Abstract
Lenin’s dictum that ‘the press should not be only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses’ (‘Where to Begin?’, 1901) seems ironically to loom large over the developments Siobhan Doucette describes. Her analysis provides a decisive repudiation for – in my view – the considerable underplaying of the phenomenon of the Polish underground press in H. Gordon Skilling’s Samizdat and an Independent Society in Eastern Europe (1989). Here, finally in English, is a conscientious and well-structured broadly chronological approach to the development of underground publishing in People’s Poland from the summer of 1976 until late 1989.
The ten main chapters capture well the ebb and flow of tendencies within what had traditionally been known as the ‘Second Circulation’ (drugi obieg) – a term since replaced in scholarly discourse by ‘independent’, ‘underground’ or – as here – ‘opposition’ press. In particular, the conflicts of political outlook, petty jealousies and financial grievances emerge strongly, though Bogdan Borusewicz’s observation that ‘the publishing movement constantly renewed itself’ (p. 170) is most resonant. In the early 1980s, under martial law, in the absence of the suspended Solidarity press, independent publishers served to ensure Solidarity’s survival, helping to organize and sustain the underground union; later in the decade, their role changed to a more autonomous one of increasingly shaping their own publishing profile, with some, such as Daybreak (Przedświt), focusing exclusively on literary works. The pen portraits of individuals and their enterprises provide often vivid insights into the nature of the material and issues that preoccupied them. Two chapters provide more considered evaluations: Chapter 3, ‘Tactics’, reflects on the early differences between major figures such as Michnik, Macierewicz, Hall and Kuroń as evinced in key articles of the time; while Chapter 6, ‘The First Solidarity National Congress, 1981’, describes the press and union moving beyond their immediately pressing concerns onto visions of what a future reformed Poland might look like.
One of the book’s major merits is to remind readers of the central role played by women in the underground press – the estimable Helena Łuczywo throughout, followed in the 1980s by Joanna Szczęsna, Anna Bikont, Anna Dodziuk, Ewa Kulik and Urszula Doroszewska (p. 101 and passim). Coupled with its tracking of the increasingly divergent stances of numerous publications later, it effectively suggests the diversity of views, practices and foci that existed in the underground with the production of cassettes, stamps (a useful means of generating financial support from the public, p. 182) and comic books, among other things. The marginalization of both women and gender issues prompts the thought that what was not discussed in the underground in retrospect may be as important as what was. Chojecki’s memory of ‘printers being unhappy to produce works on “birds and flowers” given the inherent risks’ (p. 40) deserves further unpacking in this regard.
In some of its assessments the book seems less sure-footed. The comment that ‘with the founding of new independent political parties and political publications, many youth periodicals became outwardly apolitical’ (p. 215) could be contextualized by reference to the so-called ‘third circulation’ of punk and counter-cultural music, which considered the ‘second circulation’ to operate within parameters defined by the authorities. Their desire was, rather, to dispense with them. While the book’s detail and chronology work well, the reiterated sub-headings (‘Repression and response’ features in several chapters) begin to pall. Similarly, the very short minor sections may be a useful way to focus the material initially but, like puttlocks, might be removed later.
The errata are few in number, the most colourful being the attribution of The Devil’s Alternative to William, rather than Frederick, Forsyth (p. 180; the fact that the novel became an underground bestseller is extraordinary in itself). On the Polish side, footnote 126 on p. 281 should presumably reference an article titled ‘Czy wznawia się represje wobec pism niezależnych?’ Occasionally, the translations beg questions: the use of the term ‘connection’ (p. 127) to describe People Poland’s ties or, more exactly, alliance with the Soviet Union is too weak for what sounds like a quotation from official propaganda against Kornel Morawiecki. Although the author is consistent throughout in using English titles for the Polish press, Election Newspaper rather jars; my preference, in extremis, has been for Electoral Gazette but Gazeta Wyborcza appears to have enough traction in its own right. There is a useful list of titles with translations on pp. xii–xix, although ‘ear’ [of corn, etc.] for ‘kłos’, p. xii, is open to misunderstanding.
Further areas of research – as indicated above – will be greatly facilitated by this work and while there are further stories to tell, for the time being this account will do very nicely.