracy, universal access to education, or continuing education for adults. The communist project introduced a new type of participation in culture for groups thus far marginalized, which had not had much contact with the broadly understood high culture: it was, in a way, a combination of overcoming institutional barriers and creating new habits, new opportunities. We must not forget that owing to the peasant habitus, this was not an easy task. Examples are provided by organized museum, exhibition, or theater trips for workers, peasants, and primary school students from small towns and rural areas, but also by activities of cultural centers that aimed for the artistic activation of provincial residents. The year 1950 witnessed the establishment of the Community Center Guidance Service and Art Showroom, which provided models for popularization of culture. See Agata Zysiak, Punkty za pochodzenie: Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mie√cie (Krakow: Nomos, 2016); Lebow, Unfinished Utopia. 34 As I have already mentioned, the policies of communism were accompanied by anti-communist counter-policies.

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indicate all the communist policies here, much less analyze them. I will provide a few examples along with a proposed typology, with reference primarily to the aforementioned founding texts of the People’s Republic of Poland: the PPR Declaration “O co walczymy?” (1943), the “PKWN Manifesto” (1944), and the 1952 Constitution. Film chronicles of those times, which illustrate various historical policies very well, are also an important source of knowledge for my work. The shared feature of most policies was the rhetoric of restoration, and thus of establishment/reproduction of the right, proper, sensible, and fair order: reproduction of something that had never existed before.35 The historical policies of communism did not function in a vacuum. Instead, they had a clear negative point of reference: the prewar times. It was depictions of the bygone reality that fueled the new rhetoric. These depictions were composed of abject poverty, social inequalities, social stratification and exclusion, homelessness, hunger, lack of healthcare, the savage life of masses cut off from high culture, illiteracy, prewar politics and a state that acted against its society (Sanation), but also the kinship of that system with fascism, and the centuries-long tradition of exploitation. I limit myself to reconstructing a few types of historical policies of that time. This typology facilitates grasping the variety of those discourses, but also their mutual connections.36 I most closely analyze only one of them, which seems most catchy to me and most important for the very communist project and practice: that is, upward social mobility.

1. Recovery of the Western Territories The narration on westward expansion focused on consolidation and unification. It activated the rhetoric of recovery and “restoration”; it is a tale of redress, but also of putting an end to violence (centuries-long German aggression against Polish Silesia and Pomerania). Dating back to the mystical Middle Ages,37 an ancestry that can be traced back to the Piast dynasty,38 outlined in hazy, distant terms, became the historical narration for 35

Or what remained in the sphere of aspirations of some elements of the society. A more thorough analysis of all the strategies would provide enough material for a voluminous book. 37 The mystification behind this tale has been explored a number of times. The unmasking of “communist propaganda” became the cornerstone of the new order following the 1989 breakthrough. Its modest liberal multicultural projects allowed awareness of the multi-ethnic background of not only the Western Territories, but also of the Eastern Polish lands. 38 Characterized as more peasantly and homely, far-sighted hosts, at times presented in opposition to the cosmopolitan and aristocratic Jagiellonians. 36

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the new order, presented as the fulfillment and ultimate destination of history which the new hosts had finally reached. Lofty patriotic phrases were keenly issued: the ancient Piast territories were finally reunited with the fatherland; thus far Germanized with fire and sword, they were now back in the cradle.39 These policies were accompanied by administrative transformations. An intense colonization, rubbing out all traces of the German past, saw street names changed. Nearly all the “new” cities received streets named after Polish heroes such as Chrobry, Ko√ciuszko, Mickiewicz, and so forth; they were intensively Polonized.40 If we are to believe the witnesses of the era and their testimonies, then the rhetoric of the “Recovered Territories” and pioneership, the creation of a new order, proved a particularly catchy propaganda tune.41 In a 1947 film chronicle, we hear: “Following many centuries of foreign rule, our borders once again run along the Oder and Neisse rivers. Our western territories, won at the cost of many Polish lives, are watched by those who fought for them.”42 This characteristic “once again” goes hand in hand with a sensation of security and agency: “Thousands of Germans had to return to where their grandfathers had come from. Not a single German sign defaces the streets of our Western cities any longer.” In another chronicle, we hear 39

The “O co walczymy?” Declaration reads: “We must recover the ethnographically Polish lands in the West and by the Baltic, denationalized and Germanized by violence, especially in the period of post-partition slavery and the present German occupation.” In Malinowski, Deklaracja programowa PPR “O co walczymy?,” 32. 40 This palimpsest-like overlapping superimposition of history—inclusion in national history on the one hand, and in local history on the other—of various Piasts, is a telling example of the mechanisms of historical policy: selective, reshuffling into new configurations, altering the frameworks of admissible memory, changing the tissue of cities and their topography. 41 A lot of space has been devoted to the topic of migration or “repatriation” in literature, film, and historical texts, not only prior to 1989, but also after the transformation. Of particular interest among them is the book by Beata Halicka, Polski Dziki Zachód: Przymusowe migracje i kulturowe oswajanie Nadodrza 1945– 1948 (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2015). This book, well-versed in the latest anthropological and sociological findings, also leaves space for autobiographical accounts. It offers a solid representation of actual pioneering experiences, settlements, new beginnings, rebuilding, laying the foundations of a new life that has become the fate of the residents of this region. It also describes the reality of contacts between the resettled, the autochthons, and the Soviet army. See also Beata Halicka, ed., Mój dom nad Odrą: Pamiętniki osadników Ziem Zachodnich po 1945 roku (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2016). 42 Eugeniusz Cękalski and Krystyna Swinarska, Nasze ziemie zachodnie, 1947, accessed June 25, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFCsnWALq9E. Emphasis added.

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the following commentary: “Wrocław, an ancient capital city of Silesian Piasts, returns to the fold of the fatherland.”43 The leaving Germans are spoken of as follows: “We are not repressing them, as evidenced by the moods of those departing, we are not seeking revenge. We are not reminding them how they treated us in the dark days of September 1944.” There is a clear contrast: “This is what the dramatic journey of Warsaw residents to the camp in Pruszków looked like, and this is how the Germans are leaving” (illustrated with contrasting pictures: Poles on foot and Germans in cars filled to the roof with luggage, with stoves, food, and so forth). “Farewell forever.” Civilized, rational, and magnanimous Poles are juxtaposed with German barbarity; a high-minded, restrained, wise, and steady community is the new, perfect “I” of the new historical actor—the new depiction of “us.” What comes forward in this story are the pictures of construction and reconstruction—the ruins of Wrocław, its construction sites and its new bridge appear over and over again. The pathos of dynamic scenes and broad shots is complemented with solemn music,44 as the titanic strength of the constructor comes together with the vision of a good host and pioneer of changes. Cultivation of the abandoned land, just as important as the reconstruction and restoration of the “Recovered Territories,” is a metonymic figure, referencing the rebuilding of the entire country. The clear fictionalized plot, from ruins to reconstruction, from sowing to reaping, from destruction to flourishing, combining organic and industrial metaphors, indicated the new actor. It shows this actor’s depiction and creates it at the same time, it expresses his desires and shapes them simultaneously. The new “us” is the owner, creator, host; it is given agency and confirmation in its new role. In considering the historical narration about the “Recovered Territories” it is difficult to omit the issue of national connotations. The Polonization of Gda≈sk, Wrocław, Szczecin or any other place was not a traditional element of the Polish communists’ program prior to the war. The change was obviously brought about by the new international geopolitical situation stemming from the Yalta agreements, which had resulted in new borders for a number of countries, including Poland. The Yalta context explained the genesis of the change, but it did not explain its sense or meaning for the Polish culture and society. This area had to be furnished also with phantasms. We may justifiably state that it was a realization of the dream of Polish nationalists,45 an appropriation of their capital through furnishing

43

Polska Kronika Filmowa 12/45, accessed July 25, 2020, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=GfhSnVNqwKo. Emphasis added. 44 Not infrequently it was music by Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach. 45 For more on this, see Grzegorz Wołowiec, “The Red and the Brown: On the Nationalist Legitimation of Communism in Poland Once Again,” in this volume.

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the space of political imagery created by them, of the desires awoken by them; jumping on the National Democracy bandwagon and “snatching their target voters,” as we would call it today. Yet, there was something more to this narration, namely an attempt at creating a new society (which was in the middle of a sharp class transformation), a geopolitical “us,” an actor that plays a role on the international stage and participates in the historic process of delivering postwar justice. This picture was also of significance for the other historical policies of the time.

2. Communism as a slayer of fascism This strategy was not only strongly accentuated immediately after the war; much later, in the 1960s and 1970s, this narration had a clear presence in pop culture and in the social imagination.46 In the 1940s, while the wartime horrors were still fresh, fascism was viewed as barbarism, the antithesis of culture and humanistic values, as a crime.47 It was represented by convicted war criminals, characterized by heinous acts, razed cities, mass murders, the rhetoric of the rule of superior races. Communism, in the heroic narration, presented itself either as a part of the forces that won the war, or explicitly as the victorious power, both in the actual and moral sense. In fact, fascism had been deemed to be an element of imperialism right from the beginning, and with the passage of time it was identified more and more with capitalism. Communism as a powerful, up-and-coming force vanquished not only Nazism, but also turned against homegrown fascism,48

46

This was also the time when the immensely popular shows Czterej pancerni i pies (Four Tankmen and a Dog, 1967–1970) and Stawka większa niż życie (More Than Life at Stake, 1967–1968) were released, which reproduced the tale of how fascism was defeated by the Poles in alliance with the Soviet Union. 47 One example is the 1946 novel Medaliony by Zofia Nałkowska, well-known to all Polish readers, or a number of short stories by Tadeusz Borowski: Byli√my w O√więcimiu (1946, with Kazimierz Olszewski, Janusz Nel-Siedlecki); Pewien żołnierz: Opowie√ci szkolne (1947); Kamienny √wiat (1948); Pożegnanie z Marią; Matura na Targowej; Chłopiec z Biblią; U nas w Auschwitzu; Ludzie, którzy szli; Dzie≈ na Harmenzach; Proszę pa≈stwa do gazu; Śmierć powsta≈ca; and Bitwa pod Grunwaldem, all published in the years 1946–1948. 48 From the Manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN): “The Polish Committee of National Liberation, starting the rebuilding of Polish statehood, hereby solemnly declares that all democratic freedoms will be reinstated for all citizens irrespective of race, religion, nationality; those freedoms to be: freedom of free association in political and professional fields, freedom of press and information, freedom of conscience. Yet the democratic freedoms cannot serve the enemies of democracy. Fascist organizations, as anti-national, will

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identified with Sanation (the authoritarian period in Polish prewar history), nationalism, and the prewar sociopolitical order.49 The historic defeat of evil brought with it a sensation of strength and anchoring in a meaningful, morally loaded history. Participation in the process of restoring order in Europe, and prior to that in a horrific war, carried with it an image of triumph over the former superpower. Many chronicles and documentary works from the 1940s reported the trials of wartime criminals, such as Greiser przed sądem Rzeczpospolitej (Greiser before the court of the Republic of Poland).50 The society did not shy away from macabre scenes: there were postcards showing public executions,51 and scenes of ousting German civilians were presented as a withdrawal of the German army. The city of Kołobrzeg was mentioned in one chronicle as follows: “The Polish forces are firing at German artillery posts.” There were scenes showing the dead bodies of Germans and of equipment destroyed by Poles, but the horror that these representations were to arise was underpinned with a sensation of pride, power, and strength: “We will build a new city on these ruins”; “the fame of the Polish flag will travel across seas and oceans”; “The Germans lost the war and the country that they were accustomed to calling their own.” The Poles were taking “a just and bloody revenge, no power can tear this land away from us.”52 The policy of “Recovered Territories” was aligned with the policy of the defeat of fascism, and the two fed off each other: “These lands no longer serve German imperialism.”53 The defeat of fascism, and along with it anti-

be repressed in full severity of the law. . . . To liberate Poland, to reinstate its statehood, to lead this war to a victorious conclusion, to secure a place of dignity for Poland in the world, to undertake the rebuilding of our war-torn country— these are our chief tasks.” 49 According to this narration, the fight against fascism did not stop with Germany signing the act of surrender; it also entailed an internal struggle against the anticommunist partisans and the pacification of Ukrainian nationalists. Thus, politics also provided the symbolic capital for Operation Vistula. 50 Greiser przed sądem Rzeczpospolitej, dir. Aleksander Świdwi≈ski, 1946. 51 See Zaremba, Wielka trwoga, figures 9, 10, 26 and 34. They show the execution of eleven members of KL Stutthof, including five women, held in Gda≈sk. The execution was viewed by tens of thousands of people, including women and children. Workers were allowed to leave early from their workplaces, some of which organized transportation for their employees to see the execution live. The aforementioned exhibition Zaraz po wojnie also showed postcards from the years 1946– 47 depicting scenes of executions. 52 Polska Kronika Filmowa 10/46: Niemcy opuszczają Polskę, accessed June 25, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Fm_nm4hHA and https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=oi4oJveZpZI. 53 Polska Kronika Filmowa 41/46.

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Semitism, traditionally associated with fascism, were—according to this narration—accomplished facts. Interestingly, this anti-Semitism was always located in the previous sociopolitical reality. Anti-Semitism in the new society was at most an echo of the old habitus, which had to be and could be vanquished through changing the political system.54 Wiped out in one blow along with fascism, in reality it never concerned the Polish society; it was just a historic ailment, which history had successfully overcome.

3. Communism as the heir to the most momentous accomplishments of Polish thought and culture; as the heir to European culture and humanism This is the most distinctive strategy, which best reveals the mechanisms of historical policy. From the very beginning of the period under discussion, it shows how great a significance communism gave to culture as a factor shaping collective and individual identity.55 Right from the onset, the new communist authorities began to establish the material and institutional bases for cultural leadership (writers’ homes, new publishing houses, magazines, and cultural institutions), and all this in a situation of immense wartime destruction and considerable pauperization. These strivings have been interpreted as an attempt to “buy” art and artists, to harness them in the service of propaganda work.56 Yet this care for artists, writers, and high art is a clear sign that the new order wanted to find a place for itself in the chain of succession: it did not arrive as a barbarian destroying culture and values, nor did it appear out of thin air at point zero; rather, it interacted within the field of consolidated social imagery, and so had to face its own vision as a primitive destroyer. One aspect which is often missed in contemporary analyses—namely the strategy of revolutionary societal transformation—deserves some atten-

54

It should be noted that this faith was shared by many contemporary intellectuals and social activists associated with the PPS, with the broadly understood left more generally, or by those who declared themselves to be liberals: for instance, Kazimierz Wyka, “Potęga ciemnoty potwierdzona”; Mieczysław Jastrun, “Potęga ciemnoty”; Władysław Broniewski, “Wstęp do książki Juliana Bendy ‘Antysemita z przekonania’”; Zdzisław Libera, “Antysemityzm,” all published in Przeciw antysemityzmowi, ed. Adam Michnik, vol. 2 (Krakow: Universitas, 2010), 2–49. 55 See Barbara Fijałkowska, Polityka i twórcy 1948–1959 (Warsaw: PWN, 1985); Benjamin Tromly, Making the Soviet Intelligentsia: Universities and Intellectual Life under Stalin and Khrushchev (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 56 See, for example, Anna Bikont and Joanna Szczęsna, Lawina i kamienie: Pisarze wobec komunizmu (Warsaw: Prószy≈ski i S-ka), 2006.

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tion.57 This is because communism, as noted by one of its coryphaeuses in Poland, Stefan Żółkiewski,58 intended to give rise to a new type of cultural communication, capable of overcoming the class habitus and allowing everyone, regardless of their origins, place of birth, or social position to participate in high art. This was the first attempt at breaking with the idea of culture understood as distinction.59 There was thus an emphasis on universal education, for both children and adults, and on shaping and promoting new cultural habits like reading, cinema, theater and museum attendance, performing in folk dance and song groups, school choirs, art groups, and so forth. The change in cultural communication, then, consisted in educating both the creators and addressees of culture at the same time, and in establishing entirely new spheres of cultural activity. This strategy of communism was to instill a vision of communism as an arena for emancipation from a class-dependent participation in culture,60 of communism as a dance and song that entered the world of work, new homes, and new cities, without divisions into shabby basements and fancy apartments.61 Probably the most distinctive tools of thus understood policy were two new institutions: the sociocultural weekly Kuźnica (Forge, 1945–50), and the Institute of Literary Research (founded 1948), both under the patronage of the same person: the Marxist publicist and intellectual Stefan Żółkiewski. Even the very title of Kuźnica,62 proposed by Mieczysław Jastrun, made reference to the radical current of the Enlightenment. Its editorial team also included Jan Kott, Zofia Nałkowska, Adolf Rudnicki,

57

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1992). 58 Janusz Stradecki and Stefan Żółkiewski, Rozwój bada≈ literatury polskiej w latach 1944–1954 (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1955); Stefan Żółkiewski, “Spory naukowe i walki ideologiczne,” Nowe Drogi, no. 6 (1955): 17–37, republished in Przegląd Humanistyczny, no. 1 (1958): 1–31. 59 I refer here to the term coined by Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). 60 In many cases this strategy was successful. Many, though not all, of these depictions seem attractive even today. Some such still attractive examples include movies such as An Adventure in Mariensztat (Przygoda na Mariensztacie, 1953), The Bus Leaves at 6:20 (Autobus odjeżdża 6.20, 1954) or Generation (Pokolenie, 1954). These pictures offered a vision of the new “us” with which the addressees could easily identify. 61 I will return to this issue later on in discussion of another example of historical policy, namely that concerning upward social mobility. 62 Hanna Gosk, W kręgu “Kuźnicy”: Dyskusje krytycznoliterackie lat 1945–1948 (Warsaw: PWN, 1985). See also Urszula Jakubowska, ed., Czasopisma społecznokulturalne w okresie PRL (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2011).

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Kazimierz Brandys, Stanisław Dygat, Ryszard Matuszewski, Adam Ważyk, Paweł Hertz, and others. The first issue proclaimed: “Our roots have grown out of the same soil that 150 years ago gave us the Polish Enlightenment and the Jacobins of Kołłątaj and Staszic, of Jezierski and Jasi≈ski. We are bringing Kuźnica back to life.”63 Kuźnica also made strong and overt references to involved positivist journalism, intentionally breaking with the preordained eclecticism of the prewar Wiadomo√ci Literackie (Literary News). Its overarching goal was to shape the cultural canon, and to do so in a clearly distinctive way, by choosing rationalistic and involved currents in opposition to the traditional canon of Polish culture, which drew primarily from Romanticism. Romanticism was subject to harsh revision, which is visible in the early years of the Institute of Literary Research, focused on folk literature and on the ongoing renaissance of national Romanticism—for example, Maria Janion’s 1955 book Lucjan Siemie≈ski: Poeta romantyczny (Lucjan Siemie≈ski: A Romantic Poet)64—and revolutionary Romanticism, including Stefan Żółkiewski’s 1952 Spór o Mickiewicza (A dispute about Mickiewicz). The attitude toward Romanticism was changing and it was not unambiguous in this milieu, as the tradition of folk rebellions was not a foreign one to communism; revolution itself has a clearly romantic background too,65 and so the communist “founding documents” (of the Party and of the state) did mention the revolutionary traditions of independence uprisings, of the 1905 revolution, but also of peasant and worker strikes, the fight against the rule of the tsars, and the Communist Party of Poland all in one breath.66

63

Kuźnica 1 (1945): 1. Maria Janion, Lucjan Siemie≈ski: Poeta romantyczny (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1955). 65 We should note here that the difference between revolution and national uprising—later strictly distinguished in historical tradition—was not as clearly divided in the nineteenth century. The words “uprising” and “revolution” were often used interchangeably, accounting for the revolutionary aspect of the November and January insurrections, and for the uprising aspect in the 1905 revolution. 66 Malinowski, Deklaracja programowa PPR “O co walczymy?,” 42 et seq.: “The Polish Workers’ Party—the chief division of the working class—in reference to the tradition of national independence struggles, draws from the experience of the workers’ movement, which has been influencing the fate of the Polish nation for 75 years with increasing effectiveness. The PPR takes from these traditions and experiences everything that has driven the Polish nation in its fight against the occupant, what has imbued it with hope in times when it seemed the dark night would never end, which strengthened its resolve in the face of the enemy— regardless of which party actually participated in the creation of those values. The PPR draws from the traditions of the first Polish workers’ party ‘Proletariat’ and 64

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After the war, Polish communism was moving in a similar direction to that outlined in the works of György Lukács: he saw realism as a strategy that shifted the horizon of culture (in order to then move to decreed socialist realism); a strategy of not only describing and understanding the world, but also of changing it; a strategy against aestheticism and the avant-garde. Lukács’ Nietzsche and Fascism, which drew parallels between Nazi irrationality and barbarism, and the earlier romantic and avant-garde cultural canon, was translated into Polish very quickly and published in My√l Współczesna (Contemporary Thought) in 1947.67 And so the thread of responsibility for Nazism, the dispute about the shape of postwar culture and society, merged into a single whole. Yet, what mattered the most for the new historical policy was to create a new community built on the foundations of a new literary and cultural canon, while at the same time making references to the traditions of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and positivism. Accordingly, communism laid bare all of its paradoxical nature as a strategy of change and restoration; as a delivered promise of emancipation that was either an actual echo of the previous centuries, or of an echo of a past that had to be created. For this reason, it adopts its ardent spirit, its courage in facing the nation in times of problems and tasks cursed by the reactionary forces, and finally its uncompromising stance in the struggle against the invaders. From the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the PPR takes its unwavering battle against the rule of tsars and against chauvinism. The PPR embraces the selfless struggle of some fighters of the Polish Socialist Party in their efforts for Poland’s independence in 1905. The PPR embraces the true traditions of the Polish Communist Party in leading strikes and mass demonstrations, adopts its devotion and sacrifices and its steadfast resistance against opportunism. The PPR embraces the anti-Sanation traditions of the People’s Party, and the combat spirit behind the agricultural strikes of 1932–1939. . . . The armed effort of the PPR stems from the magnificent traditions of our nation in the fight for independence, it is rooted in the century-long defense against the assault of Germanism on our lands, it springs from the heroism of our insurrections: the Ko√ciuszko, the 1831, and 1863 uprisings. The uncompromising spirit of the PPR in its fight against the occupant and the native reactionary forces emanated from the strength of the proletarian fighters: Wary≈ski and Okrzeja, Barlicki and Dubois, Buczek and Nowotko, who sacrificed their lives in the name of free and progressive Poland.” 67 Georg Lukács, “Nietzsche as Founder of Irrationalism in the Imperialist Period in Destruction of Reason,” trans. Peter R. Palmer (London: Merlin Press, 1980), 309–99. Two more of Lukács’ texts, “Powie√Δ jako mieszcza≈ska epopeja,” Kuźnica, nos. 51–52 (1947): 2–49; and Balzak, Stendhal i Zola, trans. Ryszard Matuszewski (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951), were published around the same time. See also Georg Lukács, The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-Philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature, trans. Anna Bostock (London: Merlin Press, 1971).

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appeared in the character of fulfiller and continuator of the “best traditions” and, at the same time, as a destroyer and subversive troublemaker that undermined time-honored cultural patterns and distinctive character.68 It was an heir that superimposes scraps much like a palimpsest,69 and at the same time restores what had once been, but in a changed, new form that serves the new society. In this case, historical policy revealed the purest form of its essence.

4. National legitimation of communism A topic that sparks considerable interest, it has been addressed by the abovementioned historians Marcin Zaremba and Krzysztof Tyszka. They considered the meandering nature of communist propaganda: on the one hand rejecting prewar nationalism as its main adversary, while seeking legitimation on the other, it tapped into nationalist phraseology in the face of every crisis,70 against the Marxist doctrine that proletarians have no fatherland.71 Without questioning the obvious connection between nationalist phraseology and legitimation, I would like to note that it already had a presence in the founding days of people’s democracy (and not only in Poland). The “PKWN Manifesto” from 1944 is packed with patriotic rhetoric: the words “compatriots,” “nation” and “independence” are used within it time and again, and the text even starts with the following call: “Compatriots! The hour of liberation has come!” Justifying this phraseology with loans from wartime rhetoric does not explain everything. It must be viewed within a broader context, as an attempt at blending in a situation of dominant nationalist narration (both before and during the war), of clear hegemony of nationalist social and cultural imagery.72 Communism entered the stage as 68

The acrimony of polemics at universities and in the press, their tone, heated temperature and consequences (self-criticisms, removal from positions, witch-hunts) are probably incomparable with any other historical period. I would not like to reduce them to mere personal vengeance and power plays. 69 Not only by way of orders and prohibitions from the censor, which has been an important element of literary life right from the beginning, but by shaping commendable and correct models of literature, architecture, art, and so forth. 70 Zaremba, Communism—Legitimacy—Nationalism; Tyszka, Nacjonalizm w komunizmie. 71 For more about this see Wołowiec, “The Red and the Brown,” in this volume. 72 Even though National Democracy was not in power before the war, the ruling camp still pursued similar nationalist policies, limiting the right of national minorities and treating Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanians, and Jews as secondclass citizens.

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a declared and imagined enemy of nationalism: in these circumstances, it could either change the national field, or take up its methods, negotiate, appropriate whatever it could, strike deals.73 Both options were explored.74 The very same founding documents of postwar Poland contain both declarations of war against nationalist phraseology, and application of that same phraseology. Yet, the existing interpretations are still missing one more option. We may venture to surmise that the appropriation of national rhetoric and narration in the postwar years and until 1955 was accompanied by its shift, its subjugation to the overarching narrative on the battle of the classes, on the procession of progress. Thus, the fundamental narrative framework changed: class struggles and the history of the workers’ movement re-coded and took over the national and independence tropes—sometimes as protoplasts, other times as intermediate or insufficiently radical solutions (of course, the leitmotif was the struggle against the rule of tsars). Moreover, the analyzed founding documents make double use of nationalist phraseology: on the one hand, we see in them a nationalist antiSemitic discourse, which falsely defines the stakes in the social game and which obscures the real battlefields by pointing to an enemy that has to be defeated and rejected; on the other hand, there is the nation as the fundamental agent and actor of history, which develops over time, having needs, aspirations, and dreams that propel history forward. The word “national” as employed in the “Manifesto” and in “O co walczymy?” gleams with a plethora of meanings. There is no room here for a detailed semantic analysis, but at times “national” stands for “public,” often “folk,” sometimes it is the equivalent of “being a citizen of the state,” and other times of “being a member of a cultural or symbolic community” (community of historical experiences and catastrophes). It does not always reveal its kinship to the community understood in the spirit of nationalism, that is, the community of the land: sometimes it suspends it, other times it updates it. All these meanings shimmer and shed light on each other. The national rhetoric, possibly the most paradoxical in the entire communist package, does not lend itself easily to functional or conceptual classifications.75 In contrast to

73

Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 74 By breaking up the structures of the Home Army and the underground state, by trials, sentences, and executions, by relentless symbolic and propaganda warfare against those who were opposed to the new order, and so on. 75 Moreover, the absorbed and undigested nationalism turned out to be unsafe or even parasitic, especially in the later stages. It dominated and transformed the communist message. The effect was that the field of nationalist imagination has been given up (although this falls outside of the time period covered here). See

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the project of radical societal transformation through the class hegemony of the proletariat, or through building a classless society connected to a divergent vision of community, the historical policy of legitimation via nationalism was not in overt conflict with these images, nor was it presented as a voice of dissent or criticism against them.

5. Communism as the narration of historical justice The central historical policy of communism was the narration of historical justice and upward social mobility. This was the most important narration, as it had the supreme position within the communist project, it was the constituent factor of its uniqueness, and it justified and supported the other narrations, serving as their raison d’être and capital. What comes to the fore are the following semantic components of this policy: change of the social structure; abolition of social classes (aristocracy, bourgeoisie); and the rejection of prewar Poland as a country of exploitation, abject poverty, social submission, humiliation, unemployment, homelessness, violence against national and religious minorities, and antiSemitism. The negative point of reference, from which the images of the new order drew their force, was the past—both distant and recent. What fueled the new historical policy, in turn, was the changed life trajectory of millions of people who gained a new social status, moved to the cities, climbed the social ladder, became agents of history, and overcame their fundamental “inferiority.” On the macro level, this type of historical policy presented communism as the fulfillment of the tale of class conflict, the final chord of history leading toward a modern and egalitarian society. The emancipatory narration of a new beginning went hand in hand with the (re)construction of the people’s voice, its creation and promotion, but also listening to it, giving it space and opportunities for expression. This is an agent whose constitution was supported by various institutions and social instruments (nationalization, agricultural reform, educational programs, new family code, and so on), but also by images of it as an up-and-coming force, albeit one already present in the (latent spring of) history. The pathos of depictions of social justice did not shy away from scenes of destruction,76 although it concentrated on construction and production.

Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, eds., Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014). 76 For example, the scene in which the magnate coat of arms is hacked off the Potocki family palace during the parceling out of their estate as an illustration of the agricultural reform. Polska Kronika Filmowa 1945 Odcinki 1-10, accessed December 27, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlWG1hs1u5w.

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Completions and new beginnings, new identities and a new place in the social world, make up the discourse which also defined the emancipation narrations of minority groups, including women and ethnic minorities. There were different images in store for these narrations: of titanic strength,77 not only physical, but also moral; of women trying their hands in new professions,78 demanding acknowledgement and emancipation. These narrations are not so much about the abolition of differences, but of their overcoming (the women portrayed as heroic, yet with a song on their lips); pictures of reaching for independence, of winning appreciation, of participation in work, in the cycles of construction and production. The “inferior ones” were given a new meaning thanks to their “social usefulness” and productivity: this was a promise of inclusion in the community with equal rights.79 This tale is clearly visible in movies devoted to the emancipation of women, such as An Adventure in Mariensztat (Przygoda na Mariensztacie, 1953, dir. Leonard Buczkowski), The Bus Leaves at 6:20 (Autobus odjeżdża 6.20, 1954, dir. Jan Rybkowski), and Irena, Come Home! (Irena do domu!, 1955, dir. Jan Fethke). These movies—comedies and socio-psychological dramas—showed not only the advantages that came with emancipation, but above all the immensely difficult process of abandoning their weak position, stuck in traditional roles filled with passivity and prohibitions. They underscored the multiple obstacles that piled up on

77

See Toniak, Olbrzymki. This is a separate topic, to which I will return. Emancipation of women is a powerful picture of the historical policies of those times. For more about emancipation, also seen from the perspective of women in the so-called new professions, see, for instance, Małgorzata Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Natalia Jarska, Kobiety z marmuru: Robotnice w Polsce w latach 1945–1960 (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015). For more about the construction of women’s postwar emancipation by communist activists and policies, see Agnieszka Mrozik, “‘’Cause a Girl is People’: Projects and Policies of Women’s Emancipation in Postwar Poland,” in this volume. 79 This topic has already been covered; female heroines, activists and their attendant social imagery have become the focus of herstorical analyses. See, for example, Agnieszka Mrozik, “Nieobecne, ale użyteczne: O pożytkach z komunistek w polskim dyskursie publicznym po 1989 roku,” in Sporne postaci polskiej krytyki feministycznej, ed. Monika Świerkosz (Gda≈sk: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Katedra, 2016), 171–208; Agnieszka Mrozik, “Zwrot genderowy w Polsce: niedoko≈czony projekt,” in Projekt na daleką metę: Prace ofiarowane Ryszardowi Nyczowi, ed. Zdzisław Łapi≈ski and Anna Nasiłowska (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2016), 145–52; Agnieszka Mrozik, “Hela traktorzystka,” “Siłaczka,” in …czterdzie√ci i cztery: Figury literackie: Nowy kanon, ed. Monika Ruda√-Grodzka et al. (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2016), 210–27 and 546–66. 78

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the way: institutional, economic, and social, but also the internalized cultural patterns that had become second nature. Descriptions of “inferiority” can be found in many literary texts: for instance, in Igor Newerly’s 1950 novel Pamiątka z Celulozy (A Souvenir from the Cellulose Mill) and in the two movies based on it,80 although they were set in prewar Poland and were in a way a Vorgeschichte of the postwar processes. It was well illustrated with the fate of Szczęsny, the main character in the book, who struggled with homelessness, unemployment, and exclusion, but who ultimately matured to join the Party. The background of the novel provides outlines of the widespread anti-Semitic practices and patterns, the real situation of excluded Jewish paupers, and the activities of “Christian” labor unions that discriminated against Jews. These realities indicated a point of departure for emancipation: they served as the negative reference, the critical point that had to be crossed. And so, the historical policy of emancipation employed not only depictions of violence and inequality, which provided it with impetus through both emotional and actual power. It did something more: it used representations of difficulties and sacrifices, which made the experience of emancipation more real, and which made it possible for one to identify with this formidable process and find one’s place in it, biographically, socially, and aesthetically. The narration about emancipation and historical fulfillment clearly revealed its connection to the representations of point zero/restoration and, consequently, of demolition/construction; it showed building the new society in reference to the old one (feudalism, capitalism), taking down the old forms of symbolic culture. Testimonies of the time—journals,81 diaries, documentaries, film chronicles, fictionalized chronicles, and literature— acknowledged historical policies that provided frameworks and formatted the identity of people in those times, as well as exemplifying and illuminating processes that had occurred in the social awareness, requiring great effort and commitment.

80

Celuloza [Cellulose Mill, 1953] and Pod gwiazdą frygijską [Under the Phrygian Star, 1954], dir. Jerzy Kawalerowicz. 81 See, for instance, Aleksandra Janiszewska, ed., Wstaje √wit: Dzienniki młodych z pierwszych lat powojennych (Warsaw: O√rodek “KARTA,” 2017); Józef Chałasi≈ski, Młode pokolenie chłopów (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1984); Józef Chałasi≈ski, ed., Drogi awansu w mie√cie (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1972); Józef Chałasi≈ski, ed., Tu jest mój dom: Pamiętniki z ziem zachodnich i północnych (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1965); Stanisław Adamczyk, Stanisław Dyksi≈ski, and Franciszek Jakubczak, eds., Pół wieku pamiętnikarstwa (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1971); Andrzej Budzy≈ski and Janusz Gmitruk, eds., Pamiętniki nowego pokolenia chłopów polskich (Warsaw: PHU “Aral-Dimax,” 1996).

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This picture of the era contradicts the previously popular belief according to which the revolution had taken place behind the back of society, as outlined in the aforementioned book by Andrzej Leder.82 The image of an “over-dreamed revolution” assumes that the agent is passive or “transpassive” (transpasywny), and that societal changes at best “happened” to this agent, with little of its own participation. The revolution was brought from the outside and was denied, although, by abolishing the old feudal and post-feudal relations, Leder argues that it constituted the first stage of the bourgeois revolution, eventually completed after 1989. This revolution blurred and obscured awareness of the majority of Poles’ lowly origins, and it thus conserved the models of the manor house and dependence as still valid in the new society, determining the new capitalist reality. The thesis on denial seems accurate, but in reference to today, rather than the 1940s and 1950s. The titanic will of construction and reconstruction, of changing life trajectories, of opening new social opportunities and taking advantage of them, participation in the tectonic movements that transformed the Polish cultural and social landscape: these factors cannot be discussed using the categories of dream and passivity. Construction may take place according to an external plan, but not a dream.

Emancipation as construction/reconstruction It is highly symptomatic for emancipation to take on the imagery of construction/reconstruction. In many texts of culture, the productive rhetoric, but also the organic one, leads the way before the direct revolutionary rhetoric: or, more precisely, it is a transfer of the picture of revolution into one of construction. Scenes of upheaval (there is no violence or bloodshed, although there is class conflict) are hidden in pictures of age-old need fulfillment; they are often presented as a technical solution to problems, which is visible in both the “PKWN Manifesto” and the 1952 Constitution. Depictions of communism as (re)construction become even more frequent in the 1950s, when the power of revolution was shown through pathos and the momentum of the revolutionary acts of creation. Communism, thus, is viewed as a de/reconstruction: undertaken “together,” it gives rise to a new social agent. Reconstruction guarantees the legitimacy of succession and social change. The historical policy of emancipation assumes that the picture of destruction and reconstruction focuses around two myths, extant throughout the decades, and today undergoing a renaissance of sorts: the Warsaw Uprising and the rebuilding of Warsaw. There is no space here for even a brief 82

Leder, Prze√niona rewolucja.

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outline of how changes, couplings, shifts, and reversals of meanings occurred in various decades, nor for a reinterpretation of both the overlapping and coexisting tales. In order to realize that this strategy even existed, it is worth mentioning the popular 1953 movie An Adventure in Mariensztat. Let us begin from what the interpreters usually miss: the setting of the movie’s action. Mariensztat, located next to the Old Town, had been completely destroyed during the uprising. The plans for the new/old historical district were drafted by Józef Sigalin, a modernizer from the Capital Reconstruction Bureau, often presented as the opposite of Jan Zachwatowicz and other conservators.83 Of course, reconstruction of the district is in this case a functional construction and a deconstruction at the same time. The new Mariensztat both is and is not an eighteenth-century town, is and no longer is a historical part of the city: it maintains all the facades of distinction with its elitist, sublime architecture, but at the same time it is a work of modernization, undertaken by the people and for the people. The central point of the movie’s space is naturally the construction site: the arena of udarnik competition. The first scene shows the demolition of ruins; next, the camera takes panoramic shots of all the works, showing the machinery and the teams of workers, a gigantic and euphoric effort. The Mariensztat square is also a symbolic place: it is a new agora, where dances are held in the evening and where bands from State Agricultural Farms and small towns perform. The majority of characters in An Adventure in Mariensztat are upwardly mobile newcomers, a community of young female bricklayers, who accomplish emancipation and recognition through their labor. The people take Warsaw, and consequently the entire country, into their possession, because they are its creator. “Your Warsaw?” Hanka Ruczajówna, who has come to Warsaw with a folk dance group, asks female bricklayers whom she meets at the construction site. “We work here and we are building it, so it is ours,” they respond.84 83

For more on this topic, see Artur Bojarski, Z kilofem na kariatydę: Jak nie odbudowano Warszawy (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 2013); Józef Sigalin, Warszawa 1944–1980: Z archiwum architekta (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1986). This conflict, which still arouses heated debate, was covered by the exhibition Moderni√ci contra zabytkowicze (Modernists versus Conservationists), held at the Historical Museum of the Capital City of Warsaw, November 10, 2013–July 20, 2014, curated by Katarzyna Domagalska. 84 I leave aside the important question of whether the national or folk community excludes or binds; whether it can have a place for minorities or remain monoethnic. The ruins and construction sites seen by the viewers are in Muranów, a district erected on top of the former Warsaw Ghetto as a form of commemoration of Jews, according to a concept by Bohdan Lachert. The film does not make a single mention of the murdered Jews or the Ghetto. For more about Muranów, see Agnieszka Haska, “Duchy Muranowa,” Przekrój, no. 12 (2012): 10–12.

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The narration about the new political entity is to be a tale of a restored completeness: finding a community of the free and equal, social acknowledgement, but also a near-Schillerian reconciliation of the world of art and work, reality and beauty. The new and complete human being engages in creative work, has fun, dances, sings, is part of a newly constructed community. Revolution is not just construction, it is also a therapeutic process: the “old man” must be vanquished, as portrayed by the ardent misogynist foreman Ciepielewski, who yields to transformation under the overwhelmingly dominant reality. Communism and revolution are shown here as a process of doing away with oppression and symbolic violence, as a restoration/emergence of the agency of the man as a whole. This depiction brims with the pathos of youth that will conquer all difficulties and obstacles. The young generation makes a revolution by working and studying. It is embodied not only by the leading romantic couple, but also by the folk dance and song group from Złocie≈ who sing that “a girl is people.” It is the picture of creation, of an entity that does not dream its way through the revolution. The people of Mariensztat bring the non-existent past to life and fulfill it. The potential of historical policies that shaped the depiction of emancipation as fulfillment and modernization remained unexhausted for a long time, before gradually waning, along with the changing political and social circumstances. Its first wilting came with the Polish October, which crushed the picture of the revolutionary community in construction and supplanted it with the Polish community and the “Polish road to socialism.” The year 1956 marked the beginning of a new imaginarium and of other formatting and dominant narrations.

Some final remarks In this chapter, I reconstruct the types and mechanisms of the historical policies of communism. It is worth asking, however, which frameworks of communism these policies overstepped, and namely, how this historical politics actually shaped human experiences, how it formatted the understanding of the historical process, its own biography, its place in society, and the ongoing social transformation. Against the frequent contemporary narrations on widespread social resistance and immunity to communism, on how it was alien to Polish culture, based on the aforementioned memoirs and diaries we can say that the narration of construction, emancipation, furnishing, and taking over the country became a language spoken by many upwardly mobile people (and so, by the majority of Poles) in describing their historical experience; although, as I have mentioned, this narration could not be and was not accepted without alternatives and exceptions. These alternative narrations—emigration, Catholicism, and of the old social elites—

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were not spirited away; they still contributed to a picture of communism understood not so much as the dusk of culture, but as anti-culture. Sometimes we can also see hybrid, patchwork forms of this awareness, adopting frameworks of community policies selectively: for example, accepting of the rhetoric of productivity and inclusion in the community, but not approving of upturning the traditional social (including gender) hierarchy, or of attempts to abolish the intelligentsia habitus or the distinctive character of culture (not infrequent for the Polish intelligentsia).85 Of particular interest to me are works that analyze real processes of emancipation and provide a complex picture of the real social, economic, and cultural circumstances of the working class in those times. I mean here primarily the aforementioned book by Małgorzata Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland, and Padraic Kenney’s Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists 1945–1950.86 Both these texts shed light on the nuances of communist empowerment, its costs, and the attendant frictions. They depart from the same place: both reject the category of totalitarianism as something that deprives various social actors, especially workers (both male and female) of their agency. Both works show the stakes that the various actors fought for and the frameworks that they acted within, along with the obstacles they had to overcome. In Kenney’s work, however, the communist system is portrayed as an enemy of the workers, while Fidelis’ book illustrates the relations between the individual authorities, as well as social entities (workers employed in mines, their wives, other workers at the mine), as complicated and multifaceted: antagonistic and non-antagonistic, negotiating. In summarizing my considerations, I would like to underscore that revolution in the historical policies of those times revealed itself as a rupture, heralding a new gender, class, social, and cultural order; not only as an undermining of the earlier practices, but also as a reversal of the symbolic high–low, rural–urban hierarchies. Yet, these depictions often appeared in a characteristic way: firstly, they were often presented not directly, but within a metaphorical narration of construction/expansion; and secondly, the revolutionary processes were portrayed as the result, the final outcome, or even the pre-existing state. This conflict was blocked out by the discourse of unity, of the new community, which was often accompanied by meta-

85

For more on this topic, see Anna Zawadzka, “The Waning of Communism in the People’s Republic of Poland: The Case of Discourse on Intelligentsia,” and Aránzazu Calderón Puerta, “An Adventure in the Steelworks and in Mariensztat: Family and Emancipation of Women in 1950s Polish Cinema,” both in this volume. 86 Padraic Kenney, Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945–1950 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).

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phors of reconciliation; yet its condition was always the earlier emancipation and equalization of statuses. Let us finish with a return to the role of historical policies in those times, as they are easily reduced to the role of clumsy and primitive party agitation, or more or less effective propaganda. I have mentioned this at the beginning of the chapter. At this point I would only like to add that the category of “propaganda” currently is not an analytical tool, describing the narration chosen by the authorities and relayed via mass media, frequently with the application of social engineering techniques; analyses of propaganda are restricted to selected examples and aim mainly at value judgements, if not at the annihilation of its research subject.87 Historical policy is a much broader concept, and its nature is much more descriptive, at least in the approach I have proposed. The category of “propaganda” draws a thick, value-loaded line between the analyzed discourses and what it considers to be neutral messages, most often missing the “propaganda involvement” of normalcy. Examples abound. Already in Pierre Bourdieu’s Masculine Domination,88 we recognize discourses that give rise to “normalcy” and “neutrality” as ideological discourses, confirming a certain shape of social relations and involvement in reproduction, and as such viewed as transparent, invisible, ordinary. They may apply to visions of culture, social order, authority, “natural” gender order, social roles, and so on. Conspicuous propaganda, classified as such, is the propaganda that encroaches upon the status quo, and not that which employs the strongest means of persuasion. This is why I have dismissed the category of “propaganda” in favor of “historical policies.” Finally, we can consider the question about the power and significance of erstwhile historical policies. Without falling into rhetorical exaggeration, it is worth noting that they were a significant factor not only for the acknowledgement of communist rule, but also for the self-awareness of the new community, established by the actual postwar revolution. The historical policies of that time created a strong and rich imaginarium, one which was quite effective within that decade, contrary to popular belief today. The glimpses of those policies, their continuations and extensions are visible in the subsequent decades, which means they were deemed effective; not only in the permanent fear of German Landsmannschaften that demanded a revision of Poland’s western borders, not just in the national pride stemming from vanquishing fascism, but above all in the established sensation of a permanent emancipation. Contrary to what we think today, these policies (although, of course, constituting just one element of the communist 87 88

I have provided examples of these works in footnote 6. Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, trans. Richard Nice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001).

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system) were fundamentally successful: they became an inexorable component of the revolutionary process that transformed social relations, and they contributed to the emergence of a new entity, albeit one which may not yet have been revolutionary. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

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Bibliography Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution. New York: Viking Press, 1963. Assmann, Aleida. Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. Bonn: CH Beck, 2006. Bojarski, Adam. Z kilofem na kariatydę: Jak nie odbudowano Warszawy. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 2013. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. ———. Masculine Domination. Translated by Richard Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. Chmielewska, Katarzyna, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, eds. Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014. Eisler, Jerzy. Zarys dziejów politycznych Polski 1944–1989. Warsaw: Polska Oficyna Wydawnicza BGW, 1992. Fidelis, Małgorzata. Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1992. Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Translated by Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon, 76–100. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. Friszke, Andrzej. Anatomia buntu: Kuro≈, Modzelewski i komandosi. Krakow: Znak, 2010. ———. Opozycja polityczna w PRL 1945–1980. Warsaw: Aneks, 1994. ———. Przystosowanie i opór: Studia z dziejów PRL. Krakow: Więź, 2008. Garlicki, Andrzej. Stalinizm. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1993. Głowi≈ski, Michał. Nowomowa i ciągi dalsze: Szkice dawne i nowe. Krakow: Universitas, 2009. Hendrykowski, Marek. Socrealizm po polsku: Studia i szkice. Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2015. Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Jarska, Natalia. Kobiety z marmuru: Robotnice w Polsce w latach 1945–1960. Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015. Kenney, Padraic. Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945–1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. Kersten, Krystyna. Między wyzwoleniem a zniewoleniem: Polska 1944–1956. London: Aneks, 1993. ———. Narodziny systemu władzy: Polska 1943–1948. Pozna≈: Kantor Wydawniczy SAWW, 1990. Kłoskowska, Antonina. “Socjalistyczna polityka kulturalna a rozwój kultury.” Kultura i Społecze≈stwo 34, no. 3 (1990): 47–65. Kula, Marcin. Komunizm i po komunizmie. Warsaw: Trio, 2006. ———. Religiopodobny komunizm. Krakow: Nomos, 2003. Lebow, Katherine. Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1949–1956. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.

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Leder, Andrzej. Prze√niona rewolucja: Ćwiczenia z logiki historycznej. Warsaw: Krytyka Polityczna, 2014. Leszczy≈ski, Adam. Skok w nowoczesno√ć: Polityka wzrostu w krajach peryferyjnych 1943–1980. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej and Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2013. Lukács, Georg. “Nietzsche as Founder of Irrationalism in the Imperialist Period.” In Destruction of Reason. Translated by Peter R. Palmer, 309–99. London: Merlin Press, 1980. Majewski, Piotr. Ideologia i konserwacja: Architektura zabytkowa w Polsce w czasach socrealizmu. Warsaw: Trio, 2009. Osęka, Piotr. Mydlenie oczu: Przypadki propagandy w Polsce. Krakow: Znak, 2010. ———. Rytuały stalinizmu: Oficjalne √więta i uroczysto√ci rocznicowe w Polsce 1944– 1956. Warsaw: Trio and Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2007. Paczkowski, Andrzej. Od sfałszowanego zwycięstwa do prawdziwej klęski: Szkice do portretu PRL. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1999. Smulski, Jerzy. Rozmaito√ci socrealistyczne (i nie tylko). Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2016. Szarota, Tomasz, ed. Komunizm: Ideologia, system, ludzie. Warsaw: Neriton, 2001. Tomasik, Wojciech. Okolice socrealizmu: Prawie tuzin szkiców. Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego, 2009. Toniak, Ewa. Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm. Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008. Traverso, Enzo. L’histoire comme champ de bataille: Interpréter les violences du XXe siècle. Paris: La Découverte, 2010. Tromly, Benjamin. Making the Soviet Intelligentsia: Universities and Intellectual Life under Stalin and Khrushchev. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Tyszka, Krzysztof. Nacjonalizm w komunizmie: Ideologia narodowa w Związku Radzieckim i Polsce Ludowej. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 2004. White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Wilko≈, Teresa. Kanony sztuki postępowej i jedynie słusznej: Socrealizm w poezji polskiej. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Śląsk, 2016. Zaremba, Marcin. Communism—Legitimacy—Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland. Translated by Arthur Rosman. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019. ———. Wielka trwoga: Polska 1944–1949; Ludowa reakcja na kryzys. Krakow: Znak, 2012. Zysiak, Agata. Punkty za pochodzenie: Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mie√cie. Krakow: Nomos, 2016.

CHAPTER FOUR

Eroticism and Power Tomasz Żukowski

Revolution holds an erotic charm in the European imagination.1 Patriarchal societies dominated by males see Liberty leading the masses onto the barricades as a young, scantily-clad woman.2 Dreams about putting an end to oppression clearly go hand in hand with sexual fantasies. On the one hand, the anarchic yearning is the driving force behind rebellion; on the other, it is a threat to the nascent new order. This is why erotic images connected with the revolution are subject to various symbolic procedures. They are used, but also domesticated and restricted. Contrary to popular belief that the Polish revolution of the forties and fifties was chronically asexual,3 even a cursory look at cultural texts proves how often it tapped into eroticism. In movies—especially those addressed to mass audiences—the issue of engaging erotic desires turned out to be of key significance for the legitimization of change and of the new authorities. Romance was at the center of the tale about building a new society, and not as a remnant of prewar methods of storytelling,4 nor as a trick to smuggle in boring ideological content.5 It was rather driven by the needs that under1

“Panna dzika, Nike barykad” (Wild girl, Nike of the barricades) inflames the collective imagination to this day; see Marianna from the album Tata Kazika by Kult (1993). 2 Maria Janion explores women as an allegory of revolution; see Maria Janion, “Bogini Wolno√ci (Dlaczego rewolucja jest kobietą),” in Kobiety i duch inno√ci (Warsaw: Sic!, 1996), 11 et seq. 3 See Ewa Toniak, Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm (Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008). The popular belief holds that the People’s Republic of Poland was an asexual country. The history of the asexuality of People’s Poland is expounded by Michal Ogórek, Co lubią tygrysy (n.p.: Bauer, 2010). 4 See Tadeusz Sobolewski, “Buczkowski,” Film, February 20, 1977, 11. 5 See Piotr Zwierzchowski, “‘Przygoda na Mariensztacie’, czyli socrealizm, ‘branża’ i kultura popularna,” in Pęknięty monolit: Konteksty polskiego kina socrealistycznego (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego, 2005), 121; Piotr Zwierzchowski, “‘Przygoda na Mariensztacie’, czyli socrealizm i kultura popularna,” in Widziane po latach: Analizy i interpretacje filmu polskiego, ed. Maria

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pinned the very foundations of the revolution and, thanks to this, effectively organized the collective imagination. With time—after the thaw and in the seventies—it will speak of the fiasco of the revolutionary project. Most interestingly, the ups and downs of lovers, as well as what happens to desire itself, are marked by implosive contradictions. The subject of this study is Polish postwar cinema. I treat it, on the one hand, as a barometer of social moods,6 and on the other hand as a form of art addressed to a mass audience, which both presents their notions and, to a certain extent, programs them. I will necessarily have to limit myself to selected examples. They will include some well-known movies, such as An Adventure in Mariensztat (Przygoda na Mariensztacie, 1953), Generation (Pokolenie, 1954), or I Don’t Like Mondays (Nie lubię poniedziałku, 1971), but also somewhat forgotten productions, such as Zygmunt Hübner’s Sexteens (Seksolatki, 1972), Witold Leszczy≈ski and Andrzej Kostenko’s Personal Search (Rewizja osobista, 1972), Jerzy Ziarnik’s Blue as the Black Sea (Niebieskie jak Morze Czarne, 1971), or The Move (Przeprowadzka, 1972) by Jerzy Gruza. In all of these cases, I will be interested in the relationship between romance and its attendant desire and notions of revolution, revolutionary order, and power. I will also analyze the relationship between engaging desire and the legitimacy of the system.

The transition of the worker-fighter figure Leonard Buczkowski’s An Adventure in Mariensztat was released in 1954. The fact that costly color cinema was used for the very first time in Poland goes to show just how seriously this production was taken. The film’s objective was to shape notions about the new reality and about the changes underway.7 In this film, revolution is depicted as a lively festivity. Change turns out to be the domain of youth and the desires that accompany it. The erection Hendrykowska (Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Pozna≈skiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 2000), 35–44. Monika Talarczyk-Gubała sees Przygoda as a failed propaganda poster; see Monika Talarczyk-Gubała, PRL się √mieje: Polska komedia filmowa lat 1945–1989 (Warsaw: Trio, 2007), 40–41; and Marek Hendrykowski, Socrealizm po polsku: Studia i szkice (Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2015). 6 Despite censorship, the cinema in Poland enjoyed relative freedom; see Anna Misiak, Kinematograf kontrolowany: Cenzura filmowa w kraju socjalistycznym i demokratycznym (PRL i USA); Analiza socjologiczna (Krakow: Universitas, 2006). 7 It was also a part of historical politics, covered more extensively in Katarzyna Chmielewska’s “Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish,” in this volume.

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of new residential districts and evening dances on the city’s squares are manifestations of the same life-giving energy. Eros brings fun and work to life, and both feed into the tale of romance. The love of Janek Szarli≈ski (Tadeusz Schmidt) and Hanka Ruczajówna (Lidia Korsakówna) embodies the dreams of erotic satisfaction, but also of a new house where the two can live together; a tangible house, but also a home as a relationship—the romantic relationship of a couple and, more broadly speaking, a relationship between people connected by similar aspirations, joint work, and joint creation. The sense of rebuilding Warsaw from its wartime destruction becomes clear only within the context of romance. Houses are built for lovers and are to become the place of their fulfillment and happiness. This is why dancing and singing, fun and flirtation are always so close to work.8 Both spheres carry an enormous load of lively joy. The construction of the new order, according to the suggestion in An Adventure in Mariensztat, is the fulfillment of a desire that is the basis of romance; the joint creation of an environment where the promise of happiness can finally come true. The coming together of lovers also has a broader, social dimension. It connects groups heretofore isolated from each other on new terms. Hanka, who came to Warsaw with a folk dance group, is from the country. Janek, a bricklayer, has already put down roots in the city. Their relationship becomes a sign of the new society, where old antagonisms between the country and the city are a thing of the past. More importantly, Hanka transforms the traditional feminine role. Their romantic adventure—one where the lovers first must clash before they can be together—in reality addresses the subjugation of women. In order for their love to be fulfilled, Janek has to see Hanka as an independent human being, a partner in a “manly” profession, and ultimately someone who does not want to be a stay-at-home wife.9 Their story has a happy ending, but it is not marriage. Thus, the new society is also a society of equality of the sexes and of breaking through customary taboos. A young woman yearns not only for a man, but also for self-fulfillment outside of the home; she wants to participate in the joy of revolution and of construction.10 8

Ibid. See Agnieszka Mrozik, “‘’Cause a Girl is People’: Projects and Policies of Women’s Emancipation in Postwar Poland,” in this volume. 10 For a critical discussion of women’s cultural depiction in the first half of the 1950s, see Elżbieta Ostrowska, “Polish ‘Superwoman’: A Liberation or Victimization?,” in Women in Polish Cinema, ed. Ewa Maziarska and Elżbieta Ostrowska (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 55–74; Elżbieta Ostrowska, “Socrealistyczne maskarady patriarchatu,” in Między słowem a obrazem: Księga pamiątkowa dla uczczenia jubileuszu Profesor Eweliny Nurczy≈skiej-Fidelskiej, ed. Małgorzata Jakubowska, Tomasz Kłys, and Bronisława Stolarska (Krakow: Rabid, 2005), 205–12; 9

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Eros, the sexual energy of romance, feeds into the revolution and propels it forward. The union of lovers represents the signifier of the project and its embodiment; the dream, its coming true, as well as the creation and consolidation of change. Its symbols are the relationship in which a woman retains her independence, as well as the home and family life. New heroes of the revolution emerge along with the tale of romance. In Strajk (Strike), a well-known 1910 painting by Stanisław Lentz, we see three factory workers in a dark room. They are strong, muscular men, hunched over in a gesture of resistance and defiance. What stands out are their strong hands and arms, clenched in fists or folded across their chests: they are fit for work but refraining from it in the name of protest. The dominant sensation in Strajk is anger. The workers’ faces are grim and surly. The revolution turns out to be primarily a struggle, and its heroes, fighters. The workers are ready for battle alongside their male comrades. They are tough, and the struggle occupies all of their attention. We can find a similar rendition in the masthead image of the newspaper Czerwony Sztandar (Red Banner) from 1905. A mustached worker is holding a red banner in his muscular hands, and behind we see the sun rising over a factory. The accompanying motto reads: “And its color is red/As it bears workers’ blood!” We are submerged in the ethos of war. In An Adventure in Mariensztat the worker is no longer surly. He smiles brightly. Warsaw bricklayers are boys rather than mature men; they are neither as muscular nor as serious. They have no interest in fighting, either. This flagship film of Polish socialist realism does not feature a single enemy, in any form, nor are there are any combat banners. Work is a festive occasion rather than struggle. The smiling Wacek Osica (Klemens Mielczarek), full of youthful charm, and the aforementioned Janek Szarli≈ski have replaced the old fighters. The context in which we can see them has also changed. While on the construction site, they are dressed in uniform, after work they transform. Janek Szarli≈ski turns into an elegant beau in a modest but fashionable jacket and tie. The heroes of revolution have their own aspirations beside work, and the fight is almost never mentioned any more. They want joy and pleasure here and now, and in the world of An Adventure in Małgorzata Radkiewicz, “Gender w polskim kinie popularnym,” in Gender w humanistyce, ed. Małgorzata Radkiewicz (Krakow: Rabid, 2001), 43–54. We should also note the modifications introduced in the patriarchal myths. Even if Hanka has some features of a Cinderella, her transformation does not end with a perfect merge into the patriarchal model. The history of a glass shoe and a foot that it fits perfectly has been turned upside down. It is men who have to change, who have to go through an equality course and hear out the demands of female characters. It is an equality according to the standards of the first half of the 1950s, yet the egalitarian demands remain in force.

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Mariensztat these goals do not collide with revolution. Change is understood and presented as a festivity; it does not need fighters that renounce their life in the name of the struggle and its objectives. On the contrary, lust for life and fulfillment is completely accepted, becoming the drive of radical social transformation. It need not be postponed until tomorrow. The appearance of workers, dancing and having fun, is a sign of the appreciation and dignity of their aspirations. There is one more important element. The woman comes into focus, and her story becomes an important part of the revolutionary tale. A couple of lovers—rather than a group of men—created iconic representations. The scale of change is illustrated by a comparison between Lentz’s painting, or the Czerwony Sztandar image, with posters advertising An Adventure in Mariensztat. They depict the two main characters, facing each other with smiles. Their love is once again accompanied by a picture of a home. On one of the posters the lovers, dressed in their Sunday best—he in a suit, she in a light white dress—are strolling embraced, a Mariensztat house visible in the background. On another poster, they wear bricklayers’ uniforms, standing on scaffoldings by the walls they are erecting, looking at each other. They need a house to live in and they are building it together. The third poster shows a kissing couple. It is clear, yet discreet. In line with the conventions of the time, we see only their shadows and legs. All three posters are renditions of the same themes: festivity, youth, love, building, and Eros come together to create a depiction of revolution. An important change shines through them. In the collective imagination, the Polish revolution—already in the years of peaking socialist realism— leaves its combat stage, with its stress on the heroism of struggle, and the fruits of change have yet to be picked. The message of Lentz’s Strajk is that effort and sacrifice will only bring rewards in the distant future—to children or grandchildren, that is, to future generations. The “bloody toil” will end one day, but not anytime soon. All that is left to the fighters is the glory of their heroism. Fulfillment and aspirations in their concrete embodiments— desires and the things needed to turn them into reality, such as elegant clothes or a comfortable home—are pushed far into the background. A departure from the heroic model is also visible in Andrzej Wajda’s 1954 movie Generation, a war movie, and so one whose action does focus on the fight owing to the time and circumstances it depicts.11 The history of

11

Its erotic aspect has been pointed out by André Bazin in Cahiers du Cinéma (June 1958) and Ado Kyrou in Positif (February 1957). The latter author wrote: “Wajda tells of history, our history, the history of all free people, never saying that great love can be something other than embers with which revolution can start its fire.” Quoted in Joanna Słodowska, ed., Wajda: Filmy (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1996), 37.

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an underground People’s Army unit is combined with the story of a romance between Dorota (Urszula Modrzy≈ska) and Stach (Tadeusz Łomnicki). It seems as though Dorota is an embodiment of Liberty leading the masses onto the barricades. This is certainly true at least to some extent. We see her throwing flyers from the top of stairs, caught by a crowd of men. She introduces boys to the secrets of handling firearms, commanding and teaching the soldiers their craft. Most importantly, in one of the final scenes she dies, symbolically leaving the men behind on the battlefield.12 Yet, the story of Dorota and Stach stands out for one important detail: the lovers live together. The couple finds fulfillment, which is then destroyed by war, but is to return upon its victorious end. At this point, it is useful to consider the work of Klaus Theweleit, who analyzed the notions of male soldier communities in his book Male Fantasies. Although his core focus was the circle of Freikorps, from which the later elites of fascist Germany evolved, similar motives—especially of woman as the motherland and simultaneously a lover or mother that issues a call to arms—are present both in Western democracies and in the USSR. According to Theweleit, the power of such depictions stems from a latent fear of women and the resulting aggression; the fight thus allows them to flee real connection and to channel their repressed aggression. In the phantasm, they immobilize the woman in the form of a “pure,” white lover, while in reality, they want to subjugate and control her. The fear is vented through patriarchal conservatism or through violence against enemies. In the case of the Freikorps, the embodiment of fear was a revolutionary woman, emancipated, imagined as sexually liberated and uncontrollable.13 Dorota’s character clearly deviates from the model reconstructed by Theweleit. Polish cinema from the first half of the 1950s does not fear women and does not immobilize them. Dorota is a rounded character, a person of flesh and blood; not only as a unit comrade and commander, but also as Stach’s sexual partner. He does not keep her at a safe distance like Theweleit’s study subjects. The experience of home—or at least an ersatz form of it—turns the fight into an unwanted necessity. When Stach takes command of a new unit in the final scene, he is sad and pensive, mourning the loss of Dorota and overwhelmed by responsibility for the young sol12

Maria Janion analyzes the motif of Liberty leading the people onto the barricades and points out that women disappear from the political scene in times of revolution; see Janion, Bogini Wolno√ci. In her 2009 work La Liberté Raisonneé Cristina Lucas animated Delacroix’s painting, but the crowd of men murder the woman who led them to battle after taking over the barricade; exhibition Heroínas, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Fundación Caja Madrid, Madrid, March 8–June 5, 2011; see exhibition catalog under the same title, 207. 13 See Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, trans. Stephen Conway (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

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diers. Their future life is more important to him than the battles ahead of them. The experience of romance and fulfillment makes the end of the war only an indirect goal. The actual goal is home, which has been lost by Stach, but remains possible for his young soldiers, some of whom are girls. In the year 1954, the future as depicted in the action of Generation turned out to be the present of the viewers. In An Adventure in Mariensztat, Hanka also breaks free from the immobilizing pattern, as the new woman is accompanied by a new man. The model of a wife locked away at home, separated from the outside world, protected and implicitly pure, becomes the object of laughter. Only the old men still try to defend it. This is a generation that belongs to the past, like foreman Ciepielewski (Adam Mikołajewski), kind-hearted but also caricature-like and comical. His obedient wife will take a lesson in emancipation from Hanka. In the meantime, Hanka herself does not hide her aspirations. She demands absolute respect for her needs and engagements from her partner. She wants to be present in the public sphere, to have a profession and prestige; she refuses to take on the role of a wife and servant. Her erotic attractiveness is dissociated from traditional female clothing by the movie creators, as much as was possible in 1953. What is attractive about her are her liveliness and independence, which look as good in a dress as in work dungarees. Her partner is able to accept this, and moves back into the shadows when she takes center stage in the public space. The understanding of female aspirations becomes a gauge of male heroes’ revolutionariness. They grow into the new reality, in which they begin to make way for women or support them in taking non-traditional roles against the dominant patriarchal order. This is the type of couple presented on the posters of An Adventure in Mariensztat. The motive of emancipation and female aspiration, as well as of the new male, recurs time and again in Polish movies from the first half of the 1950s. Examples include Maria Kaniewska’s 1954 Not Far from Warsaw (Niedaleko Warszawy), Jan Rybkowski’s 1954 The Bus Leaves at 6:20 (Autobus odjeżdża 6.20) or Jan Fethke’s 1955 Irena, Come Home! (Irena do domu!).14

The death of Eros, or the failure of the revolution The account-settling movies produced after the 1956 thaw also utilize the romantic motif, but here it plays a completely different role, becoming an element of description of a world that did not satisfy the hopes kindled by 14

See Aránzazu Calderón Puerta, “An Adventure in the Steelworks and in Mariensztat: Family and Emancipation of Women in 1950s Polish Cinema,” in this volume.

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the revolution.15 Aleksander Ford’s 1958 The Eighth Day of the Week (Ósmy dzie≈ tygodnia) is part of a “black series” of films departing from the poetics of the first half of the 1950s and tackling what Tadeusz Lubelski called “taboo topics.”16 Ford’s film is an accusation against the new reality, with no room in it for lovers and their passions. There is no room for youth, either, even in the most literal and tangible sense. The two main characters— Agnieszka Walicka (Sonja Ziemann) and Piotr Terlecki (Zbigniew Cybulski) —have no place to be alone. The student residence hall where Piotr lives is overcrowded, and Agnieszka’s family home is just as cramped. Intimacy is a distant dream. They cannot hope for their own space; no friends have a quiet room at their disposal either. Even when the lovers leave Warsaw and go to a beach by the Vistula, they are watched by a group of teenagers. To some extent, this is a result of war. Piotr, while looking for a place where he could spend the night, opens up a door that leads to a dark emptiness. The house had been half demolished. The situation of these lovers is, however, viewed as a symptom of the broader condition of society. In mid1950s Poland no one cares about youth, love, or desire, and the heroes are suffocating. The paths to self-fulfillment—including the most important one, to erotic fulfillment—are closed to them. All the places where they could satisfy their desire have already been taken, and those with access to them guard them jealously. In Ford’s movie, the lack of room for love is tantamount to a lack of room for sex. Blocking out Eros is the chief charge against the revolution. Since a romance cannot be fulfilled, the revolutionary project has failed.17 The failure is symbolically sealed by a scene of alienated sex.18 Agnieszka is tired and wants a quiet space away from people: intimacy at any price. She 15

Members of the film approval committee, as well as reviewers of An Adventure in Mariensztat, were fully aware that the depiction of Poland presented in the movie was idealized, but at the same time they realized it was treated as a promise to be kept; see Dorota Skotarczyk, Obraz społecze≈stwa PRL w komedii filmowej (Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2004), 70–71. 16 See Tadeusz Lubelski, Strategie autorskie w polskim filmie fabularnym lat 1945– 1961 (Krakow: Rabid, 2000), 176 et seq. 17 Tadeusz Lubelski was of the opinion that the focus on romance (and unkept promises) was a weakness of the movie, in relation to the short story written by Hłasko, and the manifestation of Ford’s opportunism; see Lubelski, Strategie autorskie w polskim filmie, 127–32. Stanisław Janicki felt otherwise; see Stanisław Janicki, Aleksander Ford (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1967), 79–80. 18 Anna Zawadzka interprets Hłasko’s short story, upon which the script was based, as a revelation of the patriarchal norm; see Anna Zawadzka, “Ósmy dzie≈ tygodnia,” Studia Litteraria et Historica, no. 1 (2012): 1–17, accessed March 10, 2020, doi: 10.11649/slh.2012.018.

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gives up and seeks the only available option, a romance with an older, prosperous man. Her youth becomes the price she pays for something that she ultimately will not get anyway. A journalist she meets in a restaurant (Jan Świderski), a member of the intelligentsia who has managed to find his feet in the new reality, gets her drunk on vodka and takes her home. Agnieszka wants to flee from the world around her. She drinks to get intoxicated. It is with clear pleasure that she enters an empty bathroom to draw a bath. Yet, this escape is only illusory. The girl will have to face the rules of the world in which she lives. The journalist embodies power; not so much in a political sense, but rather as a social institution that sets the rules. His apartment is decorated in a bourgeois style. It provides comfort, but is also a status symbol. He himself treats inequality as something natural and he has no qualms about using this to his advantage. There is no room here for Agnieszka’s needs, or in fact no room for her at all. The journalist does not pay any attention to her. He does not even require her mental presence for sex: he takes her drunk and passed out. When he notices a stain of blood on the sheets, all he can say is: “What an idiot! As if she couldn’t find someone else. Some need I had for this virginity of yours. . . . The money I spent on drinking with you could have bought me a proper whore!” The sexual act is in reality a rape. A bourgeois banality, a short-lived affair while the wife is away, takes on a brutal and inhumane form, devoid of even guises of connection. To Agnieszka, it is an experience of symbolic death. She is filmed like a corpse, immobile on the white pillows. Afterwards, her limp hand hangs off the bed. Her dreams die. In a reality whose rules are established by the journalist, there is not even understanding for the needs fulfilled by the characters in An Adventure in Mariensztat. Eros subjected to power only serves the purposes of confirming dependence and exclusion. Agnieszka—anchored in a passive, feminine role—is used and thrown out to go back where she came from. A similar approach was taken in the early 1970s by Zygmunt Hübner in Sexteens (1972), and by Witold Leszczy≈ski and Andrzej Kostenko in Personal Search (1972). Hübner’s movie caused a moral scandal. While addressing the seemingly new topic of sexual revolution, the authors nonetheless drew on motifs utilized in the 1950s and the thaw period. Ania Szklarska (Hanna Wolska) and Tomek Kowalik (Tomasz Fincer) are a couple in love, determined to move in together, but finding a place and liberating themselves from social control turns out to be impossible. Hübner analyses the sense of this control with great insight. The sexuality of two lovers coming of age inspires fear and moral outrage, and their love cannot be fulfilled in the way they want it to be. They are not allowed freedom or the opportunity to risk committing mistakes. The adults rationalize their decisions with appeals to the couple’s immaturity, but in fact they are guarding the brutal rules of power.

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Even though overt sex built upon trust between teenagers proves impossible, Ania and her girlfriends can still prostitute themselves to older men. The social control does not reach this far. Everyone around them turns a blind eye to the rituals of power sanctified by tradition. A teenage couple— such as Agnieszka and Piotr from The Eighth Day of the Week—are brutally introduced to the rules of social order. The norm that closes the path to self-realization is manifested in rape. Once again Eros and sex as a domain of freedom, building a life together, and egalitarian application of rules meet a strict prohibition. The treatment of sexual allure as a commodity traded for privileges and prestige is a sign of the failed revolution. In the 1972 film Personal Search, consistently maintained in the spirit of a critical settlement of accounts with the revolutionary leftist project, Eros and power walk hand in hand. The twenty-year-old Krystyna (Katarzyna Kaczmarek) has internalized a lesson on social norms and subjugation learnt by the characters in Ford’s and Hübner’s movies. The movie starts with a scene in which two travelers— Ms. Basia (Wiesława Mazurkiewicz) and her cousin Krystyna—are preparing to cross the Polish border on their way back from the West. The women remove items from their original packaging so as not to attract the attention of customs officers, but above all they put on makeup and get dressed up. They put on erotic costumes, masks that are supposed to help them in getting through the formalities successfully. Filmed against the backdrop of a car filled with cosmetics, they too turn into goods. Krystyna arouses the desire of two boys. The younger one is Piotr, the son of Ms. Basia, and the older one is a customs officer, Łukasz (Tomasz Wowczuk). Krystyna plays with Piotr and with his love, seduces him, but never lets him near her. On the other hand, she takes Łukasz seriously, as he can turn a blind eye to the items she is bringing into Poland. Yet sex is only a form of payment for a favor. It remains a game in which the masks never come off. This time it is Krystyna who shows the boys the ways of the real world. Sex with no intimacy hurts Łukasz and disappoints him. It also hurts Piotr, who watches the couple from a hidden place. A broader phenomenon is reflected in the women’s game with the customs officers. Ms. Basia is married to a high-ranking member of the Party with a revolutionary past. We can gather from the hints she drops that their marriage has evolved over time, turning into a type of contract that guarantees privileges. In the corrupt world of power, in which position is bought with concessions and compromises, one’s place within the hierarchy is at stake; a hierarchy which, despite the declarations of equality, proves accepted and desired. Leszczy≈ski and Kostenko show the yearning for a hierarchy of superiority as the driving force behind the actions of their protagonists, a rule of social life. Masks and alienation are the price paid to win the game, or in fact just to participate in it. There is no place here for equality or authen-

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ticity. Positions on the social ladder are preordained and changing them is essentially impossible. Any attempt at defiance unavoidably ends in marginalization and bitterness. The alienated Eros turns out to be a sign of failure of the dreams upon which the revolutionary project was founded, as well as of the failure of all the characters that appear on screen.

Desire and the world of objects In An Adventure in Mariensztat, the material conditions that prevented the fulfillment of romance were treated with utmost seriousness. It went without saying that without a home, one cannot think about happiness. In this depiction, the revolutionary authorities were acknowledging the aspirations of young people. Along with the heroes, the viewers saw new, bright, spacious apartments that were supposed to be available to all. The revolution was legitimizing itself by satisfying the need for happiness and its attendant material aspirations. The Eighth Day of the Week confronted the viewers with unfulfilled dreams. There was not a new home, certainly not one for everyone. The aspirations, however, remained, and no one questioned that, since they constituted the core of a project that was not yet universally rejected. Ford’s film captures an important change within the sphere of these notions: the house that was built by a couple of lovers in An Adventure in Mariensztat changed into a market commodity. The dream of a fulfilled romance comes close to a dream of consumption. Ford paraphrases a wellknown scene from Chaplin’s Modern Times, in which Agnieszka and Piotr spend the night at a department store. We see them in front of a shop window, under a banner saying “Welcome, Couples in Love.” Stylish, fashionable furniture is placed among cardboard decorations. A cardboard figure of a man dressed in a smoking jacket and bow tie is passing a glass of wine to a naked woman lying in bed. The contrast between the cardboard figures and the two protagonists is a bitter and ironic one. Agnieszka and Piotr are tired. They try the decorations on, but they obviously do not fit. They are young, but badly dressed, a little dirty, in worn and muddied shoes. They look like a pair of vagabonds in the capitalist paradise of Chaplin’s movie, whose heroes were also looking for an unavailable home. The way that the couple itself is presented is also different. Two builders in work dungarees are an entirely different proposition from a naked woman in bed accepting a glass of wine from a man in a smoking jacket. Agnieszka and Piotr are somewhere in between. Their fulfillment is too far away for everyday work to be a festivity. Thus, they cannot be a couple creating the new order for society and for themselves, but they do not aspire to bourgeois forms either. Their goal is rather to escape them, like

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Agnieszka wants to escape the lifestyle of her parents. In An Adventure in Mariensztat, the memory of the old bourgeois order was represented by the home of foreman Ciepielewski, but he was laughed at. In The Eighth Day of the Week, the dream that had been the driving force of the revolution just a few years earlier reveals its bourgeois—in fact, conservative—face. The modest elegance of a socialist realist beau changes into a status symbol and the notions of erotic fulfillment return to the rituals of male domination. This is already the journalist’s world, non-egalitarian by its very principles. The young heroes cannot make themselves at home in this world. In the small hours of the morning, guards throw them out of the department store. Personal Search takes up the same topic, with clear awareness that we have already fully crossed over to the side of bourgeois dreams. Witold Leszczy≈ski and Andrzej Kostenko appear to make allusions to Ford’s film. The storyline is interwoven with phantasmatic images, which drive the action and in which the heroes’ motivations are anchored. One such interlude is the dancing scene at a Parisian department store, which opens and closes the movie. A smiling and fashionably dressed couple of dancers perform steps from American music hall against a background of consumer goods: clothes, lamps, dishes. The lovers from An Adventure in Mariensztat, dancing in the city squares, change into buying lovers. Their great enthusiasm—one should say, tailored to the scale of their dreams—is caused not just by shopping, but by shopping in the West. These are not just goods. They are special goods, imbued with erotic charm. In Personal Search we see snippets of advertisements for DIM pantyhose and Huit underwear. In the first one, a young woman filmed from below is dancing in a floodlit scene. The wind raises her short and flimsy polka-dot dress, revealing her long, shapely legs and feet in highheeled shoes. They are the center of attention from the beginning. The dancer sits down, presenting her legs in erotic poses. She smiles and makes flirtatious faces. It looks like a scene from a striptease bar. She is being watched by a man sitting in an armchair; she is about to dance the tango with him. This scene is reminiscent of the shop window at the department store where the heroes of The Eighth Day of the Week spend the night, as well as a caricature of Hanka and Janek’s dance in An Adventure in Mariensztat. Equality and directness give way to ambiguous eroticism underpinned by power and violence. The male eyes yearn for costumes and show, and the woman blurs into one with the role of the object of desire. For this she receives a reward: that is, a dance with her lover. The advertisement for Huit underwear is maintained in the poetics of naturality. It too triggers male fantasies, but of a different kind. Naturality is nakedness. A naked girl is taking a dip on a deserted beach. When she emerges to rest on a rock surrounded by the sea, an elegant box with Huit

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underwear appears in her hands. The contents of the box turn out to be light and transparent, barely cladding the now half-naked body. The girl is filmed like a mermaid on a tiny, deserted island, against the setting sun. As if this were not enough, moments later we see her in the same scenery, but in a negligee, which reveals more than it covers up. Naturality here turns out to be a costume analogous to the one presented in the floodlight. The surroundings are irrelevant in both these highly erotic images. The scene seems to be an intimate space, as if there was no other audience, and the deserted beach omits any social context whatsoever. The oppression connected with it, as well as aspirations that go beyond the imperative of being admired—seemingly natural and not up for discussion—disappear. The social reigns in the form of a look that determines the place within the hierarchy of attractiveness. In Personal Search, advertisements highlight the dream of status, which is of a clearly erotic nature. It is attractive to those devoid of it, surrounded with an aura of irresistible charm. It is an eroticism of costumes, because young, attractive bodies are not enough: it needs the symbols, that is, Western goods. The customs officer Łukasz, even though young and good-looking, seems lackluster in comparison with stylish Krystyna. Ultimately, this is about the erotic aura of commodities as status symbols. The very inequality is what is exciting about all this. The travelers try to bribe the customs officers by offering them appearances of participation in this game: a lighter, pornographic cards, a bottle of Cointreau. Roman, the customs officers’ boss (Zdzisław Maklakiewicz), does not accept gifts, because he is well aware of the mechanism that generates the sense of superiority. He knows that if he were to accept the temptation, the status, and the rules of the game as proposed by Ms. Basia, he would set himself up to lose. His egalitarianism is principled. He is not so much an unyielding formalist, more someone who consciously defends equality and the revolutionary project against the dream of status imported from the West, a dream that is lethal to the revolution. At the beginning of their conversation, Roman shows a nest to Ms. Basia, remarking: “This is a cuckoo chick. Cuckoos don’t build their own nests, they don’t find mates, they live with a number of males at once and they lay their eggs in the nests of other, usually smaller birds. A young cuckoo grows faster than other birds and it pushes the chicks out of the nest. I was just wondering, excuse the word, why nature needs such fuckers.” Ms. Basia does not budge and continues to look down on him. She explains to her son: “They are just envious of us. . . . Of everything. . . . Of how we look, of our car, of the fact that we have been abroad.” Roman, on the other hand, highlights the contrast and refuses to play by the rules imposed by Ms. Basia. He does not accept gifts or food. They eat

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breakfast together, but both consume their own products. Some eat foreign foods, others eat local cheese and tomato. They hold the following conversation: – I believe in situations like this, it’s best to act naturally. As if nothing was happening . . . – Do you like Japanese oysters? – I probably do. I’ve never tried them . . . – Maybe some lemon? An oyster without lemon, dear sir, is like herring without vodka. – Vodka without cheese, dear madam, is like . . . well, it just makes no sense.

They both have a revolutionary past. They reminisce about the heroic fifties and, in reality, they understand each other well. The most important sequence depicting a dream is an advertisement for Cointreau, the liquor that Ms. Basia wanted to use to bribe the customs officers. We are in a palace, where once again a couple meets: the woman is wearing an evening gown, the man a smoking jacket. We see a revolver pointed at them. A ball that runs through a complex maze gains speed and causes the revolver to fire. No one dies, even though that is what we expected. The bullet only breaks a pendant chain attached to a bracelet on the woman’s wrist. The falling pendant changes into a bottle of Cointreau. From one desire to another: we are inside a self-propelling mechanism, one which—as suggested by the authors of Personal Search—is deadly for the revolutionary project. The story has been placed within a characteristic bracket. Prior to meeting the customs officials, the women are taking goods out of their brand-new packages, trying to make them look as if they have been used before. The colorful cartons and boxes go up in flames in a huge bonfire. Yet, the homely disguise hides their actual function and exotic provenance, just like their car, a Polish Fiat that pretends to be an Italian Millecinquecento. Roman, the customs officer, comments: “The decor may be foreign, but the soul is Polish.” In the final scene, Ms. Basia’s son pours petrol over the car filled with goods and sets it alight; thus, the game of desire is finished. The teenager senses the values that underpin the revolution. His clash with an alienated Eros is a shock to him. He does not want to accept alienation.

Desire to be managed A year before Personal Search, the famous comedy I Don’t Like Mondays, directed by Tadeusz Chmielewski, was released. It approaches the same problem in a buffo style. The People’s Republic of Poland of the early 1970s turns out to be a country buzzing with erotic desires and vibrant sex

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lives. We see People’s Poland through the lens of a comedy of errors, constructed as a sequence of overlapping gaps, where each subsequent one further complicates the situation and gets the characters into deeper trouble. The rampant Eros plays a significant role in the story. It causes a series of problems, which lead to a serious crisis.19 Everything begins with a couple of lovers, who say their goodbyes early in the morning following a night spent together. They are obviously not married and prefer to hide their affair from the neighbors. The man leaves the apartment barefoot, so as not to make any noise; while leaving, he erases chalk marks left on the floor by the milkmen, allowing them to figure out by which doors they should leave milk bottles. What ensues is total chaos. Even the respectable representatives of the authorities are not indifferent to the charms of Eros. The director of Maszynohurt (Kazimierz Rudzki) wants to take full advantage of the view of long legs clad only in a miniskirt, which he sees while his elevator is descending. As he tries to stretch out his neck, he presses two buttons at the same time with his head and gets stuck between stories. There is no way of getting him out, which paralyzes the work of the foreign trade center. There are more such episodes that build the background for the action. Foreign travelers on a plane en route to Warsaw are looking through folders about Poland that contain photographs of young women. They talk about the women and fantasize about the erotic charms of Poland. Already at the airport tarmac they are enthusiastically welcomed by girls from a folk dance group, who kiss them and give them flowers, which they will actually soon take back, realizing it was all a mistake. A priest, who manages the folk dance group, is waiting for a rich expat returning from the United States with a suitcase of money for building a new school. He constantly has to reprimand and separate two unruly young people who keep disappearing to kiss and fondle each other passionately. Even an elderly man, a prewar school janitor who has taken it upon himself to ring the bell before first class in all new schools (which is not easy, as on some days as many as three are inaugurated), looks at porn magazines, which attracts the attention of passersby. The desire is put into words by Marianna, a drugstore employee. Halina Kowalska, who plays this role, is dressed in a flowery minidress; she looks like a fairy-tale flower herself. It is difficult to think that her character’s name is accidental. Marianne is the symbol of the French Revolution and of the Republic, known as Liberty Leading the People in the famous painting by Eugène Delacroix, but also from French coins and busts in courts and 19

Modern-day researchers clearly dislike this movie, just like critics did when it was released. The audience took a liking to it, however, which has never been subject of any reflection; see Talarczyk-Gubała, PRL się √mieje, 95–97.

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city halls. In 1969, Brigitte Bardot lent her the face and body. Statues of Marianne in French offices—naturally with naked breasts—had the shape of the contemporary movie star and sex icon. The Polish Marianna will not lead anyone to the barricades; she does not even support the building of socialism. This is a revolution that has already left the heroic phase and entered everyday life. She wants to fulfil her own dreams, which is understandable within the context of An Adventure in Mariensztat and The Eighth Day of the Week. She both feels erotic tension and embodies it. Interestingly and surprisingly, Marianna firmly believes that a relationship with a Pole could not satisfy her. The matter turns out serious enough for her to seek external assistance. At a matchmaking agency, Marianna explains: “I’m coming from the trade union. . . . ‘Sex.’ That’s the name of this perfume. Every week they bring us a new kind to sell. And I have to sit in these smells for eight hours a day. I’m so intoxicated and excited because of them. I went to the workplace council to complain and they said that in this case, only a Southerner [South European] will do.” This fairly blunt gag obviously has a second deeper meaning. Marianna lives in a world of dreams to be fulfilled and of dreams that come true. She is the victim of desire kindled by the authorities themselves, who introduce sexually exciting perfume onto the market. Since arousing desires is part of the revolutionary project’s foundation, it is little wonder that Marianna comes to them with her yearnings and demands that they be satisfied. Desire is, in essence, a political problem. Yet, here we stumble across a paradox: the revolution is unable to satisfy the needs that it created. A foreign lover is a must. On Maciej Zbikowski’s poster, the foreigner descends from the clouds like an angel onto the statue of the Mermaid of Warsaw which, although still wielding a sword and shield, is blushing and pouts her lips in anticipation of a kiss. She is wearing fashionable, colorful make-up on her eyelids. The graphic style is similar to that popularized by George Dunning’s 1968 animated movie Yellow Submarine and to Western advertisements of the time. Unfortunately, the matchmaking agency is in crisis as well. The authorities, busy fulfilling the needs of its citizens, are obviously running out of steam. We witness an inventory and counting of matched couples at the Cooperative Matrimonial Bureau “Laura and Filon.”20 “We are missing one, and what’s worse, a foreign one,” complains an employee from behind a stack of binders. A plump, kindly female official proposes: “Maybe we missed something. . . . Let’s try this again. Here, you count: single widowers—eighteen; that’s correct; shy ones with complexes—seventy-three; men 20

An iconic couple of lovers from Franciszek Karpi≈ski’s 1780 poem of the same title.

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in need of a woman’s warmth—twenty-two; homebodies—one hundred and three; jolly men and jesters—thirty-six; body-builders—eight; eight!; men who like children—fourteen. . . .” Another desperate agency employee cries, “But it’s always tallied up before!” The clash of desire with the power apparatus looks humorous. Marianna tries to explain to the official, who has all the attributes of a caricature: non-descript, short, balding, dressed in a boring suit and glasses, the personification of her problem. He reads the discouraging descriptions of candidates in a shrill, monotonous voice. She explains that they are not what she’s after. “What interests should this candidate have, then?!” asks the official impatiently. For the avoidance of any doubt, Marianna puts the official’s head on her chest, so that he can smell the cursed perfume. Finally, his dreamy face and buttery eyes come to life with something akin to understanding. “Sex,” replies Marianna. “Sex,” repeats the dewy-eyed official, but there’s nothing he can do to help. The plan—because of course the agency has a production plan it must meet—is clearly endangered. There are still many single people seeking a soulmate and impossible to match with anyone. Unsatisfied citizens present a serious problem. Luckily, the militia steps into action and provides an eligible “Southerner” man, Francesco Romanelli. Marianna signs a reception slip (with right of complaint) and everything ends happily. Fortunately, or who knows what would have happened! The militia an as embodiment of the higher level of authorities—those overseeing the social order—plays a special role here. Not only it is a militiaman who brings the lover of Marianna’s dreams on his work motorcycle, like a benevolent fairy, but his colleague takes him over once they leave the matchmaking agency. He is like a vaudeville master of ceremony. Small and plump, he makes the theatrical gestures of an announcer. He tells the Chmielna Street Orchestra, which happens to be in the vicinity, to play some music; he whistles to hail a horse carriage and invites the couple of lovers into it. Seeing the new lovers, the officials get soppy: one says “This is happiness, true happiness. Even though it’s a Monday!” Another replies “We’ll get our bonus, and the plan is met . . .” The satisfaction of desires not only poses problems for matchmaking agency officials. We are in a time when the initial zeal for building a new home has somewhat died down. Construction is still underway, and many already have their own apartments. All kinds of unexpected complications ensue. Now that the satisfaction of desires has become everyday life, people are absorbed by it, and consequently distracted from construction itself. The unfortunate milkman, whose plans have been complicated by the couple of lovers, has found an after-hours job, because he had just bought a TV set. “If only it weren’t for the damned instalments. . . . I’d drop the milk right away!” he confesses. He works as an assistant to a crane opera-

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tor, but at the construction site he usually catches up on the sleep lost when delivering milk, and his work is not up to standard. A driver of a minister’s limousine does the same. He takes on random passengers, because he just got an apartment that needs to be furnished. All this introduces anarchic chaos that deepens as the action unfolds. Yet, this is not perceived as something out of the ordinary. Instead, it is seen as a semi-normal state that is accepted by the characters, by the authorities, and by the viewers.21 The militia watches over, turning desires into reality and ensuring safe resolution to the complications that result from this. The film begins early in the morning, when a tipsy Bohdan Łazuka, an actor incredibly popular in Poland for his roles of lovers and seducers, leaves a nightclub, Sofia, in Aleje Jerozolimskie street. Right away he bumps into a militia officer who escorts him to a car. The scene repeats itself a few times, in different parts of the city. Łazuka never drives after drinking, so he moves through Warsaw by following tram tracks, using a 1967 Triumph Spitfire crank as a blind man uses his cane. Finally, he walks into a militia car in Plac Bankowy. A militiaman kindly opens the door, and invites Łazuka into the part where prisoners are usually held. “You’re late today. A whole quarter of an hour,” he states, and asks: “To a rehearsal, or home?” “Home” is the response, and the policeman says to his partner: “Drive to Senatorska Street!” We may presume that Bohdan Łazuka spent the night at the Sofia nightclub. Yet, the film unambiguously hints that the desires embodied by Marianna may be unstoppable and wild. She does not want to put anything off until later. She reacts to the first sign of interest of her new Italian lover: “How impatient! Oh, you Italians. . . . Let’s go, there’s no point in waiting!” she says and takes him to her drugstore. (In reality, Francesco hugs her for an entirely different reason: he is hiding from a taxi driver who earlier mistook him from a supplier from Sulęcice and locked him up in his trunk, but that is another story). Once there, Marianna quickly sends her colleague away and paints over the shop windows. In hearts painted with white spray paint, we see her dreamy-eyed and smiling face. The word “RENOVATION” written with a finger appears on the windowpane. Meanwhile, Marianna is undressing inside behind a translucent plastic sheet. Her striptease will go down in the history of Polish cinematography. At the same time, two other men are turning their desires into reality. We have met one of them at the beginning of the movie: he is the lover who thwarted the milkmen’s efforts. Dressed with worldly—that is, Western— elegance, he and another man rob a bank. While one of them is taking 21

Dawid Konieczka writes about the warmth of this picture; see Konieczka, Nie lubię poniedziałku: Pozdrowienia z Warszawy, accessed June 20, 2020, http://film. org.pl/r/nie-lubie-poniedzialku-pozdrowienia-z-warszawy-162361/.

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money from subsequent tellers, a queue of customers with their hands up follow him, as if waiting for the same thing. On his way out, the robber bumps into militiamen, but they do not arrest him. They instead escort him to a newly opened school, where he will give the money to students and teachers. The militia gently redirects the thief’s actions; the order of building together emerges from anarchic chaos. It still makes sense, it is still colorful, and it still organizes collective emotions. The sensation of desire and its satisfaction—albeit not without complications—is still rooted in reality, it is the basis of its charm and a legitimization of the authorities. A calamity does not ensue. Francesco, however, turns out to be a bourgeois, and despite his Southern passion, he runs off from the drugstore and goes to the ministry to sign an important contract. Marianna is left alone. Disappointed, she cries as she washes the windows and brings her workplace back to normality. The Italian, having fulfilled his duties, returns to the drugstore, and in the end the lovers are reunited. At the end of the movie, a young couple frantically seeks a place to have sex. They get into a tent with an air mattress on a construction site next to a busy intersection. It seems that the crisis of desire has been averted; however, the paradoxes of the revolutionary project remain despite everything. Road crew workers, who were painting zigzag stripes in the opening credits of the movie, change to painting arrows in the closing credits. Two crews coming from opposite directions meet in the middle; the arrows they have been painting are pointing in opposite directions as well. The contradictions are an inherent part of the project. The aroused desires are to serve the building process, but at the same time, they distract attention from it, introduce chaos, call for something that is missing, and demand satisfaction from the authorities. The authorities in turn are legitimized by the satisfaction of desires: they cannot do without them, and at the same time they cannot keep up with them. Chronically unattractive authorities The contract between authorities and the erotic element of youth is the topic of the 1971 comedy Blue as the Black Sea by Jerzy Ziarnik. In the film, we see company directors on a holiday in Bulgaria. Wanting to save money, they go with the Almatur student travel agency as a youth group: as one of them confesses, travelling with the more prestigious Orbis would have cost three times as much. They are watched and filmed by a student, who is also an Almatur employee and the tour pilot (Marian Kociniak). The directors in a youth camp are inherently self-contradictory.22 The very idea of pretending that they are students is evidence to their specific 22

The movie is interpreted as a criticism of Gomułka’s team; see Skotarczyk, Obraz społecze≈stwa, 181–84.

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kind of industriousness. We are dealing with people who abuse their positions, demand privileges, and function on the edge of law and decency.23 They know how to take advantage of their power and they do so mainly to maintain and strengthen their position. Busy with upholding the status quo within which they have learnt to function and within which they have found a comfortable spot for themselves, they are conservative by definition. Focused on guarding their own place in the hierarchy, they must be inflexible and aggressive. Their conservatism is underpinned with fear and an expected need to counter attacks. This attitude is visible not only in their behavior, but also in the way they look. The authority takes on patriarchal, semi-feudal forms. The directors are unapproachable, devoid of any sense of humor, and stiff; they speak solely in phrases from the official jargon. They react to criticism with pre-emptive attack and they strive consistently, with any means available, to eliminate any potential dangers. They end up in tents on the beach, and somehow they have to find their feet among half-naked young people dancing and laughing. Outside their offices, they feel out of place because their authority stems from their position within the official apparatus. As such, they use their suits as armor; to put a wall between themselves and the rest of the world, to remind everyone of their position and of the hierarchy itself. They are very scared to undress and go to the beach with the others. They always stick together, move in droves, creating something akin to a mobile fortification. Even when they are finally dressed only in their swimming trunks, their official uniforms, folded into neat squares, are right next to them, like a defensive wall. Fear of nudity, of contact with others, of having to face the world on their own, stems from fear of changes in life. Youth, energy, and liberty, the most evident signs of which are the scantily-clad bodies of students, give rise to their terrible fear. The company directors are discredited by the very comparison. Older gentlemen with prominent bellies look laughable next to muscular young men. They can only gaze at girls dressed in bikinis, who address them as “daddies.” It is painfully obvious that they are anachronistic. Their unattractiveness results from their attitude toward the reality. Nothing new or interesting can take place around them; they can only repeat the same universally known and hated procedures. Ziarnik’s directors proceed throughout in an official manner. Even on their holidays, they convene a meeting when it turns out that they have been lodged in tents instead of camping houses. Having chosen the chair 23

Nonetheless, everything is more or less egalitarian. The luxuries to which the directors from the movie aspire cannot be compared to the inequality we have become accustomed to after 1989.

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and the presidium, they talk about how important their rest is for the national economy, instead of admitting outright that they are uncomfortable and used to a higher standard. Their attempts at exerting pressure, and especially behind-the-scenes games that they play to enforce their will, are not as funny anymore. We are dealing with overt violence. Despite everything, the apparatus needs young blood, not least to acknowledge its superiority and leadership. The authorities cannot do without legitimization, and they perceive it slipping away. Despite their best efforts to hide this fact, it is showing through the cracks. Maintenance of the status quo means that the aspirations of the youth must be thwarted. Above all, the authorities have a need for participation, including in the decision-making. Power has been distributed unevenly and the young people want to take over it, which means pushing the old apparatus aside. At stake here is erotic charm, but this time, the erotic charm of power. As observed by the narrator of this story, a student who films the bosses, the directors have one thing in common: when thrown into deep water, they learn how to swim. They can find their feet in any situation, but it only means that they will defend themselves no matter what. Thus, they notice quickly that a camera in the hands of a student is a dangerous thing; an uncontrolled perspective can only do them harm. They start with seemingly gentle persuasion and disguised threats, but they soon turn to actions. On the first night, the directors give their pilot a brutal blanket party, and then convince him to make peace on their terms. When already at the seaside, the student tries to defend his point of view: the directors gather around him silently and he sinks under the water. This is just a comic metaphor. Reality is brought up by an official dismissal and revocation of the right to use a camera, which is delivered before the end of the two-week vacation. The filming equipment is immediately transferred into the more appropriate hands of one of the directors. The authorities formulate directives: – You work in culture, I presume? – No, in industry . . . – Ahh. . . . That’s actually good. You’ll be an engineer of souls. Get to work, then. . . . Let’s just establish the plan. What’s your proposal? – Well, maybe a goodbye evening. . . . A Polish group could perform. – You’re involved! – Of course! Then there’s the last day, when people leave and part ways. . . . But it’s a happy time, because the new friendships will continue.

The description of reality gives way to the apparatus’ dream of itself. An attempted dialogue changes into a monologue. The new director repeats the student’s gesture: he takes his camera to the streets and asks passersby about their relations with the authorities. This time, however, we can see

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that those who speak to the camera are fellow vacationers from the director’s trip. The authorities can only speak through themselves, and like to talk at length about their great relations with the youth. Indeed, a romantic affair proves very relevant to this story. The pilot’s girlfriend, who observed the older gentlemen from a distance, falls into the arms of one of them right after the camera changes hands. “I never thought my first deep feelings would be for a mature man,” she confesses, looking at him with reverence. Love changes into a type of homage and a declaration of submissiveness. There is very little space for conversation between the two. In the authorities’ dream, desire stems from admiration. In their own eyes, the bosses do everything best, and that is how they want to be seen. Their self-presentation, however, ultimately appears both artificial and funny. Like a professional choir, they sing the Polish folk song Góralu czy ci nie żal, which looks out of place and unnatural at a student farewell evening. We see them win the race with chairs tied to their bottoms. Ziarnik allows us to take a sneak peek into their victories: it turns out that they were playing dirty, pulling one of the contenders on a string. Even though the student camp is brimming with Eros, the energy of the young people is not seeking a romantic outlet, not even one that would fit into the construction of the new order. Fantasies about an affair are instead nourished by the bosses. The student film director rejects romantic versions of the script. He is clearly mocking convention by proposing to the viewers that the “obligatory erotic scene,” which is “indispensable in any modern film,” be over and done with quickly. The couple—with no connection to the filmed reality—runs in fast-forward around sand dunes, and then sits on the beach, with paper roses stuck in the sand around them. The romance indeed stops being interesting, because it is part of the apparatus’ self-representation. Satisfied desires legitimize the authorities. Whether it is satisfied between young people or with “a mature man” makes no difference. Since dreams come true and the matchmaking agency has met its plan, there are no reasons for complaints. But as Ziarnik shows, the romantic motifs have nothing to do with the most important matter: politics as participation in power. The strong sensation of claustrophobia is evidence that the time of revolution has passed. Construction—the type we see in I Don’t Like Mondays—has little to do with the ethos of building as portrayed in An Adventure in Mariensztat. Power structures and social structures have ossified. There is no space for invigorating movement. On the one hand, desire slips away from management and, on the other hand, when managed, it dies out. The energy that bubbles over at camp finds its outlet in a revolt. The revolution is no longer with the state and its apparatus; it is against them. Eros shifts onto the side of the revolution as well. We see a scene of rebellion, clearly referencing the events of 1968 that had shaken Europe not

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much earlier. Two camps form at the beach. The students attack from behind colorful umbrellas. The barricades are burning, and a cloud of black smoke is rising above them. The allusion to documentaries from Paris is all too clear. But this is not all. The fighters prepare torches and set them ablaze, attacking with them. It is difficult to shake off the impression that the fire of revolution or progress unites into one with the torch of Eros. The bosses have entrenched themselves opposite the students under a black flag. Unlike the half-naked youth, they are dressed in heavy coats and hats, according to the current office fashion. There are not many of them, yet the students’ attack fails. The torches are left on the battlefield. The clatter of a typing machine—which sounds like a series of rounds from a machine gun—the banging of stamps, telephones, and signatures put an end to the tirade. Only two are left on the front line. Ultimately, they raise a white flag and join the enemy forces, getting uniforms and blurring into their camp. Taking over the barricades of youth comes surprisingly easy to the directors. The resistance turns out to be weak, and it seems that no one believes in its success. Only one raised torch is still on fire. The top director takes it down and puts it out. There will be no revolution. Yet, the contradiction remains. The movie, which constantly plays with conventions, using cabaret scenes, ends with one such cabaret number. The directors sing a song, their credo: Oh you, our fighting years, When we did not know the nights from the days, One had to have a strong head on his shoulders, And always say everything’s fine. We spread these words wherever we went, With a strong voice, sometimes we yelled. Our motto is that “things will work out,” That we are happy just as we are.

It turns out that, just like the characters of Personal Search, they have a revolutionary past. In this case, however, the project and practice diverge at an important point: the change has to self-legitimize and announce its own success. The dream of self-realization meets a barrier: that is, the practice of power, which strives for control over change and eliminates everything that could indicate frustration from social life. There is no room for revolutionary transgression here. The state of blockade was grasped nearly at the same time—in 1972— by Jerzy Gruza in his movie The Move, which was halted by censorship. The main character Andrzej (Wojciech Pszoniak), a young engineer, is suffocating in his stabilized, bourgeois world. His inertia creates an oppressive atmosphere. Neither his satisfied dream of owning his own apartment

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nor his marriage can satisfy him. In a fit of pique, Andrzej pours pink paint all over his walls, furniture, and a gramophone that is playing a sentimental hit song, Żółty jesienny li√ć by Janusz Laskowski. He tries to escape, to move elsewhere, but it proves impossible. The crisis is not solved as easily as in I Don’t Like Mondays, even though the characters come up with similar ideas. Adam’s father—clearly a revolutionary from the previous generation—tries to bring his son to heel and to anchor him in the current reality once again. He reprimands him sternly: – What does your workplace council think about this? – These are my personal matters. – No matters are personal! Doesn’t it mean shit to you that we produce fridges, non-iron shirts? . . . – But I want to live through something. – What, specifically? – Fear. – Socialism gives you safety, you don’t have to worry about old age, sickness, and now you want to live through something, right?! Then go whoring!

The handsome Italian who came to the rescue is a mere memory. Sex no longer has transgressive potential, nor does it now lead to satisfaction. Neither a homosexual porter from a rented moving truck (Wiesław Dymny), who gives Andrzej an unripe apple, nor girls who study Italian in anticipation of customers, and who provide unusual services, can offer a way out. Furthermore, Andre—Andrzej’s brother—refuses to take him to his dream of the West and adventure. Neither a priest nor even the militia can help. A militiaman—reminiscent of those in Chmielewski’s movie—stops Andrzej who is having a meltdown, and gently tries to convince him to get a grip on himself. – Why are you crying? – I’m not crying. – What are you doing, then? – I’m crying. – I’ve seen you before. – But back then I wasn’t crying. – So you are crying now! Admit it! – I admit. – Citizen, shame on you, this better be the last time. Such an adult citizen!

Andrzej’s escape ends with suicide, which turns out to be the only way out of his new apartment and relationship. Ziarnik is not pessimistic, however. He has hopes for a change and believes in it. “Thinking that has been put in motion once cannot be

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stopped,” he declares through the words of his character. Meanwhile, the struggle continues. The directors sing of their triumph: The cloud on your forehead is futile, Our time won’t end anytime soon, You will come to our office one day, And you will become one of us.

They are accompanied by a ballet group. Four young girls dance and undress in front of them. Their moves are increasingly wild. Even though in the end they land in the arms of the older men, as is usually the case in a cabaret, it seems that their wildness will turn against the authorities sooner or later. The energy they represent cannot be harnessed. The 1971 dream of a revolt proves surprisingly conservative in comparison with the mid-1950s. The scale of social change seems much more modest. The folk heroes, and with them the appetite for upending the social order, disappear after the thaw. Breaking down class barriers is no longer interesting. The working couple is replaced by students or members of the new elites, while the contest is now limited to the intelligentsia as the group predestined for power and fighting over it within their own circles. Women also disappear. Marianna from I Don’t Like Mondays is a mere shadow of Hanka Ruczajówna. She does not formulate any non-erotic demands: in fact, she does not even exist as an autonomous entity in the social space. Women are completely absent from the depiction of a revolt in Blue as the Black Sea. They returned to their role of a symbol of the revolutionary Eros. The battle for power is taking place only between men. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

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Bibliography Hendrykowski, Marek. Socrealizm po polsku: Studia i szkice. Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2015. Janicki, Stanisław. Aleksander Ford. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1967. Janion, Maria. “Bogini Wolno√ci (Dlaczego rewolucja jest kobietą).” In Kobiety i duch inno√ci, 5–45. Warsaw: Sic!, 1996. Konieczka, Dawid. Nie lubię poniedziałku: Pozdrowienia z Warszawy. Accessed June 20, 2018. http://film.org.pl/r/nie-lubie-poniedzialku-pozdrowienia-z-warszawy162361/. Lubelski, Tadeusz. Historia kina polskiego: Twórcy, filmy, konteksty. Chorzów: Videograf II, 2009. ———. Strategie autorskie w polskim filmie fabularnym lat 1945–1961. Krakow: Rabid, 2000. Misiak, Anna. Kinematograf kontrolowany: Cenzura filmowa w kraju socjalistycznym i demokratycznym (PRL i USA); Analiza socjologiczna. Krakow: Universitas, 2006. Ogórek, Michal. Co lubią tygrysy. Brochure attached to DVD from the series Kultowe komedie PRL-u. Vol. 6. Wydawnictwo Bauer, n.p. Ostrowska, Elżbieta, “Polish ‘Superwoman’: A Liberation or Victimization?” In Women in Polish Cinema, edited by Ewa Maziarska and Elżbieta Ostrowska, 55– 74. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. ———. “Socrealistyczne maskarady patriarchatu.” In Między słowem a obrazem: Księga pamiątkowa dla uczczenia jubileuszu Profesor Eweliny Nurczy≈skiejFidelskiej, edited by Małgorzata Jakubowska, Tomasz Kłys, and Bronisława Stolarska, 205–12. Krakow: Rabid, 2005. Radkiewicz, Małgorzata. “Gender w polskim kinie popularnym.” In Gender w humanistyce, edited by Małgorzata Radkiewicz, 43–54. Krakow: Rabid, 2001. Skotarczyk, Dorota. Obraz społecze≈stwa PRL w komedii filmowej. Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2004. Słodowska, Joanna, ed. Wajda. Filmy. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1996. Sobolewski, Tadeusz. “Buczkowski.” Film, February 20, 1977. Talarczyk-Gubała, Monika. PRL się √mieje: Polska komedia filmowa lat 1945–1989. Warsaw: Trio, 2007. Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies. Translated by Stephen Conway. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Toniak, Ewa. Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm. Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008. Zawadzka, Anna. “Ósmy dzie≈ tygodnia.” Studia Litteraria et Historica, no. 1 (2012): 1–17. Accessed March 10, 2018. doi: 10.11649/slh.2012.018. Zwierzchowski, Piotr. “Przygoda na Mariensztacie, czyli socrealizm, ‘branża’ i kultura popularna.” In Pęknięty monolit: Konteksty polskiego kina socrealistycznego, 119–50. Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego, 2005. ———. “Przygoda na Mariensztacie, czyli socrealizm i kultura popularna.” In Widziane po latach: Analizy i interpretacje filmu polskiego, edited by Małgorzata Hendrykowska, 35–44. Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Pozna≈skiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 2000.

CHAPTER FIVE

“’Cause a Girl Is People”: Projects and Policies of Women’s Emancipation in Postwar Poland Agnieszka Mrozik

When a girl drives and ploughs . . . In one of the scenes of Leonard Buczkowski’s film An Adventure in Mariensztat (Przygoda na Mariensztacie, 1953)—the first Polish feature movie shot in color—a group that has come to Warsaw for a review of folk dance and music ensembles sings the song “Cyraneczka.”1 With its flirtatious tone and playful bickering between girls and boys, the song becomes a modern manifesto of rights of a woman, and her first and supreme postulate of being acknowledged as a human being. In response to the traditional, folk belief that a woman can be a human being at best in the eyes of a man who loves her (“A teal—not a bird,/A girl—not people . . ./What you squabbling for?/I know that you love me”) Hanka Ruczajówna—a soloist from the ensemble who, before the performance, strolled around the streets of the capital city rising from its wartime ashes and spoke to an all-female brigade of stonemasons busy with the rebuilding—sings her heart out asserting that a girl no longer has to look into the eyes of a man to confirm herself as a human being. The reason why is because when sitting up on a tractor—driving and ploughing—a girl is “like a boy” (“The machines are on their way/Girls behind their steering wheels/Each one of them like a boy”). This means that it is work, and not love, that makes her human (“A girl is not people?/Just see for yourself/how she’s on a tractor/driving and ploughing,/’cause she is people!”).2 1 2

Cyraneczka means little teal, a type of Eurasian duck. Karolina Jędrych notes that the “folk quality of Cyraneczka, performed in the movie by the Mazowsze Dance and Song Ensemble, was merely conventional.” She quotes Iwona Sowi≈ska, who wrote that “Tadeusz Sygiety≈ski [founder of Mazowsze and the writer of many of its songs] only used some folk motifs of the Mazowsze region. The song’s melody did not have an original and there was certainly nothing folk to its text, penned by Ludwik Starski, and tackling the burning

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Released in movie theaters during the last stretch of the Six-Year Plan (it premiered in January 1954, while the Plan was carried out from 1950 to 1955), An Adventure in Mariensztat placed the spotlight on women who were to benefit the most from accelerated industrialization: young female peasants who escaped their rural homes to come to the city, willing to take up jobs in the so-called male professions, well-paid and gradually moving up in terms of social prestige. The change they were undergoing was first and foremost material, relating to standards of living: the young female workers were accommodated in workers’ hotels, with access to cafeterias and community centers, but also movie theaters, walks in the park, and dances. Nevertheless, the mental change that transformed their way of thinking about themselves and their role within the society was inextricably connected with the material one.3 Hanka Ruczajówna embodied these changes. The stubborn, selfassured girl expressed the ambitions and desires of the new generation of Polish women who sought confirmation of their own worth not in the eyes of men, but rather in work. These women trusted in their own capabilities, but also in the assurances of the management—or, more broadly, of the Party (represented by the comrade-secretary)—that it would facilitate the accomplishment of their professional plans. They were also ready, in line with the agitative message of the movie, to carry the light of knowledge to the currently unconscious female masses (in one of the scenes, Hanka tells the wife of her opponent, foreman Ciepielewski, that by giving up her professional work and serving her husband she agrees to the role of a slave).4 While the movie was amiable toward the “new women”—this “product” of the Six-Year Plan—its take on the “old men” who had not yet made

issue of professional, or even ‘human’ emancipation of women.” Karolina Jędrych, “‘Miło√Δ w czasach odbudowy’ czy ‘przygoda z Warszawą’? O pierwszoplanowej bohaterce Przygody na Mariensztacie,” Zeszyty Naukowe Towarzystwa Doktorantów Uniwersytetu Jagiello≈skiego, no. 1 (2010): 146. It is worth mentioning that in the version of Cyraneczka sung by Mazowsze today, the horizon of women’s desires is demarcated by dreams of belonging to the loved man: “He will walk me all the way home/Embrace me, tell my mom,/That he’ll never give me up.” Mazowsze, Złota kolekcja (Warner Music Poland, 2000). 3 See, for instance, Małgorzata Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Natalia Jarska, Kobiety z marmuru: Robotnice w Polsce w latach 1945–1960 (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015); Katherine Lebow, “Women of Steel,” in Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1948–56 (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2016), 97–123. 4 See Małgorzata Fidelis, “Młode robotnice w mie√cie: Percepcja kobiecej seksualno√ci w Polsce w latach pięΔdziesiątych XX wieku,” in Kobieta i małże≈stwo: Społeczno-kulturowe aspekty seksualno√ci. Wiek XIX i XX, ed. Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc, vol. 8 (Warsaw: DiG, 2004), 453–75.

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peace with the new lay of the land was a critical one, albeit jocular in tone. Their representative, foreman Ciepielewski, was depicted as a kind-hearted but grotesque relic of the epoch which had delegated women to the kitchen, and not to construction sites, and which did not see them as equal partners, but rather as inferior beings. The movie, whose plotline focused on the romantic ups and downs of Hanka, transformed from a rural girl into a Warsaw bricklayer, and Janek Szarli≈ski, a masonry shock worker, simultaneously raised the issue of new roles for men and women in the socialist society and the new model of relations between them, a raw issue just after the war. Also, unlike any other movie released in the first half of the 1950s with a similar theme—such as The Bus Leaves at 6:20 (Autobus odjeżdża 6.20, 1954) or the comedy Irena, Come Home! (Irena do domu!, 1955), to name just two—it gave the upper hand in this postwar gender conflict to women. In contrast to Krystyna Poradzka (the heroine of Autobus) or Irena Majewska (the eponymous character in Irena), Hanka Ruczajówna did not ask her fiancé’s permission to take up the bricklaying job, she did not resort to “female tricks” (ploys, compliments) to get this permission, and she did not make any compromises to achieve her goal. In the final scene, foreman Ciepielewski, who used to complain about “bricklaying chicks,” gave the female brigade a hand in finishing work on the rebuilding of the Bricklayer’s House, initiated by Hanka.5 An Adventure in Mariensztat was a comedy, but the laughter that it evoked was not, as in the subsequent decades of the People’s Republic of Poland (suffice it to mention the famous Working Woman from The FortyYear-Old [Czterdziestolatek, 1974–77] TV series and the Women’s League from the film Sexmission [Seksmisja, 1983]), at the expense of emancipated women. It was rather a lighthearted mockery of the men who could not catch up with the pace of changes. Directed by a man and written by 5

It should be noted that Hanka Ruczajówna, as a woman without family commitments (unmarried, childless), was perfect for illustrating the opportunities and chances that socialism had in store for Polish women. Looking to the future with faith, she cast her problems aside, while other female characters of socialist realist movies—wives and mothers—could not shed it so easily. Both Krystyna Poradzka and Irena Majewska had to think about their families. Their situation was more complex and thus it required more complex solutions, such as providing care for their children while they studied and took up jobs. The Bus Leaves at 6:20, as the only movie discussed here, stressed this complexity of female fate and it did so by choosing a non-comedy convention. Pathos and solemnity shrouded the tough life choices of the main heroine: her lonely relocation to Silesia, taking up a job as a welder and working her way up to technical education, her ultimate victory. Krystyna’s stubborn perseverance not only enabled her to climb up the social ladder and get respect, but also motivated her slipshod husband to turn his life around, find an honest job, and fight for the affection of his supportive wife.

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another man (Ludwik Starski), it was something akin to a distorted mirror, in which males were to see their backwardness.6 In this chapter I demonstrate how a message about the new roles of women (and the new relations between women and men) was created in postwar Poland and then reproduced via press, literature, and cinema. I am not so much interested in the “input” and “output” products—that is, representations of the “old” and “new” Polish woman in the public discourse7—as in the very process of creating this new “product”: what tools were used in this process, in what conditions, and by whom this postwar message about the emancipation of women was shaped; a message, let me emphasize, that aimed to transform Polish women from dutiful wives and mothers into independent, equal agents of socialist modernization. I predominantly focus on the first postwar decade: however, by recalling voices of the architects of the socialist vision for women, I also broach the interwar and post-Stalinist times. I claim that the processes I describe here were not occurring in a historical vacuum: not only did they draw from the interwar traditions of the fight for women’s rights, but they also did not end abruptly when de-Stalinization began. They were marked by continuity and change, which I attempt to grasp here.

“The end of the kingdom of pots” In contemporary research on the history of women in postwar Poland, the issue of waged work as the main determinant of women’s social role and self-assessment comes to the fore. Historians point out that the issues of professional training, changes in labor law, and new professions accessible to women dominated political debates and press articles. They also recurred in women’s own statements: in letters to magazines and women’s 6

For more on An Adventure in Mariensztat, see Katarzyna Chmielewska, “Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish”; Aránzazu Calderón Puerta, “An Adventure in the Steelworks and in Mariensztat: Family and Emancipation of Women in 1950s Polish Cinema”; and Tomasz Żukowski, “Eroticism and Power,” all in this volume. 7 There are quite a few such works already. See, for example, Ewa Toniak, “Kilof i woalka: Robotnica jako Inny pism kobiecych około 1950 roku,” in Polka: Medium, cie≈, wyobrażenie, ed. Monika Gabry√, Monika Ruda√-Grodzka, and Barbara Smole≈ (Warsaw: Fundacja Odnawiania Znacze≈, 2006), 77–78; Katarzyna Sta≈czak-Wi√licz, “Traktorzystka—o potędze wizerunku,” Teksty Drugie, no. 3 (2013): 150–63; Ewa Fogelzang-Adler, “Żony, matki, pracownice: Role społeczne kobiet w Polsce Ludowej w interpretacji tygodnika Przyjaciółka (1948–1953),” Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis: Studia Politologica, no. 10 (2013): 24–41.

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organizations, in competition diaries.8 It seems, however, that just as much attention in the public debate of the time was devoted to issues concerning the family, and especially—immediately after the war—the legal situation of women and children.9 The Second World War, which swept across Polish territory, devastated the country, claimed the lives of over six million people and separated thousands of couples; many people lived in informal relationships and the legal status of many children was unclear. The regulations adopted by the new authorities were meant to solve the pressing family problems of Poles. On September 25, 1945, the decree on Marital Law was adopted (and enacted on January 1, 1946), introducing the institutions of civil marriage and divorce. Not only did it make life easier for citizens who wanted to regulate their legal situation as quickly as possible (until the end of 1948, divorce could be granted at the petition of only one spouse), but it also stripped the Catholic Church of its erstwhile privileged position when it came to decisions regarding their public status. Only a marital union concluded at a registrar’s office was deemed valid. The divorce procedure was also laicized. The new law thus reacted to the changed political situation of Poland, as its authorities decided on September 12, 1945, to annul the concordat that had been in place in relations with the Vatican since 1925. New regulations within the scope of family law were adopted in 1946: on January 22, the decree on Family Law, and on May 14, the decree on Guardianship Law, both of which took effect on July 1 of that year. The two decrees abolished legal differences between children born to married couples and out of wedlock. Both mother and child could now petition for the establishment of paternity and thus demand child support. The right to financial benefits guaranteed by the law and not left to the whims of the man was a key consequence of the newly introduced laws, although the change in the social position of children born out of wedlock, and of their mothers, was just as momentous. It was manifested by the gradual disappearance of the odium of “bastard” and “fallen woman.”10 8

See Dariusz Jarosz, “Kobiety a praca zawodowa w Polsce w latach 1944–1956 (główne problemy w √wietle nowych bada≈ źródłowych),” in Kobieta i praca: Wiek XIX i XX, ed. Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc, vol. 6 (Warsaw: DiG, 2000), 217–44. 9 See Claire Duchen and Irene Bandhauer-Schöffmann, When the War Was Over: Women, War and Peace in Europe, 1940–1956 (London and New York: Continuum, 2001). 10 See, for instance, Ewa Jurczyk-Romanowska, “Instytucja pochodzenia dziecka w polskim prawie rodzinnym w latach 1946–1965,” Wychowanie w Rodzinie 7, no. 1 (2013): 295–330; Piotr Fiedorczyk, “Status prawny dzieci pozamałże≈skich w prawie rodzinnym pierwszych lat Polski Ludowej,” Miscellanea Historico-Iuridica 13, no. 2 (2014): 123–38.

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The new decrees marked a radical change in the lives of thousands of women and children in Poland. Just how great a revolution this was is evidenced by letters sent to editors of magazines, asking time and again for an explanation of the new laws and their consequences. “Does the right to divorce mean that my husband can divorce me anytime he wants?”; “Will I be entitled to keep my husband’s surname after divorce?”; “How can I prove paternity and demand child support from a man who denies he is the father?” Judging by such press releases, which continued to answer similar questions well into 1948, we may surmise that the amendment of family law was a subject of great interest to Polish women.11 The new law solved the issues that had bothered activists of the women’s movement for a long time and whose regulation they had been unable to force through, despite the animated discussions around this topic. In order to understand the difficulties—sometimes humiliations— that the institution of marriage, governed by the Church and often imposed by the state, posed for women, we need only take a cursory look at the memoirs of prewar activists of the women’s movement and activists of the left: socialists and communists. For example, the left-wing politician and writer Wanda Wasilewska, in a conversation that she had in January 1964 with historians from the Institute of Party History, run by the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Komitet Centralny Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej, KC PZPR), mentioned that when she wanted to travel to the Soviet Union in 1936 with her erstwhile partner Marian Bogatko, they were unable to get the necessary documents owing to the fact that they were not married: Whether we liked it or not, we went to my Calvinist home church in Leszno street [in Warsaw]. When the pastor asked us to give some sort of a religious statement, and we were in a crazy hurry, he finally got angry and asked, in an irritated tone: I don’t understand what it is that you’re after—a wedding or papers? I said: just the paper.12

11

See, for instance, O. G., “Nowe prawo małże≈skie,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 1 (1946): 2; J. Falenciak, “Zagadnienie sieroctwa a nowe prawo opieku≈cze,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 9 (1946): 2–3; O. A., “Aby małże≈stwo było ważne,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 9 (1946): 3; Elżbieta Gli≈ska, “O rozwodach,” Kobieta, no. 12 (1948): 17; Janina Kruszewska, “Prawo do nazwiska,” Kobieta, no. 14 (1948): 17; Elżbieta Gli≈ska, “Zrównane w prawach,” Kobieta, no. 24 (1948): 3–4; Maria Staniszkis, “O pełne prawa,” Kobieta, no. 26 (1948): 3–4; Janina Kruszewska, “N.N.,” Kobieta, no. 32 (1948): 7; and Janina Kruszewska, “Czy o prawach matki i dziecka nie√lubnego pisze się zbyt wiele?,” Kobieta, no. 45 (1948): 22. 12 Wanda Wasilewska, “Wspomnienia Wandy Wasilewskiej,” Z Pola Walki, no. 1 (1968): 121–22.

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Janina Broniewska, an author of children’s books and editor of children’s magazines, reminisced that if a word had leaked out of the fact that she was living with her fiancé—the socialist poet Władysław Broniewski—without a wedding, there would have been “a veritable scandal” at the public school where she taught in the 1920s: “such an informal living arrangement would have been scorned upon as inadmissible immorality in the teaching world, which should lead by example.”13 Broniewska, just like Wasilewska, decided to take care of her marital formalities in a Protestant church, believing it would be easier and less restrictive to her autonomy than a Catholic wedding: “We decided to pick the lesser evil. Not a priest from the dominant church, propped up by the concordat. Let it be a Protestant one.”14 For the communist activist Felicja Kalicka, in turn, the decision not to marry before the war set her on a path of humiliations in public institutions, starting from the hospital where she gave birth to her son. On his birth certificate, the heading under which the father’s name is usually entered was tainted by the branding two-letter acronym “N.N.,” meaning “surname unknown.” This happened even though the child’s father was not only not unknown, but also determined to acknowledge him, maintain him, and take care of him: That was the custom here when parents did not have an official marriage certificate. Only after Kostek [Kalicka’s partner] firmly demanded that his name be put in as the father’s did they agreed to enter his statement and particulars in the printed form. Also later I had all types of problems caused by not having the marriage certificate. I was assigned a social worker, for example, who visited me once in a while to check if my son was cared for properly, whether I fed him well, etc.15

The new marital, family, and guardianship laws were to protect women against this not-so-distant shaming. The leftist press (notably the Marxist magazine Kuźnica [Forge], with the pen of literary critic Jan Kott) saw this development as not only a concession to women’s organizations, but also as a tool in the fight for a lay society.16 The new regulations made the position 13

Janina Broniewska, Dziesięć serc czerwiennych (Warsaw: Iskry, 1964), 161. Ibid., 164. If the Broniewskis, who married in November 1926, had decided to go through with a Catholic wedding, Janina would have been forced to swear obedience to her husband. This is due to the fact that the new marriage oath, identical for women and men (without the earlier words on “marital obedience” for the wife) was not introduced until January 1, 1929. See “Interesujące zmiany w rytuale ko√cielnym,” Polska Zachodnia, September 26, 1928, 3. 15 Felicja Kalicka, Dwa czterdziestolecia mojego życia: Wspomnienia 1904–1984 (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1989), 73. 16 See Jan Kott, “Przed zwycięstwem zdrowego rozsądku,” Kuźnica, no. 7 (1945): 4–5. 14

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of women and men equal in marriage: both had the same rights and duties, including toward children, and by facilitating the divorce procedure they safeguarded the material situation of the latter. Women’s rights activists continued in their efforts to make Polish women aware of their rights, but they also pressured the authorities to shield the welfare of women even more effectively, both during marriage and upon its termination. For example, just before the adoption on May 29, 1946, of the decree on Marital Property Law (which took effect on October 1, 1946), activists from the Women’s League insisted that the Ministry of Justice introduce a provision on the marital joint property regime into the draft bill. It was to ensure that women who did not work outside of the house would receive a share in the assets of the husband.17 However, the crux of the discussion around marital and family law did not boil down exclusively to the issue of regulating the legal status of women and children. The changes in law were perceived as the first step toward changing the social position of women, and, consequently, the way they thought of themselves: their self-attitude, ambitions, aspirations. Also in this case, the echoes of interwar debates held in women’s circles reverberated.18 In reference to those debates, but also in response to the postWWII socioeconomic conditions and in line with the message of the new authorities, works were inaugurated that aimed to create a “new woman,” capable of seeing her life situation as independent from her relationship with a man. She was to be educated and professionally active; this was the capital upon which she was to build her value as a human being. Feminist writer and publicist Irena Krzywicka wondered on the pages of Kobieta

17

See, for example, O. G., “Czy majątek żony i męża ma byΔ wspólny?,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 3 (1946): 4; (fal.), “Małże≈skie prawo majątkowe,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 11 (1946): 18. Ultimately, the 1946 decree introduced a number of marital property regimes: from complete separation of assets, through partial separation, to fully joint property. It was not until the introduction of the Family Law, adopted on June 27, 1950 and enacted on October 1, 1950, that provisions in this regard became fully coherent and the assets amassed during marriage were considered the joint property of wife and husband. See Grzegorz Jędrejek, “Ustawowy ustrój majątkowy małżonków (rys historyczny—stan de lege lata—postulaty de lege ferenda),” Studia z Prawa Wyznaniowego 4 (2002): 205–18. 18 I have written about the prewar views of Wanda Wasilewska and Janina Broniewska on marriage in the following articles: “Communist Women and the Spirit of Transgression: The Case of Wanda Wasilewska,” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (2016): 116–43; and “Miło√Δ i ekonomia, czyli listy Janiny i Władysława Broniewskich ze wspólnego życia,” Trybuna, December 26, 2015, accessed December 9, 2018, http://portaltrybuna.pl/milosc-i-ekonomia-czyli-listy-janiny-iwladyslawa-broniewskich-ze-wspolnego-zycia/.

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(Woman) whether the emergence of a “new matriarchy” would not put an even greater burden on women than the one traditional in Polish culture— of perfect wives, mothers, housekeepers, and now also employees—leading to the complete liberation of men from responsibility for family life.19 Yet, for most female journalists, writers, and social activists, the rise of the autonomous woman was a priority. They employed a whole range of persuasive devices to achieve their goal. They appealed to female pride and dignity—they encouraged women to give up unhappy marriages and start anew, either alone or in a relationship with a man who would respect their ambitions—at the same time exposing the flaws of men, incapable of keeping up with women’s pace in the new reality. Wanda Żółkiewska, a leftist writer and publicist, encouraged the readers of Moda i Życie Praktyczne (Fashion and Practical Life): “Let’s not return to the old ways. Let’s try to forge a new women’s fate out of the new reality. . . . Love cannot be hell. When a marriage becomes hell at no serious fault of ours, we have to leave.”20 In turn Wanda Melcer, a prewar writer, traced and stigmatized on the pages of Kobieta the phenomenon of “obsolete men,” “home tyrants,” whose power within the family began to shrink after the war: “Today this petty, but often very onerous ruler is, along with other monarchs, on his last legs. The irreversible course of life brings new family patterns.”21 Dorota Kłuszy≈ska, a pre- and postwar socialist activist, also chastised the men who were falling behind the increasingly emancipated women: “They are still deeply convinced of their ‘importance,’ superiority; they are afraid of competition and they look with disdain at women’s capacities.”22

19

Irena Krzywicka, “Nowy matriarchat,” Kobieta, no. 17 (1948): 18–19. See also Małgorzata Fidelis, “Czy ‘nowy matriarchat’? Kobiety bez mężczyzn w Polsce po II wojnie √wiatowej,” in Kobieta i rewolucja obyczajowa: Społeczno-kulturowe aspekty seksualno√ci; Wiek XIX i XX, ed. Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc, vol. 9 (Warsaw: DiG, 2006), 421–36. It is important to note that the new regulations concerning marital and family law as well as mass education and professional work, which resulted in a significant change to women’s social, economic, and cultural position, were not only a Polish specificity. In the whole so-called Eastern bloc, new socialist authorities introduced similar solutions. See, for instance, Lynne Haney, Inventing the Needy: Gender and the Politics of Welfare in Hungary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); and Kateřina Lišková, Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style: Communist Czechoslovakia and the Science of Desire, 1945–1989 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 20 Wanda Żółkiewska, “O małże≈stwie udoskonalonym i losie kobiety samotnej,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 9 (1948): 4. 21 Wanda Melcer, “Niepotrzebny człowiek,” Kobieta, no. 13 (1948): 8. 22 Dorota Kłuszy≈ska, “Klasztor, samobójstwo, staropanie≈stwo,” Kobieta, no. 30 (1949): 6.

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“The obsolete men,” as well as the arrogant ones, striving to show women that they were inferior,23 similarly to women hanging off male arms, functioned in this discussion as examples of “old people,” relics of the past. At the same time, they were an excellent counterpoint for all those “new women” and—as mentioned with more restraint—“new men,” who were to build a “new society” based on equality and mutual respect: “The time when ‘disappointed’ women retreated to monasteries or took poison seems to have been centuries ago, although it was indeed quite recently. The progress and rebuilding of the system results in new people, with completely different attitudes to various issues, including love.”24 What allegedly made the “new women” unique was their socialization, their participation in the broad current of economic and cultural transformations. Educated, well-read,25 working “new women” could not be indifferent to what was happening in the world. With each passing year, women’s magazines gave increasingly detailed accounts of domestic and global events, publishing reports from sessions of the Women’s League and Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), interviews with female politicians, such as Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Eugenia Pragierowa and deputy Dorota Kłuszy≈ska, and reports from the foreign visits of party activists.26 They also published biographies of prominent female politicians, such as Dolores Ibárruri, Eugénie Cotton, WIDF leadership member Nina Popova, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of Romania Ana Pauker, outstanding scientists such as Maria Skłodowska-Curie, education activists like Stefania Sempołowska, and writers and poets, such as Helena Boguszewska or Maria Konopnicka.27 The role of these biographies was informational as much as 23

Wanda Melcer, “Profesor i kobiety,” Kobieta, no. 13 (1948): 9. Kłuszy≈ska, “Klasztor, samobójstwo, staropanie≈stwo,” 6. 25 The very first issue of Kobieta, from October 1947, featured a column on books by Hanna Brevis, which aided readers in choosing the right type of reading material. 26 In late 1947 and early 1948, Kobieta published an account from the joint visit of female politicians Edwarda Orłowska (Polish Workers’ Party), Maria Jaszczukowa (Alliance of Democrats), and Stanisława Garncarczykowa (People’s Party) to the Soviet Union. The story was also published as a book entitled Były√my w ZSRR (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Spółdzielni Wydawniczej “Współpraca,” 1948). 27 See, for instance, (kar. b.), “Bojowniczka o polską krzywdę: Stefania Sempołowska,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 2 (1946): 7–8; Ewa Curie, “Najsławniejsza i najskromniejsza w√ród matek,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, nos. 5–6 (1946): 3; Stefania Bejlin, “Maria Konopnicka,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 7 (1946): 3; Aniela Daszewska, “O Helenie Boguszewskiej i jej książkach,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 11 (1947): 5; “Wspomnienia siostry o Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 19 (1948): 4; J. B., “Jej zapomnieΔ nie można . . . ,” Moda i Życie, 24

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model-forming: they showed the features in demand in the new conditions, such as involvement in public life, diligence, and responsibility for the common good. Wanda Żółkiewska announced 1946 to be the year of “the end of the kingdom of pots,” thus professing the onset of a new era, which was to be shaped by new generations of ambitious and creative Polish women: “Attention, Poles! We are facing a choice and we must decide for ourselves what it is that we want. . . . The quill of history is still in motion, it keeps writing and recording our new traditions; it is up to us what it will put on the pages of the year 1946 . . . and beyond.”28 In a way paraphrasing the Marxist statement according to which “we make our own history,” but each time we do so in the circumstances inherited from our predecessors, the author called for the rejection of the prewar rightist past, marked with “the tradition of copper pots,” and instead for tapping into the deeper layers of our national history, brimming with examples of female activity: “Because besides the tradition of copper pots, of bored slaves—either mindless or tragic—we know traditions of great women, scientists, fighters for freedom and justice, female writers, painters, creators of life and culture.”29 While rekindling the pride in female achievements, Żółkiewska referred to Polish history, but she also made references to the slogan of international solidarity of women, resonant after the war: Because besides the tradition of copper pots, we also have the traditions of the years of German occupation, when women from all over the world showed what they are capable of and who they can be, and not only within a movement of single individuals, but within a multi-million movement for freedom and solidarity, systematic and permanent. The prize that we get for that effort is the independent and democratic Poland of today.30

no. 4 (1950): 6; “Maria Konopnicka—poetka ludu,” Moda i Życie, no. 29 (1950): 7; and A. W., “Maria Curie-Skłodowska: człowiek przyszło√ci,” Moda i Życie, no. 19 (1951): 3. We should note that Sempołowska and Skłodowska-Curie had been made into patrons of the education reform introduced after the war, and they were frequently written about not only in women’s press. See, for example, Żanna Kormanowa, “Stefania Sempołowska,” Nowa Szkoła, no. 3 (1945): 48–50; S. Świdwi≈ski, “Działalno√Δ Stefanii Sempołowskiej,” Nowa Szkoła, no. 3 (1945): 51–55. Some of the first postwar book publications were also dedicated to both of them: for instance, Żanna Kormanowa, Panna Stefania: wspomnienie o Stefanii Sempołowskiej (Łódź: Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza “Książka,” 1945); and Helena Bobi≈ska, Maria Curie-Skłodowska (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1945). 28 Wanda Żółkiewska, Koniec królestwa rondli (Łódź: Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza “Książka,” 1946), 19–20. 29 Ibid., 19. 30 Ibid.

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The postulate of socialization of women—of yanking them from the stuffy circle of family matters, from the “idiocy” of married life and romantic love (to paraphrase Marx), and including them in the swift current of postwar transformation—emerged also in a discussion about literature for girls, held in 1946–48 on the pages of cultural, educational, and women’s magazines.31 Initiated in response to a series of reprints of books by prewar authors and to the emergence of books that, although new, stayed faithful to the prewar poetics (this concerned mainly Maria Krüger’s 1945 novel Szkoła narzeczonych [School for Perfect Housewives]), this discussion targeted the genre whose main social function boiled down to reproducing traditional women’s roles: of fiancées, wives, and housekeepers, thus excluding young women from the dynamically changing reality. “The ‘noxiousness’ of books for ‘coming-of-age girls’ lies . . . in the dearth of themes, in simplicity, shallowness, and hypocrisy. These books tell of love in a deceitful way, they stir up an erotic haze, they teach girls how to be coquettes, offer vain promises of an easy, empty life limited to visits, parties, trips, and picnics,” wrote literary critic Maria Gutry.32 Stefania Wortman added: “Dreams of love, nourished with images of unlikely situations, ‘winged adventures’ in which flirtatious schoolgirls are swept up in the middle of the night to attend a ball, solitary castles where infatuated counts imprison beautiful Gypsies, dances in the moonlight on board luxurious yachts—these can have serious repercussions on the minds of exalted young women.”33 According to the discussion participants, the harmfulness of literature for girls was that it inculcated young women with the belief that the only possible channel of upward mobility leads through marriage, preferably with a well-born man. Within the context of the ongoing changes, this proved the anachronism of this literature, which “should not pass social censorship.”34 Arguing that literature for girls was 31

Women, next to children and peasants, were the main focus of interest and work for educational, cultural, and political activists in the second half of the 1940s. Actions aimed at making them aware of their rights and duties toward the society and the state (including the family) may be, of course, seen as an expression of paternalism (or even patriarchalism), but they can also be viewed as an important element of the socialist project of forging a new type of human being: emphasis on the empowerment of a group that had thus far been handicapped, treated patronizingly, seen as subhuman. 32 Maria Gutry, “Polska literatura dla dzieci 11–14-letnich,” Ruch Pedagogiczny, no. 4 (1947): 276. 33 Stefania Wortman, “O fałszowaniu rzeczywisto√ci w książkach dla dziewcząt,” Odrodzenie, no. 3 (1949): 7. The article was reprinted in the fourth issue of Moda i Życie Praktyczne from 1949, initiating a discussion on what young women should be reading. 34 Krystyna Kuliczkowska, “Parę uwag o ‘powie√ciach dla dorastających panienek,’” Odrodzenie, no. 13 (1946): 11.

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shackling its readers within a tight cage of “female problems,” instead of being their window onto the world, the critics called for a rejection of the alienating label: “The ‘novel for young girls’ should shed this label that restricts it to the tight boundaries of just one gender. Why only about girls, why only for girls? . . . Is the coexistence of both genders in the fields of science, sports, social work not based on healthier principles?” mused Krystyna Kuliczkowska.35 Her view was seconded by Wanda Grodzie≈ska: “Must we indeed produce tendentious novels for young girls, fashioned after Anne of Green Gables? . . . Let us finally stop putting ‘frills’ and ‘wooden horses and sabers’ into two separate drawers. Literature for youth must be ‘coeducational,’ just like the school, university, and life.”36 The discussion about literature for girls expressed the criticism and demands of women’s circles, consumed with the postwar task of creating “the new woman.” What should a woman capable of overcoming the challenges of the new reality be like? This question was asked by social activists, journalists, and writers in their continuation of the prewar debates.37 Of course, the postwar discussion had many new components, inspired by changes in the marital, family, education, and labor laws. Nevertheless, surprisingly, the main heroine of this discussion did not change: women’s organizations remained concentrated on a female intellectual, official, city dweller who had to be “turned into a human being,” rerouted from family obligations onto professional tracks, socialized, politicized. This means that, much like what had happened before the war, female blue-collar workers and peasants were once again left out of mainstream reflections about women in Poland (at least those taken up in women’s magazines).38 The discussion focusing on the gender gaps missed the dimension of class gaps (including between women), blurred them, or even invalidated them. This was to change at the turn of 1948 and 1949.

35

Ibid. Wanda Grodzie≈ska, “Książki dla młodzieży,” Kuźnica, no. 16 (1947): 9. 37 See Dobrochna Kałwa, Kobieta aktywna w Polsce międzywojennej: Dylematy √rodowisk kobiecych (Krakow: Towarzystwo Historyczne “Historia Iagiellonica,” 2001). 38 The only magazine for rural women available shortly after the war (1947–49), Kobieta Wiejska (Peasant Woman), published by the Association of Farmers’ SelfHelp (in collaboration with the Women’s League after May 1948), focused on advice regarding running a farm, and later also on setting up cooperatives. See Małgorzata Hajdo, “Wizerunek kobiety jako matki, pracownika i działaczki społecznej prezentowany na łamach prasy kobiecej w latach 1948–1956,” Dzieje Najnowsze 38, no. 3 (2006): 55–72. 36

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“Let’s say this openly” Minutes of the Women’s Department of the Polish Workers’ Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR)/Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR) sessions (1946–52) indicate that the focus of female activists throughout this organization’s entire existence was mainly on the issue of organizing “field work” with women: how to conduct it and how to bring new members to the Party. In other words: how should women’s organizations reach out to women in order to interest them in social activity and politics? Exchanging their field work experiences, professional activists agreed that women have to be reached by various channels, “through hearts and minds”: “If it’s a young woman—stir her ambition; if it’s a mother—get to her through her child—educational reform, showing concern for the child’s health, free school, extra meals, free textbooks, access to universities—this will win the women over for the Party,” said one activist from Lower Silesia at a national convention of the PPR’s female activists in June 1946.39 While cheering on and mobilizing each other, the female activists did not shy away from criticizing and pointing out the still-unsatisfactory results of their work. Sometimes criticism and self-criticism leaked out into the public. Such was the case in November 1948, when Kobieta, the press organ of the Women’s League, released a series of critical articles penned by Edwarda Orłowska, head of the Women’s Department. Published under a common, telling title, “Let’s Say This Openly,” they drew attention to the shortcomings of political work among peasant women and blue-collar workers. “‘We feel a bit out of place in the Women’s League. They’re all such proper ladies.’ Opinions like this could be often heard from the female workers. . . . We’d usually just shrug it off, without taking the effort to stop and analyze why the workers don’t always feel at ease in the League,” wrote Orłowska, adding that there was a shortage of working women in decisionmaking bodies: “the League Boards, even in industrial areas, have very few or no workers at all. . . . League Boards don’t pay enough attention to the living standards and everyday plights of workers in general, and of shock workers in particular. . . . instead of choosing Party activists from the group

39

AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 295/XVI-1, Minutes from the national convention of the PPR’s female activists, June 4, 1946, 3. A detailed analysis of women’s organizations activism—their goals, strategies, argumentation, and language—was conducted in Magdalena Grabowska’s book Zerwana genealogia: Działalno√ć społeczna i polityczna kobiet po 1945 roku a współczesny polski ruch kobiecy (Warsaw: Scholar, 2018). I would like to thank the author for sharing the Minutes of the Women’s Department with me and pointing out how important these documents are as a historical source.

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of working women, instead of putting them under special care . . . all too often we rely on non-working members.”40 Orłowska’s articles were disciplining and mobilizing. Addressed to the organized women activists of the Party, they were intended to motivate them to move onto the “right” path of actions: that is, to undertake intensive work among peasant and working women. The undertone of criticism and self-criticism was characteristic of many public utterances of that period, which immediately followed the Plenum of KC PPR of August 31—September 3, 1948. The Plenum resolution particularly accused the intelligentsia activists (both female and male), who were active on various fronts, that they had been “tolerating ideological chaos for far too long, . . . had not worked out appropriate work methods . . . and neglected the Marxist perspective of issues of literature, art, and science.”41 Self-criticism of the intelligentsia was important—even necessary, as Orłowska argued elsewhere—because it made it possible to understand the errors made by representatives of this social layer and to improve: “Here the comrades spoke a lot about the second stage, yet there was not much self-criticism. Still, they had to show some self-criticism in certain areas. As regards other comrades . . . we heard a lot of self-criticism from them. It helps both them and us.”42 It was also necessary in the face of the still-unsatisfactory results of Party recruitment.43 Not enough women were enlisted, recruitment was slow in the country, and too much appreciation was given to “wives of their husbands,”44 instead of supporting hard-working blue-collar women and women who achieved the status of intelligentsia members by way of upward mobility: “Enough of this leadership by the wives of mayors and directors! These madams don’t work themselves, so they usually have no understanding for the working people, they are empty on the inside. Let them first learn from us— people of work, people with life and social experiences,” an anonymous teacher reported to Orłowska.45 40

Edwarda Orłowska, “Powiedzmy sobie otwarcie . . . ‘Czujemy się nieswojo w Lidze . . . ,’” Kobieta, no. 47 (1948): 4. 41 Quoted in Zbigniew Żabicki, “Kuźnica” i jej program literacki (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1966), 241. 42 AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 237/XV-1, Minutes from the national convention of the female activists on May 19, 1949, 26–27. 43 See Natalia Jarska, “Kobiety w PZPR 1948–1956: Paradoksy mobilizacji politycznej kobiet w stalinizmie,” in Kobiety “na zakręcie” 1933–1989, ed. Ewa Chabros and Agnieszka Klarman (Wrocław: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2014), 43–47. 44 See Zofia Dyktor-Dąbrowska, “Przy mężu . . . ,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 28 (1948): 2. 45 Orłowska, “Powiedzmy sobie otwarcie . . . ,” 4.

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The head of the Women’s Department pointed out a serious problem: the insufficient agency of proletarian women, caused, among other things, by their low participation in the transformations that occurred after the war in the area of education and culture. A few years after the war, the percentage of illiterate men and women was still so high that fighting against this phenomenon was declared to be one of the priorities of the forthcoming socalled second stage of work (on April 7, 1949, a law to counter illiteracy was passed).46 The press trumpeted the intensive educational campaigns organized in the country and in the cities to popularize reading, including the launching of new libraries and book clubs.47 Female Party activists appealed for the greater involvement of teachers and librarians in rural educational work. Until then, they had been perceived as a “politically uncertain element” (“The intelligentsia has largely stopped in its tracks. It is unable to move on with the times, it does not understand the spirit of the times, and it tends to halt the new currents”48) or outright “reactionaries” (“It’s important who’s sitting in the library; it is the librarian who hands out reactionary literature to children. The libraries are littered with old books . . .”49). Now, their “undoubtedly great influence on the local population” was acknowledged.50 Another part of this stage was the lively discussion of literature and theater, which should be addressed to the proletariat,51 including proletar46

“Na froncie walki z ciemnotą i zacofaniem,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 17 (1949): 3. 47 See, for instance, Joanna Landy-Brzezi≈ska, “Zwalczanie analfabetyzmu w√ród kobiet,” Kobieta, no. 52 (1948): 3–4; J. Baranowska, “Nauczę cię czytaΔ,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 4 (1948): 2; “Chcemy mieΔ własny klub książki,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 9 (1949): 2; “Najszlachetniejsza bro≈,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 13 (1950): 3; “ABC dla dorosłych,” Kobieta, no. 13 (1949): 4–5; and “Walka o upowszechnienie kultury trwa . . . ,” Kobieta, no. 26 (1949): 3–4. 48 See Jadwiga Werne, “O upowszechnieniu kultury przez o√wiatę,” Kobieta Dzisiejsza, no. 13 (1946): 10. 49 AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 295/XVI-1, Minutes from the national convention of the PPR’s female activists, June 4, 1946, 4. 50 AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 237/XV-1, Minutes from the national convention of the female activists on May 19, 1949, 25. The problem of lack of trust toward the intelligentsia, raised by the women’s movement activists, was part of a broader discussion held continuously, virtually from the end of the war, on the pages of Kuźnica, among others. See Zbigniew Żabicki, “Kuźnica w walce o inteligencję,” in “Kuźnica” i jej program literacki, 7–84. 51 See a series of articles by Jadwiga Siekierska, published in Kuźnica: “O chorobach wzrostu kulturalnego,” Kuźnica, no. 21 (1948): 4–5; “Ludowo√Δ i pseudoludowo√Δ,” Kuźnica, no. 24 (1949): 5; “Z problemów ruchu kulturalnoo√wiatowego,” Kuźnica, no. 27 (1949): 7; and “Pospolite ruszenie pisarzy,” Kuźnica, no. 11 (1950): 2.

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ian women. It was stressed that their role in the popularization of culture, and especially of readership, was impossible to overestimate. Still, however, there was a shortage of works that could be of interest to women, that could speak to them and, through them, to the local communities. In the cultural magazine Odrodzenie (Rebirth), Aniela Mikucka, head of the Readership Research Office, wrote: The fundamental role of the “hotbed” of readership should be entrusted to women. . . . A woman as a carrier of love for books has a unique value. Individual means of popularizing readership through women in rural areas can accomplish the goal relatively quickly, yet with one fundamental: that, besides the “classics,” there will also be other, appropriate books. The aspirations and dreams that she seeks to fulfill must be expressed in the new books. Women certainly want to read, but they can’t find books to suit them.52

Interestingly, in the discussion on socialist realism, which was just gaining traction toward the end of the 1940s, some attention was devoted to the analysis of pre- and postwar literary works by women. Although the label of “women’s literature” was not applied, it was still pointed out,53 just like before the war, that the writings of certain female authors were blemished with the flaw of psychologism.54 It was criticized as “striking a compromise with bourgeois conventions” that “demand peculiarity and obscuring the sense of literary works.”55 This charge was originally formulated by young literary critic and writer Wiktor Woroszylski against Kapel (1948),56 a collection of novellas by Wanda Żółkiewska, a leftist female author particularly productive immediately after the war. The example of Żółkiewska, who actually “reeducated” quickly and began to publish short stories with female shock workers as heroines in Moda i Życie (Fashion and Life) magazine,57 shows that in the period of settling scores that followed the summertime Plenum and preceded the unification Congress of the Polish Socialist Party and Polish Workers’ Party in December 1948, anyone could be targeted. Scores were also settled with women’s magazines, which did not ensure sufficient representation of female workers and peasants on their pages: “It 52

Aniela Mikucka, “Troski czytelnicze,” Odrodzenie, no. 40 (1948): 5. See Joanna Krajewska, “Ignacy Fik, Irena Krzywicka: socjalizm a feminizm,” in Literatura i socjalizm, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Dorota Krawczy≈ska, and Grzegorz Wołowiec (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2012), 109–28. 54 See Ewa Korzeniewska, “Wznowienie Krystyny, córki Lavransa,” Kuźnica, no. 17 (1948): 10–11. 55 Wiktor Woroszylski, “Kapel Wandy Żółkiewskiej,” Odrodzenie, no. 31 (1948): 7. 56 Kapel is a name of a rooster, a character of one of the novellas. 57 See Wanda Żółkiewska, “Olbrzymka,” Moda i Życie, no. 21 (1949): 6. 53

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is high time for women’s magazines to speak louder and clearer about those truths of our reality, so that we don’t have to search high and low for them like a nugget of gold lost in the sand of cooking recipes, fashion, advice, and stories,” wrote Orłowska in Kobieta.58 Her view was not an isolated one. At a meeting of the Women’s Department of KC PZPR in May 1949, Dorota Kałuszy≈ska criticized the press organ of the Women’s League: “I cannot see anywhere [in this magazine] this deep revolutionary current that is sweeping up the women’s movement, all of the League’s activities. Kobieta does not respond to our needs and that is why it absolutely has to change. We must alert the Political Bureau so that it can point the attention of the press to the fact that it is not illuminating women’s issues properly.”59 The “proletarian turn” that took place in late 1948 and early 1949 was, as it seems, an important element of the Party—including state women’s organizations—moving on to another stage of activity. The aim was to agree on the objective and the instruments for processing it (March 1948 saw the release of the first issue of Przyjaciółka [Girlfriend], a magazine addressed to less-educated women,60 and the last issue of Kobieta came out in December 1949), but also to motivate the Party activists and assign new tasks to them. “We’re supposed to work without any slacking off, but this is not always the case. Tomorrow, each one of you will receive a detailed report on all voivodeships with their characteristics. This has to be worked all the way through. Remember one thing: who are you lying to, the Party? This here is a formidable task that the Party has entrusted to us,” Orłowska reminded the women gathered at the national council of women Party activists in May 1949.61 “The new stage” meant, on the one hand, intensified preparations for the activation of women on the labor market, which was furthered through the development of professional training, popularization of the idea of competitiveness, and placing women in various professional positions. On the other hand, it also represented a greater emphasis on empowering proletarian women by way of the aforementioned educational campaigns, popularization of culture, and greater presence in the media. The agent that emerged in the course of those activities was new not only 58

Edwarda Orłowska, “Po co owijaΔ w bawełnę?,” Kobieta, no. 48 (1948): 6. AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 237/XV-2, Minutes from the meeting of the Council of the Women’s Department on May 25, 1949, 52. 60 According to Zofia Sokół, issue number 37 of Przyjaciółka, released on November 21, 1948, achieved a print run of one million copies, the first such success in the history of postwar press in Poland. Zofia Sokół, “Przyjaciółka—tygodnik kobiecy (1948–1998). Czę√Δ I: lata 1948–1951,” Kieleckie Studia Bibliologiczne 6 (2001): 101. 61 AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 237/XV-1, Minutes from the national convention of the female activists on May 19, 1949, 27. 59

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in terms of gender (new woman), but also in terms of class (proletarian woman). She was emerging into the well-fertilized substrate of discussion about women’s rights and the discussions about the “increasingly severe class struggle,” escalating in late 1948 and early 1949, which could only be understood by those women who were properly prepared.62 This was to be aided by the organization of a mass women’s movement. The head of the Women’s Department emphasized that women must be interested in politics, shown that politics means knowledge of the world and the capacity to make decisions. She also encouraged Party activists to take up work among various groups of women: to reach out to the religious ones, to the intellectuals, and to “give them something to do.” She emphasized the need for overtly political activities, without hiding behind the veil of the social work of the Women’s League: “And so: don’t beat around the bush. There is no truth that can’t be explained to a woman. You just need to find manners, methods, and forms for making this truth sink in.”63 This is because the “new stage” called for a mass, but also politically conscious, women’s movement, for building identification of women with a specific political project: “We have to keep one thing in mind. If the Central Committee of our Party and the second Plenum keep talking about broad-scale work with non-members, does that mean that we should scatter without taking care of leadership?”64 There was one more goal: to include women’s topics in the mainstream Party politics. The activists pointed out that the Party needed to solve the basic problems of women’s everyday lives. If women were to study and improve themselves, it would not be enough for some of their chores to be taken over by their family. They needed nurseries, kindergartens, cafeterias, laundries, because only in this way—with fewer household chores—would women be able to get involved in social, cultural, and political activities.65 Besides pressuring the Party to take up concrete measures in this respect, the activists also demanded that their male Party comrades change their personal attitude toward the so-called “women’s issue.” To this end, they appealed to their Party ethos: “Our comrades must be made aware of the indispensability and seriousness of women’s work. If a member of the PPR does not appreciate women’s work, he must be a bad member,” said historian and women’s activist Żanna Kormanowa in May 1946 at a meeting of

62

See Edwarda Orłowska, “Na nowym etapie,” Kobieta, no. 45 (1948): 3–4. Orłowska, “Po co owijaΔ w bawełnę?,” 6. 64 AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 237/XV-1, Minutes from the national convention of female activists on May 19, 1949, 24. 65 See, for example, Cecylia Bitter, “Czy tylko kobieta?,” Kobieta, no. 49 (1948): 25; Stefan Kos, “Gdy mężczyźni sami cerują własne skarpetki,” Kobieta, no. 9 (1949): 8. 63

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Party activists from Warsaw.66 They also availed themselves of examples from the Soviet Union and of the words of Lenin and Stalin, which were to have a disciplining effect, as Edwarda Orłowska noted during a lecture in the Party School of the KC PZPR in June 1949: A host of male Party activists still believe today that work among women is in the interest of women themselves, which is why they alone should get their hands dirty with all these female matters—and as for us, we simply must stay out of their way. . . . Such narrow-minded practitioners should be reminded of the words of comrade Stalin, delivered at the 1933 Joint All-Union Conference of Collective Farm Shock Workers: “I know that many of you do not appreciate women and even laugh at them. That is a mistake, comrades, a serious mistake. The women . . . are a great force. To keep this force down would be criminal. It is our duty to bring the women . . . forward and to make use of this great force.” And the Bolsheviks deliver on their promises.67

The examples of changes that had taken place many years before in the Soviet Union, brought up increasingly often in the public debate, complemented the picture of the so-called second stage. It may be compared to a run-up before the leap that was the Six-Year Plan.

“They’ve already made it” The latest history works that analyze the purposes and consequences of the Six-Year Plan for women underscore that this was an enormous endeavor aiming at the “productivization” of over a million women.68 In order to go through with it, a number of changes were introduced in education (vocational training was developed, for example) and in legislation concerning labor protection (for instance, in February 1951, the ban on employing women on night shifts and underground was abolished). The labor market was also reorganized: the division into male and female professions was abandoned, and the care and service sector was expanded through opening up new nurseries, kindergartens, cafeterias, and laundries. All these measures—even though their implementation was far from the idealized picture presented by the media, as contemporary historians note—contributed not 66

AAN, PPR, KC, WK, 295/XVI-1, Minutes from the convention of the Warsaw female activists on May 27, 1946, 15. 67 Edwarda Orłowska, O pracy partii w√ród kobiet (Warsaw: Szkoła Partyjna KC PZPR, 1949), 3. 68 Natalia Jarska wrote that “the plan aimed to increase the share of women in the employed population to 33.5 percent, which mean that 1,230,000 women would have to be hired.” Jarska, Kobiety z marmuru, 105.

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only to a higher percentage of women employed in non-agricultural sectors, but also to a redefining of the social roles of women, which, in turn, affected the relations between women and men and the shape of the Polish family.69 Transformation in the material sphere went hand in hand with transformation in the symbolic sphere. Art historian Ewa Toniak pointed out that in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a female worker, whom she had referred to as “the Other,” “invaded” the covers of women’s magazines,70 thus becoming the most visible symbol of the changes occurring in postwar Poland. It seems, however, that the female worker “invaded” more than just covers, and not only of women’s magazines (which has been aptly grasped by Toniak’s book on the representations of women in Polish socialist realist art),71 which might indicate that “the Other” made herself at home in the symbolic space of those times quite quickly. The first half of the 1950s witnessed a true spate of cultural texts in which the main heroine was a female worker, often employed in one of the so-called male professions, such as tractor driver, miner, ironworker, welder, and so forth.72 She was on posters, in art, literature, and in cinema, which Lenin had called “the most important of the arts.”73 We may venture to say that, along with the crystallization of the SixYear Plan concept, the female worker was elevated to the status of a work of art: frozen in the position of a symbol of the accelerating industrialization. Yet, she also became an agent who finally got her own voice, or more precisely, the space to articulate it. Even a cursory review of the cultural

69

See Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization, 61–169. Toniak, “Kilof i woalka,” 77. 71 See Ewa Toniak, Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm (Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008). 72 Literary historians remark that women who worked in the so-called male professions were rarely the leading characters in production novels. See, for instance, Jerzy Smulski, “Obraz kobiety w prozie polskiej pierwszej połowy lat pięΔdziesiątych XX wieku. Rekonesans,” in Pogranicza wrażliwo√ci w literaturze dawnej oraz współczesnej, part 1: Miło√ć, ed. Inga Iwasiów and Piotr Urba≈ski (Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczeci≈skiego, 1998), 143–60; Magdalena Piekara, “Nie ma ‘dziewcząt na traktorach’: Wizerunek kobiety w powie√ci— konfrontacja z utrwalonym stereotypem,” in Bohater powie√ci socrealistycznej (Katowice: Gnome, 2001), 47–73; and Słownik realizmu socjalistycznego, ed. Zdzisław Łapi≈ski and Wojciech Tomasik (Krakow: Universitas, 2004), s.vv. “Awansu społecznego temat,” “Kobiety obraz.” 73 I have written about the place of the female tractor driver in the public discourse of (not only) the Stalinist period in “Hela traktorzystka,” in …czterdzie√ci i cztery: Figury literackie: Nowy kanon, ed. Monika Ruda√-Grodzka et al. (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2016), 210–27. 70

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magazines published in the late 1940s and early 1950s presents us with not only poems that lauded female workers, but also reprints of their congress speeches and opinions voiced in polls published on special occasions.74 The women’s press had “targeted” female workers somewhat earlier, the clearest evidence of this being the aforementioned establishment of Przyjaciółka in March 1948. After this, in mid-1949, Moda i Życie Praktyczne, the first postwar magazine for educated women, transformed into Moda i Życie, and in 1953 into Kobieta i Życie (Woman and Life), a magazine targeted at a mass, less-educated female audience. Their pages were filled with interviews with female shock workers, reportages from construction sites and workers’ hotels where women resided, and photographs of female workers at work and in their free time.75 Representation was becoming an important sign of the empowerment process of proletarian women; of their entry—as hosts—into the symbolic sphere, heretofore reserved for the upper social layers, and women of such layers, but also for proletarian men.76 Thus, the female workers moved from their decades-long background role to become leading protagonists of the public debate, which could not be overlooked. In order to understand the meaning of those public sphere images and the impact they had on transforming women’s lives, one should read the memoirs of those women. “I remember a picture, a very popular poster: a girl with a hammer and a saw, smiling and self-assured, a true worker, who was building a new, better world along with the others. . . . This poster made a tremendous impression on me, I started imagining it was me,” reminisced Anna Walentynowicz, a gantry crane operator from the Gda≈sk Shipyard and one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, some years later.77 However, not only this change of position was important; how it was presented mattered too. Pathos and solemnity, characteristic of socialist realist literature and art,78 found their way into the popular women’s press as well. Even the briefest mention of women employed in the so-called 74

See, for instance, “Trzy głosy w walce o pokój,” Odrodzenie, no. 40 (1949): 1; Tadeusz Urgacz, “Robotnice,” Odrodzenie, no. 40 (1949): 2; and Zofia Bystrzycka, “Dziewczyna warszawska,” Nowa Kultura, no. 29 (1950): 4. 75 See Sta≈czak-Wi√licz, “Traktorzystka—o potędze wizerunku,” 150–63. 76 For more on the place of women in socialist iconography, see Eric Hobsbawm, “Man and Woman in Socialist Iconography,” History Workshop Journal 6, no. 1 (1978): 121–38. 77 Sławomir Cenckiewicz, Anna Solidarno√ć: Życie i działalno√ć Anny Walentynowicz na tle epoki (1929–2010) (Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Zysk i S-ka, 2010), 38. 78 See, for instance, Victoria E. Bonnell, Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Wojciech Tomasik, Inżynieria dusz: Literatura realizmu socjalistycznego w planie “propagandy monumentalnej” (Wrocław: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, 1999), 200.

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male professions (which, in time, began to be referred to simply as “new professions” to scrub the gender assignment out of language) ceremoniously trumpeted the transformation ushered in by this fact for all women and all of society. Tales of “women crossing another boundary,” “overcoming difficulties,” imbued with movement, pace, and haste, contributed to the deconstruction of traditional ideas associated with femininity as a synonym of passivity and inertia. The true “new women”—not the imagined, expected ones, but the ones in the flesh, here and now—were challenging men, and even winning the competition against them.79 “They’ve already made it,” heralded the title of one of the articles which asserted that education and hard work were a certain road toward women’s upward mobility and emancipation.80 Interestingly, after the very first, almost sensational releases about women employed in “new professions,” shrouded in an aura of amazement, the press began to cover their stories as something ordinary, “natural,” deeply rooted in the tissue of the socialist reality. Such was also the attitude of the female workers: “We work in harmony now and we never say things like: ‘this is a man’s job and this is a woman’s,’” a reader of Moda i Życie wrote in February 1950. She complained that in the early days of her employment in the automotive industry, she had been bothered by men.81 Pursuant to the ideological message, the new workers’ femininity was also to be manifested in something else: unlike the outstanding women from the history of Poland, such as poet Maria Konopnicka, writer Eliza Orzeszkowa, scientist Maria Curie-Skłodowska, and politician Małgorzata Fornalska, who were keenly brought up at every women’s congress, the protagonists of the mass imagination were not lone individuals facing the world on their own. They were a collective, which proved their uniqueness and constituted their force: “I look at the bright, smiling faces of my colleagues, then I glance at the portraits of the famous Polish women from our history and I can’t help making comparisons. We—one thousand women— are delegates of the millions of Polish women. How much easier is our fate, how victorious it can be!” wrote leftist author Halina Rudnicka about the 1952 Women’s Congress in Łódź.82 Moreover, thanks to accounts from foreign travels and reportages on the situation of women in other countries, Poles had the opportunity to feel that they belonged to an international female community acting for peace and progress.83

79

See Jadwiga Wolska, “Koniec monopolu mężczyzn,” Kobieta, no. 49 (1949): 6. See K. Lewi≈ska, “Z nich już są ludzie,” Moda i Życie, no. 32 (1949): 3. 81 “O pracy kobiet w ‘męskich zawodach,’” Moda i Życie, no. 6 (1950): 2. 82 Halina Rudnicka, Kobiety mówią o sobie (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1952), 10–11. 83 See Halina Rudnicka, W odwiedzinach u kobiet radzieckich: Reportaże (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1954). 80

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Such publications, frequently released in the first half of the 1950s, not only recorded and documented the history of the changes taking place in the lives of Polish women.84 They were also a new form of writing the history of women and the women’s movement: a new way of constructing the tale of people who “make their own history,” and—at the same time—a new method of producing those people.85 One distinguishing feature of these publications was that they were erecting a pantheon of women, whose greatness was to stem from work—not just intellectual, but also manual. The pantheon was open to female workers, peasants, working intellectuals, and activists from labor unions and women’s organizations; not just the academics, politicians, artists, and philanthropists previously selected according to criteria established by the privileged classes. All of them— named, as non-anonymity was another important tool of empowerment— were deemed worthy of commemoration. Representing various professions, levels of education, age, and places of origin, they embodied the idea of egalitarianism. At the same time, they were the elite, which Rudnicka made sure to underscore. The concept of “new elites” applied not only to the protagonists of model-forming tales, but also to their authors. Katherine Lebow, the historian of modern East Central Europe, observed that the early 1950s brought a rearrangement among the intellectual elites, which was caused, among other reasons, by the emergence of a new intelligentsia educated after the war.86 Its female representatives entered many key areas, such as science, culture, education, and media. The women’s press was recruiting female correspondents and journalists.87 At the same time, old collaborators were delegated to new tasks. If we take a closer look at the biographies of journalists, writers, and social and political activists involved in the project of women’s emancipation just after the war, such as the above-mentioned Edwarda Orłowska or Wanda Żółkiewska, we will notice that many of them 84

See, for instance, Wanda Suchecka, Kobiety na szlaku budownictwa socjalistycznego (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951); Janina Weissowa, Kobiety polskie w obronie pokoju (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951); Jan Guranowski, Kobiety w walce o pokój i socjalizm (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951); Kobiety nowej Polski (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951); Wanda Żółkiewska, Kobieta w Polsce 1945–1955, illustrated by Barbara and Stefan Bałukowie (Warsaw: Polonia, 1955). 85 See Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). 86 Katherine Lebow, “The Enlightenment of Kasza,” in Unfinished Utopia, 124–51. See also Agata Zysiak, “Projekt: nowe kadry,” in Punkty za pochodzenie: Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mie√cie (Krakow: Nomos, 2016), 163–221. 87 See “Co nam dał pierwszy Zjazd Korespondentów Wiejskich,” Przyjaciółka, no. 14 (1950): 3.

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were removed from the “women’s section” and delegated to new jobs right in the middle of the Six-Year Plan.88 This was justified with the “revolutionary logic”—the same one that historian Jan Baszkiewicz described in reference to eighteenth-century France89—naturalized and objectified with the aid of the category of “generational change.” “People of the past”—the architects of the new order and the midwives of the “new woman”—were taking a step back (or were forced to do so) in order to make space for the new people. “Ours is a happy generation, because we can see our dreams come true,” asserted Irena Krzywicka at the 1952 Women’s Congress in Łódź,90 and announced that the job was finished. Even though the Six-Year Plan was still underway, the mission of empowering women was deemed completed.

Emancipation of women—a project (un)finished The early 1950s marked the beginning of dismantling of units responsible for conducting “work among women.” The Women’s Department of the Central Council of Trade Unions (Centralna Rada Związków Zawodowych, CRZZ) was disbanded in 1950; the Women’s Department of KC PZPR and workplace sections of the Women’s League were dissolved in 1953. Their responsibilities were taken over by other units, but their reach, as indicated by historian Natalia Jarska, was limited.91 The justification be88

After the Women’s Department of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (KC PZPR) was disbanded in early 1953, Edwarda Orłowska worked as a secretary of the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society until 1968. She was also a member of the Central Audit Commission of the KC PZPR (until 1964) and a deputy to the Sejm (until 1956). See “Edwarda Orłowska,” in Public Information Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance, accessed December 9, 2018, http://katalog.bip.ipn.gov.pl/informacje/37986. Wanda Żółkiewska moved from the “women’s section” to the “children’s section” in the early 1950s. From 1950 to 1954, she headed the Children’s Literature Division at the Central Management of the Polish Writers’ Union, collaborated with children’s and youth magazines—such as Płomyk (Flame), Płomyczek (Little Flame), Świerszczyk (Little Cricket), and Świat Młodych (The Youth’s World)—and wrote a number of books for young readers. See “Żółkiewska Wanda,” in Współcze√ni polscy pisarze i badacze literatury: Słownik biobibliograficzny, ed. Jadwiga Czachowska and Alicja Szałagan, vol. 10 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2007), 26–28. 89 See Jan Baszkiewicz, New Man, New Nation, New World: The French Revolution in Myth and Reality, trans. Alex Shannon, ed. Janusz Adamowski (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Peter Lang, 2012). 90 Rudnicka, Kobiety mówią o sobie, 36. 91 Upon the dissolution of the Women’s Department of the Central Council of Trade Unions, workplaces appointed female boards, subordinate to general

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hind this decision was that there was no need to maintain institutions responsible for the “women’s issue,” as the policies of equal gender rights should be pursued by the entire Party.92 Two laws enacted in the early 1950s were to guarantee the equality of women’s rights: the Family Law of June 27, 1950 (in effect since October 1, 1950) and the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland of July 22, 1952.93 They confirmed the equal rights of women and men to work (the right to equal remuneration for equal work, the right to education, social security, dignity in public life) and at home (equal rights of both spouses, but also equal family duties, including toward children). At the same time, they secured the rights of women who were not professionally active (joint spousal property regime) and guaranteed better protection of the rights of children born out of wedlock (guardianship, child support, and inheritance rights were regulated with greater precision).94 Both documents were significant not only because they laid down actual legal provisions, but also because they set a direction of thinking about gender equality. The analysis of these documents, as well as press articles about works on the new law, allows us to risk the statement that at the beginning of the 1950s, the manner in which the “women’s issue” was approached in Poland changed. This change consisted of a more intimate connection between women’s issues and family issues. The press underlined that the socialist state was “a guardian of the family’s durability” (the Family Code stipulated that a court could refuse to grant divorce in cases

workplace boards. After the disbandment of workplace sections of the Women’s League, the “female issues” were entrusted to trade unions. The role of the Women’s Department of the KC PZPR was, in turn, taken over by the Organization Department of the KC PZPR (at the central level) and by deputy managers of the propaganda and organization divisions (at the regional level). Jarska, Robotnice z marmuru, 191–201. Katherine Lebow observes that the reorganization of women’s structures decreased their importance and resulted in the loss of many members. Women felt that they no longer had a need to belong to the Women’s League, because membership in trade unions was enough for them. Lebow, “Women of Steel,” 115. 92 AAN, KC PZPR, 237/XV-3, Memo of the Women’s Department concerning the change of forms in which the Party would manage work among women, September 29, 1952, 79–83. 93 “Konstytucja Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej uchwalona przez Sejm Ustawodawczy w dniu 22 lipca 1952 r.,” Dziennik Ustaw, no. 33 (1952), item 232, accessed December 9, 2018, http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id= WDU19520330232. 94 “Ustawa z dnia 27 czerwca 1950 r. Kodeks rodzinny,” Dziennik Ustaw, no. 34 (1950), item 308, accessed December 9, 2018, http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/Details Servlet?id=WDU19500340308.

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where it would work to the “detriment of children and minors”) and that it “cared about mothers,” so that they could raise “healthy and happy generations of Poles.”95 The role of the woman as a mother, somewhat less accentuated in the preceding years, was now having its big comeback. “Mothers! You raise your children in the commendable pride in our accomplishments, in the love of work and peace, in the spirit of ardent patriotism. . . . Women—wives, mothers! . . . let us multiply the forces of our beloved Fatherland—People’s Poland,” went the appeal of the National Council of Urban and Rural Women Leaders, delivered at the 1952 Women’s Congress in Łódź.96 This of course does not mean that working women disappeared from the media. Nevertheless, increasingly often they were reminded who it was that they were working for: their children, families, fatherland. The traditional turn in representations also affected women from history, enlisted as personal role models of the era. Popular heroines of the women’s press of the period, such as Nadezhda Krupskaya, Hanka Sawicka, or Małgorzata Fornalska, Soviet and Polish female politicians, were to be remembered by the readers first and foremost as wives of great socialists (Krupskaya), brave daughters of their nation (Fornalska, Sawicka), or educators of the next generations of youth (Krupskaya).97 Men, on the other hand, starred in the roles of heroic fighters for socialism and as its stubborn builders, but also as caring fathers of the nation.98 Al95

See, for instance, Zofia Gawro≈ska-Wasilkowska, “O trwałą i zdrową rodzinę,” Kobieta, no. 47 (1949): 3–4; “Nowe prawo rodzinne,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 20 (1949): 2; A. Sz., “By matka mogła spokojnie pracowaΔ,” Moda i Życie, no. 6 (1950): 2; “Zdrowie dziecka—skarb narodu,” Moda i Życie, no. 9 (1950): 3; “O miło√ci, małże≈stwie, rodzinie,” Moda i Życie, no. 12 (1950): 2; M. P., “Prawo Polski Ludowej chroni rodzinę,” Moda i Życie, no. 28 (1950): 10; M. P., “Polska Ludowa dba o młode pokolenie,” Moda i Życie, no. 29 (1950): 10; and B., “Niezmącona rado√Δ macierzy≈stwa,” Moda i Życie, no. 24 (1951): 2. 96 Rudnicka, Kobiety mówią o sobie, 49, 50. 97 See, for instance, “Żona i siostra Lenina,” Kobieta, no. 16 (1949): 7; M. Kraszkiewicz, “Nadieżda Krupska—wychowawca nowego pokolenia,” Moda i Życie, no. 6 (1951): 2; “Osiem lat temu zginęła Hanka Sawicka,” Moda i Życie, no. 9 (1951): 2; and “Opowiadanie matki,” Moda i Życie, no. 29 (1951): 10. 98 See, for example, “Hasło życia Juliana Marchlewskiego,” Moda i Życie, no. 9 (1951): 2; “Wieczny płomie≈,” Moda i Życie, no. 20 (1951): 2; and “Uczymy się czciΔ i na√ladowaΔ Feliksa Dzierży≈skiego,” Moda i Życie, no. 21 (1951): 4–5. Paradoxically, in the first half of the 1950s, many female writers, journalists, and literary critics—the same ones who had previously been involved in deconstructing the traditional gender patterns—became involved in the “polishing of the male monument.” In fact, many of the famous texts of socialist realist culture that hailed the male “fighters for socialism” and the “builders of socialism” were penned by pre- and postwar female communists and feminists. On Felix

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ready toward the end of the 1940s, the women’s press began to frequently print letters and calls by male Party leaders addressed to women, and reportages from the women’s congresses obligatorily featured photographs of women speaking from podiums decorated with the portraits of Stalin and Bolesław Bierut, the first president of postwar Poland.99 Their symbolic presence was to express the principle of state protectionism, although it was at the same time an embodiment of male paternalism. The traditionalist turn also found its way to children’s and youth literature. The heated discussion about novels for girls that had taken place in the second half of the 1940s died down: paradoxically, the response to the call for universalization—or, as Wanda Grodzie≈ska had put it, “coeducationalization”—of literature for children and youth resulted in its masculinization.100 With the notable exception of the protagonist from Marta Michalska’s 1950 novel Hela będzie traktorzystką (Hela Will Be the Tractor Driver), which was actually bemoaned for its “schematism,”101 youth literature in the first half of the 1950s did not see the rise of any outstanding heroines: they were either absent from the books, delegated to household chores, or they appeared as assistants to boys, busy with building socialism.102 Dzerzhinsky, see Anna Lanota, Tarcza i miecz (Shield and Sword, 1952), and Halina Rudnicka, Płomie≈ gorejący (Burning Flame, 1952); about Lenin: Jadwiga Siekierska, Narodziny nowego (The Birth of the New, 1952); about Stalin: Helena Bobi≈ska, Soso: Dziecięce i szkolne lata Stalina (Soso: Childhood and School Years of Stalin, 1953); about Karol Świerczewski: Janina Broniewska, O człowieku, który się kulom nie kłaniał (About a Man Who Did Not Bow to Bullets, 1948), and the movie Żołnierz zwycięstwa (Soldier of Victory), dir. Wanda Jakubowska (1953). 99 See, for instance, “Sprawa kobiet na Kongresie PZPR,” Kobieta, no. 2 (1949): 6; “Lenin o prawdziwym wyzwoleniu kobiety,” Moda i Życie Praktyczne, no. 4 (1949): 3; “Nie ma zwycięskiej walki o socjalizm bez udziału kobiet . . . ,” Kobieta, no. 6 (1949): 7. 100 See Wojciech Tomasik, “Harmonia ludzi i maszyn: O socrealistycznych obrazach ‘nowego człowieka,’” in Inżynieria dusz, 124–65. 101 See Krystyna Kuliczkowska, “W√ród książek dla dzieci i młodzieży,” Nowa Kultura, no. 39 (1950): 8–10. 102 Katarzyna Bereta observed that another exception was the female protagonist of Zabłąkane ptaki (Lost Birds), a 1954 novel by Gustaw Morcinek, whose ambitions (she dreamed of becoming a lathe operator) were taken seriously, on a par with the ambitions of her adoptive brother who wanted to become a miner. Katarzyna Bereta, “O prozie realizmu socjalistycznego dla młodego odbiorcy,” in Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży (1945–1989), ed. Krystyna Heska-Kwa√niewicz and Katarzyna TałuΔ, vol. 3 (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2013), 76–77. See also Barbara Pytlos, “Powie√Δ dla dziewcząt w latach 1945– 1968: Co powinny czytaΔ dziewczęta?,” in Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży (1945–

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But the picture was not as one-dimensional as one may think. Women’s rights activists could still be heard trying to ensure that the issue of gender equality did not disappear from the public debate. The heroines of Opowie√ć wierzbowa (Willow Tale), a 1952 novel by Zofia Dróżdż-Satanowska, and of Wanda Żółkiewska’s 1951 play written for community centers, Awans (Promotion), employed Party language when reminding their male comrades of the official Party stance on gender equality. Invoking Party ethos and embarrassing men by reproaching their “reactionary” attitudes were the main tools of disciplining the more stubborn ones. As a protagonist of Awans, demanding that Party comrades start treating women seriously in the workplace, says: I want to address the issue of competition among sprayers. And I want to talk about the role of women. Hang on, I’m not about to go soft on you, because when it comes to women, nothing has changed in our workplace! Just like back in the prewar times—you look down on us as if we’re inferior! Each one of you only wants to sweet talk the girls, or, pardon my language, pinch her, like this Kotlarczyk: that’s how you deal with us!103

This demand also seeped into cinema of the first half of the 1950s, in which, interestingly, the most significant words on women’s rights were said in conversations between men. All this taken together paints a multidimensional picture of Stalinism. Its message as regards the social roles of women was visibly incoherent: emancipatory elements coexisted with conservative ones, and, as Natalia Jarska observed, the strengthening of the conservative tones may have been propelled by the system’s institutional inefficiency, especially in its underdevelopment of services and care infrastructure.104 This incoherence of the message was exploited by the authorities, but also—as noted by historian Małgorzata Fidelis—by the women themselves who, in the period of strikes in the early 1950s, demanded an improvement in work conditions, as well as during the

1989), vol. 3, 106–32. Eliza Szybowicz, however, points out that the manner of representation of girls in children’s and youth literature of the first half of the 1950s was not as conservative as researchers claim today. Girls formed part of a child collective, within which they strove to assert their agency: they collaborated with boys, but they also frequently challenged them, not fitting the typically “girly” mold. In some books, such as Hanna Ożogowska’s novel Na Karolewskiej (In Karolewska Street, 1951), girls, who were “naturally” politically conscious, acted as guides to boys in this respect. See Eliza Szybowicz, “The ‘Adolescent Sphinx’: (Post-)Thaw Novels for Girls,” in this volume. 103 Wanda Żółkiewska, Awans: Sztuka w trzech aktach (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1951), 29. 104 Jarska, Robotnice z marmuru, 203.

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“thaw” (1955–57), when they protested against their deprivation of work in the well-paid “new professions.” In order to achieve their goals, they activated their various social roles—as employees in a socialist state or mothers— and they employed various legitimate languages to this end.105 Viewing Stalinism as an incoherent or simply complex period makes it possible not only to avoid unambiguous evaluations of the era (seeing it as either reactionary or progressive), but also—by way of constructing oppositions—to avoid unambiguous assessments of the post-Stalinist period. The “thaw” did not appear in Poland out of nowhere and its effect was not explosive, immediately sweeping away the messages of the previous time. It activated the voices of those who wanted to see women exclusively as wives and mothers, but it did not gag those who wanted to continue seeing them as “human beings.” One such voice resonated in the 1955 collection Pamiętniki dziesięciolecia (Diaries of the Decade): “Even though my husband’s education doesn’t put a distance between us, it certainly does not bring us any closer to each other, either. My husband will obtain an academic title, later he will get some position, while I will only be the wife of a professor or some such appendage. The thought alone is making me uneasy. I want to live, I want to work, I want to be appreciated by society for my own merits and value.”106 The author of these words, a young wife and mother who wanted to continue her education and take up work, seeing these steps as the foundations of her worth as a human being, used the language that had ripened throughout the entire postwar period and whose roots could be traced back to an even earlier time.107 Moreover, she employed this language at a time when official messages about the social role of women were starting to adopt a more conservative slant. This is the first conclusion that I would like to draw from this chapter. The postwar project of women’s emancipation, which drew upon interwar inspirations, did not stop abruptly in 1956, when Stalinism officially ended in Poland. Rather, it morphed to fit in with the new circumstances, marked by a return to divisions into male and female professions, the gradual con105

Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization, 82–98, 224–30. Regina Kijak, “Chcę pisaΔ nie tylko o tym, co mnie cieszy, ale i o tym, co boli,” in Pamiętniki dziesięciolecia (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1955), 223. 107 This utterance echoes with tones that had been discernible twenty years earlier in Wanda Wasilewska’s letter to her mother: “I often think to myself that it’s a really good thing we did not get married. . . . I am finally a human being, and not just an appendage to someone. If my husband were a useless fool or an idiot, then he could be an appendage to me—but things being as they are, even if Marian [Bogatko] and I were equally worthy, I’d still have the disadvantage of being a woman—and even if only for this reason, I’d still be seen as an accessory to him, and not as myself.” Wanda Wasilewska, letter to her mother, February 7, 1933 (author’s personal collection). 106

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solidation of the ideal of a woman as someone who expertly juggles family and professional life, the removal of women from politics, and so on.108 As observed by sociologist Magdalena Grabowska, who examined the activism of women’s organizations in People’s Poland, after the period of dismantling they returned to “work among women,” but this time focused not on spreading political consciousness but rather on “practical activism.”109 Both literature for girls, once again widely debated, and the new phenomenon of girls’ magazine that emerged after 1956, as well as TV shows, popular music, and cinema created a new heroine of the post-Stalinist period: the “modern girl.” The question of who she was and what she wanted resonated in the 1960s and beyond.110 The female architects of the postwar project of women’s emancipation, still active in the public space, also tried to answer this question. Their fictional works and memoirs published in the 1960s and 1970s were yet another voice in the discussion on the social roles of women (and men), the shape of the family, and relations between the private and the public. This voice may have sounded somewhat oldfashioned in a changing reality, but it was nonetheless a contribution that complicated its picture.111 Another closing remark has to do with the project of women’s emancipation as a component of the socialist modernization program pursued in postwar Poland. The shaping and implementation of this project was divided into a few stages; each played a significant role in the process of (self-)empowerment of women as a diverse social group. The gender discussions held right after the war had to account for class if emancipation was not to be limited only to women from the privileged stratum. We can

108

I address this in my chapter “‘Traktorzystka to nie kobieta’: Polska polityka płci w okresie Odwilży,” in Przełom Października ‘56, ed. Paweł Dybicz (Warsaw: Fundacja Oratio Recta, 2016), 133–62. 109 Magdalena Grabowska, “From Revolutionary Agents to Reactive Actors: The Transformation of Socialist Women’s Organizing in Poland from the 1940s through the 1980s,” Aspasia 10, no. 1 (2016): 126–35. See also Katarzyna Sta≈czak-Wi√licz, “Household as a Battleground of Modernity: Activities of the Home Economics Committee Affiliated to the League of Women (1957–80),” Acta Poloniae Historica, no. 115 (2017): 123–50. 110 See Małgorzata Fidelis, “Are You a Modern Girl? Consumer Culture and Young Women in 1960s Poland,” in Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe, ed. Shana Penn and Jill Massino (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 171–84. 111 I write about this in my chapter entitled “‘We Must Reconstruct Our Own Past’: 1960s Polish Communist Women’s Memoirs—Constructing the (Gender) History of the Polish Left,” in Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism, ed. Agnieszka Mrozik and Stanislav Holubec (New York: Routledge, 2018), 192–220.

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only speculate if this accounting for class, in the face of various forms of resistance from traditionally privileged groups such as landowners, the bourgeoisie, and the Catholic Church, could have taken place in a way that was not “top-down,” that is, not by way of “manual steering”: the centralization of sociocultural-political institutions, the “cadre carousel,” tightening discipline in the scope of pursuing the Party program, and so forth. This also brings a broader reflection inspired by the musings of German historian Reinhart Koselleck on the history of the concept of emancipation:112 if the equality of rights was to become a real principle of social justice, and not just a legal norm, it was necessary to create such social and economic conditions that would turn the adopted legal acts into a principle of social life. Systemic change was thus indispensable, but at the same time, it was necessary to explain the sense of this change to the society—both women and men—so that they could understand its significance for the practice of citizens’ life. This task was undertaken, among others, by female politicians, social activists, intellectuals, and officials of education, science, and culture, whom I refer to as architects of People’s Poland (owing to their role in shaping the foundations of the postwar system) and midwives of the new female agency (owing to their involvement in the creation and implementation of the women’s emancipation project in postwar Poland). And the very last remark: there are many indications that the postwar gender equality project boiled down in Poland to the redefining of women’s social roles. Not much seems to have been done to redefine men’s gender roles, even though, as I have evidenced in this chapter, such efforts were made both within the Party and in the press and cultural texts. Perhaps the conservative tones of the “thaw” message were so resonant precisely because “work among men” was so underdeveloped and superficial. The discussion of the “masculinity crisis” and about the “return of the man” that flared up at that time was continued in the subsequent decades of People’s Poland, overlapping another one: the criticism of Stalinism as a “gender world turned upside down.”113 This topic still calls for thorough research. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.” 112

See Reinhart Koselleck, “The Limits of Emancipation: A Conceptual-Historical Sketch,” in The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts, trans. Todd Samuel Presner and Others, foreword Hayden White (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 248–64. 113 See Mrozik, “‘Traktorzystka to nie kobieta’ . . . ,” 133–62.

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Bibliography Bereta, Katarzyna. “O prozie realizmu socjalistycznego dla młodego odbiorcy.” In Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży (1945–1989), edited by Krystyna HeskaKwa√niewicz and Katarzyna TałuΔ. Vol. 3, 70–93. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2013. Broniewska, Janina. Dziesięć serc czerwiennych. Warsaw: Iskry, 1964. Cenckiewicz, Sławomir. Anna Solidarno√ć: Życie i działalno√ć Anny Walentynowicz na tle epoki (1929–2010). Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Zysk i S-ka, 2010. Fidelis, Małgorzata. “Are You a Modern Girl? Consumer Culture and Young Women in 1960s Poland.” In Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe, edited by Shana Penn and Jill Massino, 171–84. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. ———. “Czy ‘nowy matriarchat’? Kobiety bez mężczyzn w Polsce po II wojnie √wiatowej.” In Kobieta i rewolucja obyczajowa: Społeczno-kulturowe aspekty seksualno√ci; Wiek XIX i XX, edited by Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc. Vol. 9, 421–36. Warsaw: DiG, 2006. ———. “Młode robotnice w mie√cie: Percepcja kobiecej seksualno√ci w Polsce w latach pięΔdziesiątych XX wieku.” In Kobieta i małże≈stwo: Społeczno-kulturowe aspekty seksualno√ci; Wiek XIX i XX, edited by Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc. Vol. 8, 453–75. Warsaw: DiG, 2004. ———. Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Fiedorczyk, Piotr. “Status prawny dzieci pozamałże≈skich w prawie rodzinnym pierwszych lat Polski Ludowej.” Miscellanea Historico-Iuridica 13, no. 2 (2014): 123–38. Fogelzang-Adler, Ewa. “Żony, matki, pracownice: Role społeczne kobiet w Polsce Ludowej w interpretacji tygodnika Przyjaciółka (1948–1953).” Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis: Studia Politologica, no. 10 (2013): 24–41. Grabowska, Magdalena. “From Revolutionary Agents to Reactive Actors: The Transformation of Socialist Women’s Organizing in Poland from the 1940s through the 1980s.” Aspasia 10, no. 1 (2016): 126–35. ———. Zerwana genealogia: Działalno√ć społeczna i polityczna kobiet po 1945 roku a współczesny polski ruch kobiecy. Warsaw: Scholar, 2018. Hajdo, Małgorzata. “Wizerunek kobiety jako matki, pracownika i działaczki społecznej prezentowany na łamach prasy kobiecej w latach 1948–1956.” Dzieje Najnowsze 38, no. 3 (2006): 55–72. Haney, Lynne. Inventing the Needy: Gender and the Politics of Welfare in Hungary. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Jarosz, Dariusz. “Kobiety a praca zawodowa w Polsce w latach 1944–1956 (główne problemy w √wietle nowych bada≈ źródłowych).” In Kobieta i praca: Wiek XIX i XX, edited by Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc. Vol. 6, 217–44. Warsaw: DiG, 2000. Jarska, Natalia. “Kobiety w PZPR 1948–1956: Paradoksy mobilizacji politycznej kobiet w stalinizmie.” In Kobiety “na zakręcie” 1933–1989, edited by Ewa Chabros and Agnieszka Klarman, 43–47. Wrocław: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2014.

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———. Kobiety z marmuru: Robotnice w Polsce w latach 1945–1960. Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015. Jędrejek, Grzegorz. “Ustawowy ustrój majątkowy małżonków (rys historyczny—stan de lege lata—postulaty de lege ferenda).” Studia z Prawa Wyznaniowego 4 (2002): 205–18. Jędrych, Karolina. “‘Miło√Δ w czasach odbudowy’ czy ‘przygoda z Warszawą’? O pierwszoplanowej bohaterce Przygody na Mariensztacie.” Zeszyty Naukowe Towarzystwa Doktorantów Uniwersytetu Jagiello≈skiego, no. 1 (2010): 140–51. Jurczyk-Romanowska, Ewa. “Instytucja pochodzenia dziecka w polskim prawie rodzinnym w latach 1946–1965.” Wychowanie w Rodzinie 7, no. 1 (2013): 295– 330. Kalicka, Felicja. Dwa czterdziestolecia mojego życia: Wspomnienia 1904–1984. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1989. Kijak, Regina. “Chcę pisaΔ nie tylko o tym, co mnie cieszy, ale i o tym, co boli.” In Pamiętniki dziesięciolecia, 213–26. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1955. Koselleck, Reinhart. “The Limits of Emancipation: A Conceptual-Historical Sketch.” In The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts, translated by Todd Samuel Presner and Others, 248–64. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. Lebow, Katherine. Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1948–56. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2016. Lišková, Kateřina. Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style: Communist Czechoslovakia and the Science of Desire, 1945–1989. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Mrozik, Agnieszka. “Communist Women and the Spirit of Transgression: The Case of Wanda Wasilewska.” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (2016): 116–43. ———. “Hela traktorzystka.” In …czterdzie√ci i cztery: Figury literackie: Nowy kanon, edited by Monika Ruda√-Grodzka et al., 210–27. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2016. ———. “‘Traktorzystka to nie kobieta.’ Polska polityka płci w okresie Odwilży.” In Przełom Października ‘56, edited by Paweł Dybicz, 133–62. Warsaw: Fundacja Oratio Recta, 2016. ———. “‘We Must Reconstruct Our Own Past’: 1960s Polish Communist Women’s Memoirs—Constructing the (Gender) History of the Polish Left.” In Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism, edited by Agnieszka Mrozik and Stanislav Holubec, 192–220. New York: Routledge, 2018. Orłowska, Edwarda. O pracy partii w√ród kobiet. Warsaw: Szkoła Partyjna KC PZPR, 1949. Piekara, Magdalena. Bohater powie√ci socrealistycznej. Katowice: Gnome, 2001. Pytlos, Barbara. “Powie√Δ dla dziewcząt w latach 1945–1968: Co powinny czytaΔ dziewczęta?” In Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży (1945–1989), edited by Krystyna Heska-Kwa√niewicz and Katarzyna TałuΔ. Vol. 3, 106–32. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2013. Rudnicka, Halina. Kobiety mówią o sobie. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1952. Smulski, Jerzy. “Obraz kobiety w prozie polskiej pierwszej połowy lat pięΔdziesiątych XX wieku: Rekonesans.” In Pogranicza wrażliwo√ci w literaturze dawnej oraz współczesnej, part I: Miło√ć, edited by Inga Iwasiów and Piotr Urba≈ski, 143–60. Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczeci≈skiego, 1998.

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Sokół, Zofia. “Przyjaciółka—tygodnik kobiecy (1948–1998). Czę√Δ I: lata 1948– 1951.” Kieleckie Studia Bibliologiczne 6 (2001): 89–111. Sta≈czak-Wi√licz, Katarzyna. “Household as a Battleground of Modernity: Activities of the Home Economics Committee Affiliated to the League of Women (1957–80).” Acta Poloniae Historica, no. 115 (2017): 123–50. ———. “Traktorzystka—o potędze wizerunku.” Teksty Drugie, no. 3 (2013): 150– 63. Tomasik, Wojciech. Inżynieria dusz: Literatura realizmu socjalistycznego w planie “propagandy monumentalnej.” Wrocław: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, 1999. Toniak, Ewa. “Kilof i woalka: Robotnica jako Inny pism kobiecych około 1950 roku.” In Polka. Medium, cie≈, wyobrażenie, edited by Monika Gabry√, Monika Ruda√-Grodzka, and Barbara Smole≈, 77–78. Warsaw: Fundacja Odnawiania Znacze≈, 2006. ———. Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm. Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008. Wasilewska, Wanda. “Wspomnienia Wandy Wasilewskiej.” Z Pola Walki, no. 1 (1968): 115–95. Zysiak, Agata. Punkty za pochodzenie: Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mie√cie. Krakow: Nomos, 2016. Żabicki, Zbigniew. “Kuźnica” i jej program literacki. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1966. Żółkiewska, Wanda. Awans: Sztuka w trzech aktach. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1951. ———. Koniec królestwa rondli. Łódź: Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza “Książka,” 1946.

CHAPTER SIX

An Adventure in the Steelworks and in Mariensztat: Family and Emancipation of Women in 1950s Polish Cinema Aránzazu Calderón Puerta

. . . the family—a supposedly private reality that is of public origin. Pierre Bourdieu1

Introduction and objective of the study: the concept of “communism” The objective of this chapter is to analyze four feature films from the 1950s, whose action focuses on the situation of Polish women: An Adventure in Mariensztat (Przygoda na Mariensztacie, 1953) directed by Leonard Buczkowski; Not Far from Warsaw (Niedaleko Warszawy, 1954) directed by Maria Kaniewska; The Bus Leaves at 6:20 (Autobus odjeżdża 6.20, 1954) directed by Jan Rybkowski; and Irena, Come Home! (Irena do domu!, 1955) directed by Jan Fethke. I intend to look at how these four films—two comedies, one spy movie and one socio-psychological drama—depict the mutual relations between the limitations on the emancipation of women and what the movies refer to as family, as any discourse on family forms part of a political ideology determining the system of social relations with specific values. In other words, it constitutes a concrete vision of the world within a given order that governs social and personal relations in issues such as, for example, the balance or imbalance between the public and the private, or the preestablished division of roles and duties depending on gender, which can be more or less conservative or subversive. Social order depends mainly on the institution of family; it is determined and regulated by it. According to Pierre Bourdieu, family is the scheme on which all social units are based.2 1

Pierre Bourdieu, “The Family Spirit,” in Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action, trans. Randal Johnson and Others (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 72. 2 Ibid., 64–74.

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Before delving into the analysis, however, we must provide these reflections with a conceptual background. In this chapter, it will be determined by the concept of “communism.” When using this term, I first mean a political project which aimed to promote equality between members of society. Secondly, and more precisely, it refers to a social and political revolution that took place in Poland in the 1940s,3 when structural changes relating to distribution of material, cultural, and symbolic goods occurred. At this time, a new social order was put in place. This social order, in line with the predominant message of the time, aimed to create a new model citizen (the so-called “new human being”4), and it clearly underscored a clean break with thinking about women as an appendage to men, children, and family. Thus, communism is within my area of interest as a political system that functioned in Poland from the 1940s, which legally regulated the functional principles of the institution of family, because—as indicated by philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum—both the structure of family and the privileges and duties of its members are largely determined by the state. It is present within the family context from the very beginning, determining what family is and how one may become a member of it.5 The state does not watch over the family from the outside only: it participates in the ceremony of contracting marriage, which takes place in the legal order that belongs to the public sphere. Therefore, as Nussbaum observes, the definition of family becomes both legal and political. Just like any other political system, People’s Poland established its own legal regulations within which it was possible to enter into a marriage union, obtain a divorce, perform an abortion, adopt children, and so forth. According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the state—primarily via vital records—performs millions of actions whose ultimate objective is to determine the identity of family, one of the most powerful principles of perception of the social world and one of the most real social units.6 Accordingly, the private becomes a public matter. 3

I understand the term “revolution” in line with the historiographic tradition, as “taking over power with the use of force, with invocation of progressive ideals, and with majority support of the people.” Julio Pérez Serrano, “Funcionalidad y límites de la transición a la democracia como paradigma historiográfico,” in La transición sentimental: Literatura y cultura en España desde los años setenta, ed. María Ángeles Naval and Zoraida Carandell (Madrid: Visor Libros, 2016), 70. 4 See Wojciech Tomasik, Inżynieria dusz: Literatura realizmu socjalistycznego w planie “propagandy monumentalnej” (Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2016). 5 Martha C. Nussbaum, Las mujeres y el desarrollo humano (Barcelona: Herder, 2002), 344–45. 6 Bourdieu, “The Family Spirit.”

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Communism, however, interests me primarily as a system of cultural creations of the 1950s, which with their aid promoted a specific image or pattern of the institution of family and social order. In the period between 1945 and 1956, the socialist system was consolidating (also with the use of repression); the cultural production propagated socialist ideals on a mass scale. The cinema was one of its most useful tools, affecting the society’s imaginarium and, consequently, the desires, customs, and norms that shaped its emotional codes.7 Departing from such theoretical frameworks, I intend to consider the following issues here: how do the four mentioned cinematographic productions of the 1950s depict relations between sexes? Do they promote changes, or to the contrary, strengthen the conservative model? What conclusions can be drawn from a given presentation of the institution of family in the socialist system? My main hypothesis and the point of departure for analysis is the belief that these films, in which I observe quite a lot of emancipatory content, show a somewhat distorted image of the traditional family. By processing the dominant notions about it, worked out in the course of socialization, they affect the gender habitus of the viewers. Thus, I see these films as an attempt to break with the patriarchal family model, built upon male domination and strengthening it.8 I also see them as an attempt to come up with a new, progressive model, questioning the definition of family which originated in the nineteenth century. The concept of family: theoretical frameworks According to Nussbaum, what the liberal and conservative approaches to family share are the following: firstly, they view the family as a “naturally” existing entity (although it is impossible to provide a single definition of this concept); secondly, they assume that the family belongs to the “private sphere” and that it exists outside of the “public sphere,” thus omitting the role of laws and state authorities in shaping the family as an institution, and in applying the term “family” to refer to determined groups of people; and thirdly, they see the female inclination to give love and care for others as something that comes from “nature,” instead of as something shaped by customs, legal requirements, and institutions that affect emotions.9 The philosopher also mentioned the normative concept of family functioning in 7

Piotr Zwierzchowski, Zapomniani bohaterowie: O bohaterach filmowych polskiego socrealizmu (Warsaw: Trio, 2000). 8 Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, trans. Richard Nice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). 9 Nussbaum, Las mujeres y el desarrollo humano, 332.

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Western culture, according to which the family constitutes a heterosexual couple raising children in relative privacy and in their own home (in line with this concept, the father works professionally and the mother keeps the house). Such a model is based on the belief that the purpose of life is to build a monogamous relationship based on romantic love.10 On the other hand, in his analysis devoted to the family, Bourdieu defines it as a united, integrated, stable entity, indifferent to the changing feelings of its members.11 The family emerges during inaugural acts of creation (adoption of a shared surname, marriage, and so on) and it exists based on obliged affections or emotional commitments: the very act of naming it establishes it as an affective object and socializes the libido. All the symbolic and practical efforts aim to transform the obligation to love into a loving disposition, what Bourdieu refers to as “the family spirit.” And so it requires work, which is performed mainly by women, as it is up to them to maintain relations between members and to preserve the affective bases for the integrity of a family unit. In the French sociologist’s approach, the family is one of the bases used to build the social reality. It is a society shared by all: built upon a common vision and a common denominator, that is, upon a nomos that is the same for the entire universe of families. The aforesaid principle is one of the main elements comprising our habitus, that is, the implicit norm of perception and functioning, creating the general picture of the social world and serving as the basis of common sense.12

Female bricklayers, welders, controllers: personal and professional development, breaking with gender stereotypes13 Wanda Bugajówna (played by Urszula Modrzy≈ska) in Not Far from Warsaw supervises smelting processes at a steelworks located not far from Warsaw (hence, the title of the movie). Her knowledge of science is sys10

Ibid., 341. Bourdieu, “The Family Spirit.” 12 Ibid. 13 These films were part of a broad-scale campaign with a view toward the so-called productivization of women, similarly to literary and journalistic texts, posters, reportages, and photographic relations. There was an enormous machine behind pushing women onto the labor market. See Małgorzata Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); also Katarzyna Chmielewska, “Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish,” and Agnieszka Mrozik, “‘’Cause a Girl is People’: Projects and Policies of Women’s Emancipation in Postwar Poland,” both in this volume. 11

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tematically questioned by her male colleagues right from the very beginning. When she appears, one of them shouts out ironically: “Some odd technicians they’ve brought!” Her immediate superior scolds her: “You’re writing pure rubbish!” and her subordinate thus replies to her criticism: “Stay out of my work!” In all the films analyzed herein, there are pioneering women characters: they take jobs that up until then were deemed typically masculine, and this raises objections from the society. In The Bus Leaves at 6:20 Krystyna Poradzka (played by Aleksandra Śląska) leaves her womanizing husband who mistreated her and goes to Silesia, where she plans to find employment in heavy industry. At first the only job she manages to get is as a cleaner. Yet, thanks to the opportunities afforded to women by the socialist system, she studies and obtains the specialization of a welder (a more prestigious and better-paid job). At some point, she begins to make more money than her husband, and on top of that, she gets a communal apartment. In Irena, Come Home! the main character Irena Majewska (played by Lidia Wysocka) wants to escape the solitude of her domestic chores to become a city bus driver. The last heroine, Hanka Ruczajówna (played by Lidia Korsakówna) from An Adventure in Mariensztat joins a team of bricklayers rebuilding Warsaw after the war. All these female characters choose a profession (and, consequently, a life path) which breaks with tradition on many levels: above all, they take up tasks for which, in theory, they have not been “made” as women. From the very beginning, they are denied any authority. Their competences are constantly questioned, both by male colleagues and women from their surroundings, who struggle to preserve the patriarchal order just as much, or perhaps even more, than men. We can find an example in The Bus Leaves at 6:20, in which a woman responsible for running a workers’ hotel tries to “help” Krystyna by telling her that she has been making bad choices and suggests some professions that are “more adequate” for a woman: cook or hairdresser. Krystyna recalls the poor work conditions and lack of stability in these lines of work and decides to keep her job at the steelworks. In another scene, in which a colleague teaches her how to weld, they are both laughed at by other workers. The two comedies depict the “catastrophic” (funny) consequences of introducing equality between women and men. Such is the case of An Adventure in Mariensztat. Hanka is accused of disturbing the balance in the male bricklayer team that she joined and of “distracting” Janek Szarli≈ski (played by Tadeusz Schmidt), the most conscientious worker, whose performance exceeds the set norms by many times and who is the apple of the boss’ eye. On the other hand, in Irena, Come Home!, Irena’s ambitions of going out into the world and interacting with people shatter the “peace” of her home. Her distraction while doing household chores, and situations

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when her husband Zygmunt takes care of their child (role reversal), lead to a number of misfortunes: a fire breaks out in the kitchen, their child almost drowns at a park pond, and later jumps off a roof. In other words, equality of the sexes, which brings transformations in the traditional division of duties and privileges, is often viewed by society as something inconvenient, sometimes even as “nonsensical” or aberrant. Showing these transformations in a mocking fashion reveals the role of habits in shaping personal behaviors connected with gender and their social reception. Secondly, these female characters get better-paid, and thus more prestigious, jobs. This allows us to see the unspoken discrimination against women in the workplace. They occupy traditional jobs, which isolate them from people and do not win them social appreciation; in fact, they are often not paid at all (chores in connection with running the house and childrearing in Irena, Come Home!, the job of a cleaner or a hairdresser’s assistant performed by Krystyna in The Bus Leaves at 6:20). Furthermore, they are harmful to both physical and mental health. Social changes that reverse the “normal” situation (that is, one in which the males receive better remuneration and prestige) provoke caution and lead to conflicts, and not only between the female characters and their life partners, but also with other people. For example, when Krystyna Poradzka publishes a newspaper appeal calling on other women to join in the rebuilding of the country, her husband becomes the butt of his friends’ jokes: “The first woman welder! If you gave birth as the first man, they’d write about you too!”14 These films reveal mechanisms aiming to hamper women’s opportunities to gain power. They are laughed at and ridiculed, the purpose of which is to humiliate them and dampen their efforts: “A shock worker . . . in hair curlers!” mocks Krystyna’s husband. Within this context, we should note the frequent use of the noun “baba” and the adjective “babskie,”15 which hold a purely negative meaning with regard to women and their actions: “Babskie fantazje!” (Woman’s pipe dreams!), shouts Wanda’s colleague after she speaks at a worker’s meeting; “Nothing but trouble with women!” the manager of Krystyna’s steelworks repeatedly says. One way or another, all four women successfully surmount the obstacles on their paths and accomplish the professional goals they aimed for. They overcome the social hesitation stemming from gender-related stereotypes.

14

What we see here is a defensive reaction of males who feel that their position is threatened. 15 The Polish noun “baba” is an untranslatable, derogatory, or at best disaffected term to refer to a woman. Usually it denotes an old, mean, or powerful female. Its corresponding adjective forms are “babski/a/e.”

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“Does she have brains? Like any other woman!” Woman and doxa “I’ll show them! I will show you all!” says Krystyna, when she finds out that only one trainee signed up for a course for female welders organized by her. Our female main characters are women who, in line with the convention of socialist realist narration, are determined not to give in to adversity. But they are not alone in their struggle. They have the support of highranking officials from state institutions, who encourage them to study, who show appreciation for their work, thus giving it meaning, publicly acknowledge their efforts, and notice the difficulties that they have to face because they are women. It is also thanks to these “important people” that young girls are able to accomplish their goals. The authorities insist on women taking an active part in public life, with an emphasis on them speaking their mind in public, which is to attract attention to them. It is a hard task, as traditionally the public space is not a place for women. When Wanda from Not Far from Warsaw decides to say a few words at a workplace meeting to reveal the truth about the boss’ murder, the males mock her: “Agitation! . . . She spent too much time peeking into the third furnace and lost her head!” shouts one of her subordinates, and laughter breaks out. Even her fiancé chides her: “Stop making a fool of yourself!” When the management asks Krystyna from The Bus Leaves at 6:20 to say something during a meeting with workers, their fears come true and she gets stuck, unable to speak. This is not surprising: according to Bourdieu, the female lack of self-confidence in the public sphere is one of the expressions of masculine domination,16 manifesting itself in hesitation, doubts, and characteristic blushing.17 Poradzka’s husband is satisfied with her failure. Yet ultimately, precisely thanks to the management’s support, all the heroines overcome their weaknesses and find their place within the public sphere. Socialist posters and press that praised and promoted women’s work outside of the house played a significant role in the process of their empowerment. State institutions used them to highlight the “women’s issue.” The active participation of these institutions is necessary for changing the cultural norm: the aim is to level the initial imbalance, which favors men, and to give value to work performed by women, which carries negative associations. It is because of these negative associations

16

The scene in which Hanka speaks up in public addresses the problem of the lack of women’s voice in the patriarchal culture: “We, the women, Warsaw bricklayers. . . . We too can speak the bricklayer language.” This issue is considered by, among others, Hélène Cixous in her classic essay “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Signs 1, no. 4 (Summer 1976): 875–93. 17 Bourdieu, Masculine Domination.

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that women must make a double effort, in order to “prove” themselves worthy.18 These films show that professional, administrative, and social institutions (steelworks management, party representatives, canteens, public nurseries, and so on) are indispensable for enabling women’s employment outside of the house: they provide the necessary conditions. At the symbolic level, their task is to help overcome social and legal limitations in shifting the fixed boundaries of gender equality as far as possible. As a result, the law and the state, as well as the institution of family, gain a pivotal role in shaping the social order. At the same time, it becomes clear that the family does not belong to the private sphere. The aim is to symbolically break with the division into public and private; that is, with what constitutes the basis of bourgeois culture.19

Irena out of the home: Caring for the house as women’s “destiny” Yet, in order for women’s emancipation to truly take place, it was necessary to shake up the deeply patriarchal institution of the family: only in this way was it possible to deconstruct the principles according to which society as a whole functioned. To Bourdieu, the family plays a fundamental role in maintaining the social order, as it is the main “subject” of the habitus reproduction strategies. As an effect, it becomes a social tool, an illusion in the most ordinary sense of the word, but a “well-founded illusion,” because being produced and reproduced with the guarantee of the state, it receives from the state at every moment the means to exist and persist.20 The films show the extent to which the domestic is also social, and the social domestic. They do not assume that the family exists in isolation from the rest of society; instead, they reveal the mutual relations and interdependencies. Such a depiction of the family unit makes certain cultural “essences” no longer natural. This is the case for motherhood which, in the two movies about mothers (Irena, Come Home! and The Bus Leaves at 6:20), is not the main role of women: the mothers’ worlds do not revolve around their children. In these narrations, childcare is just another difficulty, and not a factor that could affect the women’s decision to change their unful-

18

See Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland; Ewa Toniak, Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm (Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008); Natalia Jarska, Kobiety z marmuru: Robotnice w Polsce w latach 1945–1960 (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015); Mrozik, “’Cause a Girl Is People.” 19 These ideas were part of the radically leftist program of, among others, Friedrich Engels, Alexandra Kollontai, and Vladimir Lenin. 20 Bourdieu, “The Family Spirit.”

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filled lives. Motherhood is not an insurmountable obstacle on the path toward personal emancipation. In order to accomplish the aforementioned denaturalization of beliefs and images concerning gender roles and relations between the sexes in the private and public spheres, deeply instilled in the society, the directors make use of role reversal. This reversal, initiated by women who refuse to take a subordinate position in their relationships with their partners, leads to inevitable tensions. As such, the internal struggle between family members fighting for their own interests is revealed. In The Bus Leaves at 6:20, Krystyna’s husband feels sidelined when his wife becomes the “head of the family”; he leaves home upset when an administration employee insists that she has to sign the delivery report for the apartment, as it is in her name. Tensions also emerge between the characters in Irena, Come Home!, although in this case they are presented as comic relief:21 Zygmunt’s ineptitude is clear when he has to substitute his wife in taking care of household chores. The same movie sheds light on the contradiction between Zygmunt’s appreciation for the work of his female colleague Kwiatkowska, a lathe operator responsible for making industrial elements, and his opposition to his wife’s decision to take up employment. He simply argues that “it is natural for her to stay at home.” Thanks to role reversal, at times showed in a caricature-like manner, the viewers can see the alleged norm. Only in these situations are we able to glimpse just how strong women’s discrimination is within the family. The films depict a transformation of individuals (women), which begins when the ambition and opportunity for personal and professional development emerge. If the “normal”—that is, traditional and patriarchal—family is deemed obvious, then the analyzed cinematographic works question this obviousness, simultaneously showing conflicts caused by the expansion of women’s rights. Nevertheless, one issue is not addressed in any of the movies, namely the need for a redistribution of domestic chores. Even though the dominant discourse favored women’s work outside of the home, the problem of their existing household duties, such as caring for children, the sick, and the elderly, as well as cleaning and cooking, seemed irrelevant. The issue of shared responsibility does not emerge at all in the Polish movies from the 1950s, even though, according to Nussbaum, “re-establishment of house chores within the family is a key aspect of guaranteeing women’s full equality in society.”22 Only such a change would improve women’s negotiating position in relation to other family members and restrictive 21

The aspect of comicality in the socialist movies is analyzed in depth by Monika Talarczyk-Gubała, PRL się √mieje! Polska komedia filmowa lat 1945–1989 (Warsaw: Trio, 2007), 370. 22 Nussbaum, Las mujeres y el desarrollo humano, 370.

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social norms.23 Only an equal division of household chores would allow women to return home from work, instead of rushing back to their “second employment,” putting an end to an unfair situation.24

“I am the man in my own house!” Financial independence of women, no longer under the yoke of men “[Your husband] is not good to you at all. He thinks of you as his slave and doesn’t let you work, is there worse drudgery in the world than that?” Hanka Ruczajówna asks the wife of foreman Ciepielewski, pointing toward the kitchen. Ciepielewska answers: “I wanted to go to work like other women these days. He wouldn’t allow it.” The tensions between characters indicate the principle of masculine domination anchored in the institution of the family. According to Bourdieu, it delimits the boundaries of the family field, within which household members can act. The family produces and reproduces the mechanisms of domination, domesticating them and imposing them upon its members, maintaining the principle of coherence with what is binding in the public sphere.25 The narrations I focus on in this chapter reveal the privileges of men in domestic relations with women and how the disturbance of this power balance results in tensions: questioning male authority begets trouble. This is visible in the reactions of the main characters’ husbands and partners to their requests: they are a manifestation of male control over the bodies and souls of women, who are the symbolic foundation of a traditional family. When Krystyna’s husband goes to see her in Silesia, he tries to force her to come back to the family: “And you are coming with me! You’re coming 23

Women’s press from this period discussed the issue of distribution of household chores and the socialist idea of taking the burden of home duties off women and men alike by socializing them, that is, having them taken over by public institutions: laundries, canteens, nurseries. In practice, these postulates never materialized owing to the inefficient infrastructure. See Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland; Jarska, Kobiety z marmuru; Mrozik, “’Cause a Girl Is People.” 24 Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, and Bourdieu, “The Family Spirit.” 25 This approach is shown in An Adventure in Mariensztat in an exaggerated manner, when foreman Ciepielewski and his subordinate go to the general director of the construction company to complain about the work of a woman, and the director turns out to be a woman as well! They ignore and disdain her, because they are convinced that such a function should not be held by a woman. They feel that the public sphere has been “taken over” by women, who are “everywhere.” On their way, they yell at a female driver, they are given a warning by a policewoman, and they refuse to get on a tram serviced by a female brigade.

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and that’s it! Things will be the way I want them to be!” In Not Far from Warsaw, a colleague from the steelworks warns the main character’s partner that if he does not “straighten her up” in time, he will later suffer in marriage, because the woman will “stomp all over him.” Angry Wanda reproaches her fiancé: “What kind of life will I have with you? You will ride roughshod over me like I’m nothing.” At some point, during a quarrel at home, Wanda’s father shouts: “I’m sick and tired of all this! I am the man in my own house!” In The Bus Leaves at 6:20 a friend who accompanies Krystyna’s husband on his travels laughs at him when he realizes that he is scared of his wife. The films show that conflict begins where the conservative habitus is abandoned; that is, when the model according to which the wife is to obey her husband’s will is discarded. In these movies, women are independent entities, capable of making their own important decisions about their lives. In order for this to be possible, they resist against those who work to preserve the patriarchal order, especially members of their families. They include figures like Wanda’s father in Not Far from Warsaw, who asks his superior at the steelworks: “Why did you send my daughter to these courses? Wasn’t there enough trouble?” Later, in a scene taking place at home, he nags: “Your mother never had those kinds of problems! That’s because she is a housekeeper!” In other words, the father expresses his displeasure with his daughter’s decision to study. Not only does he not support her in the face of difficulties that she is dealing with, he also continuously discourages her. He accuses her of putting on airs because she had studied. Interestingly, the film juxtaposes two generations of women— mother and daughter—and two models of aspirations and prestige. The mother remains a housekeeper, a “lady of the house,” but also an appendage to her husband. The daughter wants to become independent and autonomy brings her satisfaction. This also broaches the issue of upward mobility and leaving one’s own social class: the daughter has aspirations and wants to study, so she leaves her environment and this gives her a sensation of agency. Her conflict with her father lays bare the clash between the old/masculine/worker (or peasant) with the new/feminine/aspiring to privileges heretofore reserved for the intelligentsia (education, women’s professional work, mobility). Yet, it is in the professional world where industrious women face the most obstacles. The foremen in An Adventure in Mariensztat, The Bus Leaves at 6:20 and Not Far from Warsaw represent the “humans of yesterday” who deem women’s presence in the public sphere dangerous.26 Hanka 26

It is worth noting that, contrary to the idealistic voices of (especially prewar) communists, the relations in workers’ families were frequently patriarchal: if a woman worked, it was because she had to contribute to the household budget.

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Ruczajówna’s problems start when she enters into a competition with a male bricklayer team working nearby. The appearance of a woman breaks away from the obvious norm: it sets a sequence of problems in motion, and these problems, in line with the concept of Bourdieu’s common sense, stem from the disturbance of order, and not from the lack of logic of the dominant norm. The bricklayers feel that their competences are undermined, when women roll up their sleeves and get to work—the same work as their own. But it is not just immediate superiors who maintain the patriarchal order. Work colleagues and their constant jibes, disguised as jokes, are a form of male resistance against the changes taking place. In Not Far from Warsaw, father and son, Wanda’s fiancé, have the following conversation in the bathroom: “All the hostility against the new system concentrated on your Wanda./Why on her?/Because she’s a young girl, vulnerable. They want to make a scapegoat out of her.” In the same movie, the main heroine is targeted by a drunk colleague at a club: he engages her in a discussion, accusing her of acting superior and not wanting to dance with just anybody. This specific scene reveals the aggression caused in men by the fact of being a woman’s subordinate, that is, by the reversal of gender power. Nevertheless, in all these stories, the male characters (both in private and public life) ultimately give in to the demands of women, who are central figures in the movies. We see—in line with the convention of socialist realist cinematography—that social order is accomplished thanks to the new system. These films promote a shift of cultural norms allowing all women to gain access to the labor market and to education, areas heretofore accessible mainly to women from the intelligentsia.27

“A girl is people!” The social exclusion of women In the first scene of The Bus Leaves at 6:20 the camera accompanies Krystyna Poradzka as she is doing household chores. We observe the frustration of a woman who is humiliated both at work (at the hairdressing salon) and in her personal life, by her womanizing husband. Krystyna, a hostage at work and at home, lets herself be swept away by the words of a

The ideal was a family with a non-working woman, the aforementioned “lady of the house.” This is why movies from the 1950s should be interpreted mainly as a message to workers: both women and men, raised in respect for the traditional gender norms dominant in their social class. See Eric Hobsbawm, “Man and Woman in Socialist Iconography,” History Workshop Journal 6, no. 1 (1978): 121–38. 27 See Celia Amorós, “Feminismo, filosofía y movimientos sociales,” in Feminismo y filosofía, ed. Celia Amorós (Madrid: Síntesis, 2000), 44.

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young man’s speech about the opportunities of moving to Silesia and starting a new life. As a result, Krystyna decides to leave her town to search for happiness in the Silesian steelworks, thus turning her life around. The concept of a “new life” was broadly propagated by texts of socialist culture. They offered a promise of a society striving for equality, where women were the “new human beings” of socialism. The four movies analyzed herein feed into this discourse with an emancipatory undertone. They overtly address the need to strengthen women’s fundamental rights: to employment, to appreciation, to financial independence, to participation in public and political life (in other words: to active participation in decisionmaking affecting women as fully enfranchised members of the society), to education, to intellectual and professional development, and so forth. Hanka Ruczajówna from An Adventure in Mariensztat is a perfect embodiment of the “new human being” of socialism. She moves from the country to the capital city and is captivated not only by the urban space, but above all by the opportunities offered by the new political order. Liberated from restrictive family bonds, she enjoys independence. She joins the endeavor of rebuilding Warsaw with the enthusiasm typical of the socialist realist convention. The paradox of this “perfect” narration lies in the fact that the choice and action of an individual in fact seem to be available only in a life vacuum—the absence of a family as the determining context and a criterion affecting life decisions. In reality, we all socialize within the universe of families. Fortunately, Irena, Krystyna, Hanka, and Wanda find kind women in their surroundings, who help them to shed the family and patriarchal bonds. In Irena, Come Home! the main character can count on the emotional and logistic help of her neighbor when she is learning to drive: she cooks and cares for her child when Irena is out. In The Bus Leaves at 6:20, Krystyna’s mother-in-law appreciates her efforts and intellectual work; she even criticizes her son and encourages Krystyna to leave him. Krystyna’s roommate from the workers’ hotel also supports her and gives her a hand in difficult times. They are both subject to great pressure, portrayed in scenes where the main character is called to the blackboard to solve math problems in front of a classroom full of men observing her intently. A special role is played by the female bricklayer brigade joined by Hanka in An Adventure in Mariensztat. It is a feminine community, a group that gains the power and courage to undermine the competences of the male brigade. In the end, it wins thanks to feminine solidarity. Thus, the films show the importance of creating a space for women’s activities: a space where they feel accepted and safe, but also where they have a sensation of agency.28 28

This is covered at length in Ewa Toniak, Olbrzymki.

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To sum up, the four stories address issues of fundamental importance for women, such as equality in work (and thus also in quality of life and health), financial independence, ability to make one’s own decisions, and desire to hold higher functions in the public sphere. Thanks to the narratives being presented from the point of view of women, each of the films shows, directly or indirectly, the social exclusion that afflicts them systematically. They are the heroines; their experiences and problems matter. This way, the invisible is revealed before our eyes.

A “happy” ending In the years 1945–56, the socialist system promoted individual mobility. In the four analyzed film narratives it is shown as the departure point for social advancement for all, including women. The efforts of female characters are rewarded as they become qualified workers. The picture of the system as conducive of greater gender equality is thus confirmed. In the discussed films, the young heroines move in search of work, education, and upward mobility. They thereby challenge the traditional family model, because they question the family as a stable entity connected to a specific, physical location. Their choices lead to the denaturalization of masculine domination within the domestic sphere. But the analyzed productions did more than this. Their purpose was to modify the emotional code in relations between women and men. Let us remember that according to Bourdieu, the family is an effect of work consisting in producing certain feelings that guarantee unity, which in turn is a condition for the existence and persistence of this unit. In these movies, negotiations become a guarantee of family unity. In each of the stories, a heterosexual couple has been depicted in a fresh way, through negotiations which result in the needs and rights of women finding their place. After leaving the meeting at which Wanda’s boyfriend told her to be quiet, the girl answered: “Do you want to get married to an idiot?” This was her way of giving him a condition to respect her; that is, not to disdain her and not to order her around. Women who are better educated and wealthier enjoy greater respect in these movies, and their high self-esteem does not allow them to accept being mistreated. Relations with their partners and family are no longer perceived as “natural”: they are depicted as the result of an agreement that exists between family members, and which may be severed if they are not satisfied with it. Thus, the family is presented as a group that is subject to changing emotions, which brings consequences. Family feelings are no longer an obligation; they become negotiable. Both at the symbolic level and in practice, the women’s responsibility for caring and affection are

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questioned: women are no longer victims who sacrifice themselves for love and who fulfill the obligation of giving. Yet, the limitations of the emancipation project promoted in these movies can be glimpsed in their “happy endings.” In the final scenes of An Adventure in Mariensztat we see a double reconciliation:29 a symbolic one at the group level (between the two bricklayer teams, the male and the female, who work hand in hand on the construction site of the “Bricklayer House”), and at the individual level (in the very last scene when characters dance in pairs in an unambiguously romantic context). This is a punchline that is supposed to reflect the idealized picture of an urgently desired just society—a perfect creation, under which men give up their privileges in the name of true equality. Yet, the final dance of heterosexual couples places the relations between women and men into a romantic framework which reproduces the patriarchal model. The women’s “destiny”—that is, the family (albeit a more egalitarian one)—once again looms on the horizon in the movie’s ending. According to Nussbaum, the family can both further and destroy human potential, and so it has a great influence on the development of individuals. It is part of the most basic social structure, one of the institutions subject to fundamental legal principles.30 In the analyzed films, the family is initially an obstacle to the development of the main female characters’ potential, but in the end it turns out to be an area where this potential can grow. Based on the final scenes, we can therefore conclude that the transformation of the family model is advantageous to the entire society, as the happiness of individuals translates into the general wellbeing. Janek Szarli≈ski from An Adventure in Mariensztat becomes a man of a new type (in comparison with foreman Ciepielewski, he is less competitive, less disdainful, and more open to Hanka’s needs), which shows the educational dimension of this production: it not only promotes women’s emancipation, but also teaches men. A lot of important issues relating to equality are addressed here in conversations held by men. Not only do they mock women and fight with them, they also educate and discipline each other to embrace partnership. The new and the old men clash, and the accusation of being an “old man,” a “man of yesterday,” is the gravest offense. The authors clearly assume that the new family will emerge and that it will happen through the joint effort of women and men. The attempts to introduce changes—even if only symbolic—to the traditional family model are very important, especially if we keep in mind that “ordinary discourse ordinarily, and no doubt universally, draws from the family ideal models of human relations (with, for example, concepts like 29 30

Nussbaum, Las mujeres y el desarrollo humano, 354–55. Bourdieu, “The Family Spirit,” 67.

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brotherhood), and family relations in their official definition tend to function as principles for the construction and evaluation of every social relationship.”31 The family model, in the form it is presented in the discussed works, strives to change the bases of a common vision and the common denominator that links the viewers. It aims to move toward diversity of the common nomos and thus, consequently, of the habitus, which is what we deem common sense and “natural” social order. It is accomplished by way of denaturalization of power relations that lie at the foundations of the family, through baring the violence that women are subjected to. In this sense, in the form of socialism shown in the discussed movies, the battle for women’s emancipation is won before it even starts. In reality, this issue was not solved so easily; gender inequalities were and still are deeply rooted in our society. All the battles fought by Irena, Krystyna, Hanka, and Wanda are still waged today.32 Yet unlike in the 1950s, when society was offered cultural texts such as the analyzed film productions—certainly schematic and ridden with propaganda, although also artistically valuable and offering an advanced emancipatory message— contemporary Poland does not have many works that would champion the idea of equality between the sexes with such vigor. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

31 32

Ibid., 66. According to research conducted in recent years with a focus on the categories of “communism” and “gender,” we should abandon the simplified approach to the period of state socialism as a “break” or “hole” in the history of Central and Eastern Europe. The most recent works shed light on the continued struggle that feminist movements waged before, during, and after the political transformations in the region. See Francisca de Haan, ed., “Ten Years After: Communism and Feminism Revisited,” Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women’s and Gender History 10, no. 1 (2016): 102–68.

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Bibliography Amorós, Celia. “Feminismo, filosofía y movimientos sociales.” In Feminismo y filosofía, edited by Celia Amorós, 12–62. Madrid: Síntesis, 2000. Bourdieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination. Translated by Richard Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. ———. “The Family Spirit.” In Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Translated by Randal Johnson and Others, 64–74. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Translated by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen. Signs 1, no. 4 (Summer 1976): 875–93. De Haan, Francisca, ed. “Ten Years After: Communism and Feminism Revisited.” Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women’s and Gender History 10, no. 1 (2016): 102–68. Fidelis, Małgorzata. Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Hobsbawm, Eric. “Man and Woman in Socialist Iconography.” History Workshop Journal 6, no. 1 (1978): 121–38. Jarska, Natalia. Kobiety z marmuru: Robotnice w Polsce w latach 1945–1960. Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015. Nussbaum, Martha C. Las mujeres y el desarrollo humano. Barcelona: Herder, 2002. Pérez Serrano, Julio. “Funcionalidad y límites de la transición a la democracia como paradigma historiográfico.” In La transición sentimental: Literatura y cultura en España desde los años setenta, edited by María Ángeles Naval and Zoraida Carandell, 67–89. Madrid: Visor Libros, 2016. Talarczyk-Gubała, Monika. PRL się √mieje! Polska komedia filmowa lat 1945–1989. Warsaw: Trio, 2007. Tomasik, Wojciech. Inżynieria dusz: Literatura realizmu socjalistycznego w planie “propagandy monumentalnej.” Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2016. Toniak, Ewa. Olbrzymki: Kobiety i socrealizm. Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2008. Zwierzchowski, Piotr. Zapomniani bohaterowie: O bohaterach filmowych polskiego socrealizmu. Warsaw: Trio, 2000.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The “Adolescent Sphinx”: (Post-)Thaw Novels for Girls Eliza Szybowicz

The post-Stalin thaw and the so-called “little stabilization” often featured the face of a girl. The beginning of the new era was marked by the “diary of a junior high student,” published toward the end of 1953 in the Nowa Kultura (New Culture) journal.1 Her notes concerned, for example, kissing a certain Witek, known as “Alfons” (“Pimp”), family conflicts, the theft of school grade records, or the rules of savoir-vivre. The girl was an avid reader of books by Irena Zarzycka and Nikolai Ostrovsky.2 In one breath she expressed her admiration for the priest who led her school retreat and for Stalin. Her plan for life was to “make it good and comfortable,” but toward the end, she also entertained dreams of dying for some great cause (“not to fear toil and travails”). The editor’s commentary, revealing a mixture of intrigue, admiration, and patronizing reproof, was a harbinger of the upcoming game, in which the stakes were the modern girl subjects. The “underage Pepys in a skirt” became a figure of confusion and anxiety sparked by the “absence of ideals” and “chaos” of her notes, as well as a figure of hope owing to her strong agency and liveliness. The task set by the commentary’s author (an unsigned Polish writer, Tadeusz Konwicki), was of a universal dimension, specifically to create the fullest possible opportunity for development and action for the young author: “We should tear her away from the world of narrow-mindedness, from her idiotic environment; we should help her clean up that hot head of hers, create favorable conditions, and show our correct perspective as an attractive one.”3 The system was to be the salvation of the girl, and the girl the salvation of the system. 1

Iwona Kurz, Twarze w tłumie: Wizerunki bohaterów wyobraźni zbiorowej w kulturze polskiej lat 1955–1969 (Warsaw: Świat Literacki, 2005), 27–28. 2 Irena Zarzycka was a popular Polish writer of the interwar period. Nikolai Ostrovsky was a Soviet writer, the author of the novel Kak zakalyalas’ stal’ (How the Steel Was Tempered) of 1936. They are cited here as symbolic names for literature: on the one hand, for women, and, on the other, for engaged communists. 3 “Pamiętnik uczennicy,” Nowa Kultura, no. 48 (1953): 3.

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The cultural connotations of girlhood are those of unconscious grace, youth, coming of age, joy, trust, friendship, love, dreams.4 No wonder that, as historian Małgorzata Fidelis wrote, it was the ideal of a modern girl, created in the thaw and post-thaw journalistic texts, that legitimized the new authorities as a symbol of the innocence and progressiveness of socialist Poland, as a way of disarming not only gender-related anxieties. This is clearly visible when illustrated with the example of a model girl from Filipinka (a magazine for girls, created in 1957): sexually restrained, who carefully measures her consumptionism and individualism, but also moderately emancipated; she nourishes her intellectual growth, but does not abandon handicraft; she thinks of her professional career, but does not reject thoughts of marriage and maternity.5

The return of the difference Literature—especially contemporary realist novels for girls—had an important part in creating the image of a modern girl, next to press, cinema, or popular music. It was an element of this process, but it remained a specific domain, not as uniform and unambiguous. The objective of this chapter is to explore it in the cultural, social, and political context, to present the reactions to the critique and the styles of reception represented by the young female readers, as well as to outline the further fates of this genre. The analyzed material comprises novels from the years 1958–65 that attracted the greatest amount of interest (measured by the number and tenor of the published accounts), as well as later novels which were in a way a continuation, complement, or rebuttal of the field created in the (post-)thaw period. The very emergence of a new variety of the genre toward the late 1950s resulted from a change in the official emancipatory project, a change to the category of gender differences and traditional roles. The maneuver was disguised as a response to a hitherto-ignored demand. If there is a difference—and a significant one at that—then upbringing and cultural offer must also be differentiated. And thus, in the years 1958–64, a debate on what the novel for girls should be like was held on the pages of various press sources (starting with Trybuna Ludu [People’s Tribune], the official

4

Anna Kruszewska-Kudelska, Polskie powie√ci dla dziewcząt po roku 1945 (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1972), 64. 5 Małgorzata Fidelis, “Czy jeste√ nowoczesną dziewczyną? Młode Polki a kultura konsumpcyjna w latach 60.,” Teksty Drugie, no. 2 (2015): 303–23. See also Iwona Kurz, “‘Dwuzłotówki w kieszeniach na kino’: Elżbieta Czyżewska—dziewczyna z fotosu,” in Twarze w tłumie, 117–50.

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daily newspaper of the Polish United Workers’ Party), on radio, TV, at meetings and conferences. The authorities involved in this debate did not call for doing away with the genre, unlike in the second half of the 1940s, when the reactivated “traditional novel for girls” was met with harsh criticism and disparaged as anachronistic. The female literary critics of that time argued that contemporary girls, more mature as a result of their wartime experience and emancipated in the new social order, could not be offered reading that bears the blemish of elitism, that is exalted and unrelated to their daily lives, featuring “pinhead” heroines: “Literature for youth must be ‘coeducational,’ just like the school, university, and life.”6 Socialist realism, which marked the girls’ novel (along with all the other “chick lit”) as politically harmful, was, in a way, a realization of their postulate. It came back in the aftermath of the thaw, tailored to the order, cross-bred with other genres (the psychological novel, the novel of manners, the social novel), focusing on problems and conflicts, with a new type of female protagonist.7 As noted by gender researcher Agnieszka Mrozik, at the time the construction of gender difference was intimately connected to the discourse on modernity and progress.8 No wonder its existence was scientifically proven. According to researchers of youth readers, very active at the time, developmental psychology and pedagogics discovered that around the age of 11– 13 gender-based differentiation of literary interests becomes noticeable. Girls become more focused on emotions, relationships, and customs, while boys are more inclined to read about adventures, mysteries, war, and sports.9 An important function was attributed to anachronistic books, such as Anne of Green Gables (banned for some time). They purportedly helped

6

Krystyna Kuliczkowska, “Parę uwag o ‘powie√ciach dla dorastających panienek,’” Odrodzenie, no. 13 (1946): 11; Wanda Grodzie≈ska, “Książki dla młodzieży,” Kuźnica, no. 16 (1947): 9. The construction of the women’s emancipation project immediately after the war is the topic of Agnieszka Mrozik’s chapter “‘’Cause a Girl is People’: Projects and Policies of Women’s Emancipation in Postwar Poland,” in this volume. See also Karolina Jędrych, “Szkoła narzeczonych—Marii Krüger tęsknota za zwyczajnym życiem,” in Stare i nowe w literaturze dla dzieci i młodzieży, ed. Bożena Olszewska and Elżbieta Łucka-Zając (Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego, 2010), 141–49. 7 Krystyna Kuliczkowska, “O powie√ci dla dziewcząt,” in W szklanej kuli: Szkice o literaturze dla dzieci i młodzieży (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1970), 113–16. Originally printed as “W √wiecie dziewcząt,” Życie Literackie, nos. 51 and 52 (1964): 1, 6–7 and 6. 8 Agnieszka Mrozik, “‘Traktorzystka to nie kobieta’: Polska polityka płci w okresie Odwilży,” in Przełom Października ‘56, ed. Paweł Dybicz (Warsaw: Fundacja Oratio Recta, 2016), 133–62. 9 Anna Przecławska, Młody czytelnik i współczesno√ć (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1966), 14–17 and elsewhere.

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“bring out the specific features of the female psyche,” satisfied the need for “developing sensitivity, emotions, and dreams,” and were characterbuilding. They were no longer the only available reading material, and so they no longer “warped” young minds, but rather “complemented” them. The excessive pessimism of contemporary girls’ novels, it was argued, caused unpedagogical “demotivation” of the young readers, who were prone to mental instability typical of their age.10 The 1948–53 policy of eliminating the girls’ novel was a failed experiment, as “nothing that runs contrary to deep psychological needs can ever succeed.”11 The absence of a contemporary variety of the genre, in turn, “deprived” the adolescent girls and “sentenced” them to reading improper books: “[Maria] Rodziewiczówna and Trędowata [Leper],12 whose shreds are still in circulation,” wrote youth literature researcher Krystyna Kuliczkowska in an essay summarizing the twenty postwar years of prose for young people, once and for all confirming the need for publishing books dedicated to girls.13 This was also supported by evidence in the form of letters from interested readers published in the press, as well as accounts of reviewers and journalists telling of the enthusiastic reception of such books (impossible to find in bookstores, passed from one person to another, read with flushed faces under the school desks).

Original variety The year 1958 was the year zero of what later became a broad genre of girls’ novel. Throughout the first few years, each new book was discussed, the reactions of the young female audience were gauged,14 and they were encouraged to express their opinions in the youth press and on television.15 10

Ibid., 31, 44–46, 52–54. Irena Sło≈ska, “Książki dla dziewcząt,” in Dzieci i książki (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1959), 190. 12 A very popular book among women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; a synonym for poor taste and backwardness. 13 Krystyna Kuliczkowska, “Drogi tematu współczesnego w prozie dla młodzieży (1945–1965),” in Kim jeste√ Kopciuszku, czyli o problemach współczesnej literatury dla dzieci i młodzieży, ed. Stanisław Aleksandrzak (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1968), 22. 14 See Teresa Kądzielowa, “Recepcja książki Elżbiety Jackiewiczowej Dziewczęta szukają drogi,” in Dziecko i młodzież w √wietle zainteresowa≈ czytelniczych, ed. Tadeusz Parnowski (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1960), 120–37. 15 Magda Leja’s Listy do mojego chłopca (Letters to My Boyfriend) are unique in this respect. Walka Młodych magazine organized and summarized a discussion of female students from Warsaw about this book. Filipinka announced a contest for 11

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While the new boys’ literature and the less profuse “coeducational” books for young people did not prove a cause for concern, the formula of the novel for girls posed a formidable problem.16 This confirms the importance of the function that this literature and its readers were ascribed in the new social project. The matter was not made any easier by the transformation of mores, from which Poland was not isolated. Even a cursory look at the titles of that time reveals a great variety.17 It was, in a way, the original seedling of the genre, whose components would later be used in varying proportions depending on the changing tendencies. The publishing rules and policies (contests, series, specialized authors) were to crystallize in the mid-1960s. Meanwhile, there was a lot of liberty, evidenced for example by incidental authorship and a lack of strong rela-

written opinions about Listy; in the same issue Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa gave an account of a TV discussion between young readers and the novel’s author. See “Hanka Potuli≈ska i jej rówie√nice,” Walka Młodych, no. 44 (1960): 4; “List do Krystyny z telewizji,” Filipinka, no. 26 (1960): 4. A selection of submitted reviews are in Filipinka, no. 3 (1961). 16 It must be noted that there existed a less abundant but still noticeable subgenre that was in many ways analogical to the contemporary girls’ novel, but with a male protagonist. Janusz Domagalik, Stanisław Kowalewski, Aleksander Minkowski, Lech Borski, and Adam Bahdaj all wrote novels about boys’ problems. These books did not stir as many controversies as their counterparts for girls. 17 Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, Dziewczęta szukają drogi (Girls Looking for Their Way, 1958); Izabela Bieli≈ska, Małgorzata (1960); Stanisława Fleszarowa-Muskat, Lato nagich dziewcząt (Summer of Naked Girls, 1960); Magda Leja, Listy do mojego chłopca (Letters to My Boyfriend, 1960); Stanisław Goszczurny, Mewy (Seagulls [note that in Polish slang this also means a prostitute in a port city], 1961); Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, Tancerze (Dancers, 1961); Hanna Mortkowicz-Olczakowa, Kolorowe gwiazdy (Colourful Stars, 1961); Natalia Rolleczek, Kochana rodzinka i ja (My Beloved Family and I, 1961); and sequels: Rodzina Szkaradków i ja (The Family of Uglies and I, 1963); Rodzinne kłopoty i ja (Family Trouble and I, 1966); Irena Szeliga, Bywa i tak . . . (Sometimes Things Go Like This . . . , 1962); Tadeusz Papier, Magdalena w nocy (Magdalena at Night, 1962); Halina Snopkiewicz-Gałka, Słoneczniki (Sunflowers, 1962); and sequel: Paladyni (Paladins, 1964); Hanna Muszy≈ska-Hoffmannowa, Czupiradełko (Little Scarecrow, 1962); Marian Bielicki, Gdzie jeste√, Małgorzato? (Where Are You, Małgorzata?, 1963); and sequels: Małgorzata szuka siebie (Małgorzata Searches for Herself, 1964); Małgorzaty droga powrotu (Małgorzata’s Way Back, 1965); Elżbieta Drzewi≈ska, Agnieszka (1963); Agnieszka Gli≈ska [Natalia Gałczy≈ska], Kasia i inne (Kasia and The Rest, 1963); Jan Kurczab, Siedem zielonych zeszytów (Seven Green Notebooks, 1963); Leszek Prorok, Tarantella (1963); Mira Jaworczakowa, Po słonecznej stronie (On The Sunny Side, 1964); Krystyna Salaburska, Maski (Masks, 1964); Ada Kopci≈ska, Podlotki (Adolescents, 1965); Janina Zającówna, Brama na drodze (Gate on The Road, 1967).

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tions with specific publishing houses. There are some pre-Musierowicz works here,18 in terms of intergenerational reproduction of conservative cultural patterns, consolation function and/or humorous tone (for instance, Hanna Mortkowicz-Olczakowa or Anna Gli≈ska), there are girls’ equivalents of “dark” thaw prose (such as Magda Leja, Elżbieta Drzewi≈ska, Tadeusz Papier, and Jan Kurczab),19 and many in-betweens. The “dark” ones are unique in the history of this genre, and they were met with harsh admonition; the current gradually waned (with the late exception of Janina Zającówna). And so, we can discern political and cultural tendencies that responded to the general guidelines of Party authorities concerning literature,20 yet girls’ novels of that period were still a space for the coexistence of diverse messages, from enthusiastic liberalism to conservatism, where both were a reaction: the former to the dogmatism of Stalinism and the traditional morality aligned with it, and the latter to the far-reaching postwar Stalinist emancipation project, which is actually reflected in some of the plots. Even the same novel could combine suggestive scenes of ecstatic liberty and oppressive didactism, which sometimes seemed like a concession on the part of the author (for instance, in Ada Kopci≈ska’s work). The rules were never clear, they remained blurry. The general directive of pursuing balance between old fashioned and modern styles—often represented by two anti-models, Trędowata (1909) by Helena Mniszkówna, and Bonjour tristesse (1954) by Françoise Sagan—did not change much. For some time, one clear negative point of reference was socialist realism, and thus Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, author of the first novel for girls of the new type, Dzięwczęta szukają drogi (Girls Looking for Their Way, 1958), was criticized for tendentiousness, didactism, and excessive focus on political affairs.21 Some of the later novels (including Tancerze [Dancers, 1961], by the same author) attracted two types of directly opposing charges. According to one type of critical argumentation, Jackiewiczowa, despite guises of modernity, wrote a traditional novel for well-behaved schoolgirls,22 while the other type regurgitated the arguments wielded against the “dark” thaw literature. For example, in the 1964 discussion, 18

Małgorzata Musierowicz was the author of a series of novels for girls, Jeżycjada, published since 1977—translator’s note. 19 Kuliczkowska, for example, referred to them as “dark.” 20 See Mieczysław Wojtczak, Wielką i mniejszą literą: Literatura i polityka w pierwszym ćwierćwieczu PRL (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Studio Emka, 2014). 21 Ryszard Matuszewski, “Pensjonarki z czasów Kuźnicy,” Nowa Kultura, no. 52 (1958): 2; Zofia Kowalska, “Literatura dla panienek,” Walka Młodych, no. 9 (1959): 4; Józefa Hennel, “Książka dla młodzieży?,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 22 (1959): 4. 22 Stefan Kozicki, “Romans dla podlotków,” Przegląd Kulturalny, no. 2 (1962): 7; Halina Skrobiszewska, “Fałszywe pas,” Nowe Książki, no. 3 (1962): 148–50.

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which compiled critical voices and which chronologically coincided with the fading of this current of girls’ novel, there were mentions of a “vicious mix of gloomy outlook and erotomania”; a lack of “conclusions, generalizations, or even so much as instructive typicality, in keeping with solid realism”; a new, truly dangerous schematism; exaggerated problems imbued with fake drama meant to buy cheap popularity; an “invasion . . . of vulgar naturalism, mucking about with biological functions, reporter-like accounts of things not worthy of noticing, use of jargon ‘overheard’ by the authors”; and “sucking up to the youth” by kindling their rebellious attitude.23 The girls’ novel allegedly also gave a privileged position to the perspective of welloff intelligentsia, and it was purportedly an equivalent of the old “highsociety novels.” If we throw in accusations of imitating Western culture and of superficial modernity, we get a fairly complete picture of the ideological and aesthetic line of attack. One of the most frequent rhetorical devices was to call into question whether a given book was a novel for girls; almost every time, this question was meant to depreciate it. Doubts were cast upon the tastes of young readers, chasing after cheap sensationalism and thus making poor reading choices. Yet, the pivotal claim was that contemporary Polish girls were completely unlike the heroines of those novels. Even if at times they were like them, no far-reaching conclusions should be drawn from this fact: coming of age is difficult, always and everywhere. Besides, there were also positive examples amongst the youth.24 This was an expression of the paternalism of literary critics, but I think that we should treat the dubious addressee as a determinant of the “dark” character of the genre. It assumed that its readers had full-blown agency, and it was an antithesis of both the earlier and the later puerility; thus arose the objections of many critics, which actually outlived the novel. Both then and later, many books were enthusiastically welcomed as something finally appropriate for girls (normal, ordinary, unpretentious), contrary to the earlier “avalanche” of novels that were too severe, too mannered, dealing only with divorces and conflicts with parents and teachers, full of juvenile cynicism, escapes from home, criminal activity, and so on. The titles deemed positive included, among others: Kasia i inne (Kasia and Other, 1963) by Anna Gli≈ska;25 Tabliczka marzenia (Multiplication Table of

23

Andrzej Chruszczy≈ski, “Lepsi i gorsi tancerze,” Polityka, no. 6 (1964): 1 and 5; Halina Skrobiszewska, “Z adresem młodzieżowym,” Polityka, no. 13 (1964): 8; Wiesława Grochola, “Gusty autorek i czytelniczek,” Polityka, no. 13 (1964): 8; Krystyna Kuliczkowska, “W √wiecie dziewcząt,” Życie Literackie, nos. 51 and 52 (1964): 1, 6–7 and 6. 24 See Zofia Kwieci≈ska, “Nowe powie√ci o dorastającej młodzieży: Recenzja Tancerzy Elżbiety Jackiewiczowej,” Trybuna Ludu, no. 14 (1962): 8. 25 Andrzej Drawicz, “Kasia, Małgorzata i inne,” Sztandar Młodych, no. 4 (1966): 3.

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Dreams, 1967) by Halina Snopkiewicz;26 some of the books by Krystyna Siesicka, especially Fotoplastykon (Kaiserpanorama, 1969);27 and finally Szósta klepka (Sixth Stave, 1977) by Małgorzata Musierowicz.28 Of course, both elements of the comparison were constructed. Behind the hostility toward novels judged overly severe, besides the charge of infantilizing girls, stood the ideology of family: hence the listing of plots connected with the renegotiation of the shape and function of family as unnecessarily exposing pathological situations, hence also the pleased thesis on the shift toward a model-forming tendency (“interest in the exemplary model of family is on the rise”).29 At the same time, the order to steer clear of the traditions of this genre remained in force. On the one hand, renowned literary critics, such as Krystyna Kuliczkowska, Halina Skrobiszewska, and Irena Sło≈ska were calling for a contemporary Lucy Maud Montgomery or Maria BuynoArctowa (author of novels for girls published between 1905 and 1939); on the other hand, for example, Siesicka was chided for tapping into the traditional conventions of the romance genre,30 and for employing overly simplistic solutions.31 The comparisons to Kornel Makuszy≈ski (a writer of children’s and youth literature, often with a girl as a main character, active in the interwar period) and to Montgomery did not become unambiguously positive until the late 1970s and early 1980s (it was a recurrent parallel in the reviews of Musierowicz’s first books).

Reading styles of literature for girls Most press testimonials concerning the reception of literature by girls dealt with two very different cases: Listy do mojego chłopca (Letters to My Boyfriend, 1960) by Magda Leja, classified as an example of the “dark” variety, and the pre-Musierowicz novel Kasia i inne by Anna Gli≈ska, as if the readers were consulted to verify the opinions of professional critics and draw the boundaries of the genre. The two groups of testimonials also effectively mark the beginning and the end of the period discussed here (1960 and 1964). They are subordinated to two criteria: does the novel describe the reader’s problems, does it broach topical, “real” subjects; and how readers 26

Krystyna Kuliczkowska, “Nastolatki—rocznik 52,” Nowe Książki, no. 7 (1968): 462–63. 27 Hanna Lebecka, “W domu i w√ród ludzi,” Nowe Książki, no. 15 (1970): 922–24. 28 Wojciech Żukrowski, “Co√ dla niesytych,” Trybuna Ludu, no. 115 (1979): 6. 29 Lebecka, “W domu i w√ród ludzi.” 30 Katarzyna Rosner, “Dwie powie√ci dla młodzieży,” Nowe Książki, no. 14 (1966): 862–63. 31 Jan Walc, “‘Łukasz,’ czyli dobra nowina,” Literatura, no. 21 (1972): 7; Jan Walc, “Młodo√ci, ty nie ulatuj . . . ,” Polityka, no. 31 (1973): 10.

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judge the actions of the heroine, including whether or not they identify with her. Opinions about Listy were dominated by the issue of the “guilt” of the protagonist, Hanka Potuli≈ska, and the shared responsibility of her family and teachers for her associating with a gang of young criminals. The readers (those allowed to express their opinion) were harsh to the protagonist: they wrote that she was an egoist devoid of any self-criticism; that she could not tell good from evil; that she did not care about improving her relations with her parents; that she was looking for adventures and that her “derailment” and “errors” were a result of her irresponsibility. They did, however, underscore that the protagonist had no support either at home or at school.32 The most principled judge was a (presumably) teenage author of a review recognized in a contest organized by Życie Literackie (Literary Life), the official weekly newspaper of the Polish Writers’ Union, for whom Hanka was not “a role model.” Reproducing the contemporary didactic discourse (known, for example, from Filipinka), she wrote that the protagonist should “study, read, learn, observe,” and find out what her own interests were. Life, she said, “has to be filled with some content, combined with beautiful, deep experiences,” and this process “is largely up to ourselves.” Another strong thesis of the review was its defense of institutions: dysfunction in the family and the education system are no reason for rebellion (“This does not mean, however, that we should reject school and home”).33 The other extreme, uncritical liberalism, according to Jackiewiczowa’s account, was presented by a teacher training college student, Krystyna, who in the TV debate vigorously defended Hanka’s right not to be perfect, to have juvenile disregard for rules, and to be irresponsible. Jackiewiczowa, disturbed by her views, understood them as a defense of freedom “regardless of the price” (“So, you defended her right to egoism, indifference, mockery, disrespect, lies”).34 Interestingly, Leja’s Listy, chastised by critics as overly permissive, seemed the opposite to the young readers: they thought that the book’s subtitle Powie√ć dla starszych dziewcząt (A Novel for Older Girls) was anachronistic and that it reminded them of “schoolgirl stories.”35 Gli≈ska’s novel also stirred up emotions. When Filipinka printed a letter from a reader who criticized Kasia i inne for its overly idealized protagonists, which she understood as infantilization of the readers (“We, teenagers, want books about us, and not books for goodie-two-shoes children”),36 the

32

See letters to Filipinka and the discussion in the editorial team of Walka Młodych, mentioned under footnote 15. 33 Ewa Szary, “Czym żyΔ?,” Życie Literackie, no. 25 (1962): 4–5. 34 Jackiewiczowa, “List do Krystyny.” 35 “Hanka Potuli≈ska i jej rówie√nice.” 36 Małgorzata G. from Warsaw, “Po co takie książki?,” Filipinka, no. 1 (1964): 2.

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editorial team received over seventy responses. Gli≈ska’s heroine was close to the girl model championed by Filipinka, and so the ensuing discussion on the magazine’s pages indirectly concerned the ideal endorsed by it. The editorial team wrote that most letter writers “defended the novel fervently,” but the published selection does not reflect this proportion: it features a number of different opinions. The most radical reviewer argued that the contemporary “silly books” about and for young people (such as Kasia) were usually a “load of rubbish,” unworthy of any discussion. She indicated J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, a novel without a specified addressee, as the only “valuable” one. Some of the reviewers scoffed at the figure of “a supergirl” and identified Gli≈ska’s novel as anachronistic and patronizing (“a nineteenth century tale,” “for damsels from good families,” “will the dear author of Kasia stop telling fairy tales”). There was, however, the voice of one reader who appreciated the novel as one that inspired optimism, that was “pleasantly” written, offering respite and entertainment, as well as missives from readers who raised the issue of “the need for an ideal,” and who claimed that the book motivated them to work on themselves (“We’d rather read about noble drives and a life lived to the full [as in Kasia] than about filthy and evil things [as in Drzewi≈ska’s Agnieszka].”) A member of a Polish literature school club calmly concluded that there are both “naive” novels about picture-perfect youth (Kasia i inne) and “contemporary rags,” portraying “youth as bandits and deranged basket cases” (Noc miło√ci i nieco później [The Night of Love and Some Time Later, 1962] by Ryszard Lassota).37 The published reception testimonials, despite the visible selection criteria, offer a fairly complex picture. The youth press (and television), by the mere fact that they created a space for discussion, was more pluralistic than Życie Literackie, which simply rewarded a given notion of girlhood. This is also confirmed by the policy of publishing diverse literary texts on the pages of Filipinka. Without departing from the examples given by the teenage reviewers, the magazine published fragments of both Kasia i inne and of Agnieszka (1963) by Drzewi≈ska. Many statements about Gli≈ska’s novel show an endorsement of Filipinka’s discourse on responsibility. What primarily jumps to attention, however, is the problematic approach to the novel and the demands to be given agency, closer to the postwar critique of the traditional novel for girls than to the (post-)thaw calls for a “middle-of-the-road” girls’ literature. The criticism of the subtitle of Listy even reveals a certain oversensitivity to this. Only one opinion in the (published) pool represented the entertainment/compensation style of reception, which dominated teenagers’ opinions about Musierowicz’s novels, published in the 1980s. (Post-)thaw 37

“Na cenzurowanym: Powie√Δ o młodzieży,” Filipinka, no. 4 (1964): 3.

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amateur reviews—regardless of their tone—prove that books were read closely, with more insight than normative professionals offered. Books that were judged most harshly by the critique seem to be an encouragement/response to this “problematic” reception style. They are multiplotted and inconclusive; some even enigmatic. The dominant narration is first-person and subjective, usually written in the form of a diary, letter, or monologue. A “righteous” narrative situation is often inscribed into novels about girls who have brushes with the law or come close to prostituting themselves: Hanka Potuli≈ska and her gang are awaiting trial; we meet the eponymous protagonist of Tadeusz Papier’s Magdalena w nocy (Magdalena at Night, 1962) in jail, as she leaves her cell to tell her story to a journalist. Yet the narration presented from the perspective of the protagonist encourages the readers to side with her, inclining them to understand her circumstances and the mechanisms at play, to share her emotions instead of judging her. Another method is narration from multiple points of view, as used by Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, Stanisława Fleszarowa-Muskat, and Marian Bielicki.

“Let’s not infantilize” A number of the authors of that time admitted the autonomy of the young female reader and of the literature for her. They would likely join in with Magda Leja’s jibe about “the ghetto of youth literature,” in her opinion erected by adults either due to hypocrisy or a “belief about the low expectations of the young reader and the great didactic mission of the writer.”38 The critics rarely understood her point, as shown by this reviewer of Tancerze: “The author took on a light task: no didactics; she chose not to shape anything, not to suggest any models of behavior, not to propose any patterns of ethics or love. Instead, she simply shows authentic conflicts, experiences, and the emotional turmoil of young people.”39 Jackiewiczowa’s novel is additionally meaningful because it further complicates the map of the period, on which we have already placed the variety of messages offered by the novels, the usually unambiguous voice of critics, gradually followed by publishing policies, the frameworks for discussion provided by youth magazines, and the polyvocality of the young readers. Tancerze obliges us to account for the plurality/evolution of the roles of one of the most important female authors of the time, who tried to react to the changing context and to use various channels and 38 39

Magda Leja, “Kraszewski dla 15-latek,” Głos Nauczycielski, nos. 52–53 (1961): 3. M. Taczanowska, “Dziewczęta w czarnych po≈czochach,” Głos Pracy, no. 64 (1962): 6.

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methods to reach her readership. The main pedagogue of Filipinka,40 whose numerous journalistic and educational texts helped to create the model of a moderately modern girl, also wrote a book in which she suspended some of her own theses. Tancerze was one of the books attacked by vicious lampoons filled with accusations of “naturalism” in portrayals of sex life,41 and of “sanctioning the low sensation of responsibility of some young people.”42 The author, who had proclaimed theories of a weaker, reactive sexual drive in young women, advocated the cultural restraint of impulses, and suggested that young women should postpone sexual initiation until they were in a mature loving relationship,43 created positive sexually active female protagonists in Tancerze. Her Magda bears strong resemblance to the immoral characters portrayed by Brigitte Bardot.44 With her nonchalant attitude and fashionable style, “she looked shocking, provocative, eccentric . . . she had an aura of carelessness, of self-assured strength, maybe even of a certain superiority over the world, which she could pick like fruit whenever she, Magda, felt like it.”45 Her friend Ula, a teachers’ college student, may be even more interesting: despite all her moral uprightness, she feels desire, loses her virginity, and becomes involved in a pleasant affair with a fairly random partner. It is 40

Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa (1902–1976) was a teacher, education department employee, and writer. She also responded to readers’ letters sent to Na przełaj magazine; she was an author of pamphlets and books like O czym chcą wiedzieć dziewczęta (What Girls Want to Know, 1957); Ratuj, Ewo! (Help, Ewa!, 1963); Nie wierzą w bociany: Rozmowy z dziećmi o sprawach płci (They Don’t Believe in Storks: Conversation with Children about Sex Issues, 1971), as well as compiling a selection of letters from young people with comments, addressed to teachers and parents, in Listy o trudnym dojrzewaniu (Letters about Troubled Adolescence, 1961). She translated, along with her husband, Anton Makarenko’s A Book for Parents, and was an activist of the Lay School Society. 41 Kwieci≈ska, “Nowe powie√ci o dorastającej młodzieży”; Kozicki, “Romans dla podlotków.” 42 Skrobiszewska, “Fałszywe pas.” 43 For more about the perception of female sexuality in somewhat later sexological discourse, including in publications by Michalina Wisłocka, see Agnieszka Ko√cia≈ska, Płeć, przyjemno√ć i przemoc: Kształtowanie wiedzy eksperckiej o seksualno√ci w Polsce (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2014). 44 Iwona Kurz wrote that there was no other female protagonist in Polish cinema of the time who, like Brigitte Bardot in her roles, was driven by the sexual impulse (according to Simone de Beauvoir, as quoted by Kurz, Bardot was not perverse on the screen; she rather “followed the call of her inclinations. She eats when she is hungry and she makes love with the same unceremonious ease”). See Kurz, “Dwuzłotówki w kieszeniach na kino,” 122–24. 45 Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, Tancerze, 4th ed. (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1977), 260.

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she who, with the support of Magda, “makes superficial, free love,” destroying the myth around her first sexual encounter.46 Jackiewiczowa separated her role as journalist and educator from that of a writer, yet the dissonance between them was not as great as it may seem. Neither Magda nor Ula made their worth conditional upon being desired, loved, or chosen by a man. And this, according to Jackiewiczowa, was the key feature of a contemporary woman, who was an independent “modern human being”: educated, working, supporting herself (and possibly her child), who owed her social position to her own accomplishments and who, moreover, “happens to have” a personal life.47 In the same survey in which Leja mocked the “ghetto of youth literature,” Jackiewiczowa proposed that the antiquated division into “moral” and “immoral” books be abolished. She thought that stimulation of an “autonomous, bold, critical attitude to books and the problems depicted in them” was more educational than providing ready recipes.48 It is worth noting that both Leja and Jackiewiczowa—against the dominant demands of the time—explicitly undermined the need for any distinction within youth literature (this is what the survey questions referred to) and so, implicitly, also of any distinction among literature for girls, which their novels were classified as. Jackiewiczowa actually remained faithful to the formula of problematic intergenerational popular literature (which she pursued in various ways, by changing her method of portraying girls; the most conservative depiction was employed in her 1965 Pokolenie Teresy [Teresa’s Generation], dealing with the issue of secret wartime classes). Nevertheless, as the pedagogical consultant for the comedy show Wojna domowa (Civil War, 1965–66),49 a flagship production from the times of “the little stabilization,”50 she participated in an undertaking that infantilized all family viewers, regardless of their age or gender. 46

See, for instance, Anna Zawadzka, Ten pierwszy raz: Konstruowanie heteroseksualno√ci (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2015), and my review of this book, in which I made references to Jackiewiczowa’s novel: Eliza Szybowicz, “Polityka dziewictwa,” Dziennik Opinii, September 15, 2016, accessed December 28, 2017, http://krytykapolityczna.pl/kultura/czytaj-dalej/ polityka-dziewictwa/. 47 Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, Ratuj, Ewo!, 3rd ed. (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Harcerskie, 1966), 211. 48 Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, “Nie ‘udziecinniajmy’ czytelników,” Głos Nauczycielski, nos. 52–53 (1961): 3. 49 Wojna domowa, dir. Jerzy Gruza, script Maria Zientarowa [real name Mira Michałowska] and Jerzy Gruza, 1965–66. 50 The middle period of Władysław Gomułka’s rule (more or less from the end of the 1950s until the mid-1960s), known in Polish as the “mala stabilizacja” (little stabilization), was deemed relatively optimistic, marked by the depoliticization of many aspects of life and by a more consumerist direction.

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Displaced intellectuals The protagonists of novels from the discussed period are diverse: rich, spoiled girls chasing after pleasure and self-made social activists; indifferent girls with no personality and spirited idealists; romantics and cynics; careless and hyper-responsible; sunny and dejected; naive and astute; fundamentalists and liars. They are allowed to be fickle (“I think one thing, I say another, and I do something different altogether”)51 and unsure of who they are. This testing of the young female protagonist brings to mind a metaphor used by Tata (Dad), an ambiguous caretaker of underage hooligans and prostitutes in Papier’s novel, to describe the girls in his charge: the “adolescent sphinx.”52 A girl turns out to be the great enigma of the (post-)thaw period: a time of political and cultural ferment, of coexistence of rules and codes. The basic anxieties are projected onto her: she is to show them, work through them, or appease them. Yet, the dominant model of aspiration is embodied by the urban intellectual girl. One interesting exception is Czupiradełko (Little Scarecrow, 1962) by Hanna Muszy≈skaHoffmannowa—a tale of upward mobility of female workers from Zambrów53—as it refers, although polemically, to the socialist realist model of working girlhood which was almost entirely erased after 1956. Employees of the service sector and young female blue-collar workers appear incidentally in novels by both Natalia Rolleczek and Marian Bielicki: the main protagonists meet them after having run away from home. The new acquaintances are helpful in solving everyday problems, but it is the young intellectual girl, as the novel medium, who offers a broad critical perspective. She is often presented as an exception, including against the background of her own environment: she refers to her classmates as “hens” (Snopkiewicz) or “geese” (Kurczab). In a novel by Rolleczek, the protagonist Judyta’s peers “have fish bladders for hearts and rags for brains. . . . each one has a boyfriend and clucks on about him like a hen that just laid eggs in the bushes.”54 The perspective of the critical intellectual—who, unlike her peers, is an individualist competent in all general areas—is associated with dodging the bullet of adulthood, with a refusal to play along with the script, with leaving an inconvenient arrangement. The motif of leaving home and/or not being able to take final high school exams is a

51

Bieli≈ska, Małgorzata, 127. Papier, Magdalena w nocy, 96. 53 The women worked at the Zambrów cotton works (Zambrowskie Zakłady Przemysłu Bawełnianego), which was one of the biggest investments of the Six-Year Plan. 54 Natalia Rolleczek, Rodzinne kłopoty i ja, in Rodzina Szkaradków i ja: Rodzinne kłopoty i ja, 3rd ed. (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1985), 125. 52

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recurring one: the protagonist is not allowed to take her finals, she is removed from school right before the finals, she fails the finals or drops out of school in her final year to act in a movie, and so on. The theme of protest against the teachers’ abuse of authority is also applied frequently. One way or another, the heroine suddenly finds herself a displaced person.55 She refuses to satisfy the expectations of her family, school, employment counsellor, or society. In Drzewi≈ska’s book, she develops a mocking quasi-plan: “When these damn exams are over, she will buy a kilogram of cherries, sit right down by the river, and eat them, spitting the pits into the water. And that’s most likely it.”56 In Krystyna Salaburska’s Maski (Masks, 1964), the protagonist is irritated by the comments of her birthday guests, who cannot understand her lack of plans for when she graduates: “They were all saying something different, winding each other up, and it seemed that nothing could ever occupy their attention except a new noose around my neck. ‘So talented. Intelligent!’ they lamented over my head as if I were dead. All I could think of was how to split from there.”57 It may be said that the protagonist in this type of prose does not want to be a Filipinka girl, who works on her life according to a controlling and mobilizing pattern: look around, think, make a choice, hone your skills, fuel your ambitions and build your character, make and pursue a plan, deal with the consequences of your errors, start thinking about your future. Placed next to this awe-inspiring creature, who even controls the way she breathes,58 she seems disorderly, careless, lost, guilty. If she has any plans, she drops them easily; her life is a loose string of events. When the protagonist of Maski finally “splits” from home by lying that she is going to visit a friend, she ends up at a house party at some unknown apartment decorated “with atrocious affluence” in the Warsaw district of Praga.59 She is accompanied by a boy she is crazy about, but the rest of the guests are complete strangers to her. Sandwiches and vodka finally break the ice: “I don’t know when I started thinking that Mietka was funny, Helka simply dumb, and the boys benign.” Suddenly, the table topples over and the crystal table settings shatter. Everyone is taken over by laughter: “Louder and louder, more and more contagious, it could not be contained. It shook us, hurled us on the bed and armchairs, until our stomachs hurt. So we all started dancing, howling and stomping our feet, until we were completely

55

Leja, Listy do mojego chłopca, 85. Drzewi≈ska, Agnieszka, 11. 57 Salaburska, Maski, 5. 58 “Czy umiesz oddychaΔ?,” Filipinka, no. 19 (1958): 13. 59 Praga is a Warsaw district divided from the center by the Vistula River. It has its own specific character, and is often perceived as poorer and more dangerous than the rest of the city. 56

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exhausted. Then we crashed.” A new bottle appears out of nowhere, the lights go out and the couples “get bolder with each other.” The girl, embraced by her beau, sees this out of the corner of her eye and the revulsion sobers her up. She goes into the kitchen, watches the snow through the window, and daydreams. Her reverie is interrupted by someone pounding on the door; she can hear a raised female voice in the hallway, an unintelligible dialogue, a scream of fear. The protagonist jumps out of the window and catches a cab, but she leaves her coat with the school emblem on it in the apartment and is identified. School authorities threaten to expel her, because the owner of the apartment accuses the party attendants of demolition, having an orgy, and torturing a cat which, it turns out, froze on the windowsill.60 The events that the protagonists allow to carry them move between drastic and absurd, but there is always a decisive presence of impulse, inertia, and pure chance. The girl is adrift, wasting her time, enjoying herself, fantasizing, yielding to influences, digressing. She would gladly stretch the temporary into the neverending. Someone comes over, they go somewhere together, an idea for fun is suggested, they try to get some money, things get complicated and start to look more and more dangerous. All of this occurs on the street, in a cafe, or in an unknown apartment. In Zakopane,61 or on the coast. On the road. Associations with the Western counterculture come to mind.62 The contested script is described with little detail. There is unwillingness to step into the traditional role of a wife and mother, who, usually being in paid employment too, is constantly exhausted. The protest against being reduced to the function of a sexual object is also very distinctive. Yet, the demand that is most strongly expressed is the one for a true, “big” life, lived for oneself and not for others, without compromises, dependencies, hypocrisy, or conformism. Mechanisms of social and political subjugation are the chief causes of girls’ disappointment and cynicism. In 60

Salaburska, Maski, 78–88. A town in southern Poland at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, a popular holiday and leisure destination. 62 For more about the “Long Sixties” as a period of political protests and contestations in the West and in Poland, and especially about the changes of image of the Western youth in the Gomułka-period propaganda and press (from curiosity about the innocent extravagance to a sensation of threat to the political and moral order), see, for instance, Małgorzata Fidelis, “Red State, Golden Youth: Student Culture and Political Protest in 1960s Poland,” in Between the Avant-Garde and the Everyday: Subversive Politics in Europe, 1958–2008, ed. Timothy Brown and Lorena Anton (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), 145–53; Małgorzata Fidelis, “The Other Marxists: Making Sense of International Student Revolts in Poland in the Global Sixties,” Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 62, no. 3 (2013): 425–49. 61

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Bielicki’s trilogy, the character Małgorzata sees the society as prisoners that discipline each other: “I am an animal in a cage in which strict traffic regulations are in place, and . . . I am watched by thousands of other animals peeking out of their cages, already resigned to their fate and thus jealously making sure I don’t violate these regulations; . . . I don’t want to be a slave to conventions.”63 Conformism often has a story of its own. In Leja’s novel, Hanka’s younger sister was not initially baptized for political reasons, but then after a few years, she was, and went on to take the first communion. This plot is to illustrate the shift from Stalinism to the thaw, from an atheist state power to the informal domination of religiously defined circles (“Catholic intelligentsia—mom explained—they are very influential people”).64 Different types of conformism are mutually competitive. In a scene from Siedem zielonych zeszytów (Seven Green Notebooks, 1963) by Jan Kurczab, a teacher encourages his students to join the Socialist Youth Union. The minds of the confused girls are torn between fear of how their parents and priest will react, and fear of the authorities represented by the school. Both options are conformist, and the choice between them is finally determined by calculating which option might offer preferential acceptance to university (“the whole class caught wind of this, down to the last goose”).65 Thus, when the girl finally “breaks out” of her home, she gets into the first car she can stop, hangs out with a gang, takes off in a motorboat down the Vistula in the direction of Masuria, accepts a film role, and becomes a prostitute: she “searches for herself,” “searches for her path,” searches for a different, independent, better life. Runaways from intelligentsia homes sometimes take up work at a factory (Bielicki) or at a canteen (Rolleczek); although they learn a lot in the process, this is not about changing their social class. There is a recurring assertion that they do not have a specific founding dream; they only know what it is that they cannot agree to. After all is said and done (including complicity in assaults, frauds, thefts, a brush with prostitution, and hitting a pedestrian with a car), what is left is not only distaste and bitterness, but also a lesson learned. The most glaring example is in Stanisław Goszczurny’s Mewy (Seagulls, 1961), where the protagonist Zo√ka would have never managed to become a nurse and an independent woman if she had not gone through a phase as a “queen of the port,” selling her body. This experience afforded her a critical perspective on her inferior position of an uneducated and unemployed woman, and allowed her to discover the common denominator of both prostitution and 63

Bielicki, Małgorzata szuka siebie, 23. Leja, Listy do mojego chłopca, 160. 65 Jan Kurczab, Siedem zielonych zeszytów, 3rd ed. (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1977), 65. 64

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marriage: the status of a wife can save Zo√ka from stigma, but not from dependence (“I will never feel worthy until I get a profession, some way to live on my own, instead of always leaning on someone else”).66 Misdeeds and punishments do not always prompt a resolution to make amends, however. In Tancerze, Ula, following a rowdy house party at which she, scantily-clad, got drunk and danced “boldly and provocatively,” announced to her younger sister that “this was such fun” and that she could not promise it would not happen again.67 Once the method of soul-searching is discredited, the protagonists remain anxious, but ready to start anew: “Maybe I can even finally find out for sure what it is that I should do with myself and I will surely choose something completely different . . . on the spur of the moment. That’s how it has to be. Even though I still don’t know myself, it has some upsides. This way I always have interesting company, it’s like a never-ending game of chess . . .”68 The soothing effect of such a protagonist is dubious at best, and the heroines of “dark” girls’ novels in particular were not fitting figures for taming modernity. Their astuteness is the opposite of “girlish” charm. Some are physically aggressive, like Goszczurny’s Zo√ka or Grażyna in Brama na drodze (Gate on the Road, 1967) by Janina Zającówna, but they are easily discarded as representatives of the social margins: prostitutes and/or hooligans. The straight-A students are more vexing. Hanka Potuli≈ska does the dishes without a word of complaint, she gets the best grades, and she plans to become a lawyer. But all this is just an act meant to get everyone off her back. She writes an essay according to a number of rules, which her Polish teacher believes to be an expression of “original thinking,” but Hanka has nothing but contempt for the task. “I was writing with steel cold spite: ‘The Polish poets have always been particularly sympathetic to the misery of the lower classes.’ Then a list of social rights and securities which, as we know, could not exist in the nineteenth century. And then this poem by Maria Konopnicka: A jak poszedł król na wojnę [How the King Went to War].”69 The straight-A student parodies the official discourse and her ejection from the system is a critique of it, not a manifestation of stupidity or laziness. Similarly, the perfect candidates for traditional roles are also most likely to discredit them. The protagonist of Małgorzata (1960), a 66

Stanisław Goszczurny, Mewy, 5th ed. (Gda≈sk: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1987), 238. 67 Jackiewiczowa, Tancerze, 116–18, 126–29. 68 Bieli≈ska, Małgorzata, 162. 69 Leja, Listy do mojego chłopca, 19. A jak poszedł król na wojnę is an 1885 poem by Maria Konopnicka, a nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Polish poet, systematically promoted by subsequent authorities, including in People’s Poland; here, the poem stands as a symbol of the schematicism of the notion of social egalitarianism in its postwar form.

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novel by Izabela Bieli≈ska, is a “babe” who gets a film role because of her good looks. As an embodiment of male fantasies, she knows that studied politeness and charm make a victim out of her: “good manners and looks usually encourage dumb men to make vulgar proposals. So far, I have yet to meet a man, other than my own father, who’d be intelligent enough to avoid the tiniest inappropriateness in winning over a woman by offending them with excessively crude acts or overly refined games. The poor things must have all died out in the last war. Pity!”70 The contemptuous analyst of cultural codes observes, with the beautiful eyes of a “babe,” the pathetic male kind, whose representatives of varying ages and positions—convinced of their own seductive prowess—cannot satisfy her.

The autonomy of desire This, however, does not mean that the protagonist is immune to male advances. Besides contempt for charmers, she also has her own, autonomous desires, searching for an object upon which they could land. Often it lands on a random one. The efforts of a boy or man, even if he is unattractive, only make it stronger. The same protagonist from Bieli≈ska’s book is disgusted by the arrogance and falseness of Michał, who persistently aims at the same, sexual target; at the same time, however, she is attracted to him and dreams of finally falling into his arms. Sexual attraction is separated from love and presented rather explicitly. In Słoneczniki (Sunflowers, 1962) by Halina Snopkiewicz, Lilka is unable to leave her Michał, although she does not love him, because he is a great kisser: “If you say this again after the fifth kiss, then I agree [to break up], he said. . . . At the sixth kiss, I got up on my toes. He is so tall and so deliciously spoiled. I have found a match for myself.”71 Desire is sometimes non-oriented arousal, occasionally of the autoerotic variety. The protagonist of Kurczab’s novel, “infatuated” with her own thighs, takes pleasure in the looks she attracts. When she is home alone, her fantasies do not give her any respite: “I’m so damn turned on. I only thought about a kiss and I’m already turned on. I only thought about a kiss and I already can’t stay put. If at least someone called on the phone.”72 Hanka Potuli≈ska is aroused by rain, not to mention a couple having sex in the same shack. The girls are sexual beings virtually all the time: they are turned on by looks, touches, brushes, blows on the neck, embraces, kisses, dances, sunbathing together, swimming in the lake, riding 70

Bieli≈ska, Małgorzata, 30. Halina Snopkiewicz, Słoneczniki, 4th ed. (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1973), 205. 72 Kurczab, Siedem zielonych zeszytów, 88. 71

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in a car and finally, sexual intercourse in the most literal sense. It is difficult to list all the forms taken on by their eroticism.73 They treat this sphere of life rather casually, some in fact as “a sport of the youth, superficial, free love . . . with no commitments or great raptures.”74 This is one of the manifestations of the avid contemporary interest in sexuality: presented, researched, constructed, furnished. At the same time, let us not forget that the novel does not run parallel to the journalistic publications for girls: Jackiewiczowa the educator scolds the girls who seek physical closeness as “easy” and unworthy of “respect” (which implies they are partially to blame in the event of rape),75 but Jackiewiczowa the writer allows Magda to be “frivolous, superficial, cold, egoistic” and to take as much pleasure as she sees fit (“The boundaries are where I want them. For now, this is enough for me. But if I change my mind . . .”76). Given that desire is often directed at random objects, needless to say, these objects are often highly inappropriate: “God, he is so beautiful! . . . He is strong. He is dark. He is bad. I’d follow him to the end of the world.”77 We begin to recognize the kind quickly: a boy who dropped out of school and does not work either. A scalper, a small-time currency speculator, a thief, a fraud, a trader in pornographic photos, almost a hustler, but also an artist or the son of a rich father. The recurring motif of walking out of a cafe or restaurant without paying the bill, of eating and drinking at the expense of a “sucker” that she “hooked,” presents him as a freeloader in a society in which consumption is a reward for work. Leja’s protagonist notes that the Życie Warszawy (Warsaw Life) daily would describe her new friends as “hooligans.”78 We recognize “people from a vacant area” in them, despite the absence of an omniscient narrator, who would call them “a serious social problem.”79 In Papier’s book, their representative has a 73

This belies the famous “prudery” of the official culture of People’s Poland. Agnieszka Ko√cia≈ska writes that “censorship efficiently contained explicitly sexual topics” and cites a similarly convinced yet ahistorical thesis from Zuzanna Grębecka about youth literature. See Ko√cia≈ska, Płeć, przyjemno√ć i przemoc; Grębecka, “Erotyka i seksualno√Δ w polskiej socjalistycznej powie√ci młodzieżowej,” in Kultura popularna w Polsce w latach 1944–1989: Problemy i perspektywy badawcze, ed. Katarzyna Sta≈czak-Wi√licz (Warsaw: Fundacja Akademia Humanistyczna and Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2012), 134–51. 74 Jackiewiczowa, Tancerze, 263. 75 Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa, “Puch marny i lisie zamiary,” Filipinka, no. 1 (1960): 4– 5. 76 Jackiewiczowa, Tancerze, 264. 77 Salaburska, Maski, 22. 78 Leja, Listy do mojego chłopca, 93. 79 Ludzie z pustego obszaru, script and production by Władysław Ślesicki, Kazimierz Karabasz, 1957.

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telling nickname: “Boruta,” the name of a devil in Polish legend. It is one of the misdeeds that the protagonists perceive as a mistake in hindsight, especially since the dark object of their desire often becomes violent. Next to “hooligans,” there are also mature men, husbands and fathers, including parents’ friends, with respectable professions, looking to have an unlawful adventure with an adolescent girl. A minor is easy prey; the budding sexuality and the provocative attitude of the girl do not change the fact that the adult seducer is to blame. In the final scenes of Siedem zielonych zeszytów, a discussion about this unfolds with the participation of all interested parties. The girl’s mother concludes: “This adolescent girl had a crush on you. That’s the right of adolescent girls. She seduced you. That was her right as a woman on the verge of blossoming. I don’t mean ‘right’ within your meaning, of course. But you were not allowed to as much as touch her. You have a quarter of a century more adventures and experience behind you. You should have just slapped her.”80 A girl was more convenient for taming modernity than a woman, because it was easier to ascribe asexuality to her. In comparison with the “dark” variety, in other girls’ novels eroticism is appropriately limited: the protagonists’ desire is always directed at, or even sparked by, the right object (even if, as in Krystyna Siesicka’s Zapałka na zakręcie [Match on a Turn, 1966], he initially seems controversial). This rule will be taken to an extreme by Małgorzata Musierowicz. In the “dark” variety, the girls’ sexuality not only exists, it exists in intimate connection with a thirst for consumption. Some of the girls succumb to men because of their financial means and access to luxury. As if this was not enough, both appetites symbolize criticism of the society and of institutions. Whatever a desire-driven girl does—no matter how right the parents, teachers or law enforcement who castigate her may be—they are all usually depicted as far from the ideal.

Conflicts and hierarchies The “little stabilization” required horizontal production, peaceful normality, rationality, morality, and solidarity. In the “dark” girls’ novel, society is divided along economic, cultural, worldview (including religious), linguistic, and political fault lines. There are discontinuities, contradictions, hierarchies, and conflicts in social and family life, even in the actions of individual characters. A frank conversation, negotiation of conditions, or work on relationships are impossible. In other contemporary novels, as well as those published later, conflicts are easily identified, as are the mechanisms 80

Kurczab, Siedem zielonych zeszytów, 164.

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leading up to them. The parties are capable of self-reflection and of reviewing their own behavior; with just a bit of good will, a compromise may be worked out. Such is ultimately the conflict between Marta and her stepfather in Jezioro osobliwo√ci (A Lake of Mysteries, 1966), as well as the conflict between the students and their teacher in Siesicka’s Beethoven i dżinsy (Beethoven and Jeans, 1968). Małgorzata Musierowicz would also opt for this type of conflict in her early novels, though in time she would move to a style devoid of any conflicts. In the “dark” novels, there is no communication in society, at school, or within the family: there are only struggles for domination and frequent abuses of authority. Those privileged owing to their gender, age, profession, social or economic status, institutional function, or place with a majority group use hierarchy to humiliate the underprivileged. Strict grudges, anger, compensations, fantasies, refusals to acknowledge a mistake, and ill will are often deciding factors. Parents pull daughters into their games or project emotions caused by someone else onto them, while their upbringing strategies often boil down to moralizing lectures (“But first you have to feel like doing it, and you don’t feel like doing anything”).81 Daughters, on the other hand, manipulate them, pitch them against each other, and resort to emotional blackmail. In Siedem zielonych zeszytów, Ata’s parents are embroiled in a permanent argument with only temporary lulls (“Jesus, my folks are a maze”),82 because the underlying reason is constantly there: the father has lovers and earmarks a part of his salary for living with them. In Drzewi≈ska’s novel, Agnieszka’s parents are in a relationship that links them to each other as much as it separates them: the mother blames her husband for being abroad during the war, when their son died. Under the guise of business travel, she visits a man with whom she became involved back then, and she also uses a part of her income to live with him. Finally, she leaves to be with her lover, but soon returns; being able to project her guilty conscience attracts her back to the husband, for whom she has nothing but disdain. For his part, he prefers this arrangement to loneliness. Agnieszka defines their relationship negatively, in the categories of pathology: “Not love, not yearning, not a ‘common new life.’ This too is some kind of illness; they are all infected with war and that’s the only reason why they return, why they hang onto each other.”83 War, in fact, is a frequent reason for the disintegration of family ambiance, as seen in works by Rolleczek, Fleszarowa-Muskat, and Irena Szeliga. The emancipation of women is not as widespread and obvious as it would appear later, for example in the first novels by Siesicka. The pro81

Drzewi≈ska, Agnieszka, 55. Kurczab, Siedem zielonych zeszytów, 77. 83 Drzewi≈ska, Agnieszka, 124. 82

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tagonists face outright discrimination and misogyny. Some girls (Dzidka in Tancerze or Zo√ka in Mewy) only dream about securing a high social position for themselves by marrying well. Ulka, the material girl from Stanisława Fleszarowa-Muskat’s Lato nagich dziewcząt (Summer of Naked Girls, 1960) wants a well-off husband because the financial independence of her mother is not enough for her, an inadequate reward for the effort. More often, however, the “good catch” is desired more by the petitbourgeois mother, disappointed with her own life, but unable to equip her daughter with anything more. Besides such figures, we also encounter emancipated, constantly busy mothers who are doctors, teachers, scientists, or artists; literally besides, as some of the novels are premised on the confrontation of models. In Tancerze, Ula and Magda compare their extremely different mothers: one scary and patriarchal (an official), and the other charming and independent (a sculptor). The former tries to blackmail her daughters with her double-shift toil (professional and domestic) and cause them to reproduce her status. The latter is “an extraordinarily interesting person,” in whose life the husband and the daughter “play such an insignificant role.”84 Ula is overwhelmed and angered by the strategy of control, shaming and punishment; Magda is tormented by the “unfulfilled desire for motherly interest.”85 Both are envious of each other’s mothers. This could be taken as a double accusation against the always “bad” mothers (overly or insufficiently emancipated), but the author withholds any judgement. The girls’ behaviors are the product of many factors, and while their relationships with their mothers are important, they are not decisive. The mothers are justified by their sociocultural background and what they have been through. The only thing that “cannot be understood” is indifference: Magda is constantly hungry for stimuli largely because she is so desperately in need of motherly love.86 The mother in Kurczab’s novel, on the other hand, assumes both roles. She moves back and forth between liberal infantilism and nervous violence, not staying long at either extreme. Although she is helpless when it comes to raising her daughter, her professional fulfillment still has an edifying influence on the protagonist: “At the office where she works, she’s important. People keep looking for her, needing her. And everyone knows that she knows about everything. . . . I like to sit in a corner of her office room and see her deal with all these nasties.”87 Mothers usually come paired with fathers, but their accomplishments and incompetences usually complement each other or create additional tensions. Apparently, the backlash mechanisms of stigmatizing women are 84

Jackiewiczowa, Tancerze, 163. Ibid., 226. 86 Ibid., 145–46. 87 Kurczab, Siedem zielonych zeszytów, 10. 85

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not in operation here,88 although post-Stalinist pop culture was sometimes based on this type of rhetoric.89 In one of the episodes of Bielicki’s trilogy, the backlash is explicitly presented: neighbors gossiping about Małgorzata’s escape conclude that the parenting failure is a result of her mother’s career. This is just a short distance from a generalized diagnosis of the collapse of morals: “‘That’s right,’ says some man. ‘It’s all because the mothers are not watching over their homes.’”90 The aggressive outrage of the older generation at the “demoralization” of youth is presented similarly. Whether it is about playing in a movie (Bieli≈ska), attending a wild house party (Salaburska), an affair with a mature man (Kurczab) or pregnancy (Słoneczniki) and children (Szeliga), the girl is likely to encounter moral panic: “You have to be isolated before you demoralize the other students.”91 In and out of the norm The (post-)thaw novel for girls recognized the disintegration of traditional hierarchies and social patterns, especially of the patriarchal family model, in which the father (or more broadly, the parents) is the obvious supreme authority. The recurring motif of fathers who remain sexually active is not accidental; it denotes a lack of control and power. The motifs of nonnormative relations with fathers also abound: the protagonist of Kopci≈ska’s Podlotki (Adolescents, 1965) is her father’s partner in social life; Kurczab’s Beata shares her friends’ appreciation for her father’s physical attractiveness; and in the novel by Fleszarowa-Muskat, a father tries to seduce a girl who, unbeknown to him, is his daughter. It is a world that no longer fits in its mold. Paradoxically, this is confirmed by the parenting strategy presented in Rolleczek’s Kochana rodzinka i ja (My Beloved Family and I, 1961), where the mother and grandmother use the father, allegedly killed in combat at Monte Cassino,92 as a disciplining figure. This creation of 88

See, for instance, Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 1991); Małgorzata Fidelis, “Women Astray: Debating Sexuality and Reproduction during the Thaw,” and “Reforming the System, Protecting Motherhood: Contradictions of the Poststalinist Experience,” in Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 170–237. 89 See Zagubione uczucia, dir. Jerzy Zarzycki, script Hanna Mortkowicz-Olczakowa, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Jerzy Zarzycki, Julian Dziedzina, 1957. 90 Marian Bielicki, Gdzie jeste√, Małgorzato?, 2nd ed. (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1988), 133. 91 Salaburska, Maski, 96. 92 Monte Cassino is a hill in Italy, the site of a key battle in 1944, won by the Allied forces with a significant contribution from Polish soldiers. In Poland, it stands as a symbol of the Polish soldiers’ patriotic heroism.

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fatherly authority is discredited when it turns out that the father never fought at Monte Cassino; he is alive and well in London. His function is taken over by a number of people: the patriarchal grandmother, as head of the family; the older sister, the second person in the house—besides the mother—who is making money; and the family friend, a practical and psychological guardian and supplier. As long as the father remains dead, however, he is indispensable to the symbolic plan. Alive, present, real, in the third part of the trilogy he proves obsolete and emigrates to Australia. According to culture scholar Małgorzata Szpakowska, the patriarchal family model was supplanted in the 1960s by the conflict-ridden “bourgeois” negotiation model.93 The discussed books shed light on the interim state: not everyone has yet acknowledged the change, while some are trying to act as if it never happened, which at times takes on a farcical, panicstricken form. The protagonists do not want to give in to the patriarchal authority (of father, mother, teacher) that is being clutched onto, yet they do not find any partners for negotiation, and thus they decide to/feel compelled to follow their desires. Apparently, however, a model of socialist society composed of such individuals could not exist. As such, there emerged novels about adolescents turning straight, maturing to compromise, learning to order the chaos of desire, reinstating their family relations. What was permanent in the case of “dark” protagonists, was only a temporary (yet understandable) turbulence, a point of departure. The remorseful runaways return home (the ending of Bielicki’s trilogy), or to a correctional facility (Zającówna), in order to learn the difficult rules of coexistence with people. Having fallen head over heels for a hooligan or a rich kid, they come around quickly (Gli≈ska), they transfer their affection onto a more appropriate object (Mira Jaworczakowa), or they make the young criminal return onto the right path (Szeliga). In Fleszarowa-Muskat’s Lato nagich dziewcząt, the final return to the norm concerns Be—who has more in common with Brigitte Bardot than just her nickname94—and Ulka, who imitates Be. We first encounter them as young women who boldly chase men and luxurious consumption during the summer seaside season, fashioned after the Western ways. Ulka belittles her mother’s salary and her own studies (“how much money can chemistry

93

Małgorzata Szpakowska, Chcieć i mieć: Samowiedza obyczajowa w Polsce czasu przemian (Warsaw: W.A.B., 2003), 84–85. 94 Be has even been described as Brigitte Bardot (see footnote 44): “She is sensual, pure biology, a predatory desire”; she has “slanted eyes, through which she picks—carefully and with expertise—the most savory morsels of life”; after initiating intercourse she sleeps “splayed on her back, naked and innocent like a baby.” Stanisława Fleszarowa-Muskat, Lato nagich dziewcząt, 3rd ed. (Gda≈sk: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1991), 32 and 56.

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ever bring me”). She does not notice Marek, a shy knight. Instead, she plans to “net” a mature man with assets and a position, who could “provide a comfortable life for her.” The external judgements are unanimous: she is “a little slut.” The tension in the plot is connected by Ulka’s virginity, almost lost a number of times and always with highly inappropriate partners. This is because the girl attracts a few men who try to seduce her, but she is put off by the role they impose on her, devoid of any agency (“Ulka stifled a laugh. They’re so stubborn! Foal, kid—oh, there was also a fawn . . . Why didn’t any of them think it fitting to call her by her name?”).95 Another element of a world turned upside down is the family situation of the girl: raised by a single mother, who, unlike her daughter, is as shy as a schoolgirl, happy with the independence afforded by her work, but unhappy owing to the absence of male support. At the end, Be is finally in love, but she resists another affair “with the tenacity of a nun.” Ulka’s priorities also change: she sees Marek with more favor, and as for the mature man whom she had tried to seduce, she accepts him in the appropriate role of a partner to her no-longer-single mother, and she will continue to study. “How easy it was,” concludes the novel, “to make a child out of her [Ulka] again.”96 The stakes in regaining the status of a child are both virginity (a traditional value) and independence in life (a modern value). The protagonist from Kopci≈ska’s Podlotki, similar to Be and Ulka, turns from a girl who gives in to impulses to a “pedagogue.” The transformation is illustrated with the adventures of Lucyna’s body. First there is a nonnormatively close physical encounter with her father (a reference to Bonjour tristesse), then with friends at boarding school (“each one of us has something of a lesbian, and this is not disgusting”);97 finally she comes close to being raped at a date (shown in the book as a potential lesson), and in the second-last scene, she pushes away her father (at this point, the only physical contact between them is a slap that he gives her). Finally, Lucyna is embraced by a multitude of small arms and surrounded with the faces of preschoolers. Her floating body finally finds its traditional position, where non-normative pleasure is replaced with the caretaking function. The formula of the novel by Siesicka, a principal author of the later period, is largely a polemic with its “dark” predecessors, which consists, among other things, in the elimination of non-normative pleasure. The protagonist of her debut Jezioro osobliwo√ci tries to go astray twice: first when she runs away from home, and then when she decides to take a boat to a dance without permission. Both adventures end before they properly start. During the former, Marta has to defend herself from advances made 95

Ibid., 207. Ibid., 333. 97 Kopci≈ska, Podlotki, 166. 96

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by Patryk, associated with conditional non-normativity which in reality is normativity (“If only it were possible to love two boys at a time, I’m sure I would love Patryk as well!”).98 The latter attempt is interrupted early on by a dangerous accident, perhaps a crime. This uncertainty organizes the retrospective narrative of the novel into a quasi-criminal plot, leaving no room to present the pleasure of a night-time escapade to a dance. In the end the protagonist, having acknowledged her guilt even though she did not get any pleasure, serves tea to her stepfather in a gesture of concession to the mildly patriarchal norm embodied by him, against which she had previously rebelled. In the case of Zapałka na zakręcie, published in the same year (1966), the prohibited escapade constitutes part of the back story. Now the only judgement to be passed is whether or not Marcin is trustworthy after all. The boy acted as if he were a character from a “dark” novel (drinking alcohol, randomly choosing girls, stealing a scooter), and he was accompanied by a girl who could have been the main protagonist of Leja’s or Kurczab’s book, the narrative medium. In Siesicka’s book, Mariola is shown only in short flashes. From a distance, she is made of a few exaggerated features which make us recognize her as a type of “displaced” character: she subscribes to a life philosophy that “everything will work out somehow,” she loves car rides, she pulls on the boy’s sleeve (a suggestion of sexual initiative). Once again, we have no opportunity to peek into the pleasure of speeding in a stolen vehicle, which was one of the constitutive features of the “dark” narratives. The main protagonist is Mada, a Filipinka girl who can run her own life and who does not even approach the boy to make his acquaintance (because “it wouldn’t look good”),99 not to mention sexual intercourse. It is her grandma’s authority that finally qualifies Marcin as a fitting object of desire. This tactic would be infantilized and repeated a decade later by Musierowicz. Examples of normativization of “dark” plots abound, but one of the most interesting ones is “This Man”: a grown-up neighbor and the object of innocent fantasies harbored by the protagonist in Tabliczka marzenia by Halina Snopkiewicz. This relationship never leaves the imagination of the girl, “This Man” knows nothing of it, and in the end, he turns out to be a replacement object before the right relationship emerges between peers (“that thing with ‘This Man’ was a silly flight of fancy and everything I said to him I really said to you”).100

98

Krystyna Siesicka, Jezioro osobliwo√ci, 3rd ed. (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1973), 167. 99 Krystyna Siesicka, Zapałka na zakręcie, 3rd ed. (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1972), 23. 100 Halina Snopkiewicz, Tabliczka marzenia, 4th ed. (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1973), 114.

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Conclusion The “dark” novel and the tamer one (endorsed by Siesicka) corresponded to different concepts of girlhood, emancipation, society, and modernity. They did not render themselves to unambiguous judgements. The latter may be deemed perhaps the best result of the “intensified ideological and educational offensive” of the Party, waged on the “cultural front,”101 which began in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was expressed, among other things, by greater control over popular literature. It explored new areas, such as extensive horizontal relations (siblings, peers, also within the group), and especially friendship and solidarity (from help with schoolwork to abortion support).102 The heroine of the new type was not allowed to show any signs of sexual activity, but she had ambitious career plans (Ludka from Tabliczka marzenia planned to win the Nobel Prize in biology). In response to charges of elitism, a current of novels featuring main characters from rural areas emerged, touching upon the issue of upward social mobility (for instance, Ludwika Woźnicka’s Jagoda w mie√cie [Jagoda in the City, 1968] and Jagoda dojrzewa [Jagoda Grows Up, 1980]; Janina Górkiewiczowa’s Szesnaste lato Hanki [Hanka’s Sixteenth Summer, 1969]; Maria Józefacka’s Dziewczyna nie ludzie [A Girl—Not People, 1979] and Lotnica [Flyer, 1984]). Córki chcą inaczej (Daughters Want Something Different, 1966) by Eugenia Kobyli≈ska-Masiejewska showcased the emancipatory potential of divergent yet equally valid models of aspiration (a seamstress was not a profession inferior to that of a doctor; both were needed). The model-making, or simply a more conclusive formula—by showing a certain level of emancipation as achieved and unquestionable, demonstrating positive social relations and methods of their renegotiation, as well as modern normativity—projected different readings, consisting in a specific organization of social imagination. It turned out to be just an episode within the entire genre and within publishing policy. Modern normativization was neither total nor definitive. There were new editions of the “dark” novels from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Similar themes appeared—only to be dismantled—later on (for instance, Skok przez skórę [Leap out of Skin, 1971] by Stanisława Platówna). In the non-didactic version, they returned, although marginally, along with the type of floating heroine in the 1980s (Co słychać za tymi drzwiami [What Is Heard behind Those Doors, 1982] by Ewa Ostrowska; Ewa [1987] by Janina Zającówna; Halina [1988] by Anna Frankowska), which suggests parallels between this decade and the thaw as a period of 101 102

Wojtczak, Wielką i mniejszą literą, 675 and 647. See Eliza Szybowicz, “Niechciana ciąża i aborcja w powie√ciach dla dziewcząt,” Teksty Drugie, no. 4 (2016): 120–24.

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political and cultural passage, coexistence of patterns, and formation of new rules. Anxieties were once again soothed by the normativity of girls’ novels, but this time it could hardly be referred to as modern. It did not spark discussions like those of the late 1950s and early 1960s. What we may consider a weak echo of them were the ritual statements on the renewal of the genre by Małgorzata Musierowicz, recurring throughout the reviews of her first novels. According to critics, this author fortunately departed from the once-dominant formula of the “dark” novel for girls.103 And so, rather conspicuously, a hegemony of the girlhood formula as established in the Jeżycjada series was consolidating, and it was only slightly modernized in comparison to the protagonists from Kornel Makuszy≈ski’s books.104 This modern “Miss Wet-Head”—a silly, joyful adolescent whose faith in people makes them better and who solves all problems—was to smoothly walk society through the dismantling of the socialist state and its attendant emancipation project. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

103

I have written more about this in my text entitled “Nie tylko dla dziewcząt: Jeżycjada Małgorzaty Musierowicz,” written as part of the grant project Konstelacje krytyczne: Strategie krytyki literackiej XX i XXI wieku, conducted by Dorota Kozicka at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. 104 For more about the female protagonists in Makuszy≈ski’s books (and similar characters in girls’ literature), see Eliza Szybowicz, “Szalona głowa, złote serce,” Znak, no. 725 (October 2015), accessed December 30, 2017, http://www. miesiecznik.znak.com.pl/szalona-glowa-zlote-serce/. For more about the formula of Musierowicz’s novels, see Eliza Szybowicz, “Negocjowanie codzienno√ci w ‘Przygrywce’ Ewy Lach i ‘Kwiecie kalafiora’ Małgorzaty Musierowicz, czyli rok 1976 i odebrana pałeczka,” Kultura i Historia, no. 31 (2017), accessed January 5, 2018, http://www.kulturaihistoria.umcs.lublin.pl/archives/6094.

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“Hanka Potuli≈ska i jej rówie√nice.” Walka Młodych, no. 44 (1960): 4. “Na cenzurowanym: Powie√Δ o młodzieży.” Filipinka, no. 4 (1964): 3. Bielicki, Marian. Gdzie jeste√, Małgorzato? Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1963. Bieli≈ska, Izabela. Małgorzata. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1960. Chruszczy≈ski, Andrzej. “Lepsi i gorsi tancerze.” Polityka, no. 6 (1964): 1 and 5. Drawicz, Andrzej. “Kasia, Małgorzata i inne.” Sztandar Młodych, no. 4 (1966): 3. Drzewi≈ska, Elżbieta. Agnieszka. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1963. Fidelis, Małgorzata. “Czy jeste√ nowoczesną dziewczyną? Młode Polki a kultura konsumpcyjna w latach 60.” Teksty Drugie, no. 2 (2015): 303–23. ———. “Red State, Golden Youth: Student Culture and Political Protest in 1960s Poland.” In Between the Avant-Garde and the Everyday: Subversive Politics in Europe, 1958–2008, edited by Timothy Brown and Lorena Anton, 145–53. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2011. ———. “The Other Marxists: Making Sense of International Student Revolts in Poland in the Global Sixties.” Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 62, no. 3 (2013): 425–49. Fleszarowa-Muskat, Stanisława. Lato nagich dziewcząt. Gda≈sk: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1991. G., Małgorzata, “Po co takie książki?” Filipinka, no. 1 (1964): 2. Gli≈ska, Agnieszka. Kasia i inne. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1963. Goszczurny, Stanisław. Mewy. Gdynia: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1961. Grębecka, Zuzanna. “Erotyka i seksualno√Δ w polskiej socjalistycznej powie√ci młodzieżowej.” In Kultura popularna w Polsce w latach 1944–1989: Problemy i perspektywy badawcze, edited by Katarzyna Sta≈czak-Wi√licz, 134–51. Warsaw: Fundacja Akademia Humanistyczna and Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2012. Grochola, Wiesława. “Gusty autorek i czytelniczek.” Polityka, no. 13 (1964): 8. Grodzie≈ska, Wanda. “Książki dla młodzieży.” Kuźnica, no. 16 (1947): 9. Hennel, Józefa. “Książka dla młodzieży?” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 22 (1959): 4. Jackiewiczowa, Elżbieta. Dziewczęta szukają drogi. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1958. ———. “List do Krystyny z telewizji.” Filipinka, no. 26 (1960): 4. ———. “Nie ‘udziecinniajmy’ czytelników.” Głos Nauczycielski, nos. 52–53 (1961): 3. ———. Tancerze. 4th ed. Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1977. Jaworczakowa, Mira. Po słonecznej stronie. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1964. Kądzielowa, Teresa. “Recepcja książki Elżbiety Jackiewiczowej Dziewczęta szukają drogi.” In Dziecko i młodzież w √wietle zainteresowa≈ czytelniczych, edited by Tadeusz Parnowski, 120–37. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1960. Kopci≈ska, Ada. Podlotki. Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1965. Ko√cia≈ska, Agnieszka. Płeć, przyjemno√ć i przemoc: Kształtowanie wiedzy eksperckiej o seksualno√ci w Polsce. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2014. Kowalska, Zofia. “Literatura dla panienek.” Walka Młodych, no. 9 (1959): 4. Kozicki, Stefan. “Romans dla podlotków.” Przegląd Kulturalny, no. 2 (1962): 7. Kruszewska-Kudelska, Anna. Polskie powie√ci dla dziewcząt po roku 1945. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossoli≈skich, Wydawnictwo PAN, 1972.

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Kuliczkowska, Krystyna. “Drogi tematu współczesnego w prozie dla młodzieży (1945–1965).” In Kim jeste√ Kopciuszku, czyli o problemach współczesnej literatury dla dzieci i młodzieży, edited by Stanisław Aleksandrzak, 11–46. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1968. ———. “O powie√ci dla dziewcząt.” In W szklanej kuli: Szkice o literaturze dla dzieci i młodzieży, 113–16. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1970. ———. “Parę uwag o ‘powie√ciach dla dorastających panienek.’” Odrodzenie, no. 13 (1946): 11. ———. “W √wiecie dziewcząt.” Życie Literackie, nos. 51 (1964): 1, 6–7; and 52 (1964): 6. Kurczab, Jan. Siedem zielonych zeszytów. 3rd ed. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1977. Kurz, Iwona. “‘Dwuzłotówki w kieszeniach na kino’: Elżbieta Czyżewska— dziewczyna z fotosu.” In Twarze w tłumie: Wizerunki bohaterów wyobraźni zbiorowej w kulturze polskiej lat 1955–1969, 117–50. Warsaw: Świat Literacki, 2005. Kwieci≈ska, Zofia. “Nowe powie√ci o dorastającej młodzieży: Recenzja Tancerzy Elżbiety Jackiewiczowej.” Trybuna Ludu, no. 14 (1962): 8. Leja, Magda. “Kraszewski dla 15-latek.” Głos Nauczycielski, nos. 52–53 (1961): 6. ———. Listy do mojego chłopca. Warsaw: Iskry, 1960. Matuszewski, Ryszard. “Pensjonarki z czasów Kuźnicy.” Nowa Kultura, no. 52 (1958): 2. Mortkowicz-Olczakowa, Hanna. Kolorowe gwiazdy. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1961. Mrozik, Agnieszka. “‘Traktorzystka to nie kobieta’: Polska polityka płci w okresie Odwilży.” In Przełom Października ‘56, edited by Paweł Dybicz, 133–62. Warsaw: Fundacja Oratio Recta, 2016. Muszy≈ska-Hoffmannowa, Hanna. Czupiradełko. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, 1962. Papier, Tadeusz. Magdalena w nocy. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie, 1962. Prorok, Leszek. Tarantella. Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Pozna≈skie, 1963. Przecławska, Anna. Młody czytelnik i współczesno√ć. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1966. Rolleczek, Natalia. Kochana rodzinka i ja. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1961. Salaburska, Krystyna. Maski. Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1964. Skrobiszewska, Halina. “Fałszywe pas.” Nowe Książki, no. 3 (1962): 148–50. ———. “Z adresem młodzieżowym.” Polityka, no. 13 (1964): 8. Sło≈ska, Irena. “Książki dla dziewcząt.” In Dzieci i książki, 189–205. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1959. Snopkiewicz-Gałka, Halina. Słoneczniki. Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1962. Szary, Ewa. “Czym żyΔ?” Życie Literackie, no. 25 (1962): 4–5. Szeliga, Irena. Bywa i tak . . . Warsaw: Iskry, 1962. Szybowicz, Eliza. “Niechciana ciąża i aborcja w powie√ciach dla dziewcząt.” Teksty Drugie, no. 4 (2016): 120–24. ———. “Polityka dziewictwa.” Dziennik Opinii. September 15, 2016. Accessed December 28, 2017. http://krytykapolityczna.pl/kultura/czytaj-dalej/politykadziewictwa/.

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Taczanowska, M. “Dziewczęta w czarnych po≈czochach.” Głos Pracy, no. 64 (1962): 6. Wojtczak, Mieczysław. Wielką i mniejszą literą: Literatura i polityka w pierwszym ćwierćwieczu PRL. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Studio Emka, 2014. Zającówna, Janina. Brama na drodze. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1967. Zawadzka, Anna. Ten pierwszy raz: Konstruowanie heteroseksualno√ci. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2015.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Here I Stand, I Cannot Do Otherwise”: Around An Open Letter to the Party and the Notion of Revisionism in Discourse About the Political Opposition in 1960s Poland Bartłomiej Starnawski

Change your tune! Petronius, The Dinner of Trimalchio1

The history of the opposition and the paths of historiography At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a Wittenberg Augustinian, the author of the words quoted in the title above, announced his famous theological votum separatum against the ethically questionable politicaleconomic practices of the Roman Church. Recognizing the Scriptures as the only canonical exponent of the Truth, he resolutely opposed the infallibility of Pope Leo X and what we would today call his doxa;2 as such, he immediately excluded himself from his community. More specifically, he was removed by papal edict, making him officially and with immediate 1

Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon, vol. 2, The Dinner of Trimalchio, trans. W. C. Firebaugh (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922), 75. 2 Dogma as such was a later invention, ratified only in the nineteenth century during the First Vatican Council, but since the beginning of institutionalized Christianity, it had been subject to faith. Paradoxically, official speeches by the Party’s First Secretaries in communist discourse were treated similarly; First Secretaries were treated as the local “second after God” after the Optimus Homo Sovieticus, that is Joseph Stalin and his successors. Piotr Osęka has written about this: “regardless of the historical period, the propaganda has always created a myth of infallibility of the management and of an unconditioned social support they enjoyed.” See Piotr Osęka, “‘Nie wybieraΔ na żywioł’: Model zmiany na stanowisku I sekretarza KC PZPR,” in PRL—trwanie i zmiana, ed. Dariusz Stola and Marcin Zaremba (Warsaw: Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczo√ci i Zarządzania im. Leona Koźmi≈skiego, 2003), 21.

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effect an excommunicated heretic and exile.3 This is how, five centuries ago, a history of resistance to the typically autocratic-authoritarian authorities was born. We will not concern ourselves here with the further historical dynamics of this process. For the sake of the diachronic perspective, however, let us keep this illustrative example in mind as an exceptionally useful epistemic metaphor. The issue of settling accounts with the “communist system” remains one of the most essential problems of post-1989 Polish historiography. Another key problem lies in describing the origins and shaping of both the overt and covert opposition in the People’s Republic of Poland, which later provided the soil for growth of the future democratic power in the first part of the 1990s. In both cases we may speak about a high degree of dependence on, so to say, a set of emotions making up an anti-communist attitude among people (with different degrees of radicalism and a different character depending on the environment concerned).4 This has led to a centralization of texts produced in such a perspective around strongly axiological normative claims about the communist political discursive formation, as Michel Foucault would call it (and in the narrative sense, the system of performances),5 and, in opposition to it, its adversaries. Expressing the issue in a simpler way: the anticommunist paradigm usually defines the field of references to the past (the history of communism/People’s Poland and the story of the anti-systemic opposition) in an extensive and one-sided way, thus determining a unanimously evaluating profile of statements on this topic in academic discourse. In both cases, the epistemic mistake consisting in an emblematization of the thematic fields: “the communist system” (the Party → a foreign power → violence), and “opposition” (active anti-communism → anti-systemic character and patriotism → independence)—that is, reducing it to a clear picture—must logically lead to confusing the factographic field with a type of narrative based on moral claims against this field and the assessment thereof, ultimately resulting in reductions and simplifications. Considering only the negative effects of communism while disregarding any objective reasons that lower social classes may support communist ideas, at least in the initial phase 3

Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and The Devil, trans. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). 4 See Andrzej Leon Sowa, Historia polityczna Polski 1944–1991 (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2011); Andrzej Friszke, Opozycja polityczna w PRL w latach 1945–1980 (London: Aneks, 1994); Marcin Zaremba, Communism–Legitimacy– Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland, trans. Arthur Rosman (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019); Jerzy Topolski, Historia Polski (Pozna≈: Rebis, 2015); and Antoni Dudek, Historia polityczna Polski 1989–2005 (Krakow: Znak, 2007). 5 See Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972).

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(such as social equality, modernization, universal education, free healthcare, municipal housing, state-organized transport, decreasing unemployment, pension provisions and benefits, and so on),6 Polish historiography introduces a significant narrowing of the perspective, which closes the discussion with, for example, private history, family history, oral history, or environmental history. The result of this selective attitude of historians to the matter of facts is an a priori unified picture of the years 1944–89. Almost five decades of People’s Poland, described by the normative conservative-anticommunist story as a totalitarian formation, becomes a monolith. It is therefore difficult to introduce alternative themes to debates about the past and social facts within historiography, such as those that are proposed by contemporary cultural research and social history, redefining certain assessments or otherwise naming certain qualitative changes in the anthropological sphere (understood in a non-ethnocentric way).7 A simple, dichotomous juxtaposition remains prevalent: Us vs. The Others, in which the national community and the Catholic Church rise together against the foreign Soviet power implanted from the Soviet Union, fight it heroically, and finally emerge victorious.8 Such a vision based on the separation of anti-communist identity and communist alienness paradoxically also accompanies the qualitative historical recognition of native opposition structures against the discourse of communist authorities and their political pragmatics. In order to somewhat simplify this argument, it can be concluded that the consequence of this functional 6

For more on this, see Stanisław Opara, Tyrania złudze≈: Studia z filozofii polityki (Warsaw: Muza S.A., 2009). 7 See Henryk Słabek, O społecznej historii Polski 1945–1989 (Warsaw: PWN, 2015), and Intelektualistów obraz własny w √wietle dokumentów autobiograficznych 1944– 1989 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1997). 8 A historical experience, if not properly worked through both in the subjective sphere and on the anthropological level of the community, becomes a problem for the public discourse and for history, as it usually returns in a mythologized version, transformed and built over with different affects, to induce opinions and seep poison as Derrida’s pharmakon. It blurs the demarcation lines between fiction and an intrasubjective description of facts, opening the road to populism of all kinds, or to a doubtful quality of historiosophy, which offers its own explication of trauma or heroism, of homeliness and alienness, etc. These issues were pointed out in Teresa Walas, Zrozumieć swój czas: Kultura polska po komunizmie; Rekonesans (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2003). Similar views were formulated by the authors of a two-volume synthesis on communication processes in Poland after 1989 and on the essential changes or semantic shifts in the field of metalanguages that describe the still-unresolved (and often artificially synthetized) historical experience of the interwar period, People’s Poland, the transformation, and democracy. See Maryla Hopfinger, Zygmunt Ziątek, and Tomasz Żukowski, eds., Debaty po roku 1989: Literatura w procesach komunikacji; W stronę nowej syntezy (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2017), 56–58.

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meta-narrative is a radical severance of the field of the diachronic description and, consequently, a specifically ahistorical view of the events of the past. Any story thus conceived must fulfill, to a greater or lesser extent, the rhetorical conditions of a “black book” approach in terms of style (using an axiological quantifier in the field of factography), composition (a negative systematic of the authorities’ despotike techne, a registry of wrongdoings committed within one ethnos, and so on), and above all, semantics.9 It is worth noting that within it, Stalinism becomes a pars pro toto of communism, and secondarily, due to frequent references, the signifié of the left. The historical point of view thus outlined inevitably implies a conflict between two absolutely opposed and ontologically separate entities: the homely “nation” against a foreign power imposed by force from outside.10 The anti-communist history of communism thus profiles the history of People’s Poland as a constant civil war for the field of existence and symbolic meanings between the Party, structurally alien in the ideological, geopolitical, and ethnic sense, and the nation, completely immune to socialist ideas, understood as an essentialist structure, which was forced by objective circumstances to adopt the stance of a permanent counter-offensive; the war of a “comrade” (pseudo-)Polish communist (“Bolshevik,” Stalinist, Jewish communist, semi-naturalized Russian) with a Polish Catholic, thereby viewed as a real “citizen” within the ethnic group. The essentialist formula used for describing socialism/“communism” as a foreign body (the Leviathan?) must thus create or presuppose the belief that the whole leftist tradition and belief system (for instance, about state organization and the system of social relations) is transcendent to the source of “Polishness.”11 It should therefore initiate a network of more or less subtle distinctions between what is familiar and identical (Heim), and what is strictly national and—in opposition to it—unambiguously indicate all kinds of “non-identities,” alien bodies (Fremde), leading to a contamination of the ethnically healthy tissue. The situation in question is also confirmed by some historians dealing with the problems of twentieth-century Poland, such as Paweł Machcewicz, who wrote about the Polish October and the devaluation of this event in contemporary historical thought as follows: 9

See Andrzej Paczkowski, “‘Enemy Nation,’” in Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 363–93. 10 Such a position is criticized in the book by Henryk Słabek, Obraz robotników polskich w √wietle ich √wiadectw własnych i statystyki 1945–1989 (Kutno and Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Gospodarki Krajowej, 2004). 11 The problem of essentializing certain objects of historical narrative used by politics and populism was pointed out in the 1940s by Karl Popper, in his famous work The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge, 1957).

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An example of a position which almost completely discarded the significance of the 1956 boundary is provided by Jan Żaryn’s opinion that “the Church’s history after World War II . . . is a topic that represents the repressiveness of the system like no other.” It overthrows the more political than historical thesis that there have been some exceptional breaking points in the history of People’s Poland when it comes to the level of liberalization of the system, with a special consideration of the year 1956. Well, the history of the Church and the repressions against Catholics testify to the fact that this thesis may be discarded, as it has nothing to do with the reality, and to what can be found in the documents of the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Interior.12

Therefore, the whole communist system—nearly five decades of People’s Poland—is qualified by Żaryn as a uniform and invariable formation: first of all, one of a foreign nature, and secondly, one which bears the features of a criminal organization. At the same time, he denies—for this is the meaning of his statement—that after Stalin’s death and criticism of the cult of the individual there was a thaw, and that real changes occurred in 1956 in the political pragmatism and in the course set by the authorities (after abandoning Zhdanov’s socialist realism doctrine, a significant development in the area of culture and aesthetics occurred, especially noticeable in the 1960s). The terror does not end after the Eighth Plenum; it continues.13 As a historian of People’s Poland and of anti-communist opposition, Andrzej Friszke, points out with sadness: We live in a time of a search for simplifications and routines that give a pretense of explanation. . . . Knowledge of an event should be encapsulated in an easily absorbable pill, which is why it needs to be unambiguous, not provoking complicated questions, weighing the reasons and circumstances. This trend applies to historiography, including the historiography of the last forty-five-year period. The image of this era becomes increasingly schematic, unequivocal, and thus false. This trend escalates as generations who remember those times pass away. These objective factors overlap with a conscious political action, aimed at presenting the past as a struggle between the heroic Catholic nation and rejected Marxist authorities. . . . The result of such a sterilization of thought is an increasingly poor understanding of the significance of political mechanisms, the game conducted by the authorities, the role of ideology and authentic clashes of values, as well as crowd psychology.14

12

Paweł Machcewicz, “Zmiana czy kontynuacja? Polska przed i po Październiku 56,” in Stola and Zaremba, PRL—trwanie i zmiana, 120. 13 According to the rhetorical and pragmalinguistical method of analysis, one may evaluate this kind of statement as horizontal depreciation. See Małgorzata Majewska, Akty deprecjonujące siebie i innych: Studium pragmalingwistyczne (Krakow: Universitas, 2005). 14 Andrzej Friszke, Anatomia buntu: Kuro≈, Modzelewski i komandosi (Krakow: Znak, 2010), 9.

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One of the most outstanding Polish history theorists, Jerzy Topolski, rightly notes while bringing up the question of responsibility of a historiographic relation, in both an epistemic and an ethical sense: The main food for historical thought of a society is delivered by a historian who studies and constructs the past. Without this food the world with history could not exist; it would enter a stage of regression and recurrence of dogmatic, magical thought, or—as Lévi-Strauss would say—savage and untamed thought. . . . The vision of the world with history is given by means of language and writing, that is, a historical narrative. The nature of this narrative is of utmost importance for the development of historical thought.15

From the rhetoric-discursive perspective, Topolski makes an orderly and essential distinction of historiographic narrative, dividing it into two separate or even opposing strategies for textual structuring of the discussion about history. The first of these is an idiographic description, which consists of producing a picture of history by means of reflection on the selected events. This picture is separate from the historical context, in which, as he puts it, “the description of individual facts, ordered chronologically and thematically (by subject), from the territorial point of view, dominates.”16 This unusually operative methodology, used not only for ordering facts, but also for reproducing the historical narrative, proves successful as a heuristic form in education systems, yet it includes a slight risk of instrumentation or manipulation of the past for the purposes of persuasion within an ideologically committed historiographic narrative. In an extreme version, this may lead to a cognitive aporia, a paradoxical situation where the patiens is obligated to be acquainted with a certain quantum of historical facts belonging to the “stories about the nation” script, while at the same time the lack of context and denying access to other existing versions of the story hinder a conscious, analytical insight into it. One example may be the conviction, strongly rooted among the lesseducated groups in society, that Poland had an “eternal” monoethnic character: as we know, this only emerged after World War II. Another strategy mentioned by Topolski was the nomothetic description based on logical induction. It can be described, briefly speaking, as a break with the schema in which only selected historical facts are presented and acquired; that is, with a functional reproduction of history. Instead, diachronic thinking is based on a cause and effect reflection, in which events from the past are recalled together with the dynamics that accompanied them. This second type of description—or in its intention, a type of the fullest possible reconstruction of what the past looked like—is the most prolific one from the point of view of social development, as it “combines 15 16

Jerzy Topolski, Świat bez historii (Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Pozna≈skie, 1998), 203. Ibid., 204.

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the reconstruction of facts with the reconstruction of relationships between the facts,” leading to self-reflection and more general conclusions.17 This description strategy carries potential risks, including the possibility of misuse by various types of ideological discourse, which usually tend to favor an instrumental description of the world. Nonetheless, the author of Świat bez historii (A World without History) is rather favorable toward it, arguing convincingly that it is the only possible way to create “dynamic global thinking structures,”18 essential for sustainable social development, and therefore for rational and creative actions, thanks to a combination of synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The basic objection that can be put forward against Polish historiography, especially that dealing with the twentieth century in the perspective of the topic relevant here, is that it overuses idiographic description, especially in relation to facts that do not fit into the narrative defined by the ideological frame. The age of People’s Poland belongs to the domain of the past, but throughout its existence it was divided into various periods or eras— also determined by the style of governance of the first secretaries of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Komitet Centralny Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej, KC PZPR)—which require concurrently diverse assessments in the light of social, cultural, and political facts. The already quoted Paweł Machcewicz claims openly that this view is in many cases dependent on the historian’s “biased” attitude: “The unanimity of many authors in emphasizing the 1956 caesura ends once there is a need for a more precise description and assessment of the scale and depth of changes that were made or initiated, of their durability and their significance for the subsequent evolution of the People’s Poland system. This dispute is in fact not entirely resolvable in the scientific discourse, as it largely depends on the views and values professed by historians.”19 One should agree with the above diagnosis also in light of historical presentations of the phenomenon of “revisionism.” It can be said, very preliminarily, that in the description of this complicated sociopolitical fact, the idiographic attitude still prevails.20 As a result, the anti-establishment left-wing resistance is treated separately to the one viewed a priori as national and pro-independence (within secret, or, as in the case of the Workers’ Defense Committee [Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR], overt organizations), which has an unambiguously anti-socialist or anti-communist

17

Ibid., 205. Ibid. 19 Machcewicz, Zmiana czy kontynuacja?, 119. 20 The following book is an example of such a distortion of historical facts: Dariusz Gawin, Wielki zwrot: Ewolucja lewicy i odrodzenie idei społecze≈stwa obywatelskiego 1956–1976 (Krakow: Znak, 2013). 18

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status. It is also symptomatic that the leftist resistance is still repeatedly described as “revisionist,” which isolates it semantically and epistemically. I deliberately use quotation marks around this term, as it is axiologically marked in the leftist tradition with a negative connotation strictly devised according to the rhetorical line of the primarily Leninist and Stalinist paradigm. Therefore, “revisionism” should be thought of as an eristic category of an exclusive—in an immanent sense—character, which stigmatizes the deviation from the ideological community, from the Party and from its “battle front.” Similar observations were made by the witness and participant of the October events, Krzysztof Pomian. He argued: Firstly, it must be said that the notion of “revisionism” is external to the phenomenon itself, as it does not, in the least, originate from the environments described with it. It was coined in the authorities’ camp as a label attached to one’s political adversaries. Secondly, people dubbed “revisionists” differed significantly, and often had nothing in common. This was the case especially in March 1968, when the official propaganda often used the compound “revisionist-Zionist.”21

One should therefore recognize, at best, such discursive actions within the historiographic narrative (respectively, the denomination of a phenomenon and the secondary, operative use of the category for the purposes of description) as an equivocation fallacy (fallacia aequivocationis), while at worst they constitute an ideological transposition of the concept, which makes it possible to fit it to the current needs of the persuasive actio, consistent with the semantic structure of the new paradigm. At the beginning of the 1990s, this matter was convincingly addressed by Friszke: In the history of the socialist movement, the name revisionism was used to describe the criticism of Marxism by the German social democratic activist Eduard Bernstein in the late nineteenth century. The word returned to political language in the second half of the 1950s. The leaders of the communist parties called philosophers, economists, journalists, and activists who, while describing themselves as communists, were particularly tough in attacking the system formed during the Stalinist period, revisionists. Revisionism was a heresy against the communist orthodoxy, but it was a heresy aimed at opening the system to the values of pluralism, rationality, and democracy. The frame of “proper thinking” narrowed as time passed since October. The leaders of the radical current of October, who did not renounce their beliefs and postulates, were recognized as revisionists already in 1957.22

21

Krzysztof Pomian, “Nieudana próba intelektualnej modernizacji Polski,” Mówią Wieki, no. 10 (1991): 5. 22 Andrzej Friszke, “Rewizjonizm 1956–1968,” Mówią Wieki, no. 2 (1992): 10–11.

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The period of Władysław Gomułka’s rule creates a picture of a qualitatively uneven fourteen years, from October 1956, through March 1968, to the dramatic December events on the coast in 1970. In historiographic descriptions, this era is diversified into two types of problems, concerning: 1) the realities of the political scene, including the authorities in a permanent legitimacy crisis, and moreover, the internally conflicted authorities’ involvement in sparing two opposing factions, the so-called Natolinians (Natoli≈czycy, who blamed the comrades of Jewish descent for the period of Stalinism) and the Puławians (Puławianie, who were willing to change the political system in some areas, such as economic management, partial democratization of the PZPR, or censorship); and 2) the realities of social life of “the little stabilization,” usually described in metonymic categories: stagnation and controlled isolation of society from ideology.23 Another important, though usually separately treated, theme in historical writing about this period is March 1968, preceded by an aggressive, slanderous press campaign and various types of harassment in both public and private spheres, and culminating in the expulsion of citizens of Jewish origin from People’s Poland. Mainstream Polish historiography used to assume that the March events were a political incident which took advantage of an instrumentally anti-Semitic narrative inspired by the authorities, while the actual clou of the events was a conflict within the Party between the aforementioned Natolinians and Puławians, with which the society had nothing to do. Contemporary cultural research aims at capturing these events in a broader perspective, pointing to an extensive crisis of Party legitimization and a struggle for symbolic power over the nation between state and Church actors. The culmination of this confrontation came around 1966, with the Millennium of the Baptism of Poland (the Church version) or the Thousand Years of the Polish State (the communist version). After losing this trench warfare to the Catholic Church, the Party entered onto a new path of national legitimacy using the old strategy of a xenological distinction based on the tried and tested dichotomy: “our own” versus “alien,” introducing the cards of ethnonationalism and unextinguished Polish anti-Semitism into the game, the stake of which was the “people” and their identity, as well as the communists’ own legitimation.24 23

These facts are discussed from the metahistorical perspective in Bartłomiej Starnawski’s “Stare wino w nowych dzbanach . . . czyli o tak zwanej polskiej drodze do socjalizmu jako ‘pustym znaczącym,’” in Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014), 85–109. 24 Such an attitude is represented by, for instance, the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies of Communism at the Institute for Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. See Katarzyna Chmielewska and Tomasz Żukowski, “Trauma Marca: Epilog,” in Rok 1966, 380.

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Among these key events during Gomułka’s rule there are also other phenomena of key importance worthy of recognition. These include the left-wing reformist “revisionism,”25 which after October 1956 developed in a) the intellectual/intelligentsia environment, motivated by the need for “reformation” of the ideological and partially political system;26 and b) a model of workers’ revisionism, driven primarily by the need to return to the source categories of the left in the spirit of corporatism, self-governance, and to some extent, elements of direct democracy. These postulates were represented in the Passenger Automobile Factory (Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych, FSO) in Żera≈ (Warsaw) by a tool metalworker and the First Secretary of the Basic Party Organisation at the time, Lechosław Goździk, who demanded the establishment of a participatory works council; later, resistance would also be stimulated by the worsening economic situation. Similar arguments to those of Żera≈ were raised on the wave of the thaw in plants and factories in Łódź, Nowa Huta, and in the initial phase of the protests, at the Joseph Stalin Metal Works in Pozna≈. Around October’s tenth anniversary, this grassroots movement evolved into the first postwar overt opposition with a well-established social democratic program of economic recovery and a separate vision of the state. This opposition, however we choose to assess the content of its manifesto (entitled An Open Letter to the Party), delegitimized from the left the authoritarian model of power functioning in the 1960s in a concentrated and painful way, as it took away the monopoly on Marxism and a prop, in the form of the working class, from the hands of the authorities, adding to the cascading expiration of social support. The aim of this sketch is therefore to critically reflect on the phenomenon of the 1960s political opposition and to attempt to answer the stillunclear question about its real ideological and philosophical character, which was definitely left-wing; that is, different from the simulated image of the opposition in the contemporary historical narrative.27 What interests us, first of all, is if it was possible to create a social democratic opposition in the conditions of the political discourse of Gomułka’s time. Secondly, can it be assumed that the “primordial left” (a left returning to the sources of 25

See Walery Józef Namiotkiewicz, My√l polityczna marksizmu a rewizjonizm (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza 1970), 237–39, 243. 26 Some key figures within this tendency included Kołakowski and Pomian, who represented the academic community; Kuro≈ and Modzelewski, who were associated with the Union of Socialist Youth (Związek Młodzieży Socjalistycznej, ZMS) and the University Committee of the PZPR; Stefan Żółkiewski, who ran the seminar; the Klub Krzywego Koła (Crooked Wheel Club); the Klub Poszukiwaczy Sprzeczno√ci (Contradiction Seekers’ Club); and later also the so-called Commandos, whose leader was Adam Michnik. 27 See Antoni Dudek, PRL bez makijażu (Krakow: Znak, 2008), 127–28.

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its mother discourse), including the authors of the Open Letter to the Party, created perhaps the first form of political resistance—that is, open opposition with a (social) democratic status—and so, should their contribution to the democratic transformation of the state after 1989 and the opening of perspectives for civil society not also be recognized?

The post-October reforming of the “primordial left”: the argumentative structure and fortunes of the Open Letter to the Party The history of intellectual resistance to political reality, and to the discursive sphere full of symbolic and actual violence, is as old as the rhetorical genre of Philippics. The means of expression and the style in which criticism is delivered have changed over time and have been subject to various fluctuations (such as erosion of one or another concept or topic). However, its fundamental principles have remained intact, namely those which concern the persuasive reference of the case in the actio, composed on the basis of an asymmetric display of one’s own righteous arguments, juxtaposed with the adversaries’ theses, which, especially in scientific inquiries, are subject to the laws of falsification through dialectic and logical argumentation procedures, or—in the sophistic attitude—to an elenctic negation. For these reasons, in our considerations the analytical burden is directed toward the unpragmatic structure of the Open Letter, that is, the applied argumentative scheme, which should be understood within the complex historical context of Gomułka’s “Polish road to socialism.” The form of power exercised at this time is a case worthy of broader description, as on the one hand it was a self-legitimizing policy model of the authorities by means of a national narrative (which escalated toward ethnonationalism in the second half of the 1960s), and on the other hand, a real attempt at Poland’s autarchization within the Warsaw Pact. Focusing primarily on the manifesto and the complicated historical and discursive conditions of its existence and functioning, we moved away from analyzing the wider—and in their way extremely interesting—genealogical optics.28 We have therefore adopted a primary goal for the present rhetorical analysis: firstly, to determine the specificity of this act of refutation within the framework of contemporary public discourse, and how fortunate it was;

28

The form of an “open letter,” understood as a certain political actio, a public manifesto, or memorial, could be diachronically situated in the context of the modern pragma-rhetorical use (and a historical evolution of defensive rhetoric maneuvers), the beginning of which should be considered Voltaire’s Letters on the English (to be precise: Treatise on Tolerance on the Occasion of the Death of Jean Calas from the Judgment Rendered in Toulouse).

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and secondly, to find out how effective it was. It is worth noting that we are dealing with two concepts of the left here, and therefore two contradictory narratives which aim to deny and delegitimize each other within a single discursive-political system. The first type represented by the authorities is a) the anti-revisionist diction of a “counter-reformist” (and to some extent anti-revolutionary) character, to put it metahistorically; while the second one is b) the “reformist” fraction of revisionism, represented by the “primordial left.”29 Its basic reference point, apart from its critical attitude toward the actions of Gomułka’s team, was the source understanding of socialist engagement, based on some of the key texts of the communist movement (the social and economic writings of Marx and Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Djilas, etc.), and on the left-wing authenticity derived from observations of social realities and interactions of diverse social groups. Such a “primordial” revisionism has evidently socialist roots (but also, considering the inter-environmental dialogue, corporatist and socialdemocratic ones), as it refers, opting for party polyphony, to the principle of pluralism within the sociopolitical scene, opposing centralist mono-partyism (with a narrow group of decision makers identified within one political formation), which alienates itself from the real social and economic problems. It is therefore much closer to the revolutionary trends associated with internationalism, mainly due to its undoubtedly critical attitude toward ethnonationalism or national chauvinism. However, it is not a strict repetition of the revolutionary program in its maximalist version—that is, with global ambitions—because the primary category of the analyzed manifesto, and its main goal, is the concrete society presented in a broad perspective of demands (though secondarily divided into classes), not the abstract trans- or panterritorial people. Moreover, it is particularly worth emphasizing that the linguistic layer and final shape of the postulates contained in the Letter were clearly influenced by corporatism (the Żera≈ environment, organized trade unions), where work is admittedly understood as a superior and relevant value, but at the same time in a strictly pragmatic and not axiological way. It is a category used in the argumentation, firstly, for the guarantee that local workers’ councils and trade unions would be included as real partners in talks with the government: it serves to indicate the faulty distribution of national income and unjustly distributed economic benefits from the goods developed by common forces. Secondly, the work category serves to point out the function of class solidarity realizing itself in the social and political space, which guarantees an effective fight against another reclassification, which will sooner or later arise as a result of the authorities’ actions. 29

The term “primordial left” is introduced based on the Latin term primordium: an embryo, a seedling. It has nothing to do with “primordialism” understood as the supremacy of the nation as a community.

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In this sense, despite significant inspirations from the “Unfinished Revolution,” it would be difficult to consider the program of the Open Letter as unequivocally Trotskyist, especially with regard to the idea of “permanent revolution.” If one were to find substantive similarities in this respect, one should instead point to Trotsky’s first criticism of the situation in the USSR, formulated in the mid-1930s, which he expressed in The Revolution Betrayed,30 and especially to his accusations against the monopolistic tendencies of a degenerating post-revolutionary state. The criticism of the authors of the Letter, formulated against the Party establishment, primarily concerns the inhibited social potential in Poland resulting from an incorrect strategy of managing the state. Furthermore, the authors charge that the authorities, due to their economic inefficiency, were driving the society into poverty and a lethargy of indecisiveness (or etatist transpassivity), and that, out of fear of the ruled subjects and their demands, they had returned partly to the Stalinist model of centralism and oppression, preventing workers and other citizens from engaging in constructive dialogue and co-deciding in accordance with the official constitutional law of the socialist state and the spirit of primordial Marxism. It is not, however, about the extensive criticism of the flawed assumptions of the revolution, but about the fatal consequences of the departure from the October events, which brought hope for a proper, and importantly, a local sociopolitical anchoring, together with a mature development of the state system in a social-democratic direction. Among the key questions about what this social modernity should be, and also despite the criticism of the “Gomułka system,” which could be called in Habermasian terms the October “unfinished project,”31 the document does not bear any clear features of an internationalist manifesto and it would be a misunderstanding to consider its line of argumentation revolutionary. The notion of “revolution” used by the authors should rather be treated as a discursive tool, postulating, of course, a sociopolitical “change,” but a change understood rather as the Platonic metabolai, that is, the evolution of a system: the transition from one system form to another (still within socialism). It is not a revolution in Marx’s understanding, a permanent civil war within a society with the potential for a broader confrontation. Aristotle explained metabolai as an example of a systemic change, which first transformed the system of power. He gave examples, two of which could also be related to the content of the Open Letter: a) the accusation against Gomułka’s team, according to which they were “the 30

See Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1937). 31 See Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).

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rich” who overthrew the government, creating an oligarchy; and b) the constructive change proposed by the “primordial left”—that “the poor” should overthrow the government, creating democracy.32 The statements suggesting the authors’ affinity to Trotskyism are therefore ideologically unfounded. This, however, does not change the fact that both Kuro≈ and Modzelewski had met with representatives of the Trotskyist movement several times in their lives (Modzelewski met Livio Maitani, representative of the Fourth International, while in Italy on a scholarship).33 Most notably, they were in contact with Ludwik Hass, Kazimierz Badowski, and Romuald Śmiech, but also—at the turn of 1963 and 1964—with a Belgian lecturer from Liège, Georges Dobbeler, who came to Poland together with a Belgian Socialist Party youth group at the invitation of the Central Committee of the ZMS, and indeed wanted to establish contacts with Polish socialists in order to form a Polish Trotskyist organization.34 According to Walery Namiotkiewicz, a former journalist of Po prostu (Simply Speaking) and Władysław Gomułka’s secretary, the most dangerous type of revisionism was the “first” revisionism of the October left, represented, among others, by Leszek Kołakowski, Bronisław Baczko, and Włodzimierz Brus.35 It was a movement of intellectuals with Marxist roots (thanks to which they had opinion-forming prowess), based on a “false” criticism of the economic conditions.36 Unlike the activity of this first wave of the left-wing reformation movement, the opposition activity of the authors of the Open Letter was subjected to ideological paraphrasing, active depreciation, and trivialization by Namiotkiewicz. This criticism omits important facts from Modzelewski’s and Kuro≈’s political and Party activities—for instance within the ZMS and the Committee of the PZPR—which could increase the programmatic and intra-Party weight of their arguments (in Modzelewski’s case, there is also an accusation of almost “genetic” Stalinism):

32

Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 1971). See, in particular, the chapter “The Meaning of Revolution,” 21. 33 See Friszke, Anatomia buntu, 159. This topic was also addressed by Dariusz Zalega in his article “Trockizm od ‘Lewicy Październikowej’ do Listu Otwartego,” Władza Rad, November 29, 2010, accessed October 24, 2019, http://www.1917.net.pl/node/3286. 34 A letter sent by Kazimierz Badowski to Ludwik Hass in late October 1956 also testifies to this. See Friszke, Anatomia buntu, 174. 35 Namiotkiewicz, My√l polityczna marksizmu a rewizjonizm. 36 Lenin’s polemics with Karl Kautsky (specifically, with his 1918 Dictatorship of the Proletariat) published under a title that is very similar, both semantically and stylistically, to Namiotkiewicz’s title The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, may be deemed the source of this dictum.

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This group developed something resembling a program manifesto entitled An Open Letter to the Party. The text was distributed at the university, and after some time it was also smuggled abroad, where it was published by the so-called Literary Institute in Paris. Karol Modzelewski (an adopted son of the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the 1950s), at the time a doctoral student at the Faculty of History, and Jacek Kuro≈, associated with the Faculty of Pedagogy of the University of Warsaw, played a major role in the preparation of the aforementioned disquisition.

And further on: The writings of Modzelewski and Kuro≈ are full of various big words, such as “revolution,” “counterrevolution,” “revolutionary working class,” etc., etc., but in fact it is simply a cliché-filled call for the organization of brawls motivated by the hope that the legal order existing in our country can be overthrown this way. This elaboration is a conglomeration of various, often contradictory and mutually exclusive citations; revisionist views are interwoven with Trotskyist and anarchist slogans, all of which are internally inconsistent, and often devoid of elementary logic, while being primitive at the same time.37

Thus, we get a picture characterized, supported—as we have already said—by rhetorical depreciation (an odium) and negative pronomination (a persuasive name change), leading to the conclusion that the political activity of the authors not only results from a misunderstanding of Marxism, but in fact is a kind of senseless, adventurous, and anarchistic babble of bratty youths with pedocratic ambitions, and moreover overwhelmed by hostile Trotskyist ideas. Such arguments do not need to and should not be discussed. Therefore, Namiotkiewicz closes the issue with a statement: “It would be . . . an exaggeration if we got into some kind of analysis of Modzelewski’s and Kuro≈’s elaborations.” What is more, there is no basis for a substantive discussion, because revisionism is permanently “detached from real problems.” The aberrant and pro-war influence of Trotskyism, especially visible in the Open Letter, the author continues, is saturated with an anti-Soviet attitude. Trotskyism is therefore a kind of terrorist paradoctrine, in fact “directed against the dictatorship of the proletariat,” so any views referring to it are treated as directed against the Soviet state.38 Accordingly, in light of the juxtaposition of revisionism with the epistemic metaphor of counter-reformation proposed in this sketch, a deviation of this type becomes heresy. We are dealing here with a classic example of communication detention. In “more serious” cases, in the praxeological

37

Walery Józef Namiotkiewicz, “Współczesna recydywa tendencji rewizjonistycznych,” in My√l polityczna marksizmu a rewizjonizm, 279. 38 Ibid., 280–81.

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dimension, it consisted of “arresting” or silencing the voice of a social interest group by an imposed habitus and normative distinction.39 In this particular case, the nature of the detention consisted, by means of a mutatio controversiae maneuver, in the de-morphologization of the message, during which the claims contained therein were considered at best to be inconsistent with reality, and at worst, as ideologically degenerated rhetorical lines with an agitation function. Before we proceed any further—that is, to the proper rhetorical structure of the Open Letter—let us make a few more historical remarks. According to Namiotkiewicz, quoted earlier, the document had no substantive values worthy of discussion. However, since 1963, first Jacek Kuro≈, and later also the participants of many private meetings, which resulted in producing the document in its final form, were subject to constant surveillance by the Fourth Division of the Third Department of the Ministry of Interior. A meeting held on June 3, 1964, during which the individual parts of the collective work, already containing the key theses of the Open Letter to the Party, were discussed, was registered by the Security Service. Two parts of the discussed program, concerning the current situation of the political system and the economy, were handed over to the authorities by one of the participants. As Andrzej Friszke scrupulously notes: As a consequence of obtaining these materials, Colonel Stanisław Filipiak, Director of the Third Department of the Ministry of Interior, sent three copies of information concerning Kuro≈ and the whole group to Minister Wicha on June 9, with a proposal to forward them to the secretaries of the KC PZPR, Zenon Kliszko and Ryszard Strzelecki. The deputy interior ministers Mieczysław Moczar and Franciszek Szlachcic also received copies. Therefore, the case took on a nationwide notoriety.40

The number of participants in these meetings changed over time. Apart from Kuro≈, his wife Grażyna, and Modzelewski, Stanisław Gómółka (responsible for economic analysis) and Joanna Majerczyk-Gómółkowa, as well as Bernard Tejkowski, Marek Żelazkiewicz, and Eugeniusz Chyla should be considered the most important co-authors of the Letter. In his service report of November 13, 1964, written just before the participants’ flats were searched, the operational officer of the Ministry of Interior, Captain Wiesław Komorowski, also identified the following people as members of the group: Szymon Firer, Mieczysław Krajewski, Andrzej Mazur, Stanisław Zadrożny, and Anatol Lawina.41 During the interroga39

See Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (London: Routledge, 1984). 40 Friszke, Anatomia buntu, 147. 41 Ibid., 178.

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tions Kuro≈ and Modzelewski took full responsibility for the authorship of the materials intercepted during the search. The text was not disseminated among the general public, so—as Radio Free Europe reported on March 3, 1965—“the prosecutor could not use the famous Article 23 of the small penal code.”42 The group of young academics was mainly punished by disciplinary measures taken against them at the University of Warsaw, in order to minimize publicity. Unreconciled with the situation, Kuro≈ and Modzelewski soon began to reconstruct the key theses contained in manuscripts confiscated by the Security Service, but this time in full conspiracy. This is how the final version of the text came into being, which we know today under its full name as An Open Letter to the Members of the Basic Party Organization of the Polish United Workers’ Party and Members of the University Organization of the Union of Socialist Youth at Warsaw University.43

42

Ibid., 196. The “small penal code” refers to the Act of June 13, 1946 on crimes especially dangerous in the period of reconstruction of the state. These regulations were later used to pacify any form of political opposition. 43 List otwarty do członków POP PZPR i członków uczelnianej organizacji ZMS przy Uniwersytetcie Warszawskim, first published as Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski, List otwarty do partii (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1966). See also Friszke, Anatomia buntu, 203. The origins of the Open Letter to the Party are complicated. On November 14, 1964, the Security Service raided a flat at Obozowa Street in Warsaw where meetings of a group of people working on the Letter were held for several months. After a search, a 124-page typewritten manuscript and several drafts were found and confiscated. The final version of the text, known later as An Open Letter to the Members of the Basic Party Organization of the Polish United Workers’ Party and Members of the University Organization of the Union of Socialist Youth at Warsaw University, was recreated from memory by Jacek Kuro≈ and Karol Modzelewski. They worked on it until March 1965: the handwritten manuscript was reflected on tracing paper and rewritten on a typewriter in a dozen or so copies, and these were kept by the most trusted people, such as Ludwik Hass, Adam Michnik, Jan Józef Lipski, and others. It was this version of the Letter which Kuro≈ and Modzelewski brought to the University of Warsaw on March 18, 1965, and submitted to the Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Zofia Morecka, as well as to the representatives of the Board of the Union of Socialist Youth and the University committee of the Party. Three out of seventeen copies were smuggled out of Poland in 1966 (as Modzelewski claimed in the 2009 interview with Friszke). It can be said that there were two, but slightly different versions of the Letter: some necessary changes in style were introduced and some figures were corrected. The unamended manuscript was published by the Literary Institute in Paris in 1966, and the one with the amendments—in French translation—was published by the Trotskyists. That is why Jerzy Giedroyc, the founder of the Literary Institute, added an errato to the 1966 edition (see Friszke, Anatomia buntu, 203–22). The 2009 edition published by Krytyka Polityczna was based on the 1966 edition of the Literary Institute. Only grammatical and stylistic

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The authors officially submitted the manuscript on March 18, 1965, to the secretariats of the committees of the Polish United Workers’ Party and to the Union of Socialist Youth at the University of Warsaw, and distributed several copies of it among friends. They were arrested the following day, charged with anti-state activity. In 1966 Kuro≈ was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and Modzelewski to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment. The same year, three copies of the Letter were smuggled to the West, one of which was sent to the editor-in-chief of Kultura (Culture), Jerzy Giedroyc. On August 24 of the same year, the first edition of a brochure containing the letter was published in Maisons-Laffitte, thus making it available to the world public.44 The manifesto of the first social democratic opposition was the third and most important appearance of the “left-wing reformation” since October 1956. The first wave of reformation was the so-called October Left, represented among others by Leszek Kołakowski, although it should be noted that it was internally polarized and thus did not create a fundamental program of systemic change. One could say that it was limited first of all to criticism of Stalinism (in its ritualization of Marxism, petrification of power structures, and distorted attitude toward Marxism-Leninism as an epistemic method) and this is where it derived the need to redefine the system in extenso. In this sense, it could be described ex post metaphorically as “criticism without a code,” as it was dubbed at the time from a Marxist position. The sense of these speeches is reflected in an article entitled “Intelektuali√ci a ruch komunistyczny” (Intellectuals and the Communist Movement), published in the journal Nowe Drogi (New Ways) in September 1956. One of Kołakowski’s main theses of a corrective nature was the proposal to de-fetishize Marxism and radically open the field of power to corrections were made, including the spelling of abbreviations and numeral forms. Karol Modzelewski and historians Andrzej Friszke and Antoni Dudek were consulted on the entire text. 44 The fate and the international career of the Letter are described more broadly by Friszke, who notes that: “In October 1966 the Letter was published by the Fourth International with an introduction by Pierre Frank, who described it as belonging to the Trotskyist current. . . . At the beginning of 1967, the Letter was published in English by Trotskyists (the translation used for this chapter), while being printed in sections by the New Politics journal. . . . In 1967 . . . the text appeared in Italian and in 1969 in German, English, Swedish, and Japanese versions. In June 1968, the Letter was published in a Czech translation by the Prague Student’s Parliament (the translator was Petr Uhl, later a well-known member of the democratic opposition). In the period of the student revolt of 1968 the text became one of the most widely known analyses of the communist system, and the only one that was written in the communist bloc. Its leftist methodology was considered an asset.” Friszke, Anatomia buntu, 221–22.

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the opinion-forming circles of the socialist intelligentsia and academics. Kołakowski formulated, among other things, an accusation of purposeful ritualization of Marxism within Stalinism: that is, the creation of false consciousness, which allowed for efficient control of the social masses. He wrote: “Intellectual communist circles face the task of fighting for the secularization of thinking, the fight against mythology and pseudo-Marxist bigotry, against religious and magical practices, the fight for the restoration of respect for unrestricted secular reason.”45 Incidentally, Kołakowski’s position was coolly dismissed in the same issue of the magazine, by Roman Werfel among others, in the article “Miejsca intelektualistówkomunistów—w ramach partii” (The Place of Communist Intellectuals— Within the Party). In an interview conducted years later for the magazine Mówią Wieki (Centuries Speak), another participant of those events, Krzysztof Pomian, recalled: At the time the most important question was: what can be done, within the frameworks of socialism, to make sure that Stalinism would not repeat itself. I would like to emphasize: within the frameworks of socialism. It was an aspiration, as it was later called, during the Prague Spring, to “a likeable socialism.” This was the attitude of the overwhelming majority at the time. A very large part of our generation, including—behold! the Catholic circles—accepted socialism as a reality and tried to build it into democracy. This has, of course, imposed certain restrictions on thinking about democracy, of which not everyone was fully aware. On this ground an ideological evolution began. For some it occurred faster, like Leszek Kołakowski, and for others more slowly. Most of us were authentic Party members. The matter was therefore complicated.46

The second wave of the internal system reformation, this time a bottom-up one, which began in October, was—as mentioned above—the political involvement of the workers’ community of the Passenger Automobile Factory in Żera≈ under the leadership of Lechosław Goździk, a self-made man (who had already begun his activist career as a fifteen-year-old boy in the Polish Workers’ Party). The Żera≈ community, organizing itself primarily around the idea of workers’ councils, quickly and conscientiously learned the lessons of the tragic Pozna≈ events that had taken place in June of the same year. The protest of workers from the Joseph Stalin Metal Works in Pozna≈, which lasted from June 27–30, 1956, and ended up being brutally suppressed by the army and the militia, was unorganized and was a spontaneous social upheaval. During the escalation of the conflict with the authorities (the Ministry of Industry and the Provincial Commit45

Leszek Kołakowski, “Intelektuali√ci a ruch komunistyczny,” Nowe Drogi, no. 9 (1956): 27. 46 Pomian, “Nieudana próba intelektualnej,” 2.

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tee), the protest lost its initial impetus and programmatic expressiveness, turning from a strike into a disorderly manifestation of anger and an amorphous revolt, in which over seventy people were killed and several hundred wounded. The foundation of the protest was based mainly on economic and labor considerations, including the issue of reduced wages as a result of extremely high production quantity demands, the problem of unpaid overtime, unjustly calculated payroll tax, as well as generally poor working conditions inconsistent with health and safety standards.47 Yet, some historians try to inscribe the events of June 1956, which seems to be an abuse or at least an overinterpretation resulting from an axionormative worldview, first of all, into the national register of insurgent tradition. Such an interpretation significantly distorts the identity of the group fighting for their interests and the content of its real demands for—pardonnez le mot—a mythographic narrative, in which the central point is the concept of nation or ethnic group. One of them concludes, disregarding factual premises, as in the classic ignorantio elenchi procedure (“although in fact . . . , but . . .”), as follows: Although, as already mentioned, the direct causes of the workers’ protest were undoubtedly of an economic and social nature, a very strong political strand soon emerged as well. Demonstrators sang the national anthem, and the Rota with the words “until the Russian turmoil falls to dust,”48 religious songs: My chcemy Boga, Pod Twą obronę, and Boże co√ Polskę with the words changed into: “May Thou return our homeland’s freedom, Lord” instead of: “May Thou bless our homeland free, oh Lord.” Slogans of socioeconomic content: “We demand an increase in wages,” “We want to live like people,” “We want bread,” “We are hungry,” “Away with production standards,” with time were joined by those already openly anti-communist and anti-government: “Away with work exploitation,” “Away with the red bourgeoisie,” “Away with the communists,” “We demand free elections under UN control,” and even “Long live Mikołajczyk.” Finally, anti-Russian and anti-Soviet slogans appeared: “Down with the Russians,” “Down with the Muscovites,” “Down with the Russkies, we demand a truly free Poland.”49

The achievement of the Żera≈ team was, let us reiterate, that it managed to reorganize itself around the idea of workers’ councils (fashioned after the Yugoslavian model of self-management) and participatory management in 47

See Paweł Machcewicz, Polski rok 1956 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Mówią Wieki, 1993). 48 This was a modification of the original lyrics “Aż się rozpadnie w proch i w pył krzyżacka zawierucha” (until the Teutonic turmoil falls to dust), which refers to freeing the Poles from German rule. 49 Jerzy Eisler, “Polskie miesiące” czyli kryzys(y) w PRL (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IPN, 2008), 20–21.

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the workplace, that is, with the significant impact of workers on the production process. Intensive self-education work was also an important component of this phenomenon, and therefore deliberative openness to academic, student, journalist (Po prostu), and intelligentsia (Kuro≈ and Modzelewski took an active part in company meetings) circles, but also “unsealing” their own working (infra) space for the benefit of contacts with the representatives of other working environments.50 There is no question that the second wave of the reformation, as we have tentatively labelled it, had an indelible impact on the fate of the protagonists of this paper.51 The ideas carried by both waves of the October reformation found a prominent place in the Open Letter, first of all as a key accusation against the unreliable/authoritarian model of power and, in fact, an oligarchic/feudal manner of running state affairs (in the name of the Nation, but in opposition to the vital interests of the real society). The leader of the Żera≈ movement (and the greatest loser of this current after 1959), Goździk, undoubtedly inspired both Jacek Kuro≈ and Karol Modzelewski with his pragmatic view of the political situation, which also influenced the content of the later Letter. In his autobiography Kuro≈ admits: “It is hard to say whether it was from Leszek Goździk that we first heard about self-governments (samorządy)—we had already been fascinated with the self-management system of Yugoslavia—but in my memory this conversation was of a breakthrough nature. What we thought earlier had a stigma of intelligentsia ideas, but here we came across the idea of selfgovernment as a working-class program.”52 Modzelewski believed the same: A panic reaction of the highest authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland to the general strike of the Pozna≈ factory crews and the great street manifestation ruined the rest of the propaganda facade of the system. . . . Among the rebellious university youth who, after the election of delegates to the national student activist council, became the University ZMP [Związek Młodzieży Polskiej (Union of Polish Youth)] Board, we saw in the slogan of acquisition of factories by workers’ councils, which was promoted in Żera≈, an expected sign, banner, and program of a revolution, which would put an end to dictatorship. Jacek Kuro≈, Krzysztof Pomian, Andrzej Garlicki and Bogdan Jankowski met with Goździk in September and agreed to establish a cooperation between ZMP organizations at the University and at the FSO. According to the Marxist-Leninist formula

50

Friszke, Anatomia buntu, 30. It is worth taking a moment to think—although this is a completely separate issue—how the idea of left-wing self-government influenced the shape of demands formulated almost twenty years later by the Solidarity movement in Gda≈sk. 52 Jacek Kuro≈, “Wiara i wina,” in Taki upór (Warsaw: Karta, 2011), 78. 51

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about intellectuals who bring revolutionary awareness into the ranks of the working class, the students were expected to organize discussion meetings with young workers in Żera≈.53

Let us now, after this very cursory historical outline of the opposition movements, move on to the third wave of the post-October reformation (a continuation of which is the so-called Commando group represented by Adam Michnik), namely the theses collected in the text of Jacek Kuro≈’s and Karol Modzelewski’s brochure. The subject matter of this chapter is not an extensive, substantive criticism of the economic views contained in the manifesto of the “primordial left,” but first of all a discursive and rhetorical analysis of argumentation schemes, within which the authors reconstruct the real status of power and its operation, as well as the metalanguage it produces. The authorities were described in the context of various violations of the social contract concluded with the society, beginning with the betrayal of the idea of October, which represented a hope of transforming the system into a social-democratic form. They were also accused of purposefully deforming the communication space into one in which the society did not have a representative voice (in an authoritarian system using certain residues of Stalinism, the society’s opinion is completely irrelevant). The authors of the manifesto also point to the effects of these actions on the national anthropologicum, or more precisely, on its actual—in the opinion of Kuro≈ and Modzelewski—secondary reclassification, which distorted the ideas and main assumptions of communism. The whole presentation was divided into eleven thematic parts: I. The Rule of the Bureaucracy; II. Wages, Surplus Product, Property; III. The Class Purpose of Production; IV. The Origin of the System; V. Economic Crisis of the System; VI. Relations of Production in Agriculture and the Crisis; VII. The First Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution 1956–1957; VIII. The General Social Crisis of the System; IX. The International Problems of the Revolution; X. Program; XI. Counterarguments.54 Of the 128 pages of the original version of the manifesto confiscated by the Security Service, less than a hundred pages remained, recreated mainly thanks to Karol Modzelewski.55 However, the new version of the text is missing the last chapter, entitled, Lenin-style, What is to be done? In this 53

Karol Modzelewski, Zajeździmy kobyłę historii: Wyznania poobijanego jeźdźca (Warsaw: Iskry, 2013), 85. 54 Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski, “An Open Letter to the Party,” New Politics 5, no. 2 (1966): 5–46; Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski, “An Open Letter to the Party II,” New Politics 5, no. 3 (1966): 72–100. 55 See Michał Syska, ed., 1964–2009: Modzelewski, Friszke i Koczanowicz o Li√cie otwartym do partii: Zapis konferencji z dnia 14 grudnia 2009 roku (Wrocław: O√rodek My√li Społecznej im. Ferdynanda Lassalle’a, 2010).

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chapter, the authors give instructive tips on how to organize resistance against power, how to effectively create workers’ councils and associations, and what forms of strike to utilize (this is contained in a remnant form in the last part of the text). This small, seemingly only structural detail should be treated as significant, as it indicates a change in the target addressee of the message. It is no longer the environment of social and civic resistance to the activities of Gomułka’s team as a whole, but in fact the authorities themselves, as well as public opinion in its broadest sense. Thus, the introductory part serves as an epanorthosis, that is, a corrigendum justified by the detention of the text. In this introduction, the authors describe the circumstances in which they were removed from the party organization: On November 27, 1964, Jacek Kuro≈ and Karol Modzelewski, both lecturers at the University of Warsaw, were expelled from the Polish United Workers’ Party. The basis for their expulsion was a document they had written analyzing the Polish economic and political system, attacking the regime, and calling for workers’ democracy. They were tried in camera in July 1965. Kuro≈ was sentenced to three years in prison and Modzelewski to three-and-a-half. . . . We publish this open letter at our exclusive initiative, as authors of the text, and only in our own name, and not on behalf of other companions, removed from the Party and ZMS in connection with our case. . . . When quoting a couple or even a dozen isolated sentences, one creates the impression that this is a collection of sharp, demagogic, and unsubstantiated slogans, occupying, for unknown reasons, as many as 128 pages. Meanwhile, whatever may be said about the substantive accuracy of our analysis and the political value of the conclusions drawn from it, it is a logical structure that can only be disproved by arguing holistically, not by quotations, which often change their meaning when taken out of context. Moreover, official reports not only remain silent about the analysis offered in the text, but also dismiss by way of a few generalizations the program chapter, which is of decisive importance for the assessment of the political character of the document.56

The need to resubmit the case, and therefore the legitimacy of reconstructing the Letter, is explained as follows: “Motivated by respect, which requires providing reliable information to our companions, even those whose political positions differ from ours most fundamentally, we present to the members of the Party and the ZMS at the University of Warsaw an outline of our analysis and program, which were included in the text constituting our current ideological platform.”57 56

Jacek Kuro≈ and Karol Modzelewski, “List otwarty do partii,” in Jacek Kuro≈, Dojrzewanie: Pisma polityczne 1964–1968, ed. Sebastian Liszka and Michał Sutowski (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2009), 2–3. Translator’s own translation, as the American editions do not contain the original preface. 57 Kuro≈ and Modzelewski, “List otwarty do partii,” 7.

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The composition of the entire text is based on a Philippic scheme, which juxtaposes the messages published by the authorities (an ideological reference to the facts) and their refutations. Detailed claims are refuted in the course of political analysis, as well as macro- and microeconomic analysis, according to an inductive logic scheme (a thesis, factual analysis, an argument, counterargument, conclusion), so every time criticism is anchored in the empirical sphere, it refers to facts. Chapter I, “The Rule of the Bureaucracy,” inspired by Milovan Djilas’s concept of the “new class,” which is a kind of key propositio (submission of the case) for the further shape of the text, introduces a complex thesis, consisting of several differential elements, presented to the recipient in the form of enumeration. Let us reconstruct an outline of this scheme: a) The system is socialist only in the nominal sphere; b) The Marxist doctrine, which is used argumentatively by the authorities, is an “interpretation” that changes the fundamental shape and meaning of the primary assumptions of socialism, concerning, for example, ownership in the context of the so-called Nationalization Act (the Act of January 3, 1946): “In reality, an element fundamentally alien to Marxist theory has been introduced: the formal, legal meaning of ownership”;58 c) The Party ceased to be an advocate for social interests in the sense of the source of left-wing discourse. Instead, it became a superstructure within the system, claiming the right to monopolize work (as a category and practice), presenting in a false way, in particular, the worker-peasant position; d) The party became an oligarchic creation alienated from the society, maintaining power by means of not only the argument of economics, but also of force (that is, it is a secret enemy of the socialist anthropologicum that it so gladly invokes). State bodies act as instruments of this exclusive structure and the discursively masked apparatus of violence: “The prohibition by the ruling Party against organizing the working class is guarded by the entire state apparatus of power and force: the administration, political police, attorney general’s office, the courts, and also the political organizations led by the Party, which unmask and nip in the bud all attempts to undermine the leading role of the PZPR”;59 e) The monolithic nature of central government is a mimetic copy of the Stalinist state apparatus; f) The Party, understood in this way, becomes an enemy of the working class, by transferring an element of terror from the previous (Stalinist) stage. It does not introduce the promised element of co-participation in 58 59

Kuron and Modzelewski, “An Open Letter to the Party,” 6. Ibid., 6–7.

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power, a deliberative model (consultative, based on social contract), so it is a criminal-type formation. By concentrating the legislative and executive power it de facto reconstructs the feudal system; g) Oligarchic Party power has led to a re-classification (that is, another division into socioeconomic classes) and fractioning of the society,60 which do not fit into the Marxist formula of a classless state; h) The principal mechanism for maintaining continuing power without any prerogatives or social legitimacy is bureaucracy. Let us use the figure constructed by Max Weber: the bureaucratic Hydra has become a form of control and oppression of the society, and its hypertrophic shape permeates all spheres of the state (note the idea of centralism and Party transmission to the masses in Leninist-Stalinist practice): In this way the Party, which at the top of its hierarchy is simply an organized bureaucracy, becomes at the “bottom” a tool for disrupting attempts at resistance by the working class, while at the same time organizing the working class and other social groups in a spirit of obedience to the bureaucracy. The same function is fulfilled by the remaining social organizations directed by the Party, including the trade unions. The traditional organization of workers’ economic self-defense, subjected to the leadership of the only organized political force, i.e., the Party, has become an obedient organ of the bureaucracy, that is of state power, both political and economic.61

The foregoing, quite complex thesis, contained in the critical propositio of the manifesto, is consistently redistributed to all parts of its rhetorical message. The parallel argumentation scheme, built around these initial issues, is specified in the course of further argumentation; each time it returns, as a conclusion, to this ontic characteristic of the Party’s power. The centrally regulated issue of labor relations, understood as one of the basic mechanisms of remote management of the society, is a duplication of the pre-revolutionary master-slave system. The role of the supervisor, anointed by the Party headquarters, is performed in this process by a technocratic machine of bureaucracy, whose function does not consist of securing the technical process of production, but in: supervising relationships between people engaged in that process, i.e., supervisors of wage labor, the technocrats, are not considered productive workers. It is true that they, too, ensure production in the same sense in which this was done in the past by the ancient slave driver or the feudal overseer of serfs or a contemporary capitalist factory manager. Their job, however, is to ensure the existing production relations and not the material productive process itself.62

60

See Bourdieu, Distinction. Kuron and Modzelewski, “An Open Letter to the Party,” 8. 62 Ibid., 9. 61

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The result, inherent in the pragmatics of this, one might say, “panoptic” system, which controls the production process, labor relations, wages, and the surplus product, is inevitably a controlled impoverishment of the society (a decline in the standard of living) and the accumulation of wealth on the part of the “alienated” system of power, which uses these means to maintain the oligarcho-feudal status quo. What purpose does the surplus product serve? First, it is used for capital accumulation, i.e., for expanding production. But since the worker receives only the minimum for existence, the purpose of his production is not his class goal. Similarly, under capitalism, production may correspond to the worker’s interest to the extent that it provides him with a job from which he earns a living; for all that, production is by no means his own goal. In the prevailing system, expenditure for accumulation serves a purpose which is alien to the worker. Second, it is used to support the apparatus of coercion (army, political police, prisons etc.) which perpetuates the present economic and social relationships.63

In this way, the category of work—the focal point of Marx’s theory and the lion’s share of the socialist state’s argumentation—undergoes in practice (especially as an immanent value of the leftist discourse) a fundamental devaluation, even though it functions in a system of transformations simulated by the authorities (especially as a form of legitimization for a “people’s democracy”-type government of a representative type: the Party as spokesman for workers’, peasants’, and national interests). As a result of these processes, therefore, a secondary social classification occurred, and with it came a factio of the sphere of power (vertical and horizontal hierarchization) in which “bureaucracy” is a higher class, combining in optima forma the negative features of the feudal and capitalist system: It is said that the bureaucracy cannot be a class, since the individual earnings of its members do not come anywhere near the individual earnings of capitalists; since no bureaucrat, taken by himself, rules anything more than his mansion, his car, and his secretary; since entrance to the bureaucratic ranks is determined by a political career and not by inheritance; and since it is relatively easy to be eliminated from the bureaucracy in a political showdown. This is quite wrong. All the above arguments prove only the obvious: the property of the bureaucracy is not of an individual nature, but constitutes the collective property of an elite which identifies itself with the state. This fact defines the principle of the bureaucracy’s internal organization. . . .64

63 64

Ibid., 14. Ibid., 15.

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Along with the erosion of the category of work, the principle of socialist co-ownership was also decaying, as ownership ceased to be an egalitarian good. It was a tool of an oligarchic monopoly, masked as the “class purpose of production.” In the course of such argumentation (enumeratio et refutatio) the following statement is implied: the founding principle of the socialist political system, based on the social contract between the working and peasant class and the Party, has been broken. There are therefore obvious grounds for questioning or revoking the power ceded to these “representatives” of the workers’ dictatorship. The pronominative identification of the Party with the nation, as another accusation formulated by the primordial left goes, is a subtle mechanism entered into the register of the rhetorical, manipulative, and persuasive procedures of representation used by the authorities. When the argument of socialist legitimacy ceases to convince the social masses experiencing a crisis, the central authorities—trying to consolidate their prerogatives at all costs—reach for another argument: national legitimization, through invoking the Polish national interest (or the tradition of ethnocentrism, anachronistic in theoretically classless and supranational communism). The concept of the “Polish road to socialism,” which is consistently burdened with the figure of obiurgatio (a reprimand) in the polemical course of the Letter, is not subject to the primordialists’ criticism of it as an attempt to inscribe socialism in national rhetoric (and vice versa), but rather for ethical reasons. This is because, as Kuro≈ and Modzelewski point out, it is a way in which the authorities try to activate a nationalist narrative for agitative purposes, regardless of the possible social consequences of this discursive act: “Nationalist ideology, contrary to appearances, favors the consolidation of social relations upon which the reign of bureaucracy is based.”65 The next accusation formulated by the primordial left against Gomułka’s power was based on the following statement: it is true that a) the socialist system was introduced to Poland via the Soviet Union (in favorable conditions, motivated by the social and economic situation); it is also true that b) a monopartisan policy and central planning in the economy were decreed together with it (due to the postwar crisis and destruction of the country, these measures may be considered a real necessity); but there is no need to claim that the situation between 1944 and 1956 did not change, and did not require a reformulation of the general character and function of the government and the economy (more specifically, its transformation from wartime to peace economy). The argument of the Polish national interest and the threat to the borders so often invoked by the 65

Kuro≈ and Modzelewski, “List otwarty do partii,” 34. Translator’s own translation, as the American editions do not contain this sentence.

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authorities is in fact irrational. In short, it masks the will to maintain the remains of the Stalinist order and the Party’s position as the main operator of the rules of internal politics, which carries out only minor changes within the existing political structure, excluding revolutionary terror (inherent to Bolshevism) from the reservoir of social instruments in favor of a hard local dictatorship, built around national phantasms. To sum up: the socialist revolution introduced after the war, largely by force, created a monolithic establishment fashioned after the Soviet formula. Contrary to declarations made in 1956, it was structurally absorbed and internalized by Gomułka’s model of power. Although the group in power cut itself off from Stalinism, it took over all the negative components of this system either consciously, mimetically reproducing them, or as a palinode, for instance criticizing the idea of individual worship, but using many of its methods and allowing it to last in residual forms. The abuse of the notion of “nation” in the discourse of power, aiming at the “naturalization” of the Party narrative, is a cynical formula of selflegitimization through manipulation, in which the ruling class uses patriotic motifs and national-historical emblems in a propaganda function, and—by reproducing the strategy of Stalinism—makes an attribution of the external and internal enemy. A significant difference between the primordialists’ lengthy retorsio and the discourse of the authorities lies in the consistent application of the category of society as the subject of change, as opposed to the category of the nation. The need to decentralize the system—to introduce a social democratic form of government and a multi-party political scene—is, in their opinion, dictated by a real social interest and not by a vague, unspecified national interest. This also translates into the sphere of the economy, where the authorities only simulate structural reforms: “There are proposals to change the chief index from gross production to net production and more far-reaching proposals to accept profit and loss as the chief index. What can such reforms bring about in present conditions of administering production? Probably a less wasteful use of fuel and raw materials. But the basic contradictions will not be eliminated.”66 In the political conditions of that time, as the authors of the Letter argued, the economic reforms announced were impossible to carry out for many reasons. They blamed the group in power for causing the crisis, as it was clinging desperately to the central planning model. Thus, another supposition appears: October 1956 was a specious dividing line also in economic terms; the bureaucracy’s only chance to maintain power “was through the mobilization of confidence in, and authority for, the new leadership. It had to win hegemony over the masses, make concessions and maneuver till such time as economic stabilization would lessen the tension of the social crisis and 66

Kuron and Modzelewski, “An Open Letter to the Party,” 34.

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the apparatus of power would regain its repressive strength and control over society.”67 To sum up, Gomułka’s camp added nationalism to the Stalinist discourse framework (arguing that it was coherent with the national interest), as a new compound, which made it possible to maintain an essentially idea-less bureaucratic monopoly. An anti-bureaucratic “revolution” was therefore a necessity to break through from this impasse, a guarantee of development aimed at social democratization and the pluralization of social life. This was a necessity because bureaucracy (oligarchy) and society—as different interest groups—were continuously locked in the clinch of mutual conflict. The argumentation of the third wave of the left-wing reformation is therefore founded—let us repeat once again—on a contrasting juxtaposition of images: a) the progressive erosion of the system, which results from continuing a Stalinist-type hegemony, with b) the vision of socialist renewal understood as a deliberate system form. According to the authors of the manifesto, the idea to constructively transform this hybrid social, political, and economic system into a postulated model of a real “workers’ democracy” would be to reorganize the (quasi)parliamentary system, understood as an anti-popular dictatorship, in favor of a developed (in the general social sense) idea of self-governing workers’ councils. There were several reasons for negating the parliamentary form of government in its current status: a) the monopartisan system was a kind of monopoly, in which through → b) Party discipline, the ruling Party was able to force changes on the society convenient from its perspective by means of → c) the legislative route; and thus → d) both the sphere of power and the key issues for the system of the state—the additional product, economic investments, and so forth—were beyond the reach of social influence and various group interests. The final conclusion of this sequence of arguments, therefore, is the following epistemic statement: the parliamentary system in its present form consistently strengthens the dictatorship of bureaucracy, leading (an alethic conclusion) to the pathological ossification of the power structures. The only protection against a dictatorship alienated from the sphere of social demands would therefore be to replace this scheme of “reproduction of power” with a real democratic structure, social at its core, such as properly organized workers’ councils. According to the primordialists, a prerequisite for the effectiveness of a people’s democracy (that is, the deliberate model) is a multiparty system and a package of guaranteed civil rights, understood as follows: “In practice, a workers’ multiparty system means the right of every political group which has its base in the working class to publish its own paper, to propagate its 67

Ibid., 46.

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own program through mass media, to organize cadres of activists and agitators, i.e., to form a party. A workers’ multiparty system requires freedom of speech, press and association, the abolition of preventive censorship, full freedom of scholarly research, of literary and artistic creativity.”68 Leaving aside the additional components of this enumerative argument scheme, one can say that such a constructive program of political reforms, formulated by means of narratio aperta (clarity of argument) in both an alethic modality (the relation between possibility and necessity) and an epistemic one (the relation between possibilities and the certainty of information), was written as a critical counterpoint to the authorities’ policy after 1956. One should consider an anti-establishment diction, based on the actual verification of the authorities’ achievements after 1956, as the basic register of criticism in the political sense. For the primordialists, the group in power is an antinomy of the socialist state apparatus in terms of ideology and teleology. The Letter’s authors point to this group’s totalitarian inclinations to create a closed, homologous, and deontic system. They expose the authorities’ alleged attempts to cut themselves off from Stalinism (and the prewar nationalist diction), and thus they consider Gomułka’s group to be a right-wing discursive-political formation of a reactionaryconservative character, reactionaries who use left-wing language as a camouflage: The only effective way of fighting the traditional Right is not the defense of the bureaucratic dictatorship but an insistent struggle against it, unmasking it from the Left. A working class program does not use nebulous symbols, but social realities. In its criticism and its radicalism, this program differentiates itself from all nationalist and clerical slogans. It turns against the very essence of the bureaucratic dictatorship and corresponds to the interests of the masses. Therefore, it has all chances of winning the support of the masses. The struggle against the governing Right and the Right in retirement is indivisible.69

In order to describe the left-wing opposition at the end of the 1960s and the subsequent forms of open and political anti-systemic resistance (such as the Commandos and the Workers’ Defence Committee), An Open Letter to the Party is a discursive event of key importance, not least because it became a kind of bridge uniquely connecting the interests of both the initial waves of criticism and demands emerging in October 1956. This was a time when the intelligentsia and workers’ circles first created a common rhetorical fraction: borderline, still fluid on the issue of the shape of the social contract, but coherent. The fate of the Letter and its influence amid the left-wing opposition to the policy of the Gomułka-era communist estab68 69

Kuron and Modzelewski, “An Open Letter to the Party II,” 61. Ibid., 96.

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lishment is quite complicated and constitutes a completely separate chapter in the opposition’s story; we shall not discuss this issue in this paper. However, there is no question that the Letter, understood specifically as a kind of open political, social, and civic manifesto, was not properly used in the opposition discourse of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s as an effective form of resistance through delegitimization: that is, criticism from inside of the communist system expressed in communist language. After the political transformation the historical and semantic capital of this event was also wasted by the contemporary leftist formation: somehow it forgot about an important component of its own heritage, namely an attempt at introducing cardinal change in the functioning of the state, including its (social-)democratization. One might say, from the meta-discursive, ex post perspective, that this event was fetishized in a sociopolitical dimension, but also in the discursive sense. The Letter, translated into several foreign languages, seemed to play a more important role abroad (for instance, in 1968 in France), where it inspired left-wing western youth who flirted politically with Trotskyism or Maoism. In Poland, the Letter’s career was quite limited in scope. Although it became a kind of emblem of the resistance to communist power, its significance, in a semantic and substantive sense, was exceeded by another political fact: namely, the imprisonment of both authors. The criminalization of freedom of speech became far more interesting for the young leftwing opposition at the end of the 1960s than the literal content of the manifesto. The Commandos group, an extension of the post-October third wave of the reformation, however, was quite elite in character,70 referring rather to the first wave of “revisionism” (originating, of course, from the intelligentsia, meaning its message was better understood in narrower circles), represented by Kołakowski. They focused more closely on the leftwing ethos and socialist principles (on the ethos and arete sphere) than on the pragmatic dimension of protests. Their interest was in the validity of the source ideas of Marxism and their negative verification in the form of an analysis of the authorities’ practices, rather than in any constructive argumentation that could be translated into a program and organizational details to bind the atomized left-wing environment together again. All the more it makes us wonder now, post-factum, why the left-wing environment did not engage in a serious dialogue with the primordialists’ manifesto and the essence of their arguments. As noted earlier, it effectively combined the two October critical-reform waves, which concurrently but separately delegitimized the two lines along which the Party legitimized itself: first, a reli70

This is despite their quite spectacular defensive actions, such as their participation in discussions introducing a deconstructive left-wing ferment to the political scenario of orthodox Party speeches.

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able interpretation of socialism; and second, the actual defense of the workers’ and peasants’ interests and the Polish national interest.

“You haven’t stood here,”71 or an epilogue The concept of revisionism in the history of the communist movement from the beginning of its discursive existence could be characterized axiologically as, first of all, a kind of qualitative subversion carried out by the proponents of a revolution against the political activity of the institutions of power, which had petrified and derailed the revolution. Secondly, due to the Leninist-Stalinist rhetoric, it became a functional tool in the communist discourse for hurting and stigmatizing others. In the Party newspeak, it was both a kind of negative critical topos, as well as a type of double argument from the eristic ad populum and at the same time ad personam repertoires, in which the “revisionist” is profiled as a foreign body, breaking down the formative cohesion of the community in the rhetorical representation, and thus as a special type of enemy (playing out the animal motif of the “parasite in the host body,” which destroys an organism from within).72 As we have already noted earlier, the negative attribution of this concept appeared in Gomułka’s argumentation explicitly (for example at the Ninth Plenum of the KC PZPR in May 1957), but also, paradoxically, it appeared implicitly in the historiographic narrative after 1989, which de facto did not consider the left-wing resistance to be a proper democratic opposition. In both cases, “revisionism” is a transcendent structure: in the first case, to the communist movement and the Party teleology; and in the second case, to the “national” paradigm of the opposition.73 What is puzzling 71

This fragment of the subheading was taken from Stanisław Bara≈czak’s poem entitled “You have not stood here,” from the volume Tryptyk z betonu, zmęczenia i √niegu (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1981). An English translation of the poem is available in The Weight of the Body: Selected Poems (Chicago: Another Chicago Press/TriQuarterly, 1989), 28. 72 This model of labeling—to use a notion of rhetorical analysis—worked two ways as a mechanism of depreciation: horizontally (subjects not being equally important), and vertically (a dissimilation of the adversary against one’s own subjectivity by means of a xenological recognition of their ontic structure). 73 Władysław Gomułka’s position on revisionism has crystallized since the Eighth Plenum of the KC PZPR. In his paper for the Tenth Plenum in 1957, he points to an evident escalation of the problem: a clear division within the Party ranks. At that point, as we may remember, Gomułka uses a metaphor of a contagious disease and a pandemic, which the Party must fight off: “Revisionist tuberculosis can only strengthen dogmatic influenza.” A resolution on verification of PZPR

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is the convergence of the two dictions, both exclusivist toward this “reformation” from within the system, and both defining it negatively. The national identity in the diction of the anti-communist storyline must therefore be distinguished en bloc from left-wing traditions (and other emancipatory formulas), understood as structurally non-Polish. The category of revisionism therefore needs to be exchanged for a descriptively neutral concept, mainly because it is a specific and strictly functionalized operator of negation, belonging primarily to the communist system of discursive representations. In other words, it is a specific kind of rhetorical definition, which functions in the deontic, and thus normative, module of the Party (centralist) demonstration and evaluation narrative.74 The quantifier of negation imposed on it, in both cases indicating or suggesting an ideological alienness of persons falling within the semantic frame of this category (as well as pointing to the potential of “heresy” in this type of movement from the point of view of Party doctrine), allows the concept of revisionism to be inscribed into a series of vertical depreciations, the subject of which is placed ex officio in a worse position, hierarchically subordinate, clearly evaluated negatively.75 It establishes a clear boundary between the spheres belonging to separate identities: ours and theirs, the good “us” and the threatening “them.” As such, it is placed in the inventive repertoire of the odium among such eristic depreciative categories of the centralist communist (Leninist-Stalinist) discourse as Martovism, Bucharinism, Luxembourgism, Trotskyism, Titoism, and so on.76 Nowadays, this notion does not explain much to those who wish to take up the effort of studying the distinctive differences within the communist movement. The use of the term “revisionism” in a historiographic descrip-

members was taken during the session. See Namiotkiewicz, My√l polityczna marksizmu a rewizjonizm, 237–39 and 250–59. 74 Within this narrative, the notion of revisionism, a priori located as a form of harmful activity against the workers’ movement, is positioned as evaluating its interest, but also against the Party interpretation of the Marxist doctrine, within which the notion is represented. 75 See, for instance, Małgorzata Majewska, “Tekstotwórcze warunki deprecjacji,” in Akty deprecjonujące siebie i innych: Studium pragmalingwistyczne (Krakow: Universitas, 2005), 59–90; Mirosław Karwat, O zło√liwej dyskredytacji: Manipulowanie wizerunkiem przeciwnika (Warsaw: PWN, 2007); Jolanta Antas, O mechanizmach negowania: Wybrane semantyczne i pragmatyczne aspekty negacji (Krakow: Universitas, 1991); Jolanta Antas, O kłamstwie i kłamaniu: Studium semantycznopragmatyczne (Krakow: Universitas, 1999). 76 See Bartłomiej Starnawski, “Prokrust i kolektyw: Deixis a działanie performatywne w tek√cie ‘kultury stalinowskiej,’” in Ecowskie inspiracje: Semiotyka w komunikacji i kulturze, ed. Artur Gałkowski and Krystyna Pietrych (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017), 225–48.

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tion is a misnomer, but it must also give rise to justified ethical doubts, as its function is to stigmatize and classify as deviation. It is not a descriptively neutral concept, as indicated by its other derivatives such as historical revisionism, or the so-called negationism (the thread in historiography aimed at negating the facts of the existence of the Holocaust, its scale, and its perpetrators). The appropriation of the notion of revisionism by contemporary historiographic narrative, especially that concerning the fate of the left after October 1956, may be perceived as a kind of reflectionless automatism (or ineptitude of description), but it may also be caused—returning to Topolski’s formula—by an idiographic and tout court negative attitude to the history of People’s Poland, which allows historians to treat various events and phenomena in isolation, and thus in an unprocessed and non-diachronic way. The entanglement of the notion of revisionism in a chain of synonymization in historical writings, in which it functions as a substitute for resistance, rebellion, conflict between the liberal left and the Party nomenclature, and so on, may indicate a somewhat reductionist approach to the subject. In such cases, the erstwhile discussion about the organization of the state initiated by the authors of the manifesto is treated as an immediate, locally insurrectionist phenomenon, or an anarchist incident against the authorities, but de facto bearing no features of a patriotic or democratic act, and in particular certainly not one that would be considered as a dissident occurrence. It may be an expression of disagreement against the actions of those in power, who have betrayed October’s ideals, but it still belongs to the communist discourse (as a kind of a temporary system fluctuation);77 ergo: this “event” is located in the space of one qualitative set. What are the possible reasons for this? Turning to the heart of the matter: in principle, not once in the geometrically expanding historiographic narrative of the Polish mainstream after 1989 is the notion of a democratic structure (in relation to the Letter’s authors), “opposition,” or simply political social democratic opposition used when speaking about the phenomena mentioned above. The formula of an open letter, especially in the introduction and at the end, which constitute the quasi-basis directed to a mass audience,78 is something of an unambiguously formulated political manifesto addressed—so as to amplify its chal-

77

Dariusz Gawin even states that the political program contained in the Letter to the Party should be viewed as another potentially totalitarian proposal. See Dariusz Gawin, “Jacek Kuro≈ i Karol Modzelewski—rewizjonizm jako radykalny program polityczny,” in Wielki zwrot, 103–17. 78 “We are of the opinion that the present letter will contribute toward overcoming any misinformation about our paper and that it will enable Party members and members of the SYU [ZMS] at the university to have an honest discussion about our theses.” Kuron and Modzelewski, “An Open Letter to the Party II,” 99.

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lenge—to the Party management. While inquiring about the reason for this state of affairs, one may formulate with a high degree of probability a hypothesis that we are dealing with an a priori profiled activity. This is evidenced by the degree of qualitative unification of the image of the People’s Republic of Poland, the negation inscribed obligatorily into the set denoting “communism”/“socialism,” and the ways in which the national history in opposition is being told, in contrast to the historical reality. As a result, this leads to an equivocation of communism and Nazism, but also to the negative—explicit or implicit—verification of the left as a system of beliefs. Such an axiology is also consequential for contemporary populist approaches of a conservative nature, in which left-wing activity in contemporary politics is treated as an approved form of reference to communism, or even a historical continuity of the “totalitarian system,” which is visible in the public discourse through the popularity of the concept of post-communism. Therefore, this type of exclusive rhetoric proves the alienation and non-identity of two sets: the set of “the left” in relation to the set of “national identity,” which identifies what does and what does not belong to the field of pro-state action. As such, “patriotism” stands in opposition to the notion of a traitor; “a real Polish citizen” is opposed to a “communist” with doubtful ethical formation (voluntarily “uprooted”); “Polishness” (the indigenous Catholic character of the nation) is identified as opposed to the “alienness” of the socialist project and its enablers; and last but not least, “opposition” is understood canonically and narrowly as an anti-communist resistance movement. Thus, it is a form of a story conducted decisively against Terence’s well-known principle of “quot homines, tot sententiae” (there are as many opinions as there are people), or to put it another way, there are as many histories as there are experiences and historical testimonies. As can be seen from the above sequence of oppositions, the essential point of the right-wing conservative historiographic story engaged in habitual procedures, and thus operating with a certain type of condensed reference structure focused on selected images, is a coherent model of an “identity field.” Such a narrative must therefore naturally flow from the epistemic module defined this way toward an affected ontological vision. In the thus defined actio of historiography, entangled in various affections and idiosyncrasies, there is room only for asymmetrical counterconcepts,79 such as the axiologically defined terms of “communism” (evil, alienation, antistate character) and “anti-communism” (good; ethnically, nationally, culturally determined subjectivity; pro-state action). There is one “nation,” defined by this axiological vision (supported by the ecclesia domestica narra79

See Reinhart Koselleck, “The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts,” in Futures Past: On the Semantics on Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 155–91.

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tive) and the national interest (independence), so there is no room for “society”: that is, the fundamental spectrum of claims and differences in the formulation of interests by various social groups, their stratification into separate entities in the mental and material sphere, or for a separate historical memory in the perspective of such a narrative. Paradoxically, the communist narrative and the heuristic narrative of anti-communist historiography, which we discussed earlier, have several elements in common. Among other things, they establish something that could be called a pretense to a democratic system of the state; a pretense because the decision-making center associated with the construction of this axiological narrative (also in the ontological sense, as in drawing a picture of completely opposite and complete entities, in which the anti-communist nation is a monad impermeable to negative influence) is located outside of the society. Still, it operates in the society’s name. Even at the preliminary level of rhetorical analysis of the two discursive paradigms—the communist one, the official narrative of the authorities and propaganda, and the anti-communist one, which gains momentum after 1989 due to historiography, forming part of a wide-ranging project of conservative historical policy—semantic symmetry is a particularly striking issue, manifesting itself in the descriptive/adjudicating layer of expression and in the mirror opposition of semantic fields. It indicates not so much a relationship on the rudimentary level of ideas, as the anti-communist narrative’s pathological dependence on the main, negative point of reference, of constant confirmation of itself through its constant contradiction, despite the fact that it belongs to the past. After all, it is not actually a matter of settlement of accounts or objective assessment, but, paradoxically, of constant contestation. Freud would probably say that this is a variant of narcissism of small differences, in which subjectivity constitutes itself in defense, building a strong identity through opposition. Nowadays, it is necessary to add that such a conflict, based not only on historical antagonisms, but even more on bitter and unresolved affections and phantasms, takes place in the field belonging to populism. Hence the need to reflect on and describe these phenomena by way of interdisciplinary tools allowing for analysis: from the level of the metalanguage and forms of communication in a message, through historiographic criticism investigating whether a historian considers all available source data (in the spectrum of possible positions in relation to the past), to the text’s emotional sphere. Among these astonishing differences, the following elements in particular should be mentioned: 1. The sphere of power in both rhetorical constructs (communist and anti-communist) is assigned to spokesmen/representatives of the national interest predestined for this function.

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2. In both cases the symbolic mediation of power and, at the same time, locating the historical capital of its legitimacy within what we could call an active irredentism: in the case of the first one, a) liberation from the classeconomic ties and capitalist power of the plutocracy, while in the second case, b) liberation from the totalitarian conditions of the previous system, which is always positioned as an “independence” activity. 3. This legitimization, in both discourses, is based on the assumption that a permanent sanation of the national space from elements unambiguously alien—ideas or culture anchored in the negatively defined past—is necessary: a) in the case of the communist narrative; above all, capitalist residues, but also anti-centralist tendencies (contrary to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism and the one-party principle), elitist or radical, as in the case of “Judeo-communism” and revisionism; b) in the conservativenational narrative, both communist and post-communist. The component of “alienness” functions in both representation paradigms as an old or new part of an “empty signifier.”80 Of course, the shape of the narrative about the past is also not indifferent, as it constitutes the lion’s share of the justification for the authorities’ prerogatives and the main component of the obligatory national habituation (as well as the mechanisms—pragmatically speaking—of the continuous or ad hoc agitation of social groups or the electorate). Allow us to focus on one more similarity between the two discursive orders, related to the function of the metaphor of “reclaiming” (in the sense of “taking back from the enemy’s hands”). In the case of the socialist formation of the 1950s, within the Stalinist narrative of socialist realism, we had to deal with large-scale retroactive actions within the so-called cultural heritage. The “dispute over Mickiewicz” arose at that time, as a symbol of national literature, which could be contained in the vision of folk literature acceptable to the authorities, of course could not end with the spectacular success—announced by Żółkiewski, Ważyk, Jastrun, and others—of “triumphantly reclaiming” Mickiewicz for the progressive literature of socialism. Therefore, anything that could be reclaimed, or in other words anything that suited the Marxist-Stalinist re-narrative of history, was being reclaimed. In the narrative of the committed anti-communist historiography after 1989, the concept of opposition meets a similar fate. One could say jokingly that, just as much as all of us in Europe culturally originate from Greece and Rome, in the Polish national sense ex more, we all originate from anti-communism. The peculiar historicism that faithfully accompanies the national identity narrative (embodying the post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, a quasi-logical type of scheme: “The fight against the com80

See Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005). See also Bartłomiej Starnawski, “Stare wino w nowych dzbanach.”

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munist system excludes all other than national forms of argumentation, especially those of left-wing provenance”) has led to a situation, where in the mode of the reduction of the story to a static, unambiguous, and reproducible character, which is necessary for mythologization,81 opposition structures begin to emerge only after the 1970s and 1980s; from KOR to Solidarity as the seeds of future democracy. In this narrative, they are combined with the structures of the Church actor, the defensor Patriae, and thus they automatically possess an independence-conservative status. In sum, there occurred a discursive consumption of the notion of opposition by one option. This is clearly visible especially in the post-Solidarity story, which exemplifies this consumption to the fullest extent. The contemporary tendency for codification of commemoration formulas can also be regarded as a result of this type of persuasive attitude, which sets the historical perception at the level of unambiguous axiological images of the past. After 1989 there emerged two subcodes on the margins of the main historical narrative, which still await scholarly exploration: first, the combatant current, within which historical events are emblematized and formative history is theatrized, consolidating the Manichean formula of division into the essentialistically understood nation and the transplant of communism. The second subcode, the element of left-wing resistance, which was present in statu nascendi in the structure of the Solidarity movement, in its argumentative layer, and in its concepts referring—just like the authors of the Letter—to primordial socialism and the Marxist dictionary, is currently undergoing a complete erasure.82 An interesting example of (self-)devaluation of past events, which is in a way a consequence of these phenomena, is the recently published autobiography of one of the authors of the Open Letter, Karol Modzelewski, with a title referring to Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetry, translated into Polish as Zajeździmy kobyłę historii: Wyznania poobijanego jeźdźca (We Shall Ride the Mare of History into the Ground: Confessions of a Beat-up Rider).83 The book strongly redefines the historical experience of the 1960s left-wing opposition; it could even be said that it relativizes these events. The autobiography leads the reader toward the recognition of the legitimacy of the 81

See Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Richard Howard and Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 2013). 82 An asymmetrical phenomenon to what we discuss here was Mieczysław Moczar’s Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy (Związek Bojowników o Wolno√ć i Demokrację, ZBoWiD) in the 1960s, which naturalized communism with the use of the tool—so to speak—of ecumenization of historical narration, creating an image of a “brotherhood in arms” and blurring the existing (that is, in the postwar Stalinist period) borders between the People’s Army and the Home Army. See Łukasz Polniak, Patriotyzm wojskowy w PRL w latach 1956–1970 (Warsaw: Trio, 2011). 83 Modzelewski, Zajeździmy kobyłę historii.

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post-Solidarity veteran historicism rhetoric. The author de facto annuls his earlier political assessments, denying their rationality, and as a result, indirectly—within the framework of the story of his growth into apolitical maturity—discards their significance at that time. And yet the real origin of the open anti-communist opposition should be sought, according to the actual state of affairs, in the first political and programmatic manifesto of a social democratic nature. This is undoubtedly what the Open Letter to the Party was, as it postulated a “revolution,” but in a qualitative sense: a revolution consisting of a radical transformation or reform of the political system of that time. Modzelewski spoke a few years ago during a conference at the Ferdinand Lassalle Center for Social Thought in Wrocław: “Just as I have changed physically since then, I think I have also changed mentally, or maybe even axiologically. I feel a certain discomfort toward this document. . . . I know that it played a major role not only in my life, but also in public life, but at the same time it has not been my own for a long time; I could not identify with it anymore.”84 The formula of Modzelewski’s story of a worldview transformation (from a “professional revolutionary” to an observer and commentator on the world of politics, as well as a mature academic, who soberly evaluates the facts), which appears like a Bildungsroman detailing the political “coming of age” of the protagonist, is performed in a way typical for an auto-dafé.85 By devaluing the legitimacy of the erstwhile opposition’s actions, which were carried out from a left-wing position, including actions he took part in (as well as other co-authors of the Letter, not to mention the Żera≈ environment as a key inspiration for the document), Modzelewski unfortunately inscribed himself—in a metahistorical perspective—into two liquidation discourses situated critically in relation to the activity of the left-wing opposition reformation: (retrospectively) Gomułka’s Party line on one 84 85

Syska, 1964–2009: Modzelewski, Friszke i Koczanowicz, 10. Jean Starobinski has aptly captured the structural to the autobiographical, spatiotemporal and identity-based crack in which the speaker’s subject is located. The decisive link between the past “self” and the present “self” is the style alone, which allows for making a iunctim between them or to distance the emancipated “self” from the writer’s historical experience and subjective evaluation of the facts. Historiographical verification of past facts within the framework of autobiography as a subjective synthesis is not possible because the process of reproducing scenes from the past is accompanied by individual memory and emotions, or simply by a personal attitude toward the characters in the story. This task belongs, first of all, to historians with a wide critical workshop, who can re-contextualize this narrative, separating probability (the credibiles) and facts from auto-fictional procedures. See Jean Starobinski, “The Style of Autobiography,” trans. Seymour Chatman, in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 74–75.

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hand, and the demonstration and evaluation of the anti-communist narrative after 1989 on the other, both of which shape the historical discourse in a normative manner. A separate question is whether the author composed his history in a fully conscious way (including its appeal structure), or he was subject to some sort of axiological blackmail for some reason, for instance because of the contemporary condemnation of communism. In retrospect, however, it seems interesting that the importance of the manifesto was not questioned at that time by Andrzej Werblan, the head of the Faculty of Science and Education of KC PZPR from 1960 to 1971. According to Kuro≈, during a meeting of the University PZPR Committee, Werblan said: “You discuss it as if it was a master’s thesis, you even noted the lack of footnotes, and you do not notice that it is a hostile lampoon directed against the Party, but in one place I must agree with you, my University comrades: this is not a factional activity, it is an enemy, anti-state activity.”86 The author of a protest letter about the alleged Trotskyists, Isaac Deutscher, who personally appealed to comrade Wiesław— Władysław Gomułka—warning him against the recidivism of Stalinist methods of governance, had no doubts either.87 And lastly, Jerzy Giedroyc also did not underestimate the power of the Letter, which he published at once in the Parisian Kultura “Library” series in 1966. A characteristic feature of the post-communist left-wing narrative is that it enters—though it is hard to say whether consciously or not—into an expiatory model of the narrative: into the political ritual of penance. The question about the content of the category (a normative one, as our deliberations show) “democratic opposition” is in fact a question about the current structure of the paradigm of representations, which supports a given ideological discourse and in which evaluations concerning the past and zero-one classifications are formulated. The category of opposition in historical writing becomes single-value as a result—as should be adopted from the rhetorical perspective—of the superior signification of the factographic field, in which a previously established division into what is national and what is alien prevails. The question of what should be the correct in extenso formula of history, therefore, nowadays is replaced by another, truly confusing one: what national historical policy do we currently need?88 To put it

86

Jacek Kuro≈, Autobiografia (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2011), 239. 87 See Isaac Deutscher, “An Open Letter to Władysław Gomułka and the Central Committee of the Polish Workers’ Party,” Marxist Internet Archive, accessed October 24, 2019, https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1966/gomulka-letter. htm. 88 Andrzej Mencwel has also pointed to it in his chapter “Polityka historyczna i wizja polityczna,” in Rodzinna Europa po raz pierwszy (Krakow: Universitas, 2009), 33–63.

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metahistorically: in this way a radical, but also transparent reduction of the layer of historical facts is achieved in favor of a dualistic narrative or, to put it metaphorically, a “Manichean” narrative, in which the division into two axiologically defined, opposing camps lasts in a self-reproducing continuum. This state of affairs is surprising especially after the turning points in twentieth-century historiography, and especially after the three waves of narrativism, deconstructivism, Bielefeld historical semantics, and so forth (which did not, aside from a few instances, change the Polish historical textual production, traditionally romantic in spirit and positivist in operation). The negative effects of these processes, in which incomplete history is an important component, also take their own toll on the idea of democracy and its contemporary quality. This is because the narrative about the past, petrified in unambiguous definitions and detached from the social context, has an impact not only on politics, but also on the forms of hierarchy in social life, communication, or cultural progress. Lawrence Goodwyn takes a similar position on these issues on the margins of comparative considerations in the context of the theory of populism, on the grassroots movements which have been described in a selective or biased way in historical practice: of American farmers during the agrarian revolt in the nineteenth century and Solidarity in Poland in the 1980s.89 The problems discussed here, concerning the rhetorical model of the anti-communist paideia inscribed in identity formation or, more broadly, the independence and nation-building perpetuum mobile, cannot fail also to imprint their habitual stigma on other spheres of the anthroposphere (apart from the obvious one here, which is historical education). It is possible to speak of their influence on the specific convergence of the political scene over the period from 1989 to the present day, which results in a basically non-alternative political situation (individual parliamentary parties use conservative rhetoric in their description of the world, Catholic-national rhetoric in terms of community values, and are center- or liberal-right when it comes to the economy or labor market). At this point, among other things, the main reasons for the recessive nature of the left-wing narrative should be sought. The lack of ideological competition—or to put it more narrowly, a rather uniform offer of political programs—seems also to explain the sinking level of public debate nowadays. One way to overcome this ontic impasse in Polish historiography of the twentieth century, and at the same time a political clinch (and, as Andrzej Leder claims, the crisis of memory and collective personality)90 may be, as 89

Lawrence Goodwyn, “Rethinking ‘Populism’: Paradoxes of Historiography and Democracy,” Telos, no. 88 (1991): 37–55. 90 See Andrzej Leder, “Długie trzydzie√ci trzy lata i potem,” in Prze√niona rewolucja: Ćwiczenia z logiki historycznej (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2014), 185–200.

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in the case of the reconstructed history of the post-October left and of its constructive program, a renewed and critical review of historiographic positions of text production and of notions used to determine visions of the past in an ethnocentric perspective. Otherwise, a modern and self-aware society can only be thought of as Jan Lecho≈’s paradox, where “there only is Beatrice. And she does not exist.” But this is a completely different story. Translated by Kalina Iwanek-Malinowska This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

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Bibliography Antas, Jolanta. O mechanizmach negowania: Wybrane semantyczne i pragmatyczne aspekty negacji. Krakow: Universitas, 1991. ———. O kłamstwie i kłamaniu: Studium semantyczno-pragmatyczne. Krakow: Universitas, 1999. Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution. New York: Penguin Books, 1971. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Translated by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang, 2013. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. London: Routledge, 1984. Chmielewska, Katarzyna, and Tomasz Żukowski. “Trauma Marca: Epilog.” In Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, 380–95. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014. Dudek, Antoni. Historia polityczna Polski 1989–2005. Krakow: Znak, 2007. ———. PRL bez makijażu. Krakow: Znak, 2008. Eisler, Jerzy. “Polskie miesiące” czyli kryzys(y) w PRL. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IPN, 2008. Foucault, Michel. The Archeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972. Friszke, Andrzej. Opozycja polityczna w PRL w latach 1945–1980. London: Aneks, 1994. ———. Anatomia buntu: Kuro≈, Modzelewski i komandosi. Krakow: Znak, 2010. Gawin, Dariusz. Wielki zwrot: Ewolucja lewicy i odrodzenie idei społecze≈stwa obywatelskiego 1956–1976. Krakow: Znak, 2013. Goodwyn, Lawrence. “Rethinking ‘Populism’: Paradoxes of Historiography and Democracy.” Telos, no. 88 (1991): 37–55. Habermas, Jürgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Translated by Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. Hopfinger, Maryla, Zygmunt Ziątek, and Tomasz Żukowski, eds. Debaty po roku 1989: Literatura w procesach komunikacji; W stronę nowej syntezy. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2017. Karwat, Mirosław. O zło√liwej dyskredytacji: Manipulowanie wizerunkiem. Warsaw: PWN, 2007. Koselleck, Reinhard. “The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts.” In Futures Past: On the Semantics on Historical Time. Translated by Keith Tribe, 155–91. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Kuro≈, Jacek. Autobiografia. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2011. ———. Dojrzewanie: Pisma polityczne 1964–1968, edited by Sebastian Liszka and Michał Sutowski. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2009. ———. Wiara i wina. In Taki upór, 78–87. Warsaw: Karta, 2011. Kuro≈, Jacek, and Karol Modzelewski. “List otwarty do partii.” In Jacek Kuro≈, Dojrzewanie: Pisma polityczne 1964–1968, edited by Sebastian Liszka and Michał Sutowski, 7–89. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2009. ———. “An Open Letter to the Party.” New Politics 5, no. 2 (1966): 5–46. ———. “An Open Letter to the Party II.” New Politics 5, no. 3 (1966): 72–100. Laclau, Ernesto. On Populist Reason. London: Verso, 2005.

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Leder, Andrzej. Prze√niona rewolucja: Ćwiczenia z logiki historycznej. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2014. Machcewicz, Paweł. Polski rok 1956. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Mówią Wieki, 1993. ———. “Zmiana czy kontynuacja? Polska przed i po Październiku 56.” In PRL— trwanie i zmiana, edited by Dariusz Stola and Marcin Zaremba, 119–58. Warsaw: Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczo√ci i Zarządzania im. Leona Koźmi≈skiego, 2003. Majewska, Małgorzata. Akty deprecjonujące siebie i innych: Studium pragmalingwistyczne. Krakow: Universitas, 2005. Mencwel, Andrzej. Rodzinna Europa po raz pierwszy. Krakow: Universitas, 2009. Modzelewski, Karol. Zajeździmy kobyłę historii: Wyznania poobijanego jeźdźca. Warsaw: Iskry, 2013. Namiotkiewicz, Józef. My√l polityczna marksizmu a rewizjonizm. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1970. Opara, Stanisław. Tyrania złudze≈: Studia z filozofii polityki. Warsaw: Muza S.A., 2009. Paczkowski, Andrzej. “‘Enemy Nation.’” In The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, edited by Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, and Jean-Louis Margolin. Translated by Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer, 363–93. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Polniak, Łukasz. Patriotyzm wojskowy w PRL w latach 1956–1970. Warsaw: Trio, 2011. Pomian, Krzysztof. “Nieudana próba intelektualnej modernizacji Polski.” Mówią Wieki, no. 10 (1991): 1–6. Popper, Karl. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge, 1957. Słabek, Henryk. Intelektualistów obraz własny w √wietle dokumentów autobiograficznych 1944–1989. Warsaw: PWN, 1997. ———. O społecznej historii Polski 1945–1989. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 2015. ———. Obraz robotników polskich w √wietle ich √wiadectw własnych i statystyki 1945– 1989. Kutno and Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Gospodarki Krajowej, 2004. Sowa, Andrzej Leon. Historia polityczna Polski 1944–1991. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2011. Starnawski, Bartłomiej. “Stare wino w nowych dzbanach . . . czyli o tak zwanej polskiej drodze do socjalizmu jako ‘pustym znaczącym.’” In Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, 85–109. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014. Stola, Dariusz, and Marcin Zaremba, eds. PRL—trwanie i zmiana. Warsaw: Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczo√ci i Zarządzania im. Leona Koźmi≈skiego, 2003. Syska, Michał, ed. 1964–2009: Modzelewski, Friszke i Koczanowicz o Li√cie otwartym do partii: Zapis konferencji z dnia 14 grudnia 2009 roku. Wrocław: O√rodek My√li Społecznej im. Ferdynanda Lassalle’a, 2010. Topolski, Jerzy. Historia Polski. Pozna≈: Rebis, 2015. ———. Świat bez historii. Pozna≈: Wydawnictwo Pozna≈skie, 1998. Trotsky, Leon. The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1937.

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Walas, Teresa. Zrozumieć swój czas: Kultura polska po komunizmie; Rekonesans. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2003. Zaremba, Marcin. Communism—Legitimacy—Nationalism: Nationalist Legitimization of the Communist Regime in Poland. Translated by Arthur Rosman. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019.

CHAPTER NINE

Socialist Education Ideals and Models of Patriotism: Some of the Problems of Polish Pedagogics and the Education Policy of the People’s Republic of Poland in the 1970s Anna Sobieska In order to bring up his pupils as real communists and ardent patriots of the socialist fatherland, the teacher should have a Bolshevik’s high ideal value and a Communist’s persistence in pursuing his goals, and for that he needs to be acquainted with the theory of Marxism-Leninism.1

Educational goals and tasks, changeable over the course of history, formulated by pedagogues and teachers of the young generations, the nation, and the society in general, sprout from the grounds of historical circumstances, social needs, and spiritual currents of the era. As Stanisław Czerwi≈ski said, “they constitute a mirror reflection of what the society pursues, needs, and believes in in a given time period.”2 The educational ideals resulting from specific philosophical systems are significantly determined by both ideological and political factors as well as by economic conditions. By supervising the processes of social reproduction and exo-socialization (socialization within the general political and educational interactions of the state and its institutions), and by ordering the education system and making it more cohesive, they generate certain values, attitudes, and role models. This applies especially to patriotic education, defined as the part of moral upbringing that concentrates on building social behaviors and habits necessary for the formation and integration of a nation, for building a nation-based state, as well as 1

“Cechy nauczyciela radzieckiego,” in Pedagogika, ed. Ivan A. Kairov, vol. 2 (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1950), 245. 2 Stanisław Czerwi≈ski, “O ideał wychowawczy szkoły polskiej,” in O nowy ideał wychowawczy, 2nd ed. (Warsaw: Dom Książki Polskiej, 1934). The text is from an inaugural speech, given on July 8, 1929, at a pedagogical congress in Pozna≈.

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the notion of a nation as an image community based on an ideological bond between culture and state. I use the notion of a nation-state in Ernest Gellner’s understanding,3 as a form of social organization based on deeply internalized education-dependent high cultures, each of them protected by their own state. Patriotic education is understood as based on the rule of arbitrariness in shaping a particular ideological attitude which consists of a conscious worship of certain values resulting from the conviction about being part of a national community.4 It is this kind of pedagogic action which allows for the inherent mechanisms of the state’s symbolic violence to be viewed in detail, along with the current interest of the political authorities aiming at monopolizing and subjugating other, competing traditions to itself. Following Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann,5 I accept that patriotic education means shaping and passing on national ideology, which is a collection of values connected to the nation and fatherland, and that this is what makes it the subject of particular interest to the state, the authorities of a given community, as a possibility of deciding about the process of socialization: that is to say creating and manufacturing reality. An analysis of the educational thought of the People’s Republic of Poland from this angle may offer exceptionally interesting material for a researcher wishing to sketch some part of the history of “communism” as a notion in postwar Poland. The ideals of education defined by the Party directives and specified by socioeconomic plans and subsequent school reforms, appear to be a mirror reflecting a number of problems contributing to the idea of communism/socialism/people’s democracy constructed in the subsequent decades. A closer look at the educational tasks (mainly related to the attitude of patriotism), constantly formulated anew, makes it possible to reveal and present the elements that appear on the horizon of public authorities and institutions tasked with analyzing the society, and those elements that disappear from it; elements that are considered a problem, and why; and elements that are thought of as crucial to the socialist system. It makes it possible at the same time to follow the actions of various (communist, non-communist, and anti-communist) subjects, as well as of antagonistic traditions within the struggle for dominance and symbolic power. An analysis of ideal educational formulas emerging in subsequent decades—initially only within program texts of state authorities and journalistic texts concerning schooling and education reforms, later also in works from the field of pedagogics, and finally in textbooks—requires making some generalizations at the beginning of the present analysis. 3

Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983). Stanisław Ossowski, Dzieła, vol. 3 (Warsaw: PWN, 1967), 273. 5 Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Garden City, 1966). 4

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Stages of shaping the socialist ideal of education in Poland An ideological struggle for systems and hierarchies of values is a necessary component of culture.6

After 1944, the process of shaping socialist educational ideals and role models was presented in literature on the subject as a summary of the heritage of pedagogical sciences. Such literature would often be produced to mark important anniversaries of the People’s Republic of Poland’s establishment and development. This kind of reflection was initiated by Bogdan Suchodolski in his paper commemorating the tenth anniversary of People’s Poland, entitled “Pedagogika i Psychologia” (Pedagogy and Psychology).7 Collective anniversary publications from the years 1965, 1968 (the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Republic of Poland), 1976, and 1986 tried to reach a similar balance.8 But it must be emphasized that in the 1970s, the authors began to close them in a Hegelian triad, beginning by loosening and severing ties with the pre-WWII heritage of Polish pedagogical thought, casting aside “post-noble” education of the entertaining, consumptionist type, and ending with the ideals of people’s democracy. The process led through the introduction of Soviet pedagogy and the Soviet experiences in organizing communist education for children, constituting a new vision of the aims and methods of education. This vision—assumed to be anti-nationalist, anti-rightist, anti-clerical, and anti-feudal—resulted in a revolutionary attempt at rebuilding the common consciousness, changing the awareness of the Polish nation, and transforming its cultural identity which expressed itself in the so-called national character. The triad culminated in the elaboration of the Polish way of defining the socialist ideal, legitimized by references to the Polish national tradition, retreating from a radical break of the continuity of cultural message. The depicted triad—a three-stage development of an ideal formula of socialist education—was the model of People’s Poland’s idea of education most often presented by the reformers and creators of ideas of the time, as well as by contemporary historians of pedagogics. From the perspective of the late 1970s (in a way a peak moment in the process of defining the educational ideal), the period of 1944–48 was seen as the first stage and was 6

Stefan Żółkiewski “Od redakcji,” Nowa Szkoła, nos. 5–6 (1949): 3, quoted in Krzysztof Grudnik, “Wychowanie ideologiczne w szkole polskiej 1945–1953,” Przegląd Historyczno-O√wiatowy, nos. 3–4 (2004): 61. 7 Bogdan Suchodolski, “Pedagogika i psychologia,” in Dziesięć lat rozwoju nauki w Polsce Ludowej, ed. Bogdan Suchodolski (Warsaw: PWN, 1956), 193–220. 8 See Bogdan Suchodolski, ed., Rozwój pedagogiki w Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossoli≈skich, Wydawnictwo PAN, 1975).

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assessed critically as a time when pedagogics was still bound to the bourgeois prewar heritage,9 thus the lack of revolutionary spirit and a fearful continuation of the traditional currents originating in the Second Republic of Poland being eagerly pointed out.10 It was highlighted that this period featured only “a democratic educational ideal.”11 Works published at that time were assessed as follows:12 “even if attempting at overcoming traditionalism, this attempt was not connected . . . to the experiences and needs of the cultural revolution in Poland, and not based on the rules of the Marxist methodology.”13 It was further remarked that such works did not highlight the crucial and pivotal role of the proletarian revolution and its consequences to the upbringing of a new generation. Moreover, they allegedly did not overcome sociologism as a method of analyzing the goals and methods of education, nor did they teach a class analysis of certain phenomena.14 To paint a full picture, it is worth adding that there was an attempt at rehabilitating those early postwar years as a stage of shaping the socialist idea of education in Poland, which enabled the selection of issues that would become a subject of further, lively discussions in the years to come.15 The process of specifying socialist ideals, including, first of all, a personality model of a patriot, was accompanied from the beginning by analysis of “errors and distortions” of the idea of communism. Defining and attempting to comprehend the sources of misunderstanding or the incorrect realization of this idea were an inevitable component of the teleology of education. The first critical voices, which appeared in the 1940s in texts by the “auditors” of implementing socialist thought in schools, were mainly directed at the insufficient amount of ideology, underdeveloped awareness, excessively low ideological level of education, and the excessively poor politicization of the atmosphere of school life. This was blamed on remnants of 9

Suchodolski, “Pedagogika i psychologia,” 205. Feliks Wojciech Araszkiewicz, “Kontynuacja tradycyjnych nurtów teleologii wychowania (1944–1948),” in Teleologia wychowania Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej (1944–1980) (Słupsk: Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna, 1984), 38–66. 11 Wojciech Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL w latach 1944– 1976 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1977), 39. 12 See, for instance, Maria Ossowska, Wzór obywatela w ustroju demokratycznym (Warsaw: Zarząd Główny TUR, 1946); Bogdan Nawroczy≈ski, Życie duchowe: Zarys filozofii kultury (Krakow: Księgarnia Wydawnicza F. Pieczątkowski i Ska, 1947); Józef Chałasi≈ski, Społecze≈stwo i wychowanie (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1948). 13 Suchodolski, “Pedagogika i psychologia,” 202. 14 Araszkiewicz, “Kontynuacja tradycyjnych nurtów,” 53. 15 Helena Chyli≈ska, Ideał wychowawczy w okresie rewolucji społecznej w Polsce (1944– 1948) (Warsaw: PWN, 1981), 196. 10

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the past still surviving in the social awareness,16 as well as on the educators’ “wandering around the wilderness of rotten ideological liberalism in the field of pedagogy.”17 The struggle on the front of the socialist perevospitaniye18 (re-education) was waged in parallel with settling accounts with the past, which entered the new present with unstoppable force. Enemies in this case were found in the pedagogy of interwar Poland, a Poland of large landowners and foreign capital; the pedagogy of bourgeois Western Europe and the United States, connected to concepts promoting education based on fascist assumptions; developing leadership theory in place of team development; the worship of nature instead of faith in the ability to process nature; and philanthropy instead of social work.19 Criticism was levelled toward such concepts as naturalist pedagogy, Bergsonism, Adlerism, individualism, personalism, post-eccentricity, the ideology of the Jędrzejewicz school from 1932–48, cultural pedagogy, fascism, and Christian pedagogy.20 The bourgeois theory of solidarism and the middle-class attitude to life of making a career was contrasted with education in the sense of a brotherhood of people struggling against oppression and social exploitation. Nevertheless, in the opinion of the most influential ideologues of the 1970s, it remained a period of shaping the democratic ideal, which could be called socialist “only in so far as it was a co-factor of moving to the second stage of revolution in Poland; from the Marxist methodology’s point of 16

Władysław Ozga, “Rola o√wiaty i wychowania w zakładaniu podstaw socjalizmu w √wiadomo√ci ludzi,” Nowa Szkoła, nos. 3–4 (1950): 339. 17 Żółkiewski, “Od redakcji,” 3, quoted in Grudnik, Wychowanie ideologiczne w szkole polskiej w latach 1945–1953, 61. 18 I am using the term coined by Maria Janion in her discussion with Jacek Trznadel. See Jacek Trznadel, Ha≈ba domowa (Warsaw: Morex, 1997), 81. 19 Jan Szurek, Organizacja pracy wychowawczej w szkole i rola inspektora szkolnego: Referat wygłoszony na Ogólnokrajowym Zjeździe Inspektorów Szkolnych w Warszawie, w maju 1949 r. (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1949), 31–32. See also Nasza Szkoła nos. 3–4 (1950): the whole issue is devoted to the mistakes of the Soviet pedagogy. 20 See, for instance, Zygmunt Mysłakowski and Ignacy Szaniawski, “Pedagogika i o√wiata w Polsce 1928–1939,” Nowa Szkoła, nos. 3–4 (1950); Ignacy Szaniawski, “Założenia ideologiczne jędrzejewiczowskich programów,” Nowa Szkoła, nos. 3–4 (1950); Aleksander Lewin, “Przełom musi nastąpiΔ,” Nowa Szkoła, nos. 3–4 (1950). The Jędrzejewicz reform was a major reform of the education system in interwar Poland. Initiated in 1932 by the Minister for Religion and Public Enlightenment, Janusz Jędrzejewicz, it introduced obligatory education at the primary school level and unified the high-school system, allowing the graduates of vocational general secondary schools to enter higher learning institutions. It was heavily criticized for, among other things, allowing the state to interfere with academic freedom. It was canceled in 1948.

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view, it was clearly recognized as one of the harmful consequences of the so-called right-wing nationalist deviation.”21 The second stage was described as a period of transformation, noticing and reacting to changes in the Polish political system and its development in the socialist direction; a period of new phenomena occurring, and of an ideological and methodological reorientation. It was most often defined as the years 1949–70, with particular weight given to the seven years 1949–56 as a period of revolutionary breakthrough, a wake-up call to shed old “burdens” by relying on the assumptions of the Marxist teleology of education. These years were later considered an era of dominance of the “socialist ideal typical of the period of an intensive socialist industrialization of the country and the construction of the foundations of socialism.”22 Among the enemies of socialist morality named in the 1950s, irrationalism and mysticism came to the forefront as derivatives of medieval unscientific thinking, which deprived reason and human awareness of their leading role; they represented personalistic individualism, the social and intellectual impotence of the bourgeoisie. Interestingly enough, still in the early 1950s, curators delegated by the authorities began to notice yet another—this time internal—enemy: a distortion in the implementation of the idea of communist upbringing. They pointed to vulgar sociologism, “vulgar actualism” and “schematicism,”23 along with “sloganism,” “verbalism,” ”sociologism,” automatism, discrepancy between slogans and reality, the opportunism of teachers,24 formalism, percentomania, exaggerated planning that removes all initiative,25 as well as the under-education of young cadres, a serious lack in teachers’ knowledge, the use of trite slogans, the belief in the primacy of a ministerial circular, and finally bureaucratism and an atmosphere of Beria-like intimidation and repression. In the 1960s negativism was added to this list, as a sin against the optimal use of the valuable traditions and achievements of the Polish nation in teaching and educational work. A number of new obstacles to the effective shaping of patriotic attitudes were highlighted in these years: “depreciating the historic achievements of the Polish nation,” an insufficient demonstration of progressive elements in the tradition of the nation, and emphasizing 21

Araszkiewicz, “Kontynuacja tradycyjnych nurtów,” 65. Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego, 177. 23 Głos Nauczycielski 42 (1953). Quoted in Krzysztof Grudnik, “Krytyka komunistycznego modelu wychowania (1953–1956),” Przegląd Historyczno-O√wiatowy, nos. 1–2 (2003): 112. 24 Paweł Bagi≈ski, “Nad nową instrukcją programową języka polskiego,” Polonistyka, no. 3 (1954): 17. See also various articles in Nowa Szkoła, nos. 9–10 (1956). 25 Salomon Łastik, “O prawdach zaprawionych piołunem,” Życie Szkoły, no. 11 (1956): 641. 22

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numerous negative national traits, including “ignorance, instability, and fratricidal wars, low material culture, and lack of co-operation skills,” along with an emphasis on the history of battles and wars, instead of the “great tradition of social progress and democracy.” Focusing on errors, distortions, and deviations in the presentation of the history of workers’ and peasants’ movements “does not favor the shaping of patriotic feelings, or a proper attitude to one’s national tradition,” and poses a risk of transforming patriotism into cosmopolitanism.26 The enumerations of lists of distortions within socialist education, as well as of the socialist system in general, most often ended with a declaration confirming the invariability of the adopted goals, or with a declaration of return to the sources of socialist ideals. The methods of materializing the idea required correction, while the idea itself remained beyond reproach. The third stage, after 1970, saw the ascent of what was dubbed the period of “scientific-technological revolution and the construction of a developed socialist society.”27 This stage was extended until 1980, a year connected to the Eighth Congress of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR), organized under the slogan of acting in favor of Poland’s socialist development and the wellbeing of the nation; “it was also a big question mark as to the reality of the program of constructing a developed socialist society.”28 Such divisions functioned only within the era of socialist discourse, and 1989 has come to mark the symbolic end of the ideals of socialist education. After that year, the situation changed dramatically; its ideals were completely negated. The so-called “ideological offensive” or “cultural revolution” that started in Poland after the end of the Second World War, consisting of an attempt to modernize the consciousness of the Polish nation, transforming its identity expressed in the so-called “national character,” was entirely rejected and negated. The individual stages of the formation of the socialist system and ideals of socialism were accused of politicization and deceitful ideologization. Suddenly the postwar attempts to rebuild education (in terms of both personnel and ideology), initiated by sociologist Józef Chałasi≈ski in 1946 in his article on Polish intelligent-

26

Tadeusz Malinowski, “U źródeł minimalizacji efektów patriotycznego wychowania: Tradycyjny i współczesny charakter stosunków patriotyzmu i internacjonalizmu; WyzwoliΔ podręczniki i programy szkolne z elementów kosmopolityzmu,” in Patriotyzm, ideologia, wychowanie: Dyskusja na temat patriotycznego i internacjonalistycznego wychowania, ed. Wojciech Pomykało (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo MON, 1968), 26–28, or in Wiesław Mysłek, “Współczesne źródła i sztandary antypatriotyzmu . . . ,” in ibid., 21. 27 Malinowski, “U źródeł minimalizacji efektów patriotycznego wychowania,” 335. 28 Araszkiewicz, “Kontynuacja tradycyjnych nurtów,” 34–35.

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sia,29 were forgotten. Both the opponents and adversaries of the idea of communism, as well as researchers of the history of education in postwar Poland, closed their eyes to the idea of social advancement and the construction of the new intelligentsia. Between 1944 and 1948, the Polish Workers’ Party adopted and implemented a program of reforms in the fields of education and science. These reforms included: modernization of the educational and scientific system and construction of a new type of school, free of charge and based on the principles of universality, uniformity, and state character; providing the worker and peasant youth with education at all levels; “professionalization” of the entire system; and the introduction of a type of education corresponding to the production and material needs of the industrial economy that was being developed and partly rebuilt after the war. However, the reforms were only considered a way of making school and science dependent on state or Party decisions, which enforced upbringing “in the spirit of the ideology of People’s Poland,” as the usual phrase went. Since the 1990s, and especially after 2000, the language of writing about the history and tasks of education in postwar Poland has been dominated by ironic quotes and such terms as the “Stalinization of education,” “formation of a totalitarian system of education,” “indoctrination,” “enslavement of minds,” “adaptation of Soviet designs,” creation of the “religion” of communism, “perekovka,”30 and the creation of a new anthroposphere straight from novels like Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We or Nikolai Ostrovsky’s How the Steel Was Tempered, “creating millions of mental cripples.”31 Authors of these analyses and commentaries of the Marxist educational and upbringing methodology, especially of the period 1944–56, unanimously and unilaterally focus on accusing communism (that is, the pedagogical thought of Soviet socialism) of causing a break in the nation29

Józef Chałasi≈ski’s lecture on Polish intelligentsia, entitled Inteligencja polska w √wietle swojej genealogii (The Polish intelligentsia in the light of its genealogy), given at the inauguration of the Łódź University in January 1946, was reprinted and developed in his book, Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1946). See Agata Zysiak, Punkty za pochodzenie: Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mie√cie (Krakow: “Nomos,” 2016). 30 Rooted in New Testament metaphor, the Russian term perekovka, meaning the re-forging of a man, became a Soviet concept of self-transformation from the old bourgeois self into a “new man” through the hard labor of building socialism. 31 Andrzej Sepkowski, “Walka o rząd dusz w Polsce powojennej,” in Kształtowanie się √rodowisk wychowawczych dzieci i młodzieży na przestrzeni dziejów, ed. Barbara Moraczewska and Piotr Krzywicki (Włocławek: Pa≈stwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa, 2014), 25; Mariusz Jastrząb, Mozolna budowa absurdu: Działalno√ć Wydziału Propagandy Warszawskiego Komitetu Wojewódzkiego PZPR w latach 1949– 1953 (Warsaw: ISP PAN, 1999), 159.

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forming processes, of the disintegration of national character, of preventing the formation of social habits necessary to build a national community, of the crisis of Polish patriotism and the broader crisis of Polishness, and of the moral murder of the individual’s relationship with the national community.32 Thus, only the topics of laicization and Sovietization of Polish schools appear in the research. The Ministry of Education, headed by Stanisław Skrzeszewski, Eustachy Kuroczko, and Żanna Kormanowa in 1944, is primarily described as having “succumbed to Kremlin pressure, [and taken] decisive actions related to the cultivation of the Soviet Union at school.”33 The analysis focuses mainly on scrutinizing the details of this struggle for souls and ironically describing the recommendations to introduce political and state celebrations instead of religious ones—for example, the recommendation to introduce the commemoration of the Soviet Army’s establishment (February 23) into educational plans, as well as the anniversary of the Polish-Soviet treaty of friendship, mutual assistance, and cooperation (April 21), Labor Day (May 1), or the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia (November 7)—thus building a foundation of nesting the Soviet topics for good in all areas of Polish school life: didactic, educational, organizational, and programmatic ones.34 The summaries are significant: the socialist ideal of education, rejecting the interwar model of “post-noble” education of the “fun-loving and consuming type,” introducing a new vision of methods and aims of education, which was in principle anti-nationalist, anti-right, anti-clerical, and antifeudal, led or attempted to lead to a change of consciousness and to rebuild the Polish national character, thus being anti-Polish and anti-national. Any attempt at rehabilitation ends with a phrase of the following sort: 32

See, for instance, Henryk Składanowski, “Stalinowska my√l polityczna w polskiej o√wiacie w latach 1949–1956 i jej realizacja,” Zeszyty Naukowe Pa≈stwowej Wyższej Szkoły Zawodowej we Włocławku: Rozprawy Humanistyczne 5 (2005): 331–62; Romuald Grzybowski, “U podstaw kształtowania się totalitarnego systemu wychowania i opieki nad dzieckiem i rodziną w latach 1945–1956,” Studia i Badania Naukowe: Pedagogika, no. 2 (2008): 233–53; and Romuald Grzybowski, “Systemowe uwarunkowania rozwoju o√wiaty i wychowania w Polsce w latach 1945–1956 (zarys problematyki),” in Wychowanie—opieka—kształcenie: Z bada≈ nad wybranymi problemami edukacji w XX i XXI wieku, ed. Mariusz Brodnicki, Elżbieta Gorloff, and Andrzej Kołakowski (Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Edukacyjne “Akapit,” 2010), 18. 33 Elwira Kry≈ska, “Dwa modele i wizje wychowania w rzeczywisto√ci socjalistycznej,” Przegląd Historyczno-O√wiatowy, nos. 3–4 (2012): 52. 34 Stanisław Gawlik, Szkoła polska w dobie zniewolenia komunistycznego (1945–1989): Refleksje z oddali czasu (Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego, 2009), 17.

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The fact is that Polish communists, when undertaking these authentic social tasks, treated them instrumentally, not as autonomous problems, required by the good of the society, but as such, that when addressed would bring their announcers more popularity and strength. However, the instrumental treatment of the reform in education and science does not contradict the fact that many of the slogans announced by the communists in this regard had a truly democratic overtone and considerable mobilizing power during their realization.35

The socialist ideal of education was accused of ignoring privacy, hating “class enemies” (strengthening social divisions and manipulating social emotions), and especially of negating the universal morality inherent to European culture, based on God’s commandments and ethical values derived from Greek and Roman culture. Further criticisms surrounded the introduction of “class ethics,” the division into “one’s own” and “strangers,” following the principles of hatred and collective discipline in place of values such as tolerance, understanding, coexistence, and love.36 And at the same time the revolution was considered alien to Polish society, not born from within, but copied from the Soviet models: from Lenin, Marx, and Makarenko. An attempt to rebuild social awareness, change the consciousness of the Polish nation, and transform its spiritual identity expressed in the so-called national character, the fight against right-wing and nationalist deviations resulted in the victory of the new personality model. Half a century after the beginning of the revolution, Polish patriotism was defined firstly as the “defense of the rationality of cognition and action,” as opposed to relativism; secondly, as the “defense of the Christian identity of our civilization and of the public dimension of the fundamental truth of the Incarnation of Christ as the foundation of our civilization”; thirdly, as “supporting Polish manufacturing, Polish banks, Polish social insurance institutions, and Polish trade”; and fourthly, as “having children.” Patriotism today “must have a less emotional and a more concrete expression. Because our future depends not so much on the emotions, marches, and manifestations, but

35

Czesław Lewandowski, Kierunki tak zwanej ofensywy ideologicznej w polskiej o√wiacie, nauce i szkołach wyższych w latach 1944–1948 (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1993), 221, 223. 36 See, for instance, Krzysztof Kosi≈ski, O nową mentalno√ć: Życie codzienne w szkołach 1945–1956 (Warsaw: Trio, 2000); Marta Brodala, Anna Lisiecka, and Tadeusz Ruzikowski, Przebudować człowieka: Komunistyczne wysiłki zmiany mentalno√ci (Warsaw: Trio, 2001); Elżbieta Gorloff, “Działalno√Δ wychowawcza szkoły w latach 1945–1956 a kształtowanie ‘nowego człowieka’ (na przykładzie szkół w Lęborku),” Studia i Badania Naukowe—Ateneum Szkoła Wyższa w Gda≈sku, no. 2 (2008): 255–65; Sabina Bober, Walka o dusze dzieci i młodzieży w pierwszym dwudziestoleciu Polski Ludowej (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2011).

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rather on our cultural creativity, our consumer decisions, and the shape of Polish families. After all, from communism we emerged not only devastated in the economic sphere, but also in the moral and patriotic senses.”37 Nevertheless, I do not want to leave the readers with the impression that Christian-conservative ideas were the only ones present after 1989. There were plenty of educational reformers in the 1990s and 2000s who wanted to replace those old socialist norms with neoliberal ones focused not on Catholic nationalism but on “European” values of liberal internationalism. Those reforms were cut short and reversed by the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwo√ć) party after its victory in the 2015 parliamentary elections, but nonetheless they do demonstrate an approach well represented among Polish educational experts. The problems that interest me within the present chapter—the pedagogical thought of People’s Poland as a question of education connected with the revolutionary modernization of Polish national awareness— marked their presence just after the war, that is, in the period 1944–48, much like the idea of socialist pedagogy based on the Leninist pedagogical concept, described as the first stage of development of the socialist ideal of education. Most dynamically reformulated and defined in the 1950s and 1960s, this ideal only took its final peculiar shape in the 1970s. These years were not so much the result or climax of the processes initiated after the end of the Second World War in Poland, but rather a synthesis in which the pedagogical thesis and antithesis combined. The ideals presented at that time reflect how revolutionary and counterrevolutionary ideas, modernity and traditionalism, and cosmopolitanism and nationalist patriotism were negotiated, all struggling for legalization and domination. With that in mind, this chapter will focus on the presentation of characteristic phenomena in educational theories of that later period, going back only occasionally, when it is necessary to show how certain elements related to role models and moral ideals of the socialist system evolved. Finally, it should be clarified that in this work I will refer to the educational practices of the period only to some extent, because they are not the subject of analysis. I will treat them, however, as a complement to the theory and the model image, or as a kind of “lighter” summary of the oftentedious descriptions.

37

Marian Piłka, “Prawda, dzieci i pieniądze,” wPolityce.pl, June 5, 2013, accessed June 5, 2019, http://www.wpolityce.pl/polityka/159073-prawda-dzieci-i-pienia dze-o-przyszlosci.html.

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Patriotism and internationalism: the foundations of education Upbringing in the socialist spirit, where the prime and overriding value is the man and his well-being, expresses this in all its contents; this is what differentiates it from education in other sociopolitical systems. Patriotism and internationalism are the foundations of education. A deep love for freedom and independence, related to the life of the country and the social and natural environment, and, at the same time, solidarity with the working people of the whole world who struggle for a better, more just perspective on life, teaching respect for man regardless of his national and racial affiliation: here are some determinants of socialist patriotism and internationalism in the spirit of which the youth of People’s Poland is brought up.38

As the Sejm of the People’s Republic of Poland declared, a “patriotic and internationalist sense of responsibility,” along with an active social attitude, awareness of civic duties, knowledge, and professional qualifications, was what the Polish school was supposed to give to its pupils.39 Never before were patriotic issues present to such an extent as in the 1970s, and not only in the area of pedagogical thought, but also in the general field of educational policy in People’s Poland. Nevertheless, the mere connection of the topic of patriotism with that of internationalism was not a novelty. The first school instructions and teaching programs of the Polish language from the 1940s already gave priority to patriotic education with internationalist connotations: “This patriotic ideal, free from national exclusivity, should go hand in hand with the cult of spiritual achievements of humanity and the ideals of universal brotherhood, especially in relation to the befriended, freedom-loving nation; it should however be characterized by vigilance for the eternal possessiveness of the German neighbor.”40 The ideal of the socialist man from the very be38

Jerzy Wołczyk, Edukacja dla rozwoju: Niektóre problemy polityki o√wiatowej (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossoli≈skich, 1973), 68–69. 39 “Uchwała Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej z dnia 13 października 1973 r. w sprawie systemu edukacji narodowej,” Monitor Polski, no. 44, item 260 (1973): 539, accessed September 29, 2019, http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/ download.xsp/WMP19730440260/O/M19730260.pdf. 40 Instruction on the implementation of the Polish language program in a general secondary school in the school year 1945/46, quoted in Zofia Zasacka, Wyobrażenia ojczyzny i oblicza patriotyzmu w podręcznikach do języka polskiego dla szkoły podstawowej w latach 1945–1990 (Warsaw: Biblioteka Narodowa, 2000), 44–45. Zasacka’s book is a meticulous analysis of the ways of writing about the homeland in Polish textbooks for the older grades of primary school. The typology of patriotic values and attitudes constructed by the author from the literature contained in these textbooks allowed her to distinguish six model types of graduates in particular phases of teaching: patriot-democrats (1945–1950); socialist patriots and

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ginning assumed that he would be a patriot, ardently loving his socialist homeland. In addition to love for the homeland and respect for its progressive traditions (meaning the nineteenth and twentieth-century liberation aspirations “related to the struggle for the social emancipation of the working masses, which have always been most painfully affected by the lack of independence”),41 this also entailed selfless and devoted work for the good of the country; exemplary performance of one’s duties in professional work and within the political organization; thinking in terms of the state, where each personal activity is considered from the point of view of the state; the proper fulfillment of all civic obligations and compliance with the law; readiness to defend the country and the achievements of socialism; respect for national culture and participation in its dissemination; and respect and wise management of the human environment. In short, it signified a “strongly integrated” (to use a fetishized phrase) sense of responsibility for the country. The first voices (from the 1940s) which expressed a need to shape the patriotic spirit insisted, first of all, on the necessity to “eradicate the relics of the old order from the awareness of the people’s masses, i.e., selfishness, demoralization, ignorance, prejudice, and superstitions of all kinds,” to “eradicate all forms of nationalism” and connect “real patriotism” with proletarian internationalism,42 and the need to distinguish internationalist patriotism from cosmopolitanism as an ideology of rescinding the rights and needs of one’s own people, which foreshadows the aggression of American imperialism. “An internationalist-patriot . . . will find help to solve the problems facing his own homeland in the form of internationalist progress. An internationalist-patriot . . . separates himself from a rootless cosmopolitan who cannot see his homeland in any of the countries. A patriot relentlessly and uncompromisingly fights against cosmopolitanism.”43 Proletarian patriotism was further defined as: internationalists (1951–1957); responsible and constructive builders of socialism (1958–1963); aware and creative citizens of People’s Poland (1964–1971); progressive patriots of People’s Poland (1972–1981); and competent humanists (1982–1990). These distinctions, however, seem sterile: the author does not show differences, only enumerating interesting-sounding terms and titles. A much more valuable work, which shows the evolution of individual features of the socialist image, is provided in the book by Aleksandra Jasi≈ska and Renata Siemie≈ska, Wzory osobowe socjalizmu (Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1975). 41 Zasacka, Wyobrażenia ojczyzny i oblicza patriotyzmu, 44–45. 42 “Deklaracja ideowa Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej,” in Podstawy ideologiczne PZPR: Referat tow. Bolesława Bieruta wygłoszony w dniu 15.XII.1948 r. Koreferat tow. Józefa Cyrankiewicza wygłoszony w dniu 16.XII.1948 r. na Kongresie Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej; Deklaracja ideowa PZPR (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951), 138. 43 Szurek, Organizacja pracy wychowawczej w szkole, 6–7.

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a warm, sincere, generous social feeling, a feeling of attachment to the progressive history of the nation, to its culture, to the native land. . . . Proletarian patriotism is a revolutionary struggle for a better, fair social system; it is a burning concern for the leading participation of one’s country in the global revolutionary movement. . . . It is a congressional act, it is to give all one’s strength to the victory of socialism in one’s own country, to speed up the victory in the world. Proletarian patriotism is the deepest, revolutionary internationalism. . . . Patriotism is only honest, true, and essential, then, when it is internationalist.44

Similar arguments were developed in the 1950s. Their specificity included a lighter emphasis on the aspects of militancy and struggle for upbringing through work.45 The pedagogical concept of upbringing through inclusion in the fight for a communist system, adopted after Lenin, was replaced by the ideal of productive education. However, education through combat was not yet “outdated”; it was still assumed that the upbringing of the masses cannot be “detached from the independent, political, and especially revolutionary struggle of the masses themselves. Only the struggle educates the exploited class, only the struggle allows them to realize their own strength, expand their horizons, develop abilities, brighten the mind, forge the will . . .”46 What completed the Leninist pedagogical concept—an ideal model of a communist man, “a fighter for social progress,” “a communist fighter,” a socialized person, capable of acting for the common good, deeply involved in society, struggling for social justice and progress47—were the ideas of other Soviet educators: Anton Semyonovich Makarenko, Yefim Aronovich Arkin, and A. A. Kalashnikov. Their concepts matched the Six-Year Plan (1950–55) perfectly, along with the related postulate of polytechnical education, namely the idea of a school as a factory with its mechanisms, rhythm, and production results.48 44

Ibid., 6. The pedagogical principle of education by means of revolutionary activity was taken from Vladimir Lenin’s concept. Lenin saw man both as a product and creator of history, who by changing the world, changed himself. See Heliodor Muszy≈ski, “Poglądy Lenina na wychowanie i ich znaczenie dla rozwoju socjalistycznej pedagogiki,” Nauczyciel i Wychowanie, no. 3 (1970): 28. 46 Ibid., 28–29. 47 Ibid., 33. 48 See, for example, Aleksander Lewin, “System wychowania kolektywnego w szkole radzieckiej,” Rozprawy z Dziejów O√wiaty 10 (1967): 50–84; “Celem naszej działalno√ci jest wychowanie młodego pokolenia żarliwych patriotów socjalistycznej ojczyzny”: Materiały z plenarnych obrad Komitetu Wojewódzkiego po√więconych rozwijaniu pracy ideowo-wychowawczej w√ród młodzieży Kielecczyzny (Kielce: PZPR. Komitet Wojewódzki, 1968); Bolesław Potyrała, O√wiata w Polsce w latach 1949–1956 (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1992); Krzysztof 45

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In the period of the developed socialist society, the role model of a young Pole discarded such a strong and exclusive emphasis on leadership at work, but still required performing certain social roles: he would be a citizen accomplishing the goals of the socialist society, an active participant in ideological and political life, a man of work, a rational consumer, a cocreator of culture specific to socialist civilization, and a group member characterized by a collectivist attitude and group solidarity. He would be a patriot raised in the spirit of socialist/class/proletarian/people’s patriotism. He would also be an internationalist citizen, friendly toward the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, with a positive approach toward the world’s progressive movements—for example in Vietnam and Chile—and feeling solidarity with the struggle of the working class in capitalist countries; a citizen struggling for peace, who rejects racial hatred, nationalism, chauvinism, and capitalism.49 The patriotism of the 1970s accentuated its class character, due to which it was supposed to be easily distinguishable “from other manifestations of solidarity”: “The class criterion also allows us to distinguish socialist patriotism from the anti-socialist, conservative-clerical national slogans.”50 At the same time, it strongly referred to the national tradition, “in which the most visible mental traits of a nation express themselves; they include, above all, ideas and patterns of behavior regarded as particularly important, historical memory, an assessment of the nation’s achievements, patterns of attitude toward one’s own and other nations, patterns of patriotism and internationalism.”51 Role models presented to young patriots in the 1970s included the need to disseminate internationalism and patriotism, but were also exemplars of a revolutionary attitude and good work, rooted in the Polish progressive tradition, while reaching out to leaders and activists of the Polish left. Ludwik Malinowski, author of a patriotic education handbook, wrote: Ludwik Wary≈ski was the creator and leader of the first socialist party in the Polish lands, an internationalist and patriot, an outstanding agitator, a man of action and a thinker of high caliber, directly connected with the working class Grudnik, “Wychowanie produkcyjne w szkole polskiej w latach 1949–1953,” Przegląd Historyczno-O√wiatowy 1–2 (2003): 119–27. 49 See, for instance, Wzór osobowo√ciowy Polaka w rozwiniętym społecze≈stwie socjalistycznym, oprac. przez zespół powołany przez Prezydium Rady do Spraw Wychowania (Warsaw: Archiwum Ministerstwa Edukacji Narodowej i Sportu, 1975), quoted in Barbara Wagner, Strategia wychowawcza w PRL (Warsaw: Neriton, 2009), 119, 146. See also Ludwik Malinowski, Patriotyczne wychowanie młodzieży (Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych, 1988). 50 Malinowski, Patriotyczne wychowanie młodzieży, 81. 51 Ibid., 92.

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and faithful to its ideals until the end. Felix Dzerzhinsky symbolized the revolutionary steadfastness, fortitude, boundless faithfulness to the idea, consistency in action, internationalism embodied in everyday activity. Julian Marchlewski was an outstanding participant of the revolutionary events in three countries, a theoretician, insightful researcher, and expert on the national past, combining all the features that make him a symbol of the revolutionary, patriotic, and internationalist idea of the Marxist-Leninist strand of the Polish workers’ movement. Maria Koszutska (Wera Kostrzewa) was an example of ideological and political principles and courage in defense of her own views and ideas, of faithfulness to the ideas of socialism in the most difficult and even the most tragic historical situations, and of faith in the strength and ability of the working class. Adolf Warski was a symbol of the continuity of ideological development of the workers’ movement, building by his thought and deeds a framework for a relation of the movement to its past and its traditions, contained in the Leninist formula of “creative and critical continuation,” a fusion of theory and practice. Marceli Nowotko was a symbol of moral examples born in the most difficult period of national history, of heroism in the face of the greatest trials, of a boundless devotion of ideas. Władysław Gomułka was a model of a principled attitude based on Marxism-Leninism, a steadfast fighter for the liberation of Poland from the German occupation, a spokesman of the broadly understood national front, a patriot and internationalist, faithful to the Party and its principles.52

Let us speak about another important trait of the education system in the 1970s: a strong emphasis on the interdependence of “all elements, levels, and institutional forms of the education and school system. The proposed model of patriotic education was expected to be realized by all institutions that educate and bring up children, as well as by families, beginning with preschool, schools of all levels, external training institutions, workplaces, etc.”53 This marked the beginning of various initiatives. Some regions competed to make the patriotic-international content more attractive, and journals presented a multitude of practical solutions. Supervisory institutions, centers of teaching methodology, and specially founded academic institutions organized thematic conferences and published post-conference bulletins containing practical solutions and ideas of how to introduce patriotic content. Organizations and institutions such as Wszechnica SpołecznoPolityczna (University of Sociology and Political Studies), Koło Młodych Racjonalizatorów (Club of Young Rationalizers), agendas of the Towarzystwo Krzewienia Kultury Świeckiej (Company of Propagation of Secular Culture), Towarzystwo Przyjaźni Polsko-Radzieckiej (Polish-Soviet Friendship Society), Liga Ochrony Przyrody (League for the Protection of the Natural Environment), Liga Ochrony Kraju (League for the Protection 52 53

Ibid., 73–74. “Uchwała Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej z dnia 13 października 1973 r. w sprawie systemu edukacji narodowej,” 541.

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of the Country), Polski Czerwony Krzyż (Polish Red Cross), Towarzystwo Wiedzy Powszechnej (Society for the Popularization of Culture and Science), and Związek Młodzieży Socjalistycznej (Union of Socialist Youth) organized numerous actions, campaigns, and events to instill political feelings in the youth. The implementation of civic education programs looked a little different at each level—different methods were used to work with children than those used with high school and student youth or working/peasant youth. In essence, however, the program was the same: socialist patriotism in accordance with the Marxist concept meant engaged work and generous participation in activities shaping a “better future” of the fatherland understood as “the national, material, and spiritual goods, common to all the working people.”54 In practice, this meant inculcating a love of the native landscape, along with a pride in the progressive past and present of the country, consistent with the historical policy. Internationalism was shown as a “political norm defining the content and procedure of establishing contacts and bringing together particular parts of the international workers’ and communist movement and socialist and progressive forces in the world”;55 in reality, this was reduced to emphasizing brotherhood with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In practice, it looked like this: at kindergartens, preschools, and daycare centers, patriotic and internationalist education meant evoking a picture of the fatherland in the child’s imagination which would appeal not only to the intellectual sphere, but also primarily to the emotional and volitional sphere; this was called “shaping the aesthetic image of the homeland.” The process was carried out during walks, visits to regional monuments (especially those related to folk art), during meetings with “interesting people” (briefly referred to as “insurgents and grandmothers”), and through the use of state ceremonies. Each such walk had its purpose, the “desired educational effect.” A kindergarteners’ visit to the military cemetery in Olsztyn focused, for example, on the story of Pyotr Dyernov, a nineteen-year-old Soviet soldier, who “threw himself with grenades on a machine gun, from which the Germans shelled a crossing over the Wadąg River.” The walk proved successful, in the teacher’s opinion, as the perplexed children “distributed candles and flowers equally 54

Heliodor Muszy≈ski, “Teoretyczne podstawy wychowania patriotycznego,” in Wychowanie patriotyczne i internacjonalistyczne w przedmiotach humanistycznych: Materiały z sesji 23–24 stycznia 1978, ed. Jerzy Czerwi≈ski, Andrzej Izdebski, and Ludwik Mikusi≈ski (Pozna≈: IKNiBO, 1978), 57. The Institute for Teacher Education and Research and the Adam Mickiewicz University’s Institute of Pedagogy, responsible for publishing these materials, added the phrase “For internal use” on the title page. 55 Edward Erazmus, “Internacjonalizm proletariacki a patriotyzm,” in Czerwi≈ski, Izdebski, and Mikusi≈ski, Wychowanie patriotyczne i internacjonalistyczne, 17.

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among the fallen Polish and Soviet soldiers.”56 During a preschool walk around Racibórz, the teacher pointed out old and new buildings, comparing the castle, where in 1683 King Jan III Sobieski stayed on his way to Vienna, with a modern stadium built right next to it; during a trip to Warsaw, the teacher juxtaposed old tenement houses with a modern hotel. The conclusion to be made by the children during such trips was to be proud of the past and its landmarks that testified to the Polishness of a given place, while paying attention to their present non-functionality, and to enjoy the new facilities “that satisfy so well the needs of the modern society.”57 The school youth received patriotic content mainly as part of the school curriculum in the humanities (Polish language lessons, classes in defensive training, and civic education). During their lessons and extracurricular classes, the youth met “directly with people who fulfilled their patriotic duty (insurgents, veterans of the Second World War) in the past and who fulfill it today (activists, leaders of socialist work).”58 They produced public notices, albums, chronicles, and guidebooks about their region, prepared special events like sightseeing tours, and organized national remembrance ceremonies. Patriotic education was also carried out “through work,” which included social acts such as preserving places of national remembrance, participating in works on creating protective forest belts around industrial districts, and contributing to the regulation of the Vistula River. Other types of work-based education involved maintaining constant contact between young people and factories, organizing trips to industrial plants, and arranging meetings with working people to prepare students for employment. Morning parades, matinées, celebrations, exhibitions, board bulletins, as well as “events of ideological and social value (‘live word’ concerts) featuring the performance of a big-beat band” were all considered forms of patriotic education through culture and art.59 However, the influence of the latter events on the level of patriotism was quite quickly considered “insufficient” and “unfavorable,” especially since they enjoyed great popularity among young people. The Provincial Agencies of Artistic Events were accused of concentrating on entertainment activities, to the detriment of the ideological and educational system. On the other hand, the campaigns promoting knowledge about the history of the workers’ movement

56

K. Bło≈ska and I. Miłocka, “Podziwiamy i kochamy naszą piękną ziemię,” Wychowanie w przedszkolu, nos. 7–8 (1970): 378. 57 J. Wąsowicz, “Wychowanie patriotyczne w przedszkolach opolskich,” Wychowanie w przedszkolu, nos. 7–8 (1970): 396–401. 58 Jadwiga Szefer-Timoszenko, ed., Wychowanie patriotyczne młodzieży w √wietle realizacji uchwały KW PZPR w Katowicach z 16 kwietnia 1966 (Katowice: Śląski Instytut Naukowy, 1971), 4. 59 Ibid., 7.

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and the period of struggle for the independence and reconstruction of the country, as well as the environmental social campaigns initiated by the Polish Scouting Association, were met with enthusiastic reception. The desired method of shaping the patriotic attitude among student youth was “a smaller emotional load, appealing mainly to the intellect”:60 that is, intensification of ideological education, “intellectual inspiration and stimulation of sociopolitical interests,” “direct” ideological training carried out during workers’ apprenticeships, camps of Voluntary Labor Corps, training and recreation camps, and rallies and conventions, whose routes ran either through places of national martyrdom or along the trail of the largest investments in People’s Poland. This education was supported by radio broadcasts created in student homes, various student clubs, Student Discussion Centers, Student Journal Clubs, and the student press. Further interest in the educational offerings was generated through party periodicals, such as student columns in Trybuna Robotnicza (The Workers’ Tribune), as well as student artistic movements (song and dance bands, popularization of folklore and Polish folk traditions, student theaters, amateur film clubs). In the implementation of the patriotic education program for adults, a very important, “momentous” role was also given to the popularization of physical education and cooperation with the army. Sport and tourism were recognized as “an increasingly serious factor affecting the attitudes of children, adolescents, and adults . . . above all in the perspective of the increasing amount of free time that the society has at its disposal.” The educational influence of the army as a “school of life, civic upbringing, and social involvement” was defined as based on “discipline, acting in a highlyorganized manner, applying modern technology, exposing political and moral values as the basic condition of effective collective cooperation.”61

60 61

Ibid., 7, 19. “Uchwała Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej z dnia 13 października 1973 r. w sprawie systemu edukacji narodowej,” 542.

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“Education and upbringing as a factor of political rebirth and social progress”62 And yet, when educating a young person, we do not prepare them for life in general, but for life and work in a certain community, in a certain country.63

As I intend to prove, in 1970s Poland issues related to education and upbringing undoubtedly became one of its very clear priorities, if not the most important point of interest or the central problem of domestic policy. It was then that a specific accumulation of actions taken by the government toward a systemic reform of education took place, the most notable of which included: the appointment of an Experts’ Committee to develop a report on the state of education in the People’s Republic of Poland in January 1971; the development of the Party’s program in the field of education and its codification in the form of a resolution of the PZPR’s Sixth Congress in December 1971; the adoption of the Charter of Teachers’ Rights and Responsibilities, as well as the implementation of a regulation on new teaching salaries in 1972; the adoption by the Seventh Plenum of the Central Committee of the PZPR of a set of program theses regarding the upbringing of youth in 1972, and the development by the Political Bureau of the PZPR Central Committee of an action plan for the Ministry of Upbringing and Education for the years 1972–75; and finally, the appointment of the Council for Education, and the adoption of two resolutions by the Polish Sejm in 1973, “On the Tasks of the Nation and State in Raising Youth and its Participation in the Construction of Socialist Poland” (a resolution of April 12), and “On the National Education System: The Directions of Further Development of the Socialist Education System in Poland” (a resolution of October 13).64 The priority character of educational and upbringing issues was not only testified to by the activity of the legislative authorities and their sheer number of regulations, decisions, and resolutions, but also by the vivid social debate, skillfully kindled by mass media, which accompanied the 62

Ibid., 537. Andrzej Izdebski, “Wstęp,” in Czerwi≈ski, Izdebski, and Mikusi≈ski, Wychowanie patriotyczne i internacjonalistyczne, 10. 64 For a more detailed register of works, discussions, and decisions of the Party authorities, the government, and the Sejm in the area of education and the texts of the mentioned resolutions, see Jerzy Kuberski, Aktualne i perspektywiczne problemy polityki o√wiatowej, 2nd ed. (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1974). Further details on the topic are contained in Działalno√ć o√wiatowa i wychowawcza w okresie między VI a VII Zjazdem PZPR. Sprawozdanie z realizacji Programu działania Ministerstwa O√wiaty i Wychowania na lata 1972–1975 (Warsaw: WSiP, 1976). 63

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proposed changes. The debate was held on many levels by politicians, scholars, teachers, educational activists, and other representatives of the society, strongly interested in the topic of socialist education. The content of the “Report on the State of Education in People’s Poland” and of the “Program of Gradual Popularization of Secondary School” was contributed to by over 200,000 people, including around 130,000 teachers. Over a thousand articles, broadcasts, and speeches were published and disseminated on the radio, television, and by the press.65 After being transferred to academic forums, the debate had a stimulating effect on the development of pedagogy and other related disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, and ethics. It was in the 1970s that a large number of new diagnostic and design studies were undertaken, new research institutes of the Ministry of Upbringing and Education were created, and new pedagogical universities were founded. It is worth noting that the general trend was not specifically Polish, nor even socialist; it was a global tendency, associated with a heightened interest in the youth after the Second World War, especially during the so-called “Long Sixties” (from the mid-1950s to the mid1970s). The youth was an object of research and the target of many different educational, cultural, and marketing policies.66 Various papers and handbooks in pedagogy, didactics and methodology by such authors as Heliodor Muszy≈ski, Bogdan Suchodolski, Maksymilian Maciaszek, Tadeusz Wacław Nowacki, Zbigniew Pietrasi≈ski, Janina Koblewska, and Stanisław Krawcewicz were published in this period.67 It can be conclusively asserted that it was a time of exceptional proliferation in the field of education-related problems: a time of intensive development of educational journalism and criticism; of numerous pedagogical summits, councils, and conferences; and of multitudes of training materials being published, together with secondary materials addressed to teachers, along with school and preschool counsellors working with the rural youth, academic youth, working youth, or military youth. Such materials were published in separate brochures, such as the pedagogical works of the Propaganda and Agitation Division of the Main Political Directorate of the Polish Armed 65

Kuberski, Aktualne i perspektywiczne problemy, 40–41. See, for instance, Małgorzata Fidelis, “Red State, Golden Youth: Student Culture and Political Protest in 1960s Poland,” in Between the Avant-Garde and the Everyday: Subversive Politics in Europe, 1958–2008, ed. Timothy Brown and Lorena Anton (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), 145–53; Małgorzata Fidelis, “The Other Marxists: Making Sense of International Student Revolts in Poland in the Global Sixties,” Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 62, no. 3 (2013): 425–49. 67 Statistical data, a bibliography of pedagogical papers and handbooks, and a list of research projects undertaken can be found in Działalno√ć o√wiatowa i wychowawcza, 117–65. 66

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Forces, as well as in numerous pedagogical journals, including Życie Szkoły (School Life), Nasza Szkoła (Our School), Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny (The Pedagogical Quarterly), Wychowanie w Przedszkolu (Preschool Upbringing), Ruch Pedagogiczny (The Pedagogical Movement), Wychowanie (Upbringing), Biuletyn Pedagogiczny (The Pedagogical Journal), O√wiata i Wychowanie (Education and Upbringing), Głos Nauczycielski (Teachers’ Voice), and Problemy Opieku≈czo-Wychowawcze (Problems of Care and Education). Of course, the issues of upbringing and education at the center of societal attention and interest included thousands of topics. The swiftly developing pedagogical sciences took up numerous different problems, some of which were widely disputed in the press and media, becoming an important strand of the public debate. It is worth mentioning at least some of the most meaningful ones in order to get acquainted with the character and perception of such problems, as well as to briefly sketch the strategy defining the approach to the topics of education and upbringing in the years often defined as “the period of an academic and technological revolution and construction of a developed socialist society.”68 Among the most emotive and widely discussed issues were those related to the fight for an equal start: for equal opportunities in education and achieving equality through education (for instance, a proposal to offer preschool education to children for at least a year before they went to school, attempts to address the disturbing situation of rural schools, such as the concept of a municipal collegiate school, and finally, the idea of popularizing secondary education). Other extensively debated issues included the so-called educating society and environmental school, which provokes interest to this day, although many consider it a utopian concept. It is a multidimensional project of creating a “fully educative environment,” by linking the school to the family and other institutions, such as workplaces and trade unions, youth organizations and social organizations, cultural and educational institutions, scientific and artistic institutions, mass media, sports and tourism institutions, “the army, the shop, the medical clinic, and the fire brigade.” Put simply, it is an attempt at organizing education in such a way that it is coordinated by the school, continuous and based on the pupil’s experience, and includes the whole society employed in all sectors of economy and culture.69 Another group of issues brought up exceptionally often in the 1970s, which I would like to take a closer look at, were issues related to the intensification of socialist education. They were, among others, the high-priority 68 69

Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL, 335. See, for instance, “Uchwała Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej z dnia 13 października 1973 r. w sprawie systemu edukacji narodowej,”541; Kuberski, Aktualne i perspektywiczne problemy, 320; and Wołczyk, Edukacja dla rozwoju, 74–81.

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idea of introducing “democratization” into a comprehensive system of education, understood as education for society performed by a team; education as a partnership, counselling, care, and not control; upbringing “for progress,” that is, a process of shaping constructive, fighting, engaged attitudes; the idea of secularization and secular moral education; and the relationship to patriotism versus (proletarian) internationalism. Issues related to the necessity of intensifying socialist education and teaching socialist morality were, of course, not novel in the 1970s; they had been addressed before. At that time, however, they were related to other questions, so their character was different. In the 1940s, discussions on educational ideals (referred to as “ideals of democratic education”) were dominated by battles against the apolitical nature of school, for the democratization of education, and for the democratization of the educational system, with significant expansion to enable the broad social advancement of the popular masses, especially worker and peasant youth.70 One of the characteristics of the 1940s’ ideal was “promoting the growing scope of education; treating work, especially production work, as a prime value; searching for valuable contents of this ideal in the qualities and traits of the working class and working peasantry, and an increasingly strong emphasis on the need to develop motivation and knowledge about the necessity of the fight for social justice within this ideal.” One of its “shortcomings” (from the 1970s perspective) was the fact that “in the overwhelming majority of the then-published . . . studies, the following factors were insufficiently exposed: the development of patriotic feelings— closely related to internationalism—as an important element of socialization; class separateness and opposition to the traditional ideal; the need to develop the concept and implement a new state education, qualitatively different, but extremely important for our national wellbeing.”71 In the 1950s and 1960s, the era of forced industrialization of the country and of constructing the foundations of socialism, the focus was primarily on the reception of Marxist pedagogy, the discussion on socialist humanism, the evolution from collectivist to individualistic targeting of the educational ideal. In practice, this meant a special interest taken in the 70

Stanisław Mauersberg, “Demokratyzacja szkolnictwa polskiego w latach 1944– 1948,” Rozprawy z Dziejów O√wiaty 17 (1974): 164. See also Chyli≈ska, Ideał wychowawczy; Krzysztof Grudnik, “Wychowanie ideologiczne w szkole polskiej 1945– 1953,” Przegląd Historyczno-O√wiatowy 3–4 (2004): 59–67; Bolesław Potyrała, Przemiany o√wiaty w Polsce w latach 1944–1948 (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1991); John Connelly, Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945–1956 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); and Józef Jakubowski, Polityka o√wiatowa Polskiej Partii Robotniczej 1944–1948 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1975), 222. 71 See Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL, 172.

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process of “molding the ideal and political attitude of the youth,”72 and shaping “the proper political orientation and identification with the social and political goals of the socialist system.”73 The problems of education at that time focused on education through work and for work, on education as preparation for a productive job, mainly in industry, and on ensuring “identification with work.”74 The main purpose of the educational process was to shape the “builder [of] the new system, fully identified with the goals of the Party and state, equipped with the necessary knowledge, mainly social and political and—most importantly—as a result, engaged in the sociopolitical struggle, and perceiving this engagement as the main meaning of life.”75 From the perspective of the 1970s, however, these ideals did not seem fully compatible with the essence of the socialist idea. Here is a symptomatic summary straight from the heart of the era: First of all, the leadership of the Party and state authorities at that time lacked complete self-knowledge and self-awareness of the nature of the tasks addressed. Although it was known that socialism can only be built on an incomparably more developed industrial base, the scale of the necessary development of the productive forces needed for the creation of socialist interpersonal relations was underestimated. For this reason, the vision of building the foundations of socialism was in fact a much more short-lived vision than needed. Also, the length of the transition period between the capitalist and socialist systems and a number of intermediate links necessary for the correct solution of many technical and especially socioeconomic problems was not sufficiently considered.76

However, the most important drawback of that developing period was said to be the “simplified and one-sided vision of the socialist system itself,” as representatives of the authorities and scientific bodies recognized, which meant “reducing the essence of this system to the elimination of class exploitation and state takeover of specific fields of economy, education, and culture.”77 Further problems emerged from the lack of sufficient care “for the formation of humanistic, friendly interpersonal relations” that derived from “the changes in the nature of work, which create conditions 72

Instrukcja programowa i podręcznikowa dla 11-letnich szkół ogólnokształcących (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1952), 11. 73 Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL, 286. 74 See, for instance, Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL, 177– 331; Wojciech Pomykało, ed., Patriotyzm, ideologia, wychowanie: Dyskusja na temat patriotycznego i internacjonalistycznego wychowania (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo MON, 1968); Grudnik, “Krytyka komunistycznego modelu”; Jasi≈ska and Siemie≈ska, Wzory osobowe socjalizmu. 75 Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL, 288. 76 Ibid., 290–91. 77 Ibid.

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that make work a source of incomparably greater life satisfaction, not only for the elite, but also for the millions employed.” Other problems were highlighted: “It was also not taken into account that the essence of the socialist system consists in better and better satisfaction of the existing material, educational, and cultural needs of the working people. . . . It was not taken into account that an important condition for the creation of socialist interpersonal relations is a relationship between work and leisure different from the traditional one, giving millions of people the chance for comprehensive development.”78 It must be emphasized once again that issues related to socialist education took on a very specific character in the 1970s. I would like to focus on them for a while, in order to present the specificity of combining the socialist ideal of upbringing with the notions of communism, patriotism, and internationalism more fully, as well as with the idea of the nation and national tradition in its conservative and progressive versions. In order to present these issues holistically, we must first of all identify the most important threads of the discussion around the socialist personal ideal, which served as a role model for all educational activities, particularly around the concept of socialist morality. Such perspective will provide an adequate context for the approximation of one of the most popular educational theories of upbringing in this period: namely Heliodor Muszy≈ski’s concept, especially the part of it that refers to patriotic education. Finally, both in order to supplement the image of the analyzed issues and to loosen some of their “rigidity,” I will describe the selected methods of implementing the postulated patriotic education model on different levels of education.

In the spirit of the Commission of National Education: a socialist way of upbringing Different national governments allow for different ways of achieving happiness, because they need a different kind of utility in their citizens. This is why in every country education must necessarily be appropriate to the government.79

The celebrations for the two-hundredth anniversary of the Commission of National Education (Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, KEN, established in 1773) resulted in the publication of numerous works in the 1970s. They 78 79

Ibid. Stanisław Staszic, “Uwagi nad życiem Jana Zamoyskiego,” in Dzieła, vol. 9 (Warsaw: Drukarnia Jego Cesarsko-Królewskiei Mo√ci Rządowa, 1820), 17, quoted in Bogdan Suchodolski, Komisja Edukacji Narodowej na tle roli o√wiaty w dziejowym rozwoju Polski (Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1973), 158.

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also gave an opportunity to politicians and educational activists, as well as researchers, educators, anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists, to highlight the importance of educational issues as top-priority political problems, emphasizing the importance of education and upbringing for the sake of the state, and as a consequence of the obligation of state supervision over the organization of schools and the educational model. The KEN had become an official symbol of the “tradition and creative force of the nation,” as the first state-controlled body in the world to “govern the entire schooling system—from elementary rural schools to universities; . . . as . . . a secular school authority and social institution, both organized by the state and closely cooperating with it.”80 The thread of the civic-state character of school education, social tasks facing upbringing and education, and the topic of secularity of teaching became issues of public debate and research works of that period,81 and were presented as a continuation of the Polish Enlightenment tradition. Bogdan Suchodolski wrote in 1973: Today we achieve the scope and the level of universal education for which the progressive teachers of the past periods fought; it is today that we provide our education with a modern scientific, social, and artistic content, which it was previously believed should be the content of education; it is precisely today that we associate educational activity with the perspectives of state development, just as the people of the Polish Enlightenment imagined; it is today that education becomes the social and individual good of the people, as all great educators in the past have striven for.82

Interestingly enough, while continuing the struggle against the myth of schools’ apolitical character, actually underway since 1944, the idea of openly expressing the relationship between education and politics was abandoned. In the 1950s, Władysław Bie≈kowski, the Minister of Educa80

“Uchwała Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej z dnia 13 października 1973 r. w sprawie systemu edukacji narodowej,” 537. 81 The topic of secularity was only indirectly connected with the ban on teaching catechesis at school, introduced in 1961, as in the 1970s it was by no means followed rigorously. See, for example, Andrzej Potocki, “Sekularyzacja systemu o√wiaty w Polsce po II wojnie √wiatowej a katechetyczna praca Ko√cioła,” in Kazimierz Misiaszek and Andrzej Potocki, Katecheta i katecheza w polskiej szkole (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Salezja≈skie, 1995); Hanna Konopka, Religia w szkołach Polski Ludowej: Sprawa nauczania religii w polityce pa≈stwa (1944–1961) (Białystok: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku, 1997); Jan Doppke, Katechizacja w Polsce 1945–1990 (Pelplin: Wydawnictwo Bernardinum, 1998); Piotr Tomasik, Nauczanie religii w publicznym liceum ogólnokształcącym wobec założe≈ programowych polskiej szkoły (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Salezja≈skie, 1998); and Artur Mezglewski, Szkolnictwo wyznaniowe w Polsce w latach 1944–1980: Studium historyczno-prawne (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2004). 82 Suchodolski, Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, 227.

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tion in Władysław Gomułka’s team, clearly stated: “There is no apolitical education and no apolitical school. Education deprived of a political (ideological) scaffolding would be something artificial, barren, and detached from life and the phenomena occurring in it. An ‘apolitical’ school, if such a concept is possible at all (it contains an internal contradiction), is something as chimerical as breeding fish without water or birds without air.”83 Meanwhile, the discourse referring to the ideals and heritage of the KEN concentrated solely on the display of such Enlightenment achievements as the modernity of content conveyed in the course of teaching, the universality of education, and the prophetic nature of that model of education. In practice, it almost always boiled down to emphasizing the need for further secularization of school and public life: that is, shaping a scientific worldview, concurrent with the ongoing scientific and technical revolution; the opposite of a fideistic attitude defined as a set of habits and decisionmaking based on tradition and irrational tendencies, the principle of deduction from belief and authority, a rule eliminating rationalism and thinking. Numerous texts covering the activities of the KEN, especially those written in the early 1970s, invoked the writings of Polish Enlightenment activist Stanisław Staszic, in which he fiercely opposed religious education and defended the principle of the state monopoly over education, emphasizing the connection between upbringing and the state system. The subject of the struggle for the secularization of school and public life, using the anniversary of the foundation of the KEN as an opportunity to validate the idea and show how it was rooted in Polish tradition, was developed in various ways. Affirmation of secularity was most often accompanied by portraying the apotheosis of socialism as a system characterized by the requirement of a higher moral level. “We are building socialism,” said Janusz Pajewski, professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna≈, at an inaugural lecture, and added: “Socialism is built for people and by people. Therefore, the people who build socialism must have a particularly high moral and intellectual standing. The socialist system requires from its employees a higher moral level than the capitalist system.”84 Jerzy Wołczyk, another educator and educational activist who occupied many prominent positions, emphasized: “Socialist society is a team of people characterized by high culture and morality.”85 Socialist education was presented above all as moral training in Party training textbooks, civic education textbooks, auxiliary materials for teachers, and in guides and other 83

Władysław Bie≈kowski, “Drogi przebudowy o√wiaty w Polsce,” Nowa Szkoła, no. 1 (1957): 4, quoted in Składanowski, “Stalinowska my√l polityczna,” 362. 84 Janusz Pajewski, Nauka i o√wiata w kształceniu √wiadomo√ci patriotycznej Polaków (Pozna≈: Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza, 1974), 8. 85 Wołczyk, Edukacja dla rozwoju, 68.

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publications from the Society for the Promotion of Secular Culture.86 Constantly recurring issues included the juxtaposition of religious and Marxist ethics, defining the moral values of socialism, defining the concept of socialist morality, the socialist role models, the socialist ideal of man, and the communist moral ideal. The process of defining usually relied on building a constellation of opposites, and on presenting comparative characteristics of one of the two camps hostile to socialism: the religious morality promoted by the Church, and the bourgeois, capitalist, Western morality. On the one hand, there was a question of combating metaphysics and theology, the notion of religious morality as depreciating the man, justifying his goodness with irrationality, contradicting and captivating with the imagined promise of an afterlife (some of the favored examples were the dogma of papal infallibility and the requirement of blind obedience to the Pope’s precepts, as well as the inferior role of lay people within the Catholic Church).87 On the other hand, the bourgeois ideology and petty-bourgeois attitudes were criticized for their “absolute primacy of the goals of the individual life over the social one, and the superiority of material values over spiritual ones,” and for the notion of “free time as a life lived to the fullest, and work as man’s enslavement.” The capitalists were singled out for their neo-bourgeois morality, referred to as an ethics of nihilism and a system of fatalistic interpretations of moral values.88 In the course of such confrontations, the personal role model of the socialist man emerged. The attitudes of passivity, resignation, not relying on

86

See, for instance, Wydział Propagandy Komitetu Wojewódzkiego PZPR, Kuratorium Okręgu Szkolnego, Wychowanie socjalistyczne: Materiały pomocnicze dla nauczycieli (Kielce: Okręgowy O√rodek Metodyczny, 1969); Kierunki, formy i metody pracy wychowawczej TKKŚ w osiedlu mieszkaniowym (Warsaw: TKKŚ, 1979); Poradnik dla kół TKKŚ (Warsaw: TKKŚ, 1978); O wyższą efektywno√ć pracy ideowo-wychowawczej (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1975); and Podstawowe problemy moralno√ci socjalistycznej (podręcznik do szkolenia partyjnego) (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1977). 87 Franciszek Lipowski, ed., Poradnik działalno√ci odczytowej TKKŚ (Warsaw: TKKŚ, 1979); Henryk Wichrowski, ed., Ideowo-moralne tre√ci stosunków międzyludzkich w socjalizmie: Ich rola i urzeczywistnienie w ludowym Wojsku Polskim; Materiały do szkolenia politycznego oficerów i chorążych (Warsaw: Zarząd Propagandy i Agitacji Głównego Zarządu Politycznego Wojska Polskiego, 1975); Społecze≈stwo, cywilizacja, √wiatopogląd: Wskazówki metodyczne dla kierowników grup szkolenia ideowo-politycznego żołnierzy zasadniczej służby wojskowej (Warsaw: Zarząd Propagandy i Agitacji Głównego Zarządu Politycznego Wojska Polskiego, 1973); and Jerzy Feliks Godlewski, “Współczesny ko√ciół rzymskokatolicki,” in Ko√ciół rzymskokatolicki wobec sekularyzacji życia publicznego (1944–1974) (Warsaw: PWN, 1978), 304–21. 88 Lipowski, Poradnik działalno√ci odczytowej TKKŚ, 38, 35.

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thinking, blind obedience to authorities, fanaticism, irrationality, and succumbing to dreams about future justice realized in the afterlife were attributed to the model of religious morality. This was contrasted with the model of rational thinking based on a scientific worldview, complemented with attitudes of commitment, tolerance, freedom of conscience, and secularity as a moral and social value with rationalism as a manifestation of man’s liberation from the influence of religious imaginations and Church institutions; an expression of the maturing of people to create autonomous principles of organizing collective life and implementing them in the process of social development.89 Individualism, ruthless, and hateful competitiveness, all considered typical of bourgeois morality, were contrasted with the appreciation of teamwork, harmony, and organic communication of social and personal interests. Selfishness and the inexorable desire to use or possess was juxtaposed with modesty and the moral and political unity of the nation. Comfort, indifference, conformism, and the principle of avoiding conflicts were compared with an attitude of reliable, open, and responsible criticism, and a readiness to oppose evil and express one’s own opinion. Outsiderism, ambition, elitism, and respect for class prestige were distinguished with workers’ solidarity, friendship, and the postulate of not so much discovering as creating talent, the idea of art in everyday life and art for all. Many textbooks for communist/socialist education were produced in each of the decades. Beginning in the late 1940s, and especially in the 1950s, there was an avalanche of translated works by Soviet pedagogues and psychologists, such as Ivan Andreyevich Kairov, Anton Semyonovich Makarenko, and Viktor Nikolayevich Kolbanovsky.90 Although translations from the Russian language were never abandoned,91 and numerous references to Soviet texts from later years were made,92 with time there ap89

Ibid., 64. See, for instance, V. E. Gmurman, V. Kolbanowsky, and A. Gelmont, Trzy rozprawy o Makarence, trans. A. Linke (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1949); Ivan A. Kairov, ed. Pedagogika, vol. 2 (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1950); Viktor Kolbanowsky, “Kształtowanie moralno√ci komunistycznej,” Zeszyty SpołecznoNaukowe “Po prostu,” no. 6 (1951): appendix to no. 34/119; Anton Makarenko, Ogólne zagadnienia teorii pedagogiki: Wychowanie w szkole radzieckiej, trans. Anna Żukowska (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1956); Anton Makarenko, The Road to Life: An Epic Education, trans. Ivy and Tatiana Litvinov (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1951). 91 See Georgi Smirnov, Soviet Man: The Making of a Socialist Type of Personality, trans. Robert Daglish (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973). 92 See, for instance, V. P. Chertkov, ed., Moral’nyy oblik stroitelya kommunizma (Moscow: Nauka, 1964); and A. Vishniakov and M. Zhuravkov, eds., Moral’nyy kodeks stroitelya kommunizma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1965). 90

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peared more and more works by Polish teachers and ethicists, such as Bogdan Suchodolski, Henryk Jankowski, Tadeusz Maciej Jaroszewski, Heliodor Muszy≈ski, and others.93 Among them was the Polish-Jewish physician, pedagogue, and social activist, Janusz Korczak, whose hundredth birthday was celebrated from 1978 and into 1979 (several conferences were organized for the occasion, including an international session in Warsaw, entitled Janusz Korczak—życie i dzieło [Janusz Korczak—The Life and Work]). Korczak’s works were reprinted, three monographs were devoted to him, and over a hundred articles were published. In comparison to Makarenko, Korczak remained a leftist journalist in the discourse of the era, whose philosophy of childhood was completely different from the idea of collective education, or the pedagogy of goals presented in charts and tables by Heliodor Muszy≈ski, although some of its elements—like the idea of a court of peers, children’s self-government, and some forms of community education—were used as models for institutional pedagogy developed in orphanages. The 1970s brought about many such complex, confrontational arrays, as patterns defining the moral personal model of a socialist man were used in various environments. As a kind of caricature of a typical characteristic, we may quote materials prepared for the heads of political and ideological training groups of soldiers in basic military service, and for the political training of officers and non-commissioned officers prepared by the Center for the Education of the Lay Workforce and the Society for the Propagation of Secular Culture, as well as tutorials on lecture activity, educational work in the workplace and housing cooperative, or guidelines attached to the “School Ceremonial” published in 1973. The multitude of vulgarized forms was balanced by a large number of serious, scientifically elaborated versions. One of the most interesting and noteworthy attempts at defining the ideal of socialist education and the model pupil was Heliodor Muszy≈ski’s concept.

93

See, for instance, Bogdan Suchodolski, Podstawy wychowania socjalistycznego (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1967); Henryk Jankowski, Wolno√ć i moralno√ć (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1970); and Tadeusz M. Jaroszewski, Osobowo√ć i wspólnota (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1970).

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The ideological, political, social, and moral shaping of a pupil: the aims of socialist upbringing and its goals according to Heliodor Muszy≈ski We support the educational ideal of the socialist man historically and politically determined by the future and present of our society’s development.94

In the 1970s, the concept formulated by probably the most quoted pedagogue of the People’s Republic of Poland, Heliodor Muszy≈ski (born 1931), became one of the most widely discussed theories of socialist education based on Marxist pedagogics. Moreover, it became the official theory, although as time passed, it faced a number of charges. The ideal of socialist education presented precisely and specifically in Muszy≈ski’s works—and it seems that the structure, presented with almost bureaucratic meticulousness, was a sort of fixation and a way to make the concept itself more scientific—assumed that the general goals of education, aimed at shaping a socialist personality, boil down to creating attitudes defining the socialist man’s approach to the world. The researcher selected six basic groups of attitudes toward various areas of reality: toward the world of values (described as an ideal base of humanism, internationalism, egalitarianism, democracy, commitment, ideology, love for freedom, respect for work); toward the society (social commitment, patriotism, social usefulness, economy, discipline, responsibility, collectivism, openness); toward other people (interpersonal: respect for human dignity, respect for life and health, tolerance, caring, respect for property, reliability of information, empathy, respect for individual autonomy); toward oneself (intrapersonal: personal dignity, self-control, perfectionism, responsibility for oneself, optimism, self-reliance, personal courage, bravery); toward culture; and toward nature.95 The individual values and attitudes comprising the overall structure of the ideal of socialist education were, of course, extensively commented on and almost indefinitely broken down into smaller elements. In this work I am interested in the “molecules” of internationalism as a relation of the individual to the “value of basic brotherhood of people and their peaceful coexistence,”96 and the attitude of patriotism defined as an important aspect of a citizen’s social role in a socialist state, a set of norms resulting in “an emotional bond with one’s own country, its past, traditions, language,

94

Heliodor Muszy≈ski, Ideał i cele wychowania (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1972), 10. 95 Ibid., 291. 96 Ibid., 102.

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culture, and landscape, and the concern for its present and future.”97 These attitudes were later analyzed in more detail. The analysis of psychological components of the patriotic attitude allowed Muszy≈ski to distinguish three spheres, or areas of its characteristics. The first of them, the perceptualnormative sphere, meant “a strongly rooted approach to observing various phenomena and processes of social life from the point of view of the fatherland’s good and the norms of socialist patriotism,” with “proper understanding of national interests” recognized as “the concern for the socialist direction of society’s development.”98 This sphere was complemented by the sphere of emotional sensitivity, or “strong emotional disposition toward the fatherland in general and then to the native landscape, culture, and folklore of their country, to national history and their heroes, to national traditions and symbols, to compatriots, and finally to the aspirations of their own nation,” and the motivational sphere, namely the individual’s “readiness to act for the good of the fatherland in situations when the individual perceives the good of the fatherland to be endangered or neglected.”99 These “bureaucratic” and, at the same time, vaguely formulated guidelines, had the peculiar feature that they could easily be supplemented on the spur of the moment by pragmatic leaders in the following decades. Simultaneously, the separation of patriotism as a social attitude and internationalism as an ideological attitude was criticized by influential ideologues of the 1970s who claimed that: Everyone interested in the subject knows quite well that the basis of proletarian internationalism is the individual’s relationship with their own nation, the identification with its goals, love of the native land, a well-developed desire for its prosperity. Only on these grounds can the understanding of the problems of other nations, the motivation of cooperation and friendship, the ability to support the valuable aspirations of working people, be born. The main touchstone of proletarian internationalism in our country—the attitude toward the Soviet nations—is a consequence of the love of our own nation, the desire to ensure its prosperity in the present world.100

Nevertheless, despite the criticism, Muszy≈ski’s classifications and distinctions remained a binding and universal reference for all emerging proposals for practical implementation of the basic goals of educating the socialist man. If necessary, they were supplemented accordingly. This was the case when defining the norms of socialist patriotism and the characteristics 97

Ibid., 151. Ibid., 166. 99 Ibid., 166, 167. 100 Pomykało, Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL, 473–74. 98

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of the concept of a socialist fatherland, understood as what is “common to people on the ground of a given territory, culture, and economy.”101 It was also the case with internationalism, when it was necessary to emphasize the class aspect of its socialist version as an element distinguishing it from other internationalist ideas of friendship and understanding between nations, such as those of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, or ideas praising “simply the alliance of people with common social position and common aspirations, regardless of their nationality.”102 Internationalism was supposed to be a proletarian idea, a principle proclaiming friendship, cooperation, and mutual support of countries striving for socialism; a solidarity of societies built by the “working class in alliance with the peasant class and the classes of people’s intelligentsia led by the Party.”103 Finally, it is worth pointing out a certain shift that took place within the terms specifying the concepts of patriotism and internationalism. Jerzy Wołczyk, the professor of pedagogy whom I have already quoted several times, thus formulated these concepts for the needs of the 1970s People’s Poland, in a time of scientific and technical revolution and construction of a developed socialist society based on “existing industrial potential characterized by high technology”: Ensuring a satisfying existence requires the upbringing and educating of a socialized producer and consumer. Teaching young people good, solid, and productive work characterized by the high quality of achieved results, performed in awareness that it is the only way to achieve prosperous maintenance of the individual and of society, is a starting point of socialist education. The shaping of such a consumer model, which is characterized by the ability to appropriately use the produced goods, culture, prudence, and responsibility, must go hand in hand with the implementation of the first part of the task.104

The patriots of the 1970s became socialized producers and responsible consumers. The change that can be observed in the images of patriotinternationalists drawn in the 1970s was symptomatic. The immediate postwar educational foundations saw them, after all, as democrats, “implementers of political and social democracy,”105 fighting for a social and national liberation. The patriots of the 1970s were no longer revolutionaries raised “in the spirit of socialist morality and socialist principles of coexistence in society, in the spirit of love for the People’s fatherland, peace, the socialist cause, and brotherhood with working people of all 101

Muszy≈ski, Ideał i cele wychowania, 168. Ibid., 110. 103 Wołczyk, Edukacja dla rozwoju, 66. 104 Ibid., 67. 105 Zasacka, Wyobrażenia ojczyzny i oblicza patriotyzmu, 44–45. 102

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countries.”106 Nor were they, as circulars from the 1950s emphasized, builders of socialism as a system of social justice. Even the Junak Brigade of the Universal Organization of “Service to Poland” (Powszechna Organizacja “Służba Polsce”), which builds the Marszałkowska Residential District in Warsaw in Maria Dąbrowska’s short story Tu zaszła zmiana (There Has Been a Change Here, 1951), already belonged to the past. Their hero was no longer an udarnik, a Soviet citizen recalled by sociologist Maria Ossowska, so “passionate for his work, that as a leader of work, he wishes to carry his comrades away with his passion for productive activity in favor of the community.”107 It was neither Soso,108 nor Felix Dzerzhinsky, who “without knowing rest, gave all of himself, all his energy to the cause entrusted to him by the Party, and burned in the heat of work for the proletariat.”109 Not even Pavlik Morozov,110 although the fiftieth anniversary of his death was solemnly celebrated in the 1970s. Translated by Kalina Iwanek-Malinowska This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

106

Program nauczania o√mioklasowej szkoły podstawowej (tymczasowy) (Warsaw Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1963), 8. 107 Ossowska, Wzór obywatela w ustroju demokratycznym, 5. Udarnik, also known in English as “shock worker,” was a term used in the Soviet Union for exceptionally productive workers. 108 One of Stalin’s nicknames, a diminutive form of his first name. 109 Gabriela Pauszer-Klonowska, Jedno√cią silni: Wypisy dla klasy VII szkoły podstawowej (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1949), 254, a footnote to Jerzy German’s short story about Felix Dzerzhinsky, trans. Gabriela Pauszer-Klonowska. The quotation from the official edition of Stalin’s Works reads: “dedicating all his strength and energy to the task entrusted to him by the Party, he burnt out his life, working in the interests of the proletariat, and for the victory of communism.” Stalin, Works, vol. 8, January–November 1926 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), 203–4. 110 Pavel Trofimovich Morozov (in Polish known by the diminutive Pavka or Pavlik Morozov) was a Russian thirteen-year-old boy who was celebrated as a hero in the Soviet Union for denouncing his father to the authorities.

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Bibliography Araszkiewicz, Feliks Wojciech. “Kontynuacja tradycyjnych nurtów teleologii wychowania (1944–1948).” In Teleologia wychowania Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej (1944–1980), 38–66. Słupsk: Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna, 1986. Bober, Sabina. Walka o dusze dzieci i młodzieży w pierwszym dwudziestoleciu Polski Ludowej. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2011. Brodala, Marta, Anna Lisiecka, and Tadeusz Ruzikowski. Przebudować człowieka: Komunistyczne wysiłki zmiany mentalno√ci. Warsaw: Trio, 2001. Brodnicki, Mariusz, Elżbieta Gorloff, and Andrzej Kołakowski, eds. Wychowanie— opieka—kształcenie: Z bada≈ nad wybranymi problemami edukacji w XX i XXI wieku. Toru≈: Edukacyjne “Akapit,” 2010. Chyli≈ska, Helena. Ideał wychowawczy w okresie rewolucji społecznej w Polsce (1944– 1948). Warsaw: PWN, 1981. Czerwi≈ski, Jerzy, Andrzej Izdebski, and Ludwik Mikusi≈ski, eds. Wychowanie patriotyczne i internacjonalistyczne w przedmiotach humanistycznych: Materiały z sesji 23–24 stycznia 1978. Pozna≈: IKNiBO, 1978. Działalno√ć o√wiatowa i wychowawcza w okresie między VI a VII Zjazdem PZPR. Sprawozdanie z realizacji “Programu działania Ministerstwa O√wiaty i Wychowania na lata 1972–1975.” Warsaw, 1976. Gawlik, Stanisław. Szkoła polska w dobie zniewolenia komunistycznego (1945–1989): Refleksje z oddali czasu. Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego, 2009. Godlewski, Jerzy Feliks. Ko√ciół rzymskokatolicki wobec sekularyzacji życia publicznego (1944–1974). Warsaw: PWN, 1978. Gorloff, Elżbieta. “Działalno√Δ wychowawcza szkoły w latach 1945–1956 a kształtowanie ‘nowego człowieka’ (na przykładzie szkół w Lęborku).” Studia i Badania Naukowe—Ateneum Szkoła Wyższa w Gda≈sku, no. 2 (2008): 255–65. Grudnik, Krzysztof. “Krytyka komunistycznego modelu wychowania (1953– 1956).” Przegląd Historyczno-O√wiatowy, nos. 1–2 (2003): 111–17. Grzybowski, Romuald. “U podstaw kształtowania się totalitarnego systemu wychowania i opieki nad dzieckiem i rodziną w latach 1945–1956.” Studia i Badania Naukowe: Pedagogika, no. 2 (2008): 233–53. Jasie≈ska, Aleksandra, and Renata Siemie≈ska. Wzory osobowe socjalizmu. Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1978. Jastrząb, Mariusz. Mozolna budowa absurdu: Działalno√ć Wydziału Propagandy Warszawskiego Komitetu Wojewódzkiego PZPR w latach 1949–1953. Warsaw: ISP PAN, 1999. Kierunki, formy i metody pracy wychowawczej TKKŚ w osiedlu mieszkaniowym. Warsaw: TKKŚ, 1979. Kosi≈ski, Krzysztof. O nową mentalno√ć: Życie codzienne w szkołach 1845–1956. Warsaw: Trio, 2000. Kry≈ska, Elwira. “Dwa modele i wizje wychowania w rzeczywisto√ci socjalistycznej.” Przegląd Historyczno-O√wiatowy, nos. 3–4 (2012): 51–69. Kuberski, Jerzy. Aktualne i perspektywiczne problemy polityki o√wiatowej. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1974.

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Lewandowski, Czesław. Kierunki tak zwanej ofensywy ideologicznej w polskiej o√wiacie, nauce i szkołach wyższych w latach 1944–1948. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1993. Lipowski, Franciszek, ed. Poradnik działalno√ci odczytowej TKKŚ. Warsaw: TKKŚ, 1979. Malinowski, Ludwik. Patriotyczne wychowanie młodzieży. Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych, 1988. Mauersberg, Stanisław. “Demokratyzacja szkolnictwa polskiego w latach 1944– 1948.” Rozprawy z Dziejów O√wiaty 17 (1974): 161–83. Moraczewska, Barbara, and Piotr Krzywicki, eds. Kształtowanie się √rodowisk wychowawczych dzieci i młodzieży na przestrzeni dziejów. Włocławek: Pa≈stwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa, 2014. Muszy≈ski, Heliodor. Ideał i cele wychowania. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1972. ———. “Poglądy Lenina na wychowanie i ich znaczenie dla rozwoju socjalistycznej pedagogiki.” Nauczyciel i Wychowanie, no. 3 (1970): 23–33. O wyższą efektywno√ć pracy ideowo-wychowawczej. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1975. Ossowska, Maria. Wzór obywatela w ustroju demokratycznym. Warsaw: Zarząd Główny TUR, 1946. Pajewski, Janusz. Nauka i o√wiata w kształceniu √wiadomo√ci patriotycznej Polaków. Pozna≈: Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza, 1974. Podstawowe problemy moralno√ci socjalistycznej (podręcznik do szkolenia partyjnego). Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1977. Pomykało, Wojciech. Kształtowanie ideału wychowawczego w PRL w latach 1944– 1976. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1976. ———, ed. Patriotyzm, ideologia, wychowanie: Dyskusja na temat patriotycznego i internacjonalistycznego wychowania. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo MON, 1968. Poradnik dla kół TKKŚ. Warsaw: TKKŚ, 1978. Potyrała, Bolesław. Przemiany o√wiaty w Polsce w latach 1944–1948. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1991. Składanowski, Henryk, “Stalinowska my√l polityczna w polskiej o√wiacie w latach 1949–1956 i jej realizacja.” Zeszyty Naukowe Pa≈stwowej Wyższej Szkoły Zawodowej we Włocławku: Rozprawy Humanistyczne 5 (2005): 331–56. Społecze≈stwo, cywilizacja, √wiatopogląd: Wskazówki metodyczne dla kierowników grup szkolenia ideowo-politycznego żołnierzy zasadniczej służby wojskowej. Warsaw: Zarząd Propagandy i Agitacji Głównego Zarządu Politycznego Wojska Polskiego, 1973. Suchodolski, Bogdan. Komisja Edukacji Narodowej na tle roli o√wiaty w dziejowym rozwoju Polski. Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1973. ———. “Pedagogika i psychologia.” In Dziesięć lat rozwoju nauki w Polsce Ludowej, ed. Bogdan Suchodolski, 193–220. Warsaw: PWN, 1956. ———. Podstawy wychowania socjalistycznego. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1967. ———, ed. Rozwój pedagogiki w Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossoli≈skich, Wydawnictwo PAN. Szefer-Timoszenko, Jadwiga, ed. Wychowanie patriotyczne młodzieży w √wietle realizacji uchwały KW PZPR w Katowicach z 16 kwietnia 1966. Katowice: Śląski Instytut Naukowy, 1971.

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Szurek, Jan. Organizacja pracy wychowawczej w szkole i rola inspektora szkolnego: Referat wygłoszony na Ogólnokrajowym Zjeździe Inspektorów Szkolnych w Warszawie, w maju 1949 r. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1949. “Uchwała Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej z dnia 13 października 1973 r. w sprawie systemu edukacji narodowej.” Monitor Polski, no. 44, item 260 (1973): 538–43. Accessed September 29, 2019, http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap. nsf/download.xsp/WMP19730440260/O/M19730260.pdf. Wagner, Barbara. Strategia wychowawcza w PRL. Warsaw: Neriton, 2009. Wichrowski, Henryk, ed. Ideowo-moralne tre√ci stosunków międzyludzkich w socjalizmie: Ich rola i urzeczywistnienie w ludowym Wojsku Polskim; Materiały do szkolenia politycznego oficerów i chorążych. Warsaw: Zarząd Propagandy i Agitacji Głównego Zarządu Politycznego Wojska Polskiego, 1975. Wołczyk, Jerzy. Edukacja dla rozwoju: Niektóre problemy polityki o√wiatowej. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossoli≈skich, 1973. Wychowanie socjalistyczne: Materiały pomocnicze dla nauczycieli. Kielce: Okręgowy O√rodek Metodyczny, 1969. Zasacka, Zofia. Wyobrażenia ojczyzny i oblicza patriotyzmu w podręcznikach do języka polskiego dla szkoły podstawowej w latach 1945–1990. Warsaw: Biblioteka Narodowa, 2000.

Part Three

New Analyses of Anti-Communism

CHAPTER TEN

The Waning of Communism in the People’s Republic of Poland: The Case of Discourse on Intelligentsia Anna Zawadzka

“There is no other term in the sociology of social groups with semantics as blurred as this one,” stated Hanna Palska,1 writing on the subject of the intelligentsia.2 Over the past seventy years, the intelligentsia has been defined in terms of the social classes that it serves (Włodzimierz Wesołowski, Bronisław Minc), the socio-professional functions that it fulfills (Jan Szczepa≈ski, Stanisław Ossowski, Henryk Doma≈ski), and the ethos, lifestyle, and manners of participating in culture (Józef Chałasi≈ski). Researchers tend to agree on one thing: the intelligentsia is not a social class, but rather a social stratum. Those who can be included in this stratum hold various professions and posts, yet they have a number of factors in common: higher education, complex professional roles, a sensation of historical heritage, and serving opinion-making, culture-forming, and leadership functions toward other strata.3 “Its members are characterized by self-knowledge, consciousness of their own distinction, and the belief that they belong to a category that fulfils an important role in the life of any nation,” reads the definition by Doma≈ski.4 According to this researcher, around 10 percent of Poles belong to the contemporary intelligentsia.5 1

Hanna Palska is a sociologist specializing in non-survey research techniques and research on intelligentsia and the culture of everyday life. She is employed at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and at Collegium Civitas. 2 Hanna Palska, Nowa inteligencja w Polsce Ludowej: Świat przedstawie≈ i elementy rzeczywisto√ci (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 1994), 16. 3 Ibid., 77. 4 Henryk Doma≈ski, O ruchliwo√ci społecznej w Polsce (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Filozofii i Socjologii PAN 2004), 84. 5 Ibid.

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Hanna Palska’s 1994 book Nowa inteligencja w Polsce Ludowej: Świat przedstawie≈ i elementy rzeczywisto√ci (New intelligentsia in People’s Poland: The imagined world and elements of reality) is a vexing source of knowledge today. This is because it is premised on a non-explicit, yet constantly perceptible thesis on the essential value of the so-called “old intelligentsia.” The author sees this value as self-explanatory, which is why she does not justify or problematize it, nor does she challenge its historicization and criticism. Meanwhile, these two gestures—of historicization and criticism— mark the time when the issue of the intelligentsia was taken up immediately after the war. As a result, in the years 1944–54, “for the very first time in the history of social structure, the intelligentsia was not shaped as a result of spontaneously functioning social mechanisms, but rather was formed by way of planned political activity.”6 In the present chapter, I will attempt to trace the developments of the legitimate discourse on intelligentsia in the People’s Republic of Poland. Legitimate here signifies the kind that, first of all, was employed in mainstream public and academic debates, and not in peripheral ones; and, second of all, was not eradicated or blocked (through censorship, for example), but to the contrary, enjoyed the status of non-controversial discourse. I will first address the discussion on the genesis and history of the Polish intelligentsia, which dates back to the 1940s. Next, I will take up the topic of assigning a new role to the intelligentsia: not one of leadership, but of servitude to the working class, which was enforced—with varying success— until the mid-1950s. The next discernible stage of this discourse is the timid return to the ethos of old intelligentsia during the thaw. The 1960s, in turn, mark the social promotion of workers and peasants to intelligentsia, undertaken especially by sociologists and treated by them as a research task. Finally, I will turn my attention to the 1970s, the decade during which mainstream researchers of social structure diagnosed stratification as socially and economically functional, and popular culture offers a host of presentations of bridging the class gaps as the reason behind the abundance of absurdities and pathologies. Thus, this text will trace the wilting of the communist idea to deprive the intelligentsia of elite status, which took place in the times of the People’s Republic of Poland. In other words, I am interested in the waning of communism in People’s Poland, which I intend to illustrate with the example of the discourse on intelligentsia. I employ the term communism within the meaning of the revolutionary project of shifting social relations. Yet one more opening remark: just like before and after, the main authors and participants of the discourse on intelligentsia were its members. In exploring this discourse, I will thus explore the attempts at objectifica6

Palska, Nowa inteligencja w Polsce Ludowej, 7.

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tion of one’s own position, undertaken with greater or lesser vigor by representatives of the Polish intelligentsia in the subsequent decades of the People’s Republic of Poland. The story of waning communism in People’s Poland will therefore simultaneously be the story of this intelligentsia’s failure on the path toward greater reflection, onto which communist intellectuals strove to reroute the intelligentsia directly after the war. Settling the scores Leon Chajn,7 from the Alliance of Democrats (AD), proposed that in a communist society, the intelligentsia had to come to terms with the loss of its leading position and join in the march toward socialism through selfwork, increasing work efficiency, improving the level of mass culture, education, and artistry, caring for the common property and resisting its destruction, and ideological training.8 Yet before any attempts at tackling the job could be made, the intellectuals open to the change in political system had some scores to settle with the old model of intelligentsia. Because even though—like the nobility—the Polish intelligentsia perceived itself as an ahistorical formation, Józef Chałasi≈ski argued that “a cultured man has his place within the society; this place is historically shaped in a number of ways and there is nothing absolute about it.”9 Chałasi≈ski’s text Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej (The social genealogy of Polish intelligentsia) triggered a long and avid debate on the intelligentsia, which rolled through the pages of Kuźnica (Forge) in particular,10 but also of Wie√ (Countryside)11 and Przegląd Socjologiczny (Sociologi7

Leon Chajn (1910–1983) was a lawyer, politician and publicist; from the 1920s, he was associated with communist organizations, while after the war he was general secretary of the Alliance of Democrats (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne), a satellite party of the communist Polish United Workers’ Party. 8 Resolution of the Supreme Council of the Alliance of Democrats dated February 6, 1949, in Leon Chajn, Inteligencja polska w obliczu dokonywających się przemian społecznych (Warsaw: Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza “Prasa Demokratyczna,” 1949), 41–42. 9 Józef Chałasi≈ski, Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1946), 15. Józef Chałasi≈ski (1904–1979) was a sociologist of intelligentsia, culture and rural areas. Prior to the war he was the director of the National Institute of Rural Culture; after the war, he was a professor at the University of Łódź, University of Warsaw, and the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as editor of the most important Polish sociological magazines, Przegląd Socjologiczny and Kultura i Społecze≈stwo. 10 Kuźnica was a social, political and literary weekly, published by leading Polish intellectuals from the 1940s. Kuźnica was published in the years 1945–50; numerous debates on the newly-emerged political system were held on its pages.

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cal Review).12 This debate, the thematic framework of which was set out by Chałasi≈ski’s text, concerned not so much the tasks of the intelligentsia under the new social order, the so-called “new intelligentsia,” but rather the genesis and history of the old one. All of its participants agreed on one point: “The Polish intelligentsia is undoubtedly at a turning point in its history. It is facing a historical challenge, which puts before it formidable tasks, whose scale and nature we cannot grasp thoroughly.”13 The problem, as Chałasi≈ski wrote, was that the Polish intelligentsia was not aware of this challenge, as it had one foot in feudalism and the other in Catholicism, and it was standing with Sienkiewicz up to its ears. It was unable to problematize itself because it never passed through the phase of modernity. It was stuck in the rut of its own mythology, which came with the belief that an intellectual is an “anthropologically higher form of human life: a race of masters.”14 In the new social and political order, the baton of leadership was to pass from the intelligentsia to the working and peasant class. Chałasi≈ski expected that this would be interpreted as a hostile takeover by the intelligentsia, because its attitude toward peasants and workers was one of grandiosity. It was an attitude marked by superiority, based on the essentialistic pedigree of classes, a mythology of embodied virtues, and a purely utilitarian treatment of other social strata, considering them merely a reservoir of resources to be tapped into. Thus, instead of championing the inclusion of peasants into the Polish community, the intelligentsia furthered its alienation. “The intelligentsia ghetto was indifferent, if not hostile, toward the people’s cause and looked down on the peasants with disgust,” concluded Chałasi≈ski.15 According to Chałasi≈ski, one of the intelligentsia’s features inherited from the feudal manor was fencing itself off from the dominated classes by way of social graces and so-called good manners. This is an important point for my considerations, because in order to assess the liveliness of the old intelligentsia in the People’s Republic of Poland, I will look to research concerning these very phenomena and the scale of their distinctiveness.16 11

Wie√ was a socio-literary weekly devoted to rural issues, culture, and literature of the country. Published in the years 1945–54. 12 Renata Szwarc summarized this debate and collected bibliographic references to it. See Szwarc, “Dyskusja na temat inteligencji polskiej,” Przegląd Socjologiczny, no. 9 (1947): 282–88. 13 Chałasi≈ski, Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej, 9–10. 14 Ibid., 19. 15 Ibid., 64. 16 The concept of distinction—understood as the practice of hierarchical differentiation of groups and individuals according to lifestyle activities (food consumption, cultural consumption, dress, home decor, self-presentation, and so on)—is em-

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For the time being, however, let us stay with the prewar period. Seeing as the other feudal distinctions could not be held up in a capitalist society, Chałasi≈ski argued that these two rituals took on a new, greater significance. “For a gentry pariah, social graces were often the only fortune left, and in any case a very important part of the social superiority capital still at his disposal. Good manners made up the rest of his grand existence. . . . Social ritualism, social ceremonies, have become an important means of maintaining social distance, of upholding the social charm of people whom fate has deprived of other advantages.”17 As an effect, social status turned into a factor of belonging to the intelligentsia, becoming a part of its definition. Another feature of the nobility reproduced among the Polish intelligentsia was, according to Chałasi≈ski, a disdain for work. An intellectual was someone who did not make money; they simply “happened to have it.” Economic duress was something the intellectual either did not know, or did everything in his power to conceal. “The intelligentsia salons continued the cultural style of the pre-capitalist manor house. This lifestyle was characterized by the connection of intellectual culture with the social model of a person who does not need to work for money,” wrote Chałasi≈ski.18 The effect of having taken over the ethos of the nobility was that the intelligentsia, instead of merging with the bourgeoisie and becoming “the avant-garde of the lower strata,” looked to the aristocracy with admiration, full of aspirations and with hopes for appreciation. The same aristocracy that lived by the rule of “separation of thought from work, theory from practice, charms of life from its duties and burdens, amateurship from professionalism, honor from the duress of production work, ‘spirit’ from ‘matter’.”19 Thus, instead of satisfying its need for appreciation by looking in the mirror of the eyes of the masses, much like the aristocrats, the Polish intellectual strove to widen the social gap between himself and the “people.” He wanted to remain elitist. “Unattainable, gourmet culture, only for those in the know” was to his liking.20 This, in the opinion of Chałasi≈ski, is the genesis of the intelligentsia ghetto. “All one has to do to sustain this sunny, ployed here within the meaning of Pierre Bourdieu. In Bourdieu’s approach, such distinctions are most often perceived as the effect of individual choices, dictated by taste, which is thought to be a question of unrestrained aesthetic preferences. Meanwhile, taste is internalized by individuals in the course of socialization and acculturation to their class of origin. See Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). 17 Chałasi≈ski, Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej, 30–40. 18 Ibid., 43. 19 Ibid., 56. 20 Ibid., 51.

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optimistic belief that the issue of intelligentsia is non-existent, is to lock themselves up in this ghetto,” he asserted.21 The disputes ignited by Chałasi≈ski’s text revolved around the legitimacy of the thesis according to which Poland had never gone through the technical, economic, and social revolution of the capitalist period. Some of his challengers accused the author of an oversimplified approach to the Polish intelligentsia as a by-product of the transformation from rurallanded gentry to urban-industrial Poland.22 Others belabored the fascination with neo-romanticism and rejection of positivism as reasons for the degenerated elitism of the intelligentsia.23 No one, however, disputed Chałasi≈ski’s prognosis for the future, which was as follows: there were two effects of the noble ethos of Polish intelligentsia, as fundamental as baneful; not only for the building of the new ideological order, but also for the modernization of the country. The first one was the fact that “Polish intelligentsia—a product of Polish civilizational puerility—brings with it an atmosphere that is unsupportive of the aspirations of the masses . . . a moral climate which does not kindle the dignity and elements of heroism in the peasants and workers, but rather, to the contrary, suppresses them.”24 The second one was the absence of trained professional and technical personnel, ready for hard work and used to it, which was necessary to guide the country through the upcoming modernizing processes of industrialization and urbanization.

Rebuilding In presenting the intelligentsia as mired in the myths of nobility and using them to legitimize its license to represent the nation, Chałasi≈ski tore it apart.25 And yet, as Stefan Żółkiewski wrote:26 “building a new culture for People’s Poland is unthinkable without the old and new intelligentsia. . . . We are faced with the need to create a great cultural movement in Po21

Ibid., 68. Karol Wiktor Zawodzi≈ski, “W sprawie genealogii inteligencji polskiej,” Kuźnica, no. 12 (1946): 3–5. 23 Teofil Woje≈ski, “Geneza poglądu na √wiat naszej inteligencji,” Kuźnica, no. 43 (1946): 10–11. 24 Chałasi≈ski, Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej, 77. 25 Szwarc, “Dyskusja na temat inteligencji polskiej,” 287. 26 Stefan Żółkiewski (1911–1991) was a literary critic, historian of literature, editorin-chief of Kuźnica weekly, the founder and first director of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a minister of higher education in the years 1956–59, and a co-author of the cultural policy of the People’s Republic of Poland in the 1940s and 1950s. 22

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land—so that after we’re done with the agricultural and industrial reforms, we can go through with the third great reform in Poland, the cultural reform. The intelligentsia is an indispensable participant of this movement, from the technical and ideological point of view.”27 Żółkiewski appealed on the pages of Wie√ to refrain from trying to scare peasants with the intelligentsia, but also vice versa: from estranging the intelligentsia from the people’s movement. Chałasi≈ski historicized the intelligentsia and subjected its ethos to criticism. Żółkiewski called for a positive program: of including the intelligentsia into the orbit of the new order and harnessing its potential for the benefit of building communism. Such a program was put forward by Leon Chajn at the 1949 Alliance of Democrats congress. Chajn commenced his ideological and political speech, entitled “The Polish Intelligentsia in the Face of Ongoing Social Transformations,” much like Chałasi≈ski: from genealogy. He said that the prewar intelligentsia, although certain of its status above all class divisions, de facto served the dominant classes as its army of magistrates “for the spiritual and political bondage of the exploited classes.”28 At the same time, as “mercenaries of the bourgeoisie,” white-collar workers were also subject to exploitation. Furthermore, according to Chajn, in capitalist conditions the proletariat’s only chance for progress leads through the intelligentsia—it relays all the new trends, including the anti-capitalist ones, to workers and peasants. Citing Lenin, Chajn argued that the intelligentsia had a role that could not be overlooked in a people’s democracy, as only with its aid was it possible to take over the cultural heritage for the benefit of the new society. It was here that Chajn saw a job for the Alliance of Democrats, traditionally associated with the intelligentsia: to win over the intelligentsia of anticommunist pedigree in order to build communism. Both the intelligentsia—usually too fickle, indecisive, and easily discouraged—and the AD itself should relinquish their leadership function in the state for the benefit of the working class. The old intelligentsia should also be taken down a few notches: it must be stripped of its “lust of splendor” and attachment to titles.29 In his speech at the AD congress, Chajn formulated specific, detailed recommendations for teachers, education professionals, engineers, and lawyers, thus demarcating the professions that he believed fit with the term “intelligentsia.” Above all, however, he outlined his idea of what the formation of the intellectual stratum should look like in the new system. It was to entail: 1) the crossing over of the old intelligentsia to the side of the new authorities; 2) the placement of workers and peasants in management posi27

Stefan Żółkiewski, “Obecna sytuacja inteligencji polskiej,” Wie√, no. 29 (1947): 1. Chajn, Inteligencja polska w obliczu dokonywających się przemian społecznych, 14. 29 Ibid., 31–32. 28

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tions; 3) the education of proletarian youth at schools and universities. All this, taken together, would ensure the success of the cultural revolution, argued Chajn.30 The subsequent items of this program were ticked off in the following years. The new intellectuals—peasants and workers who, thanks to universal access to education and affirmative actions in their favor, had moved upwards and became white-collar workers—were imbued with a sense of mission toward the classes they originated from. This was accompanied by an air of disgrace around the old intelligentsia, as a remnant of the conservative attitude of neutrality, the spirit of national democracy, and the ethos of nobility.31 By the time of the October thaw, it became clear that the intelligentsia acted as a retardant of the revolution. In his best-selling, widely acclaimed 1954 novel Obywatele (The Citizens), a crowning jewel of socialist realism, Kazimierz Brandys32 depicts the intelligentsia as unreliable and devious; not owing to the intentions of its individual members, but to its habitus that was difficult to shake off.33 Individualism, reluctance toward undertaking collective activities, an inability to stand firmly on either side, volatility, distance, neutrality as a value: these are the habitus blemishes of the intellectuals. In Brandys’ novel, the intelligentsia, mired in prewar superstitions, rejects equality. It looks down on the working class, holding onto its leadership role in the society, a privilege of authority and of the elders. It is condescending and patronizing of the revolution, the way a father may be of his children. It follows from the novel Obywatele that some of the intellectuals adjusted to the new system only superficially, still nurturing the old divisions deep inside, and along with them a set of values rooted in the cultural repertoire of the prewar times. For them, revolution sunk in only at the pragmatic level, and so they chose a certain strategy for functioning within the new reality, in which they were aided by the belief that they were showing the path to the masses. This belief allowed them to continue feeling like the elite of society. Brandys describes this with malice and sarcasm, as narcissism and delusions of grandeur. Yet the effects of the habitus flaw of the intelligentsia went far beyond the incompatibility of its highbred manners. 30

Ibid., 22. Palska, Nowa inteligencja w Polsce Ludowej, 94–96. 32 Kazimierz Brandys (1916–2000) was a writer, novelist and essayist. After the war he was ideologically affiliated with socialism, but from the late 1960s he became increasingly critical of the People’s Republic of Poland. He emigrated in 1981. 33 Kazimierz Brandys, Obywatele (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1954). I employ the term habitus—understood as external, hierarchical social structures internalized by individuals and manifested in the form of individual practices, beliefs and categories of perception—after Pierre Bourdieu. See Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J. D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992). 31

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The intelligentsia had to be treated as an internal enemy which was deluded to think it was participating in communism, as it stalled communism with its paternalism. However, Brandys postulates that the intelligentsia should not be thrown onto the dustbin of history: to the contrary, it must be helped, nudged in the right direction. Thus, on the one hand, Brandys chastises the intelligentsia for its superior airs, but on the other hand, he pleads for mercy and benevolence for those intellectuals who want to join the revolution.

A coy return to elitism In his 1957 speech entitled “The Intelligentsia and the Nation,” Józef Chałasi≈ski summed up the changes that the Polish intelligentsia had gone through in the period of socialist realism.34 He divided the transformed stratum into three sections: 1) the new political group that arose as a result of Party and political upward mobility; 2) “the shipwrecked of the old gentry intelligentsia,” who either crossed over to the communist camp, joined the opposition, or withdrew from social life; 3) the new intelligentsia—men and women of peasant and worker background, who received higher education at the universities of People’s Poland.35 But Chałasi≈ski was not content with these transformations. He bemoaned the degradation of the intelligentsia: the loss of its elite character and, along with it, its social significance. He criticized the proletarization of typically intelligentsia professions, which, in his opinion, was an “intentional measure of the reformers, who wanted to have a clean break with the ‘pure blood’ of the old intelligentsia, to bind the new intellectuals to the working class.”36 He thought that the new intelligentsia was “shapeless”: no longer noble, but at the same time reluctant to maintain contacts with its classes of origin, rejecting its roots instead of reforming them, and consequently, “classless.” Not workers, not peasants, not bourgeois, in the eyes of Chałasi≈ski, it had turned into a “people’s intelligentsia”—brimming with faith in the classless society that, in its own mind, it was creating. Chałasi≈ski noted the excessive influence of the romantic national myths on the intelligentsia, and the insufficient influence of scientific and technical culture, of education concerning the areas of “economy, profession, and technology,” and a sense of nationwide responsibility. “The balance sheet of the past thirteen years? The produc34

Józef Chałasi≈ski, “Inteligencja i naród,” in Przeszło√ć i przyszło√ć inteligencji polskiej (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1958), 9–42. 35 Ibid., 16–17. 36 Ibid., 22–23.

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tion of working-class and peasant-class intelligentsia failed here,” he clamored.37 In the light of his seminal text Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej, the opinions that Chałasi≈ski voiced after the thaw may come as a surprise. Społeczna genealogia focused on the past: the only motion therein that concerned the future was for the intelligentsia to leave its insular ghetto. Ten years later, already after Stalinism, Chałasi≈ski reveals what kind of intelligentsia he dreams of: still elitist, enjoying greater prestige, and living on a higher level than other classes, with a sense of mission for the modernization of the country, aware that it is a role model for workers and peasants. The egalitarian spirit behind this vision is, to say the least, moderate. The thaw made it possible for Chałasi≈ski to voice it. The thaw was also a time when Józef Chałasi≈ski was replaced as the go-to intellectual for intelligentsia topics by Jan Szczepa≈ski,38 affiliated with the circles of Po prostu (Simply Speaking).39 In the 1957 text “Inteligencja i społecze≈stwo” (The Intelligentsia and the Society), he once again outlines the history of the Polish intelligentsia—somewhat in the footsteps of Chałasi≈ski, somewhat anew. He places the accents differently, and emphasizes the errors committed against the intelligentsia in the Stalinist period. Szczepa≈ski admits that the old intelligentsia had been won over for socialism. Yet, the intellectuals educated in the prewar ethos of general cultural knowledge had been marginalized. This was done in favor of the new intelligentsia: an army of skilled workers needed for the planned economy. In building this army, the number of intellectuals increased, and thus the prestige of belonging to this stratum decreased. The old intelligentsia now had to follow a path that was shown to them, instead of blazing the trail themselves. It was deprived of its culture-making, sense-making, opinionmaking, and leadership functions. Besides the professional and specialized tasks, it was assigned political tasks, but formulated by the new ruling class: that is, by the workers. Szczepa≈ski is trenchantly critical of upward social mobility, seeing it as the reason for the degeneration of environments in which it occurs. He believes that the upwardly mobile intellectuals lack education, because the criteria for being an intellectual were political and

37

Ibid., 30–31. Jan Szczepa≈ski (1913–2004) was a sociologist, teacher, and rector of the University of Łódź, as well as an employee of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His works were devoted, among other things, to the dynamics of the social structure in Poland. 39 Po prostu was a social and literary magazine published between 1947 and 1957. In 1956, it became a symbol of the post-Stalinist thaw, and a year later it was closed by the authorities. 38

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not based on merit. He was seconded by Andrzej Wasilewski on the pages of Nowa Kultura (New Culture), who wrote that an intellectual who had grown out of the landed gentry exhibits “knowledge of literature, art, and social decorum,” while an intellectual who had grown out of Stalinism represents a “general orientation in terms of ideology, political lines, and red tape. The former was an intellectual, because he knew how to behave, the latter becomes an intellectual when he knows how to do politics,” Wasilewski concluded.40 This occurs with lasting damage to the intelligentsia stratum, because the upwardly mobile will not easily relinquish the position they gained, Szczepa≈ski warned. Meanwhile, they do not meet the intelligentsia standards, because even if they are adept bureaucrats, they lack cultural and creative command of the Polish language. Szczepa≈ski believed that the gravest error in the early years of the People’s Republic of Poland was the downplaying of general cultural knowledge and depriving the old intelligentsia of their intellectual and moral authority. Both these and other distortions of the Stalinist period stemmed, in his opinion, from the fact that the old intelligentsia had been denied responsible functions in the country; it should recover both the authority and the decision-making power. It should also once again become a role model in terms of education. It is not good, the author wrote, that universities no longer educate generally cultured people, producing specialists instead. The horizon of Szczepa≈ski’s thinking is a smoothly operating socialist system. Like Chałasi≈ski, Szczepa≈ski does not undermine the legitimacy of socialism itself. Nevertheless, he argues that within the socialist system, the intelligentsia should retrieve its function of an authority, its prestige, and its leading role. It should be underscored that I am not analyzing here voices of the opposition or marginal opinions, but mainstream public statements whose authors enjoyed the status of experts. Stanisław Ossowski,41 whose attitude toward communism was vague, noted the process of recovery of elites and the simultaneous reneging on the egalitarian social project less than ten years after its introduction. In his 1956 text, he wrote: In countries of gentle revolution, more or less overt restrictions were introduced, especially in the first years after the war, to level the opportunities of the 40

Andrzej Wasilewski, “Bigos polski, czyli o nowoczesno√ci rzeczywistej i ‘na niby,’” Nowa Kultura, no. 18 (1957): 2. 41 Stanisław Ossowski (1897–1963) was a sociologist, professor of the University of Warsaw and University of Łódź, and a representative of the so-called humanistic trend. His works are devoted, among other things, to the methodology of sociological research, social psychology, the category of nation, and the sociology of art. He was a teacher and mentor to many Polish researchers, and husband to the outstanding sociologist Maria Ossowska.

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children of peasants and workers with the opportunities enjoyed by young people from formerly advantaged classes, who had had the headstart of favorable home conditions and old social connections of their parents. . . . [A]s the new elite forms, we can observe the return of members of the old elite, which complicates the situation. . . . There is also another way in which the past exerts its influence. In the society that has stabilized, we may observe not only the return of some members of the ancien régime, but also the revival of certain prerevolutionary models and social roles adjusted to the new conditions.42

Classes in socialism Nowadays, researchers admit that upward mobility into the intelligentsia was indeed a mass phenomenon in the postwar period. In the mid-1950s, two-thirds of white-collar workers had working or peasant origins; in the 1980s this figure stood at 68.7 percent.43 Both the social advancement and its mass quality were used by the People’s Republic of Poland authorities for propaganda purposes: with the aid of promotion statistics they affirmed the system as one that, in contrast with Sanation Poland, allowed for social mobility. The socialist advancement, however, gave rise to a propaganda problem as well, as its very concept concealed two contradictions. Firstly, if the leading class were now workers and peasants, then why was the intelligentsia still their aspiration and the top rung on the social ladder? Secondly, if socialism aimed to abolish class society in favor of full egalitarianism, then was this socialist country not abandoning its own ideals in promoting class advancement?44 These two contradictions were highlighted in a 1964 novel by Julian Kawalec,45 Ta≈czący Jastrząb (Dancing Hawk). This novel—one of the few examples of narration concerning the Polish intelligentsia written “from the outside”—tells the story of one Michał Toporny: a peasant who takes advantage of the advancement mechanisms afforded by the communists and moves to a city, where he first studies, then becomes a specialist, and ultimately the director of his workplace. When Toporny has a son with his city-girl wife, Kawalec asks a question: But who took vengeance on whom, who won when this screaming bundle was born, who won when they put him in the white, shiny bathtub . . . ? Was it your

42

Stanisław Ossowski, “Z zagadnie≈ struktury społecznej,” in Dzieła, vol. 5 (Warsaw: PWN, 1968), 271. 43 Jerzy Doma≈ski, O ruchliwo√ci społecznej w Polsce, 80. 44 Palska, Nowa inteligencja w Polsce Ludowej, 68–81. 45 Julian Kawalec (1916–2014) was a writer, novelist and poet; his works are classified within the so-called peasant trend in Polish literature.

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people, from the monotonous valley sprawled between a large river and a quarry heap, and your crazy old man, struck by happiness while he stood on his own field that used to be a manor field, and all the crazy men like him, struck by happiness when the gifts of time were handed to them, was it them who took vengeance, or those people from cities and factories and their own crazy men, struck by misery after having lost those factories and manor farmsteads? Who won and won what, who took vengeance, who pushed whom out and what fates, what history came out victorious from this struggle . . . ?46

Along with advancement came social problems. Despite attempts to instill the advancing members of the working and peasant classes with a sense of civilizing mission for their class of origin, which was intended in lieu of debts toward the state for the social promotion opportunities that it afforded, the observed effects were more frequently the opposite: the upwardly mobile felt ashamed of their background and tried to efface their roots for fear of being ridiculed.47 This indicates that class distinctions die hard. The proposed remedy for this shame was supposed to be the proletarization of the intelligentsia ethos: blurring the differences between the intelligentsia and the workers. Hanna Palska writes that this blurring was attempted in various ways, including presenting intellectuals in such a way that they resembled workers: in plaid shirts, with rolled-up sleeves and work-worn hands. The workers were supposed to become more like the intellectuals through the rationalization of production and work, but the intellectuals were also to become more like workers, through hard work and not shying away from physical toil.48 Yet, if lifestyles and sensation of distance are any gauge of the social attitudes and views of Poles, it is clear that this strategy of double effacement—of the abyss between the intelligentsia and workers, and of the intelligentsia distinction—failed. A detailed discussion of selected sociological research concerning social disparities in mid-period People’s Poland must be preceded by a remark on the correlation of two factors: advancement and urbanization. In the years 1946–60, about 2.5 million rural residents moved to cities, and every third rural inhabitant worked in non-agricultural professions, commuting to work in the city every day (the so-called professional urbanization).49 A part of these people changed their lifestyle and social status, turning from peas46

Julian Kawalec, Ta≈czący jastrząb (Warsaw: PIW, 1988), 99. See, for instance, the TV shows Dyrektorzy (Directors, 1975) and Daleko od szosy (Far from the Road, 1976), as well as Redli≈ski’s novel Awans (Promotion, 1973). 48 Palska, Nowa inteligencja w Polsce Ludowej, 94. 49 Zbigniew Sufin, “Przemiany warto√ci i wzorów społeczno-kulturowych na tle procesów urbanizacji,” in Socjologiczne problemy miasta polskiego, ed. Stefan Nowakowski (Warsaw: PWN, 1964), 243–46. 47

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ants into white-collar workers. Those who moved from rural to urban areas in search of education or work, to be with their family, to seek advancement, or in search of a different way of life are referred to as “escapees from the country,”50 or even “rural emigrants.”51And, even though Zbigniew Sufin suggested that the urban and rural areas be perceived as mutually complementary rather than competing, to view urbanization as a “process of cultural diffusion,” urbanization still meant primarily “a set of processes, as a result of which an increasing percentage of the population adopts the urban lifestyle. This set comprises a series of phenomena of demographic, economic, technological, and spatial and psychosocial nature.”52 Thus even if, as Sufin claims, “rural elements brought by the incoming, mostly rural population [to the city], commingle with typically urban patterns”53—examples cited by the researcher include close-knit relations between neighbors, mutual help in taking care of children or everyday affairs, and frequent visits—then still, as a result of old class distinctions and new modernization processes, the urban lifestyle enjoyed greater prestige and cultural legitimacy. These factors, as argued by Krzysztof Przecławski, resulted in a process of double adaptation for “escapees from the country” to the city, and not the other way around. They underwent an external adaptation (learning how to act, speak, dress) and an internal one (adopting the urban attitudes and norms as one’s own).54 In the 1960s, programmatical discussions concerning the intelligentsia were replaced by empirical explorations. This decade produced numerous works of sociological research regarding the varying cultural styles of urban dwellers. They were considered within the aspects of consumption needs, saving, participation in culture, tastes and preferences, opinion leadership, behaviors and aspirations connected with free time, and possession of material goods.55 Material for researching class differences within the context of advancement and urbanization was provided by data regarding an individual’s property situation (living conditions, ownership of real estate, objects, clothes, furniture, income, work conditions, social welfare), participation in cultural life (readership, listening to the radio, watching TV, going 50

Ibid., 243. Renata Siemie≈ska, “Niektóre aspekty adaptacji ludno√ci wiejskiej do życia w Nowej Hucie,” in Procesy urbanizacyjne w powojennej Polsce, ed. Stefan Nowakowski (Warsaw: PWN, 1967), 178. 52 Krzysztof Przecławski, “Badania nad procesami, wrastania młodzieży pochodzenia wiejskiego w kulturę wielkomiejską,” in Procesy urbanizacyjne w powojennej Polsce, ed. Stefan Nowakowski (Warsaw: PWN, 1967), 170. 53 Sufin, “Przemiany warto√ci i wzorów społeczno-kulturowych,” 245. 54 Przecławski, “Badania nad procesami,” 171. 55 Ryszard Dyoniziak, Zróżnicowanie kulturowe społeczno√ci wielkomiejskiej (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne, 1969). 51

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to the movies, and other forms of entertainment), vacation habits, having travelled within the country and abroad, linguistic culture, ways of spending free time, aesthetic preferences, participation in the activities of community centers, public life activity (membership in associations and organizations), social and neighborhood relations, and marriages (mixed or homogeneous).56 The complex analysis of these aspects allowed sociologists to formulate their theses on lifestyles. They were defined as “a set of strivings, needs, aspirations, behaviors, possession status, tastes, and social roles, acting as a strata-forming factor and a factor of social differentiation.”57 To the researchers of those times, it was obvious that lifestyle was connected with the following, mutually correlating factors: education, profession, income, and social background. From today’s perspective, I propose that we treat the results of this research as information regarding the actual course of egalitarization of Polish society and its effects. We can learn from them what this process looked like in practice and what obstacles it faced. Owing to the subject of this text, I am particularly interested in the information that can be drawn from them about the old, hierarchical model of social structure: how strong this model was, what distinctions it was based on, and with the aid of which social practices it was reproduced in the supposedly egalitarian People’s Republic of Poland. In other words, I am curious to what extent the lifestyles and their attendant sensations of social distances were defined by the “old” factor of social background, and to what extent by the factors controlled by the new order: education, profession, and income. This issue is the topic of Ryszard Dyoniziak’s 1969 work Zróżnicowanie kulturowe społeczno√ci wielkomiejskiej (The cultural diversity of a large city population).58 From the study conducted by this researcher on a sample of Krakow residents, it followed that what social background determined most strongly were tastes, preferences, and the chances of taking a position of an “opinion leader”—whether among peers, in a social group, or in the public forum.59 Social background also strongly affected the tendency to save money—usually interpreted as the ability to manage one’s own life rationally—along with vacation patterns and possession of material objects. This tendency was, nevertheless, on the decline. “In order to understand the existing state in most aspects of lifestyle, it is necessary to grasp these

56

Jan Malanowski, Stosunki klasowe i różnice społeczne w mie√cie (Warsaw: PWN, 1967). 57 Ibid., 167. 58 Ryszard Dyoniziak (1930–2009) was a sociologist, who worked since 1961 at the Economic Academy in Krakow. Among other things, his work concerned the sociology of work and social disparities. 59 Dyoniziak, Zróżnicowanie kulturowe społeczno√ci wielkomiejskiej, 245.

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determinants through profession and social background. But if we want to foresee the direction of future changes within this scope, the predictor variable is income,” anticipated Dyoniziak.60 He assessed this tendency positively, because, in contrast to social background, income is a variable that renders itself to state control, thus impeding a situation in which social disparities “are a result of unchecked processes, whereas one’s life success or failure depends on factors that cannot be reconciled with the universally accepted values of socialist ideology. If income is a predictor variable, the socialist state may have considerable influence over the development process, to ensure the further egalitarization of our society.”61 I do not want to underestimate the effects of income on social disparities. Remembering the disdain for making money as an element of the old intelligentsia ethos, inherited from the aristocracy (as mentioned by Chałasi≈ski), I treat income as a predictor variable seen by supporters of the old ethos as a falsifier of the “true” social assignment of individuals. In order to realize just how strongly some Poles opposed the blurring of the old distinctions of “birth” that were afforded by the new advancement channels, one only has to remember terms such as “nouveau riche” or “upstart,” with unambiguously pejorative coloring. They were used to describe people who had managed to climb up the social ladder and consequently enjoy material and symbolic goods that “they didn’t deserve.” The Krakow-based research allowed Dyoniziak to formulate a thesis on three groups distinguishable based on the criterion of lifestyle. He described the first two as follows: In characterizing the lifestyle of the metropolitan population, we noticed that there are two discernible, antipodal lifestyles: one is represented by those who read weeklies and buy books for themselves, who spend their vacations abroad, or in the country, but wishing they could go abroad, who stand apart for their high consumption needs, who save, who possess relatively many material objects (such as TVs, fridges, vehicles), whose tastes are stylish and who, at the same time, are “opinion leaders” within their circles. A different lifestyle is represented by those who, unlike the previous group, are not keen readers, do not buy books for themselves, who spend their vacations at home or visit with family, who dream of being able to travel somewhere within the country, who do not save money, whose consumption needs are not remarkable, who are not “opinion leaders,” and whose tastes are devoid of style.62

The third group fits in between the previous two. According to Dyoniziak, this third group was the most numerous one, and bound to continue grow60

Ibid., 283. Ibid., 286. 62 Ibid., 289–90. 61

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ing. Its members were still “‘working their way up,’ without a stabilized professional position, ‘up-and-coming,’” and at the time of this research, made up over 50 percent of Polish society.63 Individuals with the first lifestyle described had needs that exceeded their capacities of satisfying them, Dyoniziak wrote. He identified this problem as the source of their personal and group conflicts, as well as the reason why they retreated to their circle of family and friends, limiting their activities to hobbies cultivated at home. Individuals from the third group, by contrast, had aspirations that exceeded their capacities of fulfilling them, because they believed in the promise of advancement, the results of which they would not feel for another several years. What links the three groups is—once again—the horizon of socialism. None of them expected the system to collapse. Quite the opposite: what they expected was that the system would deliver on its promises of a better life, of “a greater sense of security and greater sense of collective activities, a broader space for personal initiative and creativity, as well as greater amenities in the organization of collective life.”64 Let us move on to the subjective perception of class gaps between white-collar workers—the class to which most members of the intelligentsia belonged—and the remaining classes. They have been analyzed in detail in the 1967 work by Jan Malanowski,65 Stosunki klasowe i różnice społeczne w mie√cie (Class relations and social differences in the city), based on survey research and devoted to stereotypes of one’s own and other classes. Whitecollar professionals turned out to be the group most prone to harbor negative stereotypes of workers. In comparison to the representatives of other classes, they were more likely to associate workers with a low level of personal culture, a bad upbringing, dishonesty, alcoholism, and laziness.66 “White-collar professionals have the worst opinion of workers: 50.4 percent of the representatives of this stratum use more negative than positive features in describing workers. The second up are the petite bourgeoisie: 47.4 percent,” concluded Malanowski.67 Contrary to the stereotype of workers reinforced by the white-collar professionals, their own stereotype was largely positive. Clean, elegant, welldressed, pleasant, taking advantage of cultural entertainment, speaking and treating others with propriety: this was how white-collar professionals were

63

Ibid., 295–96. Ibid., 293–94. 65 Jan Malanowski (1932–1992) was an urban sociologist of social stratification and social disparities, a researcher of workers, and professor of the University of Warsaw. 66 Malanowski, Stosunki klasowe i różnice społeczne w mie√cie, 269–73. 67 Ibid., 274. 64

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described, mainly by peasants and unqualified workers. They emphasized the fine lifestyle of intellectuals. They were best perceived by workers, and worst by peasants. The negative features associated with white-collar professionals in the 1960s included haughtiness, arrogance, and a selfaggrandizing attitude. Malanowski also found that white-collar professionals were much more likely to ascribe positive features to themselves than were the workers or peasants. The latter saw themselves through the eyes of the elites: they complained mainly of their own low level of culture.68 Moreover, white-collar professionals turned out to be the most attached to class endogamy—it was this group that most often believed that both spouses having the same social background encouraged the durability and happiness of the union. Practice belied this opinion—the number of mixedclass marriages was on the rise (in 1945–50 they represented 8.2 percent; in 1951–64, 31.8 percent)—but women with higher education did not marry representatives of other social classes. Similarly, marriages between whitecollar professionals and peasants were very rare—just as rare as before the war.69 Malanowski evaluated social isolationism based on opinions on the most desirable neighbors. The greatest mutual hostility was between workers and white-collar professionals. The majority of both groups believed that it is best to have neighbors from the same stratum. Workers (especially the unskilled ones) reported with resentment that the children of whitecollar professionals were often told not to play with their children, while representatives of other classes noticed this problem far less frequently. In the opinion of those who did notice the barrier, it stemmed from a fear of demoralization (this is how white-collar professionals saw it), or from arrogance and conceit (the workers’ interpretation).70 Malanowski’s research also assessed access to universally coveted goods: healthcare, education, entertainment, vacations, offices, public life, and city life. The workers believed that in all of these spheres, white-collar workers were privileged, while the white-collar professionals thought it to be the other way around. The antagonism between these two classes was noticed by respondents from all social strata. The gap between the intelligentsia and workers, stemming from the tastes and personal culture shaped in the process of socialization, manifested itself in the area of everyday behaviors. The different behavior systems—“varying degrees of familiarity with savoir vivre and different significance ascribed in the hierarchy of norms to individual principles of upbringing”—made this gap even more obvious.71 Dif68

Ibid., 276–82. Ibid., 129, 130, 303–5. 70 Ibid., 307. 71 Ibid., 215. 69

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ferences in the way people dressed, decorated their apartments, spoke, and how they perceived profanity in language were bones of contention for both white-collar professionals and workers.72 This, however, was not taking place within the framework of two competing lifestyles. The hierarchy of tastes made the former group contemptuous of the latter, and the latter group ashamed of the former. According to Malanowski, this contempt found its outlet in satirical expressions that were a “natural reaction of the old, prewar intelligentsia to the working class breaking its monopoly on urban life and its most important events.”73

Egalitarianism as “the world turned upside down” Malanowski’s opinion coincides with my reception of Polish satire, the most abundant decade for which was the 1970s, with a continuation in the 1980s. I mean here primarily the film comedies produced in those times, whose most popular—and most prolific—director was Stanisław Bareja.74 I make no claims to generalizations; that is, I do not mean to say that the comedy depictions constitute an exhaustive presentation of social advancement in the People’s Republic of Poland of those times. Instead, I am interested in why these movies made social advancement their central comic motif, why the behaviors of those who benefited from this advancement were such a surefire hit, and why the main hero of these immensely popular comedies is usually an intellectual, presented as a “lame duck”

72

Ibid., 212–19, 312. Ibid., 215. 74 The material included in this analysis entails the following movies and shows (in chronological order): Ewa chce spać (Eve Wants to Sleep, dir. Tadeusz Chmielewski, 1957), Mąż swojej żony (A Husband to His Wife, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1960), Małże≈stwo z rozsądku (Marriage of Convenience, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1966), Sublokator (Subtenant, dir. Janusz Majewski, 1966), Poszukiwany, poszukiwana (Man—Woman Wanted, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1972), Dziewczyny do wzięcia (Marriageable Girls, dir. Janusz Kondratiuk, 1972), Nie ma róży bez ognia (A Jungle Book of Regulations, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1974), Czy jest tu panna na wydaniu? (Any Marriageable Girl Here?, dir. Janusz Kondratiuk, 1976), Brunet wieczorową porą (Brunet Will Call, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1976), Czterdziestolatek (The Forty-Year-Old, dir. Jerzy Gruza, 1974–77), Co mi zrobisz jak mnie złapiesz? (What Will You Do When You Catch Me?, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1978), Mi√ (Teddy Bear, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1980), Siedem Życze≈ (Seven Wishes, dir. Maciej Zembaty, 1984), Alternatywy 4 (dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1986), Zmiennicy (Subs, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1987–88), Kogel-Mogel (Hodgepodge, dir. Roman Załuski, 1988). Stanisław Bareja (1929–1987) was a movie and TV director, scriptwriter, and actor, the author of several Polish comedies. 73

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who cannot quite figure out his way in a world ruled by proverbial “boors.” Another reason why comedies from the latter stages of the People’s Republic of Poland warrant attention is their contemporary popularity, still feeding the unambiguously anti-communist discourse, which depicts People’s Poland as a half-funny, half-scary country of absurdities suffered each step of the way by its more enlightened citizens. The disdain that the bourgeoisie felt toward the upwardly mobile was sometimes problematized in the People’s Republic of Poland’s popular culture texts, for example in the 1976 series Daleko od szosy (Far from the Road). The comedies are a move in the opposite direction: not only do they not problematize this disdain, they employ it as a cultural code of sorts. It is a code that is understandable for those bound with intimate intellectual connections. Furthermore, in line with the logic of legitimacy, and using sense of humor as an instrument of blackmail, they force their perspective onto those against whom the disdain is directed. I think that this is what makes these comedies so popular today: their avid fans draw satisfaction from the fact that they understand this code, and so they are part of the elite that laughs at the “hillbillies.” To watch these comedies over and over again, to show off by having memorized all of Mi√,75 for example, is to manifest one’s allegiance to a group that distances itself from those from which the comedies distance themselves. “Those” are the upwardly mobile. The early 1970s marks the heyday of the so-called “psychiatric trend” in opposition literature, examples of which—Miazga (Pulp) by Jerzy Andrzejewski, Nierzeczywisto√ć (Unreality) by Kazimierz Brandys, Obłęd (Insanity) by Jerzy Krzyszto≈—are explored in this volume by Kajetan Mojsak.76 In these books, the reality of the People’s Republic of Poland is presented as an insanity that has become the new normal. The absence of lawfulness, disturbed communication processes, the fall from grace of the intelligentsia and the new privileged strata, the atrophy of human relations, the disintegration of bonds: everything that Mojsak lists as the features of the world depicted in Brandys and Andrzejewski is also the central motif of comedies that were produced neither by opposition nor in the underground. Most of them had no problems at all with the censors, even though they present the reality of the 1970s as “a world turned upside down.” These comedies proclaim a diagnosis of social collapse. They are filled to

75

Mi√ (Teddy Bear, dir. Stanisław Bareja, 1980) is a comedy movie that depicts the People’s Republic of Poland as a country of absurdities and pathologies. This movie still enjoys great popularity and the status of a “cult” film. 76 Kajetan Mojsak, “Around Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Miazga, Kazimierz Brandys’ Nierzeczywisto√ć, and Polish Leftist Thought of the Late 1960s and Early 1970s,” in this volume.

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the brim with episodes and scenes unconnected to the main narrative; asides or snapshots from the People’s Republic of Poland which share the motif of absurdity, idiocy, what we would colloquially call madness. Cut out, these scenes function to this day on YouTube as separate wholes. In Bareja’s movie Nie ma róży bez ognia (Jungle Book of Regulations, 1974), devoted to the dwelling problems of a young couple, the main hero Jan— equipped with the attributes of an intellectual (briefcase, blazer, glasses, longish hair, clumsiness, lean figure)—suffers an attack of fury as a result of what he stresses are legal measures taken by the authorities, as well as by the peasants and workers he is forced to live with. He devastates his own property and the property of others, leading to him being locked up in a psychiatric hospital. There, at last, he feels normal. He rests, happy to have a place of his own. When they discharge him, he is inconsolable. The comedies discussed here usually have an intellectual as the main hero. It is an intellectual who struggles against “hicks,” but in his struggle he is doomed to fail, thus making him laughable and pathetic. He is a likable klutz; a man overwhelmed with the uncouthness of the people he deals with day in and day out at the store, on the bus, at the post office, but also at home, because the “hicks” are often represented by his wife, mother-inlaw, nanny, or housemaid. Lost in the reality of People’s Poland, he escapes into the world of books, his mind elsewhere, in his scientific work. It is from the perspective of such a hero that a socialist country is presented in comedies from the 1970s, and this is the perspective with which its contemporary audiences identified. These movies depict the effects of policies to bridge class gaps and promote upward mobility as grotesque in the dimension of everyday behaviors and interactions, destructive for individuals, and economically counterproductive. The comical effect is achieved by presenting “a world turned upside down”—which, in this case, means a world in which an intellectual is ruled by a boor. The urban reality, where the intellectual does not enjoy greater respect than other city dwellers while he crosses paths with workers and peasants on a daily basis, turns out to be a peculiar one. As an effect, the intellectual, an internal émigré, is promoted to the role of a paragon of social alienation. The hero which probably represents this type best is “adjunct Stanisław Maria Rochowicz” from the comedy Poszukiwany, poszukiwana (Man—Woman Wanted, 1972) by Stanisław Bareja. No one—not even the director of the museum where he works—understands what Stanisław’s job consists of and how precious his competences are. The scale of his alienation is aptly expressed with the motif of sex change: as a result of a misunderstanding, Rochowicz has to go into hiding as a woman, which in turn forces him to accept a job as a housemaid. In this movie Bareja grasped, perhaps unintentionally, an important aspect of the social reality: the change of cultural gender from male to female

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comes with a degradation, and gender degradation means social degradation. “Basia, I had such a horrible nightmare: I dreamt I was a kitchen maid!” says Rochowicz to his fiancée. “Marysia, open the door, this is master, your master,” orders the man of the house standing by his door in the middle of the night. Searching for the communist egalitarianism in scenes like these is an exercise in futility. If anything, they are shocking for its absence. What also jumps to attention is that comedies from this period in the People’s Republic of Poland are full of nannies, housemaids, cleaners, and servants. It looks as if employment of women in these types of jobs was nothing out of the ordinary in the lives of the erstwhile managers and intelligentsia, which raises eyebrows as it shows them to be at best ambivalent in the context of class and gender emancipation. Another frequent motif in the Polish comedies of the 1970s and 1980s is the heteronormative contredanse: flirtation, courtship, engagement, and marriage. These comedies tend to emphasize the gender features of their characters, and the narrations on upwardly mobile men differ from the narrations on women in similarly difficult and risky situations. The latter characters are either naive dreamers (Ewa chce spać [Eve Wants to Sleep, 1957]) or predatory, ensnaring, pushy, frustrated husband-hunters (Sublokator [Subtenant, 1966], Dziewczyny do wzięcia [Marriageable Girls, 1972]). But most of the female TV show characters have set out along the path of modernity and enjoy their emancipation, a fact deeply disturbing for the male characters in the comedies. The gender habits cannot quite catch up with the changing female roles. In the movie Dziewczyny do wzięcia, what stops a girl being “up for grabs”—as one of the bachelors notes with horror—is that “she has a motorbike,” while in the movie Mąż swojej żony (A Husband to His Wife, 1960), the main character cannot cope with the fact that his partner is more successful than he is. The main hero of Małże≈stwo z rozsądku (A Marriage of Convenience, 1966) gets mad at his girlfriend when she defends him from a thug, because—in line with the old tradition—it should be the other way around. In Kogel-mogel (Hodgepodge, 1988), the main character’s father wants to beat up his daughter and locks her up in the attic, because instead of getting married, she chooses to study. The clash of tradition and modernity exploited as a comic element usually follows the same pattern: men represent tradition and women represent modernity. On the one hand, we have here conservative customs and old cultural norms, enthusiastically implemented by men, and on the other hand, their unsuitability to the (excessively) emancipated needs and behaviors of women. This contredanse filled with misunderstandings, because it is taking place at the junction of old and new mores, is a frequent comedy motif perhaps because it builds distance between the detached viewer and the involved lover, which is needed for the audience to laugh. Perhaps another

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reason for the popularity of this motif is the ease with which women, their dreams, aspirations, and failures, are joked about in a patriarchal culture. I think, however, that the main point here is to show the intellectual in distress, because in the mainstream patriarchal culture, only a male can represent “just” a human being—an agent who deserves respect and with whom the audience can identify. The distress of this human being is caused, firstly, by the aforementioned upward mobility of peasants and workers into the urban space—which, from now on, the intellectual has to share with them—and secondly, by the excessively emancipated women. Strength, confidence, financial independence, and autonomous opinions of women who surround him are simply something that the intellectual is not accustomed to. This throws him off the role he prefers to be in—a gentleman, a charming bachelor, and then the household decision-maker—and thus the strength of women deepens his class alienation. The double egalitarization—in both the class and gender dimensions—drives the intellectual to madness, because it doubly deprives him of his leadership. The comedies discussed here are a raw reaction to the multiplied breaches of birth and gender hierarchy, but not just a reaction; they also function as tools meant to restore the old order by showing the new one as idiotic and absurd, one that brings calamity upon everyone. Starting from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Polish comedies present the city as a space that has been invaded and conquered by “hicks,” and this invasion is usually led by female characters. The comical effect here is achieved by way of renewal and emphasis of the maladjustment: of urbanity to rurality and of the urban dweller to a worker or peasant. The intellectual, stripped of his role and identity, is offered to the viewer as a role model. The “dethronement” of the intellectual—his deprivation of the leading function within the society and the state—as well as the city as an egalitarian space, are presented by the creators of these movies as deeply pathological phenomena. I see these comedies as an expression of the belief held by their creators, and by their enthusiastic audiences, that the “hicks”—that is, peasant and working habitus—have imposed their lifestyle on the city, instead of learning the city ways with humility. This is in reality a lamentation from the previous beneficiaries of class disparities—creators of culture and art—about the effects of egalitarization. One might say that showing the world turned upside down is the very point of the comedy genre, and that their authors, with Stanisław Bareja at the head, simply tapped into what the reality offered. It might also be argued that the point of comedies is to blow off some steam. But even if this is so, then why is the “steam” always produced firstly by the “hick,” and secondly, by the (excessively) strong women? Who needs to blow off steam and who is the reason for this? Who is laughing at whom? Answers to these questions make me see these Polish comedies as an expression of the 1970s’ intelligent-

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sia counterrevolution in the symbolic sphere. With their aid, the intelligentsia—as authors and as the audience—demonstrates its discontent with its dethronement. It “takes revenge” with this type of motion picture, and it strives to restore the previous order by ridiculing the new one. The same applies to gender egalitarization. The following movies exemplify the counterrevolutionary potential of comedies in the sphere of gender equality: Mąż swojej żony, one of Stanisław Bareja’s first comedies, and Kogelmogel, one of the very last such productions in People’s Poland. The main character of Mąż swojej żony—a composer and pianist—is evidently “henpecked” by his overly self-confident housemaid of clearly rural background and by his excessively popular wife, an internationally acclaimed sprinter. The misery of “the husband of Jadwiga Fołta√” stems, firstly, from the triumph of popular culture over high art (athletics wins over classical music in terms of popularity, prestige, and media fame), and secondly, from female domination, in the face of which a man of traditional “good manners” does not stand a chance. The drastically shaken conservative social order of Mąż swojej żony is symbolically restored in Kogel-mogel. A woman who escapes the rural house of her parents to study in the city is tricked by her fiancé into returning to the village, forced to kneel before her parents, beg for their forgiveness, and ask for them to bless her engagement, although she is not certain that this is what she wants. When the heroine meekly protests that she would rather study than marry, her fiancé, in between quips such as “I have always liked submissive women,” decides in a peremptory tone: “You can study at the weekends.” The strict father and the despotic future husband strike a deal over the head of the kneeling woman.

The intellectual counterrevolution In a state which had promised an egalitarian society, both the extant class divisions and the social disparities posed a number of ideological and methodological problems. Classes—usually presented as a division into white-collar professionals, petite bourgeoisie, workers, and peasants—and the unequal distribution of social prestige required a representation that would not look like proof of communist failure. From the second half of the 1940s, a debate was held as to whether the intelligentsia should be classified in line with orthodox Marxism or, perhaps, in line with a Marxism complemented by cultural factors. Bronisław Minc advocated the first approach from a theoretical perspective.77 In the sphere of empirical research, 77

Bronisław Minc, “O warstwach i klasach w socjalizmie,” Polityka, no. 39 (1961): 5; Bronisław Minc, “O rozwarstwieniu społecze≈stwa socjalistycznego,” Kultura i Społecze≈stwo 7, no. 3 (1963): 45–54. Bronisław Minc (1913–2004) was an

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he was seconded by Jerzy Wiatr and Włodzimierz Wesołowski, who considered the remnants of the class struggle in socialism exclusively on the economic, political, and ideological planes.78 The second approach was defended by Józef Chałasi≈ski, who argued that research on the intelligentsia could not be reduced to class struggle, as such a perspective would obliterate its connections with the Church, state, and nation.79 Chałasi≈ski proposed such an angle from which Marxism could be viewed as one of three currents of the Polish intelligentsia, next to Catholicism and liberalism. The discussion on the class definition was also joined by Stanisław Ossowski, who—as usual—took a somewhat different stance. He wrote: “Thus, when it comes to the classic Marxist criterion of social class, the experiences of the last period of the PRL suggest that the Marxist concept should be expressed as a formula establishing a functional relationship: the more the social system approaches the ideal type of capitalist society with free competition, the more classes are determined by the attitude toward means of production and controlling the means of production determines human relations.” In other words, orthodox Marxism only applies as long as capitalism exists. In communism, Ossowski argued, it becomes obsolete.80 Disputes of this type continued into the 1960s. Until then, class divisions and disparities were an embarrassment to the People’s Republic of Poland. Yet, this embarrassment was dealt with differently in the early period of People’s Poland and after the passage of twenty years. In the beginning, it was obvious for the mainstream theoreticians that halting the reproduction of class disparities was one of the tasks of communism. Gradually, the old disparities were disguised with new terminology: it was said, for example, that classes did indeed still exist, but their relationship was no longer of an exploitative nature.81 There emerged also the concept of non-antagonistic classes, meaning classes that are not in a relation of abuse.82 The mainstream discourse nevertheless retained the triumphant presentation of the Polish community as a uniform, undivided one; a economist, an author of publications devoted to structural transformations in the Polish economy, and a critic of capitalism. He held positions at the Main School of Planning and Statistics in Warsaw and at the Institute of Economic Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, among others. 78 Włodzimierz Wesołowski, Klasa robotnicza i przeobrażenia struktury społecznej PRL (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1969), 46–48. 79 Józef Chałasi≈ski, “Zagadnienie historyczno-socjologicznej samowiedzy inteligencji polskiej,” My√l Współczesna, no. 5 (1947): 142. 80 Ossowski, “Z zagadnie≈ struktury społecznej,” 246. 81 Stanisław Widerszpil, Przeobrażenia struktury społecznej w Polsce Ludowej (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1973), 85. Stanisław Widerszpil is a sociologist of social disparities, classes, and strata. 82 Ibid., 85.

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community which, with the aid of communist egalitarianism, prevailed over class distinctions and bridged the gaps between groups and individuals. Analogically to the issue of anti-Semitism, class divisions and disparities were diagnosed as phenomena that should be eradicated from society, but their revival was not faced up to—it was instead swept under the rug. The late 1960s brought what I believe was a fundamental change: the discourse on functionality and disparities. Ryszard Dyoniziak wrote, for example, that class differences had clearly decreased in comparison to the prewar period, but “if the class divisions in our society were to be assessed without any value judgements, based solely on their social consequences, we cannot miss the fact that they add dynamism to social life, accelerate transformations, set a certain pace to them, and contribute to social development.”83 Conflicts stemming from class divisions must be, according to Dyoniziak, “viewed as a functional factor in the social system.” Along with consent for the return of disparities returned also consent for the dominating role of the intelligentsia. Stanisław Widerszpil wrote with approval: “In modern societies, the intelligentsia, within the framework of division of labor, holds various functions connected to the process of management and organization in the economic and political spheres, advancement of science, technology, and art, education, and creation and propagation of ideology. It fulfills functions that require appropriate education and qualifications.”84 The leading role of the intelligentsia was no longer depicted by the experts of the 1970s as a problematic burden of the previous era, but as proof that Poland was a modern country.

Conclusion The waning of intelligentsia self-reflection was accompanied by the changing dominant discourse: from one critical of classes, embarrassed by their existence, and diagnosing the competitive lifestyles, to one approving of their existence. Both these processes built up in the 1970s. The first one was expressed in the creative sphere (comedies), and the second one in the domain of socioeconomic research and diagnoses. Egalitarization certainly took place: social background was no longer a strata-forming factor that irrevocably defined the life trajectories of individuals and families. The class order was transforming, and along with it changed 1) the social function of the intelligentsia; 2) the pedigree of the intelligentsia; and, as a consequence, 3) the habitus that were possible within the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia “backlash” of the 1970s—its negative reaction to the sociocul83 84

Dyoniziak, Zróżnicowanie kulturowe społeczno√ci wielkomiejskiej, 288. Widerszpil, Przeobrażenia struktury społecznej w Polsce Ludowej, 256.

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tural changes and its attempt to restore the old order—may be thus understood as an attempt to reestablish the old function of social background: not only culturally distinctive, but also pivotal in the social processes of reproduction and distribution of goods. This is because social background brings back the feudal category of birth, and along with it, class essentialism: the belief that each person gets what they deserve based on the position allocated to them at birth. Lastly, the return to social background would be a return to strictly distinguishing categories: categories that, unlike income or profession, are not subject to changes as a result of state policies, aspirations, will, work, or effort. There remains one last question: who is rebelling here? Who—meaning the group of interests or individuals sharing certain values—roots for the restoration of the old class distinctions, connected to the model of “a cultured man,” fenced off from the commoners with a tight lifestyle barrier? Is it the old intelligentsia, and the descendants of its fine families, or maybe rather the supporters of the intelligentsia ethos, not necessarily directly affiliated with it? Descendants that are not real, but rather symbolic, yearning for the old rules based on the authority of the highbred? It seems to be the latter. Without the widespread belief in the intelligentsia as a key stratum for the state and for the national community, without the authority of “cultural nobility” bestowed upon it by society, its old ethos of “a beacon” and prestige of “the elite” could never rise up again in the mainstream culture of a communist country. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

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Bibliography Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. ——— and Loïc J. D. Wacquant. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. Brandys, Kazimierz. Obywatele. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1954. Chajn, Leon. Inteligencja polska w obliczu dokonywających się przemian społecznych. Warsaw: Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza “Prasa Demokratyczna,” 1949. Chałasi≈ski, Józef. “Inteligencja i naród.” In Przeszło√ć i przyszło√ć inteligencji polskiej, 9–42. Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1958. ———. “Zagadnienie historyczno-socjologicznej samowiedzy inteligencji polskiej.” My√l Współczesna, no. 5 (1947): 141–74. ———. Społeczna genealogia inteligencji polskiej. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1946. Doma≈ski, Henryk. O ruchliwo√ci społecznej w Polsce. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 2004. Dyoniziak, Ryszard. Zróżnicowanie kulturowe społeczno√ci wielkomiejskiej. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowe Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne, 1969. Kawalec, Julian. Ta≈czący jastrząb. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1988. Malanowski, Jan. Stosunki klasowe i różnice społeczne w mie√cie. Warsaw: PWN, 1967. Minc, Bronisław. “O rozwarstwieniu społecze≈stwa socjalistycznego.” Kultura i Społecze≈stwo 7, no. 3 (1963): 45–54. ———. “O warstwach i klasach w socjalizmie.” Polityka, no. 39 (1961): 5. Ossowski, Stanisław. “Z zagadnie≈ struktury społecznej.” In Dzieła. Vol. 5, 168– 211. Warsaw: PWN, 1968. Palska, Hanna. Nowa inteligencja w Polsce Ludowej: Świat przedstawie≈ i elementy rzeczywisto√ci. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 1994. Przecławski, Krzysztof. “Badania nad procesami wrastania młodzieży pochodzenia wiejskiego w kulturę wielkomiejską.” In Procesy urbanizacyjne w powojennej Polsce, edited by Stefan Nowakowski, 170–77. Warsaw: PWN, 1967. Redli≈ski, Edward. Awans. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1973. Siemie≈ska, Renata. “Niektóre aspekty adaptacji ludno√ci wiejskiej do życia w Nowej Hucie.” In Procesy urbanizacyjne w powojennej Polsce, edited by Stefan Nowakowski, 178–98. Warsaw: PWN, 1967. Sufin, Zbigniew. “Przemiany warto√ci i wzorów społeczno-kulturowych na tle procesów urbanizacji.” In Socjologiczne problemy miasta polskiego, edited by Stefan Nowakowski, 243–46. Warsaw: PWN, 1964. Szwarc, Renata. “Dyskusja na temat inteligencji polskiej.” Przegląd Socjologiczny, no. 9 (1947): 282–88. Wasilewski, Andrzej. “Bigos polski, czyli o nowoczesno√ci rzeczywistej i ‘na niby.’” Nowa Kultura, no. 18 (1957): 2. Wesołowski, Włodzimierz. Klasa robotnicza i przeobrażenia struktury społecznej PRL. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1969.

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Widerszpil, Stanisław. Przeobrażenia struktury społecznej w Polsce Ludowej. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1973. Woje≈ski, Teofil. “Geneza poglądu na √wiat naszej inteligencji.” Kuźnica, no. 43 (1946): 10–11. Zawodzi≈ski, Karol Wiktor. “W sprawie genealogii inteligencji polskiej.” Kuźnica, no. 12 (1946): 3–5. Żółkiewski, Stefan. “Obecna sytuacja inteligencji polskiej.” Wie√, no. 29 (1947): 1.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Thought of Stanisław Brzozowski in Polish Academic Writing and Journalism in the Years 1945–1974: Currents, Parallels, Polemics Paweł Rams

History is always a part of the present. Enzo Traverso1

Introduction If we were to determine the problem area this chapter deals with in a single sentence, it would read something like this: what can Stanisław Brzozowski tell us about Polish history, culture, and society in the times of the People’s Republic of Poland? “Nothing” is the first, most simple answer that springs to mind. This is because this Polish philosopher, writer, and critic passed away long before the entity known as the People’s Republic of Poland appeared on the geopolitical map of the world. Judging merely from the dates of Brzozowski’s birth and death (1878–1911), we would likely have to place him, along with his entire output, in the era of Young Poland. Such a choice would be supported by the language he used, perfectly fitting with the mannerisms of this period, as well as by the philosophical or literary inspirations that influenced him. And yet a definite response to the question posed at the beginning is not an easy one. Why can Brzozowski even be taken into account when we talk about the history of Polish thought in the twentieth century? First of all, his writings stirred a great intellectual ferment both during his lifetime and after his death, garnering him fervent supporters and many opponents. His work touched upon a number of topics; in every case it appeared that an attempt on Polish sacred themes started from an attack on Henryk Sienkiewicz, and ended with rewriting the meaning of Polish romanticism. The problems he addressed were of crucial importance for a 1

Enzo Traverso, Historia jako pole bitwy: Interpretacja przemocy w XX wieku, trans. Światosław Florian Nowicki (Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2014), 12.

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deeply conservative and clerical Polish identity on the edge of the twentieth century. When we realize that the young publicist was himself only in his twenties, we should not be surprised at his ambiguous status. The polarization of attitudes had already begun in his lifetime, culminating in a trial which was to resolve whether accusations of his alleged collaboration with the tsarist secret police were true. A judgement was never delivered, owing—among other things—to the defendant’s death, hastened by the charges, the investigation, and the atmosphere around the entire “case.”2 The aforementioned polarization was not put to an end by Brzozowski’s funeral at the Florence Trespiano cemetery. After 1918 his thought once again inflamed broad circles of intellectuals, from Catholics, right-wingers, and liberals, to left-wingers and communists.3 Once again the dispute surrounded the definition of Polish national character. The same problems will be the object of my research, and based on the reception of his thought in the years 1944–74, I will attempt to tell the story of a certain portion of Poland’s postwar history. We should, however, be aware of one specific component, which plays a substantial role in his thought and its reception: Marxism. Contesting the dominance of the Second International paradigm, defined by the belief in a Hegelian understanding of History as an agent with an overriding purpose (in this interpretation the ultimate victory of the working class), Brzozowski’s reading of Marx stressed the human component. Without even knowing the works of the “young Marx,” Brzozowski reinterpreted Marx’s writings in an anthropocentric way, turning the human into the primary agent in the creation of social and cultural life. Moreover, he stressed that even the sciences are determined by the human point of view.4 Against this backdrop, Brzozowski made the workers the new power which could transform Polish culture and push it on to modernity. This unorthodox way of reading Marx and applying his thought to the Polish identity discussions had two sides. On the one hand, it remained inspiring long after the death of Brzozowski (as I will show in this chapter). But on the 2

References in the literature to the accusation and the trial itself usually address “the Brzozowski case,” a term which I too will employ throughout the remaining part of this chapter. It should be added that the “case” was so important because of views on national identity; many held the conviction that traitors could have no claim to Polish identity and, accordingly, Brzozowski could not be a national hero or authority. Dealing with the “Brzozowski case” was in fact dealing with the acceptance or rejection of Brzozowski’s thought. 3 Marian Sępie≈, Spór o spu√ciznę po Stanisławie Brzozowskim w latach 1918–1939 (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1976). 4 For an introduction to the thought of Stanisław Brzozowski in English, see Andrzej Walicki, Stanislaw Brzozowski and the Polish Beginnings of “Western Marxism” (Oxford: Calderon Press, 1989).

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other, it was a bone of contention with all communists who could not accept such a broad and unconstrained interpretation, connected with philosophies as varied as phenomenology, philosophy of life, and even modernism in the Catholic Church. At the same time, the Marxist threads in Brzozowski’s thought were unexceptional among conservative Catholic groups and right-wingers.5 The equivocation of Stanisław Brzozowski’s life and thought created tasks for the next generation. My research and the conclusions drawn from it are not meant merely as a case study. They are rather an attempt to illustrate a fragment of Polish postwar history through analysis of the varied interpretations of Stanisław Brzozowski’s thought. I will thus try to trace a thin yet very important thread running through the fabric of Polish intellectual history; a history with which it is interwoven and which it complements as a whole. In my analysis I try to steer clear of excessive focus on detail, on the one hand, and of providing too general a perspective of the problem, on the other. The negative point of reference for the theses herein are opinions, resonating not only in the public opinion but also professed by historians. According to these opinions, People’s Poland was a structurally and temporally monolithic entity, dominated by the all-encompassing power of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR), by social apathy, universal repressions, fear, censorship, and intellectual monologues. As I intend to prove by way of in-depth analysis, the reception of Brzozowski’s thought acts as a seismograph recording the changes occurring in Polish social, intellectual, cultural, and political life in the period of interest to me. Unavoidably, besides detailed analyses, I will have to bring up subjects that—at first glance—do not seem directly related to the topic of this chapter. More than once I will be treading a fine line demarcating the boundary between literary utterance and author’s biography. The undertaking of this formidable task is inspired by the vision of history expressed in Brzozowski’s early works, in which he emphasizes that in order to understand history, and so to make significant elements of the artifacts of the past,6 one needs “historical intuition.” One of its fundamental fea5

In the case of conservative Catholics, many claimed that at the end of his life Brzozowski abandoned Marxism and returned to the bosom of the Church. 6 “However, without a doubt, in order to acknowledge the monuments of the past as such, it is first indispensable to acknowledge this past itself. As long as history and the historical point of view do not exist to us, cuneiform will only be grooves, indentations, splashes of color that amuse the eye, rather than a witness to its time, as it is only by taking the historical perspective that we allow this time to exist for us at all.” Stanisław Brzozowski, “Monistyczne pojmowanie dziejów i filozofia krytyczna,” in Kultura i życie: Zagadnienia sztuki i twórczo√ci; W walce o √wiatopogląd, introduction by Andrzej Walicki (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973), 335.

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tures is to acknowledge that “conditions of contemporary social life are so complex and varied that even our internal life, the spiritual life of individuals, which is always to some extent the product of society, must also become composed of many other diverse factors.”7 Continuing this thought, in line with Brzozowski’s philosophy of history, we should add that this diversity and complex structure of modernity, reflected in the “spiritual life of individuals,” is also manifested in the works of those individuals. Only by studying them, and accounting for the broader context, is it possible to get to know the “spirit” and the factors that shaped it. Thus, in order to be able to understand the meandering reception of Stanisław Brzozowski in the People’s Republic of Poland (and the tasks which he gave the next generation of Polish intelligentsia), it is necessary to take a closer look at other authors who were a product of their times. Aware of the thin boundary between the order of history and the order of biography, I will follow four principles of historical research formulated by Enzo Traverso in Historia jako pole bitwy (History as a battlefield), which, in my opinion, will allow me to avoid numerous interpretative pitfalls, including excessive psychologization and decontextualization. These four principles are: 1) the “principle of contextualization,” consisting in “placing an event or an idea in their times, within the social frameworks, within the intellectual and linguistic domicile, within the mental landscape to which they belong”; 2) the “principle of historicism,” that is, the “principle of the historical nature of the reality that surrounds us, of the necessity to approach facts and ideas from a diachronic perspective, which accounts for their transformation over time”; 3) the “principle of comparativism,” that is, “comparing events, eras, contexts, ideas,” which is indispensable when attempting to understand them; and 4) the “principle of conceptualization,” pursuant to which “in order to understand what is real, it must be grasped with the aid of concepts or, to put it differently, ‘ideal types,’ without interrupting, however, the writing of history in a narrative way; in other words, without ever forgetting that real history is not identical to its abstract representations.”8

7

Stanisław Brzozowski, “Fryderyk Henryk Amiel (1821–1881). Przyczynek do psychologii współczesnej,” in Głosy w√ród nocy: Studia nad przesileniem romantycznym kultury europejskiej; Z teki po√miertnej wydał i przedmową poprzedził Ostap Ortwin, introduction by Cezary Michalski, afterword by Agata Bielik-Robson (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2007), 134. 8 Traverso, Historia jako pole bitwy, 24–25.

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Before World War II The transformations that took place after 1945 and the attitude toward them, including toward the thought and person of Stanisław Brzozowski, cannot be understood without taking the interwar period, and especially the 1930s, into account. This is because it was the time when, in opposition to the Sanation government, against nationalist and anti-Soviet tendencies,9 communist and socialist thought was being forged which played a key role in the postwar years. The interbellum decades were also a time when many intelligentsia circles were grappling with Brzozowski’s ideas, as outlined in Legenda Młodej Polski (The Legend of Young Poland), to cope with Polish identity and the future of the nation. As evidenced by Polish literary historian Marian Stępie≈’s book, all the erstwhile important currents of thinking—from nationalist, through Catholic, to communist—were in dispute over Brzozowski’s heritage.10 Each of these currents could derive something from Brzozowski owing to the multitude of concepts he elaborated, often mutually contradicting, but nevertheless inspiring for minds on all sides of the political scene.11 Yet, precisely because of this variety of frequently antagonistic ideas, no milieu could accept him entirely. The leftist circles were embroiled in the most heated dispute about the heritage of this Young Poland philosopher, who seemed an obvious patron to them not only owing to his direct references to Marx, and the fact that Brzozowski viewed the issues of labor and the proletariat as culture-forming national elements, but also due to his political involvement, the fullest manifestation of which was his journalistic writing around the time of the 1905 revolution and his acrimonious attacks against National Democracy and its sociopolitical program.12 Nevertheless, as Brzozowski’s thinking 9

The atmosphere of those times is well reflected in Antoni Słonimski, Kroniki tygodniowe 1936–1939, ed. Rafał Habielski (Warsaw: LTW, 2004). See also, for instance, Paul Brykczynski, Primed for Violence: Murder, Antisemitism, and Democratic Politics in Interwar Poland (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016); Krzysztof Woźniakowski, “Dwie literatury,” in Marian Stępie≈, Polska lewica literacka (Warsaw: PWN, 1985), 271–332; Czesław Miłosz, Wyprawa w Dwudziestolecie (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2000); and Grzegorz Wołowiec, “The Red and the Brown: On the Nationalist Legitimation of Communism in Poland Once Again,” in this volume. 10 Stępie≈, Spór o spu√ciznę po Stanisławie Brzozowskim; see also Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Rise, Growth and Dissolution, vol. 2, Golden Age, trans. P. S. Falla (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 216. 11 Stępie≈, Spór o spu√ciznę po Stanisławie Brzozowskim, 94. 12 The most important texts by Brzozowski written in this period—that is, in the years 1905–1907—have been published in Pisma polityczne: Wybór, ed. Michał Sutowski (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2011). See also Krzysztof

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evolved, it began to entail elements that could hardly be reconciled with leftist ideas. I mean here categories such as strength, race, or nation, which can be found in his later works, and which were not unambiguously associated with fascism in the early years of the twentieth century. These concepts were not only problematic for the left, barring them from ever unanimously proclaiming Brzozowski as their patron; other similar categories also posed serious difficulties to them. This was the case of the category of labor, for example, which for many was too abstract, and at times even anti-Marxist,13 as well as with the role of the individual in the process of social and cultural change, exaggerated by Brzozowski. Ideological communists were also put off the Young Poland critic because he was cited in Catholic and right-wing National Democracy circles.14 Someone who could be treated as “one of ours” by ideological opponents had to face suspicions and concerns of heresy (which were not unfounded). The outbreak of World War II further complicated the reception of Brzozowski, as it further illuminated those of his thoughts that were most easily (albeit not always correctly) associated with Nazi ideas.

After World War II Within this context, the belief about the arrival of communists in Soviet tanks, or about their being parachuted into Poland, seems to be an ideological sleight of hand meant to rid the collective memory of the fact that a large part of the leftist circles which came to power after 1944 were molded in the interwar atmosphere of heightened nationalism, in an atmosphere of harassment by the Polish government and physical attacks perpetrated by nationalist militants.15 In the opinion of these people, the situation from before the war could not be allowed to repeat itself. This is perfectly illusKędziora, “Rewolucja √wiata pracy: Stanisław Brzozowski i wydarzenia lat 1905– 1907,” in Rewolucja 1905: Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej, ed. Kamil Piskała and Wiktor Marzec (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2013), 430–48. 13 I chiefly refer here to Karol Irzykowski, one of the most important Polish literary critics in the twentieth century, or Wacław Nałkowski, the Polish geographer, educationalist and social activist. 14 The conservative and right-wing reception of Brzozowski is very intriguing and worth looking at more closely. No studies so far have been devoted to the problematic complexity of this phenomenon and, simultaneously, to the question of how right-wing circles which directly attacked him, unanimously declaring him a traitor during the trial, could possibly search for inspirations in his writings. Unfortunately, there is no space here for a more thorough exploration of this issue. 15 In Polish collective memory there is no place for a left-wing definition of national identity. On this subject see Wołowiec, “The Red and the Brown.”

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trated by the words of Ryszard Herczy≈ski, a friend of Leszek Kołakowski from their student days at the University of Łódź, who thus explained his involvement in communist politics many years later: To our wartime generation, the embodiment of absurdity and cruelty was fascism, felt and lived, leaving no room for doubt that there is no price that should not be paid to create a world in which the emergence of fascism would not be possible again. Subtle politics, frail philosophy, elegant democracy, as history had proven to us, turned out helpless in the face of Nazism; in fact they sometimes cleared the path for it. We believed (and this belief was shared by many intellectuals from Western Europe) that an effective counterbalance had to be provided by an ideology just as simple and catchy, but proclaiming opposite theses. Did we have a choice? Certainly we did, seeing as others chose different options. No, if the choice also meant active involvement.16

This quote may support the thesis that in the face of fascism and war, communism was the only option for active involvement in politics available at the time to all those who wanted to prevent history from repeating itself.17 The model of liberal democracy was unattainable owing to the geopolitical situation, but also due to its weakness against the danger posed by Nazism. Yet, bringing changes into the political sphere was not enough; it was the entire social edifice, including its cultural and intellectual domains, that had to be rebuilt and reinterpreted. Once the war ended, it was time to consider the ideas upon which this edifice could rest in the new geopolitical circumstances.18 The question about the identity of the broadly understood Polish left, its history and protagonists, had to be answered. Following a time of pre- and postwar struggle for survival, there came a time for Poles to create their own narrations about themselves and show that the ideas implemented in social and political life were not installed by Soviet agents, but were rooted in native traditions.19 The dispute about ideological progeni16

Quoted in Jan A. Kłoczowski, Więcej niż mit: Leszka Kołakowskiego spory o religię (Krakow: Znak, 1994), 20. 17 See Katarzyna Chmielewska, “Legitimation of Communism: To Build and to Demolish,” in this volume. 18 It should be remembered that postwar Poland had little alternative to falling under the influence of the USSR. The politics of the time was to some extent determined by realism, far from any variety of the spirit of insurgence or liberty. Any theories according to which resistance had any real chance of changing the political system and the future of the country should be approached with caution. 19 I do not agree with Witold Gombrowicz, who wrote in his Diary: “In reality, the end of the war found them [Poles] turned upside down, stunned, emptied. They were still capable of various collective actions, they participated in organizations, but this was because they grabbed hold of just about anything to survive, just to move, the instinct of struggle and life convulsed them, but they had been

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tors, including about the philosophical heritage of Stanisław Brzozowski, was an important element of legitimation of broad leftist circles. Ideological communists did not have to grapple with his heritage. To them, he had always been and remained a prefascist.20 Thus, the silence with which he was met in those circles in the early postwar years should come as no surprise. Brzozowski, however, posed a formidable challenge to the representatives of prewar social democracy, the non-communist left, and all others who felt some sort of connection with this tradition. They tried to find elements consistent with their vision of the world in Brzozowski’s output; it was important for them to settle the intellectual debt that they had taken from him before the war, when his worldview was still in the process of crystallization. The best example of this settlement tendency is a text by prewar literary historian Stanisław Adamczewski, entitled Patronat Brzozowskiego? (The patronage of Brzozowski?).21 The question mark in the title is telling. It indicates the problematic nature of this patron, who should be, according to the author, “a live embodiment of certain affections, spiritual inclinations, creative pursuits, and accomplishments. A live one, because captured in a concrete life, in a concrete sum of works passed on by a man who once existed, and thus in something that is easily contemplated in order to avoid going astray, to avoid losing one’s path in critical moments.”22 Could this patron be an author whose works provoked so many ideological reservations, whose biography was tainted by accusations of collaboration with the tsarist secret police? The fundamental, albeit tacit, question is whether it was possible to defend the heritage of Brzozowski, whose works had been enlisted in the service of Polish right-wing circles during the interwar period, after the nightmare of a war unleashed by the Nazis in the name of their ideals? This and other doubts concerning various areas of his activity are not conclusively answered. The entire text is styled as an stunned. Marxism filled the vacuum in them. Marxism, I imagine, fell on them before they were really able to come to themselves, that is, to their prewar selves. I think, too, that they did not experience the revolution because they didn’t have anything to experience it with. If only Marxism had appeared in Poland spontaneously, gradually, overcoming resistance. Instead, Marxism was imposed on that country, just as one drops a cage over a stunned bird or clothes a naked person.” Witold Gombrowicz, Diary 1953–1956, ed. Jan Kott, trans. Lillian Vallee, vol. 1 (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 207–8. The problem of communism’s “installation” in Poland is much more complex and far from the vision presented by the author of Cosmos. 20 Stępie≈, Spór o spu√ciznę po Stanisławie Brzozowskim, 17. For example, Andrzej Stawar, who will be discussed later on, wrote about him in a similar tone. 21 Stanisław Adamczewski, “Patronat Brzozowskiego?,” Nauka i Sztuka, no. 4 (1946): 31–45. 22 Ibid., 44.

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examination of conscience of a generation that grew up in the interbellum, lived through a war, and faced the task of materially and spiritually rebuilding the country. A reader of Adamczewski’s article searching for advice as to the further course to be followed will certainly not find it; the author, after all, did not aim to give it. It is certainly a text that poses important questions, yet it does not leave any hope of obtaining simple and satisfying answers that many were looking for, lost in the new, nascent reality. This doubtful and debt-settling attitude was presented not only by Adamczewski. “An examination of conscience” was also undertaken by two literary historians and critics, Janina Kulczycka-Saloni and Kazimierz Koźniewski, who had already been interested in the thought of the Young Poland philosopher before the war. The impulse for taking the settlement stance was given by a new 1946 edition of Płomienie (Flames), the best-known and most acclaimed novel by Brzozowski about the fight of Narodnaya Volya against the tsarist power. They both wrote lengthy reviews of the book,23 accounting also for the sociopolitical situation surrounding their words. This is why, besides praise for the content of the work, the reviews exhibit a considerable coolness toward the author himself, as well as toward some chosen motifs in the book that stirred the most serious doubts in the erstwhile geopolitical situation. This does not stop them from admitting to having been inspired by Brzozowski’s youth ideals. Both, however, admit that the war had forced them to revise their worldviews, as evidenced by the aforementioned reviews. Contrary to Adamczewski, they do not express excessive wavering or doubt as to their ideological assessment of the author of The Legend of Young Poland, which comes across rather negative despite the overt sentiment. But the readers did not encounter the unequivocal condemnation that was the dominant element of the Stalinist period.24 This does not mean that the tasks which were presented by Brzozowski were no longer in effect; only that these sorts of questions cannot be answered in the way that Brzozowski did. The settlement attitude was not frequently exhibited, but it did signal that there was a “problem” with Brzozowski and with the tradition he represented, which was not doomed to failure or to being labelled as “reactive” in the first postwar years of struggling for power. Many more or less well-known authors, including Czesław Latawiec,25 or Stefania Zahorska

23

Janina Kulczycka-Saloni, “O ‘Płomieniach’ Stanisława Brzozowskiego: Nowa recenzja bardzo starej powie√ci,” Kuźnica, no. 32 (1948): 3; Kazimierz Koźniewski, “‘Płomienie’ Brzozowskiego,” Twórczo√ć, no. 4 (1948): 109–12. 24 I have covered this topic more extensively in my essay “Między historią a biografią: Funkcjonowanie my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego w latach 1945–1948,” Pamiętnik Literacki, no. 1 (2017): 23–48. 25 Czesław Latawiec, “Ideologia Brzozowskiego a chwila obecna,” Zdroje Sztuki, Literatury i Nauki, no. 1 (1945): 11–13.

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(who was writing from outside of Poland),26 hoped that a part of the philosopher’s heritage of the Young Poland philosopher would be adapted to the new ideology that was to serve as the intellectual and spiritual core of postwar Poland. The latter author in particular hoped that the Marxist element of Brzozowski’s philosophy would turn out important for building the identity of Polish postwar left and, consequently, for building the new political order.27 Any hopes for incorporating at least a part of Brzozowski’s philosophy into the ideological canon of the new authorities were dissipated by an essay by Paweł Hoffman, entitled “The Legend of Stanisław Brzozowski,”28 published in Nowe Drogi (New Roads), an official magazine of the Polish Workers’ Party and then of the Polish United Workers’ Party. The author firmly rejected the heritage of the Young Poland philosopher, doing away with the myths that grew around him. If one considers just the article—its content and methods of argumentation—in isolation from the context that surrounds it, it seems like an aberration, Stalinist newspeak, an ideological baton. Certainly, these terms reflect the “spirit” of the text, and if one were to stop at this, the article would not be worthy of attention from an academic point of view. We may, however, assume, given the political nature of the text, that Hoffman puts himself in the role of the highest legislator decreeing the harmfulness of Brzozowski’s thought. At the same time, he cuts off all discussions about the possibilities of including him as an element of identity of the new left. As a consequence, the Young Poland philosopher—not by way of discussion about his output, but by virtue of political decree, of which Hoffman’s article was a portent—was removed from the pantheon of Marxist philosophers, labelled as “reactionary,” and flung into collective oblivion for a number of years. Even though some timid voices trying to defend Brzozowski could be heard after the publication (for instance, in a discussion on the 26

Stefania Zahorska, “My√li o Brzozowskim,” in Jest Bóg, żyje prawda: Inna twarz Stanisława Brzozowskiego, ed. Maciej Urbanowski (Krakow: Fronda, 2012). The text was written in 1945, before the end of the war. 27 “The end of the war will in no case be the end to our tribulations. More than ever we need strong will. We need such views that will guide our efforts, which will be the solidification of our unwaveringly active attitude. The philosophy of Brzozowski offers proposals that go in this direction, proposals that need rethinking and supplementation.” Zahorska, “My√li o Brzozowskim,” 268. 28 Paweł Hoffman, “Legenda Stanisława Brzozowskiego,” Nowe Drogi, no. 2 (1947): 103–35. I scrutinize this text in my chapter “The Stalinist Reception of Stanisław Brzozowski’s Philosophy: The Case of Paweł Hoffman,” in Stanisław Brzozowski and the Migration of Ideas: Transnational Perspectives on the Intellectual Field in Twentieth-Century Poland and Beyond, ed. Jens Herlth and Edward M. Świderski (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2019), 303–19.

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pages of Nowiny Literackie [Literary News]),29 they were silenced quite quickly and the interpretation established by Hoffman was repeated a few more times, notably by prominent Stalinist-era philosopher Adam Schaff.30 Both then and from the perspective of today, this interpretation was unfair to the Young Poland philosopher, unwarranted, even shameful. It must be kept in mind, however, that by the majority of these people Brzozowski was associated with the stuffy interwar social and political atmosphere created by the Sanation and National Democracy that they did not want to reemerge in postwar Poland. The tendencies that Brzozowski expressed were still identified with a more or less rational fear that history may repeat itself, and this fear was not a manifestation of excessive pessimism at the time, but a genuine possibility (the threat of World War III, alongside the fight against anti-communist rebels, strongly nationalist and anti-Semitic).

The new beginning: Brzozowski after 1956 The discussion on Brzozowski’s heritage took place once again in 1956, around the time of the thaw in cultural and scientific fields. Yet, until the beginning of the next decade, these voices were quite restrained, and they came from Catholic (Józef Marian Święcicki, Paweł Trzebuchowski)31 and academic circles only. The undertaken topics were of propaedeutic character and they aimed mostly to bring Brzozowski back into the collective memory, without interpreting his writings in a new way. The caution in the selection of topics of these texts has to do with the continuous political uncertainty and testing the “reality of changes” with regard to freedom of speech: a few years of Stalinism made many artists wary of the promises of authorities. The delay also has to do with the particularity of academic circulation in the country. This, however, does not change the fact that around this time, interesting voices emerged that tried to restore Brzozowski to the collective memory, but also to place his thought in new contexts. The discussion around the famous “Brzozowski case” was also 29

The discussion was joined by Jerzy Wyszomirski, “Quid iuris? Quid Poloniae?,” Nowiny Literackie, no. 33 (1947): 23; Alina Świderska, “Verba volant, scripta manent,” Nowiny Literackie, no. 36 (1947): 6; Wula Buberowa, “W sprawie Brzozowskiego,” Nowiny Literackie, no. 19 (1948): 6; Henryk Jabło≈ski, “Jeszcze o Brzozowskim,” Nowiny Literackie, no. 22 (1948): 7. 30 Adam Schaff, Narodziny i rozwój filozofii marksistowskiej (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1950), 312–34. 31 Paweł Trzebuchowski, “Stanisław Brzozowski: PostaΔ i twórczo√Δ,” Kierunki, nos. 32–33 (1956): 6–7; Jan Marian Święcicki, “Wielka improwizacja Stanisława Brzozowskiego,” Znak, no. 4 (1958): 371–98.

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reopened, rekindled by information about the emergence of new documents which were to give decisive proof on the issue of his alleged collaboration with the tsarist secret police. Memoir texts were also published, in which witnesses of the times or people directly linked to Brzozowski tried to prove, using psychological arguments, that it would be impossible for a person of such integrity to collaborate with the Okhrana.32 Brzozowski’s return to intellectual awareness and circulation occurred in the 1960s. One of the important texts that initiated the renaissance of the Young Poland critic was a long essay written by Andrzej Stawar in 1961, O Brzozowskim.33 It is one of more interesting attempts at a global interpretation of the philosopher’s thought, accounting for the historical context in which his heritage was anchored, as well as covering his reception.34 Stawar’s essay is largely based on his text written in 1928 and published in the Dźwignia (Lever) magazine.35 In this interwar text, Stawar formulated a negative opinion on Brzozowski’s heritage, and he did so clearly, firmly, and without holding back.36 The 1961 text is more lenient in its delivery, although the author did not change his overall opinion on the output produced by the Young Poland philosopher. Rewriting his article—as this is largely what it boiled down to—was to Stawar a type of settlement, much the same as for Adamczewski, Koźniewski, or Kulczycka32

See, for example, Mieczysław Sroka, “Sprawa Stanisława Brzozowskiego,” Świat, nos. 15–17 (1959), and “Sprawa Stanisława Brzozowskiego: Tajny list Bakaja,” Świat, no. 25 (1959): 14; Kazimierz A. Jaworski [kaj], “Noty,” Kamena, nos 12 and 23 (1959): 8 and 12; Kazimierz Błeszy≈ski, “Znałem Brzozowskiego,” Odgłosy, no. 20 (1958): 6–7; Romuald Kara√, “Nieznane listy Stanisława Brzozowskiego,” Życie Literackie, no. 48 (1962): 5, “Nota o nieznanych listach Brzozowskiego,” Kamena, no. 1 (1960): 12; “Nieznane listy Stanisława Brzozowskiego,” Życie Literackie, no. 48 (1962): 5, “Lubelskie dokumenty kryją tajemnicę St. Brzozowskiego,” Sztandar Młodych, no. 300 (1959): 1–2; “...krzywda gorsza niż zbrodnia,” Kurier Lubelski, no. 153 (1961): 3; Zofia Kwieci≈ska [ZK], “O sprawie autora ‘Płomieni’ po pół wieku,” Trybuna Ludu, no. 107 (1959): 4. 33 Andrzej Stawar, “O Brzozowskim,” in O Brzozowskim i inne szkice (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1961), 5–112. 34 Leszek Kołakowski argues against some of Stawar’s theses in a chapter on Brzozowski, in Main Currents of Marxism, 223. 35 I refer to a reprint published in Andrzej Stawar, Szkice literackie (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1957), 73–117. 36 “Today, when his [Stanisław Brzozowski’s] work is bearing tangible fruit, we more than ever have to judge and resist this ominous propaganda, which frequently comes dangerously close to the core of the people’s forces, as it, clad in pseudo-revolutionary forms, expresses the premises of fascist propaganda.” Andrzej Stawar, “Brzozowski,” in Szkice literackie (Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1957), 117.

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Saloni a decade prior. The vector here was different, however. According to Stawar’s judgement, Brzozowski was a victim of Stalinist ideology, unfairly and disgracefully ousted from the canon. This essay is, at the same time, an attempt to keep the Marxist critical categories in force and to sever all links with Stalinist ideology. At first blush, this voice could be classified as one of the so-called revisionists;37 indeed, such a classification would not be entirely misguided. The problem is that Stawar addressed mainly political and social categories, not the philosophical issues that dominated the post-October discourse. Brzozowski still remains ideologically alien to him owing to his cult of strength and of the individual, but Stawar defends him against excessively condescending interpretations. In this sense, Stawar is a representative of what I call the socialist current of interpretation of Brzozowski’s output in the 1960s. It is not the same as Marxist revisionism, although it too breaks away from the Stalinist interpretation of Marx. It does, however, accept the patrimony of Lenin and the fundamental tenets of the political interpretation of the communist movement. This is the spirit in which Leon Wudzki, faithful to Party guidelines, intends to read Brzozowski, trying to find in the philosopher’s writings not only the obvious Marxist contexts, but also Leninist ones.38 In his eyes, Brzozowski is elevated to the role of a fighter for a new socialist system, who goes astray as a result of personal turmoil and shifts toward irrational religious tendencies.39 Wudzki attempts to rehabilitate Brzozowski not by way of emphasizing the abuses of Stalinist interpretation, but rather by showing that his writings contain elements that may be considered arguments in favor of the Party interpretation of Marxism in the spirit of Lenin. Thus, he tries to prove that Hoffman and all his followers were wrong as regards a part of their accusations. There were not many such strong and unambiguous voices trying to show that Brzozowski was, up until a certain moment, a right-thinking Marxist-Leninist. Yet, these voices cannot be allocated in the 37

This negative term that representatives of authorities, wary of overly far-reaching changes of the system after 1956, applied to their opponents is used today rather as a descriptive category for the group of party intelligentsia that advocated broad transformations, citing source texts of Marxism. In this chapter, I use the term in the latter meaning. See Kajetan Mojsak, “Publicystyka polityczna Leszka Kołakowskiego (1955–1975),” in Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski (Warsaw: Instytut Bada≈ Literackich PAN, 2014), 129–50. 38 Leon Wudzki, “Brzozowski—pisarz zaangażowany,” Argumenty, no. 36 (1966): 9, “Labriola i Brzozowski,” Argumenty, no. 9 (1967): 8, 10, “W obozie postępu: Brzozowski przeciw Sienkiewiczowi,” Argumenty, no. 48 (1968): 1. 39 Leon Wudzki, “Brzozowski katolik—ateista,” Argumenty, no. 46 (1966): 3, “Ewolucja czy przełom w poglądach religijnych Stanisława Brzozowskiego,” Twórczo√ć, no. 2 (1968): 104.

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catalog of revisionist texts. Even though their purpose is to revise the Stalinist model of Marxism, they still maintain that despite errors and distortions, the Party is the rightful heir and guardian of communist ideals. Such an approach was met with impassioned opposition, best illustrated in the polemic taken up with Wudzki by Mieczysław Sroka, who later published Brzozowski’s Listy (Letters), and who vigorously defended the Young Poland philosopher against any bids to have him annexed by the official discourse.40 The stake of all these disputes was not only the past of Polish thought and culture, but even more significantly, its future in a socialist state. As I mentioned at the very beginning, the reception of Brzozowski’s thought does not occur in isolation from social and political events, which is evidenced by the analyses and discussions covered herein. More or less from the mid-1960s, very significant changes began in politics, society, culture, and science.41 This is attested to by, on the one hand, the noticeable signs of exhaustion of revisionist tendencies, and on the other hand, by the slow but steady movement of the authorities toward a more authoritarian style of power, and finally by the increasingly strong influence of religion and the Church on the lives of Poles, including in intellectual and scientific areas. From the 1970s onward, it was this very religion and Church that loaned its language and categories to the intellectual discourse of the nascent democratic opposition, which were surprisingly easily adopted also by the earlier revisionists.42 This change is also visible within the field of interpretation of Stanisław Brzozowski’s thought. The coryphaeus of this change was Bohdan Cywi≈ski, who rejected socialist and Marxist categories, describing and interpreting the heritage of Płomienie’s author not only in the spirit of Christian philosophy, but also in the categories of a religious experience.43 This manner of reading is nothing new: it has a strong tradition anchored in the two interwar decades, especially in 40

Leon Wudzki, “Jeszcze raz spór o Brzozowskiego,” Kultura, no. 3 (1963): 3, 11; Mieczysław Sroka, “Jeszcze raz spór o Brzozowskiego,” Kultura, no. 11 (1963): 4; Leon Wudzki, “W sprawie sporu o Brzozowskiego,” Kultura, no. 16 (1963): 15. 41 See Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, eds. Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, 2014). 42 The process of gradual change of the official authorities’ language of criticism is analyzed by Michał Siermi≈ski in his book Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980; Od demokracji robotniczej do narodowego paternalizmu (Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2016). On changes that occurred in the 1970s, see Kajetan Mojsak, “Around Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Miazga, Kazimierz Brandys’ Nierzeczywisto√ć, and Polish Leftist Thought of the Late 1960s and Early 1970s,” in this volume. 43 Bohdan Cywi≈ski, “Trud poszukiwania,” Znak, nos. 7–8 (1962): 1063–1088. The best expression of the author’s broad-sweeping interpretative project is his book Rodowody niepokornych (Warsaw: Biblioteka “Więzi,” 1971).

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Catholic circles and others close to them.44 It may be concluded that the situation in the 1960s was a repeat of the one in the interbellum years. There were many coexisting interpretative directions, but most of them were rooted either in the Christian-Catholic-universalist current, or in the Marxist one. Despite many similarities, these two periods were considerably different. The most fundamental difference is the rejection of Marxist language and, consequently, a departure from interpretations motivated by social and political reasons, and a turn toward scientific, “objective” description of the subject and toward a greater interest in Brzozowski’s critical and literary work. The dispute about Brzozowski, who used to set minds on fire and who used to be inscribed in the contemporary reality, begins to die out, replaced by “cold” and “analytical” examination of his works. This turnaround certainly had a lot to do with the events of March 1968, which to the majority of ideological Marxists represented a trauma and put an end to their dreams of change or “liberalization from within.” And even though socialist language was still used to describe social, political, and cultural phenomena,45 the opposition began to lose its interest in it, finding in the universalist and humanistic ideas of Christianity important and fundamental values for building a national identity, contrary to the project of the authorities. As follows from the arguments presented by Cywi≈ski in his Rodowody niepokornych (Genealogy of the rebellious), this content did in fact lie at the root of Marxism and the communist movement, but it was distorted over the course of history. However, since a return to the roots turned out impossible in the case of revisionism, it was necessary to search for a system of values built upon similar pillars, but different from the communist project.

In the eye of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas When writing about the reception of Stanisław Brzozowski in the People’s Republic of Poland, one cannot omit the interpretations of his works elaborated in the circles of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas (Warszawska Szkoła Historii Idei). I mean here primarily Leszek Kołakowski, Bronisław Baczko, Krzysztof Pomian, Andrzej Walicki, and an heir to this way of thinking and research, Andrzej Mencwel. I would like to shed more light on the first three authors, and to cover them separately, for two reasons. Firstly, each of them has travelled the road from faith in the LeninistStalinist interpretation of Marx, through revisionism, to abandonment or complete marginalization of Marxism’s influence on their work. Secondly, 44 45

Stępie≈, Spór o spu√ciznę po Stanisławie Brzozowskim, 79–88. See Władysław Bie≈kowski, Motory i hamulce socjalizmu (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1969).

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even though they all wrote about Brzozowski, he remained on the periphery of their main interests. I will attempt to prove that the Young Poland philosopher played an important role in their intellectual development, even though he was not excessively present in their academic output. Walicki and Mencwel stand apart from the other three mentioned philosophers not only because of their biographies,46 but also because of the important place that the person and thoughts of Stanisław Brzozowski occupy in their academic works. For all of them he was a reinterpreter of the cultural and philosophical background of Polish identity. Reading his prose was, for them, a struggle with Polish intellectual tradition and an attempt at projecting a new one. A lot has been written already about the academic development of Baczko, Pomian, and especially Kołakowski. I will not repeat well-known and thoroughly studied analyses and diagnoses here. However, omitting the role of Brzozowski in the shaping of their philosophy, worldview, and methodology is surprising.47 There are not many works devoted exclusively to Brzozowski in the output of the aforementioned authors. This margin is significantly broadened if we also consider manifestations of their academic activity beyond their publications. One of them was a seminar about the Young Poland philosopher, conducted by Bronisław Baczko at the University of Warsaw in 1964.48 It may be stated that this event sparked interest in Brzozowski within the circle of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas, which resulted, among other things, in a monograph issue of Twórczo√ć (Creativity) in 1966,49 and a conference held on January 17–19, 1972, by the Institute of Literary Research, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, and Chair of the History of Science and Technology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.50 Allegedly, Leszek Kołakowski himself did not read 46

Andrzej Walicki was never a member of the PZPR and never fully identified with communism, although he too strongly felt the “Hegelian bite” at one point; he covers this extensively in his book Idee i ludzie: Próba autobiografii (Warsaw: Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, 2010). Andrzej Mencwel, owing to his age (he was born in 1940), could not actively participate in the intellectual life of the Stalinist period. 47 This omission was particularly surprising to me taking into account the book by Szymon Wróbel, Filozof i terytorium: Polityka idei w my√li Leszka Kołakowskiego, Bronisława Baczki, Krzysztofa Pomiana i Marka J. Siemka (Warsaw: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 2016) which is an interesting attempt at tracing the intellectual path of the selected authors. 48 Ryszard Sitek, Warszawska Szkoła Historii Idei: Między historią a teraźniejszo√cią (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2000), 84. 49 Twórczo√ć, no. 6 (1966). 50 It was followed up by a book: Andrzej Walicki and Roman Zimand, eds., Wokół my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1974).

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Brzozowski’s works until the mid-1960s. I approach this declaration with caution; more precisely, I am of the opinion that the aforementioned authors must have, to some extent, come into contact with Brzozowski’s thought long before they declared their interest in his person and work. A number of facts support this thesis. Above all, within their circles, Brzozowski was discussed and written about (not much, and critically, but quite eloquently), as evidenced by the aforementioned works of Paweł Hoffman and Adam Schaff. This latter author was a director of the Institute of Scientific Staff Education (Instytut Kształcenia Kadr Naukowych), where both Kołakowski and Baczko studied. Secondly, Brzozowski was an important element of Polish leftist thought, even if his contribution to it was undermined and marginalized at the time. The fact that Kołakowski, Baczko, and Pomian also belonged to this tradition seriously weakens the thesis that they did not know at least some part of his works and thought. Naturally, these are just hypotheses that will likely never be decisively verified. Nevertheless, a great deal seems to suggest that the main representatives of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas were familiar with the fundamental tenets of Brzozowski’s philosophy. This, of course, does not necessarily mean that they were keenly interested in it. They were, nevertheless, within its orbit, including by virtue of their involvement in the political transformation after the Second World War. This passage, maintained in a conditional tone, leads me to the main thesis about the interest of Kołakowski, Baczko, and Pomian in Brzozowski. I believe that it was in his philosophy where they found the best expression of the road they had travelled from the Stalinist version of Marxism, through revisionism, all the way to general skepticism about Marxism. And even though the Young Poland philosopher was not at the center of their research interests, he moved close to them precisely owing to the intellectual, and even methodological, alignment between them. He is an important element on their biographical and academic map, because he marks the moment of departure from revisionism as a broadly understood methodological and worldview community, toward separate research paths. These claims are supported by texts devoted to Brzozowski written by representatives of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas. I am of the opinion that their interpretations of his thought are carried out similarly to the criticism performed by Brzozowski. They adopt it as a necessary way of thinking and analysis, devoid (to the joy of readers) of the Young Poland stylistic mannerisms. Even a cursory look at Kołakowski’s bibliography shows that he wrote three texts on Brzozowski.51 In fact, however, they are all variations on the 51

Leszek Kołakowski, “Miejsce filozofowania Stanisława Brzozowskiego,” Twórczo√ć, no. 6 (1966): 39–54, reprinted in Pochwała niekonsekwencji: Pisma roz-

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same topic, most fully elaborated in the texts published in the monographic issue of Twórczo√ć in 1966. It was there that Kołakowski carried out the most thorough and interesting of his analyses of Brzozowski’s philosophy of labor. The other two texts are more or less transformed versions of the original, depending on their time of writing and addressee. The main task that Kołakowski takes up is the search for the core of Brzozowski’s thought and proving its “constancy,” contrary to opinions about the fairly accidental development of Brzozowski’s concepts influenced by subsequent reading. Ryszard Sitek correctly sees in Kołakowski’s methodology something like a “phenomenological reduction,” thanks to which it is possible to reach the core of Brzozowski’s thought.52 While reading Kołakowski’s text, however, it is difficult to shake off the impression that his search for the leitmotif of Brzozowski’s philosophy is also an attempt at understanding his own intellectual journey, which took him from the “Hegelian bite” to revisionism. Two arguments support this interpretation. Firstly, it is the overarching category of anthropocentricism in Brzozowski’s philosophy. According to Kołakowski, it is this anthropocentricism that makes the thinking of the Young Poland critic and his concept of philosophy of labor starkly different from the versions of Marxism functioning at the time, even unique. As the foundation of all his research, the category of anthropocentricism occupies a privileged position in Kołakowski’s works. Indeed, up until a certain moment, it is the crucial point of all his works, and it is this similarity that forces me to see Brzozowski and Kołakowski as two entities that are very close in terms of thinking.53 The second (much more obvious) argument to support this claim is identifying Brzozowski as a precursor of anthropological elements of Marxism. Kołakowski takes this issue very personally, remembering his involvement in the Leninist-Stalinist interpretation of Marx and his later turn toward revisionism, the foundations of which correspond with Brzozowski’s thinking.54 There is one more element in this entire construction that backs up my main thesis on Brzozowski’s pivotal role in the proszone sprzed 1968 roku, ed. Zbigniew Mentzel, vol. 1 (London: Wydawnictwo Puls, 2002), 285–309; “Stanisław Brzozowski—polska filozofia pracy,” Polska, no. 1 (1966), reprinted in Pochwała niekonsekwencji, 310–17, “Stanisław Brzozowski: Marxism as Historic Subjectivism,” in Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, 215–39. 52 Sitek, Warszawska Szkoła Historii Idei, 148. 53 See Andrzej Walicki, “Stanisław Brzozowski a Leszek Kołakowski,” in Stanisław Brzozowski—drogi my√li (Krakow: Universitas 2011), 407–15. 54 Brzozowski’s precursory relationship to Western Marxism will be one of the issues most frequently mentioned by Kołakowski and Walicki with the aim of presenting his thought to foreign readers. See Kołakowski, “Stanisław Brzozowski: Marxism as Historic Subjectivism”; and Walicki, Stanislaw Brzozowski and the Polish Beginnings of “Western Marxism.”

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development of Kołakowski’s thought (and of the entire formation of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas). It is the awareness of anthropocentricism’s insufficiency in conflict with relativism, that to both these Polish philosophers was the greatest challenge of modernity. In interpreting Brzozowski’s philosophy of labor, Kołakowski reaches the problem of Brzozowski’s alleged religious “conversion,” approaching it with great caution in 1966. This issue, nevertheless, forces him to ponder on his own methodology and the changes in his adopted assumptions and declared views. Kołakowski is far from ascribing a religious meaning to the dilemmas that haunted Brzozowski on his deathbed. He rather perceives them as an attempt at basing philosophy of labor on a foundation more stable than that of a creative individual or even a community, in which the Young Poland philosopher saw a chance of overcoming the threat of relativism. Radical anthropocentricism, and at the same time the volatility of Brzozowski’s attitude toward Marx’s philosophy, are the main themes of Bronisław Baczko’s article “Absolut moralny i faktyczno√Δ istnienia (Brzozowski w kręgu antropologii Marksa)” (The moral absolute and factuality of existence: Brzozowski within the circle of Marx’s anthropology).55 The first of the mentioned issues and its influence on the shaping of Brzozowski’s subsequent philosophies comes to the fore in Baczko’s text. It also features the recurrent claim that the inability to surpass the boundary of human cognition is the foundation allowing us to seek similarities between the worldviews of Marx and Brzozowski. Furthermore, it is the place where one can notice the similarity between them and Baczko himself. These parallels often come to light, for example in the thesis that it was thanks to Marx’s inspiring influence that Brzozowski formulated his historicosociological phenomenology of culture.56 Baczko points out the same breakthrough moments in Brzozowski’s thinking as Kołakowski does. While Kołakowski analyzed them in the context of philosophy of labor, Baczko traced Brzozowski’s changing attitude toward Marx and his later interpreters, of whom Georges Sorel affected the Young Poland philosopher the most. One could refer to the interpretations by Baczko and Kołakowski as involved ones: these philosophers identify inspiring threads in Brzozowski’s work that enable them to tacitly tell their own story of grappling with Marxism. Another common element in both these interpretations is withholding opinions about Brzozowski’s alleged conversion. Both Kołakowski and Baczko sense that this is a great transformation in the 55 56

Contained in Walicki and Zimand, Wokół my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego. Bronisław Baczko, “Absolut moralny i faktyczno√Δ istnienia (Brzozowski w kręgu antropologii Marksa),” in Walicki and Zimand, Wokół my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego, 149. I would add that it is an important component of the intellectual formation of the representatives of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas.

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thinking of Brzozowski, a salto mortale that falls beyond any unambiguous evaluations. They do not want to speculate about this, having in mind the rupture they would have to face, and which not only falls outside of their competences, but also out of reach of scientific methods of analysis. They feel, however, that this rupture—this radical about-face, forever frozen in its potentiality—is a key moment also in their own intellectual biographies. Kołakowski and Baczko also arrive at this endpoint that Brzozowski came close to just before his death. It is at this endpoint that the similarities of their paths become obvious, but at the same time, the erosion of the worldview and methodological community that they create is visible as well. Krzysztof Pomian’s Warto√ć i siła: dwuznaczno√ci Brzozowskiego (Value and strength: Brzozowski’s ambiguities),57 written a few years after the texts by Kołakowski and Baczko, adopts the opposite analytical path. In trying to understand why Brzozowski could be read and treated “as one of our own” by such different intellectual formations as nationalists (followers of the National Democracy) and communists, Pomian traces the development of his thought not from the perspective of radical anthropocentricism and its subsequent incarnations, but from the perspective of transcendental values, which give hope for anchoring Brzozowski’s philosophy in absolute values.58 This is a manifestation of the same attempt at answering the question about the moment of overcoming relativist threats in Brzozowski’s philosophy. Religious “conversion” becomes the point of departure, and not of arrival. Pomian, toward the end of his text, refers to Brzozowski’s philosophy as radically anthropocentric within the meaning of “acknowledging man as an entity external to nature, one whose existence is the creation, embodiment of values that are not subject to any outside determinations.”59 This, then, is a different understanding of anthropocentricism than those offered by Kołakowski or Baczko. The interpretations proposed by the two latter philosophers go in a different direction than that of Pomian, although their goals and assumptions, as well as the results of their analysis, are alike. Worldview and methodological similarities place them within the same intellectual formation, and it is because of them that Brzozowski occupied such a key role in the intellectual development of the authors discussed here. Differences, on the other hand, stem from histori-

57

See Krzysztof Pomian, “Warto√Δ i siła: dwuznaczno√ci Brzozowskiego” in Walicki and Zimand, Wokół my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego, 43–98. Reprinted in Krzysztof Pomian, Filozofowie w √wiecie polityki: Eseje 1957–1974 (Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2004), 330–73. 58 “Brzozowski . . . wants to find something overbearingly certain and absolutely binding. All of his philosophical work is about seeking the absolute.” Pomian, “Warto√Δ i siła,” 50. 59 Pomian, “Warto√Δ i siła,” 97.

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cal and biographical aspects in my view. Even though texts by Kołakowski (1966), Baczko (1967),60 and Pomian (1974) were written just a few years apart, in the perspective of social history and biography the first two belong to a different world than the third. Kołakowski and Baczko wrote their interpretations of philosophy of labor in the spirit of revisionism, at a time when this language was slowly exhausting, but it was still lively enough to inspire interesting and innovative intellectual ventures. The year 1974, when Pomian’s text was published, was dominated by a new interpretative idiom, evidencing the collapse of faith in the possibility of systemic reform and of cooperation with the authorities. An expression of this is seen in Pomian’s interpretation of Brzozowski in the spirit of Hegelian transcendentalism.61 Kołakowski, Baczko, and Pomian, despite their differences, shared a methodology elaborated at the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas. It is particularly evident in the aforementioned phenomenological components, but also in their detailed analysis of concepts “on the go,” that is, in strict connection with their temporality, treated as an inherent element of any attempts at analysis and research. It is this meeting point of the diachrony and synchrony vectors that to me represents one of the most significant manifestations from the methodological community of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas and its students. The differences between the first two and Pomian are a result of diverging intellectual influences, whose boundary is marked around the year 1968. The thesis follows that writing about Brzozowski before and after March was, and had to be, different owing to the paradigm shift in the ideological sphere, with a simultaneous retention of the methodology worked out within the revisionistic methodology of researching intellectual history. This observation is confirmed by the works of Andrzej Walicki and Andrzej Mencwel,62 about whom I cannot write much here. The first of them must be considered a member of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas who codeveloped its methodology, and the second one a student and heir of this formation. Despite these evident (if somewhat oversimplified) differences, their works and attitude toward Stanisław Brzozowski have more in common than one might initially think. This is especially true when considering how they conduct their studies of him. Both Walicki and

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Baczko’s text was published in 1974, but the book version of the article bears the date 1967. 61 “Thus, we approach values . . . not only from the perspective of humanity or humankind, but also from the perspective of the entity itself, taken as a whole, which through us and thanks to us shifts from a potential state to actuality.” Pomian, “Warto√Δ i siła,” 58. 62 Walicki, Stanisław Brzozowski—drogi my√li (1977); Andrzej Mencwel, Stanisław Brzozowski: Kształtowanie my√li krytycznej (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1976).

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Mencwel treat Brzozowski as a subject of thorough academic analysis, without anchoring him within the context of ongoing disputes. They try to universalize his thought, to detach him from unambiguous associations with current problems or with the fight he once represented.63 This does not mean that they did not feel an affinity with Brzozowski or that he did not inspire them; indeed, he was even more important than that. With regard to Andrzej Mencwel, we could even say that Brzozowski was (and still is) not only a role model to him, but also a companion of intellectual and life quests.64 The difference between Walicki and Mencwel and the three researchers described above consists in the completely distinct language of interpretation, devoid of Marxist values and categories. The difference is extremely subtle here and so, in order to be understood properly, I will repeat this: Walicki and Mencwel abandon Marxist categories of interpretation of Brzozowski, which is not tantamount to rejecting affinities toward the values proclaimed by this direction, and especially toward fair writing about Marx as read by Brzozowski. I believe that even though they are faithful to the methodology of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas, they abandon the Marxist paradigm, thus breaking away with a tradition which was still strong in the mid-1960s. This, I think, proves that viewing the year 1968 as a point in time that marked a change not only in political and social life, but also in the intellectual space, is justified. Why do I put so much emphasis on the representatives of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas? At first glance, it appears a very hermetic dispute on a strictly Polish subject. Of course, to some extent, this is true. But in the background arises the vision of Brzozowski as a modern philosopher who wanted to put Polish culture and thought into a broader, global context. They try to redefine Polish identity by contrasting it with Western issues. When we added that the communist project was also a type of modernization,65 we can see a tight connection between them. In fact, the interpretations of Brzozowski’s thought given to us by Kołakowski, Baczko, Pomian, Walicki, and Mencwel was another attempt to modernize Polish culture in a broader context. Unfortunately, March 1968 abruptly halted this movement, even forcing three of them to emigrate.

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This is illustrated, for instance, in the decreased interest in Brzozowski in the last two decades of the People’s Republic of Poland. 64 See Andrzej Mencwel, Stanisław Brzozowski: Postawa krytyczna; Wiek XX (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2014). 65 See Chmielewska, “Legitimation of Communism” in this volume.

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Conclusion I attempted to prove in this chapter that Brzozowski was a very important element in the shaping of awareness of the Polish intelligentsia66— understood as a value-forming class—in the period between 1945 and 1975, and that he also had an influence on Polish science and culture. Embedding the foregoing analyses in a broader context was to show, in turn, that this process was not isolated from other components of broadly understood history (not only political) of Poland in the period covered here. I hope that such an approach to this topic has allowed me to evade an excessively general perspective, while at the same time shedding light on the transformations that took place in one of the most important areas of life in People’s Poland. All conclusions are based upon an exploration of a wealth of materials that I could not present here fully; I was therefore forced to make some indispensable generalizations and shortcuts. My aim was to emphasize the main theses, which I expect will seem controversial to some readers. It was not my objective to avoid these controversial claims. I hope that they have engendered critical thinking not only about the significance of Brzozowski and his thought for Polish intellectual history, but also critical thinking about postwar Poland in general. I wish for the conclusions presented herein to act as a counterbalance to the erroneous belief expressed by the literary critic Ryszard Koziołek, who wrote that “despite his visionary analyses of Polish culture and prophetic social diagnoses, Brzozowski—something I cannot understand to this day—was of no use in the PRL.”67 In light of the materials I have collected and my analyses of them, this is certainly not true. Brzozowski was not only useful in People’s Poland, but he also turned out to be one of the most important intellectual references for the leftist intelligentsia of that time. Therefore, it can be confidently concluded that Brzozowski has a lot to say about the People’s Republic of Poland. Translated by Kalina Iwanek-Malinowska This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

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About Polish intelligentsia and its role in People’s Poland, see Anna Zawadzka, “The Waning of Communism in the People’s Republic of Poland: The Case of Discourse on Intelligentsia,” in this volume. 67 Ryszard Koziołek, “Życie z Brzozowskim,” in Dobrze się my√li literaturą (Katowice and Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne and Uniwersytet Śląski, 2016), 238.

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Bibliography Adamczewski, Stanisław. “Patronat Brzozowskiego?” Nauka i Sztuka, no. 4 (1946): 31–45. Baczko, Bronisław. “Absolut moralny i faktyczno√Δ istnienia (Brzozowski w kręgu antropologii Marksa).” In Wokół my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego, edited by Andrzej Walicki and Roman Zimand, 127–78. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1974. Bie≈kowski, Władysław. Motory i hamulce socjalizmu. Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1969. Brykczynski, Paul. Primed for Violence: Murder, Antisemitism, and Democratic Politics in Interwar Poland. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016. Brzozowski, Stanisław. “Monistyczne pojmowanie dziejów i filozofia krytyczna.” In Kultura i życie: Zagadnienia sztuki i twórczo√ci; W walce o √wiatopogląd. Introduction by Andrzej Walicki, 273–347. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973. ———. “Fryderyk Henryk Amiel (1821–1881): Przyczynek do psychologii współczesnej.” In Głosy w√ród nocy: Studia nad przesileniem romantycznym kultury europejskiej; Z teki po√miertnej wydał i przedmową poprzedził Ostap Ortwin, 131–46. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2007. ———. Pisma polityczne: Wybór. Edited by Michał Sutowski. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2011. Cywi≈ski, Bohdan. Rodowody niepokornych. Warsaw: Biblioteka “Więzi,” 1971. Gombrowicz, Witold. Diary 1953–1956. Edited by Jan Kott. Translated by Lillian Vallee. Vol. 1. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988. Hoffman, Paweł. “Legenda Stanisława Brzozowskiego.” Nowe Drogi, no. 2 (1947): 103–35. Kędziora, Krzysztof. “Rewolucja √wiata pracy: Stanisław Brzozowski i wydarzenia lat 1905–1907.” In Rewolucja 1905: Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej, edited by Kamil Piskała and Wiktor Marzec, 430–48. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2013. https://issuu.com/krytykapolityczna/docs/pkp-rewo1905_net, accessed January 9, 2021. Kłoczowski, Jan Andrzej. Więcej niż mit: Leszka Kołakowskiego spory o religię. Krakow: Znak, 1994. Kołakowski, Leszek. “Miejsce filozofowania Stanisława Brzozowskiego.” Twórczo√ć, no. 6 (1966): 39–54. ———. Main Currents of Marxism: Its Rise, Growth and Dissolution. Vol. 2, Golden Age. Translated by P. S. Falla. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. ———. Pochwała niekonsekwencji: Pisma rozproszone sprzed 1968 roku, edited by Zbigniew Mentzel. Vol. 1. London: Wydawnictwo Puls, 2002. Koziołek, Ryszard. “Życie z Brzozowskim”. In Dobrze się my√li literaturą, 223–40. Katowice and Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne and Uniwersytet Śląski, 2016. Koźniewski, Kazimierz. “‘Płomienie’ Brzozowskiego.” Twórczo√ć, no. 4 (1948): 109–12. Kulczycka-Saloni, Janina. “O ‘Płomieniach’ Stanisława Brzozowskiego: Nowa recenzja bardzo starej powie√ci.” Kuźnica, no. 32 (1948): 3–4. Latawiec, Czesław. “Ideologia Brzozowskiego a chwila obecna.” Zdroje Sztuki, Literatury i Nauki, no. 1 (1945): 11–13.

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Mencwel, Andrzej. Stanisław Brzozowski: Kształtowanie my√li krytycznej. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1976. ———. Stanisław Brzozowski: Postawa krytyczna; Wiek XX. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2014. Miłosz, Czesław. Wyprawa w Dwudziestolecie. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1999. Mojsak, Kajetan. “Publicystyka polityczna Leszka Kołakowskiego (1955–1975).” In Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, 129–50. Warsaw: Instytut Bada≈ Literackich PAN, 2014. Pomian, Krzysztof. Filozofowie w √wiecie polityki: Eseje 1957–1974. Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2004. ———. “Warto√Δ i siła: dwuznaczno√ci Brzozowskiego.” In Wokół my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego, edited by Andrzej Walicki and Roman Zimand, 43–98. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1974. Rams, Paweł. “Między historią a biografią: Funkcjonowanie my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego w latach 1945–1948.” Pamiętnik Literacki, no. 1 (2017): 23–48. ———. “The Stalinist Reception of Stanisław Brzozowski’s Philosophy: The Case of Paweł Hoffman.” In: Stanisław Brzozowski and the Migration of Ideas: Transnational Perspectives on the Intellectual Field in Twentieth-Century Poland and Beyond, edited by Jens Herlth and Edward M. Świderski, 303–19. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2019. Schaff, Adam. Narodziny i rozwój filozofii marksistowskiej. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1950. Siermi≈ski, Michał. Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980; Od demokracji robotniczej do narodowego paternalizmu. Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2016. Sitek, Ryszard. Warszawska Szkoła Historii Idei: Między historią a teraźniejszo√cią. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2000. Słonimski, Antoni. Kroniki tygodniowe 1936–1939. Edited by Rafał Habielski. Warsaw: LTW, 2004. Stawar, Andrzej. “Brzozowski.” In Szkice literackie, 73–117. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1957. ———. “O Brzozowskim.” In O Brzozowskim i inne szkice, 5–112. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1961. Stępie≈, Marian. Spór o spu√ciznę po Stanisławie Brzozowskim. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1976. Święcicki, Jan Marian. “Wielka improwizacja Stanisława Brzozowskiego.” Znak, no. 4 (1958): 371–98. Traverso, Enzo. Historia jako pole bitwy: Interpretacja przemocy w XX wieku. Translated by Światosław F. Nowicki. Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2014. Trzebuchowski, Paweł. “Stanisław Brzozowski: PostaΔ i twórczo√Δ.” Kierunki, nos. 32–33 (1956): 6–7. Walicki, Andrzej. Idee i ludzie: Próba autobiografii. Warsaw: Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, 2010. ———. Stanisław Brzozowski—drogi my√li. Warsaw: PWN, 1977. ———. Stanisław Brzozowski—drogi my√li. 2nd ed. Krakow: Universitas, 2011.

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———. Stanislaw Brzozowski and the Polish Beginnings of “Western Marxism.” Oxford: Calderon Press, 1989. ———. “Stanisław Brzozowski a Leszek Kołakowski.” In Stanisław Brzozowski— drogi my√li, 407–15. Krakow: Universitas, 2011. Walicki, Andrzej, and Roman Zimand, eds. Wokół my√li Stanisława Brzozowskiego. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1974. Woźniakowski, Krzysztof. “Dwie literatury.” In Marian Stępie≈, Polska lewica literacka, 271–332. Warsaw: PWN, 1985. Wróbel, Szymon. Filozof i terytorium: Polityka idei w my√li Leszka Kołakowskiego, Bronisława Baczki, Krzysztofa Pomiana i Marka J. Siemka. Warsaw: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 2016. Zahorska, Stefania. “My√li o Brzozowskim.” In Jest Bóg, żyje prawda: Inna twarz Stanisława Brzozowskiego, edited by Maciej Urbanowski, 249–68. Krakow: Fronda, 2012.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Around Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Miazga, Kazimierz Brandys’ Nierzeczywisto√ć, and Polish Leftist Thought of the Late 1960s and Early 1970s Kajetan Mojsak

I. The subject of this text is Polish political prose of the 1970s, explored through the examples of two novels: Miazga (Pulp) by Jerzy Andrzejewski and Nierzeczywisto√ć (Unreality, published in English as A Question of Reality) by Kazimierz Brandys.1 Both texts are associated with breakthrough 1

Jerzy Andrzejewski (1909–1983) was a writer, publicist, and screenwriter, for many years recognized as one of the most outstanding Polish writers (he was considered a Polish Nobel Prize candidate). In the 1930s, he was linked with Christian personalism literature. During the German occupation, he was an activist within the underground independence movement, and after the war he was associated with the Party. Between 1952 and 1956 he was a Sejm deputy. He wrote in line with the government program of socialist realist literature. Andrzejewski left the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR) in 1957, and from the 1960s he was involved with emerging opposition protest activities. He was also one of the authors of the “Letter of the 34” from 1964; in the 1970s he was one of the founders of the Workers’ Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR). His best-known novels include Ład serca (1938), Popiół i diament (1948 and 1954), Ciemno√ci kryją ziemię (1957), Bramy raju (1960), Idzie skacząc po górach (1963), and Miazga (1979). Kazimierz Brandys (1916–2000) was a prose and essay writer, and a film screenwriter. He joined the Polish Workers’ Party (later PZPR) in 1946; after 1956, he was a supporter of reforms (socalled “revisionism”) and a member of the emerging leftist opposition. He left the Party in 1966 along with a few other writers in response to repressions against Leszek Kołakowski. In the years 1977–80 he was a member of the editing team of the underground magazine Zapis and of the illegal Society of Science Courses. He lived outside of Poland from 1981. His best-known works are, among others, Drewniany ko≈ (1946), the series of novels Miasto niepokonane (1948–51), Matka

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moments in the social and political history of the People’s Republic of Poland (March 1968,2 December 1970,3 and the emergence of underground publishing in the latter half of the 1970s4) and they reflect significant features of oppositional thinking about People’s Poland in the post-March period. I will focus on their original diagnosis of the societal condition and the collective consciousness, with a particular account of the depiction of communism/socialism presented in them. The wider historical context of the analysis herein is the period starting in October 1956,5 and continuing królów (1957), Listy do Pani Z. (1957), a series of short stories from the 1960s (Romantyczno√ć, Jak być kochaną), Wariacje pocztowe (1972), Nierzeczywisto√ć (1977), as well as three volumes of diaries from the years 1982–87 entitled Miesiące (Months). Nierzeczywisto√ć (Unreality) was translated into English as A Question of Reality (1981). 2 “March 1968,” also referred to as the “March events,” was the culmination of a sociopolitical crisis sparked by disillusionment with the course taken by the government of Władysław Gomułka and by the intelligentsia’s mounting discontent with the policy of Party control over science and culture. The March events overlapped with protests by students and intellectuals against the ruling Party, pacified by the militia, as well as with later repressions against the Polish dissident movement (the so-called revisionists). These repressions were accompanied by an antiSemitic witch hunt (officially referred to as “anti-Zionist”), initiated by General Mieczysław Moczar and approved by both the PZPR and a large part of the society; anti-Semitism had been on the rise since the Six-Day War of 1967. It resulted in the forced emigration of over 13,000 Polish citizens of Jewish origin between 1968 and 1972. 3 In December 1970, Poland was mired in workers’ strikes spurred by a sudden spike in prices. The protests were put down by the Citizens’ Militia and the army acting upon the orders of the PZPR, killing forty-two people and injuring about 1000 more. In the aftermath of the strikes, the price hikes were reversed, and the Party leaders Gomułka and Zenon Kliszko were forced to resign in favor of Edward Gierek, the new First Secretary of the PZPR. The beginning of Gierek’s term was marked with a promise of political and economic renewal. 4 Underground publishing, referred to in Polish as “drugi obieg” (literally “second circulation”), only began to gain momentum around 1976. In the early stages, it was organized primarily by KOR and the Movement for Defense of Human and Civil Rights (Ruch Obrony Praw Człowieka i Obywatela, ROPCiO). Over the next few years, a number of thriving larger underground publishing houses emerged, as well as hundreds of small-scale, individual sources of underground publications. The materials published and distributed included news media, politically engaged books, and later recordings and video tapes. The book by Kazimierz Brandys discussed in this text was one of the first novels to appear in independent publishing. 5 “October 1956,” also dubbed the “Polish October,” refers to the events stemming from political changes brought on by Stalin’s death. In June 1956, social discontent was manifested in Pozna≈. In the aftermath of the riots, the reformist wing took control of the Party, with Władysław Gomułka at its helm. Gomułka’s take-

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until the early 1980s: the process of shifting from the revisionist-reformist internal discussion (usually conveyed in Aesopian language) to open criticism of the “system” (that is, “real socialism”) within overtly oppositional discourse, examined here in the literary field. Both novels—already announcing their diagnoses in the titles—mark, in my opinion, milestones in the crystallization of the views of Polish leftist intelligentsia concerning socialism/communism. This evolution has been the subject of attention in Polish literature dealing with political science and the history of ideas in recent years. I am referring mainly to two works here—by Dariusz Gawin and Michał Siermi≈ski—which offer a minute analysis of the evolution of the post-October Polish left. These two books, written from antithetical worldview positions, differ also in terms of the analytical methods they adopt. Moreover, they provide disparate assessments of the discussed phenomena and their long-term effects (that is, beyond 1989).6 Thus, in a way, they represent the two antipodes of possible narrations on the topic of interest to us. To put it very simply, in the perspective of analyses by Gawin and Siermi≈ski, the shift in the position of the (former) left was propelled primarily by three significant transformations: first, the renouncement of Marxism; second, the rapprochement with the Church; and third, a discursive veer toward ethnocentric thinking.7 The turning point here was March 1968, which became a subjective formative experience for many representatives of leftist thought, stripped them of reformist hopes, and hastened their farewell to Marxism. At the same time, March seemed to prove that it was the nation, rather than class, that functioned in the Polish reality as the social actor that must be heeded, and that the calculations of oppositional thinking must account for the “national cause,” even if only as part of political strategy.8 over of Party control was met with massive social support, as it was deemed a harbinger of liberalization. However, over the next two years, as Gomułka’s group took an increasingly harsh course, these hopes dissipated. Nevertheless, October 1956 remains a symbolic date marking the end of the Stalinist period in Poland. 6 Dariusz Gawin, Wielki zwrot: Ewolucja lewicy i odrodzenie idei społecze≈stwa obywatelskiego 1956–1976 (Krakow: Znak, 2013); Michał Siermi≈ski, Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980; Od demokracji robotniczej do narodowego paternalizmu (Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2016). 7 Siermi≈ski believes that the main point of this dilution of leftist identity was a loss of conviction that the working class was the crucial social force. Thus, this author describes a “discursive deproletarization of Polish society” (especially of the variety of Jacek Kuro≈), and the emergence of a classless, universalizing discourse of “every man and citizen.” Siermi≈ski, Dekada przełomu, 156. 8 The best example of such a discursive shift toward the category of nation (understood, of course, in a manner far from the one rooted in the Polish nationalconservative current) is the publicist journalism of Leszek Kołakowski and Adam

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The present text, although it uses literary works as its point of departure, explores a similar problem field as the works by Gawin and Siermi≈ski. It also shares their authors’ opinion about the importance of the analyzed period—from March 1968 to the birth of Solidarity, which we could call “the long seventies”—although it affords a thoroughly different view of the same phenomenon of this “breakthrough” or “turn.” It rejects the position of Gawin, who perceives the “great turn” of the left and its rapprochement with the circles of “the open church” as a “creative misunderstanding” which soon thereafter facilitated the social reconciliation and dismantling of the system, whose condition was—to summarize the premises of Gawin’s text—a certain “conversion” of the former left that entailed the adoption of Christian and free-market values. It also rejects the perspective of Siermi≈ski, who in actuality documented the story of the betrayal of leftist intellectuals. According to Siermi≈ski, they painstakingly constructed their symbolic position in order ultimately to exploit authentic workers’ rebellion to establish their own dominance after 1989. I interpret both novels, along with the context provided by testimonials of their reception, primarily as an attempt at gauging the social consciousness. At the same time, however, they are of course accounts of transforming awareness of the authors themselves and, to some extent, of the entire intelligentsia. It is as such—that is, as testimonials of a certain type of discourse about the “system”—that I want to analyze them. I approach the diagnoses they offer, suggested in the metaphorical titles of both novels, as a point of departure for the description of a more broadly understood discursive unit, entailing the language and the sociopolitical and worldview consciousness of Polish leftist opposition circles of the late 1960s and early 1970s. II. First, however, a brief glance at the works of prose written around the time of the October breakthrough will be needed. This is the period which may be treated as the first formative stage of the language employed by the “reMichnik of the 1970s. A separate, complex issue is the question of to what extent this shift was a result of a true turn in thinking, rather than just part of a political strategy and an acknowledgement of the need to enter a conceptual field (heavily loaded with affects in the Polish public discourse), which was claimed on the one hand by Polish conservatism and the Church, and by the Party on the other. See Katarzyna Chmielewska and Tomasz Żukowski, “Trauma marca: Epilog,” in Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie ed. Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL, 2014), 380–95; Tomasz Żukowski, “Ustanowienie nacjonalistycznego pola dyskursu społecznego: Spór między partią a Ko√ciołem w roku 1966,” in Rok 1966, 11–38.

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visionist” opposition,9 both in artistic prose and in publicist journalism. Andrzejewski’s Ciemno√ci kryją ziemię (Darkness Covers the Earth, 1957), and Brandys’ Obrona Grenady (Defense of Grenada, 1956) and Matka Królów (The Mother of Kings, 1957; published in English as Sons and Comrades, 1961), are texts in many ways characteristic of so-called account-settling literature, produced after the tumultuous year of 1956, in an atmosphere of coming to terms with the Stalinist period and of high reformist hopes. The texts by Brandys, as well as kindred literary works of that time, are encumbered with a specific contradiction. Attempting to analyze the sociopolitical mechanisms of the 1950s, they do so primarily from the perspective of individual attitudes (as in Obrona Grenady), shifting the blame for the so-called “errors and distortions” in the fulfillment of socialism onto careerists, “false communists,” and party opportunists, while at the same time invoking some supreme, anonymous forces of history at play.10 Andrzejewski’s novel, clad in a historical costume that allows its contents to relate to contemporary times only on a very general plane, makes a projection: from the current social issues onto the “centuryold” ethical and moral problems, connected to attitudes and worldview choices clashing with power and community. Despite references to hot, politically “active” topics, recent, time-constrained events and conflicts gain a universal dimension in this book, but at the price of being stripped of concrete social and political substance. In both cases, the focus of the primary diagnosis becomes hazy. This is because the authors forgo a broad sweeping sociopolitical analysis of the here and now in favor of either an intimate or universalizing perspective, thus shifting the center of gravity onto the problems of the “universally humanistic” background, onto the analysis of “human fate,” or of the mechanisms governing the relations between individuals and authorities. Consequently, they ultimately employ the form of a morality piece. This is accompanied by a tendency to place social problems in eschatological 9

“Revisionism” was originally designated an ideological current within the communist thought of the late nineteenth century; initiated by Eduard Bernstein, it rejected the ideas of social revolution and proletarian dictatorship in favor of gradual social reform, and in practice it opened up the road toward social democracy. In the Soviet Union, and later also in the PRL, this term, usually applied in its anachronistic sense, was used in propaganda with a strictly pejorative meaning to refer to all kinds of reformists and dissidents within the Party, who did not fit within its current mainstream. The designation—overtly anachronistic and negatively loaded—has been adopted in Polish historical literature in relation to the Polish anti-Party left of the 1950s and 1960s. 10 See Stanisław Majchrowski, Między słowem a rzeczywisto√cią: Problemy powie√ci politycznej w Polsce w latach 1945–1970 (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie, 1988), 289–99.

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frameworks, and to offer moral judgements built upon premises excessively universal to be truly significant in the current social and political context.11 As Stanisław Majchrowski observed, the “contemporary” layer of these novels is confined to allusions and general issues, as well as to the domain of readers’ connotations: “And so the work operates within the field of the reader’s knowledge, it engages it, but it will not say more about the issues of current politics than what is already known.”12 It is a separate matter that both tendencies—to universalize and to narrow down the perspective—were largely a derivative of the erstwhile communication conditions: works written in the shadow of censorship had to avoid direct confrontation with difficult topics. For the same reason the boundary between condemnation of the “errors and distortions” of the people’s authorities and the utter undermining and rejection of the system’s principles en bloc was blurred. These texts—written in the midst of the authors’ ideological breakthrough—simultaneously had an expiatory function, for the first time introducing the motif of “seduction” by ideology or “history”: a theme that will profoundly weigh on ways of discussing involvement in communism at a later point. The seducer here is the great ideologist, be it the medieval inquisitor Torquemada, as in Andrzejewski’s novel, or Doctor Faul from Brandys’ Obrona Grenady: an amalgam of a demonic demagogue and an opportunistic bureaucrat. According to Majchrowski, basing an attempt to rationally explain the genesis of Stalinism, or the rules of functioning of the state apparatus, on these novels paradoxically brings an irrationalization of these phenomena.13 Similar conclusions are reached in Stanisław Gawli≈ski’s analysis of account-settling prose: in works such as Morze Sargassa (Sargasso Sea, 1956) by Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski, Piekło wybrukowane (Paved Hell, 1957; published in English as The Paving Stones of Hell, 1959) by Andrzej Braun, or Okrutna gwiazda (Cruel Star, 1958) by Wiktor Woroszylski, the researcher will notice a helpless eschatologization and universalization of ongoing political problems, giving rise to a “peculiar merger of metaphysics (mystification?) and realism.”14 After 1958—that is, after revisionism in Polish public life and the account-settling current in prose was effectively quelled by Gomułka’s narrative—center stage was taken primarily by political novels in the vein of socalled small realism (such as Klatka [The Cage, 1965] by Tadeusz 11

Ibid., 287. Ibid., 278. 13 Ibid., 307. 14 Stanisław Gawli≈ski, Polityczne obowiązki (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiello≈skiego, 1993), 81. 12

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Kwiatkowski, Urlop na Tahiti [Holiday in Tahiti, 1962] by Aleksander Minkowski, and Jeszcze miło√ć [Still Love, 1967] by Bogusław Kogut) and by allegorical works (such as Życie raz jeszcze [Life Once Again, 1967] by Roman Bratny, and Pasierbowie [Stepchildren, 1963] by Jerzy Putrament).15 This prose is also characterized by social observation through a narrow lens, by a clearly drawn opposition between Stalinism and communism (where the former designates the power of careerists and opportunists, responsible for the deformations in the fulfillment of socialism), and by an affirmative approach to the sociopolitical status quo that emerged after October 1956.16

III. Throughout the 1960s both Andrzejewski and Brandys published works which, at best, hinted at current affairs in the national political life. When they speak up again—at a later stage of the evolution of their attitude toward the political system (and options for reforms within it), and in completely changed political circumstances—their point of reference will be Poland during the breakthrough of the late 1960s and early 1970s; that is, “real socialism” in the form it had taken on after 1968, with its increasing fossilization and immunity to reform, and primarily with its intensified nationalistic rhetoric and practice.17 The authors describe the condition of Polish society at that time: its erstwhile mentality and reactions to attempts at refurnishing the collective imaginarium with the aid of the prevailing discourse, but also its immanent features, rooted in its collective (un)consciousness. The discussed novels share not only their communication situation— that is, the fact that by undertaking critical tasks they doomed themselves to function in the world of unofficial (underground or émigré) publish15

Ibid., 99. Majchrowski, Między słowem a rzeczywisto√cią, 306. 17 The national current in the social, propaganda, and cultural politics of the Party was there—although in a latent form—from its very inception. It gained greater momentum in 1956: one way the government of Władysław Gomułka garnered support was by promising “a Polish road to socialism.” Throughout the 1960s— for example, in the fight with the Catholic Church over social support—the Party employed national resentments with increasing frequency, even though they overtly contradicted its earlier internationalistic and anti-chauvinist ideological course, including anti-German and anti-Semitic undertones; these latter ones reached their apex in March 1968. In the eyes of many intellectuals from Poland and abroad, the Party became an heir to the ONR (National Radical Camp), a Polish fascist movement dating from before World War II. 16

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ing18—but above all the choice of narrative strategy based on a broadreaching social and political diagnosis. At the same time, they are both rather specific responses to the rising calls for realistic prose that could bear witness to its times.19 The critical diagnosis of the dysfunctions of “real socialism” as presented in Nierzeczywisto√ć and in Miazga were nothing novel, of course. It was, as attested by literature and cinematography of the time, an effect of a consensus of the (post-)revisionist circles, leaning toward a negation of the system. However, it was also representative of a broader social doxa, manifested for example in the language of the street: a doxa which both texts recurrently summon as the witness to their accusations. Thus, it was not their revelatory value, but rather the mere act of public announcement, per procura voicing of commonly held opinions, the directness of criticism—especially in the case of Nierzeczywisto√ć—that may have afforded them a socially significant role. Surely it was also due to its intervention that Miazga, released an entire decade after its completion, was, at the time of the publication, perceived as grossly outdated.20 Nevertheless, Andrzejewski’s novel—also owing to 18

Miazga—the idea for which dates back to 1961—was written and modified between 1963 and 1970. Fragments of it were published in 1966 in Twórczo√ć. Andrzejewski returned to working on it in 1970, this time setting the plot in a different time (as an effect, the action of the book unfolds three years after the publication of the first fragments in Twórczo√ć), as well as adding diary entries, which turned the novel into an account of the post-March collapse (both personal and social). During the postDecember thaw, the book was sent to PIW (State Publishing House), but the censors demanded cuts that the author did not consent to, and so publishing permission was revoked (toward the end of 1972). It was not released until 1979 by NOWA (Independent Publishing House), an underground publisher, and officially in 1981, in an abridged form. Official publication was followed by official reviews. The model edition was published in 1981 in London by Polonia Book Fund. For more details on the novel’s fate, see, among others Rafał Świątkiewicz, “Legenda ‘Miazgi’ Jerzego Andrzejewskiego,” Ruch Literacki, no. 4 (1993): 477–82; Andrzej Wasilewski, “Miażdżenie ‘Miazgi,’” Polityka, no. 18 (1990): 9. Brandys’ Nierzeczywisto√ć, written in 1975, was first published in Poland by NOWA Independent Publishing House as one of the first samizdat novels, and in Paris, by the Literary Institute, at the turn of 1977 and 1978. 19 I refer here mainly to contemporaneous essays by Tomasz Burek and to Świat nieprzedstawiony by Julian Kornhauser and Adam Zagajewski: in their case, the demand for a realism bearing witness to its times and for a genuine political novel was combined with the obviously non-explicit demand for oppositional prose. Similar voices from those times included the opinions of Tadeusz Drewnowski or Włodzimierz Maciąg. 20 This anachronistic quality of Miazga was noted by critics at the time of its official (legal) publication. Regardless of their assessment of the novel, critics proclaimed that its time was long gone and that Miazga was outdated, both artistically and

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the author’s acclaim at the time of the publication, his involvement with the opposition, and the very history of the book’s creation and reception— basked in the glory of a “living myth,”21 and with the passage of time it could even be said, as noted by German Ritz, that it became a “symbol of literature of Polish late socialism (1956–89).”22 Miazga as a phenomenon of literary life is not only the novel itself, but also the entire tale surrounding it; “the gossip of Miazga,” one could say, that created an atmosphere of expectation around its revelatory and denunciative content. From the time its fragments were published in Twórczo√ć, the book was shrouded in a legend of formal innovativeness and political predatoriness. A new Kaden, Nałkowska, or Breza were anticipated, as well as a Polish Doctor Faustus.23 As Bohdan Czeszko sneered, in the literary milieu “the pregnancy with Miazga was almost like a pregnancy with an Infante,” while opposition circles expected this great, eagerly awaited novel to come crashing down on all this “red scum” like an avalanche of moral annihilation.24

politically. See, for instance, Leszek Bugajski “W formie miazgi,” in Bugajski, Pozy prozy (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1986), 167; Bogdan Owczarek, “Rozpad,” Miesięcznik Literacki, no. 9 (1982): 144. In 1981, Tomasz Łubie≈ski argued that Miazga was “doubly antiquated” and juxtaposed it with Tadeusz Konwicki’s Mała apokalipsa, which he considered a contemporary continuation of Miazga, yet thankfully “pulpless” and devoid of the conviction of a writer’s special mission, as well as more adequate and accurate in “settling the accounts.” See Tomasz Łubie≈ski, “‘Miazga’ po dziesięciu latach,” in Pisane przedwczoraj (Krakow: Oficyna Literacka, 1983), 36; originally printed in Res Publica, no. 5 (1980): 54–59. 21 Teresa Walas, “O ‘Miazdze’ Jerzego Andrzejewskiego, czyli o walce z szatanem,” in Literatura źle obecna: Rekonesans (Krakow: “X,” 1986), 188. Juliusz KadenBandrowski (1885–1944), Zofia Nałkowska (1884–1954), and Tadeusz Breza (1905–1970) were renowned authors of sociopolitical novels. 22 German Ritz, “‘Miazga’ Andrzejewskiego—powie√Δ u progu postmoderny,” in Współczesna literatura polska lat osiemdziesiątych i dziewięćdziesiątych: Opinie, poglądy, prognozy literaturoznawców polskich i niemieckich w referatach i dyskusji lipskiej konferencji 4–6 czerwca 1993, ed. Joanna Łuczy≈ska (Lipsk: Instytut Polski, 1993), 130. 23 Świątkiewicz, “Legenda ‘Miazgi’ Jerzego Andrzejewskiego,” 483. 24 Bohdan Czeszko, “Miazgowisko na weselisku,” Nowe Książki, no. 1 (1982): 58– 60. Czeszko’s triumph over Andrzejewski’s somewhat belated book was an easy one from the perspective of 1982. The review by Zygmunt Kałuży≈ski was written in a similar tone of casual mockery; see “Z bestią pod pachę,” in Widok z pozycji przewróconego (Warsaw: PIW, 1985), 92–105. More grave accusations against this “anti-socialist” novel were leveled by, among others, Karol Kretowicz (“Postawy i pseudoarcydzieła,” Głos Wybrzeża, no. 153 [1982]: 3), although they were not as significant owing to the position of their authors. These reviewers— far from denigrating mockery—unmasked (or, more accurately, denounced) Andrzejewski’s novel as a manifestation of anti-socialist “pseudoculture,” which, to add insult to injury, enjoyed state patronage.

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Both Miazga and Nierzeczywisto√ć—devoid of the aura of a legend, with less ambition, but among the first samizdat novels (besides Tadeusz Konwicki’s 1977 Kompleks polski, published in English as The Polish Complex, 1982)—offer an accurate reflection of the crystallized features of oppositional thinking at the time, if only because they pay no heed to censorship restrictions and bring a harshly critical depiction of the “system,” but also of the Polish society of the late 1960s and of the first half of the 1970s. Furthermore, they sacrifice literariness at the altar of directly involved political publicism.

IV. In the trial that both texts initiated against “real socialism” in its postMarch shape, there are some arguments compatible not only in terms of the methods of problematization, but also on the plane of specific phrases. Both novels point out phenomena such as: – the deepening isolation between the rulers and the ruled, and the alienation of the power apparatus; – the re-classing and production of a new privileged stratum; – the lack of clear criteria for the responsibility of public figures; obscure powers and pressure groups; – negative staff selection, resulting in inertia and opportunism, and topdown encouragement of passivity and submissiveness; – no rule of law; – lack of individuals’ sovereignty and control over their own lives; the fact that “all change is brought about by forces other than social vitality and individual initiative,” which gives rise to passive attitudes and the psychological sensation of being exempt from duty; – the functioning of the system based on the principle of self-reproduction that hampers all pursuit of reforms; – the facade quality of the official ideology. And, finally, the most underscored charge of both novels, addressing the propagation of multilayered fiction in each sphere of public life and social communication. This is because this production of fiction, dictated by the authorities’ near-magical faith in the power of the word, poisons communication processes and generates a specific, hypocritical, “contaminated” language, an amalgam of ideological phrases and omissions. This language, which functions not only in relations between the “authorities” and the “society,” but—above all—penetrates deeply into the social fabric, according to these analyses creates a separate, fictional reality that models

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functioning in everyday life, as the society has learnt to employ it just as cynically as the authorities. As the total system consolidates, the sphere of propaganda becomes an expression of a schizophrenia of sorts, to which all functionaries of the official apparatus must succumb, regardless of their rung on the bureaucratic ladder. In the fossilized minds forced by the circumstances to permanently act as per directives given from the top, the ideological reality is pushing the existing reality onto the margins with increasing obtrusiveness and efficacy. The total power, just like a schizophrenic, is devoured by fiction. Yet the total power must nourish and strengthen this fiction, because it can only exist and rule within a fiction created by it (or with the aid of an externally imposed force). In the opinion of the power apparatus, an atmosphere of celebration invigorates the fiction a great deal. (Miazga)25 Totalism is well aware of the fact that fiction can only be created by spoken or printed word, thus the authorities’ nearly magical faith in the power of the word, the uninhibited need to speak, speak, and speak, as well as fear of words that raise up in protest, fear that sometimes morphs into hysteria, and, ultimately, the conviction that if something is not spoken about, it does not exist. (Miazga)26 Society has learned to keep quiet; the machine knows that it must talk about something else. The truth is like a secret known to everyone; falsification is a shared reality. . . . Still, criticism coming from below is an offense in that it touches them on the sore spot of their inferiority complex. The administration is aware of not being the product of election and knows that its existence is only guaranteed from outside. Not only does the administration know this, but it also knows that society is aware of it. This shared awareness puts salt on the wound. The machine is on the defensive, it never stops denying its mistakes, its abuses, and its absurdities, but it also must produce proofs of its authenticity, of its ties with the country—hence, the folk dancing. This contrived effort at authenticity only aggravates the lie. . . . It is a sanctified principle to suppress the truth. . . . What has no name is always less dangerous than what has one, because it is words that convert facts into social forces. The eastern bureaucracies have always known this. They know that to call something by its real name amounts to giving it life. . . . The power machine is caught red-handed every day, and every day shamelessly denies it. (A Question of Reality)27

In Andrzejewski’s book, the effect of these pathologies is to be “moral pulp,” understood first of all as a disruption of individual sovereignty and

25

Jerzy Andrzejewski, Miazga, ed. Anna Synoradzka-Demadre (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy Ossoli≈skich, 2002), 484–86. 26 Ibid., 489–90. 27 Kazimierz Brandys, A Question of Reality, trans. Isabel Barzun (London: Blond & Briggs 1981), 134–36.

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responsibility, as well as the disintegration of social bonds; in the perspective of Brandys, it is to be a collective sensation of living in an unreal world. From the end of the 1960s, the opposition’s discourse focused increasingly on branding the “frauds” perpetrated by the ruling elites and on typologization of the defects of “real socialism,” coupled with the structural alienation of the system. And so, for example, Jacek Kuro≈ (who in his famous 1964 List otwarty do Partii, two years later published in English as An Open Letter to the Party, performed a critical political and economic analysis of the system) in his 1976 work My√li o programie działania (Thoughts on the Action Plan) concluded that the sensation of a crisis is universal, and that “open lies” anger society more than the tough living conditions borne of the economic crisis.28 This phenomenon was analyzed on various levels. The analysis could stop short at the simplest, catchy diagnosis that “the press lies” and at condemnation of the government’s propaganda machine. If a broader, analytical cultural perspective was applied, the examination reflected a growing fear of the perspective of “sovietization,” understood as a deliberate and successive process of the cultural degradation of society.29 The analysis often reached deeper into the sphere of collective psychology, not only to comb it for the effects of “totalitarian” manipulations, but also to perform a biopsy of the collective consciousness, to diagnose the deformed language (as in the poetry of the “New Wave”30), or to give an account, in a dispassionate reporting style, of the daily life of the Polish province, with its cor28

Jacek Kuro≈, “My√li o programie działania,” Aneks, nos. 13–14 (1977): 5. The topic of sovietization was delivered with great poignancy especially in the writings of Kołakowski and Michnik. In his text for émigré magazine Kultura, the Polish philosopher defined it as “spiritual corrosion” which consists not in ideological indoctrination, but precisely in fiction: a situation where “everyone knows that nothing in public language is, nor can be ‘real,’ as all the words have lost their primary meaning and no one should be astonished by this; where it is selfevident that public language has nothing do to with ‘real’ life.” See Leszek Kołakowski, “Sprawa polska,” Kultura, no. 4 (1973): 5–6. 30 “New Wave” was a poetic group established in 1968 and particularly active in the early 1970s. The New Wave current encompasses the early works of poets such as Stanisław Bara≈czak, Ewa Lipska, Adam Zagajewski, Julian Kornhauser, Ryszard Krynicki, and Krzysztof Karasek. The generational experience of New Wave members were the social crises of 1968 and 1970. Some of the poets were actively involved in opposition activities and in developing underground publishing. Critical of the preceding poetic formations of 1956–68, it endorsed a program of involved literature, which was to respond to current social and political problems. Employing, among others, tools of linguistic poetry in its criticism of the existing reality it invoked, inter alia, the social functioning of language—both the official propaganda language and the everyday language of People’s Poland in the 1960s and 1970s. 29

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ruption and devaluation of everyday life and the collective “self-poisoning with lies” (prose by Marek Nowakowski and Kazimierz Orło√), which led to a deep crisis and involution. The acutely-felt fictionalization of public life, and the sensation of being entangled in a multitiered collective game of deception (between the “authorities”/“party officials” and the “society,” and within the “society” on the level of everyday communication) is the locus communis of the erstwhile Polish literature, but also of movies (especially comedies), publicist journalism, and oppositional political thought. Nierzeczywisto√ć, Miazga, and other texts of that time—suffice it to mention the novels by Konwicki—paint, as Miłosz wrote, a depiction of Poland “as pulp, as nothing but a sleepy, passive territory swept up by ‘a great wind,’ a never-ending ‘neither this nor that,’ doomed to be shapeless and inchoate, or a country located ‘nowhere,’ like something out of King Ubu.”31 Or, put differently, a depiction of a great Potemkin village, condemned to an existence that is only semi-real, where the pretense of official ideology is matched by a social life burdened with the continuing multiplication of unreality, lacking tangible foundations. Yet, the vivisection of processes leading to collective life in fiction performed by Brandys in Nierzeczywisto√ć goes far beyond a “criticism of the system,” and even beyond an analysis of Polish psycho-historical afflictions. Brandys traces those processes also in their deeper, more fundamental “state of matter”: within the “I” and its relations with others, in how it relates to the social reality and collective imagination that provide an overall organization for it. As aptly observed by Krzysztof Kłosi≈ski, “Brandys’ book is not a tale of the adventures of the protagonist in a world of ‘unreality,’ it is rather a tale of how this ‘unreality’ proliferates, transgressing the boundaries of the external and the internal, the individual and the collective.”32 It actually seems as if unreality is here both an effect of the specifically Polish blurring of boundaries between the individual and the collective, and the reason for the further escalation of this process. Moreover, if we read Nierzeczywisto√ć in the perspective of Rondo, another text by Brandys intimately connected with this novel (both conceptually and, to some degree, also in terms of the plot),33 this category of “fic31

Czesław Miłosz, Prywatne obowiązki (Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Pojezierze, 1990), 67. 32 Krzysztof Kłosi≈ski, “Nierzeczywisto√Δ,” Śląsk, no. 6 (1996): 72. 33 The relation between these two texts is a complex one: the original version of Rondo was published in Twórczo√ć at the turn of 1975 and 1976 as Nierzeczywisto√ć. After the publication of the second text, the proper Nierzeczywisto√ć (the one discussed here) in the underground and in Paris, the first text was printed in book form (1982), this time under the title Rondo. Nevertheless, the original idea was for the two texts—different in terms of style, narration method, narrator’s constructor, and the intensity of determinants of literary fiction—to function in a

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tion”/“unreality” will turn out to be not so much a simple opposite of “truth,” but rather a much more complex phenomenon, one that is tangled with the “truth”: a carrier and simultaneously an inversion of social imagery, a method of constructing identity, of ordering experiences, and forming a plane of communication with others. And thus, in Brandys’ approach, fiction arranged by the authorities intensifies rather than generates the specifically Polish “unreality,” whose roots go much deeper than the dysfunctions of People’s Poland. Nierzeczywisto√ć depicts the overlapping of social conditions of the 1970s with the features of Polish society throughout its long duration: its collective immaturity, mythomania, passivity, civilizational backwardness, and lack of anchoring of the ideas held in real institutional life and social relations; and so revealing its dual qualitative structure composed of phantasms and declarations on the obverse and an abulia hidden on the reverse. Brandys sees the source of this social disease in various phenomena, including: thinking in categories of the community (first estate, and then national) and inflation of the sphere of national myth, which has obscured the real scale of both the individual and of the civilization, distinctive of mature societies; collective illusions and exaltations which, by way of habit, are turned into rules of functioning, replacing the law; artificial substitutes for freedom and tolerance that never applied to the entire society; the complex of provincialism (a justified sensation that we are missing out on global cultural and civilizational processes); and an infatuation with a mythologized noble past, as an ersatz form of freedom, rights, and social selffulfillment (in the 1970s this was “licensed sarmatism,” sociotechnically played by the communist authorities). The Polish version of the socialist project—far from the revolutionary endeavor it was originally meant to be, which was also to rearrange the collective consciousness and heal it from symptoms of chronic mythmaking and national narcissism—is shown here primarily as another layer of the illusion, further preserving the Polish unreality. Allowing dangerous nationalist voices to resonate and wrapping social life within a net of language mutual relation, as a whole. An account of this is given by one of the readers of the original, two-text Nierzeczywisto√ć, Tomasz Burek, in his “Szkoda tego pomysłu,” in Żadnych marze≈ (London: Polonia, 1987), 188–94. Rondo, styled as a démenti letter running dozens of pages and addressed to the editorial team of a national historical magazine, is a story of a fictional conspiracy group (named “Rondo”), created by the protagonist-narrator to protect his beloved woman from the dangers of real conspiracy. The results of a fiction thus created turned out to be tragic, however. This démenti, in its polemical layer, lashes out against pseudo-historical combatant and occupation mythologization; it denounces the heroic “battle story,” revealing behind its facade a knotted network of private motivations, individual complications, and contradictions.

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disconnected from reality creates, according to Brandys, a hotbed for Polish immaturity and collective delusions, leading to a degrading detachment from reality.

V. Both Nierzeczywisto√ć and Miazga draw from the remote past of the interbellum period in the construction of characters; in the biographical and essay retrospections they attempt to settle accounts not only with “real socialism,” but also with communism in its, so to speak, “hardcore” version from the 1950s. Some of the motifs here in the 1970s became commonly accepted in narrations concerning communism: for instance, its perception from the perspective of Promethean insanity, burdened with metaphysical hubris. It is characteristic that both texts contain references to the thesis of “Hegelian bite” that spreads the contagion of “Luciferian faith” in the iron logic of history, as well as to Dostoyevsky’s Demons—to dystopian predictions concerning the future communist society, those “dire prophecies” which “surrounded the monster’s cradle from the moment of its birth.”34 Relations between communism (understood as a project and reality of 1950s People’s Poland) and the sociopolitical “here and now” of “real socialism” are not clearly drawn here; the boundary between them is somewhat blurred. Andrzejewski—dealing with his private, quasi-fideistic involvement from the 1950s and referring to the years of Stalinist terror in Soviet Russia—seems to indicate a continuity between the period of Stalinism and the final stage of Gomułka’s rule more firmly. This is followed by discursive “totalitarization” of the system as it existed in the late 1960s. Michał Siermi≈ski argues that the demonization of authority and its narrative with a “totalitarization” of what in fact is only an authoritarian regime (first of Gomułka and then of Gierek) strengthens the allegedly absolute incapacitation and helplessness of the society and, as a result, elevates the role of intelligentsia and the mission it has taken up. This apt remark surely applies to Miazga, which bears the strong hallmark of an intellectual sense of mission, as well as of private and completely egotistic conviction of its own individual role as a moral authority. The terms “communism” and “socialism” are virtually absent from Brandys’ text; it specifically mentions the “system” and the “power apparatus.” These terms seem to underscore the ideologized, inward, closed, and pathological nature of “real socialism.” Certainly, both texts offer a vision of “real socialism” as an unnatural entity, afflicted with organic defects 34

Brandys, A Question of Reality, 125.

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whose consequence in the sphere of collective psychology is “inorganic life” and the deepening of social fictions. Both also resonate with the echoes of March 1968, treated as a proof of the fascization and cynicism of the “system”: its ultimate self-contradiction. Yet, it is difficult to ascribe total criticism to either author; that is, criticism rejecting the socialist project in its existing Polish version en bloc and negating its ideological foundations. Even though the pathologies of “real socialism” are approached here as inherent to its core, and the “system” itself as structurally contaminated, self-reproducing, and insusceptible to corrections, neither Brandys nor Andrzejewski question all that they deem to be social achievements of People’s Poland, namely modernization, increased quality of living and access to culture, availability of work, industrial development—that is, genuine social progress, although it took place, to quote Nierzeczywisto√ć, “in some hellish contortion”—with the use of violence and with the creative drive of the society halted. Despite the discursive totalitarization of the regime, and even rerouting problems onto metaphysical tracks, this criticism largely fits within the horizons set around the time of the October breakthrough. It is, thus, a criticism of the system’s alienation, although now treated as radical alienation, inherent to the system and insurmountable within its own frameworks; it is a criticism still formulated within the boundaries of rules and promises that can be formulated on the substrate of this very system and, simultaneously, still seeking its proper substrate: political, axiological, intellectual.

VI. The adopted literary form and the narrative situation created within it fulfill an important function in both novels. Both Miazga and Nierzeczywisto√ć refrain, each in their own manner, from any attempt at painting a full epic social picture; nor do they bring a realistic reflection of the described “disintegration.” Andrzejewski’s novel stops short at something akin to a formal excuse: mutual adequacy between the content and the novel form. The negative poetics of the work, with the plot presented in a conditional mode, are to be a reflection of social atrophy. Social conflicts and the condition of public life (“social pulp”) are not so much presented, but rather suggested, evoked by the disintegration of the novel form and the ostentatiously demonstrated inability to employ traditional narration and conventional literary fiction.35 As a result, the center of gravity is largely shifted onto the author’s 35

This feature of Miazga was accurately pinned down by Bogdan Owczarek in “Rozpad,” 145: “It is worth noting that the sociological diagnosis of disintegrat-

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diary, embedded in Miazga and commenting on the ongoing political situation. The author gives his readers access to his writer’s workshop by deconstructing the novel in front of their eyes and admitting to creative block, thus treating his own creative travails as a reflection of the social crisis. The narrative situation in Miazga is interestingly contrasted by the narrative situation created in another Andrzejewski novel, Apelacja (The Appeal), written during breaks from his work on Miazga. The text of this mini-novel is essentially a letter. It takes the form of an appeal, written by a man afflicted by a persecution complex, who is increasingly convinced that he is being hunted down by masterfully organized forces of the repressive apparatus (which has at its disposal an “electron brain”). The letter is addressed to the first secretary (as a humble request to a good father-like tsar ing inter-group and interhuman relations is not formulated via the literary fiction of the plot. . . . The erosion of the protagonists’ world is not presented, but rather suggested from the inside by the very erosion of fiction.” The majority of reviewers and literary historians who wrote about Miazga approved of the formal idea behind the novel. They perceived it as a successful search for an open form for a vision of an incoherent world (Helena Zaworska, “Szczero√Δ,” Twórczo√ć, no. 5 [1982]: 113–21); a perfect reflection of Lucien Goldmann’s thesis on the homology between social structure and novel structure (Andrzej Krzewicki, Okruchy: Lektura “Miazgi” Jerzego Andrzejewskiego [Warsaw: Liberator, 1995], 172–99); or a fulfillment of “dynamic semantics,” consisting in “dynamically testing significances by way of creating, questioning and often even annihilating them” (Kazimierz Bartoszy≈ski, “Postmodernizm a ‘sprawa polska’: przypadek ‘Miazgi,’” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 [1993], 54). Yet, not all the commentators accepted the writer’s suggestion that the disintegration of the novel form is fully functionalized and successful here. Łubie≈ski, for example, notes the virtuosity of the “structural unity between the contents and form,” however, he also points out the price that the author pays for it: a weakening of the force of the novel’s illusion and the danger of “literary tautology” (Łubie≈ski, “‘Miazga’ po dziesięciu latach,” 33). Owczarek is of the opinion that formal radicalism leads here to self-annihilation. “When literature deprives itself of fiction, discarding it as sleight of hand, and deliberately chooses to speak of reality out right, it may turn out that it only employs masterful rhetoric or helpless moral lecturing.” Owczarek, “Rozpad,” 145. It seems, however, that the insightful remarks of Teresa Walas are correct. She argues that despite Miazga’s autothematic quality, irony, “entropy” of form, and even negation of the basic elements of prose—past tense, indicative mode of narration—the novel also has a bedrock of “hard” tradition. This is because the formal deconstruction is opposed by the reader’s unconscious striving to put the presented world back together: “Reality offered in the conditional mode is just as evocative to the imagination as reality offered in the indicative mode.” Thus, the researcher is able to state that the technical deconstruction is accompanied by “the most perfect conservatism of a prose writer from the thirties,” and that, “under the guise of destruction of form, the author reinstates its rather archaic embodiment.” Walas, “O ‘Miazdze’ Jerzego Andrzejewskiego,” 195.

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surrounded by evil counsellors), in hope that a declaration of faith in the building of socialism and a detailed account of the author’s prewar life will be sufficient to get justice. Marian Konieczny, “a socially upward man” (whose character was based on a real person) appeals for justice and—to paraphrase the ending of Adam Ważyk’s Poemat dla dorosłych (Poem for Adults, 1955)—“appeals through the Party.”36 Andrzejewski’s diaristic commentary (added to the Polish 1983 edition) compels us to see in the protagonist’s mental malady, shaped “in the order of Polish nature” and social reality, a “norm of the system.” According to Andrzejewski, the hero’s schizophrenia does not discredit the realistic aspect of his delusion.37

36

Poemat dla dorosłych by Adam Ważyk, written in the summer of 1955 and published in Nowa Kultura, described the grim reality of the Stalinist years in Poland and the falsehoods of propaganda, a fierce protest against the degradation of socialist ideals. The poem, criticized strongly by the Party, had a huge political impact and became a symbol of the forthcoming Polish “October” of 1956. Its ending, however, was a declaration of belief in the leading role of the Party and its ability to self-reform. 37 Jerzy Andrzejewski, Apelacja (Warsaw: PIW, 1983), 120–21. It is worth noting at this point that Apelacja fits into the “psychiatric” trend in prose, identified by Edward Balcerzan. This trend employs metaphors of disease, depictions of mental breakdown, and pathological conditions while discussing socially “active” subjects. Besides Apelacja, the most obvious example of this trend is Obłęd by Jerzy Krzyszto≈. This three-volume novel begins in early 1971, against the backdrop of the post-December social unrest. It is largely based on the personal experience of the author’s psychological disorder (persecution complex), and at the same time it suggests—through political allusions and its hypertrophic symbolic layer—that the protagonist’s illness is just an extreme, crystallized symptom of universal processes, taking place across the country and the world. The novel, once deemed one of the most important literary diagnoses of the late 1970s’ social mood, suggests the “insanity of the system” in a safe way (that is, acceptable to the censors): on the one hand hiding behind a “psychiatric” topic and, on the other, universalizing and metaphorizing the majority of presented social issues, thus blunting their political sharpness. At the same time, Krzyszto≈’s novel, which plays out with multi-tiered irony, mocks the national persecution complexes and delusions of grandeur, collective obsessions, and mythological thinking. This mockery, however, is underpinned by what is actually a conservative nostalgia for them. Grzegorz Tomicki correctly observed that it is precisely because of this multi-tiered irony that “unambiguous interpretation of Obłęd as— among others—a total accusation, a merciless criticism, a satire on not only the shapes and contents of national myths but also on their very existence, seems not so much sufficiently, but in fact excessively unambiguous.” The demythologizing mockery can be read as a concealed apology: “This is because the novel offers, among other things, such an antinomy: either myths/values that are old and lofty but ‘suspicious, badly born,’ or myths/values of today, dwarfed to the point of be-

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Apelacja was published in Paris in 1968 (an English translation appeared in 1971) as Andrzejewski’s first text beyond the reaches of censorship, and thus its provocative form of “a letter to the Party” is more of a gesture of breaking with his historical Partia i twórczo√ć pisarza (Party and Writer’s Work, 1952),38 with a man of literature projected therein as an ally of the authorities rather than an expression of hope for finding common ground with them. Miazga exhibits a specifically “monological” character. This is not only about the fact that its structure contains diary passages and about its autothematic—and thus self-referential—nature, but above all about the fact that its polemical layer does not account for the “Party apparatus” as a dialogue participant or even the addressee of a critical monologue. Even though the representatives of the power apparatus have biographies and reliable, unsimplified premises for action, they are defined only as “they,” spoken of in the third person, spoken to oneself and to people from one’s circle. The narrative situation designed in the text by Brandys—genologically styled as an extended monologue (a voice recording) in response to a sociological survey, seemingly rejecting all pretenses of “literariness,”39 and immersed in the publicist element—is of key significance. Here the “I,” telling of his life and unmasking the Polish unreality, speaks to the Other who is the Other-science and Other-man of the West. As Krzysztof Kłosi≈ski stated, Brandys’ extended “theater of speech is deliberately fictionalized: it is a conversation of a man of the East with a man of the West who, like the ing practically nonexistent.” See Grzegorz Tomicki, “‘Obłęd’ Jerzego Krzysztonia jako dzieło ironiczne,” Fa-Art, nos. 1–2 (2007): 18–20. 38 Jerzy Andrzejewski, Partia i twórczo√ć pisarza (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1952). This brochure was written in the period of Andrzejewski’s involvement in communism and membership in the Polish United Workers’ Party, a manifestation of socialist realist work and “party” tasks of literature. 39 It would be a mistake to treat the text as a “transparent” form for the biographical story and political declaration. A remark by Marcin Wołk merits a mention here. He argues that while the stylization of a voice recording in Nierzeczywisto√ć (like the letter to the editor in Rondo) is mostly a matter of convention, it does not by any means signify that the narrative situation or “the plane of the story is independent of the discourse”: “This is because both works show why stories are told and what for; they illustrate the mechanisms of impacting the addressee and of creating reality through language.” See Marcin Wołk, Tekst w dwóch kontekstach: Narracja pierwszoosobowa w powie√ciach Kazimierza Brandysa (Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 1999), 203. Wołk argues that in Brandys’ novels, the first-person narration evolved “from telling stories to presenting or problematizing narrative situations,” and was employed for “deconstructive” purposes: demonstrating individual utterances as a manifestation of ideologies, conceptual assumptions, stereotypes of thinking, or the self-deception of the narrator. See Wołk, Tekst w dwóch kontekstach, 205.

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Great Inquisitor or psychotherapist, listens silently and in reality is nothing but a void, an image projected by the ‘I’.”40 Thus, Brandys’ narrator performs something akin to self-exoticization and self-pathologization of the Polish (un)reality. The West—understood primarily as a society anchored in law and constitutional order—becomes, to a degree, a model or a phantasm of the norm, of the universality in which the “I” is reflected. Yet, at the same time, the speaking “I” seems to be aware of its own entanglement in a peculiar situation: its speaking is a self-diagnosis, but one which to the addressee, the “American scientist,” will appear as a psychosociological symptom. This is an interesting maneuver, noted by Kłosi≈ski: by defining itself through its own otherness (otherness also in reference to itself), the “I” also plays it against its interlocutor—the Other. It attributes substantiality to the Other, while at the same time also trying to save itself in its non-identity: that is, its lack of solid agency.41 The defense against being trapped in hard identity could in fact support as justified the analogy between the concept of unreality and Witold Gombrowicz’s concept of immaturity, pointed out by one of the reviewers.42 Yet Brandys’ term is much more anchored in the sociopolitical concrete than Gombrowicz’s anthropological-cultural (and, additionally, philosophically intuitive) concept; above all, it in no way implies the same liberating, “youthful” potential. The Polish poisoning with unreality is not seen here as a source of cultural opportunity, but rather as an illness that calls for diagnosis and remedies.

VII. A question comes to mind at this point: what is the reverse of the eponymous metaphors of pulp and unreality; what is the tacit, unnamed opposite of the state of disintegration and atrophy? Are we able to find the explicitly 40

Kłosi≈ski, “Nierzeczywisto√Δ,” 72. According to Tomasz Burek, Brandys, by setting up a binary arrangement in Rondo and Nierzeczywisto√ć—neo-sarmatism (nation-centric mythologized awareness burdened simultaneously with megalomania and an inferiority complex, also instrumentally exploited by the authorities) versus occidentalism (a rationalistuniversalist consciousness of the Western European variety)—denies a choice in favor of “another truth”: a fuller, more complex one. He defends the “meandering paths of historical progress, evolution, and emancipation that often came about in Poland ‘in some hellish contortion’ . . . against the ideological masquerades of the left and of the right, searching for the face of real Poland.” See Burek, Szkoda tego pomysłu, 193. 42 Maciej Bro≈ski [real name Wojciech Skalmowski], “W poszukiwaniu formuły,” Kultura, no. 4 (1978): 140–41. 41

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or implicitly expressed norm to which they refer, even as a distant horizon, possibly functioning as the myth underlying both analyses? Would their backdrop be—as suggested by the “disease” and “disintegration” semantics—some form of essentialistic vision of the society, understood as an organic, coherent, and rational structure? Certainly, in both novels, the directly indicated positive point of reference is October, with its frustrated hopes of renovation and complete fulfillment of the socialist project, expressly pointed out as the optimum moment of Poland’s recent history and the founding myth of the opposition. It is, nonetheless, a myth of what could have been; a myth of unfulfillment.43 Within the perspective of Andrzejewski’s novel, the opposite of the social pulp would apparently be a discussion leading up to agreement; a discussion which, we can add, would particularly engage the elites. After all, the central story developments of Miazga—a marriage that was not concluded and the wedding party that ends with a contemporary Chochoł dance44—is, in the symbolic plane, a meeting, a rapprochement, a potential dialogue between the representatives of artistic and political elites.45 It is, 43

This subject falls beyond the scope of this text, but in a nutshell, it may be argued that the political implications of October revisionism were headed in the direction of parliamentary democracy with a social-democratic twist. 44 “Chochoł” literally refers to a straw wrap for a rosebush cane used to let roses survive winter. In Wesele (The Wedding) by Stanisław Wyspia≈ski—one of the most important twentieth-century Polish dramas—it became one of the characters with strong symbolic meaning. The Chochoł dance (“Straw-Man dance”) passed into the symbolic realm and common language as a symbol of the state of inner slumber, inertia, or hypnotic enchantment with illusions. 45 Andrzejewski seems to hesitate between two perspectives: on the one hand, he creates a hard opposition between representatives of the state apparatus and people of culture; on the other hand, he admits the mutual permeation of these worlds, and thus also the entanglement of people from the world of culture in various social, professional, and economic relations with the authorities. At the same time he attempts, as we find out from the diary, to “give an opportunity” to his characters from the ruling elites by building convincing biographies and motivational backgrounds for them, acknowledging their personal dramas. Owing to, among others, the character of Adam Nagórski as the author’s evident port-parole, the role of the diary, and the autothematic layer of the novel, Miazga’s commentators pointed out the egotism of the writer, who clearly saw himself as a “hero of a modern drama of values,” most exposed to political pressures. See Włodzimierz Maciąg, “Świadectwo,” Życie Literackie, no. 23 (1981): 7. They also observed that the social perspective adopted in the book is limited to the elites, and so that it was restricted by the author’s own social position; see, for instance, Wasilewski, “Miażdżenie ‘Miazgi,’” 9; and Bugajski, “W formie miazgi,” 173. The harshest critique of this aspect of Miazga came from Tomasz Łubie≈ski, who inimically noted what he considered a glaring division between artists and power, along with

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therefore, a discussion which seems impossible in the perspective of the events of 1968. At a deeper level, this unnamed reverse of atrophy would be some form of culture that could sew the social fabric together, creating a social “adhesive”; a culture which, according to Andrzejewski, the designers of People’s Poland failed to produce in the process of modeling the Polish society.46 Within the perspective adopted in Nierzeczywisto√ć, only an order based on laws could become the reverse of the Polish collective fiction: an order restoring the individual’s sense of connection with work and of having an influence over public affairs, complemented by a de-mythologized, sober consciousness of one’s own history, healed from both the national illusions and obsessions of the past, and from the faith in the hypostases of Reason and Progress that imply historical determinism. As observed by Kłosi≈ski, ultimately it is not “truth,” but law that can act as an antidote to unreality, as only law can suspend the dialectics of “reality-unreality.” And it is the “enforcement of law” that is to become the point of departure for the transformation of consciousness: I imagine also that I could be accused of being anachronistic in insisting so much on the importance of rights. It seems out of place to people who enjoy multiple rights, but please try to understand what I am talking about. I am speaking of another world, another education. Life has a natural tendency to produce false, illusory images. . . . Polish life has for a long time raised this attempt to the highest degree. It has given birth to the greatest number of monsters and illusions, these glorifications and these communal devotions that have

the “moralistic megalomania” of the former. In his opinion, although Miazga accounts for the entire complication of the mutual relations between these groups, it also “overlooks the ambiguous aftertaste of this unequal co-dependence.” See Łubie≈ski, “‘Miazga’ po dziesięciu latach,” 35–36. A significant motivation of this criticism is the overtly stated accusation concerning the author’s own unsettled past. Nierzeczywisto√ć also outlines the social and economic network of interdependencies and entanglements: the mutual “osmosis” between the “society” (that demands “ham” on top of bread, and a national circus), and the privileged party members (who too are subject to the mechanisms of bureaucratic propaganda alienation). Brandys’ text—written half a decade after Miazga—is both an intellectual’s declaration of “breaking out of availability,” and an attempt at answering the question “what is to be done?” 46 As written by Bugajski, the old order that had shaped most of the novel’s characters has been destroyed; some lost on this, others gained by taking the spot of the former elites; yet all carry a sensation of failure, including members of the new elite, “because even though they have gained power, significance, even though they have instilled the order that suits them, they are unable to create a new culture. They only mimic the old rituals, revisit the old gestures.” See Bugajski, “W formie miazgi,” 174.

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not been measured with reference to rights. Indeed, the opposite has been true. The lack of a state of its own has brought about in Poland a peculiar situation: the surrender of real to imaginary power. It is the political acting out of this situation that we are witnessing today. That is why I talk about rights. I talk about them because they alone will enable us to leave this magic-lantern show, which offers society a semblance of freedom instead of freedom, and folk costumes instead of public life. I talk about rights, because they alone permit the ordering and organization of the individual, of society, and of humanity whose joint harmony has been destroyed in Poland by the glorification of the nation. . . . I have also talked about rights because the majority of people in Poland do not realize to what extent they need them. I do not know if a people anywhere else right now, any other society, is as starved for rights.47

Yet Nierzeczywisto√ć, like Miazga and other novels of that time with political implications (such as those by Konwicki, Kornhauser, and Nowakowski), are still primarily reports of an illness. The norm—and thus the social reality or form (the opposite of pulp)—is of an unfulfilled character (which is also missing from the past of the Polish society) and it is defined as a negation of the current state. This unspoken, only indirectly implied completeness/reality (which also features in Brandys’ novel, with its expansive postulative aspect) can only be reconstructed as the reverse of criticism and should be perceived in its full negativity. It may be analyzed in the categories proposed by Ernesto Laclau: as “empty signifiers” or “signifiers of unachievable fullness,” and thus demands void of any concrete contents, waiting to be filled. Following Laclau’s approach, in the political space each signifier—such as “order,” “unity,” “revolution,” or “democracy”—may, in certain political contexts, become an empty signifier, “a signifier of unachievable fullness.” In situations of disorder/crisis (that is, when the power is unable to satisfy the mounting demands of various social groups), there emerges the need for some kind of order, the actual content of which becomes a secondary issue. In such situations, “order” or “justice” are devoid of any positive definition or conceptual content, because “the semantic role of these terms is not to express any positive content but, as we have seen, to function as the names of a fullness which is constitutively absent.”48 Various political forces may compete to present their own particular objectives as capable of filling this absence. According to Laclau, the essence of politicality is hegemony, thanks to which a certain particular content will take on the symbolic role of this fullness, of the “unachievable universal47 48

Brandys, A Question of Reality, 176–77. Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London and New York: Verso, 2005), 96. The following references to Laclau’s work are predominantly from the chapter entitled “The ‘People’ and the Discursive Production of Emptiness.”

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ity,” and unify the dispersed social demands that come together in an “equivalential chain.” These demands may be completely disparate and have nothing in common besides the fact that they all remain unfulfilled; thus, an inherent element of the equivalential link between them is a specific negativity.49 It is only possible to link very disparate demands within the equivalential chain because it is done based not on logico-conceptual connections, but attributive-performative ones. The very performative dimension of naming plays, according to Laclau, a pivotal role: the identity and unity of the object are a retroactive effect of the very operation of naming, of the name functioning as an empty signifier; that is, not expressing any conceptual unity that would precede it.50 Linking disparate demands into an equivalential chain makes the emergence of the “people,” which become something more than just the sum of individual links of the chain, possible. The more different and dispersed the individual demands, the more their unification—and thus, the establishment of “people”—will hinge on the empty signifiers, which must be both “empty,” that is, sufficiently non-descript, and spacious to connect the vast field of demands. Striving toward social fullness may only come about through affective “radical investment” in a partial object of the fullness, which becomes the object of a drive (Lacan’s objet petit a, which, according to Laclau, is a key element in social ontology).51 This will be a figure, a symbol, a particular demand which begins to embody this ultimately unachievable state of a fully reconciled society, order, or justice. Radical investment is the very moment when a given object becomes the embodiment of “fullness.” This “fullness” remains absolutely mythical: it will always evade experience and it remains merely a positive reversal of a situation experienced as “deficient being.”52 In this approach, social structure is the result of failed transcendence: “Transcendence appears within the social as the presence of an absence. It is around a constitutive lack that the social is organized.”53 The movement from disparate “democratic” demands—that is to say, in Laclau’s language, demands that the power could potentially satisfy one by one, institutionally—into equivalent “popular” demands, happens precisely because the background of social ontology is the experience of lacking, of the absence of a total community. Another condition for the constitution of a political community is the creation of an internal antagonistic frontier between “people” and “power.” As Laclau notes, “since the fullness of the community is merely the imaginary reverse of a situation lived as deficient 49

Ibid., 96. Ibid., 103–6, 114. 51 Ibid., 115. 52 Ibid., 116. 53 Ibid., 244. 50

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being, those who are responsible for this cannot be a legitimate part of the community.”54 It is not accidental that Laclau cites Solidarity as an example of such a radical investment: owing to the logic of hegemony, a certain ontic, particular content took on a universal function as a symbol of the “absent fullness of society.”55 54 55

Ibid., 86. Let us return here to the aforementioned work by Michał Siermi≈ski. In his opinion, in taking over the traditions of late ninetieth and early twentieth-century “rebellious” intellectuals, the former revisionists and commandos also appropriated the elitist inclinations toward paternalism and instrumentalization of the social power of the masses, and thus striving toward such an “empowerment of the people” which would win it over to fight side by side with the intelligentsia, instead of becoming an autonomous revolutionary actor. The later top-down installation of a radical neoliberal system, dictated by the elites, and under the umbrella of a mass trade union, was entirely possible due to the construction of intellectual elite domination since the 1970s. From this perspective, the birth of Solidarity and the early 1980s was a jarring dissonance that briefly halted the process of consolidation of the elites’ domination, and, at the same time, the last point in time when the “people” appeared on the political arena as an autonomous actor. Nevertheless, in Siermi≈ski’s opinion, the intellectual elites performed a secondary discursive “deproletarization” of the 1980–81 dissent. Siermi≈ski’s argument—convincing in its reconstruction of the views held by Kołakowski, Kuro≈, and Michnik—is nevertheless burdened with a few serious defects. Firstly, by sticking to a narrowly drawn analysis of texts, the author does not consider the legitimacy of the described discursive transformations in connection with the real sociopolitical situation, and in effect he seems to treat a change of opinion as proof of ideological treason. Moreover, he describes the complex evolution determined by the changing political situation in a teleological manner that is excessively burdened with intentionality; that is, he attributes to his characters unambiguous motivations and objectives of actions (a striving for domination based on anti-popular resentment), constructing them upon far-reaching effects of these actions. Moreover, by restricting his research field to three (admittedly significant) characters and by drastically reducing the sociopolitical context, he seems to ascribe to the actions of individuals excessive agency, which is in stark opposition to his Marxist, highly “classist” perception of history. Both the Party, as one of the actors of the erstwhile political scene, and “the people”— in reality reduced to the role of a supine tool, used by the narrow elites as they please—disappear from his narration. The vision of “the people,” not subject to any reflections, based on tacit, idealizing tenets, also raises serious doubts. And this is not only about the very symptomatic fact that the author, in accusing the “elites” of “deproletarization” and symbolic rewriting of Solidarity’s history in national and anti-communist categories, completely overlooks the role of the very “people” in this process. Above all, the very logic of emergence of the “popular” actor, the process of establishing its symbolic universe and rules of representation—astutely addressed by Laclau—are completely left out here: “the people”

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VIII. Both analyzed novels are narrations with features (and ambitions) of a historical testimony, in which the central problem is the exhaustion of the communist paradigm. They signal the impossibility of returning to its authenticity, at a time when all the linguistic bridges of the signifying and signified have been burned to the ground. They do, however, predict—and express a hope for—a social “patching up,” a reconciliation to unify the dispersed demands and signs of dissent, happening outside of the controlled communication channels and outside of the language established by the apparatus that administers the magma of biomass. Brandys once again: Nothing makes the machine tremble more than the thought of a good understanding among men, of their realization in common that their rights have been flouted and ignored. The nation’s freedom—and this also the machine knows— is conditional upon the rights of individuals. And that is what the machine is afraid of: that when the people find each other and recognize each other in the darkness, all of a sudden the lights might go on and somebody might have to turn off the projector. Amen.56

At the same time, however, they project an ethic of resistance that is individualistic and marked with intelligentsia elitism, one that is to consist in breaking away with being available to the power apparatus. At the same time, they erect numerous reservations around this expectation. For one, they warn against the fiction of a worldview community within the opposition, against the environmental law of mimicry, which will blur the real are depicted as perfectly monolithic, clammed up in their class identity, and at the same time devoid of any other features, not subject to internal structural and discursive transformations, only “played” by the elites. Siermi≈ski’s arguments seem to be encumbered with the same ailment that afflicts Dariusz Gawin’s Wielki zwrot: in writing (rewriting) the history of the 1970s, both authors treat the period of interest to them as an explanation of the current political configuration, a game of social actors and images. This, however, leads to excessive teleologization of the events/texts/actions (of the 1970s’ opposition) described by them, and ultimately reduces their arguments to disguised (in Gawin’s case, well disguised) or meekly masked (Siermi≈ski) narrative models based upon the motive of “conversion” (Gawin) or “betrayal.” There is no space here for a closer analysis of both these works. It is worth noting, however, that despite the antipodal goals, worldview, and political perspectives (in both cases strongly driving the entire logic of their arguments), they seem to be surprisingly mutually symmetrical. It is characteristic that, when referring to Gawin’s book, Siermi≈ski—not even once, not even marginally—cuts himself off from its assumptions and points of arrival. 56 Brandys, A Question of Reality, 166–67.

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discrepancies and conflicts.57 Brandys’ proposal seems to precisely underscore the game of social differences, the disparateness of group interests and worldviews; it consistently avoids illusions of social unity. He is also wary of the idea of a national Gesellschaft and illusions of community, placing primary emphasis on the letter of the law, looking to it as a safe foundation of social reality, and thus he invokes the rational, socio-national understanding of the category of nation. At the same time, Brandys’ narrator stands for the demythologized consciousness immune to ideology: understood as a holistic, tightly closed explanation system, which inevitably turns into a brake on development and a “suicide by certainty.”58 The breakthrough moment in the evolution 57

In the diary passages of Miazga (206–7), we read: “It seems to me that one of the dangers, which deprives the people of the opposition in a moral sense, is the somewhat natural inclination of those individuals pushed out onto the margins of public life to liken one’s views to the ones ‘endorsed’ by opposition circles; the opposition . . . is too looking for its ‘coagulant.’ Since in a total system official opposition does not and cannot exist, the people of the opposition connect with each other mainly within their own environments, and the law of mimicry is always at play within any given environment, even in ones as individualized as the intellectual and artistic environment.” The issue of mimicry was presented similarly in Brandys’ text: striving, within the oppositional circles, to underscore what connects them ultimately leads to a practical blurring of boundaries and to false alliances. Suffocating in “forced solidarity” gives the illusion of a shared agenda and mutual understanding, which is only a short distance away from accusations of betrayal and, above all, the danger of becoming unaccustomed to one’s own truths and principles. These are the costs of secrecy of public life, the price of which are “psychic maladies” and “a certain lag in general intelligence”; “I see in that yet another threat of nongenuineness. Suppressing differences leads to stifling contradictions artificially, which in turn blunts the sharpness of thought” (Brandys, A Question of Reality, 160). 58 A similar conflict of attitudes—between the “ideological” option, and faith in the agency and sense-forming power of an individual—is present in Rondo, connected to Nierzeczywisto√ć, where these attitudes are exhibited by Władek Sznej and Tom. According to Seweryna Wysłouch, Brandys’ works, whose dominant theme has always been the “issue of the individual and his attitude toward history,” has evolved from sociology to ethics, from historio-sociological determinism toward appreciation of individual agency, followed by relinquishment of auctorial narration and a search for new forms of utterance. Wysłouch refers to the point of arrival of Rondo’s author as lay personalism. The highest value is represented by the human being: free, integral, oriented toward others, deprived of the support of transcendence. The consequence of such a stance is to be the adoption of Kantian ethics, and according to the researcher, it is precisely individual freedom and ethics that serve as central themes of Nierzeczywisto√ć. See Seweryna Wysłouch, “Od socjologii do etyki. O twórczo√ci Kazimierza Brandysa,” Pamiętnik Literacki, no. 3 (1989): 116–38.

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of the narrator’s attitude is a meeting with an old friend, a certain “Icz,” who smoothly transitions from one worldview and ideological phase to another, always finding a justification for his actions. Icz “was built like an open circuit. Perhaps he was open to all possible mental states,” and “unconsciously he inclined toward unity with a mode of thought broader than his own, and whose value might be confirmed by the future.”59 The narrator’s breakthrough happens as a silent refusal to accept rational arguments, a breaking off of a dialogue: unconsciously, I thought that Icz was right and at the same time I regarded his words as beyond the point. . . . And yet, I was on the defensive. In keeping silent I was saying no, once and for all, to what was challenging me from outside in the guise of a truth that claimed to include me and to define me without caring what its psychological meaning might be for me. I did not, therefore, care to find out if it confirmed my inner truth or if it reduced it to nothingness. In short: I had had enough. I already felt tired of this tension between myself and the age, between myself and the facts and their various interpretations. I was even becoming indifferent to everything that was solidly based on history, all that was capable of convincing me intellectually, and which had its justification if not in me, at least in its relationship to me. That was my moment of refusal, or breaking off. Of course, it had been coming over me for a long time, but on that day—and it is only now that I fully realize it—it was final.60

This refusal seems to contain the evolution of an entire generation of writers who, having lived through involvement in communism (now treated as the “original sin”), step out of it disappointed, distrustful of every overly precise and positively defined worldview. This does not mean that they withdraw from public involvement altogether, as they still take up social tasks that, in their opinion, form part of the intellectual ethos; yet in a way they try to secure them by restricting the scope of this ethos to a bare minimum. These conditions are to be satisfied by the strategy of moral resistance, the “apolitical politics” that the 1970s opposition chose as its course of action. This is the final stage of the process of depoliticization of the postOctober left, a process that began sometime around October 1956, became latent during the long sixties due to political circumstances, but reemerged with a new momentum in the 1970s. Both the texts discussed here—as metacritical analyses—are played out in the deliberative space of the intelligentsia. While projecting their path of ethical resistance against the “system,” they remain elite proposals, and ultimately they bring down the question of antidotes to social ailments to 59 60

Brandys, A Question of Reality, 58. Ibid., 139–40.

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individual and axiological issues. Brandys formulates something akin to an action plan based on an individual ethical code, which is to consist of the “refusal of functionality” and breaking out of conformism. This action plan, we may add, bears the mark of intelligentsia elitism and is constructed in the categories of abstract “moral rebirth.”61 Above all, the texts are encumbered with a fear of a positively defined social project; they are also, so to speak, entangled in negative dialectics. Wary of communitarian thinking, they do not propose any symbolic adhesive to the broad social masses to which the communist project was addressed; to masses which by then were once again producing a chain of demands, a chain that nonetheless could not focus around a negative project. It had to fill Laclau’s “signifiers of unachieved fullness,” and it did so symbolically in the decade of Solidarity. By avoiding any sort of overly cohesive project of patching up the Polish social tissue, of “making it real,” and thus by defining its field only in negative terms, Brandys and Andrzejewski—and along with them the postOctober opposition with leftist roots—somehow willingly limited their own role and relinquished the fight for hegemony within the growing series of social demands. It were ultimately these demands—although this took decades—that transformed into what the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk defines as the thymotics (that is, rhetoric) of rage. Translated by Maja Jaros This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.”

61

As pointed out by a reviewer from Parisian Kultura, Maciej Bro≈ski, in “W poszukiwaniu formuły,” 143.

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Bibliography Andrzejewski, Jerzy. Miazga, edited by Anna Synoradzka-Demadre. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy Ossoli≈skich, 2002. ———. Partia i twórczo√ć pisarza. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1952. ———. Apelacja. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1983. Bartoszy≈ski, Kazimierz. “Postmodernizm a ‘sprawa polska’: Przypadek ‘Miazgi’.” Teksty Drugie, no. 1 (1993): 36–54. Brandys, Kazimierz. Nierzeczywisto√ć. Warsaw: Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza, 1977. ———. A Question of Reality. Translated from the French by Isabel Barzun. London: Blond & Briggs, 1981. Bro≈ski, Maciej. “W poszukiwaniu formuły.” Kultura, no. 4 (1978): 140–41. Bugajski, Leszek. “W formie miazgi.” In Pozy prozy, 166–77. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1986. Burek, Tomasz. “Szkoda tego pomysłu.” In Żadnych marze≈, 188–94. London: Polonia, 1987. Chmielewska, Katarzyna, and Tomasz Żukowski. “Trauma Marca: Epilog.” In Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, 380–95. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL, 2014. Czeszko, Bohdan. “Miazgowisko na weselisku.” Nowe Książki, no. 1 (1982): 58–60. Gawin, Dariusz. Wielki zwrot: Ewolucja lewicy i odrodzenie idei społecze≈stwa obywatelskiego 1956–1976. Krakow: Znak, 2013. Gawli≈ski, Stanisław. Polityczne obowiązki. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiello≈skiego, 1993. Kałuży≈ski, Zygmunt. “Z bestią pod pachę.” In Widok z pozycji przewróconego, 92– 105. Warsaw: Pa≈stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1985. Kłosi≈ski, Krzysztof. “Nierzeczywisto√Δ.” Śląsk, no. 6 (1996): 72. Kołakowski, Leszek. “Sprawa polska.” Kultura, no. 4 (1973): 2–13. Kretowicz, Karol. “Postawy i pseudoarcydzieła.” Głos Wybrzeża, no. 153 (1982): 3. Krzewicki, Andrzej. Okruchy: Lektura “Miazgi” Jerzego Andrzejewskiego. Warsaw: Liberator, 1995. Kuro≈, Jacek. “My√li o programie działania.” Aneks, nos. 13–14 (1977): 4–32. Laclau, Ernesto. On Populist Reason. London and New York: Verso, 2005. Łubie≈ski, Tomasz. “‘Miazga’ po dziesięciu latach.” In Pisane przedwczoraj, 33–39. Krakow: Oficyna Literacka, 1983. Maciąg, Włodzimierz. “Świadectwo.” Życie Literackie, no. 23 [1532] (1981): 7. Majchrowski, Stanisław. Między słowem a rzeczywisto√cią: Problemy powie√ci politycznej w Polsce w latach 1945–1970. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie, 1988. Miłosz, Czesław. Prywatne obowiązki. Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Pojezierze, 1990. Owczarek, Bogdan. “Rozpad.” Miesięcznik Literacki, no. 9 (1982): 143–45. Siermi≈ski, Michał. Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980; Od demokracji robotniczej do narodowego paternalizmu. Warsaw: Książka i Prasa, 2016. Świątkiewicz, Rafał. “Legenda ‘Miazgi’ Jerzego Andrzejewskiego.” Ruch Literacki, no. 4 (1993): 477–82. Tomicki, Grzegorz. “‘Obłęd’ Jerzego Krzysztonia jako dzieło ironiczne.” Fa-Art, nos. 1–2 (2007): 18–26.

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Walas, Teresa. “O ‘Miazdze’ Jerzego Andrzejewskiego, czyli o walce z szatanem.” In Literatura źle obecna: Rekonesans, 181–200. Krakow: “X,” 1986. Wasilewski, Andrzej. “Miażdżenie ‘Miazgi.’” Polityka, no. 18 (April 14, 1990): 9. Wołk, Marcin. Tekst w dwóch kontekstach: Narracja pierwszoosobowa w powie√ciach Kazimierza Brandysa. Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 1999. Wysłouch, Seweryna. “Od socjologii do etyki: O twórczo√ci Kazimierza Brandysa.” Pamiętnik Literacki, no. 3 (1989): 116–38. Zaworska, Helena. “Szczero√Δ.” Twórczo√ć, no. 5 (1982): 113–21. Żukowski, Tomasz. “Ustanowienie nacjonalistycznego pola dyskursu społecznego: Spór między partią a Ko√ciołem w roku 1966.” In Rok 1966: PRL na zakręcie, edited by Katarzyna Chmielewska, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski, 11–38. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL, 2014.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Scheming as a Business: “Communism” in the Language of the 1980s Opposition; The Example of The Little Conspirator Krzysztof Gajewski

Reflection upon the notion of “communism” in Poland owes its research material first of all to the discourse of the anti-government opposition, as the official language of People’s Poland rid itself of the term “communism” almost completely. It seems that the most widespread positive use of this term could be seen in the early 1950s, a literary testimony of which would be Bohdan Czeszko’s novel Pokolenie (Generation, 1951), as well as Andrzej Wajda’s screen adaptation of the novel from 1954. The term itself was most aptly used in a stigmatizing function, while in the present it is increasingly often juxtaposed with fascism, a maneuver which is to discredit it entirely. What were the connotations of this term in the language of the 1980s opposition? My analysis of this topic will be based on the booklet Mały konspirator (1983; published in English as The Little Conspirator, 1986) by Czesław Bielecki, Jan Krzysztof Kelus, and Urszula Sikorska.1 This chapter is methodologically very close to the approach used by sociologist Sergiusz Kowalski in his Krytyka solidarno√ciowego rozumu (A critique of Solidarity’s reason, 1990), which aimed at “reconstructing the 1

Czesław Bielecki, Jan K. Kelus, and Urszula Sikorska, Mały konspirator (Warsaw: CDN, 1983). Where possible, I use the English translation: Czesław Bielecki, Jan K. Kelus and Urszula Sikorska, “The Little Conspirator,” trans. Roman M. Boreyko and André YaDeau, Conflict Quarterly 6, no. 4 (Fall 1986): 27–64. However, the 1986 translation is not complete (some sentences or paragraphs are missing), and in some places the text differs from the original. As the present chapter conducts a thorough, word-by-word analysis of the content of The Little Conspirator, I supplement or modify the 1986 translation where necessary. In the footnotes, I keep the reference both to the Polish original and to the page of the English translation.

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Solidarity ideology,” while the author defined his research position thusly: “we are not interested in how it really is, but in how it is thought to be.”2 The chapter aims at reconstructing some of the assumptions within the language of the 1980s opposition, based on the example of The Little Conspirator. “The Little Conspirator”: structure, origins, and genology As one of the authors of the booklet admitted in a 1998 interview for the journal Brulion (The Journal), the inspiration for writing a practical oppositionist’s manual was provided by the so-called mountaineers’ case of 1969– 70. The criminal offences involved smuggling some editions of the Parisbased journal Kultura (Culture) into Poland and exporting underground literature out of the country. Jan Krzysztof Kelus, one of the organizers of the procedure, was sentenced to three years in prison for the offence. Years later he reminisced about the mountaineers’ trial as a failure in the fight against the authorities: “although no one abused us physically, mentally they kicked our asses badly. I was interrogated at Rakowiecka Street about a hundred times at that time. Eight hours a day. . . . Everyone—except for Kuba [Karpi≈ski]3 came out with their mouths full of shit.”4 The experience they gained was valuable. “I came out of the can not so much with a sore ass, as with a bruised ego and a lesson learned once and for all, that a gentleman never converses with the secret police—neither in prison, nor outside of it,”5 said Kelus years later. The conclusion, never to answer questions from the secret police, became the main message of the handbook. The direct impulse for the creation of The Little Conspirator was the introduction of martial law on December 13, 1981, along with the arrests and interrogations that came with it. Kelus and his friends—Urszula Sikorska and Czesław Bielecki—gathered in their publication the knowledge gained a decade earlier. Their experience from the mountaineers’ trial helped them, or so they thought, to support the repressed opposition, while at the same time scoring a point over the secret police: “I set my account straight with the secret police by writing, together with Czesław Bielecki and my wife, quite a successful booklet entitled The Little Conspirator,”6 recalled Kelus. 2

Sergiusz Kowalski, Krytyka solidarno√ciowego rozumu: Studium z socjologii my√lenia potocznego (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne, 2009), 38. 3 Jakub Karpi≈ski (1940–2003) was an activist of the democratic opposition who collaborated with the Paris-based journal Kultura. 4 Jan K. Kelus, “Kawał w bok od szosy głównej: Rozmawia Krzysztof Gajda,” Brulion, no. 1 (1998): 163. 5 Ibid., 163. 6 Ibid., 164.

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The analyzed publication consists of three chapters: “How to Scheme,”7 “The Citizen vs. the Secret Police,” and “The Interrogation Game.” The first part, describing the daily practice of “scheming,” comprises twentyfive sections under the following headlines: Origins, Underground, The Company, Merchandise, Money, Meetings, Messengers, Notebooks, Phone Calls, Dead Drops, Offices, Secret Compartments, Underground Press, Police, The Tail, The Pot, Busted, Prison Life, Pain, Culture, Fear, Mystification, Manias, The Carrier, and Freedom. The second part, which addresses strategies for dealing with the secret police, encompasses four sections: The Summons, Detention, Searches, and Interrogation. The last part discusses the strategy to be adopted during interrogation and contains a list of twenty-two “tricks”: “I am going to use old and well-tested tactics or tricks. I find it surprising that they work 90 percent of the time.”8 According to information provided by Kelus, the first chapter was written by Bielecki, the second one was Sikorska’s adaptation of an already-existing legal handbook for oppositionists (though its title remains unknown), and the third one was authored by Kelus himself. What is The Little Conspirator from a genological point of view? The authors described it as a set of “health and safety regulations,”9 but the style and manner of presenting the material evoke the structure of a handbook. The Little Conspirator is a conspirator’s “good practice treatise”: the rules and guidelines offered therein constitute the praxeology of an oppositionist’s work. The romantic opposition activity is subject to positivist rationalization. Instead of a battle-frenzied revolutionary, we see a meticulous professional, who methodically plans the subsequent stages of development of his “business.” The philosophical inspirations to the creation of the guidebook were positivist: both the influence of Albert Espinas, the forerunner of praxeology, and those of the Polish continuator of Espinas’ work, Tadeusz Kotarbi≈ski. In turn, the list of twenty-two “tricks” covering the investigating officers’ repertoire of persuasion certainly bring to mind Arthur Schopenhauer’s The Art of Always Being Right listing thirty-eight tricks or ways (Kunstgriffe) one can use to gain the upper hand in an argument. As the back of the title page reads, The Little Conspirator is a collection of writings by people temporarily at liberty. Once you have read the first section of this booklet it is possible that you will not need the advice from the second two parts. But, once you have read the 7

The above-mentioned translation by Boreyko and YaDeau uses the word “conspire,” which does not exactly render the complete semantics of the Polish word “knuć” (to scheme). Upon consulting the author, I decided to consistently use “scheming” throughout the text—translator’s note. 8 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 18; “The Little Conspirator,” 9. 9 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 1; “The Little Conspirator,” 31.

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second section, you will know the legal reasons why you cannot be prosecuted for reading the third part. After the third chapter, however, you will know why it is best to be discreet about the fact that you have even seen this booklet.10

This type of editorial—typical of the Anglo-Saxon style of publishing— rarely appeared on the covers of books published in People’s Poland. Written in a humorous, colorful tone, it was certainly intriguing: not only did it inform of the volume’s content, but it also aimed at attracting the potential reader, who would not be disappointed. The Little Conspirator is a fascinating read, addressed not only to the practitioners of underground activity. What does the depicted world of The Little Conspirator look like? Its reconstruction may be made easier by the following enumeration of text segments: 1. Space (Underground, The Company, Dead Drops, Offices, Secret Compartments); 2. Persons (Messengers, The Tail, Police); 3. Objects (The Merchandise, Money, Notebooks, Phone Calls, Underground Press); 4. Phenomena (Pain, Fear, Culture, Freedom). Space: a company in the underground world The basic unit of the underground world of political opposition is “the company.” It functions independently from other “companies” and its institutional characteristics place it between the social and private spheres. A company has an element of a self-government institution with an air of an individual business about it: “The underground society is able to function with solidarity and efficiency if it organizes itself—by means of grassroots, individual entrepreneurship—into independent, self-governed social institutions—companies.”11 The neoliberal vocabulary of this language is striking. On the one hand, it refers to the market reality of the 1980s and “private initiative”; on the other hand, it invokes the world of Western capitalism, known remotely from the mass media and film productions. “Solidarity” and “efficiency” are highlighted as attributes of anti-socialist activity. It is a reference to the idea of social solidarity in general—and to the ethos of the Solidarity movement in particular—while at the same time emphasizing efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, and performance, which are traits studied as the subject of the academic discipline of praxeology (“the theory of effective action”).12 These attributes, depicted together, as com10

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 2; “The Little Conspirator,” 32. Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 1; “The Little Conspirator,” 31. 12 Tadeusz Kotarbi≈ski, Traktat o dobrej robocie (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossoli≈skich, 1982), 7. 11

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plementary, appear in the course of further deliberation to be mutually exclusive, to the point of forcing one to choose between them. Impersonal, military-type structures should not be adopted by the underground. As Jacek Kuro≈ once wrote: “Solidarity is more important than the cause.”13 One of the evoked historical models of action is that of the Home Army, and in particular its methods of conspiracy. However, in the author’s view, the oppositionists should distance themselves from a hierarchy-based model typical of any military institution: “The Home Army’s military conspiracy during the Second World War was not, despite appearances, created as a pyramid of cells directly dependent on each other; it was a confederation of independent companies.”14 The term “confederation” does not fit in the neoliberal paradigm; it is borrowed from the dialect of cooperatives, social grassroots organizations, and bottom-up participation. A confederation is a voluntary association of autonomous associations, like the Confederation of Trade Unions. The rules of running conspiratorial activity (“scheming”) are strikingly modern and very reminiscent of the rules of running large corporations: “The rule of underground organization is that a small group can conduct big business.”15 On the other hand, the guidebook uses the language of early capitalism. For example, the term “office,”16 which appears in a light and humorous tone: “even if it only has 7–10 people, an office is essential if you don’t want to be overburdened by routine contacts.”17 “An office also acts as a dead drop and a node of a network of connections between the participants of conspiracy: a dead drop is like a switch, it cuts the current when something goes wrong. It is a place (a house, a shop, or a flat) through which different groups communicate, exchange materials.” This creates a multi-layered composition: the company covers the office and the dead drops, which in turn contain secret compartments. “A serious conspirator has . . . a small, easily accessible compartment where papers can be hidden in a matter of seconds.”18 This describes the scope of a fascinating conspiracy game, which features elements of a “Monopoly”-type economy game, along with those of a spy novel.19 Conspiracy appears a game, and its participant gains an iden13

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 4; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 1; “The Little Conspirator,” 31. 15 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 4; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. 16 In the Polish original the word “kantor” is used, an archaic term meaning a small office; in modern Polish, it is used only to denote a currency exchange office or jokingly. 17 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 7; “The Little Conspirator,” 40. 18 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 5; “The Little Conspirator,” 38. 19 For more on the “Westernization” of late socialism, see Olga Drenda, Duchologia polska: Rzeczy i ludzie w latach transformacji (Krakow: Karakter, 2016). 14

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tity as homo ludens.20 Political struggle intertwines with business and an idealist sense of mission, as well as with sheer will to make a difference. To the reader’s joy, serious and complicated matters are referred to in a light tone, and with the playful conventions of a mind game between the police officer and the oppositionist. Persons: a game of police and conspirators The use of the word “police” instead of “militia,” which was the official name of this force in the People’s Republic of Poland (milicja obywatelska— citizens’ militia), leads to an “exoticization” of the described reality. Stories from American spy films come to mind, and this assumption finds its internal textual motivation in the text’s finale.21 The Hollywood staffage, which in the 1970s and 1980s pushed out the earlier dominant Italian and French models, is also evident in the lexicon: for example, “the pigs,”22 with which the “conspirators” are confronted. Just like in cinema noir, characters appear to be ethically ambiguous. The division between good and bad exists, but it runs slightly askew the dividing line between the police/conspirators. The opponent is described in axiologically neutral terms. It is not actually an opponent, but a natural element of social life, one of its institutions, which—unlike the government (“the Communists,” “Bolshevia”)—in principle functions flawlessly (“it is still a much more efficient Communist institution than either the army or the party”).23 The authors of The Little Conspirator draw a surprisingly positive picture of the “police” and the Security Service, much different to that prevailing in the political underground in the first half of the 1980s. Avoiding the word “militia” undoubtedly contributes to the achievement of this rhetorical goal. The authors admire the opponent’s “huge budget” and the fact that “nothing dies in the Secret Service’s dossier, even after many years,” while at the same time “routine” is considered an element aiding the effectiveness of the investigative authorities.24 One could almost say that such “gentlemanly” treatment of the opponent has a pragmatic character: it helps improve the effectiveness of conspiracy practice. However, it also plays an additional role in the self-creation of the 20

Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: The Study of the Play-Element in Culture (London: Taylor & Francis, 2003). 21 This is where the narrator announces that the booklet was elaborated based on CIA material, entitled “Sensitivity Training as a Tool for Strengthening the Resistance to Brain-Washing.” Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 21; “The Little Conspirator,” 63. 22 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 6; “The Little Conspirator,” 41. 23 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 6; “The Little Conspirator,” 41. 24 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 6; “The Little Conspirator,” 41.

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discourse subject: it gives him the opportunity to present himself as a reliable person, who subordinates all his statements and actions to the principles of reason, not subject to emotion. Yes, he is able to restrain them by showing his opponent in a favorable light: “They are not omnipotent and omnipresent, nor are they a bunch of sadistic idiots. The police are part of one of the world’s oldest institutions; it is wise to learn some respect for them before you ritually offer up your belt and shoelaces.”25 However, under the surface of apparent objectivity and distance, or even respect for the Security Service, lies irony and mockery, visible for example when referring to it as the “oldest profession in the world.” Such phrases are conducive to the “demolition” of the Security Service, whose brutality, as can be derived from Kelus’ testimonies, was overestimated by underground activists. The police officers are “our fellows,” the narrator seems to say. There is no need to fear them, they are only doing their job and are within the general framework of predictability. They are “tame”: “The police force operates like a Soviet bureaucratic machine, not like a Swiss watch.”26 What makes the domestication of the Secret Service easier is placing it on the eastern side of the map, the “Soviet” side: that is to say, on the “homely,” inefficient, organizationally weak side, in contrast to an efficient and effective “Western” institution (“Swiss watch”).27 What is Soviet is, in fact, harmless, though it should not be completely underestimated. Objects: underground press as merchandise The language of microeconomics comes in handy for describing the material sphere of the conspirator’s world. Underground activities are a trade in “merchandise,” for which money is obtained. The difficult conditions under which clandestine activity takes place make it necessary to adhere to the highest standards of organizational and management work, combined with rational logistics: “Conspiracy can only work smoothly when there are no loose ends or merchandise sold in bulk. It is a crime to deliver unfinished products: such actions are typical of a Sovietized economy, and must not occur. In the underground everything must be gift-wrapped and delivered on a silver platter.”28

25

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 6; “The Little Conspirator,” 41. Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 6; “The Little Conspirator,” 36. 27 For more about the connotations of communism with “the East” and of capitalism with “the West,” see Ewa Charkiewicz, “Od komunizmu do neoliberalizmu: Technologie transformacji,” in Zniewolony umysł 2: Neoliberalizm i jego krytyki, ed. Jan Sowa and Ewa Majewska (Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2006), 23–84. 28 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 2; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. 26

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It appears, then, that we are in fact holding a pioneering work, precursory to the numerous business guru handbooks that will find their way to the market a couple of years later, in free market realities. The postulate of optimizing the opposition’s methods is contrasted with the “Communist” way of functioning, which is the polar opposite of the “gift-wrapped” capitalist paradigm.29 The Communist specialty is “merchandise sold in bulk.” The symbolism seems clear. It is later depicted with a wide array of examples, probably taken from the authors’ personal experience: “When setting the time, place, and number of participants for a clandestine rendezvous, everything must be decided in advance. If information is to be passed, it must be prepared and written down. . . . If pamphlets from the underground press are to be moved, they must be wrapped, tied, counted, and the contents discreetly noted on the wrapping paper.”30 “Merchandise sold in bulk” is not thought through; it is unfinished, sloppy work, abandoned in the process or done carelessly, and so requiring additional endeavors, which would increase the risk of a bust. Conspiracy conditions demand exorbitant standards of functioning on the “difficult market,” which is probably why they may become a good “school of business,” as conspiracy activity is business not only in name.31 The issue of money is discussed separately: “In the underground, the risk you run is for patriotism, the work you do is for a living. . . . A haughty attitude toward money, the facile assertion that ‘we are not conspiring for profit,’ is useless prudery.”32 The authors propose a liberal attitude to money. In an interview, Kelus mentioned the amount of money he had earned selling his own cassettes,33 declaring that the income had not been taxed. The Little Conspirator in this context is only mentioned briefly as “a very large volume, a real underground bestseller.”34 “Price: 80 PLN” reads the fourth cover page, next to information about other available books. Here business is conspiring and conspiring is busi29

The disciplining effect of market neoliberalism was described by Elizabeth Dunn, Privatizing Poland: Baby Food, Big Business, and the Remaking of Labor (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). 30 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 2; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. 31 Mateusz Fałkowski, Biznes patriotyczny: Historia Wydawnictwa CDN (Warsaw: Europejskie Centrum Solidarno√ci, 2011). 32 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 3; “The Little Conspirator,” 34. 33 Krzysztof Kelus was a famous musician known, alongside Jacek Kaczmarski, as one of the bards of the Solidarity movement. See Krzysztof Gajewski, “Rozliczenia z PRL-em na łamach bruLionu: Przypadek Jana Krzysztofa Kelusa,” in Do√wiadczenie komunizmu: Pamięć i język, ed. Piotr Zemszał, Riegels Halili, and Michał Głuszkowski (Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2016), 131–47. 34 Kelus, “Kawał w bok od szosy głównej,” 164.

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ness. Avoiding taxation is a natural and obvious strategic element of the game, as well as a form of sabotage of the authoritarian state: “Newspapers do not only spread ideas; for the underground, they are the best source of information, money, and materials.”35 Information enables the production of materials, which in turn brings money, which makes it possible to obtain more information and to continue production. The sales network becomes the opposition’s world circulatory system, building an organism capable of an independent and functional existence. The underground press is the most important slogan of the underground world, evoking a rich array of references to national conspiracy and the revolutionary tradition. It was key to Józef Piłsudski’s deliberations on “revolutionary struggle” in practice under Russian rule in his essay entitled Bibuła (Underground Press, 1903).36 The change in the significance of underground press is striking. In the economy of socialist revolution the underground press, which for many underground organizations was “the lifeblood of the organism,” was not so much a commodity as “only an asset at the disposal of political organizations under the tsarist administration, used to constantly develop opinions in the desired direction. . . . All other means, such as associations, unions, and verbal propaganda, are so restricted in Russia’s political conditions that their influence is limited and reaches only a scarce group of people.”37 Piłsudski was part of the second underground wave, for which the “underground press” became a mass commodity like never before. During the first wave, in the prehistory of underground press, when “Dziadek” (Grandpa, Piłsudski’s nickname) was still a child “in a Lithuanian manor house,” after the collapse of the national uprisings in the nineteenth century, in fear of Russian searches and terrified of possible court sentences, his mother would pull out “from some secret hiding place . . . the works of our national bards.” Thus, the revolutionary press may pride itself in venerable origins and the status of a “holy relic,” but it cannot be concealed that there was little demand for it, as a result of the “numbness and fear of the terrorized society.”38 It was only the second wave of conspiratorial printing technology that brought about mass distribution of the underground press, which allowed for “speculating with underground press and illegal book trade,” as well as facilitating the emergence of a special type of underground press, the so-called “income press, i.e., one that gives a certain income to its sellers.”39 35

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 6; “The Little Conspirator,” 38. Józef Piłsudski, Bibuła (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Jirafa Roja, 2009). 37 Ibid., 8. 38 Ibid., 115. 39 Ibid., 222. 36

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For Kelus and friends, “underground press is a goal and means of action.”40 Attention is drawn to the sense of internal contradiction in this statement. The goal here is the means of action and the measure is, at the same time, the goal. Distribution of underground press is an autotelic activity. We are dealing with the refutation of the political myth of an oppositionist who seeks to overthrow an unjust regime or create a revolution in social relations. It implements a rather positivist idea of “organic work,” “work at the root,” work at the economic base level. Opposition activity is subject to final rationalization and materialization. An oppositionist aims to be involved in the functioning of the social machine here and now. Underground press, as we read further, “can serve as a means of communication between cells which otherwise would be isolated for security reasons. What’s more, it is a forum which enables leaders to identify themselves with specific intellectual and political positions and a way of social communication. Companies may use their paper to identify with the specific intellectual heritage of their environment and the company’s political choices.”41 The political program is set aside and removed from the area of interest of The Little Conspirator’s authors, who direct their message to the various “environments” mentioned in the above quotation, with a “specific intellectual heritage,” and to companies that make individual “political choices.” The handbook seems to be politically neutral in writing, as a result of which its statements and prepositions concerning communism are presented in advance within the modal framework of impartiality and “academic” objectivity. The authors are trying to pass as neutral professionals, almost professional conspirators or mercenaries. They seem to be governed by pure pragmatism. In the authors’ understanding, the core of this attitude and worldview was the idea that the free market represents a “natural” economic situation, which was disrupted by the economic activities of a centralized government. The idea of legal justice, which should be pursued “with one’s own hands,” entailed the conviction that economic justice would be achieved in a similar way. However, this view did not have to be shared by the whole Solidarity community, to which the manual was addressed.42 Phenomena: fear and pain The authors of the handbook devote a lot of space to “the psychology of conspiracy.” One of its main issues is fear: “The war by Jaruzelski against the Polish nation has demonstrated that it is one thing to wear a Solidarity badge and quite another thing to feel actual solidarity with others.”43 40

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 5; “The Little Conspirator,” 42. Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 5; “The Little Conspirator,” 42. 42 Kowalski, Krytyka solidarno√ciowego rozumu, 138. 43 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 8; “The Little Conspirator,” 39. 41

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The analysis of fear goes in two directions. On the one hand, there are guidelines on how to deal with one’s own fear, and on the other hand, on how to deal with fear in others. The focus is on the latter. The problem arises even before the fear itself emerges, and concerns the very way of expressing and externalizing this feeling. “Fear never takes the form of an open declaration: ‘I won’t do it anymore because I am afraid’.”44 The conspirator should therefore be able to sense fear and dismiss individuals affected by it from underground work. It is important that fear is not manifested overtly, but rather in the form of “aggression” and “accusations”: “Half-hearted patriots invariably emphasize the need to preserve the nation’s talent. They see themselves as part of this valuable pool without which the fatherland cannot survive into the future.”45 Accordingly, the division between the conspirators does not run along the lines of political choices, but is rather determined by the choice of conspiracy measures. In this respect the authors of The Little Conspirator do not shy away from using the stigmatizing appellation of “half-hearted patriots,” meaning those who use the argument of “preserving the nation’s talent,” thus essentially proposing a strategy of procrastination. It is worth pointing out that a suitable interpretation of this situation is given immediately, which may be easily qualified as argumentum ad personam. When it comes to the question of dealing with fear, one of the available strategies is to de-demonize “the police”: “Don’t be intimidated. We are not in the ‘Gomułka era.’ The SB [Służba Bezpiecze≈stwa; Security Service] nowadays frequently resorts to threats and the use of force during interrogations. This sort of threat has been put into practice. We must prepare ourselves psychologically for it. Fortunately, we are not in the ‘Stalinist era,’ when physical torture was commonplace.”46 The authors assert that unlike in the Stalinist era, modern interrogation and imprisonment do not entail hellish torture, while threats so eagerly made by the interrogators should be qualified as psychological harassment only.47 Double manipulation: denying authenticity The above-quoted excerpts from the first part of The Little Conspirator form the stage where the drama of conspiracy, investigation, detention, and interrogation takes place. The authors present the legal framework of this situation and the principles of operation in confrontation with the Security 44

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 8; “The Little Conspirator,” 39. Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 8; “The Little Conspirator,” 39. 46 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 13; “The Little Conspirator,” 52–53. 47 Though Kelus himself mentions the case of a handicapped boy tortured by the Secret Service; see Jan K. Kelus and Wojciech Staszewski, Był raz dobry √wiat . . . (Warsaw: Prószy≈ski i S-ka, 1999), 194. 45

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Service. They give both detailed, practical tips from the underground experience of the authors and their friends, as well as general, common-sense principles: “Don’t panic,” “Do not admit to anything.”48 At the same time, they indicate that the (hardly achievable) ideal behavior for a person interviewed by the Security Service is total silence—only this can guarantee the minimization of unpleasant consequences or their avoidance. One of the most successful methods of breaking the suspects in the mountaineers’ case, which involved Kelus and his friends, was “denying authenticity.” “Investigation officials sought to convince all involved that they were being manipulated and exploited for the private aims of individuals with grandiose ambitions, who were usually of Jewish origin or, alternatively, were incited by West German revisionists.”49 A conspirator with little practice within the structure of the “Company,” not fluent enough in the ways of “scheming,” would often learn from the interrogating officer that the underground world in which he was engaged did not have a political character; that he was “used for private purposes.” These private purposes and suggestions were at the same time identified as belonging to a sphere of influence of “foreign elements,” which were not part of the “tissue of the nation”: that is, Jewish or German. It was about West German revisionists, political actors with the intention of violating the borders of People’s Poland. On the one hand, the threat of individualistic capitalism was pointed out (“private goals of people with exuberant ambitions, most often of Jewish origin”); on the other hand, the threat of the neighboring country, a potential aggressor, was noted. Accentuating somebody’s “Jewish origin” referred first of all to the phantasm of the “capitalist Jew”—an owner of a Warsaw restaurant, a New York banker, and so forth—and secondly to the figure of a schemer, a seedbed of war and conflict, which contributed to the anti-Semitic campaign of March 1968 (the so-called mountaineers’ case took place a year after these events). Regardless of the particular ideological background behind investigative eristic, the mere fact of evoking nationalistic discourse as a tool of persuasion, somehow an invitation to this discourse, was an argument for the popularity of such beliefs in the circles associated with power (and beyond).50 48

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 14; “The Little Conspirator,” 54– 55. 49 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 15; “The Little Conspirator,” 55. 50 See, for instance, Michał Głowi≈ski, Marcowe gadanie: Komentarze do słów 1966– 1971 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Pomost, 1991); Dariusz Stola, Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967–1968 (Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2000); Grzegorz Berendt, ed., Społeczno√ć żydowska w PRL przed kampanią antysemicką lat 1967–1968 i po niej (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009). The Little Conspirator’s gender profile deserves a separate article. The marginaliza-

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Conclusion: the notion of communism and around it The Little Conspirator often defines the notion of “communism” negatively, through pointing out its deficiencies in comparison to capitalism. The free market economy is treated as a natural economic system and a background of the authors’ worldview. This is revealed in the descriptions of the underground activity based on a business model. Already in the first pages of the publication there is mention of “recommendations” that any new member must present, while the underground cell is a “business” that “works smoothly.”51 The axiologically significant opposition between socialism and capitalism probably plays a major role here: it represents the dark forces of “socialism” and is defeated by capitalist methods belonging to the “bright side of the force.” The free market means individualism and the ability of a fully autonomous functioning of the unit: “we cannot afford an underground welfare state.”52 The idea of a “welfare state” as in the novels of Ayn Rand, an American advocate of neoliberalism and of the “virtue of selfishness,” is a “bogey.” It is invoked in the text as a warning against the excessive growth of the underground organization and its associated bureaucracy. “Social justice” in the underground discourse is a figure of speech which refers to the self-imposed limitation: “If it is your cell, not Mr. X’s, which finds an artisan capable of building secret compartments, there is no reason or excuse for passing him on to other cells.”53 “There is no such social justice in the name of which the improvement of health and safety conditions of underground work should not start with your company.”54 Conspiracy practice has proven it beneficial to refrain from supporting other conspirators even if the cost of such support is low. Far-reaching individualism is advisable, which calls for refraining from facilitating other similar work. Excessive generosity can turn against the conspirator when a contact, used one too many times, is caught. The conspirator, by necessity resulting from the specific nature of this activity, takes on an active, even offensive attitude toward the social world. He advocates for a minimalistic understanding of freedom, even narrower than a purely negative, liberal “freedom from.” It is a freedom that actively tion of the role of women in political conspiracy, including their unpaid work, is extensively discussed in Shana Penn, Solidarity’s Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). I would like to thank Eliza Szybowicz for pointing out this aspect to me. 51 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 1; “The Little Conspirator,” 31. 52 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 1; “The Little Conspirator,” 31. 53 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 44; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. 54 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 9. This sentence from The Little Conspirator was omitted in the English translation.

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upholds the status quo, not really any different from Hobbes’ state of nature, that is, the war of all against all: “In the underground we recognize that we have only as much freedom as we take. To think that we only have as much freedom as the state allows is merely another form of slavery.”55 This construction reveals a Nietzschean subject, a conqueror driven by the will to power, who seizes freedom at his own initiative and “takes” it for himself. However, this attitude cannot be reduced to a drive to accomplish selfish goals and satisfy private interests. Freedom is a value in itself, and autonomy is expressed in religious terms: “freedom is not something to believe in, but something to practice.”56 The “practitioner” of freedom becomes the performer of tasks resulting from the hierarchy of moral values, led by the idea of freedom. It is not easy to gain and maintain this freedom, as it is not a simple task to fight for it individually against everything. Freedom is supposed to become a daily practice, the discomfort of which should not be complained about. It is not surprising that this “difficult freedom” can only be cultivated by a small, elite group: “Although many people live in underground society, it is a small world. That is to be expected. Read the inscriptions on WWII tombstones, entire families and social circles perished so veterans can proudly exclaim: ‘We won!’”57 The elite character becomes defined in opposition to “the false veterans.” The real fighters for freedom were “whole families and social circles.” This distinction is both biological, based on kinship, and social, defined as belonging to a certain “social circle.” “The underground society” is by no means uniform or homogeneous. One can distinguish between generations of oppositionists entering the “struggle”: “For some people the struggle’s origins date to the birth of Solidarity. And for others it began when General Jaruzelski imposed martial law, on December 13, 1981.”58 The rhythm of influx of the new cadres, and of the generational change in the underground world of conspiracy, was marked by the “Polish months”: the moments in twentieth-century Polish history when authorities clashed with those protesting against them. Historian Jerzy Eisler described one of the crucial features of the “Polish calendar” as the fact that “each of the subsequent crises defined, first of all, the independent and opposition circles.”59 Each of the “Polish months” introduced a new demarcation line 55

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 9; “The Little Conspirator,” 47. Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 10; “The Little Conspirator,” 48. 57 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 4; “The Little Conspirator,” 38. 58 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 1; “The Little Conspirator,” 33. The original text reads “it began with the onset of the Polish-Jaruzelski war” (wojna polskojaruzelska). 59 Jerzy Eisler, “Polskie miesiące,” czyli kryzys(y) w PRL (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008), 8. 56

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between the oppositionists and the official state authorities with their supporters, which lead to the recruitment of new oppositional cadres. The use of the term “Polish-Jaruzelski war” is in itself a worldview declaration, reducing the sphere of power of the erstwhile First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, Wojciech Jaruzelski, who appears in this perspective to be standing in opposition to almost the entire monolithic Polish nation.60 Who is the conspirator’s enemy? The opponent is described as “the Red,” that is somebody who completely, in all their substance, embodies the Alien, and even more, embodies what is terrifying or hateful. The term reduces the subject to only one of its characteristics: political orientation or institutional affiliation. It is also important to note the typical, or even stereotypical, character of the figure of “the Red”: “The Communists’ bureaucratic organization is the core of both their strength and weakness.”61 “The Red” is characterized as a representative of a predator species, which excludes any attempt at dialogue, compromise, or even coexistence at all. “The Red” is a creature whose sole existence precludes the normal functioning of the social-cultural universum. The attitude or worldview personified by “the Red” is “Sovietization.” This term refers to the political field, and metonymically, to the Soviet Union. “Sovietization” denotes something worthy of absolute contempt, and is a label used for irrevocable disgrace. A centralized organizational structure may be identified as “Sovietization”: “The underground is like a company; when it expands, it acquires and creates subsidiaries. Ideally, this process begins from below, as a need is identified. . . . The notion that the decision to create a new specialized cell, a subsidiary to the company, must come from above, from the central management, is a typical, mistaken manifestation of Sovietization.”62 Centralism is in clear opposition to the previously analyzed understanding of freedom as a liberty to act as one pleases, which the individual can gain for themselves. The modus of action of the conspiring individual should also be autonomous and individualistic to the greatest possible extent. It is thought of as a structural dispersion and independent individuals acting autonomously. “Sovietization” is the complete opposite of the above: “a cell should be able to survive even the arrest 60

This is only one of many pictures, however. A different one has been proposed by historian Andrzej Paczkowski, who believes in the crucial importance of the “deepening and consolidation of the division of Poland into two hostile camps as a result of the introduction of martial law.” Andrzej Paczkowski, Wojna polskojaruzelska: Stan wojenny w Polsce 13 XII 1981–22 VII 1983 (Warsaw: Prószy≈ski i S-ka, 2006), 7. 61 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 15; “The Little Conspirator,” 44. 62 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 2; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. The Polish original uses the term “Bolshevia.”

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of its leadership. This is possible only for a non-Sovietized organization.”63 “Sovietization” is thus the inability to act autonomously, with full reliance instead on a supervising institution; it stands for organizational indolence and lack of initiative. However, the practical attitude of the booklet’s authors allows them to relax the stridency and consistency of their ideological choices, as it appears there exist conditions in which centralized action proves more effective than cooperation between autonomous cells based solely on horizontal and non-hierarchical relations: “it is appropriate to discuss the dangers of horizontal, extra-cellular friendships and connections. Take the example where the leadership of a cell decides to shut down one of the newspaper’s distribution sections . . . but, nevertheless, a messenger is arrested. He . . . decides to go to the old address because of his friendship with this section’s leader.”64 To sum up, it is important to note that The Little Conspirator’s notion of “communism,” which is very near to the semantic field denoted by “Sovietization,”65 means first of all ineffectiveness of action. Tadeusz Kotarbi≈ski’s 1955 Traktat o dobrej robocie (A treatise on good work) turns out to be a voice crying in the wilderness, heard only by the democratic opposition, which puts the rules of praxeology into practice: “In the underground it is essential to implement the very rules of rational management used by business, which the Communists have attempted to eliminate.”66 “Communism” not only does not adhere to rational rules, but is threatened by them, which is why it is forced to take up a reckless struggle against them.67 Another allegation against communism references the value of sacrifice and voluntary work: “Self-sacrifice and ‘voluntary’ work are the nightmares of Communism. Total selflessness, contrary to appearances, is nothing more than disguised ambition. It feeds the worst kind of mercenary attitude: for hidden (not candid) ambition and hidden (not candid) compensation of inferiority complexes, a hidden unwillingness to work systematically.”68 The authors pursue the origins of the ideas of “sacrifice” and “selflessness” in a truly Nietzschean manner, from the point of view of Paul 63

Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 2; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 6; “The Little Conspirator,” 41. 65 This is close to the notion of “system” as understood by Kowalski, Krytyka solidarno√ciowego rozumu, 46. 66 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 2; “The Little Conspirator,” 35. 67 See Charkiewicz, Od komunizmu do neoliberalizmu. 68 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 3; “The Little Conspirator,” 34. The 1986 translation reads: “It is the worst form of selfish behavior. It is a facade used by slothful men with inferiority complexes. Such individuals always have some excuse at hand.” 64

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Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of suspicion,69 searching for their deeper layer which would reveal the falseness of their declarations. Their selflessness is a cover for greediness (“the worst kind of mercenary attitude”), while the lack of ambition serves as a cover for ambition itself, though in a more dangerous form, as it is based on “complexes.” At the same time, what is quite contrary to the above—a lack of ambition and selfless work for the good of the community, rather than oneself—appears to be a symptom of slothfulness. In this sense, the critique of communism is a disguise for positive directions of a paraenetic kind, which helps draw the figure of an ideal conspirator who should not disguise his expectations, which are not limited to liberating the country, but also have a financial character. The economic dimension of “conspiring” is no taboo topic. On the contrary, money functions as a fuel thereof, with the emphasis placed on high expectations that should accompany decent earnings:70 “For a good day’s work, one deserves a fair day’s wage; a man should earn enough to live like a human being. The Communists in our country have destroyed our work ethic. They force people to work for a song and a pat on the back. As a result people have forgotten how to work hard or well. Our independent company cells cannot afford to waste men or materials.”71 This outlined concept of the conspiracy “free market” forms a rather optimistic vision of a capitalist economy which, based on decentralization and competition between actors, guarantees their individual rights at the same time. The best example of such an attitude of “joyful capitalism” is the booklet itself. 72 Translated by Kalina Iwanek-Malinowska This text has been written as part of the NPRH 12 0108 81 grant “Communism—History of the Concept in Poland in the Years 1944–1989. Interpretations and Uses: Literature, Culture, Society.” 69

Paul Ricoeur, “Existence and Hermeneutics,” trans. Kathleen McLaughlin, in The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 3–24. 70 These, as we know from later analyses, did not apply to women. See Penn, Solidarity’s Secret. 71 Bielecki, Kelus, and Sikorska, Mały konspirator, 3; “The Little Conspirator,” 33. 72 This chapter was first discussed at the meeting of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. I would like to thank Katarzyna Chmielewska, Michał Czaja, Agnieszka Mrozik, Kajetan Mojsak, Bartłomiej Starnawski, Eliza Szybowicz, Grzegorz Wołowiec, and Tomasz Żukowski for their comments, which influenced the final version, as well as the translator, Kalina Iwanek-Malinowska.

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Bibliography Berendt, Grzegorz, ed. Społeczno√ć żydowska w PRL przed kampanią antysemicką lat 1967–1968 i po niej, Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009. Bielecki, Czesław, Jan K. Kelus, and Urszula Sikorska. Mały konspirator. Warsaw: CDN, 1983. ———. “The Little Conspirator.” Translated by Roman M. Boreyko and André YaDeau. Conflict Quarterly 6, no. 4 (Fall 1986): 27–64. Charkiewicz, Ewa. “Od komunizmu do neoliberalizmu: Technologie transformacji.” In Zniewolony umysł 2: Neoliberalizm i jego krytyki, edited by Jan Sowa and Ewa Majewska, 23–84. Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2006. Drenda, Olga. Duchologia polska: Rzeczy i ludzie w latach transformacji. Krakow: Karakter, 2016. Dunn, Elizabeth C. Privatizing Poland: Baby Food, Big Business, and the Remaking of Labor. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. Eisler, Jerzy. “Polskie miesiące,” czyli kryzys(y) w PRL. Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008. Fałkowski, Mateusz. Biznes patriotyczny: Historia Wydawnictwa CDN. Warsaw: Europejskie Centrum Solidarno√ci, 2011. Gajewski, Krzysztof. “Rozliczenia z PRL-em na łamach bruLionu: Przypadek Jana Krzysztofa Kelusa.” In Do√wiadczenie komunizmu: Pamięć i język, edited by Piotr Zemszał, Riegels Halili, and Michał Głuszkowski, 131–47. Toru≈: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2016. Głowi≈ski, Michał. Marcowe gadanie: Komentarze do słów 1966–1971. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Pomost, 1991. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: The Study of the Play-Element in Culture. London: Taylor & Francis, 2003. Kelus, Jan K. “Kawał w bok od szosy głównej: Rozmawiał Krzysztof Gajda.” Brulion, no. 1 (1998): 159–86. Kelus, Jan K., and Wojciech Staszewski. Był raz dobry √wiat . . . Warsaw: Prószy≈ski i S-ka, 1999. Kotarbi≈ski, Tadeusz. Traktat o dobrej robocie. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossoli≈skich, 1982. Kowalski, Sergiusz. Krytyka solidarno√ciowego rozumu: Studium z socjologii my√lenia potocznego. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne, 2009. Paczkowski, Andrzej. Wojna polsko-jaruzelska: Stan wojenny w Polsce 13 XII 1981–22 VII 1983. Warsaw: Prószy≈ski i S-ka, 2006. Penn, Shana. Solidarity’s Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Piłsudski, Józef. Bibuła. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Jirafa Roja, 2009. Ricoeur, Paul. “Existence and Hermeneutics.” Translated by Kathleen McLaughlin. In The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics, 3–24. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974. Schopenhauer, Arthur. The Art of Always Being Right, edited by A. C. Grayling. London: Gibson Square, 2011. Stola, Dariusz. Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967–1968. Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2000.

List of contributors

Anna Artwi≈ska – PhD, Junior Professor at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Leipzig. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Aránzazu Calderón Puerta – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Iberian and Ibero-American Studies at the University of Warsaw. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Katarzyna Chmielewska – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism and the Center for Contemporary Literature and Social Communication at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Krzysztof Gajewski – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Kajetan Mojsak – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Agnieszka Mrozik – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism and the Archives of Women at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Paweł Rams – PhD, researcher at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Research on Communism and the Digital Humanities Center at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

420

List of contributors

Anna Sobieska – PhD, Associate Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Head of the Team on Comparative Literature and Imagological Studies and member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Bartłomiej Starnawski – PhD candidate, researcher at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Eliza Szybowicz – PhD, independent researcher, collaborator of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Grzegorz Wołowiec – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Head of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Anna Zawadzka – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Tomasz Żukowski – PhD, Associate Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies on Communism and the Center for Contemporary Literature and Social Communication at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Index

A

B

Adamczewski, Stanisław, 350–51, 354 alienation, 40, 124–25, 122–25, 128, 238, 250, 252, 255, 261, 333, 335, 378, 380, 384, 390n Alliance of Democrats (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne), 150n, 315, 319 Andrzejewski, Jerzy, 12, 332, 369, 373– 77, 379, 383–87, 389–90, 397 anti-communism, 3, 6–7, 11–14, 17–29, 47–49, 56, 72–73, 88–89, 228–31, 260–68, 331–32. See also communism: and Nazism (fascism); communism: orientalization of; totalitarian theory anti-Semitism, 21n, 30, 32, 36–39, 41, 44, 55n, 61, 64, 96–97, 102, 105, 235, 338, 353, 370n, 375n. See also communism: and nationalism; ethnonationalism; Judeo-communism; March 1968; nationalism anti-Zionism. See anti-Semitism Arendt, Hannah, 90 Arkin, Yefim Aronovich, 286 Artwi≈ska, Anna, 6–7, 53, 419 autobiography, 57, 72, 93n, 265n; collaborative, 7, 17n, 57n, 67, 72n. See also biography Autobus odjeżdża 6.20 (The Bus Leaves at 6:20), film, 98n, 104, 121, 143, 177, 181–85, 187–89

Baczko, Bronisław, 88n, 240, 357–59, 361–64 Badowski, Kazimierz, 240 Bahdaj, Adam, 199n Bajer, Magdalena, 63n Balcerzan, Edward, 386n Bara≈czak, Stanisław, 258n, 380n Bardot, Brigitte, 130, 206, 219 Bareja, Stanisław, 331–33, 335–36 Baszkiewicz, Jan, 165 Beauvoir, Simone de, 206n Bereta, Katarzyna, 168n Berger, Peter L., 274 Berman, Jakub, 53–54n, 57n, 59, 64, 68–69, 71–72n Bernstein, Eduard, 234, 373n Bielecki, Czesław, 401–3 Bielicki, Marian, 205, 208, 211, 218–19 Bieli≈ska, Izabela, 213, 218 Bie≈kowski, Władysław, 298 Bierut, Bolesław, 63–64, 86–87, 168 biography, 28, 33n–34, 91n, 150; communist, 7, 54–58, 61–73. See also autobiography Bogatko, Marian, 146, 170 Boguszewska, Helena, 150 Bolesław I the Brave (Bolesław I Chrobry), 93 Borowski, Tadeusz, 95n Borski, Lech, 199n

422

Index

Bourdieu, Pierre, 4, 37, 42, 98n, 110, 177–80, 183–84, 186, 188, 190, 317n, 320n Brandys, Kazimierz, 12, 99, 320–21, 332, 369–70n, 373–76n, 380–84, 387–88, 390n–91, 394–95, 397 Bratny, Roman, 375 Braun, Andrzej, 374 Brenner, Christiane, 56 Breza, Tadeusz, 377 Broniewska, Janina, 147–48n Broniewski Władysław, 147 Brubaker, Rogers, 41n Brus, Włodzimierz, 240 Brzozowski, Stanisław, 12, 343–48, 350–55, 357–65 Buczkowski, Leonard, 104, 116, 141, 177 Budzy≈ska, Celina, 54, 59, 70–71, 73 Bugajski, Leszek, 390n Burek, Tomasz, 376n, 388n Buyno-Arctowa, Maria, 202 C Calderón Puerta, Aránzazu, 10, 177, 419 Capital Reconstruction Bureau (Biuro Odbudowy Stolicy), 107 Catholic Church, 78, 38, 48, 86, 145, 227, 229, 231, 235, 264, 300–1, 345, 356–57, 371–72, 375n Catholicism, 11, 13, 65, 108, 211, 245, 316, 337, 353; and nationalism, 37– 38, 89n, 261, 267, 283 Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (KC PZPR), 64, 86, 146, 159, 233, 242, 258, 292, 415 Chajn, Leon, 53, 63n, 68, 315, 319–20 Chałasi≈ski, Józef, 279, 313, 315–19, 321–23, 328, 337 Chaplin, Charlie, 125 Chmielewska, Katarzyna, 1, 30n, 81, 419 Chmielewski, Tadeusz, 128, 138 Chyla, Eugeniusz, 242

Cichocki, Marek A., 28n Cixous, Hélène, 183n class, 8, 42–43, 109, 324–25, 338–39; class gaps, 153, 200, 314, 329–33; distinctions (divisions), 325–28, 336–39; struggle (conflict), 8, 102– 3, 106, 159, 286–88, 337; transformation, 87, 95, 103, 139, 171; working class, 99n, 109, 236, 247– 48, 250–1, 253, 288, 344, 371n. See also classless society; egalitarianism; emancipation; intelligentsia; Marxism; revolution; upward social mobility; workers classless society, 42, 103, 252–53, 321, 371n. See also class Commandos (Komandosi), 236n, 248, 256–57, 393n Commission of National Education (KEN), 297–99. See also education communism, 1–6, 61–64, 87–90, 95– 101, 106–8, 178–79, 274, 348–50, 383–84, 413–17; and nationalism, 3, 8, 30–44, 49, 101–3, 253–55, 280– 82; and Nazism (fascism), 2, 17–23, 32–33, 35–36, 44–47, 68–71, 95– 97, 100, 375, 401; dominant narratives about, 6, 21, 28, 48, 70 (see also biography: communist); orientalization of, 68–69. See also anti-communism; biography: communist; class; Marxism; revolution; socialism Communist Party of Poland (KPP), 35, 47n, 99. See also Polish United Workers’ Party; Polish Workers’ Party Constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland of July 22, 1952, 88, 92, 106, 166 Constitution of the Republic of Poland of April 2, 1997, 22–23 Contradiction Seekers’ Club (Klub Poszukiwaczy Sprzeczno√ci), 236n Cotton, Eugénie, 150 counterrevolution, 12, 241, 336 Couser, G. Thomas, 72

Index Crooked Wheel Club (Klub Krzywego Koła), 236n Cybulski, Zbigniew, 122 Cywi≈ski, Bohdan, 356–57 Czapli≈ski, Przemysław, 20 Czechoslovakia, 56 Czerwi≈ski, Stanisław, 273 Czeszko, Bohdan, 377, 401 Czterdziestolatek (The Forty-Year-Old), TV series, 143 Czyżewski, Marek, 28–29, 48 D Dąbrowska, Maria, 306 Daleko od szosy (Far from the Road), TV series, 325n, 332 December 1970 (protests in Poland), 12, 235, 370, 376n, 386n Degrelle, Léon, 21 Delacroix, Eugène, 120n, 129 desire, 116–17, 122, 125–31, 133, 136, 213–15, 219. See also eroticism Deutscher, Isaac, 266 dissidents, 24, 28, 370n, 373n. See also opposition Djilas, Milovan, 238, 250 Dmowski, Roman, 36, 42 Dobbeler, Georges, 240 Domagalik, Janusz, 199n Doma≈ski, Henryk, 313 Domosławski, Artur, 48n Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 383 Drewnowski, Tadeusz, 376n Dróżdż-Satanowska, Zofia, 169 drugi obieg (“second circulation”). See samizdat Drzewi≈ska, Elżbieta, 200, 204, 209, 216 Dudek, Antoni, 244n Dygat, Stanisław, 99 Dymny, Wiesław, 138 Dyoniziak, Ryszard, 327–29, 338 Dzerzhinsky, Felix, 288, 306 Dziewczyny do wzięcia (Marriageable Girls), film, 334

423

E education, 91n, 98, 273–306, 319–20; patriotic, 273–74, 284–291, 297; socialist, 275–283, 294–303. See also Commission of National Education; intelligentsia; Muszy≈ski, Heliodor egalitarianism, 9, 12–13, 33, 103, 124, 126, 164, 212n, 303, 322–24, 327, 331, 334–38. See also class; emancipation Eisler, Jerzy, 414 emancipation, 3, 5, 7, 10, 98–101, 103– 10; of women, 10–11, 104–5, 117, 120–21, 141–44, 148–51, 158–72, 216–18, 222–23 (see also female activists; female workers; gender; “new women”; Women’s Department of the Central Council of Trade Unions; Women’s Department of the PPR/PZPR; Women’s League). See also egalitarianism Engels, Friedrich, 184n, 238 eroticism, 115. See also desire Espinas, Albert, 403 ethnonationalism, 32, 36–37, 235, 237– 38. See also anti-Semitism; nationalism Ewa chce spać (Eve Wants to Sleep), film, 334 F family, 10–11, 145–49, 152–53, 159, 161, 166, 171, 177–80, 184–86, 188n–92, 202–3, 215–20. See also emancipation: of women; gender; patriarchal order fascism, 43, 92, 348–49. See also communism: and Nazism (fascism); Nazism female activists, 154. See also emancipation: of women female workers, 142, 154, 157, 161–64, 208. See also emancipation: of women Fethke, Jan, 104, 121, 177

424

Index

Fidelis, Małgorzata, 109, 169, 196 Filipiak, Stanisław, 242 Filipinka, magazine, 196, 198n, 203–4, 206, 209, 221 Fincer, Tomasz, 123 Firer, Szymon, 242 Fleszarowa-Muskat, Stanisława, 205, 216–19 Ford, Aleksander, 122, 124–26 Fornalska, Małgorzata, 163, 167 Foucault, Michel, 4, 7, 90, 228 Franaszek, Andrzej, 46n Frank, Pierre, 244n Frankowska, Anna, 222 Friszke, Andrzej, 231, 234, 242, 244n Fukuyama, Francis, 2

Gomułka, Władysław, 32, 44, 86–87, 207n, 235–40, 253–56, 258, 265– 66, 288, 299, 370n–71n, 374–75n, 383, 411 Goodwyn, Lawrence, 267 Górkiewiczowa, Janina, 222 Goszczurny, Stanisław, 211–12 Goździk, Lechosław, 236, 245, 247 Grabowska, Magdalena, 154n, 171 Graczyk, Roman, 28 Grębecka, Zuzanna, 214n Grodzie≈ska, Wanda, 153, 168 Gruza, Jerzy, 116, 137 Grzela, Remigiusz, 54–55 Gutry, Maria, 152 H

G Gajewski, Krzysztof, 13, 401, 419 Gajos, Janusz, 20 Gałczy≈ski, Konstanty Ildefons, 45 Garlicki, Andrzej, 247 Garncarczykowa, Stanisława, 150n Gawin, Dariusz, 13, 28n, 77n, 371–72, 394n Gawin, Magdalena, 22 Gawli≈ski, Stanisław, 374 Gellner, Ernest, 274 gender: politics of, 11, 109, 143, 153, 158–59, 162–63, 166, 169–72, 177– 85, 188, 190–92; roles, 10–12, 62– 63n, 109, 117–19, 196–98, 333–36. See also emancipation: of women; family generations, 21, 60–61, 66–68, 142, 165, 380n Giedroyc, Jerzy, 243n–44, 266 Gierek, Edward, 370n, 383 Gille, Zsuzsa, 2 Gli≈ska Agnieszka, 20 Gli≈ska, Anna, 200–4, 219 Głowi≈ski, Michał, 83n Goldmann, Lucien, 385n Gombrowicz, Witold, 349n, 388 Gómółka, Stanisław, 242

Habermas, Jürgen, 239 Halicka, Beata, 93n Hass, Ludwik, 240, 243n Herbert, Zbigniew, 46n Herczy≈ski, Ryszard, 349 Herling-Grudzi≈ski, Gustaw, 46n Hertz, Paweł, 99 historical memory, 6, 85, 262, 287 historical politics/policies, 8, 22, 81–92, 97, 100–5, 108–11, 262, 266–67 Hłasko, Marek, 122n Hobbes, Thomas, 414 Hoffman, Paweł, 352–3, 355, 359 Hofmann, Birgit, 56 Home Army (Armia Krajowa), 47, 102n, 264n, 405 Hübner, Zygmunt, 116, 123–24 I Ibárruri, Dolores, 150 Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Science (Instytut Bada≈ Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk, IBL PAN), 98–99, 318, 358 Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, IPN), 2, 22

Index intelligentsia, 6, 11–13, 25–26, 28, 37– 38, 42, 109, 139, 155–56, 164, 187– 88, 201, 211, 236, 247, 256–57, 280, 313–39, 347, 365, 371–72, 383, 393n–97. See also class Irena do domu! (Come Home!), film, 104, 121, 143, 177, 181–85, 189 Irzykowski, Karol, 348n J Jackiewiczowa, Elżbieta, 199n–200, 203, 205–7, 214 Janion, Maria, 99 Jankowski, Bogdan, 247 Jankowski, Henryk, 302 Jaroszewski, Tadeusz Maciej, 302 Jarska, Natalia, 160n, 165, 169 Jaruzelski, Wojciech, 410, 414–15 Jasi≈ska, Aleksandra, 285n Jasi≈ski, Jakub, 99 Jastrun, Mieczysław, 98, 263 Jaszczukowa, Maria, 150n Jaworczakowa, Mira, 219 Jędrych, Karolina, 141n Jędrzejewicz, Janusz, 277 Jezierski, Franciszek Salezy, 99 Józefacka, Maria, 222 Judeo-communism (“Żydokomuna”), 35, 39, 87–88, 263. See also antiSemitism Junak Brigade of the Universal Organization of “Service to Poland,” 306 K Kaczmarek, Katarzyna, 124 Kaczmarski, Jacek, 408n Kaden-Bandrowski, Juliusz, 377 Kairov, Ivan Andreyevich, 301 Kąkolewski, Krzysztof, 69 Kalashnikov, A. A., 286 Kalicka, Felicja, 147 Kałuszy≈ska, Dorota, 158 Kałuży≈ski, Zygmunt, 377n Kaniewska, Maria, 121, 177 Kapu√ci≈ski, Ryszard, 48n

425

Karłowicz, Dariusz, 28n Karpi≈ski, Jakub, 402 Kasman, Leon, 54 Kautsky, Karl, 240n Kawalec, Julian, 324 Kelus, Jan Krzysztof, 401–3, 407–8, 412 Kenney, Padraic, 109 Kersten, Krystyna, 30n, 58, 67 Kliszko, Zenon, 242, 370n Kłosiewicz, Wiktor, 53, 55n, 60, 64–65, 68 Kłosi≈ski, Krzysztof, 381, 387–88, 390 Kłuszy≈ska, Dorota, 149–50 Koblewska, Janina, 293 Kobyli≈ska-Masiejewska, Eugenia, 222 Kociniak, Marian, 133 Kogel-mogel (Hodgepodge), film, 334, 336 Kogut, Bogusław, 375 Kołakowski, Leszek, 24, 26, 236n, 240, 244–45, 257, 349, 357–64, 369n, 371n, 380n, 393n Kolbanovsky, Viktor Nikolayevich, 301 Kołłątaj, Hugo, 42, 99 Kollontai, Alexandra, 184n Komorowski, Wiesław, 242 Konopnicka, Maria, 150, 163, 212 Konwicki, Tadeusz, 195, 377n–78, 381, 391 Kopci≈ska, Ada, 200, 218, 220 Kopci≈ski, Jacek, 18 Korczak, Janusz, 302 Kormanowa, Żanna, 159, 281 Kornhauser, Julian, 376, 380n, 391 Korsakówna, Lidia, 117, 181 Ko√cia≈ska, Agnieszka, 214n Ko√ciuszko, Tadeusz, 93, 100n Koselleck, Reinhart, 5, 10, 172 Kostenko, Andrzej, 116, 123–24, 126 Koszutska, Maria (Kostrzewa, Wera), 288 Kotarbi≈ski, Tadeusz, 403, 416 Kott, Jan, 98, 147 Kowalewski, Stanisław, 199n Kowalska, Halina, 129 Kowalski, Sergiusz, 401

426

Index

Koziołek, Ryszard, 365 Koźniewski, Kazimierz, 351, 354 Krajewski, Mieczysław, 242 Krawcewicz, Stanisław, 293 Kretowicz, Karol, 377n Krüger, Maria, 152 Krupskaya, Nadezhda, 167 Krynicki, Ryszard, 380n Krzystek Waldemar, 20 Krzyszto≈, Jerzy, 332, 386n Krzywicka, Irena, 148, 165 Kulczycka-Saloni, Janina, 351, 354–55 Kuliczkowska, Krystyna, 153, 198, 202 Kultura, journal, 244, 266, 380n, 402 Kurczab, Jan, 200, 208, 211, 213, 217– 18, 221 Kuroczko, Eustachy, 281 Kuro≈, Grażyna, 242 Kuro≈, Jacek, 9, 65n, 236n, 240–44, 247–49, 253, 266, 371n, 380, 393n, 405 Kurz, Iwona, 206 Kuźnica, weekly, 98–99, 147, 315 Kwiatkowski, Tadeusz, 375 L Lachert, Bohdan, 107 Laclau, Ernesto, 391–93 Lassota, Ryszard, 204 Latawiec, Czesław, 351 Lawina, Anatol, 242 Łazuka, Bohdan, 132 Lebow, Katherine, 164, 166n Lecho≈, Jan, 268 Leder, Andrzej, 89, 106, 267 legitimization, 47–49, 56, 69n, 116, 125, 133, 135–37; national, 6, 8–9, 30–35, 40, 101–3, 235, 253–54. See also historical politics/policies; nationalism Leja, Magda, 198n, 200, 202–3, 205, 207, 211, 214, 221 Lejeune, Philippe, 7, 57, 67 Lenin, Vladimir, 45, 160, 167–68n, 184n, 238, 248, 282, 286, 319, 355

Lentz, Stanisław, 118–19 Leszczy≈ski, Witold, 116, 123–24, 126 liberalism, 21, 30, 41, 89, 200, 203, 277, 337 Lipska, Ewa, 380n Lipski, Jan Józef, 243n Lišková, Kateřina, 149n Łomnicki, Tadeusz, 120 Lubelski, Tadeusz, 122 Łubie≈ski, Tomasz, 377n, 385n, 389n– 90n Lucas, Cristina, 120n Luckmann, Thomas, 274 Lukács, Georg, 100 lustration, 27, 38n M Machcewicz, Paweł, 230, 233 Maciąg, Włodzimierz, 376n Maciaszek, Maksymilian, 293 Maitani, Livio, 240 Majchrowski, Stanisław, 374 Majerczyk-Gómółkowa, Joanna, 242 Majmurek, Jakub, 21 Makarenko, Anton, 206n, 282, 286, 301 Maklakiewicz, Zdzisław, 127 Makuszy≈ski, Kornel, 202, 223 Malanowski, Jan, 329–31 Malinowski, Ludwik, 287 Malinowski, Marian, 88n Małże≈stwo z rozsądku (A Marriage of Convenience), film, 334 Manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN), 84, 92, 97n, 101, 106 March 1968 (anti-Semitic campaign of 1968), 12, 32–33, 45, 64, 234–35, 357, 363–64, 370 –72, 375n–76n, 378, 384, 412. See also antiSemitism; communism: and nationalism Marchlewski, Julian, 288 Marszałkowska Residential District, Warsaw, 306

Index Marx, Karl, 12, 87n, 152, 238–39, 252, 282, 344, 347, 355, 357, 360–61, 364 Marxism, 12, 32, 35, 43, 62, 98, 101, 155, 234–45, 250, 257, 263, 276, 336–37, 347, 355–63, 371. See also alienation; class; communism; revisionism; revolution; socialism; Warsaw School of the History of Ideas Matuszewski, Ryszard, 99 Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 264 Mayer, Arno J., 33n Mąż swojej żony (A Husband to His Wife), film, 334, 336 Mazur, Andrzej, 242 Mazurkiewicz, Wiesława, 124 Melcer, Wanda, 149 memory. See historical memory Mencwel, Andrzej, 266n, 357–58, 363– 64 Merta, Tomasz, 28n Michalska, Marta, 168 Michnik, Adam, 26, 236n, 243n, 248, 372n, 380n, 393n Mickiewicz, Adam, 93, 99 Mielczarek, Klemens, 118 Mikołajczyk, Stanisław, 63, 246 Mikołajewski, Adam, 121 Mikucka, Aniela, 157 Miłosz, Czesław, 28, 45–46, 381 Minc, Bronisław, 314, 336 Minc, Hilary, 68 Minc, Julia, 53, 55n, 62–63, 68 Minkowski, Aleksander, 199n, 375 Moczar, Mieczysław, 242, 264n, 370n Modrzy≈ska, Urszula, 120, 180 Modzelewski, Karol, 9, 236n, 240–44, 247–49, 253, 264–65 Mojsak, Kajetan, 12–13, 332, 369, 419 Mokrzycki, Edmund, 27n Montgomery, Lucy Maud, 202 Morcinek, Gustaw, 168n Morecka, Zofia, 243 Morozov, Pavlik, 306 Mortkowicz-Olczakowa, Hanna, 200 Movement for Defense of Human and Civil Rights (ROPCiO), 370n

427

Mrozik, Agnieszka, 1, 10, 66n, 141, 197, 419 Musierowicz, Małgorzata, 200, 202–4, 215–16, 221, 223 Muszy≈ska-Hoffmannowa, Hanna, 208 Muszy≈ski, Heliodor, 9, 293, 297, 302–4 N Nałkowska, Zofia, 95n, 98, 377 Nałkowski, Wacław, 348n Namiotkiewicz, Walery Józef, 240–42 nation, 8, 19, 22, 25, 32, 39–44, 48, 60, 65, 70, 100–2, 167, 230, 232, 235, 246, 253, 261, 264, 267, 273–75, 278–82, 287, 292, 297–98, 301, 304, 313, 318, 321, 337, 347, 371, 395, 410, 415. See education: patriotic; nationalism National Democracy (Narodowa Demokracja), 36–37, 95, 101, 320, 347–48, 352, 362 National Radical Camp (ONR), 36n, 38–39, 375 nationalism, 3, 6, 8, 22–23, 29, 32–33, 35–42, 46–49, 61, 64, 96, 101–2, 253, 255, 283, 287, 348. See also anti-Semitism; Catholicism: and nationalism; Dmowski, Roman; ethnonationalism; legitimization: national; March 1968; nation; patriotism; PAX Association Nazism, 7, 18, 21, 23, 33, 56, 95, 100, 261, 349. See also communism: and Nazism; fascism; totalitarian theory “new women,” 142, 149–50, 163. See also emancipation: of women Newerly, Igor, 105 Nie lubię poniedziałku (I Don’t Like Mondays), film, 116, 128, 132n, 136, 138–39 Nie ma róży bez ognia (Jungle Book of Regulations), film, 333 Niebieskie jak Morze Czarne (Blue as the Black Sea), film, 116, 133, 139

428

Index

Niedaleko Warszawy (Not Far from Warsaw), film, 121, 177, 180, 183, 187–88 novels for girls, 168, 195–96, 200, 202 Nowa Kultura, journal, 195, 323, 386n Nowacki, Tadeusz Wacław, 293 Nowakowski, Marek, 381, 391 Nowotko, Marceli, 288 Nussbaum, Martha C., 178–79, 185 O Ochab, Edward, 53, 55n, 61, 65, 68 October 1956 (political thaw in Poland), 7, 9, 12, 25, 38, 42, 54, 64, 84n, 108, 121, 170, 208, 230, 234– 40, 244, 247–48, 254, 256–57, 268, 320, 323, 355, 370–72, 375, 384, 386n, 389, 396–97 Odrodzenie, magazine, 157 Open Letter to the Party, 9, 236–244, 247, 249, 253–57, 260, 264–65, 380 opposition, 3–7, 9, 24–26, 29, 48, 65, 73, 227–37, 257, 261–66, 332, 356, 372–73, 377, 389, 396, 401–2, 404, 414, 416. See also dissidents; revisionism; samizdat Orło√, Kazimierz, 381 Orłowska, Edwarda, 154–55, 158, 160, 164 Orzeszkowa, Eliza, 163 Osęka, Piotr, 227n Ósmy dzie≈ tygodnia (The Eighth Day of the Week), film, 122, 124, 125–26, 130 Ossowska, Maria, 306, 323n Ossowski, Stanisław, 313, 323, 337 Ostrovsky, Nikolai, 195, 280 Ostrowska, Ewa, 222 Owczarek, Bogdan, 384n–85n Ożogowska, Hanna, 169n P Paczkowski, Andrzej, 415n Pajewski, Janusz, 299 Palska, Hanna, 314, 325

Papier, Tadeusz, 200, 205, 208, 214 Passenger Automobile Factory (FSO), 236, 245 patriarchal order, 121, 181, 187–88. See also emancipation: of women; family; gender patriotism, 9, 39, 167, 228, 261, 273– 74, 279, 281–87, 290, 295, 297, 303–5, 308. See also education: patriotic; nation Pauker, Ana, 150 PAX Association (Stowarzyszenie PAX), 38–39 Penn, Shana, 413n People’s Republic of Poland, 55, 72, 74, 92, 115n, 128, 143, 166, 228, 247, 261, 274, 284, 292, 303, 314–16, 318n, 323–24, 327, 331–34, 337, 343, 346, 357, 365, 370, 406 Pietrasi≈ski, Zbigniew, 293 Piłsudski, Józef, 37, 409 Platówna, Stanisława, 222 Po prostu, magazine, 240, 247, 322 Pokolenie (Generation), film, 98n, 116, 119, 121, 401 Poland. See People’s Republic of Poland; Second Republic of Poland Polish Scouting Association, 291 Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), 38, 86, 146, 154, 165n, 197, 233, 243–44, 249, 279, 315n, 345, 352, 387n, 415. See also Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party; Communist Party of Poland Polish Workers’ Party (PPR), 17n, 32, 42, 81n, 88, 154, 157, 245, 280, 352 Pomian, Krzysztof, 234, 236n, 245, 247, 357–59, 362–64 Popova, Nina, 150 Popper, Karl, 230n Poszukiwany, poszukiwana (Man— Woman Wanted), film, 331n, 333 Pragierowa, Eugenia, 150 propaganda, 31, 43–44, 64, 83, 92n–93, 97, 101–2n, 110, 116n, 166n, 192, 210n, 227n, 234, 247, 254, 262, 293, 324, 375n, 379–80, 386n, 390n, 409

Index Przecławski, Krzysztof, 326 Przeprowadzka (The Move), film, 116, 137 Przygoda na Mariensztacie (An Adventure in Mariensztat), film, 98n, 104, 107, 116–26, 130, 136, 141–43, 177, 181, 186–87, 189, 191 Przyjaciółka, magazine, 158, 162 Pszoniak, Wojciech, 137 Purzy≈ska, Małgorzata, 70, 73 Putrament, Jerzy, 375 R Rand, Ayn, 413 “real socialism,” 5, 13, 371, 375 revisionism, 26, 43, 227, 233–38, 240– 41, 257–60, 355, 357, 359–63, 373n– 75, 378, 380, 383. See also Open Letter to the Party; opposition; Warsaw School of the History of Ideas revolution, 1–3, 8, 19, 35, 56, 61, 63, 69, 73, 87, 89–90, 99, 106, 108–9, 115– 16, 118–19, 121–22, 125–28, 130, 136–37, 146, 178, 239, 241, 247–48, 254–55, 258, 265, 276, 279, 281–82, 294, 299, 305, 318, 320–22, 347, 375n, 391, 409–10. See also counterrevolution; communism; emancipation; Marxism; socialism Rewizja osobista (Personal Search), film, 116, 123, 124, 126–28, 137 Ricoeur, Paul, 417 Ritz, German, 377 Rolleczek, Natalia, 208, 211, 216, 218 Romanowski, Andrzej, 62n–63 Rostkowska, Kaja, 58 Rudnicka, Halina, 163–64 Rudzki, Kazimierz, 129 Rybkowski, Jan, 104, 121, 177 S Said, Edward, 68 Salaburska, Krystyna, 209, 218 Salinger, J. D., 204 samizdat, 13, 59, 370n, 376n, 378

429

Sawicka, Hanka, 167 Schaff, Adam, 353, 359 Schmidt, Tadeusz, 117, 181 Schmitt, Carl, 48 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 403 Ścibor-Rylski, Aleksander, 374 Second Republic of Poland, 34, 36, 38, 49, 275–76 Seksolatki (Sexteens), film, 116, 123 Sempołowska, Stefania, 150–51n Siemie≈ska, Renata, 316n Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 316, 343 Siermi≈ski, Michał, 13, 356n, 371–72, 383, 393n–94n Siesicka, Krystyna, 202, 215–16, 220, 222 Sigalin, Józef, 107 Sikorska, Urszula, 401–2 Sitek, Ryszard, 360 Skłodowska-Curie, Maria, 150–51n, 163 Skrobiszewska, Hanna, 202 Skrzeszewski, Stanisław, 281 Śląska, Aleksandra, 181 Słonimski, Antoni, 347n Sło≈ska, Irena, 202 Sloterdijk, Peter, 397 Śmiech, Romuald, 240 Snopkiewicz, Halina, 202, 208, 213, 221 Sobór-Świderska, Anna, 71 socialism, 2, 5, 13, 17, 20, 43, 87, 108, 130, 138, 143n, 167–68, 189, 192, 230, 237, 239, 245, 250, 253, 258, 261, 263, 274, 278–80, 285–86, 288, 295–96, 299–300, 305–6, 315, 322–24, 329, 337, 370–71, 373, 375, 377, 383, 386, 413; Polish road to, 43, 86, 108, 237, 253, 275, 375n; socialist project, 152n, 261, 382, 384, 389. See also communism; Marxism; revolution; “real socialism” socialist realism, 10–11, 20, 46, 83n, 100, 118–19, 157, 161, 167, 183, 188, 197, 200, 208, 231, 263, 320– 21

430

Index

Sorel, Georges, 361 Soviet Union, 8, 18, 24, 44, 58, 68, 146, 160, 229, 253, 281, 287, 289, 373n, 415 Sovietization, 281, 380, 415–16 Sowi≈ska, Iwona, 141n Sroka, Mieczysław, 356 Stalin, Joseph, 2, 21, 24, 59, 68–69, 160, 168, 195, 197, 227n, 236, 245 Stalinism, 21, 25, 33, 38, 44–46, 66, 70, 82, 84, 169–70, 200, 211, 230, 235, 240, 244–45, 248, 254, 256, 322–23, 353, 374–75, 383. See also socialist realism Starnawski, Bartłomiej, 9, 69n, 227, 235n, 420 Starobinski, Jean, 265n Starski, Ludwik, 141n, 144 Staszewski, Stefan, 53, 55, 64–65, 68 Staszic, Stanisław, 99, 299 Stawar, Andrzej, 354–55 Stępie≈, Marian, 347 Stobiecki, Rafał, 34n Strzelecki, Ryszard, 242 Sublokator (Subtenant), film, 334 Suchodolski, Bogdan, 275, 293, 298, 302 Sufin, Zbigniew, 326 Świderski, Jan, 123 Święcicki, Józef Marian, 353 Sygiety≈ski, Tadeusz, 141n symbolic power, 4, 235, 274 symbolic struggle, 58 symbolic violence, 3, 4, 108, 274 Szczepa≈ski, Jan, 313, 322–23 Szeliga, Irena, 216, 218–19 Szlachcic, Franciszek, 242 Szpakowska Małgorzata, 219 Szybowicz, Eliza, 11, 169n, 195, 420 Szymborska, Wisława, 28 T Tejkowski, Bernard, 242 Theweleit, Klaus, 120 Todorova, Maria, 2 Tomczyk, Wojciech, 18–20 Tomicki, Grzegorz, 386n

Toniak, Ewa, 161 Topolski, Jerzy, 232, 260 Tora≈ska, Teresa, 6, 53–54, 57–58, 61, 68, 70–71, 73 Toru≈czyk, Barbara, 34 totalitarian theory, 23, 27, 33, 36, 45. See also anti-communism; communism: and Nazism (fascism) Traverso, Enzo, 72, 89n, 346 Trotsky, Leon, 238–39 Trotskyism, 240–41, 257, 259 Trybuna Ludu, newspaper, 196 Trzebuchowski, Paweł, 353 Trznadel, Jacek, 277n Tychowa, Lucyna, 62n, 72n Tygodnik Powszechny, weekly, 28 Tyszka, Krzysztof, 8, 91, 101 U Uhl, Petr, 244n Union of Socialist Youth (ZMS), 236n, 243–44, 289 United States, 23, 129, 277 upward social mobility, 1, 3, 8, 92, 98n, 103, 222, 322. See class; egalitarianism Voltaire, 237n W Wajda, Andrzej, 119, 401 Walas, Teresa, 385n Walentynowicz, Anna, 162 Wałęsa, Lech, 28 Walicki, Andrzej, 25–27, 47, 56, 357– 58, 363–64 Warsaw School of the History of Ideas, 12, 357–59, 361, 363–64. See also revisionism Warsaw Uprising (1944), 60, 106 Warski, Adolf, 288 Wary≈ski, Ludwik, 100n, 287 Wasilewska, Wanda, 59, 146–47, 170 Wasilewski, Andrzej, 323, 389n Ważyk, Adam, 84n, 99, 263, 386 Weber, Max, 251

Index Welzer, Harald, 89n Werblan, Andrzej, 266 Werfel, Roman, 53, 55n, 60–61, 68, 245 Wesołowski, Włodzimierz, 313, 337 White, Hayden, 4, 47n, 73 Wiatr, Jerzy, 337 Wicha, Władysław, 242 Widerszpil, Stanisław, 338 Wie√ (Countryside), 315, 319 Wisłocka, Michalina, 206n Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies, 22 Wojna domowa (Civil War), TV series, 207 Wołczyk, Jerzy, 299, 305 Wołk, Marcin, 387n Wołowiec, Grzegorz, 1, 6, 17, 55n, 70, 420 Wolska, Hanna, 123 Women’s Department of the Central Council of Trade Unions (Centralna Rada Związków Zawodowych), 165 Women’s Department of the PPR/PZPR (Wydział Kobiecy PPR/PZPR), 154, 158, 159, 165, 166n Women’s League (Liga Kobiet), 143, 148, 150, 153–54, 158–59, 165–66n women’s literature, 157 workers, 8, 12, 64, 87, 91n, 102, 107, 109, 118–19, 123, 142, 153–54, 156–57, 162–64, 181, 183, 189–90, 197, 208, 233, 236, 238–39, 245– 49, 251–53, 255–56, 258, 279, 288– 91, 301, 314, 316, 318–22, 324–26, 329–31, 333, 335–36, 344, 372, 415, 420. See also class; female workers

431

Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR), 59, 233, 269n World War II, 3, 61, 145, 279, 283, 290, 293, 359, 405 Woroszylski, Wiktor, 157, 374 Wortman, Stefania, 152 Wowczuk, Tomasz, 124 Woźnicka, Ludwika, 222 Wróbel, Szymon, 358n Wudzki, Leon, 355–56 Wysłołuch, Seweryna, 395n Wysocka, Lidia, 181 Z Zachwatowicz, Jan, 107 Zadrożny, Stanisław, 242 Zagajewski, Adam, 376n, 380n Zahorska, Stefania, 351 Zającówna, Janina, 200, 212, 219, 222 Zamyatin, Yevgeny, 280 Zaremba, Marcin, 6, 8, 29, 30–46, 48– 49, 91, 101 Żaryn, Jan, 231 Zarzyca, Irena, 195 Zasacka, Zofia, 284n Zawadzka, Anna, 11–12, 122n, 313, 356, 420 Zbikowski, Maciej, 130 Żelazkiewicz, Marek, 242 Zhdanov, Andrei, 231 Ziarnik, Jerzy, 116, 133–34, 136, 138 Ziemann, Sonja, 122 Żółkiewska, Wanda, 149, 151, 157, 164–65n Żółkiewski, Stefan, 42–43, 98–99, 236n, 263, 318–19 Żukowski, Tomasz, 8, 56, 115, 372n, 420