Modernisation through Contamination: Degradation of the Natural Environment in Poland (1945–70) as Perceived by the Authorities and the Society

Author(s): Dariusz Jarosz / Language(s): English Issue: 115/2017

The period 1945–70 saw a change in the approach to environmental contamination on the part of Polish authorities and the society. Before 1956, the imposed model of economic modernisation, which imitated and reproduced the Soviet patterns, glaringly contradicted the requirements of ecology. In the aftermath of the political turn of 1956, protection of waters and air against pollution finally became a matter of debate involving the authorities and the society. Basic legal solutions in this respect, meant to protect the environment against degradation, were adopted in the 1960s. The legislators generally followed the arguments and reasons behind the period’s industrial policy, with the resulting limited efficiency of the legal acts adopted. In any case, between 1956 and 1970 awareness emerged in the society with respect to threats to the environment. This is attested by the letters sent to the authorities whose authors, individuals and groups, criticised the developments of industrial modernisation – owing, primarily, to its detrimental impact on their health.

On Two Modernities of the Polish Automotive Industry: The Case of Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych and Its Staff (1948–2011)

Author(s): Mariusz Jastrząb,Joanna Wawrzyniak / Language(s): English Issue: 115/2017

Focusing on the history of the Polish main car factory, the FSO, the paper examines two modernisation waves in the country’s automotive industry: the socialist Government’s purchase of a license from the Italian Fiat in the 1960s and the acquisition of the factory by the Daewoo Corporation in the 1990s. The history of the FSO as an enterprise shows, above all, the pitfalls of dependent development. It has, however, resulted in the training of a class of specialists and engineers for whom the implementation of foreign technologies and management cultures presented opportunities for self-advancement, redefinitions of their identity, along with reconsiderations of the value and meaning of work.

A ‘Great Change’, or, the Poles’ Unfulfilled Daydream about Having a Car (1956–7)

Author(s): Jerzy Kochanowski / Language(s): English Issue: 115/2017

The political ‘Thaw’ of 1956–7 was in Poland a period of thorough political as well as cultural and social change. While the political liberalisation came to an end rather soon, the team of Władysław Gomułka, the newly-appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party [PZPR], in power since October 1956, cared much for maintaining and reinforcing their pro-social and reformatory image. The leadership team’s assent for a more sophisticated consumption, part of which was owning a car, helped alleviate social tensions. The models were drawn from the West of Europe and from the United States, which for the Polish society were the major points of reference, as well as from the other socialist countries – particularly, East Germany (the GDR) and Czechoslovakia, where the political and societal significance of motorisation had already been appreciated. On the other hand, offering private individuals an opportunity to purchase a car was meant to be a remarkable tool used to draw the ‘hot money’ down from the market, thus preventing inflation. Cars, imported or Polish-made, began being (relatively) freely traded, at very high prices. This did not limit the demand, as acquiescence for private business operations contributed to the growing of the group of affluent people. While this incited the citizens to develop their own strategies of acquiring cars – not infrequently colliding with the law; the authorities began gradually reinstating the rationing. All the same, the number of private cars quickly increased, to 58,600 as of 1958, up from some 24,750 in 1956. Public discussion started around popular low-capacity (small-engine) cars – whether licensed (Renault, Simca, Fiat) or (to be) made in Poland. However, in spite of the raised expectations the authorities decided that it was still too early for a mass motorisation: this was made possible only in the early 1970s.

Between Stalinism and Infrastructural Globalism: The International Geophysical Year (1957–8) in Czechoslovakia, Poland and German Democratic Republic

Author(s): Doubravka Olšáková / Language(s): English Issue: 115/2017

This article analyses the political, scientific, and social circumstances of the beginning of infrastructural globalism in Eastern Europe, using the example of the International Geophysical Year (1957–8). This research programme led to the establishment of the first large global infrastructures operating in Eastern Europe, i.e. behind the Iron Curtain, under the auspices of international organizations (UNESCO, ICSU). Following the Geneva conference in 1955, large infrastructures and ‘big data’ science were supposed to become part of Soviet science diplomacy. The paper shows that while the Soviet Union and East-European countries accepted the challenge and became part of the global scientific community, nevertheless specific features of data and information control remained under the strict surveillance of the USSR.

Household as a Battleground of Modernity: Activities of the Home Economics Committee Affiliated to the League of Women (1957–80)

Author(s): Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz / Language(s): English Issue: 115/2017

This essay seeks to show the Polish household in the communist time as a space of modernity and modernisation activities. The chronological framework is set between 1957 – the date the Home Economics Committee affiliated to the League of Women was set up to contribute to, and be a mouthpiece of, the everyday life modernisation policy – and 1980, being the symbolic borderline between the modernity discourse and the Polish 1980–1 crisis discourse about household. In this context, the article reconstructs both the activities of social actors who created the ‘scenarios of modernity’ for the household and the reception of the messages in question in the village of Bogate in the District (powiat) of Przasnysz.

Two Recent Habsburg Studies

Author(s): Raluca Elena Goleșteanu / Language(s): English Issue: 115/2017

Setna rocznica rewolucji bolszewickiej w 1917 r.

Author(s): Marek Kornat / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Wielki przewrót w Rosji w roku 1917 przyniósł światu doniosłe konsekwencje. Zapewne nawet w decydujący sposób określił oblicze XX w., bo przecież trudno wyobrazić sobie faszyzm i narodowy socjalizm bez bolszewizmu. Poza tym państwo sowieckie było doniosłym aktorem II wojny światowej (największej z dotychczasowych) i zimnej wojny dwóch supermocarstw, jakie z niej się wyłoniły. Wszystko to sprawia, że nie sposób nie powrócić do wydarzeń sprzed stulecia – nie w rocznicowej konwencji, bowiem my Polacy nie mamy czego czcić – ale w imię lepszego poznania spraw już ogólnie znanych oraz refleksji wokół tych, które nie były zbyt uczęszczane przez historiografię polską.

Przewrót listopadowy 1917 r. w Rosji a hasło bolszewików prawa narodów do samostanowienia

Author(s): Wojciech Materski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

The starting point of these reflections sensu stricto are Lenin’s March Theses of 1916. One of their statements, on the right of nations to self-determination, has been compared with the practical implementation of the right following the successful October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. An analysis has been conducted of Lenin’s writings and statements, but also of Trotsky and Stalin, and the consequences of their implementations (or not) have been followed both in the Soviet reality of first years after the coup, and throughout the whole period of existence of this “new type” of state.

Skazani na Francję – polskie działania dyplomatyczne w państwach ententy w 1917 roku

Author(s): Małgorzata Gmurczyk-Wrońska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Polish leaders seeking assistance of France already before 1917 tried to convince French politicians and opinion-forming circles that there was the need to support Polish aspirations to independence and to distance themselves, or even to abandon the Russian ally. In their large part those efforts were ignored by the French, who were inclined to help Poles to achieve autonomy within the Russian empire. The fact that France showed more interest in Polish matters in the second part of 1917, and especially at the end of the year, resulted not only from French efforts to maximally weaken Germany, but also from the developments of the revolution in Russia which made France losing its eastern ally. In consequence, France began to modify its eastern policy and to take into consideration the possibility of including the new states of Central Europe into its system of alliances. Polish diplomatic actions of 1917 sought to include the case of Polish independence to the war aims of the allies. Those efforts met with success in June 1918, but the Polish actions of the end of 1917 turned out to be a very important contribution to this end. In 1917 the Entente states began to change their attitude towards Polish matters, but it was France who was interested in Central and Eastern European states. It seems that December of 1917 brought a breakthrough in the relations between France and Russia. At that time France decided to formally support the nations that had been suffering under the Russian yoke and decided to fight for independence. This included Polish matters. France, however, was gradually changing its Russian policy towards supporting White Russia. And this process began at the end of 1917. Probably, the path to the 1921 Polish-French alliance was for some time in a parallel course with the French efforts to reactivate a great eastern alliance with Russia.

Japonia wobec rewolucji bolszewickiej w Rosji, 1917–1922

Author(s): Jakub Polit / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Japan was the only allied power that was not directly threatened by the effects of the Russian defeat in the war. In Tokyo news about the two coups in Petrograd in 1917 (of February and October) were met with a wait-and-see attitude. But, from the spring of 1921 on, both the British and the French wanted to send troops to Russia, initially to support, then to reactivate the collapsing front in Russia. In Siberia (Vladivostok was one of the main reception points of allied supplies) such an action could have been conducted only by the Japanese. The plan, however, fuelled mistrust of Washington that regarded it as a threat to American interests.It was not until after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, recognized as the beginning of German-Bolshevik cooperation that Woodrow Wilson consented to the Japanese action in Siberia. There was one condition, however, that participation of Japan could not exceed that of U.S., Britain and France. Yet, already in the first months of the intervention which began in August 1918, the Japanese forces (70,000 troops) deployed in Siberia were ten times the number of the other allies together.The Japanese ignored the Russian government of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchal (despite the fact that they recognised it). Their hidden aim was to create a buffer pan-Mongol state which would include also the part of Russian Siberia. Those plans were met with strong opposition, especially of the United States, which was skilfully used by the Bolsheviks to their advantage. An expensive expedition drained the Empire’s treasury, and their official aims were totally obscured for average Japanese people (including soldiers). And after the victorious Bolshevik revolution, they also lost their meaning. America insisted that Japan withdraw from Siberia, and all that Japan wanted was to save face, so it demanded compensation for the massacre of several hundred Japanese expatriates in Nikolayevsk in February 1922. Finally, on 25 October the Japanese troops left Vladivostok.

Kwestia polsko-czechosłowackiej współpracy wojskowej w Rosji (listopad 1917 – styczeń 1918). Koncepcje Tomáša G. Masaryka

Author(s): Jan Wiśniewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

By the end of 1917, the leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement Tomaš G. Masaryk was keeping a close eye on the organisational development of the Polish corps in Russia. He had numerous talks with Polish politicians on military cooperation. In November 1917 there was in Kiev a Polish-Czechoslovak meeting during which the talks about cooperation were held. The main point of the meeting was the form of contacts between institutions and organisations of the two countries in Russia. A possible joint action of the forming Polish and Czechoslovak military formation was also brought up. During the talks Poland informed the Czechoslovak delegates that at that stage of developments the main demand of the Polish party was – apart from a collective declaration of the Entente states on the creation of the independent Polish state as their war aim – to obtain the approval of the Russian government for the formation of a Polish Army in Russia. After the Bolshevik coup, when the security of the Czechoslovak Corps was increasingly threatened, Masaryk tried to persuade the Polish leaders and General Eugene de Henning Michaelis who at that time was the inspector of the Polish military forces in Ukraine and Romania, to concentrate the Polish troops in the vicinity of the Czechoslovak forces. This was to increase security of the forming Polish corps and the Czechoslovak one. Also most of Czechoslovak commanders and members of the Czech and Slovak POW’s organisations were of the opinion that closer military cooperation was desirable. But, in the face of increasingly frequent conflicts between the Polish and Ukrainian units, and actions of the Polish troops defending the Polish property in Ukraine, Masaryk began to distance himself from closer cooperation with Poles, as he feared that the Czechoslovak troops could be accidentally involved in fights between Poles and Ukrainians or Bolsheviks. His fears prevented him from pursuing closer Polish-Czechoslovak cooperation in Ukraine at the end of 1917.

Rocznice „rewolucji rosyjskiej” w propagandzie władz sowieckich w latach 1933–1939

Author(s): Dariusz Jeziorny / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

The Soviet Union as a typical totalitarian regime was strongly inclined to celebrate various events which were of great propaganda value to the regime. One of such occasions was the anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The article presents basic ways of influencing the public opinion in Soviet Russia in 1933–1939. Special attention is paid to the fact whether successive celebrations of the “October Revolution” made more evident contents that emphasised the strengthening of Stalin’s dictatorship in the USSR, a change in the course of Soviet foreign policy, or propagated the policy of the Communist International. Whether there were some other subjects and topics brought up in occasional speeches and manifestos? What was the proportion between internal and external affairs brought up in enunciations delivered on this occasion? To whom were they addressed and in what way? And what was the actual purpose of the anniversary celebrations of the victorious Bolshevik coup of 1917? Were there, apart from successive publications of documents “in honour”, any other tools of influencing the public opinion? All these questions can be answered after a thorough analysis of speeches and statements made by the leading politicians of the Soviet Union or specially appointed people. It is also highly reasonable to analyse other – than words – elements of propaganda tactics to influence people.

Władze wojskowe, cywilne i kościelne a problem cerkwi prawosławnych w II Rzeczypospolitej – studium na przykładzie świątyń Suwałk, Łomży i Augustowa

Author(s): Piotr Zubowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

This article describes in great detail the situation of Orthodox Church buildings at Suwałki, Łomża and Augustów, in the interwar period, in the realities of independent Poland. The main purpose was to describe the policy of military, civil (central and self-government) and Church authorities (Roman Catholic and Orthodox) in this respect. Certain patterns of how authorities dealt with the Orthodox heritage characteristic not only of three selected towns, but of the whole Kingdom of Poland are described. The specificity of churches was connected with its founder, group of the faithful that used them their and privileged location in the urban space. Apart from some exceptions (Greek Catholic churches, Edinoverie churches), they were built from the 1830s by the Tsarist authorities for Russian officials and army. For this reason Polish population regarded them with hostility and equated with Russification policy. As a result, after 1915, when Russian administrative apparatus and soldiers left the Kingdom of Poland, Orthodox churches were converted into Catholic churches for Polish soldiers and Polish civil population. After fulfilling religious needs of these two groups, remaining Orthodox Church buildings were demolished or converted into secular objects. Due to a rapid decline in Orthodox population and restrictive policy of the Polish authorities there was only one new parish created in the area (two Orthodox churches were given to Orthodox soldiers). Claims of the Orthodox hierarchy for return or compensation were marginalized.

Zjazdy norymberskie w oczach amerykańskich obserwatorów 1933–1938

Author(s): Paulina Sołuba / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

After taking power (30 January 1933), the Nazis began to pay more attention to the way in which the party rallies were organized. To raise their rank, they sent out invitations to foreigners, also citizens of the United States. The regime wanted to win them for their cause. Parteitag’s invitations were sent to American diplomats and correspondents, American supporters of national socialists, American fascists and members of pro-Nazi organizations operating in the United States. Nazis foreign and internal policy successes resulted in a gradual increase in the number of American visitors at the Nazi congresses. For many observers attending the conventions meant meeting the “idols” and observing the power of the movement. Nazis prepared a number of attractions for their foreign guests. U.S. citizens were impressed by the excellent organization of the Nazi party rallies and their pomp. Many of them enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the Nazism and meet Nazi elite. The congresses were perfect propagandist celebration, full of parades and pageantry.

Rola aparatu represji w kontrolowaniu granicy państwowej na przykładzie ziemi kłodzkiej w latach 1949–1956

Author(s): Krzysztof Łagojda / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

On the example of Kłodzko Land the author presents one of the fundamental aspects of operations of the repression apparatus in the Stalinist period in Poland, that is the border control. From 1949 on, when the Border Guard was incorporated into the structures of the Ministry of Public Security, and a migration policy was tightened in general, the Ministry began to place a strong emphasis on the security of the state border. It applied both to all the border voivodeships (provinces), and districts. The author has analysed and emphasised several main tasks of the Security Office vis-à-vis a closure of the state border and their protection. He focuses on the presentation of counterintelligence characteristics of the terrain and systematic analyses of the border situation in 1949–1956. He described the organisation and development of the network of agents active on the border, detecting and constant surveillance of persons who wanted to illegally cross the border, liquidation of trafficking channels undertaken by the secret political police, and cooperation with the units of Border Guard and Citizen’s Militia. In a concise way he also presented consequences imposed on illegal crossers, among other things, on the example of sentences passed by the municipal court at Kłodzko and district court in Wrocław, he described the most frequent verdicts. After an analysis of the documents issued by the Special Commission for the Struggle against Abuses and Economic Sabotage, he answered the question whether the Commission was more repressive in this regard, and imposed more severe punishments. In conclusions, he was able to say whether the border of the Polish state during the Stalinist period was as tight and impossible to force as the communist authorities wanted it to be.

Trójmiejskie życie kulturalne w stanie wojennym i… „powojennym”

Author(s): Joanna Grey / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

The article describes the reality of people of culture in the Tri-City after the imposition of martial law. It presents an analysis of everyday creativities of actors, writers, artists, and photographers, in order to answer the question whether the martial law in Poland influenced in any way the creative freedom of the community. It compares actions undertaken by official institutions with those forms of independent culture that developed under martial law only within the Catholic Church. This is supplemented with a presentation of individual people forced by martial law to enter a new stage of actions.

Pierwsza połowa XX stulecia. Europejska droga „do piekła i z powrotem”

Author(s): Michał Jerzy Zacharias / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Arcybiskupa Andrzeja Szeptyckiego wizja niepodległej Ukrainy

Author(s): Przemysław Sołga / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Piotr S. Wandycz (20 IX 1923 – 29 VII 2017). Historyk Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, intelektualista, emigrant

Author(s): Rafał Stobiecki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Piotr Wandycz. Historyk polskiej dyplomacji

Author(s): Marek Kornat / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017