De-communisation in Poland?

delphiandomine
You're the one who asked where should the line be drawn and I provided one proposal. Everything was run by the regime so every surgeon, street sweeper, professor, bus driver, teacher and factory worker, whether a PZPR memberr or not, could be construed as working for and collaborating with the communist state. Maybe send them all the Kołyma, eh?

When they run out of clever repartees, some people repeatedly revert to ad absurdam.

Indeed. Without the passive collaboration of many many people, the regime could never have worked. We all saw how Poland fell to pieces in 1981 when Solidarity really started putting on the pressure - it was the threat of a return to Stalinist methods that finally got people back and working in late December.

But to look at your proposal - what about the sons and daughters of such people? Should they be punished too, particularly as they might have benefited from family connections?

No. Adam Michnik and his ethnically correct cohorts as well as others whose parents had been hard-line Stalinists should not be docked financially nor banned from public life unless they themselves were PZPR members who did not hand in their party cards in 1980-81.

[moved from]

Talking about 'dekomunizacja ulic', I really don't get it why they didn't change all the 'tricky' names back in the 90s when they got rid of Dzierzynski etc from the names of the streets.

They changed quite a few names where I live and I probably don't know half of the new names. I finally understand my parents who keep calling one of the main streets here Dzierzynskiego even though it's been years since the name was changed.

because the definition of 'tricky' changes over time? I think that name changes should be thoughtful and considered and not carried out under the influence of emotion... but that's the only way they were changed...

Well, when you saw ul. XX-lecia PRL or ul. Gomułki, it was staggering they hadn't changed that before.
As for the new names, I'm pretty sure at least one of the new patrons in my town is pretty questionable ;)

Some of them were really not a big deal, for instance, dates connected to the liberation of the individual city. Some of them were kept on demand of the residents too - like this one just outside Poznań - czerwonak.pl/mieszkaniec/pl/samorzad/osiedle_40lecia_prl_w.html - even though it's a weird name because the PRL didn't exist for 40 years!

Due to the simple fact that regardless of the soviet union fall the 'commies' had been firmly in charge for the most of the time since.