Censorship in Communist Poland
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Censorship in
Communist Poland The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...
was primarily performed by the Polish ' (''Główny Urząd Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk''), a governmental institution created in 1946 by the pro-Soviet
Provisional Government of National Unity The Provisional Government of National Unity ( pl, Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej - TRJN) was a puppet government formed by the decree of the State National Council () on 28 June 1945 as a result of reshuffling the Soviet-backed Provisio ...
with
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's approval and backing, and renamed in 1981 as the ''Główny Urząd Kontroli Publikacji i Widowisk'' (GUKPiW). The bureau was liquidated after the
fall of communism in Poland Autumn, also known as fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southe ...
, in April 1990. Library collections were systematically cleansed, the majority of the books destroyed, some isolated in Party or academic libraries. A list of prohibited publications and black-listed writers was created in 1950 during the darkest years of Stalinism in Poland with some 1,682 items, and subsequently modified many times by the communist authorities in the
Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...
. Some writers popular before World War II, for example Wacław Kostek-Biernacki who was sentenced to death as an
enemy of the state An enemy of the state is a person accused of certain crimes against the state such as treason, among other things. Describing individuals in this way is sometimes a manifestation of political repression. For example, a government may purport to m ...
in 1953, had their books not only removed from libraries, but also meticulously destroyed. In addition to the censorship of the publications, the state also jammed foreign radio stations, such as
Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
and
Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
. The decades of relentless censorship fed the underground press and publications in Poland (called ''bibuła'' in Polish). After the rise of Solidarity movement in 1980, independent editors were allowed to indicate, with a sequence ---'', that a fragment had been censored, instead of hiding such deletions or withdrawing their entire publications. Publishers demanded the right to leave a white space to indicate how much of the text was cut, but that was rejected. Nevertheless the change spelled a setback for GUKPiW and interventions were less common: an article with dozens of cuts might have a greater impact on the readers' minds than the words missing. The censorship law was eliminated after the fall of communism in Poland, by the Polish Sejm on 11 April 1990 and the GUKPiW was closed two months later.


Defection of Tomasz Strzyżewski

In 1977 one of the Polish censors, Tomasz Strzyżewski, defected to Sweden with stolen classified documents which he published in the '. The book was based on one of two copies of guidelines in the safe of every censorship department of GUKPPiW (''Główny Urząd Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk''). The official name of the guidelines in Polish was "Książka Zapisów i Zaleceń GUKPPiW" (The Book of Records and Recommendations of GUKPPiW). These materials included photocopies of the originals and personal notes in his notebooks. No-one at his office was allowed to take them out of the building or reprint them: the Bureau censors were allowed only to remove these guidelines from the safe and read them on site. The document was generic in nature: "It's forbidden to write about any info on the disaster in X". "It's forbidden to write about any increase in deaths from xy ". Natural catastrophes, or even carcinogenicity of asbestos, or noxiousness of the plastic used in artificial Christmas trees were also covered there. Other topics were mentioning the names of censored authors, unless negative arguments about their works were given. Even statistical data about coffee drinking in Poland were banned as this might cause protests against reexporting this product from Poland. In the 1990s when after the Bureau was dissolved and its archives released, not all copies of such censorship guidelines were submitted and their existence was denied. However some years later former censors of the Bureau confirmed that they had such books in their departments, and that they used it as a reference.


See also

* Czarna ksiega cenzury PRL – The Black Book of the Censorship of People's Poland. In two or one parts called in English: The Black Book of the Censorship of People's Poland—Part 1, ed. T. Strzyżewski, ANEKS, London, 1977 The Black Book of the Censorship of People's Poland—Part 2, ed. T. Strzyżewski, ANEKS, London, 1977. * Culture in the Polish People's Republic * Propaganda in the Polish People's Republic *
Eastern Bloc information dissemination Eastern Bloc media and propaganda was controlled directly by each country's communist party, which controlled the state media, censorship and propaganda organs. State and party ownership of print, television and radio media served as an important ...
*
Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...
Other Eastern Bloc states: * Censorship in East Germany


Notes and references

{{Europe topic, Censorship in Censorship in Poland Censorship in the Eastern Bloc Polish People's Republic 1990 disestablishments in Poland