God’s Playground. A History of Poland, Vol. 2. 1795 to the Present

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 467 asserted the right of the USSR to oppose the secession of its allies from the Soviet Bloc, and the Hel ...

468 POLSKA LUDOWA contrived to attend, and to be late for, both. School-children, sent on an obliga- tory free excursion to the ...

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 469 Hungarian flourish. One addressed an academic as Fanie Profesorze\ (Sir Professor), a Party official a ...

470 POLSKA LUDOWA commentators believed that Poland's unique historical development con- demned her to such eternal contradictio ...

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 471 Poland of Fiat (i2.6p) cars, Jones cranes, Ley land engines, Berliet buses, Grundig electronics, and m ...

POLSKA LUDOWA impasse. In order to pay its steeply rising foreign debt, whose interest alone con- sumed over half of export in ...

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 473 things were possible; but a liberal, neutral, and popular regime was not really on the cards.^65 The W ...

474 POLSKA LUDOWA and 1976. A scenario in which the Militia lost control of a popular outburst against repressive measures, and ...

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 475 ture of anticipation and apprehension. No Pole, Catholic or Communist, could fail to take pride in the ...

476 POLSKA LUDOWA describe the essential nature of the beast. Especially after 1956, when Stalinism was overthrown and a less br ...

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 477 sole access to the fixed list of the most influential and remunerative appointments - the nomenklatura ...

478 POLSKA LUDOWA currency, and most lucratively, the ability to exact favours with impunity. According to rules published in th ...

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 479 in the files; they kept the files hidden behind the stifling walls of the Censorship; and they never h ...

480 POLSKA LUDOWA mercy of the state land registrar, the state price commission, the state taxman, the man- ager of the state-ru ...

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 481 said one thing and the State the other; where one's grandmother invariably contradicted one's teacher; ...

24 SOLIDARNOSC: The Solidarity Decade During the ten years which separated the summer of 1980 from the autumn of 1990, Poland ex ...

THE SOLIDARITY DECADE 483 ruling Party, lost all control. The workers were not just demanding pay rises in line with the cost of ...

484 SOLIDARNOSC as to everyone else. So Walesa was challenging the most sacred myth which underpinned not merely the People's Re ...

THE SOLIDARITY DECADE 485 Shortly after eleven the government team arrives for the last time... Once again they are led through ...

486 SOLIDARNOSC Republic. Walesa, like the old Sarmatian nobleman whom he so uncannily resembled, seems to have grasped instinct ...