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IS the INTELLIGENTSIA STILL NEEDED in POLAND* Edmund MOKRZYCKI

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IS the INTELLIGENTSIA STILL NEEDED in POLAND* Edmund MOKRZYCKI International Conference Democratic Transitions in Latin America and in Eastern Europe: Rupture and Continuity 4-6 March 1996, Paris, France 2nd Working Session: Rupture and Continuity in the Functioning of Institutions IS THE INTELLIGENTSIA STILL NEEDED IN POLAND* Edmund MOKRZYCKI Abstract : The intelligentsia is defined in terms of a social class constituted by educated people in the specific circumstances of 19th century Eastern Europe. What is the role this class in post-communist Poland ? Can it survive the modernisation process ? It is transforming itself into a modern knowledge class ? Why has its political role declined so dramatically after the collapse of communism ? One of the conclusions reached in this paper is that rapid increase in demand for educated labour has, paradoxically, resulted in the disintegration of the intelligentsia as a class. Making sense of the question In order to answer the question posed in the above title. It is necessary,unfortunately, to begin by making elementary conceptual distinctions. “Intelligentsia” is above all a collection noun for the possessors od certain social characteristics (higher education being most frequently among them) and as such represents a statistical category useful in various historical and constitutional conditions. In Poland (as well as in various other countries of the region) the term “intelligentsia” also has a deeper sociological meaning, namely as denoting a social class which, after finally taking shape in the nineteenth century, played a decisive role in the defence of national identity and the formation of modern Polish society. The text below is of course concerned with “intelligentsia” in the second sense. THere is no point in asking whether Poland still needs educated people, but it is worth asking whether the present crisis in intellectual circles represents the twilight of an entire social class 1. It is clear that Poland still needs educated people : the question is whether, given the present crisis in intellectual circles, the present class will fulfil this need. A class of learned people The formation of the Polish intelligentsia as a social class was a complicated process, but two factors were it seems, clearly decisive : 1- our backwardness, and 2- the lack an independent Polish state. * The first version of this text was introduced during the Polish-American conference “Poland 200 years after the third partition : between east and west in her past and present” organised by the Polish Studies Association. Polish Sociological Association and Polish Society for Political Studies, Waesaw 5th August 1995. 1cf. Joanna Kurczewska, “Intelligencja polska : schodzenie ze sceny”. Krytyka, 4, 1993 ; Marta Fik, “Autorytecie wróc ?” Tygodnik Powszechny, 30 April 1995. International Conference Democratic Transitions in Latin America and in Eastern Europe: Rupture and Continuity 4-6 March 1996, Paris, France 1- Among many historical conceptions of Central Europe only a few- and those the most arbitrary- give a basis for placing all of Poland (and any of the independent Polish states) on the western side of a line dividing the backward, agrarian East of Europe from the more developed transitional zone remaining linked economically with the West 1. In the social dimension, Eastern European backwardness manifests itself in (inter alia) the dominance of peasant culture, the weakness of bourgeois traditions, a strong dependence of social position on access to the means of state power and a low level of education of the society as a whole. The phenomenon the Polish intelligentsia fits perfectly in the latter social landscape, because it can be interpreted as being an answer to the modern challenge, the answer of a society, whose basic social strata were not ready for that challenge 2. CLearly decisive here is the coincidence of two sts of circumstances. On the one hand together with the devolpment of elements of a modern economy, education became of ever more significant vocational value. On the other hand the internal differentiation of the category of educated people (whether according to specialisation, reputation of school or position in the employment market) remains of secondary importance in the face of the basic division between “learned people”, a term still in use after the war, and the rest. It is natural that the rapid growth in the need for educated people in a backward society characterised by a low level of education results in that factor being an unusually powerful determinant of social position. In this sense the very existence of the intelligentsia as a social class is a structural symptom of backwardness and the evolution of criteria of membership of the intelligentsia constitutes a particular measure of progress. In provincial Poland at the time of the second world war possessors of a matriculation certificate merited the status of members of the intelligentsia, while according to research carried out under the direction of Professor Jan Szczepanski in the nineteen-sixties university degrees had replaced the matriculation certificate, and nowadays we tend the threshold even higher, thereby bringing the Polish conception of a member of the intelligentsia closer to the French conception of an intellectual. 2- THe lack of national independence affected the development of the Polish intelligentsia, its prestige and place in the social scene, in a different way from the effects of backwardness. Times of partition and occupation and in part, also of communist governments, by setting the Polish intelligentsia the task which in normal times belongs to the political elite, favoured the filling by this resulting in responsability for the fate of the national community. The combination of civilising leadership and political mission made the Polish intelligentsia an exceptional formation even at a European level. The practice of 1Cf. eg Daniel Chirot (ed), The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989. 2Cf. Zygmunt Bauman, “Intellectuals in East-Central Europe : Continuity and Change”. East European Politics and Societies, Spring 1987, George Schöpflin, “The Political Traditions of Eastern Europe”. Daedalus, Winter 1990. 2 International Conference Democratic Transitions in Latin America and in Eastern Europe: Rupture and Continuity 4-6 March 1996, Paris, France open recruitment coupled with the principle of service to society protected it from class criticism from below. It is characteristic that “the victory of socialism” affected the Polish intelligentsia, called at that time “the working intelligentsia” relatively mildly, if one considers what happened in other countries under communist rule. It is this fact that primarily explains the development of Polish culture and science in the time of the Polish People’s Republic in a way which was exceptional for conditions within a totalitarian state. A People’s Intelligentsia The Polish intelligentsia is therefore both a structural and historical phenomenon. It was because of the historically determined social context that this class came into being and in so far as one can judge, only in this context does it have a social raison d’être. Transformation of this particular social context- changes in the conditions of social activity, national independence, the system of general education, introduction of the foundations of a modern market economy- should reduce the social role of the intelligentsia in favour of other formations answering to the logic of changed circumstances, such formations as the middle class, political elites, a “knowledge class” or “intellectuals” understood in the French sense of the term. Such processes actually began long ago, althrough there are various opinions about their causal power. I will mention here, simply as examples, two critical moments from the past. With the attainment of national independence in 1918, the intelligentsia lost some of its political mandate to a new political elite, frequently of military and party political origin. Change of political culture in the country was immediate and perceptible, and the character of the changes can be successfully explained in terms of class. After the Second World War the experiment of establishing a “people’s democracy” brought with it a very real threat not only to the position but also to the very existence of the intelligentsia as a social formation (which had been heavily reduced during the war, according to some estimates by as much as 40 %). The origin of this threat is not so much the secret police and censorship as the “new intelligentsia” also known officially as the “people’s intelligentsia” and by its harsher critics as the “baling-twine intelligentsia” 1. With all respect to the suffering of the Polish intelligentsia, particularly in the first decade of the existence of “people’s government”, it should be said that a question mark stood against the future of this formation not so much as a result of the repressive activity of that government but as a result of processes of structural change set in motion by those authorities within the framework of their plans for modernisation. The “new intelligentsia” was a people’s formation by pedigree, but its ideological and political links with the “people’s” authorities were by any measure ambiguous. On the one hand the new intelligentsia was characterised by a servility 1“Szapagatowa inteligencja” : in this case a reference to the rough string holding together the bundles of belongings carried by new arrivals from the countryside.
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