Sejm elections in the communist-ruled Poland in the light of new research
Sejm elections in communist-ruled Poland in the light of new research
Author(s): Michał SiedziakoSubject(s): History, Political history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism
Published by: Institutul National pentru Studiul Totalitarismului
Keywords: state-controlled elections; communist propaganda; Polish United Workers’ Party; communist-ruled Poland; electoral fraud;
Summary/Abstract: Regularly held elections are one of the most basic characteristics of democratic states. Cyclic elections took place in nearly all the dictatorships of the 20th century, including the Central and Eastern European states which fell under the dominion of the Soviet Union after the 2nd World War. Yet despite bearing the name, they were completely different from democratic elections in the West. The essay presents the current state of knowledge on the issues of their organisation and the reliability of their results on the example of Poland. It makes use of the author’s research into several Polish national and regional archives as well as the latest literature on the subject. The author discusses, among others, the pre-selection of the MPs, the composition of electoral boards, the methods of electoral propaganda and the cases of electoral fraud.
Journal: Arhivele Totalitarismului
- Issue Year: XXIX/2021
- Issue No: 1-2
- Page Range: 75-91
- Page Count: 17
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF