”Random and Hostile People, Career-Makers, Morally Derailed Informers and Declarants”. The Image of the Members of the Polish Workers’ Party in the Lubelskie Voivodeship As Emerging from the Cases in the Voivodeship Commission for Party Control of PWP in Lublin in the Years 1945–1948

Abstract

The end of the warfare led to the beginning of efforts of the Polish Workers’ Party to take control in every area of life. Achieving this goal required the transformation of the underground organisation into a party capable of governing the state. Maintaining the obedience of its members was one of the priorities of the party’s leadership. The body responsible for detecting and punishing offences was the Central Commission for Party Control which ruled over the voivodeship commissions. The aim of the article is to present a sociological overview of PWP activists who were in the range of interest of the Voivodeship Party Control Commission in Lublin, using statistical methods showing, e.g. their age, profession or party experience. The analysis of the issued decisions and their motives will show what violations were recorded, what penalties were applied and will facilitate the understanding of the party’s problems in the first years of the “People’s Rule”. Most of 1,358 cases originated in Lublin where the Voivodeship Party Control Commission had the greatest influence. The highest percentage of the penalised people were young activists with short party experience the majority of whom lived off manual labour, although many of them held party and administrative positions. Almost the same number of cases were closed with exclusion and discontinuance of proceedings, some of the applications were untruthful. The members of the Commission tried to fulfil their educational duties, as evidenced by the number of penalties for breach of order. The most common offenses were drunkenness, violation of party discipline and material abuse, there were also frequent cases of cooperation with the independence underground and crimes from the occupation period, which shows the insufficient knowledge of the leadership about the past of the activists. The Voivodeship Party Control Commission, being aware of its few staff, sometimes withdrew from the exclusion of the activists performing their functions, tolerating them until the party found the right candidates for these positions. Conclusions appear to be unfavourable for the party, however, it should be noted that in comparison with the total number of members of the Polish Workers’ Party in the voivodeship, the number of accused persons seems to be small.