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„Skrywana potęga”. Gospodarka finansowa Komitetu Wojewódzkiego Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej w Gdańsku. Od zorganizowania komitetu do reformy finansów partyjnych w październiku 1950 roku

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Żukowski M.

Zapiski Historyczne

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2012

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vol. 77

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issue 2

57-78

EN

The Polish United Workers’ Party was a mass political organization which controlled many aspects of social life in Poland. It tended to be a “superb supervisor” of the life of the whole society. To be able to manage the country and its own personnel (full-time workers), the party had to have its own finances. The budget of the Polish United Workers’ Party was constructed from the perspective of expenses. Budget income was adjusted to spending. Throughout all the period of the party’s existence, its finances remained beyond the state and social control. It is important as it would have been impossible to cover all the expenses of the party without using the state’s financial resources. The aim of the article is to make the reader familiar with unknown facts connected with the finances of the Polish United Workers’ Party. The article deals with the formation of finances of the Regional Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party in Gdańsk in the first years of its existence. It describes the first budget (1949) until the “reform” of the state’s finances in 1950. The starting point for research is the analysis of the condition of the finances of the Regional Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party and the Regional Committee of the Polish Socialist Party in Gdańsk in 1948. In the process of “unification” the assets of the Polish Socialist Party were taken over by the Polish United Workers’ Party. Next, I describe the structure of expenses and revenues of the party. Expenses connected with the personnel of the Regional Committee are particularly interesting, as is the fact that the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (in fact – the state’s budget) partly financed the needs of Gdańsk’s party organization. Subsequently, I show that the hierarchy of the importance of individual committees affected their staff ’s remuneration. It concerned mainly the most important people in the committee, but also technical workers. In order to present the actual material condition of full-time employees in the Polish United Workers’ Party I listed salaries of various professions. The analysis allowed me to state that the party’s establishment belonged to the best-paid people in Poland. If we add to it an easier access to luxurious goods, it turns out that working for the Polish United Workers’ Party was very gainful.

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Finansowe i ideologiczne znaczenie składek członkowskich w partiach komunistycznych (Komunistyczna Partia Związku Radzieckiego i Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza)

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Żukowski M.

Dzieje Najnowsze

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2015

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vol. 47

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issue 1

89-122

EN

The article concentrates on explaining the ideological and financial significance of members’ dues for the functioning of communist parties. In order to illustrate this question the author chose the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP); reference is also made to several other communist parties ruling after 1945. The text analysed Communist Party statutes, budget balance sheets, and preliminaries. In doing so, the author proved that statutory decisions about the obligatory co–financing of Party activity are one of the oldest and go back to the early twentieth century. Communist parties prevailing in post–war Europe modelled their statutes on the „Soviet matrix” albeit also introducing own modifications. Regardless of assorted „technical” differences, membership dues played (at least theoretically) an extremely prominent ideological role in the life of both titular parties and their particular members. Great importance was attached to dues conceived as an element merging an individual person and his political group. Nevertheless, the author argued, in time the ideological rank of this factor vanished. Naturally, dues also possessed a mundane dimension: they financed a given party although, for all practical reasons, they never fully fulfilled their fundamental role. The basic source of financing communist parties involved funds obtained by means of different channels (state budgets, state enterprises, publications, trade), all outside social control. The principles of the communist parties’ financial economy remained a mystery also for the decisive majority of their members, including the so–called party apparatus. The manner of paying dues proved to be an excellent yardstick for assessing the inner stability of the parties and their „enrootment” in society. The author demonstrated that the CPSU and the PUWP were incapable of successfully tackling assorted problems (whose intensity varied in particular periods) such as an efficient collection of dues and their transference to higher organs, credible records, and the retention of a high percentage of regularly paying members (in particular during political crises). At the same time, attempts were made to apply assorted extra–legal methods for controlling members and candidates upon the basis of so–called Party activists. Just as important is the fact that in the case of foreign dues currency regulations were violated while bookkeeping makes it impossible to show which investments were financed by dues, and to what extent. This feature was of great significance in particular upon the threshold of the 1990s when Europe became the scene of powerful political transformations and CPSU and PUWP politicians tried to salvage the greatest possible control packet for the sake of new „embodiments” of the old parties.

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Okres Października '56 w relacji Stefana Jędrychowskiego złożonej w roku 1983

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Żukowski M.

Radzyński Rocznik Humanistyczny

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2013

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vol. 11

143-156

PL

Prezentowany dokument stanowi jedno ze świadectw opisujących przełomowe miesiące 1956 r. Stefan Jędrychowski – co ważne - skoncentrował się na sprawach gospodarczych. Jako były przewodniczący PKPG doskonale znał rzeczywistą sytuację gospodarczą w jakiej znalazł się kraj w połowie lat pięćdziesiątych. Patrząc z perspektywy czasu mówił wprost, że źródłami niepokojów, napięć i buntu społecznego w tamtych latach była bieda ludzi pracy. W dokumencie odnajduje czytelnik zarys mechanizmów rządzących polską polityką gospodarczą. Niejako na marginesie poruszona została kwestia frakcji partyjnych i personalnych tarć w PZPR. Co ciekawe Jędrychowski stwierdza, że o istnieniu nazw obu grup („tendencji”) dowiedział się dopiero z zachodnich mediów w 1957 r. Stefan Jędrychowski jako członek najwyższych władz państwowych (przed i po Październiku '56) zaprezentował katalog sukcesów Gomułki. Sukcesów, które udało się osiągnąć jeszcze u progu 1957 r. Nie ulega wątpliwości, że prawne uregulowanie relacji z ZSRR wzmacniało pozycję „Wiesława”. Niestety w przytaczanej relacji nie ma informacji o tajnikach niechlubnych decyzji jakie podejmował Gomułka w późniejszym okresie swoich rządów. Dokument pozwala także na odtworzenie (mocno fragmentarycznie) stanu świadomości politycznej w latach późniejszych (1983 r.) byłego partyjno – politycznego prominenta. Czytając dokument warto pamiętać, że Jędrychowski był jednym ze współtwórców polskiego stalinizmu i przez długie lata afirmował przyjmowane wówczas (a bardzo niekorzystne dla Polski) rozwiąznia polityczno – gospodarcze.

EN

The presented document constitutes one of the testimonies describing the critical months of 1956. However, what is important is that Stefan Jędrychowski focused mainly on economic issues. As a former head of the State Planning Committee, he knew the actual economic situation of the state in 1950s. Looking from the time perspective, he stated outright that the source of unrest, tension, and defiance at that time was the poor economic conditions of the working people. In the document the reader can find the outline of the mechanisms governing Polish economic politics. As marginal issues he also mentions party factions and personal conflicts in the Polish United Workers' Party. Interestingly, Jędrychowski states that he learned about the existence of the names of the two groups ("tendencies") from the Western media as late as in 1957. Stefan Jędrychowski as a member of the highest state authorities (prior to and after October '56), presented the catalogue of Władysław Gomułka's successes achieved at the beginning of 1957. There is no doubt that the legal regulation of relations with the USSR strengthened "Wiesław's" position. Unfortunately, in this account there is no information concerning the secrets of the infamous decisions Gomułka took in the latter period of his governance. The document also enables the (only partial) recreation by the state of political awareness in the following years (1983) of the former party-political personage. When going through the document, it is worth bearing in mind that Jędrychowski was one of the co-founders of Stalinism in Poland, and for many years he affirmed many political and economic solutions which were adopted at the time, although they were very detrimental to Poland.

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1 Dzieje Najnowsze

1 Radzyński Rocznik Humanistyczny

1 Zapiski Historyczne

3 Żukowski M.

1 2015

1 2013

1 2012

„Skrywana potęga”. Gospodarka finansowa Komitetu Wojewódzkiego Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej w Gdańsku. Od zorganizowania komitetu do reformy finansów partyjnych w październiku 1950 roku

Finansowe i ideologiczne znaczenie składek członkowskich w partiach komunistycznych (Komunistyczna Partia Związku Radzieckiego i Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza)

Okres Października '56 w relacji Stefana Jędrychowskiego złożonej w roku 1983