The policy of the communist authorities towards writers and artists in the 1945 to 1989 period can be divided into several stages. The first lasted from the end of 1944 to November 1947. The second stage lasted from November 1947 until the end of 1949, when socialist realism was forcibly introduced into all areas of cultural life. The third stage ended at the beginning of 1955, when one could observe a weakening of the authorities (accused of violations of the socialist rule of law). The whole year 1955 and the turn of 1956/1957 is referred to as the “thaw” period. During Władysław Gomułka’s era (October 1956 –December 1970), the attitude adopted by the authorities towards artists remained mostly unchanged. It manifested itself as an ideological offensive and repression of any emerging signs of resistance in that community. When Edward Gierek was in power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (1970–1980), the policy towards writers and artists evolved in two stages. The first (1971–1976) was characterized by liberalism and pragmatism, as part of a regime’s legitimization strategy. During the second stage, lasting from February 1976 to August 1980, preventive and repressive elements began to prevail in the position taken towards artists, who increasingly voiced opposition towards the authorities. Opposition was to be quashed by more stringent censorship, numerous searches, interrogation of artists and harassment. In 1980 and 1981, the authorities concentrated on ensuring that the managing bodies of the artist/writer associations had the right political credentials, although with no effect. They supported artists with communist party affiliations and unsuccessfully tried to attract the neutral centre and to exploit it. During the martial law period, the authorities adopted a repressive policy towards artists, but they failed to put an end to their boycott of public institutions. The attempt to use artists to legitimize the activities of the authorities in the perestroika period was only partially successful. Finally, the cultural policy of the authorities was put aside altogether after the political changes of 1989.

In the People’s Republic of Poland, Warsaw experienced two periods of accelerated urban development. The first one was the time of reconstruction, which lasted until 1955. The second occurred in the first half of the 1970s . Wisłostrada and Trasa Łazienkowska were built, the Central Railway Station was erected, and design works on the underground railway line were resumed. These activities, completely different from the stagnant investment policies implemented by Władysław Gomułka, owed a lot to the communist party patronage, although it would be difficult to point to specific names. The reconstruction years were inextricably linked with Bolesław Bierut. The article analyses the maintenance

The Polish Journalists’ Association was one of many industrial vocational organizations set up in Poland at the beginning of the 1950s. Based on the Soviet model, Polish authorities created a network of creative organizations which were something between a trade union and a social club where every member would monitor another. What is so special about the Polish Journalists’ Association? First of all, the fact that its members were the propagandists most active in the building of foundations of the totalitarian communist system. Their situation was quite particular in the break-through year of 1956. The year 1956 and the deep political and economic changes it brought along were both an opportunity and a threat to them. It was an opportunity because they could flourish and write without a gag in the mouth. It was a threat because the careers of the most committed stalinism champions would break one after another. The article analyzes the changeable political commitment of PJA in 1956. An important role is played by considerations on differences between journalists from the peripheral regions and those active in the centre of Polish reality, presented against a broader backdrop of the political situation in the People’s Republic of Poland. Finally, the text answers this question: what was the actual role of PJA in 1956? It also outlines the problems the Association had to face over the following years.

The mysterious death of Jerzy Zawieyski, a playwright, editor and Catholic-political activist, has not been fully explained. Although according to the most plausible theory Zawieyski died on 18 June 1969 in an accident, a suicide cannot be ruled out, while there are some people who read the participation of third parties or even political murder elements into the case. The article will not burst the bubble of doubts. Even though the author managed to reach some sources which had not been utilized before, the considerations presented below will recall the tragic death of Zawieyski, underline the lack of integrity in the actions of the former authorities and point to interpretational difficulties rather than propose a final answer to the riddle.

The revolutionary social and political changes initiated in the summer of 1980, related to the birth of and activities conducted by the Solidarity movement, took place mainly because of the social mobilization of workers. The direction and nature of these changes were also determined – albeit not necessarily in an active manner – by the attitude of other social structures, particularly the creative circles. Opole, the city regarded since 1963 in terms of an informal capital of the Polish song – is a good example. The 19th National Contest of the Polish Song, held from 25 until 28 June 1981, became a legend. The song “Let Poland be Poland”, performed to the general public at this festival, became an unofficial anthem of the Solidarity revolution. For political reasons, the festival organizers could not interfere in the course of the festival. The censorship intervention proved unsuccessful, as well. The activity of TSA, a rock group set up in Opole, was also a major phenomenon on a national scale. The group’s songs constituted a certain attempt at escaping from the greyness and hopelessness of everyday life in communist Poland. Somehow shadowed by these phenomena were local facts connected with individual attitudes of representatives of the Opole creative circles towards the revolutionary changes taking place in Poland’s social and political life. These facts, however, are also significant in the context of illustrating the social realities of the 1980s. A vast majority of artists from Opole was not actively engaged in the endeavours of the opposition forces, but – at the same time – they would neither attack the opposition nor side with the authorities. Cases of active involvement in the activities undertaken by one or the other side of the political barricade were quite rare. The longstanding opposition activity of the Opole actor Tadeusz Żyliński calls for special attention. This man is an example through which one can see quite clearly how much could be done by politically active artists after August 1980. Unfortunately, only a small part of the Opole creative circles was interested in such opportunities. Political passivity, coupled with efforts aimed at fulfilling one’s own personal and professional ambitions, were definitely more prevailing. Everyday social and political reality of the 1980s in Poland was a far cry from the idealistic views on the social mission of our intelligentsia.

This article discusses the activities of Konstanty Gebert – an editor and publicist of the underground press in the years 1982–1989. In the 1970s, he cooperated with the Workers’ Defence Committee and continued his activity during the ‘Solidarity’ period. Shortly after the introduction of martial law, Gebert became a member of the editorial team of ‘KOS’ – one of the most important underground periodicals. He soon became one of the key figures in that community. He performed editing and typesetting, but was really in his element when writing articles for the press. He wrote articles for ‘KOS’ and other underground periodicals. With time, his pseudonym ‘Dawid Warszawski’ became a well-known brand in the underground press. Gebert was initially in favour of creating an Underground State, similar to the one existing during the Second World War. However, his views on the organization of the underground movement gradually evolved. In 1983, he suggested establishing an ‘independent socjety.’ Even though he was connected with the moderate stream of the ‘Solidarity’ Movement, he was far from being conciliatory. His views changed partly as a result of the policy of the authorities after 1986, when most prisoners were released. He came to the conclusion that the situation was stalemate. He thought that a compromise was possible – due to the economic crisis and changes in the USSR – but not at any price. He was passionately interested in international politics. In underground publications, such issues were only mentioned in connection with the ‘Eastern bloc’ and the USA. ‘Dawid Warszawski,’ however, was also interested in the Middle East and China. He was sometimes fairly critical about the USA and its non-democratic allies. Observing the life of Konstanty Gebert, one may notice certain dilemmas. In his opposition activities, he was always looking for a balance between the aim of making the underground press as attractive as possible for the reader, and that of subordinating it to the objectives of the social opposition movement. Gebert’s biography also shows how important the experience of co-creating the underground press was in the development of the journalistic elites of the Third Republic of Poland.

The article describes diplomatic operations carried out by Poland’s MP and executive minister in Sofia Adam Tarnowski, one of the leading representatives of Polish diplomacy in the Second Republic of Poland. He was the longest serving Polish diplomat in the Kingdom of Bulgaria (1930–1941). Later he emigrated to London to hold prominent functions: a general secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an MP in the Czechoslovakian government in exile, Minister of Foreign Affairs during and after the war in the governments of Tomasz Arciszewski and Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski. Chronological dividing lines of the study are: the fall of Poland in September 1939 and Bulgaria breaking off its diplomatic relations with Poland in March 1941. At that time, the Polish diplomatic post in Sofia was one of the very few legations which dealt with diplomatic issues despite the German seizure of Poland. When the war had broken out, Tarnowski began conducting a serious diplomatic campaign towards establishing contacts with his occupied motherland, helping people threatened by Nazi repressions, and informing foreign governments of crimes and destruction taking place in Poland. Tarnowski was supported by a group of Bulgarian diplomats sympathising with Poland. They stayed in Berlin and occupied Warsaw and provided priceless services to our country by carrying money, letters, and information about the Nazi crimes in the occupied Poland in their diplomatic bags. Our MP in Sofia would give shelter to Polish refugees, protect valuable objects belonging to the national heritage, and organize redeployment of Polish troops from Bulgaria into Turkey. The most spectacular operation managed by Tarnowski was the evacuation of a group of several dozen Polish airmen (in September 1940) by sea from the Black Sea coast to Turkey . A very important element of Tarnowski’s operations was the intervention with the Bulgarian government to help Polish scientists from the Jagiellonian University and the AGH University of Science and Technology arrested by Germans in November 1939. Tarnowski talked to Professor Bogdan Fiłow, President of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, a world famous archaeologist, who was about to become Prime Minister of Bulgaria. The sources of the article include: unknown historical documents from AAN, published diplomatic and intelligence documents, journals and recollections. Bulgarian sources and analyses, including video footage, were also used.

The basis for the settling of accounts in Czech lands was President Edvard Beneš’s decree adopted on 19 June 1945. colloquially referred to as the “Great Retribution Decree”. The decree served as a basis for the creation of 24 Extraordinary People’s Courts. As a supplement to the retribution laws, the so-called “Small Retribution Decree” was passed. Retribution courts were established against the background of spontaneous retributions taking place in the spring of 1945. A lot of German soldiers and civilians, as well as Czechs accused of collaboration with the enemy fell victim to wild retributions (sometimes in the form of lynches). The “Great Retribution Decree” ceased to be effective on 4 May 1947, marking the end of Extraordinary People’s Courts which had passed judgement on more than 21,000 people. The EPC in Prague judged many German war criminals, e.g. Karl Hermann Frank and Kurt Daluege. Separate legislative measures were adopted to judge high ranking officials of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Based on a decree passed by President Benes, the National Court (Narodní Soud) was established. Since the beginning of retributions, the authorities in Prague were faced with the need to set apart the process of retributions and the displacements of Germans from Czechoslovakia. Based on the legal solutions adopted, bringing to justice a lot of people, particularly Sudeten Germans, for what they had done was blurred by the post war displacement process. The retribution process taking place in Slovakia was also unique. The retributions were based on a decree passed by the Slovakian National Council on 15 May 1945. As opposed to what happened in the Czech part of the country, the Slovaks distinguished a few categories of the accused, depending on their nationality. The National Court (Národný Súd) was established in Bratislava. It is before this court that the famous trial was held against reverend Jozef Tiso, the former president. Having taken over the power in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, the communists decided to reactivate the Extraordinary People’s Courts. As opposed to the first phase of retributions, the “second retribution” was supposed to be based on a vague notion of “people’s justice”. The objective of the new government was to use the retribution process to discredit their political opponents. Similar measures aimed at instrumentalisation of the retributions had been adopted by Czech and Slovak communists even before the coup d’état of February 1948.

The article presents the history of the Democratic-National League, an opposition organization with a national profile, which operated in the years 1957–1961, in the context of events associated with the Polish national movement after World War II, as well as in the time-frame during which the movement was active – the first years of Gomułka’s government. The author describes the structure of the organization and its programme, trying to find the sources of the ideas which it contained. He also tries to present the links between the Democratic-National League and national activists from outside its structures as well as the Catholic Church. Describing the historical context, the author goes back to the end of World War II, while the main part of the work covers the 1957–1961 period – from the moment of making the decision to set up the organization until its co-founders and key members were sentenced. The main sources for the article were documents from the IPN Archive and interviews with the League members.

The August Agreement of 1980 and the creation of free trade unions in Poland caused anxiety among leaders of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The development in the neighbouring People’s Republic of Poland had significant impact on the geopolitical environment of the communist German Democratic Republic. The leader of the SED and the GDR head of state, Erich Honecker, strongly supported the idea of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Poland. However, other East European communist rulers were not willing to go that far, at least in the short term. Under these circumstances, East German authorities tried to influence the leaders of the Polish United Worker’s Party (PZPR), Poland’s ruling communist party, and urged them to impose countrywide martial law. They pinned their hopes on general Wojciech Jaruzelski, who was designated prime minister in February 1981. However, Honecker soon became disappointed and came to the conclusion that new leadership in Poland was necessary. At that time, SED apparatchiks and East German diplomats held many talks with their PZPR colleagues, including local leaders, members of the Central Committee and even the Political Bureau. Following on from this, those among the Polish communists unhappy with the hesitant policy of their leader Stanisław Kania were encouraged to seek for a new leadership. Honecker hoped that, at its eleventh plenary session in June 1981, the PZPR Central Committee would overthrow Kania and bring about political change in Poland. This calculation failed and in July, Kania was even re-elected party leader at the ninth PZPR congress. No change in the politics of Poland seemed possible without Jaruzelski, the head of the army and still a popular figure. In the early Autumn of 1981, GDR authorities received hints that Jaruzelski no longer supported Kania and had become more willing to impose martial law. Kania’s opponents among the Central Committee, strongly supported by the SED and the Soviets, finally managed to oust him from power in October 1981. The Committee appointed Jaruzelski its new First Secretary. Less than two months later, martial law was imposed in Poland. From Honecker’s perspective, his minimum goal was reached.

This essay explores the complex dynamic that fed Soviet anxieties over the border regions. This dynamic involved several interlocking aspects: the dismantling of the Gulag, including most notably the release of a significant number of convicted nationalist guerrillas and activists, who were allowed to return to their homes; the conflicting sentiments on the western frontier that led locals to embrace or reject the Gulag returnees based on pre-Soviet memories, the experiences of World War II, and postwar sovietization policies; the impact of the Polish and Hungarian upheavals, foreign radio broadcasts, and increased contacts with the outside world on the authorities and populations of the western republics; and finally, the attempt to counter these problems via the proliferation of communal surveillance and policing, the revival of class-based policies, and the intensified pursuit of ethnonational homogenization of the borderlands. The 1956 crisis raised several key questions for the post-Stalinist Soviet polity, especially on the western frontier: Why did a government as suspicious and seasoned as the Soviet regime consciously let a mass of sworn, unreformed enemies back into its midst? Was the era of social engineering over in the wake of the renunciation of mass terror and, if so, what came in its place? What were the boundaries of reform? What price was the regime willing to pay for the relative loss of control over information flow and communications? What accounted for the wide gap between a confident center and its weary periphery, and what role did the latter play in shaping national policies?

Illegal emigrations of football players from the People’s Republic of Poland were quite frequent, but in most cases they were not treated as high profile in the mass media. The only exception was the 1988 escape of Andrzej Rudy, a player in Poland’s national football team. The examples of emigrating athletes discussed in the text have been divided into two categories: defectors per se (those who left their teams’ foreign training camps), and people who refused to go back to Poland after legally obtaining a consent to travel to a Western country (or Yugoslavia). The first case of an athlete illegally leaving Poland took place in the 1950s, while the last one in the last months of the break-through year of 1989. It was usually footballers playing for Silesian clubs who opted for illegal emigration to West Germany. Family reasons were often quoted as a basis for making such a decision – numerous defectors were able to prove their German roots. The 1980s saw a particular intensification of escapes, which was related both to deteriorating economic conditions in Poland and more liberal passport policies at the end of the decade. It is worth noting that the communist authorities changed their attitude towards the phenomenon. While in the 1960s the secret police would keep the defectors and their families under surveillance, 20 years later the government would simply register anyone “refusing to return to Poland”.

Social movements emerge from established networks, and movement participation strengthens existing solidarities and alters identities. How do these solidarities survive the disruption of emigration? This paper focuses on the activities of Solidarity refugees in Chicago during the 1980s, and, in particular, the organizations Freedom for Poland and Solidarnosc Wspolnota Rozproszonych /Brotherhood of Dispersed Solidarity Members, as well as organizations formed around the 1989 elections and the economic and political changes in its aftermath. Data were collected through participant observation, interviews, organizational archives, and surveys. This case study shows that there were strong concrete and ideological ties between Solidarity refugees in Chicago and the opposition in Poland. In sum, while emigration dispersed refugees, commitment (to the movement), pre-existing networks (to Poland), and renewed networks (in the U.S.) helped Solidarity refugees reconstitute on foreign soil and continue “to fight the good fight” from abroad.