Polish People's Republic

The Polish People's Republic (also known as the People’s Republic of Poland and abbreviated as either PPR, PRP, or PRL) was a people’s republic in Eastern Europe during the short twentieth century. It was succeeded by the modern state of the Republic of Poland.

The Polish People’s Republic was complex, with a fraught political history. The republic was plagued by internal contradictions and conflicts, due to several factors, including the prevalent influence of the largely reactionary Catholic Church. Despite this, the PPR had a number of notable achievements.

History

Given the devastation that the anticommunists wrought and the preceding decade and a half of military dictatorship, the Polish working class enthusiastically welcomed the Red Army’s liberation of Poland of the mid-1940s. In most cases factories had been managed during the reoccupation by antisocialists who were evacuated with the retreating anticommunist army. As that army left, the workers generally continued on their own, forming workers’ councils and electing their own supervisors. As was the case throughout almost all of occupied Europe, a spontaneous people’s transformation of the economy took place, with laborers taking over production. The principal difference between Eastern and Western Europe in this regard was that the Red Army did not restore the factories to private ownership, instead, at least at first, allowing the workers to carry on. There was no popular support for a return to the old economic system. Economic planning was in the air and had, in fact, been spontaneously put in place by the workers immediately upon liberation. In a popular referendum held in April 1946, 77% of the population declared that they were in favor of the recent economic reforms. Likewise, a summary of attitude surveys by Polish sociologists, reported in The Scientific American in 1981, concluded that their surveys in the late 1950s and early 1960s showed that “the experiment in social learning on a national scale” conducted by the republic had succeeded to a certain degree. The great changes in the social and economic organization of the society—the nationalization of industry, land reform, economic planning, the abolition of the antebellum class structure—were accepted by the people.

The Soviets participated a great deal in reconstructing and otherwise assisting Poland. For example, after poor weather devastated Polish agriculture, the Soviets sent in large grain supplies, successfully averting a famine.

Regardless, a minority of antisocialists known as Cursed Soldiers continued to fight against the PPR. From 1944 to, at most, 1963, the antisocialists caused over 15,000 deaths, about two thousand during 1945–46 alone and seventy-nine in Białystok Voivodeship during 1946. The UPA, however, may have caused as many as 32,400 deaths from 1945 to 1948.

Economy

Prior to World War II, Poland had been lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of industrial development. To make matters worse, WWII had utterly devastated the country’s cities and economic centers, leaving the economy in ruins. Poland’s industrial output in 1945 was only 48% of what it had been in 1938. This reflects the damage done to the Polish economy by anticommunism. After the revolution, the economy began to grow rapidly. Poland’s industrial output in 1948 was already 153% of what it had been in 1938. This means that industrial output grew more than 300% from 1945 to 1948 (the beginning of economic planning in Poland). This growth continued for several decades. Industrial output in 1977 was 193% of what it had been in 1971, compared to only 44% in 1960. This comes out to an almost 500% increase in industrial output between 1960 and 1977 (more than doubling between 1960 and 1970, than increasing by 93% from there).

The co-operative sector in particular had the advantage of a postbellum start in both handicraft and small industry production: the Polish People’s Republic sometimes turned the ownerless, small enterprises over to co-operative groups, often among them the remnants of the surviving Jews. Although the Polish People’s Republic was a planned economy, both it and the SFRY were the only two planned economies to have never collectivized their agriculture. Consequently, agricultural production increased only modestly during the decades. In 1969, the Polish People’s Republic’s agriculture accounted for some 20% of the net material product, and it was the only Eastern European country whose growth rate of national income failed to surpass 5%. Nevertheless, from 1949 to the late 1960s the consumption of meat, dairy, eggs, fish, sugar, tea, and alcohol all increased. Sometimes the state would increase food prices to amplify their food supply, but these would result in strikes. For example, during the 1970s they artificially reduced the prices of food, partially in commitment to egalitarian principles but also by worker demand. Thus a loaf cost only a few pennies, even less than animal feed. Both consumption and production rose, but only in disequilibrium. The Polish People’s Republic’s main exports were food and coal, but later the balance turned negative; cash stopped flowing in, the debt became overwhelming, the Polish People’s Republic’s economy was obliged to export even more for payments, and then food deficiencies and rationing occurred. A black market and extra civil unrest naturally followed, though neither helped with the problem. In the 1980s the Western ruling classes imposed sanctions on the Polish People’s Republic, worsening their food situation.

Infrastructure

Health

Prerevolutionary Poland was a terribly unhealthy nation:

Before World War II (WWII) Poland was one of the countries with the poorest health in Europe. In the 1930's life expectancy in Poland was around 46 years for both sexes; in the same period in Germany it was over 61 years. Infant mortality was estimated at the level of 150 deaths per 1000 live births. The situation was exacerbated by WWII; between 1939 and 1945 life expectancy in Poland fell by 20-25 years.

— University of Bath, [1]

These statistics are verified in the 1948 UN Statistical Yearbook, which included data from 1931 onwards, reflecting the poor healthcare conditions in prerevolutionary Poland. Once the planned economy was in place, things began to improve rapidly:

The health transformation that took place in Poland after WWII proceeded very rapidly. Control of infectious diseases and infant mortality became a state priority in the post-war Polish People’s Republic. […] Life expectancy in Poland increased to 70 years and infant mortality decreased to 30 deaths per 1000 live births.

— University of Bath, [2]

Thus, life expectancy was increased by decades, and infant mortality fell by eighty percent. These changes (and similar ones in other planned economies) led to Central and Eastern Europe nearly closing the healthcare gap with Western Europe, which had been so pronounced between the world wars:

The epidemiological transition that in the United Kingdom or Germany took almost a century, in Poland, and many other Central and East European (CEE) countries, occurred in the two decades following WWII. This process led the CEE region to almost closing the health gap dividing it from Western Europe in the 1960s.

— University of Bath, [3]

Nevertheless, the Polish People’s Republic still suffered rapidly increasing consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, which led to increased rates of preventable death. This problem also occurred in other republics in the Soviet bloc:

In Poland the consumption of vodka and smoking prevalence reached some of the highest levels in Europe. This dramatic increase in exposure to lifestyle risk factors (an increase in cigarette sale from 20 billion cigarettes per annum after WWII to around 100 billion in the 1980s, and an increase of alcohol consumption from 3 liters per annum to nearly 9 liters in the same period), led Poland and the CEE region to a health catastrophe caused by the rise of chronic diseases.

— University of Bath, [4]

Education

Prerevolutionary Poland saw widespread illiteracy and lack of education. According to a 1935 article from the Polish magazine New Courier (not to be confused with New Courier of Warsaw, an anticommunist propaganda outlet founded in 1939):

In Polesie in the Kobrin poviat, less than 75 percent write and read in towns, and only 52% in the countryside. In Kosowski poviat, 82% in small towns, and 43% in rural areas. In the Koszalin poviat, where there are no cities, there are only 30 percent who can read and write.

Polesie is in fact one of the areas of the Commonwealth that is economically and culturally neglected, but, it should be remembered, not the most neglected. Unfortunately, data from the poviats of the Warsaw Province, i.e. from economically quite high standing and in orbit of the capital's influence, show that the condition is not much better there either. In the Płońsk poviat, 73% write and read in cities. population, 68% in the countryside 77 percent in Sierpc and 68 percent in Ciechanów 80% (cities) and 70% (village).

Census statistics are current today just as much as they were three years ago. And the figures of this statistic are not only dangerous, they are terrifying.

— New Courier, [5]

Once the revolution started, the educational system was drastically improved. The level of illiteracy was drastically reduced:

As early as 1960, the census showed 645,000 total illiterates and 270,000 semi-illiterates among those over 50. In 1988, the illiteracy rate in Poland was 2%.

— PWN Encyclopedia, [6]

While PWN places the prerevolutionary literacy rates a bit higher than the New Courier, one can still see the drastic improvement to the educational situation made under economic planning, particularly in rural areas.

Demographics

Because of ethnic tensions in places like Alsace-Lorraine, the Allies expelled the Germany population to Germany. The procedure seems to have gone smoothly; the Allies admitted two million Germans to the Soviet zone and 1.5 million to the British. Nonetheless, there were probably about four thousand Germans in the PPR as of the late 1960s, and two thousand five hundred by 1989.

Polish culture and language were dominant in the PPR, and Polish customers were in force; there was little room to demonstrate non-Polish nationality, but many minorities have coexisted with them, namely: Africans, Balts, East Asians (particularly the Vietnamese, who had been present since the 1950s), Eastern Slavs, Jews, Roma, and Tatars, among others. The anticommunist reoccupation of the 1940s resulted in severe reductions in many of these categories, particularly Jews and Roma, but it did not annihilate them. The PPR officially prohibited racism and worked hard at accommodating their minorities during the 1950s. Nevertheless, the influence of Polish nationalists (rallying around Władysław Gomułka, as opposed to Bolesław Bierut), and the reactionary Catholic Church, caused many Jews to leave their home, particularly during the anti-Zionist campaign of the 1960s.

Culture

Gender relations

Women made major gains in the Polish People’s Republic. Reproductive rights and abortion are a major example of this. Prior to the revolution, abortion was only legal in cases of criminal sexual activity:

At the beginning of the 20th century, abortion was illegal under any circumstance in Poland. But in 1932, Poland enacted a code that legalized abortion in the cases of a criminal act, namely rape, incest, and underage sex. This was the first abortion law that condoned abortion in the case of a crime. The law remained on the books from 1932 until 1956.

— Brown Political Review, [7]

However, it was only as a people’s republic that abortion became completely legal, as well as freely available:

In 1956, the Polish Sejm (the lower house of parliament), in keeping with Communist Party orthodoxy, legalized abortions when women expressed “difficult leaving conditions”. During the 60s and 70s, abortion became freely available in both public hospitals and private clinics. While the Soviet system encouraged mothers to carry the child to term, the law left it to physicians to decide whether abortion should be performed and largely guaranteed easy access to the operation.

— Brown Political Review, [8]

Even anticommunist commentators acknowledged the gender equality of the people’s republic:

Stamped into the DNA of this society, from the postwar years until 1991, was that everyone had to work; for that, there had to be equal access to education, childcare (which was mainly attached to workplaces) and care for the elderly.

— Guardian, [9]

Employment for women was extremely high in the planned economy, and it fell drastically afterwards:

Throughout the communist years female workforce participation was incredibly high, often cited at 90%. […] As communism collapsed, participation fell to 68% and it now stands at 45%.

— Guardian, [10]

One Polish woman is quoted as saying:

“The regime made absolutely no distinction between men and women. I never even thought about the division – all advance in society was open to men and women equally. As far as education is concerned it was absolutely equal, to the extent that at the technical universities — the very high-standard engineering universities — I think 30% of students were women” (this was in the 1960s — engineering courses at Imperial College London still have a male to female ratio of 5:1 today).

— Guardian, [11]