Censorship in
Communist Poland 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 (, TRJN) was a puppet government formed by the decree of the State National Council (, KRN) on 28 June 1945 as a result of reshuffling the Soviet-backed Provisional Government of the Republic of Pola ...
with
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
'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 (especially in US & Canada), 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 ( Southern Hemispher ...
, 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
Stalinism (, ) is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism inc ...
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 (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
. Some writers popular before World War II, for example
Wacław Kostek-Biernacki who was sentenced to death as an
enemy of the state 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 media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
and
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...
. The decades of relentless censorship fed the
underground press and publications in Poland (called ''bibuła'' in Polish).
After the rise of
Solidarity
Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...
movement in 1980, independent editors were allowed to indicate, with a sequence
---
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...
'', 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, , 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
Asbestos ( ) is a group of naturally occurring, Toxicity, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous Crystal habit, crystals, each fibre (particulate with length su ...
, 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
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, attitudes, and habits of the individuals in these g ...
*
Propaganda in the Polish People's Republic
Communist propaganda played an important role in the Polish People's Republic, one of the largest and most important satellite states of the Soviet Union following WWII. Together with the use of force and terror it was instrumental in keeping th ...
*
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 was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...
Other Eastern Bloc states:
*
Censorship in East Germany
As with many Soviet-allied countries prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the government of the former German Democratic Republic (German: ''Deutsche Demokratische Republik'') applied censorship during its existence from 1949 to 1990. The cens ...
Notes and references
{{Europe topic, Censorship in
Censorship in Poland
Censorship in the Eastern Bloc
Propaganda in the Polish People's Republic
1990 disestablishments in Poland