Henryk Dembiński: The Man Who Became a Communist after Death?

• Authors: Paweł Libera
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

The case of Henryk Dembiński (1908–41) represents the left-wing involvement of Polish intellectuals in the interwar period. After 1945, the party historians left a communist mark on his image. Those in exile also accepted this thesis. In fact, party historians portrayed Dembiński’s life in a one-sided fashion and omitted events inconsistent with their narrative. In light an of relevant accounts and documents, this article shows that Dembiński was neither a member of the communist party nor its youth organisation even though, in 1935–6, he participated in some activities inspired by the Communist Party of Poland (KPP), and edited a periodical supported financially by the KPP. It is unclear whether this was conscious cooperation or a matter of manipulation by the party. In 1937, Dembiński joined the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and was engaged in catholic activities centre, which the communists at the time perceived as a change of his political views. Nonetheless, after the war, party historians unequivocally stated that he was a communist.

Keywords

PL

communism; Comintern; the left; Communist Party of Poland; Communist Party of Western Belorussia; Henryk Dembiński; Czesław Miłosz

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Acta Poloniae Historica
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 123
• Pages: 239-260

Dates

published

2021-07-18

Contributors

author

Paweł Libera

• Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences

• https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5541-0822

Identifiers

DOI

10.12775/APH.2021.123.09