The young people’s anti-system attitudes in the selected socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the years 1945–1956 – overview of issues Cover Image

Postawy antysystemowe młodzieży w wybranych państwach socjalistycznych Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej w latach 1945–1956 – zarys problematyki
The young people’s anti-system attitudes in the selected socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the years 1945–1956 – overview of issues

Author(s): Jacek Wołoszyn
Subject(s): Civil Society, Political history, Social history, Politics and society, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism
Published by: Instytut Europy Środkowej
Keywords: social resistance; opposition; anti-communist underground; youth; Stalinism;

Summary/Abstract: The changes occurring in countries of Central and Eastern Europe after 1945 deprived young people of their subjectivity, divested them of the possibility of legal activities outside the structures controlled by the rulers. Simultaneously, the activities taken by the latter threatened the values which were fundamental for the most of them. Some of young people attempted – more or less – to engage in active resistance, usually determined axiologically. It took, among other things, the form of refusal to participate in official youth organisations while staying in religious communities. Some also publicly expressed their oppositions in the form of participation in street demonstrations. Others joined the anti-communist underground or established their own underground groups. Young people’s anti-system attitudes were discussed on the examples of Belarus, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, the German Democratic Republic and Ukraine.

  • Issue Year: 18/2020
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 203-219
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish