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Poland Social Relationships
In the forty-five years of their rule, the communists
built a
monocentric society whose social and political fabric was
dominated by a new elite of loyal government
functionaries. In
the 1950s, social institutions such as political groups,
voluntary organizations, youth and professional
organizations,
and community associations lost their autonomy and were
forced
into a hierarchical state-controlled network. Only the
Polish
Catholic Church retained some degree of independence
during this
period
(see Religion
, this ch.). At the same time,
however,
smaller groups, initially isolated and fragmented,
developed
informal, pragmatic networks for economic supply,
mediation of
interests, and expression of antiestablishment views. Such
groups
functioned both within state-sanctioned institutions and
among
families, groups of friends, and small communities. In
this
context, dojscie (informal access to useful
connections)
was the means by which ordinary citizens remained above
subsistence level.
The family, the traditional center of Polish social
life,
assumed a vital role in this informal system. In this
respect,
everyday urban life assumed some characteristics of
traditional
rural life. For both professional and working classes,
extended
families and circles of friends helped when a family or
individual was not self-sufficient. Private exchange
arrangements
eased the chronic scarcities of the official supply system
(see Reform Failure in the 1980s
, ch. 3). Especially important
within
the family structure were parental support of grown
children
until they became self-sufficient and care by the children
for
their aging parents and grandparents. In the economic
slump of
the 1980s, urban food shortages often were alleviated by
exchanges with rural relatives.
The inventive and independent networking process formed
a
distinct tier within Polish society. Seen by its
participants as
the repository of Polish nationhood and tradition, the
world of
dojscie increasingly contrasted with the
inefficient,
rigid, invasive, and corrupt state system. The emergence
of
Solidarity was a first step toward restoring the variety
of
social structures and independent cultural activities
present in
interwar Poland. In 1980 the phenomenon of public figures
rising
to tell the truth about Poland's problems began to break
the wall
between private and public morality, although the
subsequent
declaration of martial law temporarily dampened its effect
(see The Birth of Solidarity
, ch. 1).
The second tier involved illegal and quasi-legal
actions as
well as the pragmatic rearrangement of social
relationships.
Especially in the 1980s, the relationships between work
performed
and official wages and between job qualification and
salary level
(which for "ideological" reasons was higher for many
classes of
unskilled workers) were objects of general ridicule in
Polish
society. Under these circumstances, Poles increasingly saw
the
second tier, rather than the official economy, as the more
rewarding investment of their initiative and
responsibility. By
the 1980s, this allocation of energy led some sociologists
to
argue that the second tier was necessary in order for
communist
societies such as Poland's to function.
The end of communism brought no rapid change in social
attitudes. In the early postcommunist period, many Poles
retained
a deep-seated cynicism toward a state long perceived as an
untrustworthy privileged elite. Direct and indirect
stealing from
such a state was at worst an amoral act that could never
match
the hypocrisy and corruption of high authorities who
claimed to
govern in the name of all the Polish people. But society's
habit
of separating "us" from "them" became a major obstacle to
enlisting widespread public cooperation and sacrifice for
largescale economic and political reform. Between October 1990
and
January 1992, public confidence in the national government
declined from 69 percent to 27 percent, according to a
national
poll.
Data as of October 1992
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