APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
nance of the Roman Catholic Church assured general religious concord, resentment against the large Jewish component of the lower middle class had economic and religious overtones. The dominant tradition of learning was German and French-oriented, and in general cultural relations with the West were avidly cultivated. All except the peasant class were literate, and urban cultural awareness was high.
The landowning gentry, who for centuries set the tone of political and social life, had been undergoing a rapid decline since the beginning of the 20th century and had dropped to a mere one-third of 1% of the population, but they still retained a sizable measure of political and social influence. The peasants, numerically the largest group in the population and economically the most important, had little social and cultural influence. Their sense of inferiority and passive acceptance of a subordinate social role changed only slowly. The peasant movement, however, did become an important political force during the interwar period. The great majority of peasants, nevertheless, lived a primitive life of poverty and continued to use medieval agricultural techniques.
The small middle class, which had been hampered in its development by the succession of partitions and foreign occupations of the country and by internal dissension and lack of economic opportunity, did not assert itself as a strong social force. It did, however, provide the ultimate base for the ruling military clique in the immediate prewar years. Though socially the most cohesive group in the population, the industrial working class was also limited by its relatively small size and by the regional character of heavy industry. Although no single social class dominated Poland during the interwar period, a loose social coalition of the clergy, the professional people, the bureaucracy, and the military officers corps exerted an authoritarian influence on social and political life.
The broad social revolution following World War II was accelerated but not initiated by the Communist regime. The factors which caused many of the postwar social changes had already begun to appear during World War II and affected the property-owning class most drastically. Many members of this group fled abroad; others were placed in Nazi concentration camps or deported to the U.S.S.R., never to return. Those who remained in Poland were deprived of influence in public life by police measures as well as by a basic reorientation of industry and trade. Economic changes that started with the expropriations and physical destruction during the war years were subsequently completed through nationalization, land reform, and reconstruction under state control.
The middle class fared better. Although materially impoverished, the wartime destruction of its Jewish element left it more socially cohesive, and it adapted itself more easily to postwar conditions. During the initial postwar era of economic stabilization, the middle class actually increased in size and strengthened its economic basis. The subsequent elimination of nearly all private enterprise during the Stalinist period, however, reduced the major part of this class, composed mainly of small businessmen and other self-employed persons, to the status of wage earners. Since 1956 the regime's varying degrees of encouragement for the expansion of private handicrafts and services has again spurred the growth of a small middle class. This official encouragement has been particularly marked under the Gierek regime, and could result in a faster growth of the urban middle class. With the passage of time the character of this class is changing, however, as newly integrated elements from the lower levels of the inflated bureaucracy as well as the peasantry are absorbed into it. The material well-being and the social prestige of the middle class is generally only slightly above that of the lower classes. There are highly visible, and frequently officially criticized, exceptions to this rule, however. In many urban centers, particularly in Warsaw, there had developed a distinct sub-class of highly successful individual entrepreneurs who, by providing needed services, garden produce, and specialty products, have often amassed personal fortunes. Because their services are undeniably needed, the government tolerates the existence of this small "neo-capitalist" sub-group.
The peasants enjoyed a relatively privileged position during and shortly after World War II. With foodstuffs at a premium, they were regarded as benefactors by all Polish society, and they gained significantly in self-respect and influence as a class. Between 1949 and 1956, however, the social and political pressures of collectivization, heavy taxes, and other discriminatory policies undermined the newly won social and economic position of the peasants. Subsequently, as a result of the Gomulka regime's more flexible agricultural policies, the peasantry as a class again prospered relative to many categories of industrial workers. Although the social position of the peasantry remains well below its immediate postwar level, the tenacious traditionalism of this class has played a central role in the regime's continued toleration of an essentially private agricultural system. Even during the peak of the collectivization drive, in the early 1950's, over 75% of Poland's farmland remained in private hands, and in 1970 the figure stood at 83.9%. The bulk of the remainder (14.8%)
7
APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
