| dc.description.abstract | Contemporary opinions on the social history largely differ from the model presented 40 or
30 years ago and the social differentiation is not necessarily based on social classes but
equally on gender, ethnic, confessional or cultural particularities as well. My paper outlines
the structure and dynamics of the Polish society in the Communist period but the general
lines of the social differentiation at that time are still under discussion. The macrostructural
changes included an increase of the industrial and urban population, the rise of the educated
class with simultaneous conservation of the traditional peasantry and underdevelopment of
the service sector. The main social categories discussed are the intelligentsia, the working
class, the peasantry and agricultural workers, the Party as a social group, the (hypothetical)
middle class, the remnants of the old lower middle class and the old social elite, a specific
group of wealthy people living in a symbiotic relationship with the Party and socialism. The
demographic processes, migrations, the gender problems, the role of the educational system,
the new generation and the contradictory elements of the socialist and traditional culture
co-existing in the Polish People’s Republic are discussed as well. | en |
