Bolesław Janus: The Politics of Culture in Poland’s Worker Paradise

Poland’s state authorities hoped that their model Marxist city, Nowa Huta, would become an

agent of socialist civilization in the 1950s. State-sponsored edifying opportunities would

transform Nowa Huta’s illiterate and unworldly peasants into literate, urbanized, highbrow

Marxists.

Because of the promotion of high culture, many Nowa Hutans became attracted to high culture

in general but, ironically, not the government version of it. These persons consciously rejected

attempts at political/cultural engineering and instead molded a unique environment and social

identity that was authentic, avant-garde, and revolutionary. This group of independent-minded

cultural trailblazers rejected the government’s attempt to engineer politically loyal citizens

through the manipulation of culture, and instead formed an elite class of revolutionary citizens, a

cultural vanguard that ultimately would help undermine the regime’s legitimacy and eventually

help bring an end to communism in Poland.

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