Polish Censorship during the Late Stalinist Period

Abstract

The aim of the study is to present selected aspects of the history of censorship in Poland during the Stalinist period (1948−1956). The article presents the circumstances of the establishment of the censorship office in Poland — the Central Office for the Control of Press, Publications and Events (GUKPPiW) — which was set up in January 1945 and operated throughout the period of the Polish People’s Republic, until April 1990. The article also gives an answer to the question about the role of the so-called Soviet advisers who came to Lublin in December 1944 and took full control of the process of creating state censorship. The employees of the Soviet censorship sent from Moscow were tasked with creating an institution that would control the media and operate according to the mechanisms established in the USSR. In the process of organizing the censorship apparatus, the Polish communists played a marginal and servant role towards the Soviet military (including General N. Bulganin) and advisers who came from Moscow. The most important decisions were made by the employees of Glavlit, whose recommendations were treated by the management of the Polish Workers’ Party as orders. Glavlit officers, who arrived in Lublin in December 1944, recruited censorship employees, developed instructions for them, rules for publishing and issuing printed works and drafted a decree on the control of the press, publications and performances, a draft order of the minister of public security regarding the introduction of censorship. The work also describes the process of recruiting censors, as well as the reasons and scope of censorship interventions.