Adaptacja reemigrantów z Francji do komunistycznej rzeczywistości w Polsce Ludowej w latach 1945–1954
Adaptation of repatriates from France to the communist reality of the Polish People’s Republic in 1945–1954

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on, undiscussed so far in the literature on the subject, the adaptive processes of the Poles who came from France to Stalinist Poland, and their confrontation with the reality of Stalinist Poland. An important influence on the studied adaptation problems was exerted by the question of adequacy of principles of communist repatriation policy and its promises of professional promotion made to Polish workers in relation to the actual situation in the country. The chronological scope of the study is from the end of the war to the year 1954 when, after Stalin’s death and the escape of Józef Światło, there was a “thaw” in actions of security services within the communities of repatriates.The article presents motives of the Poles deciding to stay in France or leave it for Poland, and then a confrontation of their ideas about the conditions of life in People’s Poland. The following part discusses the attitudes, behaviour, and customs of repatriates settled in Upper and Lower Silesia, and questions related to the surveillance of the repatriate community by the Security Office, at variance with propagandist assumptions of repatriate policy of the Polish People’s Republic.

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