APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7
Communists repudiated the quasi-authoritarian constitution of 1935 and operated the state provisionally on the basis of the French-type constitution of 1921, modified by a brief set of supplementary rules known as the Little Constitution of 1947. By 1952, however, the form and content of Communist rule had been stabilized, and the constitution of that year did not involve any basic alterations in the existing structure of the Communist system. Its main effect was to codify and formalize the political and social changes following the Communist accession to power and to outline future policy goals. The document is only secondarily a charter setting forth the structure and operations of the government and the rights and duties of citizens.
The 1952 constitution for the first time formally designated the state as a "people's democracy," an appellation used by the Communists even before 1952, and its official name was changed from Polish Republic to Polish People's Republic (PRL). An innovation of more ceremonial than practical importance was the replacement of the traditional one-man presidency of the country with a multi-member presidential board, the Council of State. This body is equivalent to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in the USSR; it is headed by a chairman, who exercises the ceremonial functions of a head of state. In this and most other details the 1952 constitution is a copy, with minor adaptations to the less advanced state of communization in Poland, of the 1936 Soviet constitution. Unlike the Soviet constitution, however (and the "socialist" constitutions of Czechoslovakia and Romania), the Polish document contains no specific reference to the leading role of the Communist party in national life. The constitution does mention the existence of "political organizations," however; this provision gives implied constitutional sanction to the continued existence of certain non-Communist political parties supporting the Communist program. Despite these characteristics of the Polish constitution, the Communist party has made it clear both in theory and in practice that it arrogates to itself a "leading role" in the determination of the country's political, economic, and social policy.
It is here that the Gierek regime apparently proposes to make the party's primacy an explicit provision of the new constitution, and, by derivation perhaps, to define the party's role in national life. The intended enshrinement of the party's "leading role" in constitutional law does not contradict Gierek's parallel intent to give the governmental apparatus a greater role in the daily running of the country. While the party "guides," the government rather than the party apparatus will be charged with implementing the party's guidance. While there is no question as to Gierek's view of the supremacy of the party and its ultimate power to control, the specific institutional role of the party and its relationship to the various levels of government are still being slowly and gradually redefined. The fact that this process is far from finished is probably a major reason for the slow pace of drafting a new constitution.
The 1952 constitution sets forth "socialism," defined in general terms, as the goal toward which the Polish state is tending. Socialized farming, however, is not specified as the predominant system in agriculture as it is in the Soviet constitution; rather, individual farming by "working peasants" is declared to be under state protection. This provision did not prevent the collectivization drive during the first half of the 1950s, but it did obviate a potential constitutional inconsistency at the time of the spontaneous dissolution of collectives in 1956. Unlike the specific or implied provisions in the constitutions of some other Communist states, the Polish document contains no blueprint for the means by which "socialism" is ultimately to be attained. Although it is far from clear whether the present stage of "socialist development" in Poland warrants or permits the proposed new constitution's declaring Poland to be a "socialist state" (as are Czechoslovakia and Romania), the new document undoubtedly will spell out in greater detail both the stage which the country has ostensibly reached and the next developmental goal to which it will aspire.
The present constitution also includes a bill of rights of the Soviet type, stressing the social benefits and duties which allegedly accrue to the citizen under a Communist system. Although the listed constitutional rights of citizens are qualified and may be legally bypassed or ignored at the Communist regime's choosing, the bill of rights often has been used in the past as the basis for public or private protests addressed to the government by some of its vocal critics, such as the powerful Roman Catholic Church, the intellectuals, and youth. The party's statement that the new constitution's provisions concerning the rights and duties of citizens should "stress their socialist character" suggests that little change in the direction of liberalism is to be expected. Yet, if the new document more adequately defined both rights and duties, provides for meaningful guarantees, and leaves less room for arbitrary interpretation, this alone would be welcomed by the people whose articulate spokesmen in the past have focused more on the
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7
