THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 479in the files; they kept the files hidden behind the stifling walls of the Censorship; and they
never had the nerve to make their privileges legal. As one of their number was forced to
admit, they were agents working 'in a foreign environment'; and in their heart of hearts,
they knew it. It must have put a monumental strain on their nerves.^68
For in practice, the design of the Communist Party-State flouted every ideal
which Communists were supposed to cherish.
The origin of the word, nomenklatura, is not without interest. According to
the Great Polish Encyclopaedia, a nomenclator was: 'a slave in ancient Rome..
. who had the duty to remind his master of persons with whom to exchange
greetings... [and] particularly important in office-hunting in the Republican
period ...' In more modern Polish usage, it was a Latin term referring to the lists
of named properties of the great feudal magnate, and by extension to the
tenants who possessed those properties. Here one can see the true cultural
ancestry of Communist society. Anything further removed from socialism, as
the rest of the world imagined it, would be hard to conceive. The Party bosses
treated the state as their private property, in the manner of medieval barons; and
they treated the common citizens as the chattels of their fief. The gulf between
the ruling elite and the masses was wide. The existence of the 'two nations' was
a reality. In this light, one must recognise the overpowering sense of helpless
dependence which ordinary men and women felt towards the communist state
and its Party bosses.
In all the main sectors of employment, the communist state was a monopoly employer.
It owned all production enterprises, all services, all transport, all the administrative
offices. What was worse, the same Party bosses who ran the places of employment also
controlled the provision of housing and education: the pension and insurance schemes
and other social services; the police, who supervised obligatory registration; and the
courts, where in theory any doubtful cases could be tried. Against this massive concen-
tration of social power, the individual worker had little chance of self-defence. In the bad
old days before the War, when evil squires and black-hearted mill owners exercised sim-
ilar monopolies, the disheartened worker could at least move on, and seek employment
elsewhere. Under the Communists, he did not even possess that option. For in the next
town, in the next province, he would find the same Party organization, the same Party-
run unions, the same Militia keeping the same sort of records of domicile, employment,
and offences. In short, he had to bend his neck to the Party authorities at every turn, or
risk being deprived, not just of his livelihood, but of all other social benefits. For cross-
ing his foreman, or displeasing his director, he and his family could be turned into virtual
outlaws overnight. Once he was 'handed his cards', or as the Polish exptession has it,
given his wilczy bilet, his 'wolf's ticket'; he was free to roam the woods like a hunted ani-
mal. He was a pariah. The number of occupations open to self-employment in Poland
was extremely limited. There were a few specialized craftsmen - such as watchmakers
or car mechanics; there were a few retail outlets, such as small private restaurants and
souvenir stalls; there were private artists - writers, painters, sculptors, musicians; and
there were the famous badylarze or 'market gardeners' who often became ostentatiously
prosperous. Apart from that, if one sought independence, one had little choice but to
enter holy orders or to start farming. Yet even on his own farm, the peasant lived at the