Działania organów administracji gospodarczej Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej – wybrane zagadnienia

The article presents the basic assumptions of the economic administration system in the Polish People’s Republic, including the functioning of national councils in a centralized economy. The legal forms of action used by economic administration bodies and their impact on the economy are characterized. Attention is also paid to state-owned enterprises, which in the communist state constituted a kind of foundation for the economic system. In addition, there is a reference to economic planning, which contributed to the long-term poor economic condition of the state.

Podróże Jarosława Iwaszkiewicza w kontekście etnokulturowym (dyskurs polsko-rosyjski). Na materiale „Dzienników” pisarza

Travels were an important part of Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s life. One of the destinations he chose was the Soviet Union. These trips were usually of an official character, and less often – private. The writer meticulously noted down his impressions in his private Dzienniki [Diaries], and sometimes shared them with the Polish reader in columns and newspaper articles. The author of Panny z Wilka [The Maids from Wilko] masterfully immortalised the realities prevailing in the Soviet Union. Iwaszkiewicz’s view of Russia, and St Petersburg in particular, is not the account of an ordinary tourist, because the writer perceived the world through the prism of literature, constantly confronting reality with literary images. This makes Dzienniki extremely interesting material for analysis. This article takes a journey across Russia, in the footsteps of Iwaszkiewicz, focuses on literary allusions, admiration of nature and architecture, and pays special attention to the absurdities of the communist state.

Bogusław Bakuła’s No Dependencies, the History and Analysis of the Polish Independent Literary and Cultural Movement Between 1976 and 1989

The author’s current work encompasses the history of the independent literature and culture of Poland between 1976-1989, it studies the phenomena and trends in literature, journalism and the humanities, that existed in independent circulation in Poland in spite of the widespread censorship supported by the communist state. Focuses on the reality contained in the works of independent authors, and shows the attitude towards history in essays and other literary works. The book presents also the oppositional self reflection to truth, identity and creative processes.

Sądowoadministracyjna kontrola przyjęć na studia w PRL

The scope of judicial review regarding the application of administrative law in the authoritarian Polish People’s Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa — PRL) was limited. The reason for this is obvious: resolving disputes between executive power (public administration) and individuals in PRL by courts functioning in honest and effective way would be an “obstruction” of the tasks executed by the communist state. The Supreme Administrative Court was reactivated in the last stage of PRL’s functioning in 1980, following the model of interwar tradition. The paper offers an analysis of judicial-administrative review in PRL in the field of university admissions. Organization and functioning of the authoritarian PRL exerted an influence on the way judicial review of public administration operated. Administrative justice reactivated in 1980 was submitted to organizational and jurisdictional limitations, as the created Supreme Administrative Court was a one-instance institution with limited jurisdiction, filled with only nine judges. Still, reactivating administrative justice began the process of restoring the proper place for freedoms and individual rights against the state, including the right to attend higher education schools. The analysis of the chosen case has allowed to identify some significant interconnected processes and phenomena in the judicial-administrative review in the declining stage of PRL within the whole domain of administrative law. One example is public administration striving for avoiding judicial review by taking a position that settlement of an administrative matter by the university is not an administrative decision. Another example is regulation of individual freedoms and rights by a multi-layered unstable system of legal sources, including: law on higher education, order of the Minister for Science, Higher Education and Technology, and non-published guidelines from the Minister of Health and Social Welfare of 21 May 1981 on admission principles and procedure of full-time studies at medical universities.

Book Review: Jelena Subotić, Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019.

In 2010, Claus Leggewie, a German professor of Political Science, tried to define what he called “the seven circles of European memory”, common memories shared, in theory, by all Europeans: - European unification as a success story which, however, has had little impact on European self-confidence; - the notion of Europe as a continent of immigrants; - European colonialism and colonial massacres, such as the Herero massacre, as forerunners of the Holocaust; - War and wartime memories, specially about World Wars I and II; - Population transfers and ethnic cleansings as pan-European traumas (for example, the Armenian genocide or the Ukranian Holodomor); - Soviet communism; - The Shoah as Europe’s negative founding myth. At that time, he saw the possible problems caused by the imposition of the Holocaust as “the matrix for dealing with communist state crimes against humanity across the whole of Eastern Europe” (Leggewie 4), which might lead “these nations to exploit this consensus [Eastern European countries having been victims of the Soviet empire] in order to relativize or conceal their participation in the murder of the Jews” (Leggewie 5).

A Clash of Civilizations? Preferences for Religious Political Leaders in 86 Nations

Huntington claimed that today’s major conflicts are most likely to erupt between religiously defined ‘civilizations,’ in particular between Christianity and Islam. Using World Values Surveys from 86 nations, we examine differences between Christians and Muslims in preferences for religious political leaders. The results suggest a marked difference between Muslims and Christians in attitudes toward religious politicians, with Muslims more favorable by 20 points out of 100. Adjusting for devoutness and education (at the individual level), and degree of government corruption and status as a formerly Communist state (at the national level) accounts for most of the difference. Little support is found for the clash-of-civilizations hypothesis. Instead we find a clash of individual beliefs—between the devout and the secular—and enduring differences between the more developed and the less developed world accounts for almost all of the difference between Islam and Christianity with regards to preferences for religious political leaders.

Communist State Administrative Structures

Communist models of state administration constitute a type or “family” whose core logic and design differ fundamentally from Western standards of rule-bound, impartial, and transparent administration, at arm’s length from political control. The most significant feature of communist-type administration is the Communist Party’s aspiration to merge politics and administration in all spheres of society. The so-called nomenclature system of cadre appointment ensures that politically reliable administrators occupy the influential positions within state and local administration, the military and security sector, state-owned enterprises, associations, media, cultural life—and the Communist Party organization itself. The central nomenclature system branches out into new pyramids at lower levels, where local managers appoint cadre. The linchpin of this system is the personnel dossier, which collects the individual administrator’s political and professional evaluations and follows the individual throughout their career. A second distinguishing feature of communist administrative structures is their web-shaped complexity. Under the principle of democratic centralism, communist administration is shaped like a sheaf of hierarchical strings of command, which are all controlled from the center and monitor and influence each other. At each level, hierarchical steering takes precedence, but horizontal controls are encompassing. Administrative managers—including regional and local governors, company directors, media heads, and university chancellors—are appointed by and under their superiors’ command. Simultaneously, they are under supervision by regional and internal Communist Party organizations. A third key feature of the communist administrative model is the practice of wide-ranging secrecy. In communist administration, vital rules, decrees, and instructions can be secret, for the eyes of security-screened cadre only. For example, throughout history, the structure of nomenclature systems has been kept secret. Little is known about how they function. An important exception is the former East Germany, where historical research on many aspects of communist administration has made singular progress based on the archives, which were opened for research after democratization in 1989–1990.

The Utopian concept of free state in Gerald Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus: An anarchist study

The present research aims to explore the struggle of the marginalized community for a free nation, where individuals try to regain their culture. Gerald Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus has depicted their longing for survival and cultural liberty. Vizenor has tried to regain the voices of the Native people through trickster stories because these stories have a healing power. The analysis shows that Red-Indians in the late fifteen century were never uncivilized as portrayed by the Western historians and the protagonist resisted for the survival of their unique civilizations. The present research has highlighted that how anarchist spirit stimulated a nation to reclaim their lost culture and identity. Their resistance through anarchist principles leads them towards getting a free state, where every individual try to preserve their culture through trickster stories and moccasin games. The tribal people wanted to represent this state as an anarchist Communist state, where there will be no property and land theft. The people will be free from the burden of taxes and prisons. The study concludes with the suggestion to resist power with anarchist spirit of survivance. Future researches are suggested to focus on the theme of marginalization and its strategies in the present novel.

The World Communist Movement

The death of Stalin also led to a loosening of controls within the world communist movement. Strict subordination to Stalin gave way to a pluralistic relationship within the movement, whereby Moscow, while still the leader, allowed for an interplay of interests and greater consensus building among the communist parties to become the norm. This resulted —sooner in some places, later in others—in a variety of postures toward the world communist movement as led by Moscow: attempted withdrawal from the movement, straddling of several camps in world affairs, loose bloc discipline, schism, and abandonment of anti-imperialist struggle in favor of pragmatic foreign policies that sought to advance the national-security and economic interests of the communist state.

Building Socialism

After Stalin won the power struggle, he adopted a strategy for building socialism that entailed a frenzied pace of industrialization, city-building, collectivization of agriculture, state-building, and social transformation, accompanied by the vast use of revolutionary violence against the peasantry in particular, causing the deaths of over six million people. The rhetorical basis for both the scope and the pace of change was the claim that the national security of the Soviet state required the earliest possible construction of a communist state with the capacity to mobilize its population for war and defend itself militarily.