Władysław Machejek (February 25, 1920 – December 21, 1991) was a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

official An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their ...

, writer, publicist and hoax artist during the Stalinist reign of terror in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

following World War II. He wrote fabricated accounts of anti-communist underground mainly for his own political gains as regional party secretary and later member of the communist highest parliamentary echelons. Due to the coarse and infamous nature of his works, he has been described as a "legendary socialist scribbler".

Biography

Machejek was born on February 25, 1920, into a peasant family in the hamlet of Chodów. He joined the Communist Party of Poland as a youth. During World War II he served in the Soviet-sponsored partisan organizations Gwardia Ludowa and Armia Ludowa. After the war he became a member of the new Polish communist party

PZPR The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...

and took over the post of its regional secretary in the town of Nowy Targ not far from where he grew up. Soon, he became a member of the provincial party cell in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

, and eventually deputy to the

Sejm The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...

(Polish parliament) in the

People's Republic of 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 ...

. He was selected editor-in-chief of ''

Życie Literackie ''Życie'' (, "Life") was an illustrated weekly established in 1897 and published in Kraków and Lwów in the Austrian partition of Poland. Founded by Ludwik Szczepański, with time it became one of the most popular Polish literary and artistic j ...

'' magazine under Stalinism (1952) and became a prolific writer of ideological propaganda and coarse, often embarrassing polemics supporting the communist party line. He has also been known on occasion to attack the authorities of other communist countries (such as

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

), but his criticism was tolerated. It is said he always carried a bottle of vodka in his hollow briefcase. Machejek died in

at the age of 71 shortly after the collapse of the communist regime in the People's Republic, and the re-emergence of sovereign Polish state in the

Autumn of Nations The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...

Works

Machejek was a political writer. His most infamous book ''Rano przeszedł huragan'' (''In the Morning There Came A Hurricane'') published in 1955 presented purported crimes in the Podhale region committed by the ''Ogniowcy'' partisan units under

Józef Kuraś Józef Kuraś (23 October 1915 – 22 February 1947), noms-de-guerre "Orzeł" (Eagle) and from June 1943 "Ogień" (Fire), was born in Waksmund near Nowy Targ. He served as lieutenant in the Polish Army during the invasion of Poland, and became ...

. The book was based on a fictional diary of their leader written by Machejek himself. In an often ''coarse'' and even ''primitive'' prose, Machejek painted Poland's anti-communists as

motley crew Motley is the traditional costume of the court jester, the motley fool, or the arlecchino character in '' commedia dell'arte''. The harlequin wears a patchwork of red, green and blue diamonds that is still a fashion motif. The word ''motley'' ...

of bloodthirsty anti-Semites who killed Jews, persecuted the Slovak population of the region and who preyed on innocent people.).'' Although those fragments were simply invented by Machejek, some historians, most recently Jan Tomasz Gross in his '' Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz'' (2006), have fallen for his claim that the novel was based on facts (Kuraś himself was hunted to death by secret police), thus treating Machejek's falsehood as a valid source. Polish poet, literary critic and dissident activist Stanisław Barańczak saw Machejek's style as worthy of mention and wrote an essay, ''U źródeł machejkizmu'', published in his 1990 book ''Książki najgorsze'' (''The Worst of Books''). He suggested that Machejek's style was unique enough to merit a special term, ''machejkizm'' or ''machejcyzm''. According to Barańczak, Machejek's style was a mixture of the worst elements of socialist (communist) literature, namely coarse language of an uneducated man mixed with the pompous and complex officialese of the Party. Machejek, according to Barańczak, was a master of writing empty sentences, which contain no value, no real message, are not meant to be read, but function simply to fill space.Stanisław Barańczak, ''U źródeł machejkizmu'' n''Książki Najgorsze i parę innych esejów krytycznoliterackich'', Wydawnictwo a5, Poznań 1990, p. 91-94.

Bibliography

*''Po wojnie'' (1954) *''Dzwony'' (1955) *''Zginęli W Walce: Sylwetki Bojowników AL i GL'' (1957) *''Niespokojny człowiek'' (1964) *''Z mojego obserwatorium'' (1969) *''W starym młynie'' (1971) *''Zawytka'' (1972) *''Z wojny tej, wojny złej ...'' (1978) *''Rano przeszedł huragan'' (In the Morning There Came A Hurricane, 1985 reprint)

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Machejek, Wladyslaw 1920 births 1991 deaths People from Miechów County People from Kielce Voivodeship (1919–1939) Polish Workers' Party politicians Polish United Workers' Party members Members of the Polish Sejm 1957–1961 Members of the Polish Sejm 1961–1965 Members of the Polish Sejm 1965–1969 Members of the Polish Sejm 1969–1972 Polish male writers Literary forgeries Gwardia Ludowa members Armia Ludowa members Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Grunwald Recipients of the Medal of the 10th Anniversary of the People's Republic of Poland