Complaints and Their Researchers

East European Politics and Societies and Cultures Volume 28 Number 2 May 2014 296-317 © 2013 Sage Publications Complaints and Their 10.1177/0888325413510313 http://eeps.sagepub.com hosted at Researchers: http://online.sagepub.com The Evolution of Sociodicy in Poland in the Period of 1949–1988 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw

“Reading newspapers, watching television, taking part in public meetings, and also listening to the ‘popular voice,’ one can have an impression that Poland is a country full of frustrated, manipulated, ignored people who have been pushed to the margin and deprived of the respect they deserve,” claim the authors of the book Cudze problemy (Problems of Others) in 1991. From this perspective, it is impossible to overestimate the role played in the system of “popular democracy” by institutions of social control, worker/peasant inspections, bureaus of letters and complaints, and also by books of complaints and requests, which were supposed to act as substitutes for nonexistent democratic institutions. This article, based on a historical Old Polish tradition of laments and supplications, will contextualize the articulation of injustice in the trade discourse popularized in the period of the Polish People’s Republic through books of complaints and requests.

Keywords: complaints; sociodicy; Mary Douglas’s theory of blaming; Polish People’s Republic; books of complaints

ary Douglas argues that when it comes to disasters, human societies are inca- Mpable of assigning them to more than a certain number of blaming schemas.1 The blame is cast on an individual, either the victim or someone associated with them, accusing the said individual of breaking a taboo; alternatively, the blame is cast on an outside enemy. The disaster can also be said to be the result of a rivalry between competitors in an economy of scarce goods; likewise, the society itself can be accused of provoking the disaster, as is done, for example, in the case of criminality ascribed to social marginalisation.2 Each type of blaming generates a particular theodicy, or rather sociodicy3—a set of clarifications whose function is to answer the questions “why me” and “why now,” which are probably rightfully considered the oldest existential questions. A valuable source for the study of sociodicy lies in complaints—historically changing forms of grievances, which the aggrieved individuals address to those whom they consider to be their most appropriate recipients. In this article, I intend to compare—based on existing work concentrating on the second half of the twentieth century4—the formulation and content of complaints written to the party, press, or television authorities during four micro-periods of recent

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Polish history, falling into the years between 1949 and 1988. As a parallel topic, I will look at how these complaints are perceived by their researchers, who already live in a different reality than the authors of the examined sources. By simultaneously studying the object and the subject of the reflections about complaints addressed to the authorities, I hope to gain an insight into the system of notions about justice, which has been evolving during the transformation from the Polish version of communism into capitalism and economic liberalism. I define the term sociodicy here as a system of implications regarding normative relations between individuals, the community at large, and the government authorities pertaining to the issue of social justice and reconstructed on the basis of letters, negotiated and not explicitly formulated, albeit emerging from objective documents of a political system. Citizens’ complaints filed with the authorities and concentrating on wrong-doings à rebours reveal the expectations regarding the proper functioning of the system.

Three Types of Complaints

Complaints from the Stalinist Period, 1949–1953 The title of an article by a team of authors under the leadership of Marcin Kula, Supliki do najwyższej władzy (Supplications to the Highest Authority), highlights the discrepancy between the slogans and the practice of real socialism, which “in its own perception was creating a new world, new life and a new human”; in reality, however, “it was perpetuating traditional phenomena, at times almost feudal in spirit,” such as the supplications in the title. Supplication is a genre of Old-Polish literature, which features letters to a lord of the manor, in which the authors complain about their own situation, the estate manager, or excessive taxes. In return for the homagium included in the letter, they expect understanding, intervention, and support from the recipient. According to the authors of the article, the letters sent to the KC (Komitet Centralny, Central Committee) of the PZPR (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, Polish United Workers’ Party) in the period of 1949–1953 show an identical structure.5 They formulated their research goal as follows: they had intended to “look at the phenomenon of writing to the authorities—the motives and mentality of the writers; the party apparatus’s response to the issues raised; the relationship between the governing and the governed; and, probably most importantly, the image of Poland emerging from this correspondence.”6 Let us start with the researchers’ answer to this very question:

In light of the processed complaints—they conclude—there emerges a country where justice or a sensible solution could be expected only in Warsaw, and even that depended on the will of the authorities; a country where the whole structure of government

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institutions and lower party echelons was something of a decoration, which duplicated itself, but did not have explicitly defined competences, and as a result could not function properly. At the same time, reading the analysed complaints gives the impression that despite appearances, the Central Committee governed the everyday life of the country only to a limited extent. The party seems to be a weak organisation. It was supposed to be a structure enabling authoritative rule, but it did not have enough strength. The plan failed due to the individuals representing the PZPR in the field.7

In the letters to the KC, on which this opinion is based, there is a remarkable “over-representation of peasants”; according to the authors of the analysis, this can be explained by “an exceptionally great intensity of problems in villages, arising due to the founding of produce co-operatives and the implementation of de facto anti- peasant policies.”8 The senders of these letters more often than others tend to sign them with group classifiers, for example, “we, the smallholders” or “the peasant community.”9 Besides peasants, the authors of the letters include workers, in rare cases also public officials and dignitaries (a tax office director, a public prosecutor, an inspector at the Ministry of Forestry), sometimes their spouses, soldiers and mili- tiamen, but also a large group of disabled or wronged individuals. Another large group consists of party members, who often include their membership card number and sign as “an old comrade.” Most letters concern local officials—directors, public officials, party functionar- ies and the police officers—who did not keep the promises of social justice made by the party. The complainants declare full identification with this idea and demand its implementation, which is hindered by conscious or unconscious sabotage by outside enemies. The following letter formulates this in a comparatively mild manner: “The party is the leading unit of the working class, but only on the central level, not on district levels, where the situation is completely different. On the district level, it has to be said that the party is a crowd of different elements.”10 In fact, all the authors of the complaints use the language of the political system whose representatives they are addressing; the authors of the article explain this with conformist motivations.11 The letters include a lot of expressions like “class forces,” “people’s cadres,” “our workmen,” “proletarian grit,” “a healthy, proletarian attitude,” “work for the masses,” “struggle for People’s Poland and socialism,” “a just system,” or “the beloved party.”12 As well as choosing an idiolect that the author calculated would best convey meaning to the recipient, authentication strategies included declaration of one’s ideological affinity (“the party line has been my guidance in everyday life”),13 suitable origin (“I am a worker’s son”),14 and reference to “the war bond”15 or current affairs (“I am compelled to write by the sad event of comrade Stalin’s death”).16 A common trait of many letters is their intimacy and decrease of distance, usually more characteristic of private correspondence: “Beloved Comrade Secretary, I would like to write you something about myself, and believe me, I don’t know where to start.”17

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The language of the letters is characterised by strong antagonism, manifested in a high occurrence of cacophemisms—linguistic means intending to evoke aversion to the object to which they refer.18 There is a recurring use of “war with the reaction,” “destructive,” “enemy work,” “hostile elements,” “bloodsuckers,” “enemy of the people,” “the reaction,” “hostile and foreign class elements,” “well-masked,” “cun- ning,” “class enemy,” “sly as a fox,” “traitors to People’s Poland,” “imperialist agency,” “kulak,” “reactionary clergy,” “clericalism,” “forces of national and inter- national retrogression,” “outcasts from our society, living across the ocean,” “reformist19 past,” “reformist directors,” “rotten liberalism.”20 Reflecting upon the sincerity of the complainants’ intentions (more on this in the final section of this article), the authors of the analysis argue that the particular etiquette of the letters, accentuating the necessity of vigilance (“revolutionary vigilance of the enemy’s actions,” “party vigilance”), can be connected with lip-service to communist propaganda and the spread of conspiracy theories: “among the progressive people, it [the conspiracy theory] has risen to the rank of a tool of power and the people bought it to a much larger degree than it now seems.”21 The conclusion says: “Summa sum- marum, letters to the KC PZPR were written by the general populace—even if in many of the cases analysed they were individuals supporting the party.”22

Letters to Po Prostu, 1955–1957 If we were to characterise Po Prostu—“a weekly for students and young intelligentsia”23—in one sentence, we could call it the magazine of the Polish Thaw, even before the Thaw had begun. The scale of social hopes associated with it is shown by the fact that from October 1955 until the closure of the magazine two years later, the editorial office received 2,500 letters.24 Once again, let us begin the presentation of their content with the conclusion of the published analysis: “in the correspondence written to Po Prostu, the picture of life in Poland in 1956-1957 is painted in very dark colours.”25 “On the one side, there are ‘them,’ the authorities: distant, arrogant, incompetent and corrupt, but at the same time full of good intentions, wise and enlightened (unfortunately only at the highest levels), and who are envied for their privileges and comparative plenty. On the other side, there are ‘us’—the authors: the ‘general populace,’ who barely make ends meet . . . wasting their lives in fruitless struggle with corrupt officials, absurd regulations, and state-owned trade that sells rejects—and even that at exorbitant prices.”26 Compared to the complaints from the Stalinist era, where the declared goal of intervention was the implementation of Marxist ideology, the difference is apparent—the language of “equality” notwithstanding—in suddenly occurring references to “the truth,” “the restoration,” and also in the grievances, which include economic ones. As before, the language of the letters reflects the language of contemporary propaganda, which after the VIII Plenary Session of the KC PZPR and the XX

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Congress of the KPZR accentuated such formulas/incantations as “war on the distortions of socialism,” “government alienation,” “cutting the liaison with the working class,” and also a novelty: “alienation of the party from the nation.” Prevailing complaints refer to the privileges of the authorities, which guarantee their representatives access to consumer goods (“shops behind yellow curtains,” the so-called konsumy,27 only accessible to party dignitaries; larger flats; vouchers for cars; better holidays and better health care), keeping a downright physical distance from the “world of work.” This manifested itself in literal segregation (privileges for the chosen), physical absence (as opposed to the employees, the minister is never present in the unheated building of the ministry), telling ignorance (the minister does not know the location of the party unit on the ministry premises) and incorrigible arrogance (the minister does not apologise to students for being two hours late to a rally).28 The language of complaints from this period shows even more significantly than the Stalinist complaints the subjectification of society, which considers itself the recipient of restoration slogans and demands for the rectification of “irregularities.”29 An important trait of the letters lies in the hope associated with a relative improvement in freedom of expression: “I thought to myself that after the XX Congress it is really getting better and we will finally start living by the truth”30—writes a reader who was not in fact able to buy butter in a konsum now accessible to everyone, but who was happy that she could finally comment on this publicly.31 As opposed to the previous corpus of sources, the correspondents of Po Prostu do not constitute a homogenous group. The affiliation of the correspondents can be deduced from the heading on the cover of the magazine, as mentioned previously: “a weekly for students and young intelligentsia.” However, the intelligentsia amounted to less than half of the letter writers: “They included Związek Młodzieży Polskiej [Union of the Polish Youth] students, pre-war university professors, as well as retired teachers; the rest were workers and peasants.”32 The formulations of quoted letters from the intelligentsia not only do not call for a regime change but have a decidedly constructive overtone. “Bureaucrats without qualifications” are accused of hindering the “hardworking masses so far having no influence on the reconstruction of their own homeland,”33 and “irregularities”34 are explained by the ignorance of the central government (“people say that one government in Warsaw is the legal one, and another one, a conspiratorial one, is thieving and performing planned sabotage”).35 Po Prostu correspondents complain that October has never reached the Polish provinces: “These people used to living according the old rules still do not understand the word democratisation, they don’t realise, or don’t want to realise, that it is already after the XX Congress, after the VIII Plenary Session, but they boisterously try to call themselves activists. . . . Yes, they are ‘activists attached to their jobs,’ who have difficulties reconciling themselves to the fact that Stalin and his ideas are laid to rest, that the rule of violence and espionage-mania are already buried.”36 An excerpt from a letter that Po Prostu decided not to publish—probably

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because of its optimism, not in line with the critical outlook of the magazine—can be considered typical: “The point lies in the correctness of the general line, the basic values; in the economic sector, this means a common ownership of the sources of production, a planned economy . . . this is decisive. The minuses observed—these are distortions, these are sad and severe, but they do not change the crux of the matter, they are not capable of hindering the realisation of basic tasks.”37 The things that cast a shadow on the perspectives of socialism during the Thaw period, just as in the previous epoch, include the corruption, despotism, and ignorance of local public officials (“feudal morality, socialist institutions”),38 but also stunning examples of injustice in the distribution of goods, especially flats. Housing hunger was especially acute because of the unprecedentedly high population growth after the war, with which the building industry was trying to keep up, with the inten- tion of building 1.2 million flats as part of the six-year plan (in reality, which is now difficult to grasp, “slightly fewer” were built).39 The editorial office of Po Prostu received letters from individuals complaining that there was no room left for them at the MDMs,40 which were occupied by “people of a different sort, a better, higher category, which turns its head with disgust from the neighbours’ animal dens.”41 The sociodicy reconstructed on the basis of letters from the Thaw period is funda- mentally identical with the Stalinist one (“the Stalinist rule ‘who does not work shall not eat’ applied in the previous period of People’s Poland had led to a situation where almost every person from an early age considered it necessary to earn money, and that as much as possible”).42 Work available for all guaranteed a feeling of security and general equality. Only “slackers” were supposed to find themselves on the margin of society. It is apparent how deeply this sociodicy was internalised by individuals who through no fault of their own could not find work: “Are the times of unemployment, social injustice and poverty holding sway again? . . . Is there ‘capitalism and injustice’ in 1956 in our People’s Homeland?”43 Interestingly enough, the interpretations of “resurgences of capitalism” in the letters consider this—an atavism from the period of “the cult of personality.”44 In order to increase the supply of jobs, some correspondents suggested abandoning the rule of gender equality, strongly supported during the Stalinist era, and advocated mass lay-offs of married women, arguing that they would have something to live on anyway. We learn about this from a letter from women threatened with a group lay-off at the Industrial Aviation Enterprise in Dębica. Its authors stress that they are university graduates, while the lay-offs are initiated by a company board composed of uneducated party activists.45 An element that shows a particular intensification of sociodicy in the period of the Thaw is the “antisocial” behaviour of youth, descriptions of which reach a wider audience because of the loosening of restrictive policies regarding the report- ing of criminal offences. “During the whole of the Stalinist era, there was strict censorship of information regarding the number of murders and other serious offences,” states Adam Leszczyński. “The official stance of the party, incessantly repeated by propaganda, said that robberies and banditry were atavisms of the

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capitalist system, which the society heading towards socialism had not yet managed to eradicate entirely.”46 In the framework of the socialist utopia, common criminality was considered an effect of inequality and oppression, as well as—according to Marx’s view—of the alienation of human labour. In consequence, a criminal was treated as “someone who had not been brought up properly, and was acting without being conscious of his/her objective interests, which had been formulated by the party.”47 For a society kept in ignorance about the extent of postwar criminality, the contact with the phenomenon termed “hooliganism,” and subsequently the more ideologically influenced term bikiniarstwo,48 must have been shocking. Society saw the emergence of a generation brought up in the socialist era, and at the same time contesting its achievements: free education, permanent jobs and involvement in sanctioned organisations. Panic was especially caused by their questioning of the socialist equation linking equality and work: “that lack of enthusiasm among youth for science, for life, some kind of overindulgence in life is simply terrifying. These youths can only expect, demand, but not work.”49 This often led to branding rebel- lious youth the enemy of the system and demands for severe sentences for offend- ers, including hanging and shooting.50 A characteristic picture of disillusionment at the time of the Thaw is given in a poem that apparently scared the editors of Po Prostu, despite the letters that readers wrote in its defence.51 Entitled Poemat dla dorosłych [Poem for Adults], it was published in 1955 in Nowa Kultura by Adam Ważyk,52 a leading soc-realist poet and critic who, through naturalist descriptions of poverty on “the building sites of socialism,” was coming to terms with his own blindness during the Stalinist era. For the radicals from Po Prostu, this picture proved to be too radical. In the magazine, it was opposed by Agnieszka Osiecka, an emerging publicist. It is not enough to write about “sores”—Osiecka criticized Ważyk—we have enough of those. The point is to suggest something constructive rather than just criticise.53

Letters to the TVP, 1971–1988 The third group of complaints consists of letters delivered to the Polish public television channel (more broadly to the so-called Radiokomitet)54 during the last two decades of the existence of the PRL, in the period 1970–1988.55 It was a period of economic and political crises that resulted in the fall of communism, albeit delayed by the declaration of martial law in 1982. This era, referred to in propaganda as a decade of success, started with the administration of Edward Gierek, who replaced Władysław Gomulka at the post of the First Secretary of the PZPR (Gomulka had resigned after a massacre of striking workers in December 1970) and ended in economic collapse, high inflation, introduction of rationing for basic foodstuffs, and “hunger marches” in 1981.56 This was also the period of the formation of an organ- ised political opposition. It was initiated by the Komitet Obrony Robotników [Workers’ Defence Committee] in 1976, after repeated protests by the workers in

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Radom. Four years later, the Committee members helped found the Solidarity union, and in 1989 they jointly became parties to the Round Table discussions with the government. The writing of letters to the Radiokomitet instead of the KC or the magazines mir- rors the cultural changes taking place in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s.57 While the communist authorities were being driven onto the defensive, their role was gradually overtaken by television, transformed from a luxury medium into a universal channel of communication. When apathy and disorientation took hold of the country, the evening programme Dziennik Telewizyjny [Television Journal], shaped by the propaganda of success, started playing a peculiar role in the eyes of many correspondents. Despite the negative opinion of some viewers, expressed in wall graffiti such as “television is lying,” in the eyes of others the TVP remained a synonym for authority, capable of solving all the citizens’ problems. The majority of letters sent regarded the problems of everyday life. Notwithstanding that the letters do include complaints about the system (“the party and its leaders have been fooling the Polish nation for 30 years”),58 the general lack of subversive political postulates is striking. Some letters give an impression of being a decade or two behind, such as the one whose author demands that the leaders’ portraits be taken down (“I wish the old cult of personality in our country would give way to the true cult of the Great Cause”).59 It is unclear how representative of the social climate this third collection of letters is. They are basically devoid of commentary and make a rather commercial impression when compared to the other two sets. It is easy to extrapolate the criteria that the author of the analysis used when selecting letters, such as the following: “During our marches in Gdansk, some comrades were throwing their party membership cards into the fire. In that mood, I would have thrown mine in as well, but I didn’t have it with me.”60 Or: “I was listening to the appeal made on the radio regarding that Royal Palace [this regards the reconstruction of the palace in Warsaw that had been destroyed in WWII]. It is a good deed and I am sure I will do my part. But it is supposed to cost 50 million zloty, and it has been laying in ruins for so long it could remain like that for some time yet.”61 Just as in the case of the two previously analysed collections of sources, many Radiokomitet correspondents complained of poverty, helplessness, and failure in life.62 The stylistics of the letters resembles the style of official applications (“I also base my proposal on . . . ”).63 Some letters, such as those regarding free Saturdays, testify to the tensions between “blue collar and white collar workers” (“Does it mean only our public officials are members of the working class? Who are we to be treated this way?”; “The worker in the 1960s was protected by the pre-war intelligentsia. He is being destroyed by the contemporary one.”),64 which indirectly shows that the workers still felt their predicament as “the foremost class in a society that is building socialism.” The Radiokomitet correspondents mostly refer to the difficult situation in Poland in 1970 under the categories of “lack of [party] connection with society”; “making

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a secret out of economic and political life”65; “treating society as pre-schoolers.”66 The pace of changes initiated by Gierek’s government is considered too slow: “After the VIII Plenary Session of the KC, some kind of reform was due to take place, but I can’t see that the Radio and Television are helping citizens Gierek and Jaroszewicz.”67 Surprisingly, many letters were written in order to convey unconditional support for the government. Whole groups (“we the employees of the district Co-operative Samopomoc Chłopska in Brzozów,”68 “officers from the detention centre in Sanok,”69 “company organisation ORMO [Citizens’ Militia Voluntary Reserves] in Katowice”70 and individuals alike were writing. Jadwiga B. from Świebodzice protests against the N bomb.71 Kazimierz T. from Gdynia is one of the many individuals supporting the proposed changes in the constitution, which are controversial as they inscribe into the constitution the communist character of the state, the leading role of the PZPR and the partnership with the Soviet Union.72 While his letter could have been written in the expectation of potential benefits, it is difficult to explain the following anonymous letter in the same way: “The Sejm of my country has made the right decision. The price increase of alcoholic beverages, petrol is right, just as all that the Sejm has adopted is right and true. It is a joy to live for the current government of my country!”73 The lack of signature suggests the credibility of the writer. Can it be explained by the comfort of siding with the authorities? The TVP correspondents complain not only of the party’s abuse of power. Another anonymous correspondent, writing in the name of “peasants from the district of Sanok,” informs on the reprehensible conduct of the clergy: “On the 14th of this month [January 1970] in all the churches in the country a charity drive took place—according to the priests—in order to help the hundreds of widows and orphans affected by the incident in December. Now tell me please, who is lying to the people? If comrade Gierek says that 45 people died . . . in what light do the priests at their pulpits show comrade Gierek . . . ?” Anti-clerical letters form a surprisingly large part of the collection of letters presented.74 However it is quite striking that, just like the letters with a diametrically opposite overtone, they are usually anonymous. The television also received a number of letters criticising programmes that the viewers did not like (“We would like to ask what the point of Teatr Telewizji [Television Theatre] is?”).75 These included acclaimed films (e.g., Krzysztof Zanussi’s Struktura kryształu [The Structure of Crystal]; Kazimierz Kutz’s Perła w koronie [Pearl in the Crown]; Andrzej Kondratiuk’s Hydrozagadka), comedy programmes (Olga Lipińska’s Gallux Show; Jerzy Przybora and Grzegorz Wasowski’s Wieczorowy Uniwersytet Starszych Panów [Older Men’s Evening University]), and series (Doktor Ewa [Doctor Ewa]; Chłopi [Peasants]). They were criticised according to period taste: for “lack of socialist realism”;76 nudity; and obscure, gallows humour. The public reacted with particular shock to the broadcast of Janusz Kondratiuk’s film Dziewczyny do wzięcia [Girls for Taking] (1972). “How come in Russian films they don’t show such terrible scenes? How come, over there, young

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people can work and have fun in a nice way?”77—says an anonymous letter from August 1972. Scandalised residents of Stary Sącz demanded that similar movies (“sexual”) not be aired on TVP, but rather, just as “in Western countries, which we accuse of demoralisation . . . on special premises, inaccessible to the general public.”78 Although any judgment of taste is essentially a negative judgement (Kant), positive proposals were also formulated. In a way reminiscent of the classic popular taste described by Pierre Bourdieu, a viewer from Kościerzyna expressed his desire for “cheerful, melodic music, brass orchestras,” “Czech and German” music, and also for operettas and “generally pleasing programmes, which would enable us to bear the trials of everyday life more easily.”79 Others even postulated forceful solu- tions to this matter: “In some countries, they have realised what they are about and after calling a spade a spade, they have returned to the traditional style of entertain- ment. This should also be done in Poland, and this is what I expect.”80 A period spirit seems to be expressed in a letter of thanks for “a beautiful and mov- ing broadcast about Father Maximilian Kolbe”; the authors of this letter also add that “ninety percent of us are Poles and Catholics, a couple of percent are atheists, while there is 1 percent of you [???] at most.”81 Many individuals write in order to ask for the broadcast of Sunday mass,82 which will become one of the strike demands in 1980. Even the year before, TVP had been receiving increasingly more assertive letters demanding broadcasts of the Pope’s visits.83 Many are signed by groups (e.g., “the Silesians”), others protest against “injury to religious sensitivities” in broadcasts.84 There are also wordy religious appeals, titled “Brothers and Sisters,”85 demanding that the TVP stop broadcasting improper moral content. Some anonymous letters are blunt: “socialism is nothing but prostitution, thievery and alcoholism.”86 As the year 1980 approached, letters from viewers supporting socialism were getting more and more desperate.87 In his elaborate, wordy letter, Józef K. from Oleszyce lists a number of ways to improve the economy, starting with “freezing the property of compromised individuals,” émigrés and malingerers, through the lay-off of half the public officials, an end to plenary sessions and congresses, to the re- introduction of compulsory deliveries of grain, and setting an upper limit on earn- ings. It is particularly worth noticing how the author interprets the founding of Solidarity, inscribing these events in the sociodicy of preceding periods: “I think that the outburst of the working class in August was nothing but struggle for a minimum of existence.” In his opinion, the blame falls on “a certain caste” living beyond their means. “Is this true to the struggle of our fathers and grandfathers, who died with the song on their lips “Będziemy wspólnie pracowali i wspólnej pracy będzie plon” (We shall work together and reap the fruit of our common labour)?”88 Reflections on the topic of equality (the motive of “equal stomachs”)89 become endemic to the correspondence. “Where is the justice?”—asks Teresa S., describing the expenses of her family. “In 1946, I returned to my home country with great joy . . . after 33 years of honest work it turns out I have wasted all these years, as I have been living too honestly. Why, nowadays only those who knew how to steal and who

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can nowadays afford to buy everything, even at highest prices, live [well]. I am sure our plenipotentiaries do not stand in queues like we do, but they quietly laugh at the stupid overworked people who are waiting for better times.”90 This letter is a signal of the collapse of the socialist sociodicy, which now contains only anger: “After 36 years of work, what did the whole nation get? Everyone disrespects us, they call the authorities bandits, thieves . . . this is the loud talk in the queues and in the streets.”91 “Those who have forsaken Poland should be hanged from the lamp-posts. They would light their cigarettes with dollars [a figure of Stalinist propaganda]. They keep the money they have stolen from us in foreign banks and nobody is judging them! . . . [But] your turn will come as well. Long live Wałęsa, our hero and patriot. We will fight for freedom by his side, down with Russia, so help us God.”92 On the ruins of the old sociodicy, the mirage of a new one immediately appears: “in Western democratic countries, a person is free, not subject to the whims of the authorities, and the economy does not suffer from crises.”93 The censorship of the 1980s actually spurs an avalanche of critical statements, although most authors still declare their loyalty to the government. A former AK member and soldier of the First Polish Army in his letter expresses his disapproval of Albin Siwak, a famous activist of a union critical of Solidarity, for criticising Vice Prime Minister Rakowski and Prime Minister Pieńkowski: “despite everything, he is still a high-ranking functionary of our state.”94 Another viewer, introducing himself as “a member of the PZPR and at the same time of Solidarity,” criticises the Dziennik Telewizyjny [Daily Journal] which he used to listen to regularly (“one could find a lot of interesting film and journalistic material there”),95 for criticising Solidarity in a biased way. “I’m not saying—he writes—that Solidarity consists only of innocent angels,” however, “generally the Solidarity union does not aim to seize power, to change the system. Maybe there are people who are dreaming of a change of system, but they are just individuals. At any rate, it is not the whole KKP [Krajowa Komisja Porozumiewawcza NZZ Solidarność, National Coordinating Commission of the Independent Solidarity Union]. Even if the KPP often criticises the party or the government, what’s wrong with that? Is the party some kind of a holy cow? . . . The party and the government cannot have a monopoly on information, on thinking. The TVP and the Radio should serve all social groups. After all, the PZPR only has about 2 million members, and Solidarity has almost 10 million.”96 The above-quoted letter from a member of the party and of Solidarity alike, criticising the propagandist character of the Dziennik Telewizyjny, epitomises a turn- ing point in the opinions of a large part of television viewers, resulting in a loss of preference for popular programmes. Suddenly, they become strange to them, although in fact it was probably the viewers themselves who had actually alienated themselves from the television idiom. A similar evolution, typical for this period, is voiced in the following letter: “When I saw writings on the walls such as ‘television is lying,’ I was outraged. But now I see that it is true. Why do the governing authorities, originating from the workers, find such pleasure in watching tired Polish

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The Evolution of Sociodicy

If we were to attribute these three periods of Polish history, epitomised by their mass complaints, to Mary Douglas’s categories of blaming—discussed at the beginning of this article—the classification would be as follows.

1. Stalinism would be a period of ascribing blame to an outside enemy (the second type of blaming).99 This results in the phraseology of vigilance, espionage mania, and the militarisation of language. The social group affirmed by this system consists of workers and peasants—the number and the language of the complaints demonstrate their feeling of entitlement. All the other groups (including the intelligentsia and the representatives of the formerly privileged classes) are nominally subordinate to them (they have a lower symbolic capital), in spite of still dominating in the sense of cultural capital.100 While workers and peasants write complaints in order to make the authorities fulfil the promises of entitlement they had made, the intelligentsia try to prove their competence and loyalty, or at least to show sincere regret and a willingness to redress their mistakes. 2. The period of Thaw paradoxically brings an intensification of the Stalinist sociodicy, expressed in the saying “who does not work shall not eat,” to which is added a Thaw saying: “socialism yes, misuse no.” Instead of promises of jobs and flats, society accepts a life in poverty, as long as striking inequalities are eliminated, both in access to goods and in social relations (levelling, cult of personality, temporary and limited increase in the freedom of expression). The first type of blaming is dominant—the blame for the failures of the system is ascribed to those of its outside elements which in popular opinion are responsible for breaking a taboo— the “offences against socialist morality” and abuses of power criticised in Khrushchev’s speech at the XX Plenary Session of the KPZR. It is not the system that is being criticised, but rather its fanatical supporters—the Stalinists. This type of blame distribution is connected with purifying, expiatory rituals.101 The “cult of personality” and the “mistakes and transgressions” are being exorcised. 3. The time period of the 1970s and the 1980s opens with an upsurge of the socialist sociodicy and closes with its final collapse, initiated in 1980. The fourth type of blaming is dominant—the whole ineffective system is based on censored information. An intensifying economic crisis clears the way for systemic transformation, facilitating the introduction of a liberal economy, with its

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characteristic third type of blaming. It attributes the catastrophes to “free market competition”—rivalry between antagonistic competitors, whose consequences cannot be blamed on anyone anymore.102

Each of the sociodicies described above constituted a type of appeal, an ideological trap set for the PRL citizens by successive political constellations. The system worked on each of the groups separately and on all of them collectively, granting and withdrawing subjectivity and legitimation. Work and obedience were rewarded with the pleasures of informational isolation, producing illusions of progress, equality, and truth. The costs of sociodicy were successively passed on to the external and internal “enemies of the people,” and when its failure could not be concealed anymore, they were passed on to everyone without exception. In liberalism, on the other hand, blame is passed on to nobody.

How the Liberal Sociodicy Views the Socialist Sociodicy

Among historians analysing complaints from the Stalinist era, the first question is the sincerity of ideological declarations of their authors. Did they themselves want to write that way? Did they feel obliged to write that way? Did others think complaints were supposed to be written like that?—they ask.103 The authors of the first analysis refer to the KC’s correspondents using group labels: “the majority of them are simple people”; “there are very few who could even with best intentions be considered intelligent.”104 The correspondents are reproached with “primitivity of rea- soning” and “weak writing skills.” This is intensified by the selective mode of quotation, reminiscent of the way schoolwork is graded—spelling mistakes in the letters are marked by the editors with an exclamation mark, which tellingly illus- trates the superiority of the analysts to the analysed individuals. Awkwardness and colloquialisms are systematically emphasised along with offences against epistolo- graphic decorum (“I would write much more, there’s a lot to write about, but time does not allow me. There is the sowing operation and secondly I am not sure if you will help me in any way.”105); “nonsensical formulations” (such as the reference to the local secretary, who “hides underneath a priest’s habit” or referring to the secretary as “a good dog,” who “was biting people well,” and in addition “also had his dog with him”106) and “babble”107 are ridiculed; the authors are sometimes even exoticised (“The situation in Brzozów was seemingly so catastrophic, that even ‘local women used to come backstreet to the party commitee to buy leechees,”108). The choice of texts is at times reminiscent of a burlesque, which is supposed to amuse a “cultivated person”: “The Secretary of the District Committee at a ball in the village of Górki in the Sandomierz district shot one of the participants. The argu- ment had been caused by differing opinions on the issue of ordering dances. One of the participants wanted a polka and another one an oberek.” Or: “Poor Raczkowski

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was unlucky even when it came to his wife, as”—if we are to believe the author—“his woman is a grouch, doesn’t talk to anyone, goes out at night, which is suspi- cious.’”109 The reader, however, cannot ignore the fact that by stigmatising irregularities in the language of the correspondents, the analysts inevitably empha- sise the legitimacy of their own language and, thus, according to Pierre Bourdieu, perform “symbolic acts of aggression which take on additional force when they dress themselves up in the impeccable neutrality of science.”110 By doing this, they miss the communist sociodicy that lay at the origin of the complaints, the sociodicy the “politically active nation” referred to when writing complaints. This reveals itself in the very moments that sound awkward to the contemporary reader:111 “I have read in the paper in Comrade Stalin’s article, that there is no man of exploita- tion by man”;112 “after all, People’s Poland . . . doesn’t want innocent people to be put in prison, she just longs to enlighten, teach people as much as possible.”113 Mass participation of individuals with low writing skills in correspondence with authorities of the highest level testifies to the fact that slogans such as “equality of all citizens” and “social justice,” proclaimed by the government, had been transformed into a practical empowerment of the addressees. Emphasising the irregularities of their language therefore becomes, as Pierre Bourdieu would put it, an introduction to the causes determining the acceptance of effects.114 If the correspondents with the authorities come from lower social groups (cause), what kind of epistolary style can be expected of them (effect)? Regardless of the fact that this emphasis on linguistic imperfections echoes the branding of outsiders familiar from other cultural settings, such as “nouveau riches,” “arrivistes,” and “newcomers,” first and foremost it is anachronistic. The stylistics of the “dictatorship of the prole- tariat” not only did not stigmatise popular discourse, quite the contrary: it aspired to it. Without denying the plebeian character of the correspondents, we can question the meaning this has been given by “liberal” interpreters. Instead of pointing out impro- priety, we can see this as a proof of the intensity of the interiorisation of communism by society, although in contemporary Poland it is now more convenient to think that society was consistently rejecting it. Ideological declarations in the complaints do not represent—contrary to the opinion presented by the authors of the first analysis—a homagium to socialist superiors, but rather a reference to the promise of equality made by the government. There is also another way of viewing the ideological declarations appearing in these letters. Mary Douglas points out the difference between a sociological and an anthropological approach to this topic, manifesting itself in a search for the sincerity of the informers by the former and refraining from this search by the latter.115 Anthropologists familiar with the ritualism of behaviour in non-European cultures treat the issue of the complete sincerity of social actors as an extreme case, influenced by the norms of the researcher’s own culture (the Eurocentric philosophy of authenticity) and therefore potentially dangerous as a research approach. Let me just add that researchers of rituals know that ritual activities are characterised by an

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element of play, “as if” (Als ob), whose conditions—based on the philosophy of Hans Vaihinger116—had already been described at the beginning of the twentieth century by Arnold van Gennep.117 Participants in such activities (the writing of a complaint, regulated by epistolary etiquette, is a form of ritual) always wear the mask suggested by the situation. Adaptation to the symbolic algorithm allows them to reach their intended goals, simultaneously—as we could say under the rubric of the philosophy of authenticity—believing in it and not believing in it. Based on how the situation unfolds, they can always say that they were “just pretending.” Regardless of how we answer the question of the sincerity of the complainers’ political declarations, the ideological use of the answers given is all too obvious. The question whether a belief in socialist sociodicy fits within the confines of “common sense” (always considered universal by the authors of the analyses) reverberates also in the reflections upon the Thaw. Although the correspondents of Po Prostu are described by the author of that article as “people accepting socialism or at least reconciled to the fact that there is no chance of radical change,” the declarations of those who “believe in socialism and in Gomułka” are cautiously commented upon as follows: “undoubtedly these declarations were to a large degree opportunistic.”118 In the conclusion of the book, this caution is suddenly transformed into certitude: “In no way did it mean political support; on the contrary, the majority of the readers of this weekly did not support the government which they associated with the decline in living standards or (less frequently) with various personal wrongs.”119 This is somewhat hard to believe given the frequency of declarative formulas such as “honourable uniform of a People’s Poland militiaman,”120 or the comparisons of Władysław Gomułka to Jesus Christ.121 Like his predecessors, Adam Leszczyński attempts to explain the “internalisation of propagandist language,” so discernible among the correspondents of Po Prostu, by “popular naiveté.” In that case, however, it is unclear how to interpret more than half of the letters which—based on their language—were not written by the general populace. The author argues that “the propaganda mechanism of blaming the enemy . . . inscribed itself in mass mentality—uneducated recipients identified themselves with it instantly (faster than the intelligentsia)”;122 however, he fails to present any evidence. We could hypothesise that the tendency to ascribe communist sympathies to “the common people” reflects the author’s hidden identification with the “uncom- mon,” with the educated class, which had become the vehicle of change from socialism into a liberal democracy. “Blaming the masses,” in itself a manifestation of the second or first type of blaming, functions in liberal discourse as a way of distancing the communist stigma from the intelligentsia as a social group which after 1989 has built democracy on the “doxa of anticommunism.”123 The identification of the authors with the intelligentsia possibly manifests itself also in viewing the letters through the prism of ethics based on mutual obligation,124 while the letters only become clear exclusively in the context of Marxist “voluntary unity of an individual with the whole.”125 This deforming interpretative

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framework is also imposed onto the sources by the authors of the first analysis, as they lament the extent to which the allegations and complaints could have hurt those against whom they were brought. A similar opinion is voiced by Adam Leszczyński who, for example, characterizes as “snitching on a friend” a letter informing the authorities about a massive illegal profit made by the management of a mine, which in the process was ineffectually trying to corrupt the author of the letter.126 In a characteristic way, he omits the explanation of his motive given in the letter to the authorities by the author of the complaint himself, calling it absurd, while it is only difficult to accept: “Taking into account the good of Our Homeland and the good brought about by the Polish October, based on the direc- tives of the VIII Plenary Session, send someone over to our mine, someone who would be able to fairly and honestly analyse these issues and normalise the relations, because if we go on working this way, we will destroy the whole of Our economy on a national scale.”127 Another even more drastic testimony, appearing in the article about Stalinism, is the story of a young political officer, who “after visiting his family during his holi- day files a complaint (in practice informs on) against all the people with whom he came into contact, first and foremost his own family.”128 The liberal norm129 protect- ing family members and exempting them from an obligation to inform about a crime was totally alien to the Stalinist spirit. Authors oblivious to it attempt to medicalise this revolting sociodicy. “The psychological anomaly—they argue—could have been reinforced by indoctrination, to which this person probably turned out to be particularly suggestible—nota bene like Pavlik Morozov,130 according to the latest press information a mentally disabled child, who had been convinced of the merit in informing on one’s parents. This issue cannot be resolved now, and is not worth any special attention.”131 What we know from the works of Mary Douglas about the status of an anomaly, cited here expressis verbis, does not allow us to agree with such a conclusion. Medicalisation is a contrivance that allows us to preserve the illusion of inviolability of one’s own ethics viewed as universal, while hiding the arbitrariness of the norm on which it is based. In Douglas’s view, this operation represents a fusion of two ways of treating an anomaly: avoidance and enclosure within a sanitary cordon.132 The unconscious influence of the liberal sociodicy, which shapes the lives of the authors of the cited articles, demands our attention all the more as it is also to a large extent the sociodicy of this present author. Like any other sociodicy, it possesses its own rationality; it uses a particular, albeit absolutised concept of obviousness and— within the framework of the third type of blaming that characterises it—constitutes a legitimisation of stronger groups at the expense of weaker ones.133 This can be cross- checked with the help of a broad, Althusserian concept of ideology. This philosopher claims that it is a specific self-masking system of ideas, which never presents itself as an ideology. Unmasked, it could not fulfil its function, which is the unnoticeable reproduction of a value system.134 “Ideology has no outside”135—emphasises

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Althusser. “It is necessary to be outside ideology, i.e. in the scientific knowledge, to be able to say: I am in ideology.”136 The peculiarity of an ideology that turns attention away from itself and becomes visible only from a distance emerges from a disproportion between the letters and the material illustrating the letters from the PRL era, that is, from the third article analysed here. In this collection (which, following the fashion of 2005, is dedicated to “His Holiness John Paul II” at the occasion of “his last pilgrimage”137), the editor laments that the archive did not preserve letters “commenting on such important events as the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II or his other visits to Poland.”138 For this reason, he attempts to rectify it with illustrative material: a wide selection of stamps with the portrait of the pope and photographs of crowds during the pope’s visits. This addition is just as anachronistic in relation to the period of the letters as it is to point out the inadequacy of colloquial language in the era of popular legitimisation. In his concept of ideology as a voiceless interpellation139 that cannot be resisted, Louis Althusser does not refer to a particular political doctrine, or an ideology within a family, school, or church. To him, ideology is something much more compelling. It is a vision that “recruits subjects among individuals,” proposing that they take up a place in life seemingly prepared only for them. A letter from 1986 talks about this moment of interpellation, using the example of the ideology of a popular radio programme: “Listening to your broadcast of ‘Cztery pory roku’ [Four Seasons] today, [I heard] that maybe someone is looking out of the window, thinking, remembering, grieving (or something similar). Just at that moment I was looking out of my window exactly in the mood you had mentioned, as if it had been for me. I will never forget this.”140 An everyday situation shows the personal deficits and needs of a listener, who is affected by a radio broadcast ideologically, that is, based on an imagined rather than real relationship between an individual and the conditions of her existence.141 The appeal of ideology is based on offering an individual conditions of subjectivity that promise benefits if accepted (according to Althusser, “revelation of his fate, eternal life or damnation”) or at least a solution to a problem. For example, in Christianity this is done by giving the object freedom to accept or denounce the com- mandments.142 This is similar to the Marxist definition of freedom as “consciousness of necessity.” We fall into an ideological trap by silently accepting the act of being given a status by this ideology. It is as if, according to Althusser, someone behind us shouted “hey, you!,” and we unwittingly turned around.143 Reacting to someone’s call, we confirm that we are the ones being called. The ability of ideology to give subjectivity to individuals is closely connected to the presence within it of a Subject with a capital “S,” which like the biblical God creates others in his mirror image. Brother, sister, citizen, comrade, consumer—these are the names it gives us, thus ascribing us to a particular sociodicy. Answering the call of ideology, the person filing a complaint turns to the particular Subject with confidence fitting the source of their own subjectivity. The fact that he is writing to it, ensuring it of his support and love, is no more

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Notes

1. Mary Douglas, Risk and Blame. Essays in Cultural Theory (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 5-6. 2. I add this fourth type of blaming to the threefold classification by Douglas. 3. I use this term—which is an adaptation to the conditions of G. W. Leibniz’s social categories (Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal, 1710)—in a roughly similar meaning as it was used in the works of Pierre Bourdieu, e.g., in his Pascalian Meditations. 4. These are: Supliki do najwyższej władzy [Supplications to the highest authorities], ed. Marcin Kula (Warsaw 1996:Instytut Studiów Politycznych, Polska Akademia Nauk, 1996); Adam Leszczyński, Sprawy do załatwienia. Listy do “Po Prostu” 1955-1957 [Errands to run. Letters to Po Prostu 1955-1957] (Warsaw, TRIO Editing House 2000) Księga listów PRL-u. Część trzecia: 1971-1989 [Book of Letters from the PRL. Part III: 1971-1989], ed. Grzegorz Sołtysiak Warsaw 2005 [hereafter KL]). 5. This collection of sources is stored in the Archive of New Records in Warsaw, in the PZPR section, starting with the signature 237/VII. 6. SNW 5. 7. SNW 103. 8. SNW 12. Despite the introduction of an agricultural reform in 1946, the postwar years in Poland were a period of attempts to introduce the kolkhoz system, just as in other communist countries. As we know, because of a particularly strong peasant resistance, this plan was finally abandoned. 9. SNW 12. 10. SNW 56. 11. After Erasmus of Rotterdam (Opus de conscribendis epistolis), we can term a similar tendency, apparent in all the complaints, adequatio rei et appetitus, after: PP 22. 12. SNW 19. 13. SNW 23. 14. SNW 24. 15. On the militarisation of language connected with this, see SNW 22. 16. SNW 23. 17. SNW 29. 18. E. Bobrowska, Obrazowanie społeczeństwa w mediach. Analiza radiomaryjnego dyskursu (Cracow: IBUK Libra, 2005) (Naukowa, 2006). 19. Sanation (Polish: sanacja) Sanation (Polish: Sanacja ) was a Polish political movement that came to power after Józef Piłsudski’s May 1926 Coup d’État. Sanation took its name from his watchword—the moral “sanation” (healing) of the Polish body politic. 20. SNW 19. 21. SNW 52. 22. SNW 17. 23. PP 19. 24. PP 15. 25. PP 18. 26. PP 20. 27. PP 32. 28. PP 26. 29. E.g. “They did not allow broader discussion at the meeting . . . and they simply forced the crew by using the old Stalinist methods of senior pressure to silently accept a project which shows so many

Downloaded from eep.sagepub.com at UNIV OF MICHIGAN on May 16, 2015 314 east European Politics and Societies and Cultures gaps and gives such immense opportunities for abuse, that the crew does not seem to play any part of its role in managing the enterprise,” PP 39. 30. PP 42. 31. “Comrade Gomułka said that the whole society demanded the truth”—this is how the employees of one of the PGRs justify their indignation at an article they had read, full of false allegations about their enterprise, PP 42–43. 32. PP 19. 33. PP 56. 34. This archive collection contains only a few letters testifying to the lack of illusion regarding the improvement of the system; see PP 93. 35. PP 55–56. 36. PP 162. 37. PP 60. 38. PP 159. 39. PP 144. 40. MDM, a standard housing estate epitomising Polish socialist realism in architecture. 41. PP 142. 42. PP 120. 43. PP 119. 44. PP 118. 45. PP 120–21. 46. PP 125. 47. PP 125. 48. Bikiniarz is a Polish counterpart of American beatnik. There is an unclear link between this word and the name of Bikini atol, in the late forties and fifties a place of numerous American nuclear tests. 49. PP 130. 50. PP 178. 51. PP 168. 52. See the link to the Adam Ważyk’s Poemat dla dorosłych [Poem for Adults]: http://www.hamlet. edu.pl/teksty/?id=po1939&idu=006 (accessed 11 May 2013). 53. A. Osiecka, O darze wygodnej ślepoty – prozą [On the gift of convenient blindness—in prose], Po Prostu, 4September 1955, after: PP 168. 54. “Radiokomitet—a colloquial term for the Radio Broadcasting Committee “Polish Radio,” later the Radio and Television Committee “Polish Radio and Television.” It was an institution active mostly during the PRL period; in the years 1951–1993, it was responsible for overseeing and managing the activities of state radio and television channels. It controlled all the national and local channels of the Polish Radio and Polish Television.” 55. Hereafter KL. 56. KL 172. 57. KL 7. 58. KL 93. 59. KL 17. 60. KL 19. 61. KL 25. 62. KL 93, 95. 63. KL 17. 64. KL 69. 65. KL 19. 66. KL 23. 67. KL 31.

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68. KL 95. 69. KL 96. 70. KL 99. 71. Kl 112. 72. KL 83. 73. KL 69. 74. KL 31: “The priests want salaries, while they are already well off anyway. They have lots of everything—and they have been given billions, which is going to affect the State budget considerably. Talk about this issue in the Government—it is us who are asking, the peasants from Sanok.” 75. KL 183. 76. KL 48. 77. KL 51, KL 253. 78. KL 51. 79. KL 153. 80. KL 228. 81. KL 38. It is possibly an implication that communists are Jews. 82. KL 19, 122. 83. KL 123. 84. KL 124. 85. KL 155. 86. KL 184. 87. KL 162. 88. KL 145–47. 89. KL 151. 90. KL 177. 91. KL 184. 92. KL 204, a letter dated 10/12/1982. 93. Kl 214. 94. KL 165. 95. KL 171. 96. KL 171. 97. KL 219. 98. KL 250. 99. “In this case [i.e., the explanation which blames an outside enemy] the answer is that she died [an imaginary woman; the mourners ask why she died?] because an enemy of the community got her, not necessarily one who actually comes from outside but the hidden disloyal traitor. The action following the diagnosis is to seek out and inflict a communal punishment on the foe and to exact compensation.” Douglas, Risk and Blame, p. 6. 100. According to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, cultural capital includes ideas, knowledge, skills, habits, and linguistic styles acquired while taking part in social life; symbolic capital is the use of symbols for the legitimisation of ownership of the three remaining types of capital. 101. “Following this kind of explanation [called moralistic here] the action is expiatory; some purifi- cation rituals are called for,” Douglas, Risk and Blame, p. 5. 102. “The moral will be that a survivor needs to be smarter than her rivals: they will say that the reason she died can be traced back to her not having been quick enough or clever enough in looking after her own interests; rival magic was more powerful than hers. The rivals who killed her are hardly being blamed when the finger of causation points to them, for there is not much moral concern: everyone is expected to do the same to promote their interests.” Mary Douglas, Risk and Blame, p. 5. 103. SNW 35. Also Adam Leszczyński: “It is unclear, of course, whether they were sincere.” PP 18, 85. 104. SNW 12, emphasis JTB.

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105. SNW 17. 106. SNW 17. 107. SNW 46, footnote 14. 108. SNW 72. 109. SNW 63. 110. Pierre Bourdieu, Dystynkcja. Społeczna krytyka władzy sądzenia [Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste], trans. Piotr Biłos (Warsaw: Scholar, 2005), p. 20. 111. According to Hans Georg Gadamer, laughter often signals an irritation of prejudices (Vorurteile reizen), which emerge in contact with unfamiliarity, e.g., a historic one. 112. SNW 46. 113. SNW 46. 114. Pierre Bourdieu, Medytacje pascaliańskie [Pascalian Meditations], trans. Krzysztof Wakar, (Warsaw: Oficyna Naukowa, 2006), chap. 5. 115. Mary Douglas, Risk and Blame, p. IX: “Sociologists . . . when they are interested in ritual will want to know if the individual performer is sincere; the anthropologist wants to know how the symbolic actions in one’s performance match the other performances, and whether there is any fit between the pattern of ritual action and the practical services of mutual support the performers are giving to one another. For anthropologists speculations about meanings of words are just speculations unless the context of action is taken into account.” 116. Philosophie des Als-Ob, 1911. English version: The Philosophy of “As If”: A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind, trans. C. K. Ogden (1924). 117. A. Van Gennep, Manuel de folklore français contemporain (reprinted by Robert Laffont as Le Folklore français, “Bouquins” series), 1937–1958, p. 106. 118. PP 19. 119. PP 172. 120. PP 133. 121. PP 86. 122. PP 46. 123. On inscribing “anticommunism into the doxa of Polish statehood,” see A. Zawadzka, Żydokomuna. Szkic do socjologicznej analizy źródeł historycznych [Judeocommune. An outline for a sociological analysis of historical sources], Societas / Communitas, no. 2 (2009): 199–243. The category of doxa (Gr. knowledge) is used by the author after Pierre Bourdieu, and is defined as “that which constitutes subconscious foundations of thinking, hidden assumptions upon which social obviousness is constructed. The task of social sciences is the exposure of the doxa and the historical and contextual analysis of its contents.” 124. Judith Shklar’s terminology, p. 167. 125. See Jerzy Kochan, Wolność a marksizm [Freedom and Marxism], http://nowakrytyka.pl/spip. php?article260 (accessed 9 May 2013). 126. PP 62. Similarly, someone who decides to cooperate with the police is called a “snitch.” 127. PP 62. 128. The Archive of New Records, PZPR 237/VII/249, after: SNW 7-8. 129. More on the topic of the conflict of loyalties in liberalism: Judith Shklar, “The Ambiguities of Betrayal,” in Zwyczajne przywary [Ordinary vices], trans. M. Król (Warsaw 1997), pp. 165–71. 130. “A twelve year old Russian boy, to whom they used to build memorials in the USSR. In 1932 he became convinced that his father was helping “class enemies” (the “kulaks”) for money. He informed the authorities about this crime and was a witness at the trial. The father was executed,” Świat Młodych, no. 20: 1950, from the article Pawka Morozow [Pavlik Morozov], found by Adam Leszczyński, quoted after: SNW 8. 131. SNW 8. 132. The answer includes five possibilities: (1) The anomaly can be disqualified, resorting to a repeated classification, which is usually accompanied with a ritual: “For example, when a monstrous birth

Downloaded from eep.sagepub.com at UNIV OF MICHIGAN on May 16, 2015 Tokarska-Bakir / Complaints and Their Researchers 317 occurs, the defining lines between humans and animals may be threatened. If a monstrous birth can be labeled an event of a peculiar kind the categories can be restored. So the Nuer treat monstrous births as baby hippopotamuses, accidentally born to humans, and, with this labelling, the appropriate action is clear. They gently lay them in the river, where they belong.” (2) The existence of an anomaly can be controlled physically: “Thus in some West African tribes, the rule that twins should be killed at birth eliminates a social anomaly, if it is held that two humans could not be born from the same womb at the same time. Or take the night-crowing cocks. If their necks are promptly wrung, they do not live to con- tradict the definition of the cock as a bird that crows at dawn.” (3) The anomaly can be avoided by establishing food or marriage taboos: “A rule of avoiding anomalous things affirms and strengthens the definitions to which they do not conform. So where Leviticus abhors crawling things, we should see the abomination as the negative side of the pattern of the things approved.” (4) The anomaly can be distanced, placed inside a sanitary cordon: “Anomalous events may be labelled dangerous. . . . Attributing danger is one way of putting a subject above dispute.” (5) An anomaly can be sacralised and inscribed into a ritual framework: “Ambiguous symbols can be used in ritual for the same ends as they are used in poetry and mythology, to enrich meaning or to call attention to other levels of existence. We shall see in the last chapter how ritual, by using symbols of anomaly, can incorporate evil and death, along with life and goodness, into a single, grand, unifying pattern,” Purity and Danger. An Analysis of the Concept of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 47–49. 133. Pierre Bourdieu argues that this liberal doxa hails equality as a materialised fact while obscuring the conditions that do not create equality at all. It claims that all the people have equally mastered the tools used in political production, in the understanding of politics, the understanding of their own interests, which serves to recognise the privileged in the framework of liberal democracy. 134. For “recognition without cognition” as a necessary condition for the acceptance of domination upheld with the help of the doxa, see Anna Zawadzka’s article quoted above, Żydokomuna, op. cit.; see also Pierre Bourdieu, Medytacje pascaliańskie [Pascalian Meditations], trans. Krzysztof Wakar, Oficyna Naukowa (Warsaw, 2006). 135. L. Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation) (first appeared in French in La Pensée in 1970), in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (New York: New Left Books, 1971), 175. 136. Althusser, Ideology, 175. 137. Here, the “last pilgrimage” refers to the pope’s death—John Paul II died on April 2, 2004, and the dedication appeared a year later. 138. KL 7. 139. Althusser, Ideology, 178. 140. KL 243, a listener from Piekary, January 1986. 141. Althusser, Ideology, 162: “Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.” Also: “what is represented in ideology is . . . not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations which they live.” 142. Althusser, Ideology, 178. 143. Althusser, Ideology, 174.

Joanna Tokarska-Bakir born 1958, cultural anthropologist, professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences; she specialises in the anthropology of violence and blood libe; she is currently working on a project on post-war anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe at IAS in Princeton as Marie Curie scholar (2013-2015). Joanna Tokarska-Bakir born 1958, cultural anthropologist, professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences; she specialises in the anthropology of violence and blood libel she is currently working on a project on post-war anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe at IAS in Princeton as Marie Curie scholar (2013-2015).

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