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Poland The Working Classes
In the years following World War II, the composition of
the
Polish working classes changed significantly. Agriculture,
which
underwent several major changes in government policy
during this
period, consistently lost stature as an occupation and as
a lifestyle in competition with expanded urban industrial
opportunities. The postwar rural exodus left an aging farm
population, split apart the traditional multigenerational
families upon which rural society had been based, and
fragmented
landholdings into inefficient plots. In the same period,
the
augmented Polish industrial work force struggled to
achieve the
social gains promised in Marxist-Leninist ideology. In the
early
days, the central planning system yielded impressive gains
in the
education level and living standards of many industrial
workers.
Later in the communist era, this group made less tangible
gains
in social status and began actively opposing the
regressive
government policies that prevented its further progress.
In the
early postcommunist era, industrial workers faced high
unemployment as privatization and the drive for efficiency
restructured their enterprises. By the early 1980s, the
working
population reached a stable proportion of 40 percent in
industry,
30 percent in agriculture, and 30 percent in the service
sector
(which, like industry, had tripled in size in the postwar
era).
Data as of October 1992
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