Memories of the Polish communist era

you know the saying "A good Indian is a dead Indian"?
(and I know it was origanally ""The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.")

About drugs, it's hard to say because borders were controlled quite effectively, so one may assume the import of drugs to Poland wasn't significative, but we had some home-made version of heroin, it was made from poppies, no reliable statistics on the use of drugs (as the dictatorships tend to manipulate the statistics at their will), besides they could easily put you in a psychiatric clinic for that, so you didn't see many people under the influence (of drugs, because drunk people were a completely different story) in the streets.


Some other questions of dannyboy:

- What sports were popular under communisim?
- footbal (or soccer as some wish to call it), boxing, athletics, cycling, volleyball, handball, weightlifting, fencing, tennis table and many others.
What is strange we had almost no swimming pools, so no good swimmers, tennis was considered too "western", so only good palyer was W. Fibak (in the 70's/80's), golf was virtually non existant.

- Were steroids widely available?
Probably, but only among the professional sportsmen, you must have heard how Eastern Germany and also Soviet Union mass produced their "supermen" to win the Olympic medals "for the glory of Party/Country". As much as I'd love to believe that Poland was clean, I can't be that naive, sure we couldn't match with the communist Germany, but I'm convinced the "brothers" helped us sometimes with "medical" supplies, we probably had our own production as well.
In the 90's Poland became one of the biggest producers of synthetic drugs (like amphetamine).

- Were guns widely available?
No. There were of course some guns availble from the World War II for a while, Later some "normal" people could have shotguns for hunting, but it was rare. There was also a small amount of pneumatic guns, but everything was under strict control of the police.


- A Russian guy I used to know absolutely hated standing in a group of people on a corner because during the communist times they would be beaten by police for doing this (different rules for Russia I assume), he didn't realise it was normal for people to have a conversation like this.
- Generally, there were rules about "public gathering", so if a certain number (I don't remember the limit) of people were simply standing together in the street, they could be considered as an "illegal manifestation", but in my city I din't experience the problem with police beating you for that (unless it really was an illegal manifestation, then they let the dogs lose - as dogs I mean "pigs") - There were also police forces (ZOMO) specialised in dealing with demonstrations, they were effective (beating you without leaving marks), and they could even beat you to death.

- What would be the singlest biggest and most visible difference between now and then?
I guess it's too hard to answer, for some people personal freedom is the most important thing (you can talk what you want without being afraid that government doesn't like, you can read books that were censored without risking persecutions, you can travel abroad, as a tourist if you can afford it or to work, without waiting months for a passport and get your application rejected).
For other people economic changes are the most imprtant, no matter how far we are from the Western welfare, because under communism you couldn't just establish a company and have success, only small firms were allowed, and if some were making too much profit, the tax offices could destroy them in the blink of an eye.
And there's also social life, it's chaning too, some things to the better, some to the worse. And many other aspects, it really depends on what you value the most.

Who said that poland chose to be a communist country from a free will ? :)
I think during that time it was more catholic then it is now !!!
My dad was a "communist". he had a "ksiazeczka partyjna", he was part of it but only on paper. Only reason for it - he wanted to have his job (as educated person you had to be signed in to get proper position at work).
When there was strajk in my home town and fiew people were shot my dad carried on his hands 2 men to my house where my mum as a nurse was looking after them. Middle of the night so neighbours cant see. He was a communist on paper but never at heart !

Very good answers Krzysztof, thank you.

Bunia, I know what you're saying but I think there must have been some people who were pro-communist.
I can't go into too much detail but the father of a friend was head of the party in his area, that family had anything they desired.

I think there were some people who were pro-communist simply for what they could get out of it and other more naieve people who were probably pro-communist because they believed in it.

One further question - were you guys told by your parents/teachers in private that the whole thing was a farce and to not believe what you were taught in school?

I was too young to understand anything so i wasnt told about it. Or maybe i was told but i cant remember. Kids dont give a damn about politics and economics :)

and my parents never realized what's going on, I sometimes believe they don't realize till now, they were just simple folks brought up in the country, they went to church and my mom had her "ksiazeczka partyjna" just like bunia's father, because she was a teacher and had to be a party memebr if she wanted to avoid complications (she started working in 1967), but I never heard a word of cummunist propaganda in my house (neither anti-communist), they just took the reality for granted, never did anything about chnaging it, I don't know if they thought about it all. One of my grandfathers was a semi-communist, he fought in Bataliony Chłopskie (guerilla movement of peasants during World War II), right after the war he got nominated a director of some smaller factory, went off scene after few years and turned back to farming. He never spoke about communism either, but he was going to church when he was old, and his son (my oncle) was he only person in the whole family interested at all in politics when I was young (he knew stuff that was not taught at school, like Ribbentoop-Molotow pact and the 17 September 1939 Russian invasion, the Katyn Massacre, the falsified elections after the War, the persecutions in the 1950's and later etc.)

but I know there were many families where parents were fully aware of the farce they were leaving, they tried to educate their children to be good patriots. When I was in high school some of my mates or friends knew about the attrocities of the dictatorship, some didn't, but I never met a convinced communist child/teenager. So the division in Poland was rather conformists/non-conformists, not communists/anticommunists.

There was nothing modern about the places, they were just for people's enjoyment whoever could afford them. There were also nice restaurants, tablecloths and all, but very expensive. Cheaper restaurants were always full of drunks, but you could have a great "schabowy". At end of 70's, when the lines were very long, I often stopped by a place like that and had a dinner. There were also "bary mleczne", where variety of pierogies were served. Big cities had a few of them, small ones like 10,000 people town, would have maybe two restaurants plus kawiarnia. I'm talking about 70's when I was a teen and a young adult. I left Poland before the strikes and marshal law, and some of the stuff Krzysztof or Bunia write. I know from my family that 80's we brutal. My sister and I, we were sending money and packages with goods like spices, cacao, chocolates, fruit and of course clothes.
I never met or heard of anybody using drugs of any kind. This kind of stuff was only in western movies from "rotten west". I heard of people creating drugs (opium) from poppy. My aunt had a small farm of poppy, and I loved to eat them, but she would not let me eat too much. I was maybe 10 or 12. I did not know why...at that time.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my father was pro-America and did not belong to the communist party. I heard my mum objecting to it sometimes, saying that we'd be better off, if he had. We had a hunting gun at home, since his job was to watch the government forests. They were "nobody's" and farmers tended to go there at night and cut down trees for their needs...:) If they were caught, they usually bribed my father with vodka and home made sausages... He would put a special, legal stamp on the stump and come home drunk :(

MY oldest brother had the special party membership book. He had to, in order to work with the police. He was in some criminal justice dept. He had lots of problems when my sister left and did not comeback to Poland as promised. When I was trying to get my passport to leave, I was denied every year for 5 years. Finally, my brother was called to Warsaw. "So, Mr. R, you have one sister in the rotten west, and now another wants to go? (my brother said, he was Russian and barely spoke polish). Well, you have a choice, she stays and you still have your job, we let her have the passport, she leaves and you don't have a job. He just said. "Let her go". So, he ended driving a taxi, but I left. When he was getting married at the end of 60's, they got married at night, in the rectory, so the true commies would not know. His civil ceremony was the official one. The kids were also christened outside of church.

Its always amazing for me to see the similarities between Irish and Polish history, we have a lot in common, a long history of oppression.

You could just replace Russian or Communist with Englishman and in a lot of those situations it would read the same.

Probably why both nations are such a pack of alcoholics :-)

BTW, the Pewex system is obviously an extremely strange/bizzare concept for non-Polish - here is a good url which sheds a little light on it
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewex

oh when i was going to Pewex with my mum i was almost praying to Babie doll that was standing there. Too expensive tho. So insteed i used to get Donald's chewing gum :)

Fascinating and interesting posts. Thank you all for your honesty and willingness to share your thoughts and feelings with us.

A few words about the Soviet Union. I'm 43.
We were always told by parents (my Dad was communist party servant), elder friends and in most cases by the friends of our parents or parents of our school mates everything is a lie. But that didn't seem as ideological anti-communist propaganda. Such teaching didn't touch communist doctrine in general. There was another way.
We were taught in different situations how to act. Without any criticism of communism. Bur all the advices contradicted communist ideology.
We were told that one should do its best to avoid army service. That is for workers and peasants not for intellectuals.
We were told one should make his own career. The slogans about the communist constructing are for stupid people, not for postgraduates.
We were told that without young communist membership and later communist party any good living standart is impossible while the oficial ideology was tht no communist should think about his own profit.
Although it was declared that workers compose the leading class, we were told in nearly all situations that only intellectuals are good in Soviet Union.
There were very few convinced communists and they never had a good career. Communist in a talk between individuals sound smth. ironical. Different party members said in private conversations that they weren't communists but party members. That looked more honest: communist is stupid, party member has good prospects.
Nobody declared that openly. Only in private way.
But there was a common way to laugh at communism openly: to give publically an evidently exagerated quality to Soviet Union. To declare for example that Soviet cars are the best in the world. Everybody will understand you are joking but there are no ways to proove you are laughing at Soviets.

To finish,

I described you only an honest behaviour. The ideas of noble people who made much for me and other people. I didn't describe for example negative ideas of black market activists. I shall state that there was no way to protest against communism for many years. All the honest protests could be only of that sort. But they were.

Everybody used to stand outside the PEWEX and hoped to buy people's foreign currency in order to buy better quality items. I could never understand how communism could allow privilege and it was privilege to allow American Dollars to buy the better things in life when everybody else queued up outside butchers shops with ration coupons. I could never understand it.

re: Everybody used to stand outside the PEWEX

- Another lie. Even in your post there's a statement contradicting the one above.

re: I could never understand it

- Really? Then you could be only from the privileged commie class, or somebody from 'the West' supported you regularly. Otherwise you could be e.g. a psychopath with a distorted perception, including self-perception, and no empathy. Of course, you could be the three in one.

Still pretending being a Polonophobic Englishman?

Better tell us what you studied in Moscow during communism.
:)

The memory posts are excellent, thank you for sharing them - and keep going!

One of the things that intrigues me about Poland are the narrow strip fields; from the air they look almost feudal.
Are they the result of imposed agricultural collectives in the communist era or is it because fields are/were split between family members when the owner dies?

Yes, they are feudal and that is why Poland can never join the civilized West, they are simply years and years behind us. The Poles do fight over inheritance just like other races do.

i just want to say what an interesting thread this is. My partner has told me something of his own experiences growing up under communist rule and how it has also affected his attitudes towards certain things like money and a general feeling of distrust for people until they prove themselves honourable.. this post has enabled me to understand more of this. I am interested to hear from other people who grew up under the regime about how this time has shaped their views on life today.

Michal
,
It is a great asset to be behind you...
It may be a great success for Russia or Poland if our countries manage to have the same social and ideological basis UK had more than 100 years ago during Victorian period.
You think Poland is behind. But in what? In moral and honour? There are not so many moral people but - I'm sure that more than in today UK.
You say Poles are behind... Well, why must they abandon many principles of old Europe UK had in Victorian period?
Are they behind because "post-Christian epoch" is declared by many Western people and few Christians live in the West as in Jewish ghetto? It is still not the reality of Poland.
You noticed some Polish fear? But what is its origin? No prospect of a new partition exists but they are still in fright. Yuo think it is not rational. I don't share your opinion. Poles are afraid to loose something prior to high living standarts, i.e. Christian values. They don't want to become as today Western people. I'm refering to the best Poles of course, even en UK you can see their worst representatives.
But here in this forum the many Poles seem to be quite intellectual. Sometimes they are not able to express their fear in clear words (it is quite uneasy when everything is against us: communist past and today West European "values"), but the real fear is that.
Michal,
Poland is quite a different country even some 300-400 years ago but I don't thing that is because Poles are behind the West.
English king Henry the VIII imposed separation from Catholic Church by the desire to divource. He was strongly protected by nobels interested in partition of Church lands. Few Catholics were strongly persecuted and many were killed.
Protestantism was also common in Poland but Poles managed to cope with that without inquisition. Only disputes among Catholic and Protestants convinced Poles that Catholicism had more truth than Calvinism. Note: People in the street were anxious about the Truth, not Church lands partition.
Why should they become different now?

You are talking about economy only? About social culture.
But I'm sure when the best Poles elaborate principles and methods or resistance to "post-Christian concept" they will take your economic and social experience much more faster.

It is described as greatest progress the fact that some 10% of UK Nation received the right to elect parlamentarians in 1832.
Poland and Lithuania had the same percentage of voters some 300 years before the UK

Michal,

We all can remember the 90 when Russia as well as Poland was overcrowded by advicers from USA and UK who were trying to impose to governmental structures their vision of democratic development in East Europe.
Democracy and high living standarts in USA and UK were like a heritage of past generations and that guys didn't know at all methodology of Civic society construction. They could teach only some today USA and UK standarts without any attention to previous measures taken by their ancestors. Despite their complete ignorance of algorytms of Civic society formation they all were full of energy and superiority complex.
The didn't only advice. Using weak situation in East European countries they opmosed their ideas.
They were ready in some situations to give money (taken from you, Michal) but they never give any precious and adecute advice.

These are only my meditations. Now pure facts:
1. No persons as Issigonis with Mini of 1959 (500 pounds when average salary was more than 150 pounds),
No persons as Levitt from the USA (cottages for USD 7000 in 1949 when average familiar income was more than USD 300).
Do you think many Poles want to gain money in the UK if cottages are for some USD 15 000 or cars for Usd 2500?
Levitt told that a man with cottage will never become communist. And never extremist I shall add. But the main idea of British and American advisers was that everybody should be happy of democracy and abstract Human Rights in Uncle Tom's cabin. Or everybody should work hard, forget about educating children etc. for becoming able to pay more for houses and cars. As far as I know even more rich Western European and americans want to have low cost cars and houses. Many of them have a great nostalgia toward cheap Levittown and unexpensive cars.

2. In the opinion of that advicers people in East Europe should work hard and pay taxes and the rest should be assured by public servants, army, police and secret police who are - being centralyzeed, organized and armed - are only servants of middle classers and business. Servants closer to slaves.
No idea that organized people with force may refuse the status of servants.
Pay attention to the USA. After Independence the complete Regular Army dismissal. On ly state irregulars that were unable in their majority to use praetorian force against government or rebel against the United states. And a weak regular police. Till today no federal police bodies in the USA.
You want to see the result. Well compare USA with Latin America. The same start, but regular army and police in Latin America became the main danger to the Civic society. Many rebels and if there are no rebels that means that Presidents obeys generals and don't contradict them. Presidents in Latin American states are forced in majority of cases to forget middle classers' interests if they contradict military interests.
Only imagine that UK didn't have irregular army and special constabulary in 19 century. Only regular army and police. All marxist ideas sooner or later could overcome in Great Britain. Or an oligarchy of aristocracy dictatorship.
People in former communist countries weren't taught any irregular resistence preparations to defend if possible middle class interests. USA and UK advicers didn't give that idea. A double protection of a stupid idea that authorities should take care of popular security!

Now the East Europeans start studying Western experience. Without any bad advocers. It is quite uneasy after many years of communism and nearly 20 years Western "protection and care". It results that you are behind your Victorian ancestors. You don't know the algorytms of Civic society and still think civilization is the merit of your generation

Actually both reasons,
Collective farming wasn't a big success in Poland, so the state allowed the peasants to keep their land, but buying more was difficult, in the 50's if you had too many land you were labelled a "kułak" (I don't even know what this name meant) and persecutions could start, that's why most people just sticked for years to their small farms. When the old died, their children often divided the land and thus the farms became even smaller.
With the food shortages during the communist era, the peasants couldn't simply produce one thing (vegetable/corn/animals), because they were much better off cultivating a little bit of everything, for their own needs, and the surplus went for sale. That's why this tradition remained even after the communism fell. Of course nowadays there are more bigger farms specialized in producing just one one thing, but it's a slow process.

And the shape of the fields (narrow strips) is reflecting the typical look of a Polish village: one long road with houses close to each other (often on both sides of the road), and the relativy long fields behind the house, which width is equal to the width of the houseyard.

I always remember coming out of one of those places, it was the one in Krakow. An old man came up to me and tried to buy my American dollars and I just answered him in Russian. He was not very pleased and said something like "very, very clever" in a sarcastic tone. It did the job though and I got rid of him.

It is a word taken from the Russian. A kulak was a Russian peasant farmer in the old times of the Tsar. Ask Truhlei, he should be able to explain in more detail that I even could.

And please explain to me what was so strange in this man's behaviour (or other people who traded foreign currencies illegally).
It was a simple free market mechanism, where you buy and sell goods (including foreign currencies) at their real market value, the official exchange rates were ridiculous (the State used to pay several times less for a dollar than it was really worth, while buying from them at the same prices was really difficult), so those "cinkciarze" were necessary both for foreigners, who wanted to spend their cash and for the Poles who could afford something more than most people, but didn't have access to the foreign currencies reserves, controlled by the communist party's regime, or for those who for example sold a flat/house and had to convert their money to some stable currency otherwise they would lose half of the money within a year, because of 100% inflation.
I know this whole trade was illegal, but so were many other things in the Eastern Block, it was just another means of oppression.

No, I do not know if it was illegal for Poles to hold foreign currency only the Russians were not allowed to hold foreign money. I simply found the situation and the Poles mentality idiotic.

Michal
How come you studied in Russia and Poland during the Communist era?....I didn't think that was possible for a westerner!....and how did the people treat you, was there ever any hostility?

That was permited in Soviet Union in 70-80 to people who was able to give a clear explanation where he gained these money. For example those who worked in Soviet firms abroad.
In reality there was a great black market in Soviet Union

I think I can tell you. There was an exchange of students between Soviet Union and UK in 1950-1990. Some Soviet students of good loyalty to communism (apparent of course) could study some 5 mounths in UK and British stodents in Soviet Union/ That was only for phylologists and this exchange was quite reduced but it was.

Yes, I know I saw it at first hand on the streets of Kharkow in the Ukraine.