Keywords
Polish independence
anti-communism
historical discourse
rightist ideology
worker’s councils
How to Cite
Abstract
The paper supports the following thesis: the October Revolution influenced the constituency of the Polish independent state in 1918 as well as the structure of class struggles in Poland. The history of this impact is absolutely ignored or even denied in contemporary Polish anti-communist ruling historical discourse. The centenary of the Russian Revolution triggered debates presenting this event as “a demonic source of the 20th century totalitarianism”, without mentioning the enthusiasm the Revolution provoked in Polish people (who were both actively participating in it and inspired by it). The nationalist historical policy, which idealizes Poles at any cost, attempts to erase Polish engagement in “Red October” or belittle it as an insignificant episode. For this reason, by analyzing the dominant narrative about the Bolshevik Revolution in Poland via the example of Mateusz Staroń’s book Traitors: Poles the allies of Lenin, I will show how anti-communist discourse reshapes the past to serve its own ideological purposes and present an alternative narrative about the Russian Revolution in a Polish context, against these dominant anti-communist clichés, concerning 3 issues:1. Polish participation in the October Revolution,
2. The Revolution’s influence on Poland’s independence,
3. The Polish workers’ council movement as a direct response to the Russian Revolution.
In the context of the above, the aim of this paper is not limited to providing an alternative to the ruling discourse, being just another exercise in political and historical imagination, or attempting to bring to light repressed aspects of Polish history. Rather, it is to show the logic and structure of the anti-communist narrative as such.
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