"Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland

:)
During my seven years I had only one bad experience with a Pole who "hated" me for being an American. But that's stuff for an entirely nw thread.

I spend a bit of time watching foreign films myself, through Netflix. I watch foreign films not because they are necessarily better than American, just a different point of view. It seems like every country has a different point of view and that's what I enjoy. I've found that Poland has a very sophisticated film industry but their films are very often cerebral and introspective. Sometimes too ponderous. Poles don't like conversation, at least the characters in their films don't.

I thought you'll name something like "Fort Apache The Bronx"... it sounds like now anti-American propaganda prevails too ;)

When you came to Poland wasn't that a suprise for you, rybnik, that American movies were shown there at all? What were your expectations in that regard? How did you imagine Poland before you visited it?

What were the tv adverts like during communism?

Few of them are here:
PRL TV Ads

There are a famous collection of Estonian adverts during Communism - this is one example -
youtube.com/watch?v=i6LAVk1sHW8

Thanks, so were these state run companies?

Let me put in perspective: European films were often introspective. It was a time of great European movie directors: Antonioni, Fellini, Kazan, Buñuel, Forman, Truffaut, Bergman; great actors: Mastroianni, Belmondo; beautiful actresses: Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinalle. On this background the Polish movies did not look bad at all. But that's the theme for another topic; partially covered by one of those Pawian's puzzle threads.

Take a look at this: youtu.be/pyXN8rlprB4

Here you have a quick view at one of Polish movies from that era, directed by one of the best directors, with the music score of one of the best Polish jazz composers, and with the voice of one of the best Polish singers at that time - Polish Edith Piaff, the Black Angel.

Film: Bariera
Year: 1966
Technical data: b & w, 77'
Director: Jerzy Skolimowski and Barbara Sass-Zdort
Scenario: Jerzy Skolimowski
Prizes: 1966 Bergamo - Grand Prix, 1968 Valladolid - Special Jury Prize

Music: Krzysztof Komeda
Composer (including the song): Krzysztof Komeda
Text of the song "Z ręką na gardło": Jerzy Skolimowski
Singer: Ewa Demarczyk

Jarosław Śmietana: A Story of Polish Jazz
Jarek Śmietana tells the story of "The Story of Polish Jazz", the title piece of his newest [then, in 2004] record.
Full text in Polish here: diapazon.pl/PelnaWiadomosc.php?bn=Artykuly&Id=310
...
He wanted it to be rap, he wanted it to be short, and he wanted it to be in Polish. But he could not squeeze it below 10 minutes.

...
He joined the Polish Jazz scene in 1970s, so had to read a lot to learn about 50s and 60s.
...
The work is made of 14 verses, interspersed with choruses of solo singers: 12 invited guests, himself and his piano player, Piotr Wyleżol. Each verse ends up with a name of some important person in specific period of Polish jazz, and that person (or somebody else) plays his symbolic four tacts. The first one is Duduś Matuszkiewicz, from where it alls started. [Jarek apologizes for forgetting to mention NOVI Sigers]. Two authentic rapers from Nowa Huta, calling themselves Bzyk and Guzik, were invited to run the show. They are helped by an American bass sax player, Steve Logan, who responds in English to all the basic question of the story:

-Duduś Matuszkiewicz: kto to jest?
- The first giant of Polish jazz



A Story of Polish Jazz

words: Jarek Śmietana / Jacek Pelc
music: Jarek Śmietana
8 taktów intro: "Horns and Brass Band"

diapazon.pl/PelnaWiadomosc.php?bn=Artykuly&Id=310

This is too much copying and pasting, and too much Polish language in an English language thread. This post may be moved later

I had no preconceived notions.


yes it was indeed.

Yep.

Surprised me too when I found out - I always thought there would be no need for companies to advertise during Communism, but - well!

Polish streets used to be full of neon reklama too - so beautiful, and such a shame that most has been destroyed.

not in Kraków and Wrocław.
The only place with a neon sign was a small private restaurant on Skłodowska by Plac Grunwaldski.
Maybe also the Dworzec Główny.

Were they dubbed into English or sub-titled? Were negative references to the Soviet Union and communism allowed through or wer they changed, dubbed out?

Movies and series with anti-Communism, anti-Soviet, anti-Russian, anti-Tsar(!), anti-revolution, anti-French(!) or Cuban revolution, anti-"progress" etc. accents were treated as contaminated and were not allowed at all. I.e. Bond as an enemy spy was suspicious and we haven't seen even a single innocent episode and could only read about him till video era in 80', but Simon Templar was OK. It seems foreign movies used to pass mostly through 1 step process: correct - buy, incorrect - forget. Follow censoring was formality or limited to moral matter (like deleting scenes in "Nine 1/2 Weeks").

Despite of that, all "safe" elements of culture common in the "free part of western World" were common in Poland too, but not until 89 we have a pleasure to see on official TV many movies presented not "progressive" point of view.

That people in Poland were starving because of shortages and empty shelves in stores. Meanwhile the truth was Poland until the 1970s was a major food exporter. There were shortages because Poland borrowed 25 billion in the early 70s from West German and US to build roads, hospital, industry... By 1980 it was time to pay back, with the economy is crisis, 870% inflation that year, it didn't have the money to pay. Some it paid with food. People didn't starve they drove to the countryside to buy directly from the farmers.

Wow, really? Not that I noticed back then


- that's true, a lot of it was then inefficiently run


Any proof? I don't remember it that high. Late 89 saw inflation in this range though

Not Poland, but Yugoslavia 1983.

I was 19 had been living on a kibbutz in Israel, and was traveling with my Swedish friend to Sweden, we wer hitch-hiking our way there. We got to Greece, managed to struggle up to the Yugoslavic Border, and we was told not to try to hitch-hike in Yugoslavia it was hopeless, but try and get a lift right the way through to Austria/Germany. We managed to do that.

The first thing we saw when the light came up was Peasant women working in a muddy hilly field next to the "Motor-way" we wer amazed, we wer shocked I thought Peasants was something of the Past, it was something that had died out in Britain hundreds of years ago. We saw these elderly women in their head scarves working by hand on this muddy hill. We saw men walking their bulls by the side of the "Motor-way" they wer feeding their cows on the roadside weeds, the motor-way, which seemed to be made of concrete, had only two lanes.

We had the Police stopping us every few miles, the Police looked like they wer like something out of "Chips", shiny boots, sunglasses, flash motor bikes, the lot! they would radio ahead to tell the next cop, we wer coming, and each time a bribe was handed over to the cop in the Germans driver's passport. The cops looked like they wer out of "Chips", complete replica, but the roads looked like they wer made out of concrete! ?:o.

We needed to get some petrol, we looked for petrol stations, we found some, the petrol stations wer covered in beautiful flags, a beautiful display of flags outside each petrol station, I think it was May Day or something, yet each Petrol-Station had no petrol in it, beautiful flags, but no petrol! they didn't hav staff manning them half the time, which we found out when looking a toilet.

we saw soldiers trying to hitch-hike, they looked they wer from the Second World War, I had never seen that before, not even my Grand Dad looked like that.

We finally arrived in Belgrade, the first thing we saw was a a sloping concrete wall covered in a Propaganda Muriel depicting heroic workers or something, it was just like I imagined the Soviet Union was like, but in miniature. we got something to eat, lined up in some canteen, it was bleak wet, raining, every body was shuffle-ling around, it was just how Communist countries wer depicted in Western films. Every where we went we saw unfinished buildings, homes, we wer told if the buildings wer unfinished that the owners didn't hav to pay Tax on them, so they didn't finish the top floor.

Well, finally we got to the Austrian border, the alphabet had changed when they stamped our Passports, and we wer back in the ...? eh,?Our World, /,the modern World, anyway it was familiar.

I imagin that has all changed now, things hav improved vastly now that Communism is Dead, that was 45-72 Years wasted!. It was one of the happiest days in my life when the Berlin Wall fell.

hospitals, housing especially, money was pumped into steel mills and heavy industry, which was on an ineversable decline and thus was wasted.

Check out Krist Novoselic's account of Cultural life in Communist Yugoslavia
Last Tango in Paris was considered peak time family viewing!
sos.wa.gov/legacyproject/oralhistories/KristNovoselic/pdf/complete.pdf

i was annoyed to See The Bundesarchiv have banned all East German tv clips from you tube, theres one cinema advert uploaded

Another experience i remember on the same trip as it goes. When we got to Germany, we stayed with a friend of my friend's, whilst there we watched some Television, and one of the Channels was, it turned out, the official TV channel of East Germany and they had an English language lesson on, it was hilarious.

First of all it was in Black & White, next the girl dressed like something out of an English children's book, and then we introduced to the English family they wer staying with, cue, Black & White mug shot of a Woman with a miserable face with her mouth down turned, the husband the same, we were rolling around the floor by now.

Next, the East German girl and Boy learnt some important English words in every day use, like "Proletariat", and "Working-class", and then they wer off for an adventurous and interesting day in London: they went to visit the Grave of Karl Marx. Wow. They laid some flowers at his grave and that was all we watched, it might hav finished there, I don't remember.


and of course "progressive" was code for Socialism. Yes?

They can't comprehend that education is superior in Communism

? and who's, "They"?

Obviously "Westerner's"

In the case of Americans, they are spoon fed growing up: "This is the greatest and freest country in the World''. And ''Democracy (Capitalism) is the best system"

"Capitalism" is an economic system.
"Democracy" is how we choose our leaders.

You're right about that, most of us don't believe it.

I don't know that the average American had any particular conception of life in Poland as opposed to life in the other Warsaw Pact countries. The exception would be those who had some sort of family tie to there.

I believe my generation largely viewed the WP countries as unlucky (in regard to post-war fortunes) and moderately oppressed. There was considerable confusion with regard to understanding the differences in life, politics, freedoms, etc. between them and the USSR republics such as Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine. We were aware that Radio Free America/Europe were broadcasting into the area with the goal of providing a different information source ot the people and, probably, hoping that those who were resisting Communist Party rule would be emboldened in their efforts. I know we were happy when people made it across the border and saddened in the high profile cases where people were shot or recaptured as they tried to "escape". Most of us couldn't quite understand why a country would put up fences to keep their people from leaving.

During the height of the Cold War there was certainly fear of Russian missiles but, honestly, I never quite understood the Cuban missile crisis. It was a bit embarrassing for my Dad (who worked for the Department of Defense on an Admiral's staff) that I continually wondered why we cared if missiles were in Cuba since we had them at bases in Europe and on the submarines offshore. At worst, the animosity was for the military personnel and we felt the populations were somewhat over-controlled in a manner like a large, open-air prison. Those escapees in Berlin, the Baltic, defectors such as Stalin's daughter, Barishnikov and Godunov, sailors attempting to jump from ships and accounts of informers and all contributed to the perception of how things probably were in the satellites as well as the USSR proper. Stories of travel restrictions, lagging consumer goods technologies and political indoctrination programs also formed a big part of the impressions we had of the life being led behind the curtain.

Even Brit literature and travel guides contributed to the picture. Stories about being sure to bring toilet paper, sink/tub plugs, being careful with picture-taking and talking to locals didn't help the image. The reports on the invasions and interventions in uprisings from Yugoslavia, Hungary and such were all part of the picture we had.

Speaking for myself I would say that some perceptions proved accurate, others less so. The bleak apartment buildings, relatively few cars, hot water interruptions, unsteady power grids and dense living conditions all seemed to prove true. The public transport was much better than expected. The super-wide and wider than normal sidewalks were a pleasant surprise. History was slightly better-preserved than expected. Education seemed to be much more focused on tasks than theory resulting in high literacy balanced against less understanding of the overall subject. The demeanor of the people was more introverted and "suspicious" but the causes for that are still a speculation for me.

It's all interconnected with FREEEEEEEEEEEDOM

Free market in Capitalism (Except corporations own politicians haha)
Freedom to vote for whomever you want (2 parties haha)

Americans are really Nationalistic. They even made up their own word for it.... Patriotism

All communist/socialist systems depend on fear and absence of justice. Snitching is encouraged and rewarded.. Criticizing the system will get you in trouble, so you are naturally suspicious and reluctant to speak freely. Not much to speculate about.

what?! So now communist and socialist it's the same!? Sure, they both share some ideals like equality of rights, or try to treat the rich and the poor equality, but fear or absence of justice in socialism!?

On the face of it, that is my highest probability. Some of the natives insist it simply isn't true. It is certainly decided by the individual but I also stay open-minded since there is a language barrier and some other physical things which may contribute to it as well. History hasn't been kind to Eastern Europe.

I remember we used to feel sorry for the people in Eastern Europe, feel deeply worried about them and their suffering under their stupid moronic oppressiv Governments, we used to feel a bond with them, a sympathy, a feeling I think has completely disappeared now and been replace by, at least, disappointment.


of which all of these wer achieved under Communism and Socialism!

I was talking about ideals... political ideologies are apply by humans, and humans are far from being perfect. Now I can agree that communism has the fear and lack of justice part, but in the socialism I can't agree... portugal, for example is changing every 4/8 years between social democratic and socialist party, honestly I can't say which one is more effective (probably non of them) but I can say that mainly we are a socialist country and no one is afraid to express their opinion and the injustice that may exist is only because of incompetence and/or some corruption (independent of the political ideology).