Andrzej Paczkowski - Böcker

Already famous throughout Europe, this international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the actual, practical accomplishments of Communism around the world: terror, torture, famine, mass deportations, and massacres. Astonishing in the sheer detail it amasses, the book is the first comprehensive attempt to catalogue and analyze the crimes of Communism over seventy years."Revolutions, like trees, must be judged by their fruit," Ignazio Silone wrote, and this is the standard the authors apply to the Communist experience—in the China of "the Great Helmsman," Kim Il Sung's Korea, Vietnam under "Uncle Ho" and Cuba under Castro, Ethiopia under Mengistu, Angola under Neto, and Afghanistan under Najibullah. The authors, all distinguished scholars based in Europe, document Communist crimes against humanity, but also crimes against national and universal culture, from Stalin's destruction of hundreds of churches in Moscow to Ceausescu's leveling of the historic heart of Bucharest to the widescale devastation visited on Chinese culture by Mao's Red Guards.As the death toll mounts—as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on—the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror, and repression. An extraordinary accounting, this book amply documents the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the twentieth century.

One can think of countries that traversed the twentieth century free from war, revolution, or social upheaval. Such countries, however, are far outnumbered by those that struggled, often constantly, with severe internal conflicts, fought in bloody wars, or were attacked by their neighbors and deprived of their sovereignty. Poland is one of the more startling examples of a country subjected to a steady stream of trials and tribulations from Hitler’s Nazi Germany through decades of Soviet repression. The Spring Will Be Ours, by one of Poland’s leading historians, is the first book written after the collapse of state socialism in 1989 to tell this dramatic story based on research in newly declassified records.The Spring Will Be Ours focuses on the turbulent half century from the outbreak of World War II in 1939, which started the chain of events that would lead to the communist takeover of Poland, to 1989, when futile attempts to reform the communist system gave way to its total transformation. Paczkowski shows how the communists captured and consolidated power, describes their use of terror and propaganda, and illuminates the changes that took place within the governing elite. He also documents the political opposition to the regime—both inside Poland and abroad—that resulted in upheavals in 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, and 1980. His narrative makes evident the pressures that the elite felt from above, from Moscow, and from below, from the population and from within the party. The history of Poland and the Poles is of special interest because on numerous occasions in the twentieth century this relatively small country influenced developments on a global scale.First published in Poland in 1995, The Spring Will Be Ours has been translated into several other languages. For this edition, translated by Jane Cave, Paczkowski has added an introductory chapter on Poland’s twenty years of independence prior to 1939 and an extensive postscript exploring the changes that have taken place since the fall of communism in 1989. A bibliography of English-language works, prepared by Padraic Kenney, makes this book an indispensable starting point for anyone seeking to understand the remarkable course of events that brought an independent Poland into the twenty-first century.

Examines the 1980 Solidarity revolution in Poland, the government's subsequent establishment of martial law in response, in 1981, and the eventual transition to democracy in 1989.The 1980 general strike in Poland and the establishment of the independent Solidarity movement, which sought to create a state based on civic freedom, were symptoms of a crisis of the communist system. On December 13, 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski on behalf of the ruling Communist Party imposed martial law, effectively quashing Solidarity. Jaruzelski won the battle, but Solidarity continued its revolution in secret and Poland remained politically destabilized. Elections held in June 1989 ended with the defeat of the Communists and the establishment in September of a coalition government in which half of the parliamentary seats went to Solidarity, whose representative was also appointed prime minister. The revolution inaugurated in 1980 by the dockworkers of Gdansk had come to fruition.Revolution and Counterrevolution in Poland, 1980-1989: Solidarity, Martial Law, and the End of Communism inEurope recounts and analyzes the events of this formative decade in Polish history, with particular emphasis on the martial law period. Drawing on extensive archival research, Andrzej Paczkowski examines the origin and form of the Solidarity revolution, the course of the Communist counterrevolution, and the final victory won by Solidarity along with its international repercussions.Andrzej Paczkowski is professor of political studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. Christina Manetti, PhD, is a translator and independent researcher of Polish history.