Review of Tom Junes, Student Politics in Communist Poland: Generations of Consent and Dissent (2015) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Student opposition to communism in Poland, 1976–1989. An attempt at a synthesis
"Arhivele Totalitarismului", 2020
The text attempts a synthetic approach to the anti-communist student activism in the People’s Republic of Poland between the years 1976 and 1989. The author describes the process of laying down the structures of independent student organizations during this period and various forms of their activism, such as editing, printing and distribution of illegal publications (samizdats), running illegal libraries, organizing self-education courses and cultural events, as well as acts of civil disobedience aimed at the ruling authorities – strikes, rallies, street manifestations, etc. The general characterization is illustrated with specific examples taken from the author’s individual research and ample literature on the subject under discussion.
This article aims to discuss the origins of the student protest movement that appeared in March 1968 in communist Poland. Its main purpose is to portray the evolution of the critique of the communist system by a group of leftist students in Warsaw whose activity from 1956 onwards would provide the spark that ignited the student milieu in Warsaw and the rest of Poland in the spring of 1968. Simultaneously, this article will reflect upon some of the consequences of the so-called 'March events' in the Polish student milieu from a generational point of view. Furthermore, it will present the 'Polish 1968' in comparison to the broader international context of student protest, the emergence of the New Left and subsequently the Far Left.
This article discusses youth rebellion in the form of oppositional student politics as factor in the demise of communism in Poland and apartheid in South Africa from a comparative perspective. It underlines the role of the younger generation in these events by building upon the structural commonalities between the two regimes and the causes of their demise. Through the concept of the ‘classical student movement’ it analyses the similarities and differences in the activities of opposition student movements in Poland and South Africa during the Cold War era.
A Century of Traditions: The Polish Student Movement, 1815-1918
This article focuses on the Polish student movement and its different manifestations in the former Polish lands in Prussia and the Russian and Habsburg empires between the Vienna Congress and the First World War. Its aim is to provide a generational narrative concerning the evolution of ideas and organisational activity that compelled Polish students to engage in political action. Moreover, it will show that the student movement in the 19th century served as a vehicle for the various political traditions that would play a dominant role in 20th century Polish politics. By particularly addressing the evolution of the student movement, it will shed light on how young members of the intelligentsia perceived the ‘Polish cause’ throughout the turbulent history between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the First World War. Above all, the chronicle of a continuous succession of conspiracies and uprisings in which students played a significant role left an imprint on Polish national consciousness that remains noticeable even until the present day.
The changing role of students' representation in Poland: an historical appraisal
Studies in Higher Education, 39(3), 2014
Student representation in Poland has a relatively short but turbulent history. This article offers an historical appraisal of the development of student representation at the national level in the context of rapid and deep structural changes in Polish higher education. Based on a desktop analysis of official documentation, legislation, ideological declarations and background (first-hand) information provided by student leaders, the article reconstructs the establishment of the first independent self-governing student organisation in the country. In so doing, the paper pays particular attention to the emergence, institutionalisation as well as legitimacy challenges facing student bodies either as formalised organisations or more bottom-up (loosely coupled) structures resembling social movements. In addition, the paper sheds light on the Student Parliament's role in the policymaking process, most notably as regards the recent neoliberal reforms. The article's final section speculates about the future of student representation in Poland and suggests avenues for future research
Youth of Today and the Democracy of Tomorrow. Polish Students’ Attitudes Toward Democracy
Education and Society, 2016
From the perspective of over 20 years into the transformation process in post-communist countries, it seems important to be able to pose questions about the future of democracy, and, in particular, its social foundations. These questions become all the more significant, when we come to realize that it is the attitudes of 'the young of today' that will be shaping 'the democracy of tomorrow'. The authors of the article aim to determine what young citizens (especially Polish students) in selected Central and Eastern European countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania) think of contemporary democracy and to diagnose the extent to which the democratic principles and values are reflected in the beliefs of the younger generation, especially amongst Polish students. Their attitudes towards democracy and values are the main part of the article and they were compared with values of the other CEEC young citizens. The article also highlights their distrust towards Polish political parties and political elites and belief, that existing Polish political parties do not have any proper programs or ideas for young people, which may be a chance for a new political movement in Poland.
In contemporary social sciences there exists a well established view that the concept of civil society, which remained forgotten for a long period of time, was rediscovered in the 1970s by Central European dissidents and independent movements in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and especially Poland, where social resistance against the communist rule was the strongest and best organised. In Civil Society and Political Theory, a classic work by Andrew Arato and Joan Cohen, the historical narrative of the renaissance of the civil society concept begins with Adam Michnik's essay "A new evolutionism" from 1976. According to the authors, it is this text that is supposed to have initiated the great process of the rebuilding of the study into social self-organisation. This view, however, calls for significant complementary remarks. Skimming through texts that appeared at home within the so-called "second circulation" of underground writing, as well as in emigrationtexts written by Adam Michnik, Jacek Kuroń, Leszek Kołakowski and many other eminent authorsshould suffice to acknowledge that the notion of civil society is absent (in the case of Leszek Kołakowski it appears in his studies on the history of philosophy, concerning Hegel or Marks). This is not to say that the opposition discourse did not take into account the issue that was post factum identified as a civil society issuethe texts of the opposition members from the 1970s are primarily concerned with the problem of social self-organisation in the broad sense of the term, with respect to new forms of social resistance against totalitarian power. The question thus arises as to how the democratic opposition's thought really evolved and how the gradual changes led to the emergence of a new discourse with civil society as one of its central ideas. 1.1 The starting point: the intellectual climate of the 1960s. Before we move on to our central topic, i.e. the evolution of the opposition discourse of the 1970s, the starting point of the whole process has to be outlined. The period in question is the second half of the 1960s in Poland. At the time, leftist circles critical of the party rule consisted of intellectuals and university students. The first group, labelled "revisionists", included figures such as Leszek Kołakowski, Zygmunt Bauman or Bronisław Baczkothat is relatively young, eminent philosophy professors, historians and economists. The second group was formed by their students, under-and postgraduates, mainly from Warsaw University. An important characteristic of the Left at the time wasdespite all their criticism of the ruling party's policyan unequivocal relationship with marxism. Marxist philosophy was for this group a major source of inspiration and a perspective for interpreting social and political life. The attempts to combine marxism with existentialism and other intellectual currents, already present in Western European marxism, were disapproved of by the ruling party committed to the preservation of the orthodox version of the predominant ideology. Despite this most of the leftist opposition remained "inside" the system during that timethey were members of the party, youth organisations, and The Polish People's Republic was a country they identified with. The central point of this group's political outlook was the myth of the "betrayed revolution" of Polish October 1956, when on account of the workers' and students' protests stalinism in Poland had been overthrown and Władysław Gomułka proclaimed "the Polish road to socialism", i.e. a local version of democratic socialism. From the point of view of the subject here discussed an important element of October was a postulate for workers' self-government as a practical way of democratising socialismthe great factories, and among them the FSO Passenger Car Factory in particular, had played a decisive role in the overthrow of stalinism on account of the position taken by the workers' councils in autumn 1956. In order to understand the dynamics of the events of the 1970s, however, it is less important to show the degree of this group's criticism of the communist party, than to emphasise their fundamental acceptance of marxism, still very live at the time, considered as the basis for any political or social idea. This is best illustrated by the most famous opposition manifesto of the period, often referred to until today: the socalled Kuroń and Modzelewski's Letter. Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski, both young academics at Warsaw University in the middle of the 1960s, were in that time leaders of secondary-school and university students with a leftist political outlook. In 1965 they published illegally an extensive text or rather, as has already been said, a political manifesto: "A Letter to the Members of the Polish United Workers' Party and of the Socialist Youth Association at Warsaw University". An open criticism of the Party, and one based on leftist assumptions, could not have been tolerated by the authorities, who in response arrested the authors and sentenced them to prison. The "Letter" made an enormous impression on leftist students and among Warsaw leftist intellectuals; it was widely distributed and discussed not only during official party meetings at various levels (mostly during sessions called in order to work out disciplinary decisions for its authorsat Warsaw University in particular), but also within informal independent circles. The "Letter" provides a thorough critique of the political system existing in Poland at the time as one based on bureaucratic party-state power. 1 According to Kuroń and Modzelewski the state has been appropriated by the new ruling "class", whose power is based upon the control of the means of production. It is the bureaucracy that constitutes this new class, holding police dictatorship in order to maintain a monopoly of rule that allows for the exploitation of the working class. A marxist analysis of the situation inevitably led to a marxist conclusion-the oppressed working class should overthrow the rule of the exploiters. The new system was to be based upon a network of workers' councils, with the Central Delegates' Council at the head. The councils were to guarantee a maximum decentralisation of the power structure. Its dispersion allowed for mass participation in governing at the lowest level. The councils were to hold jointly the prerogatives of economic, legislative and executive powers. Workers' masses should continuously take part in governingin all of its forms. It was thus envisaged as some sort of a direct rule, aimed to overcome all forms of alienation. A workers' democracy de facto meant direct democracy.
Acta Poloniae Historica, 123, 2021
This paper identifies the most significant patterns of educational experience among members of the interwar Polish communist movement. The first part of the article covers the experiences that communists shared with other representatives of the social strata from which they originated: the reproduction of the social structure or their overcoming of it in the form of social advancement. It also discusses the importance of educational barriers and opportunities as factors facilitating the emergence of attitudes of radical contestation of the socio-political order. The second part identifies educational experiences that were directly related to involvement in an illegal, subversive and repressed political current, and the diverse, sometimes paradoxical consequences of that involvement for representatives of different social strata. It traces the transformations of the communist habitus and proposes the concept of 'clandestine white-collar workers'. The article concludes that there were two patterns in the pursuit of education among the communists: acquiring a degree in revolution or for the sake of the revolution.
Acta Poloniae Historica, 2022
November 1936 saw the blockade of the University of Warsaw, an occupational strike organised by far-right students demanding the introduction of the so-called 'ghetto benches' for Jewish students. This article draws a social portrait of the ordinary participants in the blockade and analyses their motivations. I argue that the socialisation of youth into exemplary citizens of a modern nation-state created a fertile ground for far-right organisations and their demands. Moreover, the largest student association, the Fraternal Aid Society, became a space for self-organisation into extreme nationalist politics. Its leaders tapped into the positive motivations of youth, i.e. the search for a sense of belonging and the desire of individuals to fi t into the normative order of the community. My examination of the blockade offers a unique insight into the academic background of the far-right and its means of political mobilisation.