EN
The article is focussed on the so-called traditional system of functioning of the socialist economy discussed against the background of data concerning the Polish economy. The performed analysis of empiric al data about Poland's economic development over the years 1950-1980 has al lowed to determine the elements which behaved in a very specific way in the period under study. Division of the analyzed three decades into particular phases, according to trends in the shares of production investments in the national income, reveals that other magnitudes, and primarily growth rate of capital stock and its productivity, as well as labour productivity, were also behaving in a way specific for them in these subperiods. The author makes an attempt to explain this cyclical feature on the basis of interrelationships between the system of the economy's functioning and the economic polic of the central organs. Mutual impact of these two elements on each other may generate different types of the economic development. However, the cyclical development appears to be most probable, which was fully confirmed by the experience of the thirty years.