The Development Trajectory of Communism in Poland

Charting the life and writings of Wadysaw Biekowski, a leading politician and writer in communist Poland and sometime right hand man and ideologue of the Polish leader Wadysaw Gomuka, this book outlines the shifts in the nature of communism in Poland throughout the period of communist rule. It considers the shaping of Biekowskis ideas in eastern Poland, later occupied by the Soviet Union, during the economic depression, the development of his great hopes for socialist socio-economic transformation as the right way forward, and his and Gomukas attempts to enact peoples democracy and socialist humanism in the period 1945 to 1948, attempts which failed, Stalinist repression coming to the fore instead. The book further discusses Biekowskis role as a minister in the period following Stalins death, when Biekowski was a leading revisionist, warning of the dangers of the petrification of the system, and to explain how with a sense of shattered hopes he resigned from power and became a dissident, publicly critical of the regime. The book concludes by examining Biekowskis writings in post-communist times when, now just an observer, he continued to reflect on and write about the future of socialism. Overall, the book demonstrates that communism in Eastern Europe was flexible and adaptable, and not rigidly monolithic as it is often portrayed. The book will be of interest to academics and scholars interested in the history of communism and Europe.