What is it about?
Two distinct 'periods' are discernible in the early years of Polish communism The period from July 1944 to December 1948 was a time of civil war when a very large proportion of the population resisted the imposition of an illegitimate Moscow-backed government.
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Why is it important?
The institutions of communism - specifically the control of writers - in the years 1944-48 were still under-developed, largely nascent and lacking in confidence. Communism had not fully penetrated all the institutions of the Polish state. However, this was not the case in the period from December 1948 to October 1956, when Poland was effectively a Stalinist state.
Perspectives
It is tempting to see Poland's post-war communist regimes as uniformly grey and undifferentiated. However, it is important to distinguish differences in the style and content of communism - particularly regarding the creative intelligentsia - since these help us chart the content of Polish communism and the development of opposition to it.
Prof Carl Tighe
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This page is a summary of: The Polish Writing Profession: 1944–56, Contemporary European History, March 1996, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0960777300003647.
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