The Development Trajectory of Communism in Poland
The Life of Władysław Bieńkowski, Communist Leader and Socialist Thinker
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The Development Trajectory of Communism in Poland
The Life of Władysław Bieńkowski, Communist Leader and Socialist Thinker
About this book
Charting the life and writings of W?adys?aw Bie?kowski, a leading politician and writer in communist Poland and sometime right-hand man and ideologue of the Polish leader W?adys?aw Gomu?ka, this book outlines the shifts in the nature of communism in Poland throughout the period of communist rule.
It considers the shaping of Bie?kowski's ideas in eastern Poland, later occupied by the Soviet Union, during the economic depression, the development of his great hopes for socialist socio-economic transformation as the right way forward, and his attempts as Gomu?ka's aide to enact "people's democracy" and "socialist humanism" in the period 1945 to 1948, attempts which failed, Stalinist repression coming to the fore instead. This book further discusses Bie?kowski's role as a minister in the period following Stalin's death, when Bie?kowski was a leading "revisionist", warning of the dangers of the "petrification of the system", and explains how with a sense of shattered hopes he resigned from power and became a dissident, publicly critical of the regime. This book concludes by examining Bie?kowski's writings in late communist times when, now just an observer, he continued to reflect on and write about the future of socialism. Overall, the book demonstrates to what extent communism in Eastern Europe was flexible and adaptable and not rigidly monolithic as it is often portrayed.
The book will be of interest to academics and scholars interested in the history of communism and Europe.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Series
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Introduction
- 1 A dreamer: Władysław’s formative days (1906–1939)
- 2 “How the steel was tempered”: A communist in the East and in the underground (1939–1945)
- 3 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: A demiurge of the “gentle revolution” (1945–1948)
- 4 “The neck that turned Gomułka’s head”: The Stalinist purgatory (1948–1953)
- 5 A revolutionary (1953–1959)
- 6 Contesting the drab “real socialism” (1959–1968)
- 7 A dissident (1968–1980)
- 8 What has remained of socialism? (1980–1991)
- Concluding remarks
- Index