5 - Prosperity and political style in the second Poland, 1971–75

Summary

This is a modern state: powerful as a result of its social consciousness, authoritative and just. There is no struggle between conflicting interests and tendencies, there is no rule by a propertied minority over a labouring majority which could antagonise the nation … No divisions arise based on party, occupational or religious affiliation. A citizen's position in and the respect due to him by society are and should be determined exclusively by work, patriotic commitment and active service for the socialist fatherland. This can be the only standard used and must apply equally to everyone.

Edward Gierek, 30th anniversary of the founding of People's Poland, July 1974

The concern for greater democracy within the party, for freer discussion, more extensive social control and criticism from below – manifested in Gomufka's operative ideology of the late 1960s – can be regarded, as we have suggested, as the logical response of the rulers to the increasing political and economic stagnation affecting society at that time. Not only did official discourse confirm the leadership's awareness of the crisis implications of this stagnation; it also identified the front on which the crisis could be resolved. It was the working class which played ‘the decisive role’ in the socialist system; its posture at the time of the March 1968 disturbances had brought about the sound defeat of reactionary, liberal-bourgeois and revisionist elements within the country. And, in the end, its actions in the shipyards on the Baltic coast in December 1970 finally doomed the Gomuika administration.