Problemy z peerelowską modernizacją

Problems with Modernisation in People’s PolandThe modernisation of People’s Poland became the topic of studies conducted as part of a research project pursued by the Chair of Economic History at the Wrocław University of Economics and the Department of Economic History, Demography and Statistics in the Historical Institute at Wrocław University. Its participants formulated a task consisting of resolving a question about the modernisation of the People’s Republic of Poland. The outcome of their studies is Modernizacja czy pozorna modernizacja. Społeczno-ekonomiczny bilans PRL, edited by Jędrzej Chumiński (Wrocław 2010). The authors of the volume managed to gather interesting source material, the most extensive being examined in texts by Chumiński. In this rather uneven publication the least satisfying fragments pertain to the countryside and agriculture. More attention is also due to relations between social and economic transformations and ensuing social stands. Not always were the authors of particular studies capable of placing the discussed phenomena within a context wider than Polish history. The absence of a summary means that it is difficult to arrive at a conclusion about the titular question. The nature of the modernisation of People’s Poland and its consecutive stages thus still remains a challenge calling for further research, although the Wrocław historians have undoubtedly made considerable progress.