Fear Management: Foreign Threats in the Post-War Polish Propaganda

390 Pages·2019·19.267 MB·English

by  Bruno Kaminski

Fear Management
GESCHICHTE - ERINNERUNG – POLITIK
STUDIES IN HISTORY, MEMORY AND POLITICS

Herausgegeben von / Edited by Anna Wolff-Pow ska & Piotr Forecki

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Bd./Vol. 25
GESCHICHTE - ERINNERUNG – POLITIK Bruno Kami ski

STUDIES IN HISTORY, MEMORY AND POLITICS
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Herausgegeben von / Edited by Anna Wolff-Pow ska & Piotr Forecki

ę

Fear Management
Bd./Vol. 25
Foreign Threats in the Post-War Polish Propaganda.

The Influence and the Reception of the Communist Media

(1944-1956)
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in
the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic
data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
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A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for
at the Library of Congress.

This book is based on the EUI Ph.D. thesis written in the History and
Civilization Department and defended in 2016. It was published with a
financial subsidy from the European University Institute, Florence.
Ouvrage publié avec le concours de l'Institut Universitaire Européen.

Cover image: Executed Man, Execution with a Gestapo Man; 1949; oil; canvas;
120 x 90 cm; Private Collection / © Andrzej Wroblewski Foundation /
www.andrzejwroblewski.pl. Courtesy of Andrzej Wroblewski Foundation
ISSN 2191-3528
ISBN 978-3-631-76341-4 (Print) ∙ E-ISBN 978-3-631-79066-3 (E-PDF)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-79067-0 (EPUB) ∙ E-ISBN 978-3-631-79068-7 (MOBI)
DOI 10.3726/b15648
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Berlin 2019
All rights reserved.
Peter Lang –Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙
Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any
utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to
prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions,
translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in
electronic retrieval systems.
This publication has been peer reviewed.
www.peterlang.com
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in Preface

the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic
data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data East Europeans had an awful manner to justify everything with their – tough
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for as it was – history. They explained their bon ton failings and their poverty with
at the Library of Congress. numerous wars and occupations; their nervousness – with fear they experienced.
Yet, it is far from truth that the Western world was not familiar with fear and anx-
This book is based on the EUI Ph.D. thesis written in the History and iety, even looking at a short perspective of a postwar reality. The 1973 oil crisis
Civilization Department and defended in 2016. It was published with a resulted in an anxiety unknown for 30 years. The Exxon Valdez oil spill alerted
financial subsidy from the European University Institute, Florence. people to the problem of a natural environment protection. The HIV epidemic of
Ouvrage publié avec le concours de l'Institut Universitaire Européen. the 1980s reminded of fear of the infectious diseases. In his Risk Society Ulrich
Beck pointed at new threats: malfunctions of nuclear power plant, unhealthy food

or a global warming. Western societies were living in fear of an atomic conflict. In
France and Switzerland there are single family houses with tiny shelters serving
today in most cases as junk cubbies or wine storage. There is a broad literature

dealing with this fear condition of the second half of the twentieth century.
And yet traumas of Eastern Europeans were different. I would like to avoid
falling into megalomania by praising ‘our’ suffering. Still, if one wants to under-
Cover image: Executed Man, Execution with a Gestapo Man; 1949; oil; canvas;
stand inhabitants of this part of Europe, their fear must be properly comprehended.
120 x 90 cm; Private Collection / © Andrzej Wroblewski Foundation /
Their dread was carried like an old suitcase, the one hard to shut. Once you know
www.andrzejwroblewski.pl. Courtesy of Andrzej Wroblewski Foundation
its content, you will understand the history of this part of Europe. Just like in the
ISSN 2191-3528 principle: tell me what you are afraid of, and I will tell you who you are.
ISBN 978-3-631-76341-4 (Print) ∙ E-ISBN 978-3-631-79066-3 (E-PDF) Fear in communist countries had an incredible number of variants, it shimmered
E-ISBN 978-3-631-79067-0 (EPUB) ∙ E-ISBN 978-3-631-79068-7 (MOBI) with multiple shades. In fact it was one of the very few things that there was no
DOI 10.3726/b15648 shortage of in the mid-twentieth century. Here one could be easily imprisoned for
listening to the Radio Free Europe. Probably only in Poland after announcing the
© Peter Lang GmbH
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan people started drying bread and preparing food
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
reserves in case of war. Possibly only Polish, Czech or Hungarian children were
Berlin 2019
writing in their letters after Stalin’s death, that they were scared. One of the girls
All rights reserved.
living in a boarding school in Olsztyn wrote to her father in March 1953:
Peter Lang –Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙
Joseph Stalin passed away and they said in a radio that there will be a war, Daddy. Please
Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien
Daddy, I need you Daddy to take me away from this place, all other girls had already
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any packed themselves, so did I because I am terrified, it will be better once we all are back
utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without home […] I am afraid that it might all start in few months, I cannot sleep in the night,
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to I am terribly worried.
prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions,
Fear was getting into everywhere, into each crack. At the same time it was hard to
translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in
control, it manifested itself in the instinctive reactions. In Poland the two abrupt
electronic retrieval systems.
and unexpected money exchanges were organised in 1945 and 1950. Authorities
This publication has been peer reviewed. intended to terminate a monetary overhang and reduce the purchasing power of
the society. The consequences were extremely severe and included also losses in
www.peterlang.com private money located in banks. As a result, in the next 30 years Poles reacted
to the information on a possible money exchange by purchasing gold, dollars
6 Preface
and other durable goods. Similar panic reactions ensued when rumours about
price rises were spreading. The most spectacular increase of prices that started in
January 1953 initiated the hysteria of many following rises which resulted in the
outbreaks of social discontent in December 1970, in June 1976 and in July – August
1980. The ‘shortage economy’, price rises and long lines in front of the stores were
among the origins of the downfall of the communist system in Poland. One cannot
understand the contemporary reality and emotions of Poles without taking into
consideration the anxiety or even fear arising from the price increases. Together
with other factors fear generated such attitudes as a panic shopping of goods like
sugar, flour and other ‘valuable’ products (in case stores run short of them, in case
they are more expensive soon). A shortage economy and the fear of price rises
affected the everyday culture and inter-personal relations. Sometimes one hears
the claim that one thing that people at the Vistula, Vltava or Spree were not afraid
of was unemployment, the typical concern of the inhabitants of the Western world.
That is not truth. In People’s Poland there were four waves of laying-off between
1954 and 1956, 1960 and 1961, 1969 and 1970 and finally in 1980. Fear of unemploy-
ment contributed to the emotional climate.
Fear has always been a tool of power. In People’s Poland the fear apparatus was
constantly developed. It consisted of the political police, an army plus persecutor’s
and court’s offices. Soon the words ‘Bezpieczeństwo’ (security) and ‘Bezpieka’
(short for Office of Public Security and later Security Service) became synonyms of
insecurity. In the Stalinist Poland such a joke was circulated: 
– Why did you escape from Poland?
– Because of a milkman. Every morning at dawn he was knocking at my door and
every morning he was saying: ‘Milkman!’. And I was still wondering: what if
today this is not a milkman?
Fear management was obviously not invented by Joseph Stalin. Making use of
negative emotions is a part of the Western political culture as well. Although the
communists did not invent the wheel, following the Marxist maxim that quan-
tity turns into quality, they outnumbered each previously known record in the
amount of victims of their terror. According to Michał Heller Bolsheviks were first
in turning fear into a tool of a human consciousness processing.
It was supposed to be the other way around. Communist ideologists promised
that at the end of a day the upcoming full equality will eradicate the fear of those
standing above in the hierarchy. The proverbial Leninist ‘kitchen maid in power’
was supposed to symbolize the beginning of an era of the absolute egalitarianism
and the end of the fear policy. The ‘contradiction of progress’ however was that to
reach the common equality, first ‘backward social classes’ had to be defeated. This
way the political fear became an immanent part of the public sphere in the com-
munist states. It laid the foundations for the policy conducted by the communists.
The so-called ‘people’s power’ – the communists – tended to make Poles afraid.
At first – afraid of the Anglo-Saxon imperialists, then of the German revisionists,
Zionist 5th column and ‘Kuroń and Michnik walking on the CIA’s leash’. In June
Preface 7
1982 during the meeting of the communist Politburo Wojciech Jaruzelski commis-
sioned the ‘serious journalists and publicists’ to exhibit ‘the entire panorama
of fear’.
The creation of the atmosphere of fear featuring Germans and their alleged
‘return’ lasted until 1970 and made lives of the inhabitants of western and northern
Poland (former German territory) feel provisional. People refrained from reno-
vating their houses and developing agriculture, they were afraid of laying down
their roots.
In his Fear Management Bruno Kamiński reaches to the origins of this story.
Based on a huge selection of sources this analytical study exhibits how in the first
15 postwar years Poles were threatened with the Western world. In the beginning,
the Germans were chosen to play the role of the main enemy, dethroned later by
the Americans. At the same time, the author proves that fear next to nationalism
and ethnic hostility developed into one of the pillars legitimising the communist
system.
Importantly however, the communist propaganda attempting to haunt Poles by
an American imperialism miserably failed. The leap across the ocean remained one
the biggest Polish dreams. On the other hand, this fear-propelled hostility turned
Poles somewhat inward, had an impact on their attitudes towards the world,
towards other nations and cultures. In the end, propaganda helped the communist
party create a xenophobic and tribal rather than civic national community, closed
off from the world and often simply hostile towards it.
University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Science
Marcin Zaremba