Theory of the Polish People's Democracy

• DOI: 10.1177/106591295600900403
• Date: 01 December 1956
• Author: Richard F. Staar
• Published date: 01 December 1956
• Subject Matter: Articles

THEORY OF THE POLISH PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY
RICHARD F. STAAR
Harding College
SSENTIALLY
a dictatorship operating behind a constitutional facade,
the people’s democracy of Poland conceals its true nature by estab,
*~―
lishing governmental bodies which outwardly resemble traditional
democratic ones. Thus, the postwar governmental apparatus has carried
over many pre-1959 features.’ These vestiges of the &dquo;capitalist era&dquo; would
seem to have been retained on grounds of expediency and probably are in
line with the familiar Communist policy of maintaining national form
while simultaneously infusing it with a socialist content.
In striving toward the goal of socialism in Poland, the Communists have
admittedly emulated the U.S.S.R. and copied from the latter’s experience.
This experience involves four points: (1) destruction of the capitalist state;
(2) establishment of a new political structure along the lines of a prole-
tarian state; (3) reconstruction of the country and the introduction of new
relationships in production, providing an impetus along the path to social-
ism ; and (4) indoctrination of the population in the Marxist-Leninist ideol-
ogy as a step on the road to socialism.2
2
The first point was attained in part by the end of 1947 when the last
legal opposition to the Communists (the Polish Peasant party led by Stanis-
law Mikolajczyk) was broken. Partial achievement of the second point
was announced with the adoption of a new constitution in 1952,~ although
some traditional Polish nomenclature was retained in this document. The
third point was launched after the conclusion of the Three Year Economic
Plan in 1949, when Poland started upon its Six Year Plan (1950-55) which
had as its goal the establishment of a foundation for socialism. In operation
since 1944, the fourth point will probably be increasingly intensified as time
goes by.
The theoretical aspects of the people’s democracy in Poland were
authoritatively laid down in an article by Hilary Minc, Politburo member
and first deputy premier.’ His thesis is that the people’s democracies arose
as a result of the victory of the U.S.S.R. over Hitlerism, that they develop
on the basis of Soviet experience (but do not necessarily use identical
1
S. Gryziewicz (ed.), Ramy zycia w Polsce (Paris: Osrodek Badan Europy Srodkowej,
1952), 1, 8-16.
2
I. P. Trainin, "Demokratia osobogo tipa," Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, XVII (January,
1947), 1-14.
3

Konstytucja Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej, Dziennik ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej,
IX (July 23, 1952).
4
H. Minc, "Niektore zagadnienia demokracji ludowej w swietle leninowsko-stalinowskiej
nauki o dyktaturze proletariatu," Nowe drogi, III (November-December, 1949), 88-113.
835

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836
methods), and that they have received invaluable advice from the Com-
munist party of the Soviet Union. The fact that the road to socialism
would not necessarily be the same for all countries had already been
prophesied by Lenin:
All nations will come to Socialism - this is inevitable, but they will not all reach it
in the same way; every one will contribute its specific nature in one or another form of
democracy, in one or another variant of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in one or
another tempo in the Socialist transformation of the various aspects of social life.5
Three principal reasons have been expounded by persons of high Com-
munist rank to explain the difference in historical conditions between the
Russian October Revolution and the revolution in Poland, which allegedly
represent a justification for not following in the exact footsteps of the
U.S.S.R. The reasons are these: (1) Poland was liberated by the Soviet
Army; (2) the Polish revolutionary struggle of the working class and its
party against the landowners and the capitalists was connected with the
war for national liberation against the German occupants; and (3) in
Poland, the establishment of a people’s democratic state took place as a
long-term process.6
In elaborating on point one, it is obvious that the coming of the Soviet
Army made possible the seizure of political power by the Polish Commu-
nists. The importance of the presence of the Soviet Army in Poland was
openly admitted by Boleslaw Bierut, at the time secretary-general of the
Polish Workers’ (Communist) party, in a speech made at the second post-
war party congress in December, 1948. He stated at this time that
the
...
working masses, the working class, and its political organizations had a class ally
who liberated the nation from the yoke of Hitlerite slavery, an ally who by his very Pres-
ence rendered powerless the camp o
reaction and made it incapable of dealing by force
of arms with the revolutionary government....’
This means that, in contrast to the Soviet Union where the October Revs.
lution was carried out with no external aid, the revolution in Poland was
avowedly based upon the aid and power of the Soviet Union and its
armies.
The second point is apparently derived from a polemic between Rosa
Luxemburg and Lenin. A thesis, advanced by the former, stated that na-
tional wars could no longer occur. She understood by this that, due to the
consolidation of &dquo;imperialism&dquo; and the &dquo;imperialist division of the world&dquo;
5
V. I. Lenin, Sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1941-
1950), XXIII, 58.
6
P. I. Glushakov, Polsha (Moscow: Geografgiz, 1951), pp. 28-35.
7
B. Bierut and J. Cyrankiewicz, Podstawy ideologiczne PZPR (Warsaw: Ksiazka i Wiedza,
1952), p. 32. Italics supplied. Cf. also A. Sobolev, Istoricheskii Materializm (Moscow:
Gospolizdat, 1950), p. 329, and his article on the world-wide historical significance of
the Soviet Camp in Kommunist, XXXII (February, 1956), which make the same
point.

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837
among the great powers, the period of national wars was a thing of the
past. In 1916, Lenin replied:
One can not maintain that such a transformation [of the imperialist war into a na-
tional one] is impossible; if the proletariat of Europe were to prove itself impotent for
some twenty years; if the given war [World War I] were to end in victories like the
Napoleonic ones and in the subjugation of a number of national states capable of exist-
ence ; if some extra-European imperialism (above all Japanese and American) were to
maintain itself for twenty years, without passing into Socialism for example as a
result of a Japanese-American war - then a great national war in Europe would be
possible.’
The Communists claim that Lenin’s hypothesis was fully confirmed by the
events of World War II.
With regard to point three, the dictatorship of the proletariat was estab-
lished in the Soviet Union in the form of Soviet power from the first days
of the October Revolution, whereas in Poland this took place as a relatively
gradual and difficult process.9 The Polish bourgeoisie and landowners, as
well as their political organizations, were not smashed by a frontal attack
of the &dquo;working masses.&dquo; In the existing political system immediately fol-
lowing the end of World War II, many organizations were active which
were thoroughly hostile toward the revolution and even actively fought
for the restoration of the prewar system of capitalism. International cir-
cumstances called for at least token sharing of the government with these
thoroughly &dquo;bourgeois,&dquo; anti-Communist political parties.:10
Regardless of the divergence between the social upheaval in Poland
and the October Revolution, both upheavals accomplished essentially the
same tasks. Political power was seized by the numerically insignificant
Polish Communists. Large and medium industry, banks, and transportation
became the property of the state, and the landowners were expropriated. In
the words of Hilary Minc,
both in
...
respect to the fulfillment of historical tasks and in respect to the driving class
forces, the Socialist upheaval accomplished in the people’s democracy is the same type
as the October Revolution and possesses all of the traits of a proletarian Socialist revo-
lution.&dquo;
The fact that the social upheaval in the Polish people’s democracy
simultaneously decided and solved a number of tasks indigenous to a bour-
geois democratic revolution (e.g., the liquidation of feudal survivals in
agriculture) apparently does not in any case change its character as a
8
Lenin, op. cit., XXII, 296.
9
Y. Makarenko, V svobodnoi polshe (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Tsentralnogo Komiteta VLKSM
"Molodaya Gvardiya," 1951), pp. 38-52.
10
For summaries of this initial period in English, see R. R. Betts (ed.), Central and South
East Europe, 1945-1948 (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1950),
pp. 131-71; and H. Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (London: Methuen
&
Co., 1952), pp. 171-78.
11
Minc, op. cit., p. 95.

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838
Socialist revolution, for the &dquo;Great October Socialist Revolution&dquo; also
solved in passing a number of tasks of a similar type. 12
It is true that in the Polish people’s democracy, derived from a socialist
revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat is exercised (as a result of
dissimilar...