Communists into Liberals: The Transformation and Demise of the Left as Precursor to the Illiberal Turn in Poland

Project Information

COMLIB

Grant agreement ID: 846018

DOI

10.3030/846018

Project closed

EC signature date 25 April 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 175 673,28

EU contribution

€ 175 673,28

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COMLIB (Communists into Liberals: The Transformation and Demise of the Left as Precursor to the Illiberal Turn in Poland)

Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The research project “Communists into Liberals: The Transformation and Demise of the Left as Precursor to the Illiberal Turn in Poland” seeks a historically grounded explanation to the recent ‘illiberal turn’ in Poland by pursuing a new line of inquiry into the country’s transition from state socialism to a European liberal democracy. Rather than focusing on relatively short-term political and economic structural contingencies, the project aims to bring both historical process and agency of key protagonists to the fore as a factor precipitating the developments of the past years. In doing so, three historical processes spanning from 1968 to the mid-2000s are placed in correlation to each other: the demise of communism and transition to liberal democracy in Poland, exchanges of ideas that transcended the Cold War divide of Europe, and the political trajectory of the Polish and European Left. Within this framework, the project examines the agency of a particular group of politicians and activists from the Polish Left and investigates how their ideas and policies set the stage for the recent so-called ‘illiberal turn’ fueled by populism of the Right. Thus, it aims to re-examine the dynamics of reform communism prior to 1989 as well as its impact on the transition afterwards highlighting two issues: the ‘social-democratisation’ of communism and the ‘neoliberalisation’ of social democracy. The research’s working hypothesis is that the Polish Left’s gradual abandonment of social democratic values during the post-communist transition contributed to its demise in the mid-2000s and facilitated the ‘illiberal turn’.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work performed has entailed processing secondary literature and some amount of primary sources from archives in three countries. Due to the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic and the resulting library and archive closures, as well as the restrictions on travelling that hampered in-person interviews and field work in general, the finalisation of research has been delayed. Respectively, dissemination of research results will be realised in due course as soon as the research is completed. Nevertheless, I have carried several dissemination and communication activities: (1) presentations of COMLIB's ongoing findings, hypotheses and the overall research design at seminars, symposia and conferences at the EUI in Florence, SciencesPo in Paris and ZOiS in Berlin (all done online under the pandemic conditions); (2) publishing op-eds and political commentaries on current events in Poland and Eastern Europe informed by my historical reflections in various media outlets (a total of 12 publications in 7 outlets); (3) preparing 2 academic articles for international journals (one is currently at a stage of revision after been submitted and reviewed, the other is still a draft in progress expected to be completed and submitted by the end of this year); (4) co-teaching 2 cross-departmental and inter-disciplinary seminars (each with the duration of one semester) and co-mentoring junior researchers at the EUI.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Due to the delay in research activities cause by the ongoing pandemic, there has been limited progress beyond the state of the art so far, the initial results of which are discussed in two academic articles forthcoming in 2022. As public events have been impossible throughout most of the fellowship, COMLIB's wider societal implications ensue from my historically informed commentaries on current events in Poland as well as the broader region (particularly, Bulgaria) published in media outlets such as Open Democracy, Reporting Democracy, Notes from Poland, ERSTE Magazine, Balkan Insight etc. I hope that placing ongoing political crises in a much longer and broader historical perspective than the one usually offered by media coverage and highlighting less obvious links and interdependencies has contributed to a better informed public debate.

The last Polish communist party leader and the co-leaders of the post-communist successor party