Most Poles were against totalitarian communism, yet on many occasions they participated in its events. There were periods when people did it willingly and with pleasure, e.g., in 1970s. But there were also periods when employers had to initmidate and force workers to attend communist ceremonies, e.g., in hot 1980s.
One of such festivals was 1 May, the socialist invention which originated and already celebrated at the beginning of 20th century when Poland was under partitions.
Nowadays 1 May is still celebrated by a few dozen thousand veterans of communist movement, current leftist activists, trade unionists and all people who believe in socialist ideals all over Poland.
What does the red banner stand for? Does it express the idea of full communism?
The flag became the symbol of the Merthyr riots of 1831, in South Wales, when workers took over the town for five days, until they were massacred by soldiers. Socialists and radical republicans in the 1848 French Revolution adopted the red flag, ostensibly as a symbol of "the blood of angry workers." The red flag subsequently became the banner of the Paris Commune in 1871, at which time it became firmly associated with socialism. This tradition was bolstered in the rallies in Chicago in 1886, which resulted in the execution of some of the Haymarket Eight (cf. Haymarket Riot).
In the People's Republic of Poland (PRL) the national holiday was assigned to July 22, the day the PKWN Manifesto was issued.
The Manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) known as July or PKWN Manifesto (Polish: Manifest PKWN, Manifest lipcowy) was a political manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, a Soviet-backed provisional government, which operated in opposition to the London-based Polish government in exile. It was officially proclaimed in Che³m on 22 July 1944, but its text was personally amended by Joseph Stalin in Moscow and it was printed there as well.
The manifesto is addressed to the Polish nation, both within Poland and in exile and is arranged into thirteen main points. Among them:
It asserts the legitimacy of the State National Council, composed of populists, democrats, socialists, communists and other organisations. It asserts that the London-based Polish government in exile is not a legal government. It condemns the Polish Constitution of 1935 as unlawful and fascist and the Constitution of 1921 is the only current legal constitution. The State National Council will operate on the 1921 Constitution, until a new one can be written by new Sejm legislators in future direct, popular, free, elections by secret ballot. It urges support of the Polish people for the People's Army and the Red Army, by capturing and turning in weapons, ammunition and supplies, and providing any intelligence or information, and doing their part in the fight against Germany. It acknowledges that for 400 years there has been sustained, mutually-detrimental conflict between Poles and the Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians, but their alliance, common cause and side-by-side fighting in the war should solidify a lasting strong, friendly, mutually-beneficial alliance between Poland and the Soviet Union. It calls for negotiation of the Polish-Soviet and Polish-Czechoslovak borders to be reached by mutual agreement. It calls for continued alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States, based on blood shed against a common enemy, and also maintaining Poland's traditional alliance with France and co-operation with the democratic countries of the world. Polish government policy will be democratic and based on collective security. Reparations will be demanded from Germany for Polish losses. It claims for PKWN authority to extend to all liberated Polish territory, and asks Polish patriots in areas where the PKWN does not exercise authority to democratically elect members to participate in the PKWN. It calls for the creation of a new police force, the Citizen's Militia, as a solution to lack of order caused by the removal of the Polish Police of the General Government, the so-called Blue Police. It promises that German war criminals and Polish traitors will receive quick justice in independent courts. It offers promise of restoration of democratic freedoms, equality of all citizens without distinction of race, religion, or nationality, freedom of political organisations, unions, press and conscience. Fascist organisations will be repressed to fullest extent of the law. Property stolen by the Germans will be returned to individual citizens, institutions, and the church. German assets will be confiscated. National assets reclaimed from the German Reich and individual German capitalists will be put under the Interim National Management Board. To speed up national reconstruction, broad land reform will be enacted in liberated territories. Minimum wages will be raised, and a social security will be instituted, based on the principal of democratic self-government Free, universal, compulsory education, and the Polish intelligentsia will be rebuilt. Steps will be taken to encourage and organise immigration to Poland, but the borders will be closed to National Socialist agents and organisers of the 1939 invasion of Poland. It places an appeal to national unity, without which it would be impossible to accomplish the monumental task of liberating Poland, winning the war, acquiring a dignified place for Poland among the nations of the world and rebuilding a destroyed country. It urges the Polish people to do everything possible to liberate the country and defeat the Germans.
The manifesto ends with a call to arms:
"To the fight! To arms! Long live the united Polish Army, fighting for the freedom of Poland! Long live the allied Red Army, carrying out the liberation of Poland! Long live our great allies - the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States of America! Long live national unity! Long live the State National Council - the representation of the fighting people! Long live free, strong, independent, sovereign and democratic Poland!"
Celebrations. Reminds me of contemporary North Korea a little.
in 1966 there was a special parade
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The last time it was celebrated in 1989
and was rightly replaced by traditional Independence Day of 11 November.
Yes, those innocent looking girls turned into sadistic death camp guards later on. They were nurses, teachers, mothers, housewives. And mass murderers, too.
Yes, those innocent looking girls turned into sadistic death camp guards later on. They were nurses, teachers, mothers, housewives. And mass murderers, too.
Both the Nazi and Communist parades, design, marches, uniforms, flags, symbols and positive message for the people who benefited from it, the German and Polish workers, farmers and some of the middle class and high class who collaborated with it (General Jaruzelski had a Schlachtza background). It has an esthetic beauty, strong propaganda message and indoctrination machine which transfered children and youngsters into ideological trained and drilled, disciplined monsters. The Hitler youth, the Bund Deutscher Mädel and the Komsomol, the Związek Młodzieży Socjalistycznej (Związek Młodzieży Polskiej from 1948 to 1956) and the Freie Deutsche Jugend from East-Germany (the youth organisation of the East-German communist party SED)
Emblem of the Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth)
The East-German anthem has the positive and optimistic message of Socialism, the better German state, reunion of both Germanies, progress and a bright future
Thousands and millions in the West and the Third world were blinded, seduced and attracted to the esthetic, optimistic socialist message of the communist propaganda we see here. A lot of people in the beginning in the Communist countries also believed in socialism. That socialism (read Communism) would bring the liberation and progress to the working class and poor peasents after the Nazi terror. They forgot for one moment the Stalinist Sovjet terror, because these Poles for instace came from Western-Poland and not Eastern Poland or, because a lot of poor and simple/ordinairy people really gained from Communism. The new time had some positive elements for the uneducated or trained working class. But if you were middle class, farmer, high class or a member of the aristocracy the new time wasn't good for you. Communism had the same attractiveness due to the same pioneer spirit, muscular proletarian energy, primitive collectivism (the optimism of the united people, the simple people like), clear one state system (no confusing pluriformity, democracy and freedom but the safety, and social state who takes care of you) like Nazism (for the blond, blue eyed German workers, farmers and middle class). You don't need responsability, because father state takes care of you via the state planning economy and party hierarchy. And if you joyn the party or party organisations your carreer and future are secure.
P.S.- You can't believe how surious some of these hard lined leftist people are over here in the West. Lack of humor is part of their ideological package. The Marxist ideas and ideology has deep foundations. Sometimes I have to take care of what I say, because many people don't understand irony, sarcasm or in the worst case cynicism. Before you know you are labeled as a communist, because you sayd something in a stoic or pokerfaced manner. ;D
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