THAD PAUL ALTON. Polish Postwar Economy. Pp. x, 330. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955. $5.75
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| Author | W.S. Sworakowski |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625630400168 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
185
to
keep
a
biography
of
this
man
from
being
resolved
into
a
history
of
his
times,
Grun-
wald
has
managed
to
keep
the
spotlight
on
Nicholas
rather
than
on
the
state
and
to
depict
events
as
they
affected
him
or
were
affected
by
him.
The
result
is
a
nicely
balanced
picture
of
Nicholas
as
a
person
and
as
a
ruler.
Tsar
Nicholas
I
is
a
modest
book:
it
is
short,
and
it
gives
no
hint
that
the
author
is
seeking
the
accolade
of
&dquo;definitive&dquo;
for
his
work.
It
is
written
smoothly
and
in-
terestingly.
Some
may
wonder
why
the
French
translation
of
Russian
titles
is
re-
tained
in
the footnotes
(the
work
was
pub-
lished in
French
in
1946);
and
some
may
disapprove
of
the
degree
to
which
the
au-
thor’s
sympathy
for
his
subject
leads
him
to
accept
the
tsar’s
views
of
reality,
par-
ticularly
with
respect
to
the
Polish
and
Jewish
problems
and
the
police
state.
But
any
reader
will
find
the
book
a
useful
in-
troduction
to
an
important
and
much
neg-
lected
subject.
SIDNEY
HARCAVE
State
University
of
New
York
THAD
PAUL
ALTON.
Polish
Postwar
Economy.
Pp.
x,
330.
New
York:
Co-
lumbia
University
Press,
1955.
$5.75.
The
analysis
of
the
economy
of
a
coun-
try
is
not
an
easy
assignment
in
itself.
But
it
becomes
highly
complicated
with
a
coun-
try
which
has
the
bad
habit
of
publishing
only
fragmentary
statistics
of
its
economy.
This
is
the
case
of
postwar
Poland.
Fur-
thermore,
in
the
so-called
peoples’
democ-
racies
there
is
a
peculiar
discordance
be-
tween
the
word
of
the
law
and
the
man-
ner
of
its
application.
Judging
from
the
texts
of
the
laws
and
regulations
issued
by
the
Communist
regimes
in
the
peoples’
de-
mocracies,
their
present
system
of
govern-
ment
is
almost
ideal.
However,
in
ex-
amining
the
application
and
execution
of
these
laws
and
regulations
one
sees
the
ideal
vanish.
Mr.
Alton
made
extensive
and
effective
use
of
Polish
and
other
sources
used
for
his
analysis.
He
discusses
the
political
framework
in
which
postwar
Polish
economy
developed;
he
analyzes
planning
in
agricul-
ture,
industry,
and
finance.
Much
space
is
given
to
a
detailed
description
of
the
intri-
cate
mechanics
of
state
control
and
admin-
istration
of
Poland’s
economy.
By
relying
on
official
publications,
however
(others
do
not
exist
in
present-day
Poland),
this
de-
scription
suffers
from
one-sidedness:
in
ef-
fect,
it
summarizes
what
Polish
Communist
officials
want
to
see
in
and
what
they
write
about
this
administration.
So,
for
instance,
Mr.
Alton
writes
that
&dquo;the
newly
created
enterprises
operated
on
commercial
prin-
ciples
on
the
basis
of
financial
and
eco-
nomic
plans
approved
by
higher
levels
of
the
economic
administration&dquo;
(p.
91).
This
sounds
very
businesslike
and
promising.
But
how
does
it
work
in
practice?
True,
Mr.
Alton
mentions
that
in
1953
&dquo;the
admini-
strative
and
control
machinery
still
failed
to
come
up
to
the
desires
of
the
planners&dquo;
(p.
103),
but
the
reader
obtains
no
glimpse
into
these
failures
and
is
unable
to
evaluate
their
importance.
One
merit
of
Mr.
Alton’s
approach
is
just
his
use
of
sources
originating
in
the
country
whose
economy
he
is
analyzing.
Information
obtained
from
thege
sources
build
the
backbone
of
his
book.
However,
he
could
have
obtained
more
of
these
sources.
His
list
of
almost
one
hundred
&dquo;Works
in
Polish&dquo;
that
he
used
includes
only
three
books;
the
remainder
are
ar-
ticles
in
a
few
periodicals
from
Poland,
periodicals
which
are
mentioned
separately
in
the
bibliography.
A
few
additional
books
are
mentioned
as
&dquo;Public
Docu-
ments.&dquo;
There
are
at
least
a
dozen
other
books
on
the
subject
available
in
libraries
in
this
country.
Finally,
not
a
single
item
published
by
the
Polish
emigration
since
1945
was
consulted
or
mentioned.
These
shortcomings
do
not,
however,
pre-
vent
the
evaluation
of
Mr.
Alton’s
book
as
a
remarkable
contribution
to
a
better
un-
derstanding
of
the
intricate
problems
of
Poland’s
postwar
economy.
To
the
scholar
and
specialist,
it
will
give
an
intelligently
prepared
digest
of
Polish
laws,
regulations,
and
planning
procedures.
Considering
that
the
source
material
is
contained
in
publica-
tions
in
the
Polish
language,
the
book
will
be
a
welcome
tool
to
those
who
do
not
know
this
language.
W.
S.
SWORAKOWSKI
Stanford
University
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