No. II.
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Krystyna Kersten
Mass Protests in the Polish People’s Republic:
A Steady Process or Isolated Incidents?
Andrzej Paczkowski
From Cooptation to Negotiation:
Reflections on Beginning the Process of Systemic Change in Poland, 1986-89
Andrzej Friszke
Opposition and Resistance in Post-War Polish History
Dariusz Jarosz
The Polish Peasantry and Collectivisation
Reviews
Włodzimierz Borodziej
Polish Historiography on the ‘Expulsion’ of the Germans
Wiesław Władyka
Caterpillars and Butterflies:
New Histories of the Polish People’s Republic, 1944-89
Documents
Krzysztof Persak
The Sino-Polish Talks of January 1957
Sources and Institutions
Włodzimierz Janowski
The Records of the Central Committees of the Polish Workers’ Party, 1944-48, and of the Polish United Workers’ Party, 1948-90, in the New Records Archive
Wojciech Materski
Documents Related to Poland from the Russian Archives in the Post-Soviet Era
Andrzej Chmielarz
The Military Archives Commission’s Work in the Archives of the Russian Federation
Krzysztof Persak
A Guide to Institutions Concerned with Post-1945 Polish History
Bibliography
Wojciech Frazik
A Select Bibliography of Polish History, 1944-89:
Books and Articles Published from 1989 to 1996
This ‘Polish’ issue of Soudobé dějiny is the result of close collaboration between the Institute of Contemporary History, at the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Political Studies, at the Polish Academy of Sciences. In mid-1996 we turned to our Polish colleagues, requesting them to prepare all the contributions for an entire issue of our journal which would include each of its usual sections. Our intention here has been to acquaint Czech readers with the field of contemporary Polish history – its main topics, institutions, sources and research results – in the form of scholarly essays and a select bibliography.
The contributions presented here are testimony to the high standards of Polish historiography. They are valuable both as a sum total of information, and as a source of much inspiration in terms of methodology. In this sense they will undoubtedly be of great use to Czech scholars of contemporary history, who in many ways have only recently begun to discover topics their Polish colleagues have already made considerable headway in, and are just learning of approaches already by now common in Polish historiography. We decided not to change anything in the structure of the number, nor to add anything to what we received from Warsaw. (For technical reasons we have left the Bibliography in its original form following Polish rules of bibliography.) Our job has been solely to ensure high-quality translations of the contributions into Czech.
The Polish editors of this, the second issue of Soudobé dějiny for 1997, are Krystyna Kersten, Andrzej Paczkowski and Krzysztof Persak – all senior researchers in the Institute of History and the Institute of Political Studies (both of the Polish Academy of Sciences).
Vilém Prečan
A Steady Process or Isolated Incidents?
Krystyna Kersten
Polish history of the past fifty years is fraught with explosions of mass social protest. The author is concerned here with the question of whether these crises (the ‘Polish months’) of June and October 1956, March 1968, December 1970, June 1976 and August 1980, have the character of individual outbursts of dissatisfaction with the régime’s approach in mainly economic matters, or whether they represent a steady flow of events with a social basis, which was the clear conflict between society’s desires and the reality of the Polish People’s Republic. A comparative analysis of mass demonstrations has lead the author to choose the second thesis, namely that the manifestations of rebellion were the culmination of continual revolt against the system of government.
The article also inquires into the sources of protest, the groups which took part in them, and particularly the relations between the workers and the intelligentsia. Although in forming the political opposition in the Polish People’s Republic the leading role was played by the intelligentsia, the mass demonstrations were the workers’ achievement. The rapprochement between labour leaders and the intelligentsia in the opposition, beginning in 1976, created the basis for Solidarity’s success, and made it a nation-wide movement. The basic disagreement between the official ideology, which had raised the working class to the sovereign ‘national holder of power’, and the actual status of this social group, led to the workers feeling they had been deprived. An awareness of their own power and unfulfilled basic needs induced them to demand their rights.
The author, however, takes issue with the view that the only motivation for worker resistance was dissatisfaction with working conditions and with their standard of living, while the political content was introduced from the outside. Economic demands, she believes, were clearly the most frequent catalyst of the whole process, nevertheless the social upsurge was accompanied by slogans and demands of a political nature, which sometimes (for example in 1956 and in 1980) took a directly revolutionary form. In the mass uprisings against Communist power an important role was played by patriotic and religious demands and symbols, which, in the consciousness of the participants, gave these manifestations the dimension of national uprisings.
In her analysis the author pays special attention to the international context of these events, particularly the USSR’s view of the Polish crisis.
Mass social demonstrations were an important factor in the erosion of the Communist system and in the last phase of its destruction. Together with other forms of resistance they forced the régime to make its final concessions and to recognize various rights. The workers’ rebellions also compromised Communist ideology and helped to bring about the régime’s downfall.
From Cooptation to Negotiation: Reflections on Beginning the Process of Systemic Change in Poland, 1986-89
Andrzej Paczkowski
The description and analysis of events which led to the implosion of the Communist system continue, particularly in the field of political science, to be the subject of many academic studies whose authors search the recent past for elements which have formed the present. Much less frequently have they been the concern of historiography, because historians seek to answer the question ‘How did it happen?’, rather than ‘What are the long-term consequences?’ In the Polish case, historians have a great deal to study, because many important documents have been published and a significant number of the principal actors have published their memoirs.
The present article is based on the most recent records to have been ‘discovered’, and its aim is to describe the decision-making mechanism in the supreme organs of the Polish Communist Party in the late 1980s. The author also attempts to compare the process of abandoning the system of ‘real-existing’ socialism in Poland with a general model (which he calls the O’Donnell-Schmitter model) of the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Analysis of primary sources enables one to state that the primary aim of the group around General Jaruzelski was to lead the country out of crisis by means of economic reforms within the system and to ensure them by expanding their base of control through cooptation. The decisions to commence these changes, adopted in mid-1986, were linked with the beginning of similar tendencies in Moscow (uskorenie, perestroika). This approach was tried until the early summer of 1988, and only after it had failed was it decided (in August 1988) to begin negotiations with the opposition. After short periods of ‘thaw’, including the formation of the Rakowski government on 24 September 1988, which was in favour of the tactic of unnegotiated cooptation, this mechanism culminated in the Round Table Talks held from February to April 1989. It is symptomatic that because of failures, the road to reform led to a weakening of the system’s legitimacy and to a gradual decline in the authority of the Communist Party. This weakness became apparent in the outcome of the ‘contractual’ elections of 4 June 1989 (in which the Communists allowed some seats in the Sejm to be held by elected non-Communists).
The author emphasizes the importance of the influence that individual, almost accidental events had on the decision-making process (for example, the televised Wałesa-Miodowicz debate of 30 November 1988), and he also stresses the role played by psychological aspects. Apart from the ‘model’ factors – the steady social pressure and significant polarisation in each of the two competing camps (reformers versus hardliners, moderates versus radicals) – an important role in the process was played by the Roman Catholic Church, which was considered both the representative of social desires and a middle-man. The disastrous decline in the Communist Party’s authority, its loss of ability to mobilize the masses, and the near absolute impossibility of a ‘second state of emergency’ (because the Brezhnev doctrine had been revoked) forced the Jaruzelski leadership to retreat so far that in mid-August 1989 (when Tadeusz Mazowiecki was named Prime Minister of the ‘Great Coalition’) the critical point had been passed, and the intended reform turned into the process of forming a new system.
Opposition and Resistance in Post-War Polish History
Andrzej Friszke
Opposition and resistance to the imposed Communist organs of power were present throughout the fifty years of Poland’s history since the end of World War II. Although the two are similar phenomena, they are not identical, and it is sometimes hard to draw a clear line between them. The author defines ‘resistance’ as spontaneous, unorganized and undirected protest to an imposed political and ideological order, which is often linked with the defence of traditional values. ‘Opposition’, on the other hand, is understood as an organized or intellectual activity, aiming to bring down the system or to reform it by limiting the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, and making society sovereign again.
In the period 1944-7, the opposition to the new Communist government which had been introduced into Poland with the Red Army took the form of armed struggle and legal opposition. The expression of general social resistance in the 1946 referendum was a protest against the Communist platform (the referendum results, however, were falsified). At the height of Stalinism, when no legal opposition could resist, it was possible only to sit tight in a position of social resistance. This was manifested in any action which the régime considered unorthodox, such as the boycott of official state rituals or listening to Western radio broadcasts. In the period when the totalitarian régime was being established, rural resistance to collectivisation was very important, as were all forms of opposition to secularism and atheism in defence of the Christian faith and the Church. Throughout the period under discussion there was socio-economic resistance, expressed primarily as strikes and workers’ rebellions (in 1956, 1970, 1976 and 1980). Another form of resistance to Communist power was the defence and cultivation of national traditions, including the struggle for independence. The year 1956 saw the emergence of a new opposition group, predominantly intellectual, which strove for the liberalisation of the existing system. In opposition centres active throughout Poland with the waning of Stalinism, one can perceive three main streams of ideas: revisionist, liberal and Roman Catholic. An important role was played also by radical groups of young people who were connected both with revisionism and with the right-wing stream emphasizing independence.
The events of 1968 pacified the centres of political opposition, and they were not reborn until the mid-1970s. The workers’ demonstrations in 1976 occurred while the intelligentsia was coming out against the constitutional amendments. The first public, albeit illegal, political groups emerged, which aimed to limit the extent of Communist power by building free enclaves within society. These became the basis of the Solidarity movement which emerged in 1980.
The Polish Peasantry and Collectivisation
Dariusz Jarosz
The history of the forced collectivisation of Polish agriculture in the years 1948-56 constitutes an interesting ‘laboratory’ for research into social attitudes and approaches to the Communist organs. The model of collectivisation adopted in the summer of 1948 assumed the existence of three types of production collectives and State Machine Centres, whose task was not only the mechanisation of farm work but also political work among the peasants. The development of the production collectives, the Polish equivalent of the Soviet kolkhoz, was centrally planned: in the autumn of 1948 it was assumed that collectivisation in the period 1950-55 would include thirty-five per cent of the farms and the remainder over the next five years. Mounting pressure on collectivisation and, at the same time, peasant resistance, prompted the régime’s local organs to employ repression and administrative means to force the peasants into collectives. The authorities used various methods, including swindles and cajoling, administrative bullying, threats, beatings, physical abuse and imprisonment, in an effort to get farmers to join collectives. The use of force, though officially condemned in public as a ‘deformation’ in the districts of Gryfice and Drawsko in 1950-51, was the general practice.
Collectivisation took the Polish peasantry by surprise and aroused grave fears amongst the peasants that they would lose their land and other property. Unrest intensified the negative stereotype of the Soviet kolkhoz. A typical expression of the peasants’ fear consisted of the spreading of far-fetched rumours and the buying up of everyday goods. The agitators, who travelled from the towns to the countryside, and the organizers of the collectives, who lived in the villages, made their hostility to the peasants clear, and they became the objects of aggressive attacks. Particularly strong resistance was provoked by government employees surveying land designated for collectivisation; on many occasions peasants came out violently against them. Violent protests occurred most frequently when taking land from peasants and ploughing new balks on the land. These acts of resistance were sometimes of a mass nature, with the participation of peasants from several neighbouring villages.
Ultimately, the collectivisation plans were never fully realized. In 1956, at their peak, the collectives owned eleven per cent of the country’s peasant holdings. At the end of that year, as soon as it became possible, eighty-five per cent of the total 10,000 collectives were disbanded.
Polish Historiography on the ‘Expulsion’ of the Germans
Włodzimierz Borodziej
The inverted commas in the title of this article indicate the controversial nature of the question of the forced migration of the Germans in Poland. Expulsion (Vertreibung), the accepted term in Germany, was not used in Polish historiography in the period of the Polish People’s Republic, because it was burdened with political connotations. The discussion about what forced migration of the German population from the territory east of the Oder-Nisa line was from a Polish point of view did not have positive effect before 1989. Now, however, debate is more lively. Most publications on the re-settlement of the Germans are from the late 1960s and in the 1990s. In characterizing the older literature on the topic, the author of the present article differentiates between the three basic models of interpretation used when discussing the topic, which he calls the ‘Minimalizing’, ‘Potsdam’ and ‘Migrational’ models.
The first interpretation is defined by the tendency to marginalize the entire phenomenon. The second places the emphasis on its genesis and on international law. The third interpretation focuses on the actual process of re-settling the German population, its organisation and the demographic consequences. The common features of the literature before the Changes of 1989 were the one-sidedness of picture of the re-settlement, keeping quiet, and capriciousness in the interpretation of records. This was in part the result of censorship, of limited access to records, and of some historians’ personal convictions. During the Cold War, literature concerned with the re-settling of the German population had a political role of persuasion – its task was to forestall the reproaches being made against Poles and Poland in the West German literature. The greatest distortion of the picture of the ‘expulsion’ appeared in relation to Polish attitudes to the Germans, the relation of Poles to Germans and the circumstances surrounding the re-settlement. The stereotype of the ‘bad Germans’ was created (emphasising in particular the topic of the anti-Hitler underground) and ‘good Poles’ (the myth of the unusually humane course of the re-settlement process).
The literature emerging in the 1990s has been conducting a revision of the existing picture of the circumstances surrounding the transfer of the Germans, and has taken on new research tasks. It is, of course, linked with the end of censorship, but other factors are probably of equal importance: the revision of the entire ‘official’ picture of the Polish People’s Republic, a changed sensitivity to the problem of national minorities, and the end of the need of a picture of the Germans as the enemy. The most recent historiography is concerned largely with the Germans in the interim period after the Poles had resumed power in Poland but before the expulsion had begun; it emphasizes the drastically repressive nature of the system. Research topics, including the motives and mechanisms of the economic exploitation, the discrimination and repression the Germans were subjected to, and the history of the labour camps which a significant number of the German population had gone through, are being explored for the first time. Historians are also attempting to reconstruct the Soviets’ activities. Of particular import is the question of the deaths caused by the ‘expulsion’. Earlier knowledge, based on official data on deaths during the deportations, is quickly proving to be out-dated; but the absence of new research does not allow for confirmation of German estimates. A feature typical of the current research is the examination of the forced migration from a wider perspective and against the background of other migrations in the same period. It is shifting the focus to the similarities and connections between the fate of the German and Polish populations and the Jewish and Ukrainian populations.
A highly important and extremely difficult task of contemporary historiography and journalism is to place the ‘expulsion’ within the history of Poland together with the questions of political and moral responsibility.
Caterpillars and Butterflies:
New Histories of the Polish People’s Republic, 1944-89
Wiesław Władyka
Contemporary history arouses fervent emotions in Poland, and is an area of interest for society. The picture of the past is a subject of disputes, and serves to provide various kinds of ideological and political legitimisation. The author of this article presents the latest syntheses of post-war Polish history. He reviews recent histories by Wojciech Roszkowski, Jerzy Eisler, Antoni Czubiński, Zbigniew Jerzy Hirsz and Andrzej Paczkowski. The common feature of these publications is that they are a kind of synthesis of previous monographs. In view of the lack of basic contributions and monographs, the authors could rarely draw from existing research results. Their conclusions, therefore, are often pioneering. All the more reason, the reviewer believes, for them to equip their work with critical footnotes, which, however, they generally do not have.
Roszkowski’s Historia Polski 1914–1991 (1991) presents the panorama of twentieth-century Polish history, from the beginning of World War I to the present. It is the largest and best prepared of those being reviewed here. It contains information from the fields of economics, international relations and internal politics, sociology, the arts and culture, and propaganda. Roszkowksi’s view of the Polish People’s Republic is a highly critical one.
Eisler’s Zarys dziejów politycznych Polski 1944–1989 (1992) is more modest in scale, and as its title suggests it is a outline of the history of the Polish People’s Republic. It tends, however, to remain on the level of historical narration. Eisler is also critical of the Polish People’s Republic. The reviewer considers the best part of the book to be its section on the 1960s, because here the author, who has also published a monograph on this period is most sensitive.
The large synthesis by Czubiński, Dzieje najnowsze Polski 1944–1989 (1992), moves along a chronological axis, yet, believes the reviewer, it lacks a sense of narrative. Its author, who makes no secret of his left-wing outlook, avoids drawing any one great socio-economic or even political conclusion about the People’s Republic. The book’s strength is that its author is well-acquainted with the political struggles of Poland’s power élites.
The material in Hirsz’s Polska między II a III Rzeczypospolitą (1993) is organized by topic, but, feels the reviewer, the author has not used this device for a thorough-going analysis; instead he is content merely to describe the facts. The reviewer, therefore, ranks it as the weakest of the books discussed here.
Paczkowski’s Pół wieku dziejów Polski 1939–1989 (1995) distinguishes itself by its clear line of argumentation and by its style. The author begins the story in 1939, pays a good deal of attention to the creation of the Polish People’s Republic, and, relying largely on his own research, describes the building of the totalitarian system (the period up to 1956 takes up half the book). The work’s strong point is the parallel description of events in Poland and amongst the Polish émigrés. In Paczkowski’s description of Polish history, the reviewer perceives the following structure: the Communists’ assumption of power, the attempt to control society, the loss of social support and, ultimately, the loss of power.
All the syntheses described in this article are records of mainly political history. The reviewer points to substantial problems which call for further research, such as Polish-Soviet relations and the mechanisms of dependence, the internal political struggle and the conception of the management of power, as well as the relations between those in power and society.
The Sino-Polish Talks of January 1957
Krzysztof Persak
In October 1956, at the time of the crisis in relations with the Soviet Union and of an imminent Soviet military intervention, Poland found an unexpected and exotic ally. The support, which the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party provided to Poland, opened the way to several years of rapprochement between the two countries. It was expressed in the visit to Poland by the Chinese Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Chou En Lai, in January 1957.
The present document, published for the first time, is an almost verbatim record of talks between the First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party Władysław Gomułka and his Chinese guest. The record is appended with the note ‘made precise by Wł. Gomułka’, so it is safe to assume that it was authorised by the Polish First Secretary. The most important part of the document is Gomułka’s detailed report on talks with a delegation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), held in Warsaw on 19 October 1956, whose actual minutes have never been published. Also important is Gomułka’s assessment of political developments in 1956 and of Polish internal politics before the elections to the Sejm to be held on 20 January 1957. The Chinese were strongly in favour of slowing down the Polish leadership’s reforms, because they feared excessive liberalisation. Other issues discussed were the international situation and the desired form of relations between the states of the socialist camp. Both leaders expressed criticism of Soviet ‘great power chauvinism’.
The Records of the Central Committees of the Polish Workers’ Party, 1944-48, and of the Polish United Workers’ Party, 1948-90, in the New Records Archive
Włodzimierz Janowski
In 1990, the New Records Archive (Archiwum Akt Nowych) took over the holdings of the former Central Archive of the Central Committee (CC) of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP), which had contained, among other things, the records of the central committees of the Polish Workers’ Party (PWP) and the PUWP. The author describes their internal structure and the importance of the authors of these records, as well as the growth in the number of records and classification, as well as the state in which they have been preserved, and he acquaints the reader with the contents of both archival collections. The place of the Communist Party in the state’s political system cannot be emphasized enough. The PWP had a hegemony over the other parties, and its successor, the PUWP, acquired a virtual monopoly to which the state organs were subordinated. One of the basic instruments in the administration of power was the system of nomenclatura positions in the state bureaucracy (the apparat) and in social organisations. From 1952 to 1989, between seventy-six and ninety-two per cent of the main offices were subject to Party approval.
In the former main archive of the CC of the PUWP there was a record group containing documents of the CC of the PWP from the years 1944-48. It contains 1,881 records (fifty-one metres of material). This group is divided into twenty-four sub-groups which correspond to the structure of the régime and its executive. The part of the collection of documents of the CC of the PUWP from 1948-70 (originally collection No. 237) has been organised similarly. This part of the archive contains 14,675 documents (315 metres), and is divided into thirty-nine groups designated with Roman numerals corresponding to the structure of the Party apparat. After the documents of the PUWP were transferred to the New Records Archive, the processing began of the remainder of the documents which had not been part of the previous central archive of the CC of the PUWP. This work is still being carried out, and the processed parts are gradually being made accessible to the public. The overall collection contains about 130,000 individual documents (about 1,300 metres).
The content of both collections is unusually diverse in both form and content, and corresponds to the entire spectrum of the leadership and apparat of the Communist mono-party. Generally speaking, one can distinguish between material related to the work of the Party in the narrow sense and that which relates to the operation of its apparat, the political system, and society.
Documents Related to Poland from the Russian Archives in the Post-Soviet Era
Wojciech Materski
The fact of being Russia’s neighbour has almost always manifested itself in Polish history. After the Soviet aggression of 1939, for example, Poland found itself in the sphere of Soviet influence for more the next fifty years. Records in the Russian archives, particularly documents originating in Soviet institutions and those taken as booty from Poland are, therefore, of great importance. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, it has finally become possible to make use of them; agreements between the archives of both countries have become the basis for Polish historians to gain access to material in Russian archives.
The author of this article characterizes the main record groups acquired as a result of recent research efforts, describes the most important volumes of documents published, and points out the limitations on access to records. The most voluminous publications are the fruit of several years of work by the Military Archival Commission. Of particular importance has been the collaboration between the KARTA centre and the Russian Memorial. Documents are also being searched for as part of various research programmes. A special collection acquired from the former Soviet archives comprises the set of documents which the Russian organs have given to Poland as a political gesture. (These records relate to decision-making in the Katyń massacre, documents on the Poles in the East from 1939-52, and the so-called ‘Suslov collection’ concerned with the Soviet attitude to martial law in Poland).
The larger of the record groups so far acquired from Russian archives are concerned with the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920, the activity of the Red Army during its aggression against Poland in 1939, the fate of Polish POWs and of persons imprisoned and deported during World War II, the deportation of Polish citizens to the Soviet Union during and after the war, as well as their repatriation, NKVD repression and operations against the Polish underground in the periods 1939-41 and 1944-50, the aggressive attitude of the Red Army on Polish territory (including its attitude to the Warsaw Uprising), and the history of Polish military units in the USSR during World War II. The documentation related to the Katyń massacre is especially important. By contrast, the record group consisting of recently accessible material on the mutual relations and the mechanism of Poland’s dependency on the USSR after 1950 is inconsequential.
The author pessimistically concludes that the high-point of accessibility to Russian archives has now passed. Many important documents may, on the other hand, still be discovered in the archives of Lithuania, the Ukraine and Byelorussia.
The Military Archives Commission’s Work in the Archives of the Russian Federation
Andrzej Chmielarz
The Military Archives Commission was established by the Polish Ministry of Defence in 1992. Its mandate was to conduct thorough research in the Russian archives with an eye to military history. The research concerned the fate of soldiers in the Polish Army and of members of the independent underground, from 1939 to 1947, as well as the activity of the Red Army and NKVD on Polish territory. Research was also related to the archival material taken as war prizes by the Red Army during its attack on Poland in 1939, along with the appropriation of German documents. The research was conducted in the central Russian archives and then in the archives of Byelorussia and Lithuania. It was related primarily to documents on Polish POWs and internees (no personal documentation on victims of the Katyń massacre was found) and documents related to burials. Other research areas included documentation related to the preparation and course of Soviet aggression in Poland in 1939, the activity of the NKVD on Polish territory after 1944, and, related to this, the post-war Soviet repression of Poles.
As a result of four year’s work the Military Archives Commission managed to obtain more than 600,000 copies of documents from Russian archives. The present article contains a list of the sixty-three record groups constituting the collection which is deposited in the Central Military Archives, Warsaw.
A Guide to Institutions Concerned with Post-1945 Polish History
Krzysztof Persak
The guide provides information on more than a dozen research institutes concerned with contemporary Polish history. Apart from addresses, it states the topics of current research, recent conferences, and titles of important work in the field published during the last three years. The guide was compiled from data taken from questionnaires sent out in the autumn of 1996. It concludes with a list of archives relevant to research into contemporary history.
A Select Bibliography of Polish History, 1944-89: Books and Articles Published from 1989 to 1996
Wojciech Frazik
This bibliography contains 357 entries on the important Polish works on Polish history from 1944 to 1989, published from 1989-96 (work that was essentially free of censorship – an institution abolished in 1990).
Contributors
Włodzimierz Borodziej (1956) is a professor in the Historical Institute of Warsaw University. He is concerned with twentieth century Polish and general history. His publications include Terror i polityka. Policja niemiecka a polski ruch oporu v GG 1939–1944 (1985) and Od Poczdamu do Szklarskiej Poręby. Polska v stosunkach międzynarodowych 1945–1947 (London 1990).
Andrzej Chmielarz (1950) is a researcher in the Institute of Military History at the Polish Academy of Sciences. His special interest is the history of the independet Polish underground, 1939–1947. His publications include Spiska 14. Aresztowanie generala „Grota“ – Stefana Roweckiego (1982) and, as co-author, Polska Podziemna 1939–1945 (1991).
Wojciech Frazik (1962) is a researcher in tge Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he is concerned with contemporary Polish history, partinularly the topics of samizdat and Polish political emigration.
Andrzej Friszke (1956) is a historian and resercher in the Institute of Political Science at the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he is concerned with contemporary Polish history. He is the author of Opozycja polityczna v PRL 1945–1980 (1994), Polska Gierka (1995), and Oaza na Kopernika. Klub Inteligencji Katolickiej 1956–1957 (1997).
Włodzimierz Janowski (1954) is employed in the Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warsaw, and is concerned with the twentieth-century Polish political history.
Dariusz Jarosz (1959), a researcher in the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, is concerned with the social history of Poland during the Stalinist period. He is the author of Obraz chłopa w krajowej publicystyce czasopiśmienniczej 1944–1959 (1994), and, with Marie Pasztor, W krzywym zwierciadle. Polityka władz komunistycznych w Polsce w świetle plotek i pogłosek z lat 1949–1956 (1996).
Krystryna Kersten (1931) is Professor of Contemporary History in the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is concerned particularly with the history of Poland since 1944, and has published widely including Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego 22 VII 1944 – 31 XII 1944 (1965); Repatriacja ludności polskiej po II wojnie światowej (1974); Narodziny systemu władzy. Polska 1943–1948, (Paris 1986); Jałta v polskiej perspektywie, (London 1989); Polacy-Żydzi-Kolunizm. Anatomia półprawd 1939–1968 (1992); Między wyzwoleniem a zniewoliniem. Polska 1944–1956 (London 1963).
Wojciech Materski (1944), an historian and political scientist, is a researcher in the Institute of Political Science at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is cincerned with twentieth-century Polish and general contemporary history. He has published widely, including Bolszewicy i samuraje. Walka dyplomatyczna i zbrojna o rosyjski Daleki Wschód (1917–1925) (1989), Tarcza Europy. Stosunki polsko-sowieckie 1918–1939 (1994) and Georgia Revidiva. Republika Gruzińska w stosunkach międzynarodowych 1918–1921 (1994).
Andrzej Paczkowski (1938), an historian, is Professor in the Institute of Political Science at the Polish Adademy of Sciences. He specializes in contemporary Polish history, and is the author of Stanisław Mikołajczyk, czyli klęska realisty: Zarys biografii politycznej (1991) and Pół wieku dziejów Polski 1939–1989 (1995).
Krzysztof Persak (1968), an historian, is a researcher in the Institute of Political Science at the Polish Academy of Science. His field is the contemporary political and social history of Poland. He is the author of Odrodzenie harcerstwa w 1956 roku (1996).
Wiesław Władyka (1947) is Professor of History in the Polish Academy of Sciences and at Warsaw University. His speciality is contemporary Polish history. He publishes in the weekly Polityka, and his monographs include Działalność polityczna polskich strońnictw konserwatywnych v latach 1926–1935 (1977); Krew na pierwszej stronie. Dzienniki senzacyjne II Rzeczypospolitej (1982) and, with Zdysław Rykowski, Polska próba: Pażdziernik ‘56, (1989).
