The hub thought and the return of Poland to Earth Recovered should not be instrumentally utilized to improve the image of the People's Poland.
Without denying that in this period there were besides affirmative and in line with the interest of national processes, it is not worth looking at the sources of this thought in 1944-89. It is simply a historical lie, and at the same time a bear's favour is given to the restored Polish territory.
At the outset, it is worth arranging terminology. erstwhile referring to People's Poland, we mean the period in Poland's past after the German business and after the establishment of a fresh power within the limits set by the victorious planet War II power. The symbolic date is July 22, 1944, or the announcement of the PKWN Manifesto. In December 1989, this period ends with the restoration of the name of the Republic of Poland. It is worth noting that after 1944 it was valid until the introduction of the 1952 Constitution, while the word "Popular Poland" itself covers a broader timeframe than the formal existence of the Polish People's Republic (1952-1989).
On the another hand, erstwhile we talk about communism, we mention to concrete ideology, in our main assumptions of revolutionary and protest-based reality, through a extremist change in ownership relations. It is worth noting that despite theoretically noble assumptions ("a leap into the kingdom of freedom"), in practice it required thousands of lives, if not millions. It is so difficult, knowing this, not to be an anti-communist – whether as a rightist or leftist. In modern Poland, the concept of anti-communism has lost its first meaning, due to the fact that it is identified with rusophobia or with a complete negation of everything that happened during the period of People's Poland. However, this conceptual chaos does not contradict the fact that anti-communism is simply the attitude of a reasonable man, who is for rational (and moral) reasons in opposition to the ideology and practice of communism.
Studies presented by the prof. Andrzej Saxon In the meantime, they uncover a very interesting fact about modern Earths recovered. Well, Earths recovered in their own way do not be in a sociological sense. It is impossible to separate this area as a full from the remainder of the country in terms of different criteria, which can be varied regardless of whether we are talking about the "old Poland" areas or the lands annexed after the war. The affiliation of a peculiar territory to the OA does not prejudge virtually anything that would make it possible to establish the distinctness of the post-German territory. This would be confirmed – as Dr. Piskorski rightly points out in the text entitled The hub thought cannot be anti-communist – the wealth and diversity of various parts of our homeland. Not only the Podkarpacie and Western Pomerania are different from each other, but besides the individual areas of the zoo among themselves.
The secularization of the remainder of the country is more advanced in the Recovered Lands, which in this respect actually affects their separateness. However, this process is becoming more and more broad and becomes nationwide, hence regional differences are blurring anyway. However, erstwhile Dr. Piskorski asks “is it wrong”, the answer is obvious, even due to the conventional national-forming function of Catholicism. What is the alternative? The movements of the population and later societies typically post-migration on the Recovered Lands did not foster rooting, and thus the consolidation of values related to the practice of faith, as was the case in “old Poland”. This is an nonsubjective fact which Dr. Piskorski misjudges in the politics of the Holy See, as if it were a prejudice of little commitment to practicing religion. Yet, it was at most 1 of many, and it was not a prime origin in the face of local communities. Moreover, as we read, “in June 1972 [...] the period of temporaryity of the Polish church structures for the alleged [yes in oryg] ended. – M.S.] Recovered Lands”, writes Prof. Ryszard Gmyz (Episcopate to the integrity of Polish lands after planet War II. Selected problems from fresh literature and sources, 2020). So there was adequate time for the Polish People's Republic to get utilized to accepting the Western border of Poland by the Holy See.
Criticism of statues of figures counted among the alleged soldiers cursed on recovered lands is besides not affected. In this way Dr. Piskorski differentiates Earths Recovered and "old Poland", as if they were 2 different countries worthy of another types of memory. It is rather apparent that soldiers are cursed or are intended to be commemorated in various parts of the country as a manifestation of a nationwide myth. “Did they, as people questioning the full post-war order, fight in any way for the Polishness of these cities?” Dr. Piskorski asks. However, at least 1 of the demands of the National Armed Forces, and earlier the Lizard Union or the National Military Organization, was the annexation of East Prussia in its entirety to Poland and the support of the western border against Oder and Nysa Lusatia. Similarly, the Western border of the Republic saw the National Military Unity. Soldiers cursed in the substance of Earth Recovered from the beginning stood on the right side.
However, it was the communists who mostly lost the achievements of Western Polish nationalists' thoughts, which he concluded in monographs Eastern Prussia in Polish Political thought 1864-1945Prof. Wojciech Wrzesiński (nota bene, associate of the PZPR since 1962). The People's Poland was simply the will of victorious powers created within certain limits, and the negation of post-war order in the country by the cursed soldiers was not due to the desire to challenge the fresh western border, and surely not to “stand on the side of Werwolfu”, as Dr. Piskorski writes. This is pure malice and dishonesty towards people who, despite the conflict doomed to defeat, were committed to Poland no little than soldiers of the Polish Army formed in the USSR. Indeed, there were a number of another reasons for treating post-war order in Poland (at least before Stalinism in 1948) as – incomparably little severe than German, but nevertheless – occupation. The doctrinal “anti-coccultism” divides the blood of the Polish soldier into a better and worse 1 to a lesser degree than idiotic “anti-communism” denying Polish soldiers of the Polish Army in the East.
Furthermore, even a critical look at the People's Poland does not lead to the conclusion that neoliberalism was the only way of improvement for the country after 1989, and that is another unauthorised conclusion from Dr. Piskorski's text. "Formations considered to be right-wing", described by the Author, and which are liable for the socio-economic degradation of, among others, post-PGR areas, are not heroes of their affair for the nationalists – even if they are to be critical of People's Poland. This issue is far from zero-one, and after all, the construction in the erstwhile strategy of the Polish manufacture is just 1 of those things that should be considered successful even from the position of the nationalist, endek, right-winger or simply an intellectually honest and intelligent man.
Finally, Dr. Piskorski powerfully overestimates the origin of local historical memory in making political choices by residents of Recovered Earth. The neoliberal "urawniłowka" of the 3rd Polish Republic does not put Poles before an alternative: the wandering "anti-communism" of the right vs. an nonsubjective view of the People's Poland and thus strengthening its identity. The aim of the creators of the III Polish task is to invent Poles as specified and the success of this operation can be observed on the Recovered Lands, where cosmopolitan liberal formations gain the top support. It was just easier there, that we are dealing with post-immigration societies, more susceptible to liberal propaganda, although – what is worth noting – no little connected to local homelands than the inhabitants of “old Poland”. It is actual – as the author writes – that "the hub think of the 21st century will either objectively measure the period and achievements of the Polish People's Republic, or it will not be at all", but this conclusion is formulated by Dr. Piskorski in the form of a judgement going far besides far. The very thought of the hub or the western 1 is much older than the People's Poland, and the Polishness that existed for centuries on the present Recovered Lands is the national story that can be well and without appeals until 1944-89 in our history. As a nation on the Odra, Nysa and the Baltic we were, we are and – possibly – we will inactive be longer than there was a People's Poland. We were besides present there many centuries earlier. So it is not that without the People's Poland past of Western and Northern lands is simply a black hole. We look objectively at this period in our history, but let us besides not refuse to give fair appreciation to the recovered lands and all those who sincerely wanted them to return to Poland. Most of them were anti-communists and – which may be a shock for any – did not want to give Wrocław or Szczecin to the Germans for this reason.
Marcin Skalski
Think Poland, No. 51-52 (21-28.12.2025)
