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In the Polish Mirror
Poland’s Atlanticist friends, deeply involved in the country’s de-communization, now look on in horror as the national-conservative right consolidates its rule, reaching for explanations in cultural stereotypes and the trahison des clercs. Gavin Rae recommends some self-critical reflection.
The Polish Case
Within the new topology of conservative regimes emerging from the Great Recession, that of Poland’s Law and Justice government has a distinctive character. Leszek Koczanowicz describes the fracturing of the neoliberal-nationalist formula that had persisted since the 1990s, the second term turned as anti-Western social critique against the first.
Ice Empire and Ice Hockey: Two Fin de Siecle Dreams
“At the beginning of September 1939, the Reichswehr invaded Poland from the West; two weeks later the Red Army invaded from the East. On September 28, Hitler and Stalin signed a partition agreement which gave each tyrant half of a sad country which had only twenty-one years of . . .” read more
A Reply to Maurice Glasman
“I am pleased to have been given the chance to reply to Maurice Glasman’s article in nlr 205. Glasman raised certain fundamental issues about which debate is urgently necessary. However, his article also contained a number of factual errors which, if not cleared up, may hinder genuine . . .” read more
The Great Deformation: Polanyi, Poland and the Terrors of Planned Spontaneity
“Labour is only another name for a human activity that goes with life itself. . .To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment, indeed, even of the amount and use of their purchasing power, would result . . .” read more
Overcoming the Past
“I would like your very different biographies and your experiences with the European Left to encounter each other as it were in a discussion on Germany, on ‘overcoming the past’, on the legacy of socialism, on Europe and the lack of synchrony between Germany and Poland. The . . .” read more
From Stalinism to Post-Communist Pluralism: The Case of Poland
“The classical theories of totalitarianism, as elaborated in the 1950s, described totalitarian systems as imposing total ideological conformity, effectively controlling minds and consciences, eliminating all forms of opposition, and thus being virtually immune to internal change. It is no wonder that the gradual dismantling of Stalinism, which began . . .” read more
The Polish Laboratory
“Warsaw. Wednesday December 7th. The eighth anniversary of martial law approaches. Foul-smelling fog blankets the city. The battered Russian-made taxi which fetches me from the airport clatters down potholed roads. Rows of grey apartment blocks stand guard, frozen, expressionless. Trams whirr and clang through street crowds. Fur-capped shoppers . . .” read more
In Memoriam: Proletariat Party, 1882-1886
“Men who stood on such a high intellectual plane as those four—Kunicki, Bardowski, Ossowski and Pietrusinski—who met death for an idea with heads held high, and who in dying encouraged and inflamed the living, are clearly not the exclusive property of any particular party, group or sect. They . . .” read more
The Polish Vortex: Solidarity and Socialism
“The greatest and most sustained popular upsurge in Europe for decades has left both bourgeois and working-class opinion in the West profoundly bewildered as to its basic historical meaning. A standard formula—used by both The Times and miners’ leader Arthur Scargill—has been that Solidarity was an excellent thing . . .” read more
Poland: Economic Collapse and Socialist Renewal
“Since August 1980 the Polish economy has turned from modest decline to catastrophic collapse, characterized by drastic falls in income and standards of living, endemic shortages, inflation, external imbalance and effective default on foreign debt, underutilization of capital and labour, and the disintegration of central control. Against this . . .” read more
The Third Round in Poland
“At first sight, the victorious Polish workers’ strike against price increases in June 1976 was a dazzling example of Marx’s observation about historical repetitions: the first time, on the Baltic in 1970, as tragedy; and now a farcical re-run of Gomulka’s attempt to cut living standards by raising . . .” read more
Polish Workers and Party Leaders: A Confrontation (transcript of meeting in Szczecin Shipyard 23 Jan. 1971)
“chairman: Workers of the shipyards, Comrade Edward Gierek, First Secretary of the Central Committee, is here as promised in our Szczecin yards. We extend warm greetings to him. Also present for today’s meeting are: the Prime Minister, Comrade Piotr Jaroszewicz, the Secretary of the Central Committee, Comrade . . .” read more
Polish Document--Presentation
“The document printed below is a shortened and condensed transcript of a meeting in the Adolf Warski shipyard of the Polish port of Szczecin, held on 25 January 1971 between the leadership of the Polish Communist Party (puwp) and the mass of workers in the yards, then . . .” read more
Reminiscences from Our Times
“On the road through Poznan a notice saying ‘Driver, Greater Poland welcomes you’ sets off a train of thought. Here, only two hours’ journey from the dried-up township of Sochaczew, is an economically sounder, more solidly built and more civilised Poland. We cross a wide-spread lowland landscape, over . . .” read more