Individualism in Polish culture...Is it almost Nonexistant?

Magdalena: I was in secondary school in the eighties and most of my friends had English at school, I did as well. This was in Warsaw though so the percentages might be a bit skewed.

I was growing up in a 30 000 town in eastern Poland, where there were two general secondary schools (liceum) and both had English in the curriculum. True, not all students had it - some groups had German, some French and everybody was having the obligatory Russian. But there were also afternoon English courses - not so many as nowadays, but still available. The thing was most students considered English a bit superfluous - "you'll never use it" was the common approach.

As for travelling, it was like Grubas and Boletus say. In the sticks where I lived I knew lots of people who travelled to USA, Canada, Italy, England, France, West Germany and other places. True, it was bothersome and expensive, but possible unless you were a public enemy meaning engaged with the political opposition. If people say you couldn't travel back then they mean that you couldn't just grab your passport, buy a last minute ticket and go wherever you wanted - every journey abroad took some serious planning. But people did travel.

They just aren't telling the truth - time is clouding historical truth. Moscow by the 1970's had more or less started to ignore minor internal issues in Poland (and other Warsaw Pact countries, except the DDR) - indeed, the most shocking thing about 1981 was that Poles had done it to Poles, when it was believed (by then) that the Polish institutions acted for Poles.

Sure, there was no freedom like in Western countries, but I'm not convinced that Poland in the early 70's was in any way more oppressive than Spain or Portugal (or even Greece) at that point.


And yet the actual historical record reveals otherwise. Again - you're basing Poland on the words of people, not on the reality.

The example that Boletus gives is nothing special - I know people who did the same, all without being Communists.

Fuzzy, you haven't got a clue what it was like. You socially mixed with people who were pretty low down the pecking order, and their experiences wouldn't have been representative of the society at that time. Don't forget that the Poland of 1975 for instance was radically different to the Poland of 1950.

Well, if I have to choose who to believe, a whole bunch of older people I've met there, who didn't have absolutely any reasons to lie to me or opinions of some biased PF members (not necessarily you though), you know my pick.

Before 1990: I had two proficient English teachers in high school (an average school; I was too lazy to commute to one of the "better ones", so I chose just a decent one within a walking distance). Then I had English courses at the university, with various teachers, and ALL of them were native speakers (British).

Delphi is absolutely correct: English WAS widely taught before 1990.


It always depends what you are comparing with what. The Communist authorities in Poland were predominantly interested in maintaining the political monopoly. Accordingly, if you wanted to be active politically, you were definitely under much more political control than people in the West were. Also, the economy was supposed to be Marxist (more or less so), so economic activities beyond certain level were controlled too, until the (counter)revolutionary reform by the pseudo-Communist government of Rakowski/Wilczek in 1988.

On the other hand, however, the government wasn't interested in meddling in people's personal lives. There was no "war on drugs", with 70,000 police raids on private homes a year, like in the present-day United States. There was no "war on terror" scare and no associated deprivation of individual rights. No TSA, no groping. There was no "zero tolerance" idiocy that now puts kids in handcuffs for bringing a knife to school (actually, we had a shooting club at school, something that would make U.S. teachers wet their pants). So, I dare to say, an average person in PRL used to be MORE FREE than an average person is in the 2010s United States. But perhaps this just shows not how free PRL was, but rather how controlling the Western societies have become...

Gummi, do you know anything about the so called Polonia companies that were set up in the beginning of the 80's? I don't know anything about them, except that Jan Kulczyk (and others) got their start in business by operating through such companies. I've found references to them in numerous books, and this wikipedia article - pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firma_polonijna - but nothing else.


The problem with older people is that they're often considerably biased too - all they remember is the bad stuff, and with time, they'll have you believe that it was absolutely dreadful because they don't want to remember it any other way. It's a problem with history, really :)

Everything I've read suggests that the only real breakdown in society (after the Stalinist period) came between the end of the 1970's and 1983 or so. It's not often mentioned, but martial law was designed to restore economic order as well as political order. The economy was in ruins due to the massively bad investments made (and debts incurred) - and everyone was striking over really petty things at times - so martial law got people back to work, often by making the workplace a military one.


It surprised me too when I first found out that this was the case - but since then, I've met many older people with a very good command of English - all of it learnt under Communism.

True - but that refers to many areas of life, not solely travelling. In terms of traveling - a lot had to do with access to money. If you had money, you could travel. There were hassles, but many people managed to do it. The true issue is that to be able to do it - in many cases you had to rely on illegal means - like getting "dewizy" on black market, bribing officials to give you your passport. Remember also that traveling in those times was more expensive - think about air fares. This were times when being a flight assistant was a top-job (especially in Eastern Europe, but even in other countries it still had the "glam" factor). And look about now?

The bottom line is - yes, you are right that in terms of choice people from Western Europe or USA has all the options. But usability of those options at those time was more limited than now, so differences were probably not as visible.

In terms of individualism - Polish people are very defiant. If you tell them to go left, they'll go right. Just for the sake of it. So suppression of freedom probably resulted ion growth of individualism rather than suppression.

Couldn't have put it better :-)

I had little money, but I managed to travel. The first time was the toughest experience.


What are you talking about? Who could afford it? Have you ever heard about hitchhiking? Not recommended in DDR though. I tried it unsuccessfully and was stopped by DDR police half way to Hof, returned back to Bautzen (Budziszyn), interrogated and then sent back to Polish border. So the train was the only effective option to go through DDR and to reach the West.

And ferry to Scandinavia was also not that expensive and one could pay in Polish zloty. The fare included Swedish table and few drinks at the bar. Those paying in Polish currency had a choice of Polish vodka and Polish beer, all the others - all those colourful drinks and Tuborg beer. It was the first and the only time I felt discriminated against. :-)


That's very true. :-)


I knew about one, Dalimpex Ltd. in Etobicoke (west Toronto), Canada, but it was set much earlier by PRL as an import-export company, dealing with heavy machinery and tools - among other things. Rumor was that they also did some spying on Toronto Polonia. A company of this name still exists, listed as one of the Food Products in Mississauga, at new address. Check this report from 1989, where they presented their view on foreign markets, especially the Canadian one, citing some numbers,

dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a345082.pdf

Toronto Polonia companies have been doing a lot of business with Poland. For example, Polimex: travel, tours, parcels, cargo - they have been here for ages. Everyone here used their service at least once. There are several Polish bookstores, so someone has to deal with import of books and magazines. And food - a lot of imperishables are imported from Poland: confectionaries, herbal teas or even coffee (sic!).

agreed. Accessible it was. My point is when compared to the German and Russian teachers, the English teachers "work" was not on the same level. ie the quantity of teaching might've been there (I still doubt that Kuba na wsi would've had an English teacher but he most definitely had a Russian one) BUT not the quality.

Do you know German and Russian fluently yourself? If not, those teacher's performance might have been enhanced by the fact that you weren't in a position to see any mistakes they might have made and / or pronunciation problems they might have had.

Absolutely right Boletus. This has been one of most common transporting means for many years for most students, not just in Poland :)

To be precise Polish tourists in the West were dirt poor,it was however different case when we were going to other KDLs.For instance I remeber when going for vacation in Constanca Romania we didn't take any money but a half of the suitcase of Biseptol which was dirt cheap and readily available in Poland.On the second day in Romania we didn't have any Biseptol left but we had a whole plastic bag of Romanian money,more than we could spend.Going to Hungary we were taking clothes to sell and to buy US dollars from Arabs who were selling dollars in underground pass next to Keleti train station.Funny that Hungarian milicia was often raiding bazars but I never heard of someone who was caught so I guess they were trying hard not to catch anybody.

yeah, that's all I needed to read. surely you lived in the land of freedom, after all, you had meat on the table once every two weeks when the "peasant woman" stopped by from the "illegal home butchery." haha.....oh man.

FUZZYWICKETS: yeah, that's all I needed to read. surely you lived in the land of freedom, after all, you had meat on the table once every two weeks when the "peasant woman" stopped by from the "illegal home butchery." haha.....oh man.

well, if freedom and individualism for you is just about avilability of meat, or whatever goods, in shops, then I frankly don't know what to say.

BTW, what's with the quote function? It disappeared a few days ago. Am I the only one having this problem?

Sadly, people do equate those two.

I just wanted to tell you that you are quotable ;)

no, it's not "just about", but yeah, i kinda relate freedom a little bit to whether or not someone has their foot on top of my head telling me what and when i can buy basic essentials for every day life.

For some people like me essentials are- plenty of time and enough sleep- that means freedom. also, That I can distribute my own time the way I want to. To think about things I want to think, in a way I want to. To be able to turn off the phone when I feel like it and so on..

Meet has nothing to do with that kind of freedom.

You're funny, man.LOL You guys lived behind the iron curtain. There was no war on drugs because Poland was far behind the west back then and drug abuse wasn't as widely spread as it is now (which is actually a positive thing in my opinion), there was no war on terror because there was no terror (unless you count robbing your human rights by your own government).

NATASA: Sadly, people do equate those two.
Yeah, the land of plenty stands for the land of freedom.

NATASA: I just wanted to tell you that you are quotable ;)
Thank you ;)

And so did you.The difference was that we had much knowledge about what was going on on your side of iron curtain than you had about what's was going on on our side.

good point Magdalena. I am not fluent in either language so, of course, I wouldn't be in a position to evaluate. But our native Russian and German speaking fellow-students were. It was by their accounts over my seven years that I came to my conclusion

Well, let's put it that way, it's not that we didn't know it, it's more that no one really cared to know it (talking general population).

Agree with the tight knit family thing. Maybe because I came from different family background and I've found myself a bit uncomfortable with my husband's family. Tight knit family is a good thing though. But sometimes the intense is enough to drive me crazy. And Yes, if anything happens, his mama will make sure her relative through out Poland will know it as well.

The Polish mother-in-law is a force to be reckoned with. But she does have her weaknesses ;)

Like what, she softens to praise of her cooking? :-)

that and other things lol

Not really, I was too young at that time to be interested in economics. But, on a related subject, you may be interested in an interview with Mieczysław Wilczek - one of the few private entrepreneurs in PRL, later the secretary of industry in Rakowski's government and the author of the radical re-orientation of the economic policies in 1988, BEFORE Mazowiecki and Balcerowicz. "Oto ojciec proszku Ixi"


Very funny. I used to have a plantation of poppies in my garden (for makowiec). Converting them to opium is elementary, and converting to heroin by reacting with acetic anhydride not much harder. Also, what is so hard about harvesting cannabis? Synthetic amphetamine is not a rocket science either - I still have a Polish texbook for pharmacy students (mid 1980s) with a detailed recipe (I bought it for the description of synthesis of pentaerythritol tetranitrate).

I am under the impression that you are one of those believing that polar bears used to roam streets in PRL (impeded only by military checkpoints, where they were asked to show their papers).


My government (although at that time I considered them Soviet nominees, rather than "my government") never made me to take off my shoes. My government never invaded my home. My government actually respected more principles contained in your Bill of Rights than are actually recognized in the present day United States (after all these exceptions manufactured by courts to benefit government functionaries). And my government was nominally a Communist, totalitarian regime. Think about it.

I bet, most of your countrymen would strongly disagree with you.

This is not consistent with my own experience. First, if you want to use an example of "Kuba na wsi", then compare him with "Jake, farmer's son". Neither is expected to be an Einstein. But when you move a little higher in the social strata (let's make it the high school, "liceum" level), then the education in late PRL was more than decent. Teachers were university graduates, having 4 or 5 years of rigorous training leading to the magister degree. Moreover, language programs were highly selective, and you were expected to be already fluent in English to be admitted. This produced competent teachers, and you didn't have to live in Warsaw to be taught by one. I lived in £ódź, and went to an average high school. Then, I had ONLY NATIVE SPEAKERS as teachers at the university (the Technical University of Lódź). So, based on my own experience, English was widely taught in the late 1980s, and the quality of the instruction was good. Naturally, no instruction can produce native speakers.

Generally, people in the West (and perhaps also the younger generation of Poles too) tend to confuse two things: the cultural sophistication with the economic achievements. Based on the sorry state of the Soviet-style economies they tend to believe that people who lived in Communist states were inept, uneducated, rustic simpletons, looking at the world behind the iron curtain with awe. In fact, the opposite would be justified. Imagine my "awe" when, during my first visit in the United States I went to a university bookstore, opened a math textbook for college students (sic!) and found a chapter dealing with simple operations on fractions!


25 years ago I would disagree with myself too. Living in the United States, having read all the founding documents (happy 4th July, btw.) and treating them seriously, not just as obscure, historical papers written by long dead white people, and seeing what I see in the context of what I remember from being a citizen of a "totalitarian, Communist country", enables me to make educated comparisons. You guys have been downgraded to such a state of obedient sheeple that our old Communist "masters" could only dream of.

That's nice.

I prefer those things, plus the other things.