Patterns of Stratification in Socialist Poland

Abstract

In the article attempts in Polish sociology to explain social structure and social stratification in socialist society are analyzed. The author claims that an adequate stratification principle or social determinant to explain the distribution of social attributes in socialist society is lacking. The theoretical significance of the concept "socialist intelligentsia" is analyzed and claimed to disguise an eventual social élite. The socialist intelligentsia and the Communist Party are, in theoretical contexts, treated as "black box" entities without regard to internal differentiation, an approach which covers basic social inequalities in socialist society. Problems of social conflict are usually reduced to the technical problem of setting fair wage limits. The thesis of social decomposition or status incongruency is contested and questioned as an indicator of social equality. The author argues that control over the economy might serve as an adequate social determinant in socialist society from which it is possible to derive secondary social attributes.