During the interwar period, the intelligentsia, with its century-long tradition, was standing at the crossroads between the traditional concept of a national educated elite and the emerging middle class that, under Polish conditions, was primarily state-oriented (state apparatus, state and local government, state and state-dependent educational, social, and scientific institutions). The majority of the intelligentsia worked in the public, mainly state, sector. At that time, non-Polish intelligentsia fell into many separate categories in Poland. In practice, however, what occupied the foreground was the problem of the Jewish intelligentsia or the intelligentsia of Jewish descent, especiallythe Polish-Jewish intelligentsia – gravitating towards Polish culture while not detached from the familial environment. After the Second World War, some of the intelligentsia refugees remained in the West. Those who stayed in Poland tried to restore their lives and workplaces, but the period in which they could create new work and life environment was short and ended in 1947–1948 along with the official introduction of communist political principles which did not include an independent role for the intelligentsia. The attempt to build a new, party-submissive, intelligentsia in the Stalinist years failed in the wake of the political crisis following Stalin’s death and denunciation. As a result, despite intensified manipulation in the Stalinist period and later years, the development of the intelligentsia was only partially infected. Thus, it is possible – albeit with reservations – to speak about the existence of intelligentsia in the years of the Polish People’s Republic as a continuation of the pre-war social category. During the communist period, the intelligentsia and the authorities were inevitable partners. The author believes that the intelligentsia – understood as a social stratum or as an environment in which the “old intelligentsia” was the most significant authority – played a role in strengthening the factor of traditional national culture. Consequently, the official canon included many traditional elements of Polish culture, which was not the case in other countries of the Eastern Bloc.

The Jewish intelligentsia as a social group appeared on the Polish lands in the second half of the nineteenth century and, until the turn of the century, it was most often associated with assimilationists. However, it was gradually expanding and, with the development of Jewish national movements and ideology evoking class identity, this group increasingly often included Zionists, Folkists, socialists of various options, communists, and finally people associated with the Orthodox Jewish party commonly known as the Aguda. While ethnic and religious issues were theoretically inconsequential for the communists, the basis of Jewish identity for the Zionists was ethnicity and religion for the Orthodox. Regardless, the Jewish and non-Jewish intelligentsia had a sense of a social mission, and a need to act for the benefit of the public, and to be involved in public, political, and cultural life. What set the Jewish intelligentsia apart (not only the formal one, consisting of intellectual workers with higher or secondary education) was its multilingualism, the inevitability of struggling with anti-Semitism, and perhaps certain internal brokenness that was more frequent than in the case of other nations. Research into the Jewish intelligentsia encounters many methodological problems concerning both its very definition and its “Jewish” specification. It is possible to extend the formal requirements of “an intellectual” (profession, education) and discuss the intelligentsia without any formal education or the intellectual elites (or: secular intellectual elites). However, it is harder to determine whether an atheist and a Communist working among the Jewish workers or a baptised founder of a Jewish orphanage are leaders and representatives of Jewish, Polish or perhaps Polish-Jewish elites. In the article, the author wants to indicate some problems related to the research into the intelligentsia and the intellectual elites of the Jewish population in Poland in the second half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century

The years of the People’s Republic of Poland generated a radical increase in the number of intellectual workers: their number tripled (from 664,500 in 1931 to 2,100,300 in 1956) when compared to the interwar period, with industry employees constituting the largest group among them (as many as 449,200). This dynamic growth was the result of a specific nature of the communist states, that is the pursuit of supervision and control of all the spheres of social and economic life. Such an accelerated process of social advancement was bound to affect the “quality” of the new personnel and their political choices. First of all, the increase in the number of people qualified for the intelligentsia contributed only slightly to the effectiveness of the economic system and the satisfaction of the citizens’ social needs. For the authorities, it was crucial that the members of the communist party and the social and economic elites mostly came up from the so-called new intelligentsia. However, their accession to the Polish Workers’ Party and the Polish United Workers’ Party was not so much because they identified with the program or its ideological goals, but rather that the prevailing authoritarian attitudes prompted them to support the existing power. In this context, it is difficult not to agree with Jan Lutyński who formulated the conclusion that the proverbial homo sovieticus was not only the “product and pillar” of real socialism but also the source of its slow destruction and decline.

After the end of warfare, the new political power in Poland faced a dilemma over the direction of the development of motorisation and the automotive industry. The legacy of the Second Polish Republic was modest. Only in the second half of the 1930s, the people in power decided – in the face of a military threat from the neighbours – to develop the industry faster; before, they had utterly ignored automotive backwardness of the country. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the Second World War and the consequences of the Nazi, as well as the Soviet, occupation policies meant that the automotive industry had to start almost from scratch. Nearly all motor vehicles that had roamed the Polish roads in September 1939 were destroyed. Road infrastructure had been devastated, just like the plants and factories of the automotive industry, including the documentation of manufactured vehicles and sub-assemblies. Thus, the new authorities decided to rely on technical and engineering staff. The majority of the pre-war engineers and technicians working in the automotive industry survived the war. Most of the large group of technical intelligentsia decided to join the process of rebuilding the domestic automotive industry, regardless of their political beliefs. As a consequence, the production of trucks, passenger cars, and tractors started in Poland. The technical staff of Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych [Passenger Automobile Factory] predominantly comprised pre-war automotive industry employees. At the same time, academics who had worked before the war at technical universities in Warsaw, Lviv, and the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków started teaching at newly created technical universities, providing continuity between this period and the Second Republic of Poland. The new technical staff trained for the automotive industry had direct contact with people who remembered 1918–1939 years very well.

The intelligentsia and groups associated with the non-public economy in cities composed the traditional and essential social base of the Alliance of Democrats, satellite to the Polish United Workers’ Party. The supposed mission of the post-war Alliance was transmitting the programme of building socialism (communism) in Poland to those social groups. After the Second World War, the ancestry of the educated rarely dated back to the “old” intelligentsia. In Poland after 1945, this stratum generally suffered “plebification”. The Holocaust of Polish Jews during the Second World War and post-war restrictions followed by the elimination of small-scale industry and private trade, as well as hindering the development of craftsmanship, drastically reduced the number of the petite bourgeoisie. In economic life, on the margins of the “new socialist society” there remained a small group of small manufacturers, “service workers” and merchants. The so-called private initiative environment, subjected to arbitrary measures taken by the communist authorities, emerged. The intelligentsia started to develop an adaptive attitude towards the imposed system, complemented by positivistic notions that entailed serving the public and promoting the ethos of knowledge despite the internal situation. Choosing the Alliance was often an escape from varyingly intrusive propaganda about joining the ranks of the Polish United Workers’ Party. The declared ideological neutrality, the relative freedom of expression on the internal forum, and programme proposals aimed at democratising the state, also attracted the intelligentsia to the Alliance. In 1960, the intelligentsia and intellectual workers constituted 46.8% of the members, dominating the party in the next decade (54–55%). The emergence and operation of “Solidarity” in the 1980s gave rise to a real social and political alternative that attracted the intellectual base of the Alliance, which resulted in a significant decrease in the number of its members.

The article presents a biography of Ireneusz Gugulski (1935–1989), an outstanding teacher of Polish studies. The source material consists of stories, memories, documents from school archives, and the Security Service files in the Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance. The first part of the article describes the history of the Gugulski family, Ireneusz Gugulski’s path to the teaching profession, his first steps after moving to Warsaw in 1956, the beginnings of his work at the famous Warsaw secondary school named after Tadeusz Reytan, as well as the process of becoming this school’s legend. In the second part, the author analyses the Polish lessons conducted by Gugulski, their academic and educational meaning. Many of his students remembered them as lessons in intellectual courage, teaching them independent interpretation and treating literature as a space for freedom. It is not a coincidence that some of Gugulski’s students became the leading activists of the so-called democratic opposition in the period of the Polish People’s Republic. The third part of the article deals with the political contexts of Gugulski’s biography: his disciplinary dismissals, involvement in the “Solidarity” movement, internment during the martial law, attempts to return to “his” secondary school, that is the Tadeusz Reytan General Secondary School No. 6. The article also provides information on Gugulski’s private life and introduces the everyday life of an intellectual family under the Polish People’s Republic. Gugulski’s life adds up to several thousand students, among them several dozen professors of literature, teachers, actors, directors, photographers, and doctors. Many of them still consider meeting Gugulski as a turning point. The paper is also a sociological reflection on the formation of the intelligentsia as a social group.

For the first time, the so-called “red day”, namely the anniversary of the First World War, was celebrated on August 1, 1929. As part of the celebrations, communists from around the world organised demonstrations, parades, and anti-war protests. The communists were also agitating for the Soviet Union and campaigning against a possible attack by the “imperialist” states. The 1929 celebration was meant to be big and grandiose; it was a particularly crucial day for the Communist Party of Poland which changed its management in June 1929 and wanted to show off to the Soviet government. The national camp was the political and ideological power that ruthlessly and consistently opposed Communism in Poland; Polish nationalists were following every communist activity. The press of the national camp often wrote about the plans and tactics of the Communist Party of Poland. Thus, the national camp also followed the 6th World Congress of the Comintern, during which crucial decisions regarding the Communist movement were made. The Polish nationalists knew that the Communist Party of Poland was utterly dependent on the Kremlin, through the Comintern. The national camp had a vast knowledge of the Communist movement and was trying to announce it to the Polish society, e.g. in the press. The “red day” proved a failure: displaying the weakness of the Communist Party of Poland and the lack of support for Communism among Polish society.

The life of Wacław Komar is a material for an extensive biography. An activist in the communist youth organisation; a man who carried out sentences on the Polish political police informers. He escaped from the country as a wanted man. After leaving for the Soviet Union and completing sabotage training, he became a communist activist in organisations in several European countries. When he was sent to the Spanish Civil War, he was already a distinguished member of the party. During the military operations, he gained experience as a commander and then became one of the most important people in the so-called Dąbrowszczacy community.

The article discusses the issue of the origin and operation of the Polish Workers’ Party in the Kłodzko region. The author focuses on several issues related to the history of the communist party, outlining the beginnings of the party in the region, problems with establishing party committees, an influx of new members, and their motivations for joining the party. He also tries to characterise the first secretaries of district committees in Kłodzko and Bystrzyca Kłodzka, predominantly in terms of their education, social background, and connections to the pre-war communist movement. Subsequently, the author discusses how the party came to power, the way the communist party operated in the popular referendum and elections to the Legislative Sejm, the scale of repression against the Polish People’s Party, and the mass propaganda aimed at the Polish society. Lastly, the article discusses the road to the “unity” of the communist party with the Polish Socialist Party, or rather the communist activities aimed at absorbing the socialist party.

The article aims to show the activities of the bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church, Józef Padewski, as well as the issue of his surveillance and unexplained death. The author, using the materials from the Institute of National Remembrance and the findings of other researchers, primarily tries to present the circumstances of Padewski’s arrest, its causes, and the intervention of the US Embassy. The character of this study is contributory; it is an introduction to broader research both regarding bishop Padewski, as well as the activities of Polish National Catholic Church and the Catholic Church in Poland after the Second World War

The article focuses on the course of the trial of Zygmunt Augustyński, editor-inchief of People’s Newspaper [“Gazeta Ludowa”], convicted in August 1947 (along with two other defendants) and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The reconstruction of the subsequent stages of the trial serves to analyse the political direction of this show trial whose primary goal was to attack the Polish People’s Party’s milieu. The ideological staging of the trial was specific; since it took place in the pre-Stalinist period, the staging was not as successful as in the later years. Still, this court case can serve as an example of the communist lawlessness.

The article analyses a collection of poems written by a female prisoner of NKVD camps in Rembertów and Poznań and the Rawicz Prison. It is a moving source and a personal testimony to the Stalinist period and, at the same time, one of few surviving source materials from the NKVD camp in Poznań. While there are many anthologies of poems about the German occupation, and the martyrdom in Nazi camps or prisons, both by famous poets and unknown authors-amateurs, the bibliography of Soviet and NKVD camps and Stalinist prisons is brief. Thus, it is crucial to examine the discussed 24-page notebook, filled with poems and fragments of prison songs from Stalinist Poland.

From 1944 to 1956, the organisational model of the Provincial Committee (PC) of the Polish Workers’ Party’s (PWP)/Polish United Workers’ Party’s (PUWP) secretariat evolved from a centralised and consolidated to a decentralised and dispersed. In each of these two developmental stages, the personnel was slightly different both in terms of posts and the number of employees. Representatives of this group of the party apparatus were (PC PWP) the head of the General Secretariat, a secretary and a typist, and (PC PUWP) the secretariat’s clerks in the departments or the Secretariat of the First Secretary of the PC, a typist and a registrar. The number of PC PWP/PUWP administrative employees working in the secretariat in particular periods ranged from 3 (1944) to 27 people (1955). There were people with professional experience from various organisations (including district committees) and institutions, most of which can be described as the pillars of the “people’s power” [Security Office, Milicja Obywatelska, general administrative offices, youth organisations, such as the Union of Youth Struggle (ZWM) and the Union of Polish Youth (ZMP)]. The administration of the PC PUWP secretariat in Lublin almost entirely consisted of employees “inherited” from the Provincial Committee of the Polish Workers’ Party, not from the Provincial Committee of the Polish Socialist Party in Lublin. When compared to the political functionaries, the administrative employees were considered insignificant in the party’s full-time apparatus, as expressed, e.g., by their low earnings. They also had little promotion opportunities within this apparatus, which was one of the reasons for staff turnover. On the other hand, some people held administrative positions for four years (PC PWP), or even five and six years (PC PUWP). The administrative employees were rarely politically trained because they were not considered a source for future mid-level or senior-level political staff. Most of them were relatively young and poorly educated (usually primary education), with a party background that usually did not extend the legal existence of the PWP. In the times of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers’ Party, the employees were predominantly female, amounting to over 80 per cent. In the years of the PC PUWP, the secretariat was 100 per cent feminised.