From "Socialist” to Postmodern Pluralism in Poland

Half a century ago communist or socialist Poland had a totalitarian regime that eliminated all forms of political opposition and tried to impose a totalist ideology by monocentric but hardly monolithic power. Pursuing control of society by means of terror and a fully developed secret police, it was obsessed by the superior idea of unity. It is worth recalling that the key concept of communist ideology in Poland in the years prior to 1980 was "the moral-political unity of the nation." It is also important, however, to see that the regime began to loosen its strictly totalitarian traits relatively early, soon after 1955, evolving gradually towards an authoritarian rule marked by limited, lame, or "socialist" pluralism. Classifying Polish socialism under the rubric of authoritarian regimes has a great number of opponents mainly among the radical and stubbornly anticommunist right in Poland, who argue that the regime in spite of its evolution was totalitarian to the very end. [...]