Bureaucratised Political Participation and its Consequence in Poland
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1981.tb00047.x |
| Date | 01 April 1981 |
| Published date | 01 April 1981 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Reagan
and
the
Vice
Presidency
3
t5
Schlesinger,
A
(1974),
'Is
the Vice-presidency Necessary?', Atlantic, Vol 233: May
p 39.
Senate Committee on Government Operations (1956), Administrative Vice-president:
Hearings Before the Sub-committee on Reorganisation (84th Congress, 2nd Session:
Testimony of
H
Hoover),
Tubbessing,
C
B
(1973), 'Vice Presidential Candidates and
the
Home State Advantage:
Or
"Tom Who?'' Was Tom Eagleton in Missouri', Western Political Quarterly,
XXXVI,
Turner,
11
(1978), Finding
a
Policy Role for the Vice-President:
The
Case
of
Nelson
A
Rockefeller (State University of New York at Binghampton, unpublished
dissertation.
Turner,
M
(forthcoming)
'A
Policy Role for
the
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series).
pp 702-16,
*************
~U~EAU~~ATI SED POLITICAL PART
I
CI
PAT1
ON
AND
GEORGE
KO~A~KIE~ICZ
'The
December events once again emphasised
that
the numerical
growth
of
the
Party
is
not
always
indicative of society's
support for
its
policy nor
of
its
links
with
the
masses
and
that
the
strength
of
the
Party
is
in no simple way dependent
upon
its
size'
(XI1
PlemmPZPR, November 1971)
It
is
perhaps symptomatic of how quickly the lessons
of
the
December events in
Poland were forgotten that at the
VIII
Congress of
the
Polish United Workers
Party (PZPR) held in February
of
1980 attention was nevertheless once again
drawn to the 'favourable' social composition of
the
PZPR particularly by
comparison with 1970. There were now over
3
million
members
(1970:
2,320,000)
of whom 46 per cent
were
manual workers (1970:
40
per cent). In the state
sector, some 17 per cent of all manual workers
were
party members, 18 per cent
of
all
skilled workers and
43
per cent of all foremen. To cap
it
all, 27 per cent
of all manual worker members were concentrated in the key large enterprises, the
so-called 'citadels of socialism' (Ozgo, 1979).
After the 'Polish August' of 1980 the PZPR has been humiliated in a manner that
few
political parties could have experienced in the
West
after the most ignominious
landslide electoral defeats.
By
their
own admission many of
the
strike
committees
had
been staffed by party members whilst their enterprise directors and Factory
Committee
first
secretaries had been refused entry
or
ejected
from striking
factories.
The
key concern during those days had been reduced to maintaining
simple communication with
the
striking workers (Nowe Drogi, 1980). In
the
few
cases
where
the
local
authorities had been able to retain some
credibility
(paradoxically in Gdansk
itself
under
the
local leadership of Fitszbach and
Kolodziejski)
this
proved ineffectual since
the
Politburo
had
long since ceased
to
pay attention
to
local leaders.
It
is
a
commonplace in the literature on comparative co~unist politics that
under conditions of advanced economic development Marxist-Leninist Parties seek
to
exp,and
their
recruitment among
the
white-collar technical intelligentsia
(NIcAuley, 1977, ch
10;
Ludz, 1972; Baylis, 1974). However, in
the
case of Poland
we
are
faced with
a
Communist Party
that
has not sought to increase
its
legitimacy
amongst
this
group in such
a
manner. To
the
contrary
the
Poland of
Gierek
witnessed a concentrated effort on the part of
the
PZPR to de-emphasise
the
importance
of
this
group in favour of establishing a new dialogue
with
the working
class. Any explanation
of
the quiet revolution
which
took place in the summer
oE
1980 has to confront the issue of
the
failure of 'Party implantation'
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