Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Several years after the war, a revolution started in the Polish agriculture - even though until 1948, the authorities claimed that farms in Poland would not be collectivized. The new stage meant that things accelerated quickly. Central party authorities determined the number of cooperatives to be established per year in a top-down manner. The Poznań region was considered particularly opposed to the system, hence the pressure to establish cooperative farms was particularly intense. The quick pace of the operation and accountability of the party officials for its results meant that they often resorted to prohibited methods of forcing resistant individuals to enter into cooperatives. Though party guidelines emphasized that the process was voluntary, and formally banned any form of pressure, various forms of power abuse were tolerated in practice. Only when the situation rapidly escalated into scandals, the authorities stigmatized the illegal methods. However, after a while, the situation returned to normal, and the anomalies reoccurred. The problem was that the principles of the operation were flawed. One of the party activists claimed that establishing cooperatives according to the guidelines would have taken 200 years to complete. Farmers had to be coerced, otherwise they would never have joined cooperatives. Most cooperative farms established this way collapsed in 1956.

Systemic transformation in Poland after the Second World War led to deep transformations within the economy. It did not, however, change the way people thought. Despite the chaos of the post-war period, in which all the negative features shaped in the period of occupation manifested themselves, it seemed that the conceptual leaders of the Polish political and economic life would create new quality. However, it soon turned out that old habits die hard and the system created by communists opened a field for many abuses. This was accompanied by a sense of impunity, as the most prominent personalities in a given region were also involved in economic scandals. All this resulted in the creation of "cliques" in which both prominent Party activists and people put by the Party in high positions (usually also members of the Polish United Workers' Party, PUWP) played important roles. On the one hand, after 1956, surveillance by the Security Office (UB) or Security Services (SB) was not that strict anymore, and on the other, the so-called "private initiative" started to develop fast – therefore the more "entrepreneurial" individuals started to exploit the situation and gain wealth. Abusing one's position to organize large-scale thefts was considered relatively normal. This happened in various forms: sometimes directly, but more often by supporting or even organizing private projects with the use of the national, though unsupervised, supply of raw materials or products. This way, the Party members grew richer at the expense of the companies they worked for. This business was relatively widely tolerated by ordinary citizens, who saw it as an excuse to also "organize" goods individually for their own purposes in the companies which employed them. This common belief that "everybody steals" allowed people to justify their own dishonesty. Any attempts to fight this problem failed to produce satisfactory results. The diagnosis, even if correct, had to face reality, in which the pursuit of a better quality of life by the Party elites collided with the officially promoted ascetic lifestyles of the "ideological communists", who, like Władysław Gomułka, did not understood the new times.

Abstract
Systemic transformation in Poland after the Second World War led to deep transformations within the economy. It did not, however, change the way people thought. Despite the chaos of the post-war period, in which all the negative features shaped in the period of occupation manifested themselves, it seemed that the conceptual leaders of the Polish political and economic life would create new quality. However, it soon turned out that old habits die hard and the system created by communists opened a field for many abuses. This was accompanied by a sense of impunity, as the most prominent personalities in a given region were also involved in economic scandals. All this resulted in the creation of "cliques" in which both prominent Party activists and people put by the Party in high positions (usually also members of the Polish United Workers' Party, PUWP) played important roles. On the one hand, after 1956, surveillance by the Security Office (UB) or Security Services (SB) was not that strict anymore, and on the other, the so-called "private initiative" started to develop fast – therefore the more "entrepreneurial" individuals started to exploit the situation and gain wealth. Abusing one's position to organize large-scale thefts was considered relatively normal. This happened in various forms: sometimes directly, but more often by supporting or even organizing private projects with the use of the national, though unsupervised, supply of raw materials or products. This way, the Party members grew richer at the expense of the companies they worked for. This business was relatively widely tolerated by ordinary citizens, who saw it as an excuse to also "organize" goods individually for their own purposes in the companies which employed them. This common belief that "everybody steals" allowed people to justify their own dishonesty. Any attempts to fight this problem failed to produce satisfactory results. The diagnosis, even if correct, had to face reality, in which the pursuit of a better quality of life by the Party elites collided with the officially promoted ascetic lifestyles of the "ideological communists", who, like Władysław Gomułka, did not understood the new times.

Am 28. Juni 1956 legten die Arbeiter der Posener Betriebe ihre Arbeit nieder und gingen auf die Straßen der Stadt. Der Grund für den Streik war die wirtschaftliche Situation im Land. Neben ökonomischen Forderungen erschienen auch politische Losungen: man forderte die Liberalisierung des öffentlichen Lebens und die Durchführung freier Parlamentswahlen. Den Streikenden schlossen sich einfache Bürger Posens an. Es wird geschätzt, dass an der Demonstration ca. 100 000 Personen teilgenommen haben. Zeuge dieser Ereignise war eine zahlreiche Gruppe von Ausländern, die in der Stadt als Teilnehmer an der Posener Internationalen Messe verweilten. Eben diese haben nach Westeuropa die Nachrichten darüber gebracht, was sich hinter dem "eisernen Vorhang" ereignet hatte. Die Demonstranten betraten die Gebäude der Partei-, Staats- und Milizbehördern, ohne dort Schäden anzurichten. Auf der Suche nach den angeblich verhafteten Vertretern der Arbeiter, die als Delegierte mit den Behördern verhandeln sollten, befreiten die Demonstranten die Gefangenen aus dem Stadtgefängnis in der Młyńska Straße, und demolierten anschließend die Gebäude des Gerichts und der Staatsanwaltschaft. Tragische Szenen spielten sich vor dem Sitz des Wojewodschaftsamts für Öffentliche Sicherheit in Posen ab: die Funktionäre dieses Amts feuerten, aus Angst davor, dass die Demonstranten ihr Gebäude stürmen würden, die ersten Schüsse auf die Protestierenden ab. Die Demonstranten besorgten daraufhin Waffen und es begann eine Schlacht, die noch am folgenden Tag andauerte. Es kamen dabei einige Dutzend Personen ums Leben. Diese Ereignisse in Posen werden jetzt u.a. als Posener Aufstand – Juni 1956 bezeichnet.