The author, against the background of Communist Studies developed in Poland since World War I, reconstructs theoretical orientations that explained the communist system in that country. In this paper, the division of theoretical approaches into political, economic, and cultural ones is proposed. Each of them seeks factors responsible for nature, evolution, and final decline of the communist system in a different sphere of social life. An approach of the political type was Leszek Nowak's theory of communism as a system of emancipated political power; of the economic type—Jadwiga Staniszkis's theory of the communist system as incomplete capitalism; and of the cultural type— Michał Buchowski's conceptualization of communism as a system of new religion. In the final part, the author considers complementary character of reconstructed approaches and analyzes reasons why some of reconstructed theories did not generate schools of thought in Polish social sciences after 1989.
This division of social life is also assumed by, for instance, Daniel Bell, Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (New York: Basic Books , 1976), Introduction, and Edward Gellner, Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History ( London: Collins Harvill, 1988), 20-23.
2.
A number of authors have been omitted from this review because they investigate only some aspects of communism. R. Bäcker analyzes the Gnostic sources of communist ideology and its consequences for the functioning of totalitarian communism; see Roman Bäcker, "Gnoza polityczna systemu totalitarnego," in R. Bäcker, Piotr Hubner, eds., Skryte oblicze systemu komunistycznego: U ZródełŽzła (Warszawa : DiG, 1997), 5-15; Bäcker, "Ideał nowego człowieka w totalitarnej gnozie politycznej," in Witold Wojdyła and M. Strzelecki, eds., Wychowanie a polityka. Tradycja a współczesność (Toruń : UMK, 1997), 239-45. Similarly, M.Kula characterizes the religious features of communism; see Marcin Kula, Religiopodobny komunizm (Kraków: Nomos, 2003). J. Drygalski and J. Kwaśniewskiemphasize the ideological moment in the formation of political institutions of the communist system. Because communist ideology assumed social harmony, political institutions in day-to-day life had to hide social contradictions or neutralize them (through political terror in the 1950s or through censorship later); see Jerzy Drygalski and Jacek Kwaśniewski , (Nie)realny socjalizm ( Warszawa: PWN, 1992). H. Świda-Ziembainvestigates the socio-psychological aspects of enslavement in Stalinism; see Hanna Świda-Ziemba, Człowiek wewnętrznie zniewolony. Mechanizmy i konsekwencje minionej epoki-analiza psychosocjologiczna (Warszawa: PWN, 1997 ). Economic aspects of communism resembling the Western welfare state are investigated by W. Narojek; see Winicjusz Narojek, Socjalistyczne "Welfare State": Studium z psychologii społecznej Polski Ludowej (Warszawa: PWN, 1991 ). The role of surveillance by secret political police in maintaining communist social order and in the course of its transformation is analyzed by M. łoł and A. Zybertowicz; see Maria łoł and Andrzej Zybertowicz , Privatizing the Police-State: The Case of Poland ( London/New York: Macmillan Press/St. Martin's Press, 2000). This last work was reviewed by Krzysztof Brzechczyn, "The Hidden Dimension of the Transformation of Communism,"Periphery: Journal of Polish Affairs8-9 (2002): 102-6.
3.
The theoretical approaches interpreted here generate their own accounts of transformation and the post-communist reality; for instance, see Michał Buchowski, Rethinking Transformation. An Anthropological Perspective on Postsocialism (Poznań: Humaniora, 2001); Michał Buchowski, Edouard Conte, and Marek Ziółkowski, Post War Poland. A Presentation," in Michał Buchowski, Edouard Conte, Carole Nagengast, eds., Poland beyond Communism: Transition in critical perspective (Fribourg: University Press2001), 15-38; Jadwiga Staniszkis, Postcommunism: The Emerging Enigma (Warszawa: ISP PAN, 1999); Leszek Nowak, "The Collapse of Communism? An Analysis of a Myth,"Polish Western Affairs32 (1991): 77-87; Nowak, "The Hidden Sense of Clericalization: The Case of Eastern Europe,"The Centennial Review37 (1993): 105-14; Nowak, "Post-Communist Society? An Attempt at Theoretical Analysis,"Social Theory and Practice19 (1993): 249-72; Nowakian categories are also presupposed by: Krzysztof Brzechczyn, "The Collapse of Real Socialism in Eastern Europe Versus the Overthrow of the Spanish Colonial Empire in Latin America: An Attempt at Comparative Analysis,"Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Archeology1 ( 2004): 105-33; Brzechczyn, "Porozumienie przy Okrągłym Stole w świetle koncepcji kompromisu klasowego. Próba modelu," In Sebastian Drobczyński , Marek Zyromski, eds., Rola wyborów w procesie kształtowania się społeczeęstwa obywatelskiego w Polsce (Poznań: WSNHiD, 2004), 27-47; Brzechczyn , "Paths to Democracy of the Post-Soviet Republics: Attempt at Conceptualization," In Ewa Czerwińska-Schupp , ed., Values and Norms in the Age of Globalization (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2007), 529-71; Brzechczyn, "Between Limited Democratization and Limited Autocratization. Political Development of the Ukrainian Society," In Karolina Cern, Roman Kozłowski, eds., Ethics and Modernity (Poznań: Wyd. UAM, 2007, in press); Lidia Godek, "Wprowadzenie `demokracji kontraktowej' w Polsce. Próba interpretacji," In Drobczyński and Zyromski, eds., Rola wyborów w procesie kształtowania się społeczeństwa obywatelskiego w Polsce (Poznań: WSNHiD, 2004), 117-33; Achim Siegel, "Entdifferenzierung, Desintegration, Re-Differenzierung. Zur Modellierung des politisch-ökonomischen Krisenzyklus in der Volksrepublik Polen," In Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, ed., Differenz und Integration. Die Zukunft moderner Gesellschaften (Opladen/Wiesbaden : Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997), 363-69.
4.
Consequently, throughout the article, the term "communism" will be used to designate the social reality in Poland between 1944 and 1989, even if the authors discussed in this study different periods and different works and employed different terms: bolshevism, communism, socialism (respectively postsocialism and postcommunism), real socialism, "real existing socialism," Realsoc, etc.
5.
See: Marian Broda, Justyna Kurczak, and Przemysław Waingertner, Komunizm w Rosji i jego polskie interpretacje (łódł: Ibidem, 2006); Leszek Piątkowski , ZwiązekRadziecki w publicystyce polskiej 1922-1928. Społeczeństwo, polityka, gospodarka ( Lublin: UMCS, 1992); Grzegorz Zackiewicz, Polska myśl polityczna wobec systemu radzieckiego, 1918-1939 (Kraków: Arcana, 2004 ).
6.
Aleksander Hertz, O władzy Stalina (Warszawa 1937); Hertz, Szkice o totalitaryzmie (Warszawa: PWN, 1991).
7.
Bogumił Jasinowski, Wschodnie chrześcijaństwo a Rosja ( Kraków , 2002).
8.
Jan Kucharzewski, The Origin of Modern Russia (New York. Polish Institute of Science, 1949).
9.
Marian Zdziechowski, Europa, Azja, Rosja. Szkice polityczno-literackie (Wilno, 1922); Zdziechowski, W obliczu końca (Wilno, 1937); Zdziechowski, Widmo przyszło ści. Szkice historyczno-publicystyczne (Wilno, 1939).
10.
Marek Kornat , Polska szkoła sowietologiczna, 1930-1939 (Kraków: Arcana, 2003); Richard and Hanna Szawłowski , "Polish Sovietology, 1918-1939,"The Polish Review37: 3 (1972): 3-36.
11.
Wiktor Sukiennicki , "Ustrój radziecki a konstytucja stalinowska,"Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny2 (1937): 243-83; in English: Sukiennicki, "The Vision of Communism: Marx to Khrushchev,"Problems of Communism6 (1960): 1-10.
12.
Stanisław Swianiewicz, Lenin jako ekonomista ( Wilno, INBEW, 1930); Swianiewicz, Polityka gospodarcza Niemiec Hitlerowskich (Warszawa1938 ); in English: Swianiewicz, Forced Labour and Economic Development: An Enquiry into the Experience of Soviet Industrialization (London: Westport, 1965).
13.
Kornat, Polska, 43-46.
14.
Among these two political orientations, there existed political and social thought disseminated by legal Catholic lay organizations (Stowarzyszenie "PAX," Znak, Kluby Inteligencji Katolickiej). Their political vision, never fully articulated, was separate in the left as well as the right wing of the opposition. On the one hand, leaders of the Catholic organizations accepted geopolitical conditions, but one the other hand, they proclaimed the idea of coexistence between the Communist Party and the Catholic majority. The acceptance of geopolitical conditions made them similar to the wing of the opposition and differentiated from the right wing. The very idea of coexistence, however, made them similar to the rightist opposition and differed from the leftist wing of it because of the acceptance of private property, free market in the economy, and the role of the Catholic Church in social life.
15.
English version: Jacek Kuroń, Karol Modzelewski, An Open Letter to Party (London: Pluto Press ).
16.
"Apel do społeczeństwa," In Jan Józef Lipski, KOR (Głogów: Głos Śląsko-Dąbrowski, 1988), 397406; Jacek Kuroń, Zasady ideowe (Paryz: Instytut Literacki, 1978).
17.
"Mijają lata,"In Stefan Niesiołowski, Ruch przeciw totalizmowi (Warszawa: Wyd. Niezłomni1989), 89-100; see also Piotr Byszewski, "Niepodległościowa organizacja `Ruch'(1965-1970)," in Krzysztof Lesiakowski, ed., Opozycja i opór społeczny w ł odzi 1956-1981 (Warszawa: IPN2003), 42-64.
Leszek Moczulski , Rewolucja bez rewolucji ( Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Polskie, 1980 ).
20.
Program Liberalno-Demokratycznej Partii "Niepodległość" (1986); Zasady ideowe i Program Solidarności Walczącej (Gdańsk: Agencja Wydawnicza Solidarności Walczącej, 1989).
21.
Jadwiga Staniszkis was an adviser of the Inter-Factory Strike Committee during the strike held at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdałsk in August 1980, and Leszek Nowak was an expert of the NSZZ "Solidarno ść." During its first Congress in September-October 1981, he worked in the thematic group "The Trade Union in relation to the Communist Party and State authorities," authoring the so-called "fundamentalist program" based on his non-Marxian historical materialism. Michał Buchowski, in years 1980-1981 and during the Martial Law, was Solidarność activist at the grass root level.
22.
Leszek Nowak , Property and Power: Towards a non-Marxian Historical Materialism (Reidel: Dordrecht, 1983); Nowak, "A Model of Socialist Society,"Studies in Soviet Thought34 (1987): 1-55; Nowak, Power and Civil Society. Towards a Dynamic Theory of Real Socialism ( New York/London: Greenwood, 1991).
23.
Nowak, "A Conception That Is Supposed to Correspond to The Totalitarian Approach to `Real Existing Socialism,'" In Achim Siegel, ed., The Totalitarian Paradigm after the End of Communism: Towards a Theoretical Reassessment (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 65) (Amsterdam/ Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998), 96.
24.
Nowak, Power, 63.
25.
For example: Nowak, O konieczności socjalizmu i konieczności jego upadku (Kwidzyn: Internowa, 1982).
26.
Jadwiga Staniszkis , Poland's Self-Limiting Revolution ( Princeton: University Press, 1984 ); Staniszkis, "Własność- racjonalność-dynamika-struktura. Próba zrozumienia realnego socjalizmu," Przyjaciel Nauk. Studia z teorii i krytyki społecznej1-2 (1985): 151-67; Staniszkis, "Ekonomiczne, społeczne i polityczne implikacje praw własnołci w socjalizmie," Przyjaciel Nauk. Studia z teorii i krytyki spośecznej3-4 (1987): 15-33; Staniszkis, The Dynamics of the Breakthrough in Eastern Europe: The Polish Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Staniszkis, The Ontology of Socialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
27.
Eirik Furubotn , Svetozar Pejovich, "Introduction: The New Property Rights Literature," In E. Furubotn and S. Pejovich, eds., The Economics of Property Rights (Cambridge: Mass: Ballinger, 1974), 4.
28.
Staniszkis, Poland's, 232-33.
29.
Staniszkis, Poland's, 248.
30.
Staniszkis, Poland's, 255.
31.
Staniszkis, Poland's, 270-71.
32.
Staniszkis, Poland's, 271.
33.
In this respect, primacy should be given to philosophers. For example, L. Kołakowski admits that Stalinism could be interpreted as an application of Marxism with despotic elements; see Leszek Kołakowski, "The Marxist Roots of Stalinism," In R. C. Tucker, ed., Stalinism: Articles in Historical Interpretations (New York: Norton, 1977). A similar opinion was held by A. Walicki, who maintained that this social system was a result of internal contradictions (for example, unclear relations between the freedom at the individual level and the freedom at the social level) embedded in the Marxian liberation project. These contradictions transformed Marxism into a legitimization of the totalitarian system. However, it is most important that both thinkers, while maintaining that communism was a more or less an intentional application of Karl Marx's social philosophy, were more interested in Marx's writing than in the evolution of social reality under the actually existing communist system; see Andrzej Walicki, Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom. The Rise and the Fall of the Communist Utopia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).
34.
This interpretation is based on articles written in the first half of the 1990s and published in the collection: Michał Buchowski, Rethinking Transformation, An Anthropological Perspective on Postsocialism (Poznań: Humaniora, 2001).
35.
Buchowski, "From Anti-Communist to Post-Communist Ethos," In Buchowski, Rethinking Transformation, 76.
36.
Buchowski, "From Anti-Communist,"76.
37.
Buchowski, "Communism and Religion: One Cultural Code of the Two Worldview Systems," In Buchowski, Rethinking Transformation, 23; see also Buchowski, "Communism and Religion: A War of Two Worldview Systems," In Iva Doležalova, Luther M. Martin, and Dalibor Papoušek , eds., The Academic Study of Religion During the Cold War: East and West (New York/Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Press, 2001), 39-57.
38.
See also Michał Buchowski, "The Magic of the King-Priests of Communism,"East European Quarterly25 (1991): 425-36. Buchowski compares primitive and communist societies in a more systematized way. Similarities between these two types of societies are based on the unity of three domains of social life: culture, politics, and economy. In primitive societies, these domains of social life, understood as separate types of social praxis, have not yet emerged. In communist societies, these domains of social life have already emerged, but they are under a total control of the party, which has at its disposal means of coercion, production, and mass communication. The differences between both types of societies are in a sphere of social consciousness, because primitive societies were not conscious of the separation of these domains of social life. Such consciousness existed in modernity contributing, among other factors, to the indurability of communism in modern European civilization founded on the separation of, and balance between, different sectors of society; see: Michał Buchowski, "Społeczeństwo premomentowe: próba uzupełnienia nie-Marksowskiego materializmu historycznego," In Krzysztof Brzechczyn, ed., Ściezki transforamcji. Ujęcia teoretyczne i opisy empiryczne (Poznań : Zysk i S-ka, 2003), 295-317.
39.
Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System," in M. Banton , ed., Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Tavistock , 1965), 4; this paper was also published in Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
40.
Piotr Buczkowski , Andrzej Klawiter, and Leszek Nowak, "Religia jako struktura klasowa,"Studia Religiogica20 (1987): 89, English version: Leszek Nowak, "Spiritual Domination as a Class Oppression: A Contribution to the Theory of Culture in non-Marxian Historical Materialism,"Philosophy of the Social Sciences18 (1988): 231-38.
41.
Buchowski (together with David Kronenfeld , Will Peterman, and Lynn Thomas), "Language, Nineteen-eighty four and 1989," In Buchowski , Rethinking (Poznań: Humaniora , 2001), 49-74. Buchowski et al.'s analysis employs some categories from James D. Armstrong , David Kronenfeld, and Stan Wilmoth, "Exploring the Internal Structure of Linguistic Categories: An Extensionist Semantic View," In Janet W. D. Dougherty, eds., Directions in Cognitive Anthropology (Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1985), 91-110.
42.
Buchowski, "Communism,"29.
43.
Buchowski, "Communism,"33.
44.
Buchowski, "Communism,"42.
45.
Buchowski, "Communism,"41.
46.
Buchowski, "Communism,"41. Also M.Kula explains the ease of communism's downfall and the absence of any military resistance (with the exception of Romania) by simple loss of faith; see Kula, Religiopodobny , 133-35.
47.
It concerns especially Nowak and Staniszkis, as Buchowski's approach has a more sketchy character.
48.
This remark concerns L. Nowak to a lesser degree, as he was able, in different periods of his scholarly activity, to form a team of collaborators and to propagate some of his scholarly ideas, especially the idealizational theory of science and the adaptive interpretation of Marxian historical materialism. The results of this collaboration are presented in: Leszek Nowak, "The Idealizational Approach to Science: A Survey," In Jerzy Brzeziński and Leszek Nowak, eds., Idealization III: Approximation and Truth (Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi1992), 9-67; Leszek Nowak, "The Adaptive Interpretation of Historical Materialism: A Survey. On a Contribution to Polish Analytical Materialism," In Ryszard Panasiuk and Leszek Nowak, eds., Marx's Theories Today (Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi 1998), 201-37. However, in the case of non-Marxian historical materialism, this attempt-because of the factors mentioned above-was not successful; see details Brzechczyn , "Dlaczego nie-Marksowski materializm historyczny nie stał się paradygmatem nauk społecznych? Garść refleksji prawie osobistych," In Jerzy Brzeziński , Andrzej Klawiter , Theo A. F. Kuipers, Krzysztof Łastowski , Katarzyna Paprzycka, and Piotr Przybysz , eds., Odwaga filozofowania. Leszkowi Nowakowi w darze (Poznań: Humaniora, 2002), 409-18.
49.
Compare: Andrzej Friszke, "Spór o PRL w III Rzeczypospolitej (1989-2001),"Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość1 (2002): 9-27; Marcin Kula, "Jakiej historii Polacy potrzebują," In Ofiary czy współwinni. Nazizm i sowietyzm w świadomości historycznej ( Warszawa: Volumen/Fundacja im. Friedricha Eberta, 1997), 147-63; Andrzej Paczkowski, "Czy historycy dokonali obrachunku z PRL?" In Ofiary czy współwinni. Nazizm i sowietyzm w świadomości historycznej ( Warszawa: Volumen/Fundacja im. Friedricha Eberta, 1997), 13-31; and Rafał Stobiecki, Historiografia PRL (Warszawa: Trio, 2007), 299-335.
50.
See Stobiecki, "Spór o PRL. Metodologiczne oblicze debaty," In Lesiakowski, ed., Opozycja i opór społeczny w Lodzi 1956-1981 (Warszawa: IPN, 2003), 127-28.
51.
See Iain McMenamin , "Post-communism: The Emerging Enigma,"East European Politics and Societies, 15 (2001): 732-34.
52.
Staniszkis, Poland's, 257.
53.
One of the extensions of this theory of science taking into account peculiarities of history was made by Brzechczyn, "Contingency in Historical Process: An Attempt at Explication in the Light of Idealization Theory of Science,"Journal of the Interdisciplinary Crossroads2 (2005): 147-65.
