Communism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Poland, 1944-1950

Michael Fleming

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135276379
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book fills a significant gap in the study of the establishment of communist rule in Poland in the key period of 1944–1950. It shows that nationalism and nationality policy were fundamentally important in the consolidation of communist rule, acting as a crucial nexus through which different groups were both coerced and were able to consent to the new unfolding social and political order.

Drawing on extensive archival research, including national and regional archives in Poland, it provides a detailed and nuanced understanding of the early years of communist rule in Poland. It shows how after the war the communist Polish Workers Party (PPR) was able to redirect widespread anger resulting from the actions of the NKVD, Soviet Army and the communists to more 'realistic' targets such as minority communities, and that this displacement of anger helped the party to connect with a broader constituency and present itself as the only party able to protect Polish interests. It considers the role played by the West, including the endorsement by the Grand Alliance of homogenising policies such as population transfer. It also explores the relationship between the communists and other powerful institutions in Polish society, such as the Catholic Church which was treated fairly liberally until late 1947 as it played an important function in identifying who was Polish. Finally, the book considers important episodes – hitherto neglected by scholars – that shed new light upon the emergence of the Cold War and the contours of Cold War geopolitics, such as the 'Westphalian incident' of 1947–48, and the arrival of Greek refugees in Poland in the period 1948–1950.

1 Introduction

The history of the last year of the Second World War and the immediate post-war period has remained a salient issue for historians of the communist takeover of Poland, scholars working on the emergence of the Cold War and those interested in the population transfers/expulsions and border changes in east-central Europe following the defeat of Nazi Germany. Debates on the events of this period also continue to excite passion amongst those who lived in exile following the ‘Yalta’ agreement and the ascendancy of the Moscow-backed communists.

Today in Poland this period is the subject of criminal investigations as well as renewed scholarly interest, as the Institute for National Remembrance documents ‘crimes against the Polish nation’ and prosecutes those responsible for such crimes. The combined effect of these interventions has fixed a particular view of the period, which highlights coercion, violence and state-backed criminality at the expense of understandings relating to consent, acquiescence and social approval. This book attempts to redress the balance, not by dismissing the crucial role played by coercion in the establishment of communism in Poland nor through some quixotic attempt to suggest that communist domination was welcome throughout society, but by demonstrating how sufficient consent to the emerging communist hegemony was constructed by the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) and the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) through the manipulation of nationality policy, national myths and tropes, and the linking of land reform to the new national and territorial configuration. As Rothwell (1990: 161) points out, ‘[t]he Soviet Union and the Polish Communists did not rely exclusively on terror in establishing their autocracy over Poland’.¹ In short, the main contention of the book is that nationality policy was a crucial nexus through which population groups were both coerced and able to consent to the unfolding new social order.

Three distinct strands of scholarship that analyse the period 1944–50 are engaged with. The first considers the emergence of communist hegemony and includes works by Polonsky and Drukier (1980), Kersten (1991), Kenney (1997) and more recently by Mevius (2005).² These texts examine the establishment of communist rule at various levels – political, diplomatic and in the world of work. The second strand, exemplified by the publi ca-tions of Mironowicz (1993, 2000), Tomaszewski (1991, 2000) and Madajczyk (1998), considers the history of national minorities and isolates turning points in communist policy.³ The third strand considers the role played by nationalism, well exemplified by the work of Zaremba (2001).⁴ This study charts new territory by bringing together concerns regarding the establishment of communist rule, the function of nationalism (and nationality policy more specifically) and the role played by national minorities.

It is argued that through the drive to national homogeneity, and nationality policy more generally, the communists were able to secure sufficient acquiescence from Polish society to enable them to move forward with their social, political and economic programmes. Prażmowska’s (2004: 168) assertion that ‘the party which was most constrained in its attempt to formulate a nationality policy . . . was the PPR’ is shown to require significant qualification.⁵ Indeed, a key mechanism by which the PPR secured a modicum of consent was the managing of antipathy towards national minority population groups.

By adopting the view that the PPR/PZPR and their leading cadres were mere Soviet stooges, established assumptions regarding society/party antagonism are endorsed.⁶ This perspective presumes conflict and fails to acknowledge that for many Poles upward social mobility and national homogeneity were very attractive following several years of brutal war. In reality, as work by Kenney (1997) and Mironowicz (2000) has shown, identities within society and party were more fluid, ambiguous and flexible than popularly imagined, though this is not to deny that strong, sustained anti-Party sentiment existed. The precise form of We/They antagonisms did not neatly demarcate society from the party. One of the key arguments made in this book is that the PPR and later the PZPR worked very hard to manipulate the We/They antagonism into a form beneficial to themselves. As I will demonstrate later, this project shifted resistance from the PPR and PZPR to minority communities. Communist nationality policy was fundamental in shaping the social anger regime and securing for the PPR and PZPR some legitimacy in the eyes of Polish society. The ‘social anger regime’ refers to the way in which anger/frustration in a society is managed, channelled or orchestrated within that society.⁷ The drive to national homogeneity pro-vided space for social (and individual) tensions to be legitimately expressed and, together with the lack of space for the expression of alternative views of how society should be, sanctioned the unleashing of various forms of violence against minority community members.

This argument is informed by David Ost’s (2005) recent work on the post-communist period and Chantal Mouffe’s (2004) contentions in her book ‘On the Political.’ Both these authors highlight, within contemporary politics, attempts to suppress the politicization of socio-economic cleavages. Ost documents that Solidarity activists failed to safeguard the material interests of rank and file workers, and supported the redirection of social anger at the decline in living conditions to symbolic and mythical figures such as ‘communists, crypto-communists, liberals, non-believers, “foreigners” (often defined as Poles who did not fit “Polish Catholic” norms), criminals, and other assorted “aliens”’(Ost 2005: 180).

Mouffe, who refers to developments in the West, locates the rise of right-wing popularism in the ascendancy of a post-political consensus, which similarly attempts to depoliticize socio-economic cleavages. While Mouffe and Ost come from different scholarly traditions and have somewhat different political sympathies, what brings them together is the contention that it is possible to displace social anger from its original source onto something/ someone else. The cost of doing so is to foster illiberality in the political culture and ultimately fail to resolve the tensions in society. The hinge of both their arguments, and mine, is that social anger is generated in all societies and that one function of the political class is to articulate a narrative that can make sense of reality to broad swathes of the polity.

It is maintained here that the PPR/PZPR worked continuously to shape the social anger regime to their advantage through the exploitation of national(ist) discourses. And while Soviet-backed ethno-nationalism in Poland is well documented, it is no longer sufficient to understand the phenomenon as a ‘gift from Stalin’ or as an inevitable consequence of the Second World War. Rather, it is crucial to acknowledge that ethno-nationalism was also the only model available to restructure the social anger regime to the advantage of the PPR/PZPR. Strong instrumental reasons existed to pursue national homogeneity and exploit the traditions of the National Democrats, and post-war nationality policy was crucial in shaping the fundamental We/They antagonism through the course of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL). It is worth highlighting that the illiberality of post-war communist nationality policy was very similar to that advocated by the non-communist Polish Right before, during and after the Second World War: some social groups were to be excluded from society on the basis of their (essentialized) ethnic background.

There is considerable merit therefore in differentiating between the centripetal and centrifugal aspects of the PPR’s ethno-nationalist nationality policy in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Although the centripetal and centrifugal aspects of ethno-nationalism are closely con -nected (overvaluing the in-group implies an undervaluing of the out-group), it is heuristically useful to analyse the two forms as distinct. Centripetal aspects of nationality policy tend to unify (parts of) society, while centrifugal aspects tend to exacerbate social cleavages.

To date, scholars have focused on how communists, not just in Poland but across east-central Europe, tried to link themselves with the population through nationalist rhetoric and symbols. In other words, research has examined how communists mobilized centripetal ethno-nationalism to secure legitimacy. Mevius (2005), for example, has concluded that since communists continued to be seen as ‘agents of Moscow’, nationality policy was largely a failure. This conclusion can only be drawn if the centripetal aspect of the communist ethno-nationalist nationality policy is emphasized and its centrifugal aspect is marginalized.

In contrast, if the centrifugal aspect of communist nationality policy – which sought to divide society along ethnic and national cleavages while privileging the national core population – is considered primary, then communist nationality policy looks somewhat more successful. The key goal of adopting a centrifugal ethno-nationalism was to provide ‘legitimate’ targets on which people could vent their frustrations and negative emotions about the state of society. In other words, this aspect of nationality policy aimed to provide a safe outlet (safe, that is, for the PPR) for the release of social anger. However, by over-valuing ‘Polishness’ and endorsing the view that non-Poles had no place in the country, the PPR risked being outflanked by oppositionists who attempted to portray the PPR as ‘Stalin’s Polish puppets’ (Torañska 1987) and agents of Moscow – that is, insufficiently Polish. In part, then, the PPR’s acceptance of the expression of dissent through national symbols and sentiment, encouraged a sizeable proportion of the population to view the communists as foreign representatives, regardless of how close to or far from the truth such an assertion may have been during the course of the PRL.

The ongoing debate about whether the communists were seen as foreign therefore needs not only to acknowledge the lengths to which the PPR and PZPR went to establish their ‘Polish’ credentials, but also to explore how this centripetal aspect of policy related to the centrifugal aspect. Exclusive focus on the attempt by the communists to be identified as part of the nation or as the defender of the nation’s interests misses the precise way that nationality policy functioned as a mechanism to secure hegemony. By reifying Polish nationality, the PPR and PZPR created a situation in which antipathy, whether the result of class or political tensions, could only be legitimately expressed through the lexicon of nationality. This engendered an escalating conflict in which the PPR, and later the PZPR (or factions within it), attempted to demonstrate their Polishness, and redirected social anger towards minority communities (as in 1956 and 1968), while oppositionists frequently claimed to be the repository of the ‘true’ Poland.⁸

The widespread view that the communists gained and held power in Poland as a result of the Soviet Army’s presence in the period 1944 to 1950 is true. Yet the contention that it was only because of this presence that communism was established in Poland is a simplification. This study explores the ground between these assertions, and attempts to provide a more nuanced and detailed understanding of how the communists achieved hegemony. Thus, although the role played by coercion must remain in view, and subsequent chapters provide an analysis of communist coercion, it remains particularly important in the current era of lustration and restitution claims to highlight consent and explain how some degree of acquiescence to the new socio-political configuration was achieved. So while the British Ambassador to Poland, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, was absolutely correct in a September 1945 despatch to London in which he contended that ‘Messrs Bierut, Gomułka, Minc and Radkiewicz are not people who will hand over power without a struggle’, the form of their struggle was more complex than narratives focusing on just coercion and repression would suggest.⁹

Furthermore, the idea that it was ‘the betrayal at Yalta’ that cast Poland into the Soviet sphere, while not holding credence among scholars of the period, continues to guide the popular imagination. This perception is slowly changing, but not radically so. For example, the commercial success of Norman Davies’ 2003 publication, Rising ‘44: The Battle for Warsaw, may have altered the imagined timeframe of when Poland was let down by her erstwhile allies, but not the general narrative, which maintains that a heroic nation and people were hobbled by her friends.

This narrative often functions to differentiate good Poles from bad, and those who are idealized as fighters for a free Poland from those who co-operated with or were communists. The history of the period has yet to become the exclusive purview of historians, and remains the battleground of political and ‘academic’ polemicists as they attempt to use the past to justify current policies and shape contemporary reality. It is in this context that a deeper understanding of the role played by the Western Allies in supporting, consenting to and later contesting the post-war settlement needs to be fostered. The main contention made here is that the alliance was flawed from the beginning: Poland was never treated as an equal ally, and in this sense Davies is correct in identifying the failure of the Grand Alliance as contributing to the tragedy of Warsaw in 1944 and later.¹⁰

Recognition of the unequal nature of the alliance between Britain and Poland, and later between Britain, the USA, USSR and Poland, brings into focus its pragmatic aspects and helps to highlight how the short- to mid-term rational policies of the British and American Governments ultimately led to the long-term estrangement of Poland from the West. These policies, including military strategy, were sensible from the British and American perspectives, though not from the point of view of their Polish allies.

As early as 30 September 1939, British officials sought to sustain relations with the Soviet Union while meeting Britain’s treaty obligations to Poland. The solution advanced by Sir William Seeds, the British ambassador in Moscow, and endorsed by senior Foreign Office official Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, was to be flexible on Polish territorial integrity and to view Soviet aggression against Poland as being unproblematic so long as the Soviet occupation followed ‘ethnographical and cultural lines’.¹¹ Throughout the autumn of 1939, the Soviet Union justified the occupation of eastern Poland by claiming that the area was inhabited by seven million Ukrainians, three million Belarusians and only one million Poles.¹² This claim was untrue. The actual population of the region, according to analysis of updated 1931 census data, included four and a half to just over five million Poles, a similar number of Ukrainians, two and a half million Belarusians, a million Jews and a small number of other nationalities.

The Soviet Union also held elections in occupied eastern Poland on 22 October 1939, to further substantiate the claim that the USSR was assisting Ukrainians and Belarusians in achieving national self-determination. Following this rigged election, ‘elected’ delegates to the Assemblies of West Ukraine and West Belarus called for incorporation into the USSR. Soviet policy in occupied eastern Poland proceeded to restrict and destroy Polish political, social and cultural influence in the region. This policy saw co-ordination between the Nazis’ Gestapo and the Soviets’ NKVD, such as the simultaneous arrests of professors at the universities of Kraków and Lwów in November 1939.

British officials clearly differentiated Soviet aggression from German aggression. In the perceived British national interest, officials were very keen not to be drawn into a hostile relationship with the Soviet Union, regardless of the fact that in the autumn of 1939 the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland was very similar in practice to the Nazi occupation in the western parts of the country.¹³ The British were very aware of the cost of sustaining Anglo–Soviet relations. Sir William Seeds on 30 September 1939 cautioned that,

It must be borne in mind that, if war continues any considerable time, the Soviet part of Poland will, at its close, have been purged of any non-Soviet population or classes whatever, and that it may well be consequently impossible, in practice, to separate it from the rest of Russia.¹⁴

Despite the brutality of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland and the acknowledged longer-term problems that the occupation would create for the re-emergence of a sovereign Poland, Richard A. Butler, the British Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, maintained – in a statement to the House of Commons on 19 October 1939 – that the Anglo–Polish Treaty of 25 August 1939, in which Britain agreed to defend Poland from aggression, was understood as meaning aggression from Germany alone.

The difficulties and failure of the Polish Government in Exile (based in London following the fall of France in 1940) in articulating its view and in influencing its Western Allies require further scholarly attention. It is sufficient here to note that by mid-1943 – almost two years after the Soviet Union had been invaded by Germany – the Polish Government in Exile was losing influence fast with its Western Allies. The Soviets broke off relations with the Poles in May 1943, ostensibly as a result of Polish demands for an independent investigation into the Katyñ graves, and the British and Americans clearly understood the fundamental need to stay on good terms with the USSR.¹⁵

A concrete example of the lack of impact that the Polish Government in Exile had upon her Western Allies was its failure to communicate successfully the importance of the Balkans theatre. In 1942 the Poles favoured future offensives through the Balkans. As General Anders pointed out to General Sikorski on 27 April 1942: ‘From the Polish point of view this would certainly be best, because, after Germany has been defeated, it would enable troops of the Western Powers and Poland to enter Polish territory’ (Anders 1949: 109). This was crucial for Polish aspirations because, as Anders noted in a letter to Sikorski on 2 February 1943, ‘victory of Soviet Russia would mean deadly danger for Poland’ (Anders 1949: 136). It is therefore a matter of historical conjecture that, had the views of the Poles in 1942 and 1943 been treated more seriously, the possibilities of a Balkan offensive may have been explored more fully both militarily and in relation to the future shape of Europe.¹⁶ Indeed, as late as 19 October 1943, Churchill, in conference with the Combined Chief of Staff, decided to reopen the relative priorities of Overlord (invasion of France), and the Mediterranean, and ended the meeting by stating, ‘if we were in a position to decide the future strategy of the war we should agree’ amongst other objectives, ‘to reinforce the Italian theatre to the full . . . and to enter the Balkans’. The following day Churchill instructed British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, to find out where the Soviets favoured Western allied action. Eden replied that the Soviets ‘were completely and blindly set on our in...