On the ‘Inter-October Revolution’ (1956–1957): The History of a Radical Social Change in Poland as Viewed by Jerzy Kochanowski

The breakthrough of 1956 in Poland has so far been analysed mainly from the perspective of politics. Jerzy Kochanowski has described selected social, economic and cultural aspects and consequences of the radical social change of 1956–57. The present article places Kochanowski’s study against a background of the existing literature on the subject, with the reviewer presenting its main theses and formulating some polemical remarks. The most important among them points to a risk of distorting the picture of the 1956 crisis caused by the fact that the author underestimates the impact of the political context of social processes.