Censorship of Literature in Post-War Poland: In Light of the Confidential Bulletins for Censors from 1945 to 1956 - Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk

Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk (ORCID: 0000-0002-3005-200X) - University of ŁódźFaculty of Philology, Department of the 20th and 21st Century Polish Literature 90-236 Łódź, 171/173 Pomorska St., Poland

REVIEWERS

John Bates, Sławomir Buryła, Kamila Kamińska-Chełminiak

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi

INITIATING EDITOR

Urszula Dzieciątkowska

TECHNICAL EDITOR

Wojciech Grzegorczyk

TYPESETTING

Munda - Maciej Torz

COVER DESIGN

Polkadot Studio Graficzne

Aleksandra Woźniak, Hanna Niemierowicz

The book was written as part of a grant project entitled Powojenna literatura polska w świetle kryptotekstów (na podstawie biuletynów Głównego Urzędu Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk z lat 1945-1956) [Post-war Polish literature in the light of cryptotexts (on the basis of bulletins of the Main Office of Control of Press, Publications and Shows 1945-1956)]

funded by the National Science Center (Preludium 12, UMO-2016/23/N/HS2/01798

period of implementation 2017-2021, project leader - Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk)

? Copyright by Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk, Łódź-Kraków 2022

? Copyright for this edition by University of Łódź, Łódź-Kraków 2022

? Copyright for this edition by Jagiellonian University, Łódź-Kraków 2022

? Copyright for the English translation by Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi, Łódź-Kraków 2022

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reprinted or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers

Published by Łódź University Press & Jagiellonian University Press

First edition, Łódź-Kraków 2022

W.10454.21.0.M

ISBN 978-83-8220-938-9 - paperback Łódź University Press

e-ISBN 978-83-8220-939-6 - electronic version Łódź University Press

ISBN 978-83-233-5191-7 - paperback Jagiellonian University Press

e-ISBN 978-83-233-7388-9 - electronic version Jagiellonian University Press

https://doi.org/10.18778/8220-938-9

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Publisher's sheets 20.7; printing sheets 23.375

I dedicate this book to my mother

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Some Remarks about Censorship in Poland in the Years 1944-1990

Research Assumptions

State of the Art

Source Material

Rules for Presenting the Material

PART ONE

IN SEARCH OF A DEFINITION: WHAT WERE THE CONFIDENTIAL BULLETINS FOR CENSORS? CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL

1. The Purpose of Creating a Confidential Periodical for Censors

2. The Censor as the Co-Author of Bulletins for Censors

3. Characteristics of the Source Material and the Issue of the Bulletin's Identity

4. The Bulletin for Censors as a Cryptotext. A Definition of the Genre

PART TWO

LITERATURE AND CURRENT LITERARY PHENOMENA

I. Fiction

1. The Censor's Struggle with the Text. Some Preliminary Remarks

1.1. Literary and Cultural Issues on the Pages of the Bulletins

1.2. The Censorship of Fiction

1.3. The Specifics of Book Inspection

2. Competition for a Censorship Review of Wanda Wasilewska's Novel Rzeki Płoną

3. Poetry

3.1. How to Review Poetry Selections? Ginczanka, Hollender, Słonimski, Ważyk, and an Unknown Red Army Man

3.2. An Evaluation of the Poetic Publications Printed by the "Czytelnik" Publishing Cooperative in 1951

3.3. On the Works of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna

3.4. On a Discussion of the Poem "Oskarżam" by Mikołaj Rostworowski

3.5. Other Poetic Works Discussed in the Bulletins: (Not Only) Norwid, Pasternak, Lenin, Mayakovsky, and Jasieński

4. Prose Works

4.1. How to Review Select Prose? Nałkowska, Borowski, and Bartelski

4.2. Books Selected for Discussion in Censorship Offices Between 1952 and 1956

4.2.1. Titles Selected for Discussion in Censorship Offices in 1952: (Not Only) Kuśmierek and Czeszko

4.2.2. Books Selected for Discussion in Censorship Offices in 1953

4.2.3. Books Selected for Discussion in Censorship Offices in 1954: (Not Only) Brzeziński, Kuśmierek, Kubalski, and Promiński

4.2.4. Books Selected for Discussion in Censorship Offices in 1955: (Not Only) Kowalewski, Dróżdż-Satanowska, Stadnicki, and Bednorz

4.2.5. Titles Selected for Discussion in Censorship Offices in 1956: (Not Only) Andrzejewski, Rudnicki, and Flaszen

4.3. Books Discussed as Part of the Series For a Higher Level of Work on the Book: (Not Only) Nałkowska, Czeszko, L?cis, Meisner, and Jackiewicz

4.4. Other Prose Works Discussed in the Bulletins: (Not Only) Sowińska, Koźniewski, Strumph-Wojtkiewicz, Gil, Zalewski, Bocheński, Bartelski, Dębnicki, Dobraczyński, and Żeromski

5. Dramatic Works

6. Satirical Works

7. Children's and Young Adult Literature

8. Literature and Discussions of the "Thaw"

9. Censorship According to Publisher: (Not Only) "Czytelnik"

10. Literary and Cultural Issues in the Press

II. Non-fiction

1. Scientific and Popular Science Publications

1.1. Scientific and Popular Science Publications in the Humanities

1.1.1. Publications in the Field of Literature (and Culture)

1.2. Scientific Publications in the Social Sciences

1.3. Scientific and Popular Science Publications in Engineering and Technology

2. Periodic Reports on the Book Market

III. Other Topics Related to the Supervision of the Word

PART THREE

"Camera Censorica." What Else Was Discussed in the Bulletins?

I. Other Problems Raised in the Bulletins

II. Before the Proper Summary, or... the Censor as an Artist: The Literary Work of the Functionaries of "Mysia Street and Its Environs"

SUMMARY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INDEX OF FIGURES AND TABLES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Subject literature

List of Authors and Works Documented in the Bulletins for Censors from 1945-1956 (Selection)

List of the Bulletins for Censors and Biblioteczki Biuletynu Informacyjno--Instrukcyjnego GUKPPiW

Literary Texts, Journalism (Literary and Film Criticism, Interviews, etc.) Made Before 1945

Literary Texts, Journalism (Literary and Film Criticism, Interviews, etc.), Radio Programs and Films Made Between 1945-1956

Literary Texts, Journalism (Literary and Film Criticism, Interviews, etc.), Radio Programs and Films Made Between 1957-1990

Literary Texts, Journalism (Literary and Film Criticism, Interviews, etc.), Radio Programs and Films Made After 1990

Scholarly and Popular Science Texts

Other Archival Sources

Electronic Sources

Legal Acts

Author's e-mail correspondence

Introduction

Censorship is like a long-time mistress.

You're often fed up with her, sometimes she's tiresome and frustrating,

and you know her inside out.

And yet, it's difficult to leave her.1

Some Remarks about Censorship in Poland in the Years 1944-1990

My book is about censorship in Poland in the years 1945-1956.2 It does not, of course, describe all aspects of the activity of the institution responsible for limiting speech in that period, as such a work would require several thousand pages of elaboration. In the book, I mainly focus on the ways of censoring literature described in the confidential Bulletins for censors.3

The efforts to establish a censorship institution in Poland began even before the end of World War II. The first censorship unit was created as early as 1944. In 1945, Centralne Biuro Kontroli Prasy (CBKP, the Central Press Control Bureau) was formed. In that same year, it was renamed Główny Urząd Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk (GUKPPiW, the Main Office for the Control of the Press, Publications and Public Performances), and in 1981 - Główny Urząd Kontroli Publikacji i Widowisk (GUKPiW, the Main Office for the Control of Publications and Public Performances). Apart from the GUKPPiW, censors worked in the field, and in voivodeship or district censorship offices scattered all over Poland. They comprised a network that enveloped the country and constituted the basic censorship institutions controlling the written word, media, as well as intellectual and artistic life in post-war Poland.

The Russians had a deep influence on shaping the censorship system in Poland. The employees of Glavlit (Central Board for Literature and Press Affairs), Piotr Gładin and Kazimierz Jarmuż, came to Lublin in 1944 to take part in the initial work on the establishment of censorship, including the creation of documents defining the scope of the institution's activity on Polish territory. The censorship office was to be subordinate to the Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party (KC PPR) and, from 1948, to the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (KC PZPR, which emerged when the Polish Workers' Party and the Polish Socialist Party were combined). Institutional censorship in Poland was reliant on the USSR, although the degree of that dependency varied throughout its operation.

Censorship in the form developed in the 1940s and early 1950s functioned practically until the end of the Polish People's Republic,4 although not always in equal intensity. After the socio-political upheavals of 1956, 1968 and 1970, it usually eased for some time, resulting in periods of so-called "Thaw" (odwilż). Attempts were also made to fight it through open protests and the creation of an alternative publishing circuit, so-called "second circulation" (drugi obieg): a system of underground publishing houses, which printed outside the scrutiny of censorship. During the entire period of the Office's existence, there was preventive censorship - assessing materials before publication, and secondary censorship - evaluating materials already published.

Institutional censorship was abolished in Poland by the decree of April 11, 1990, which came into force on June 6 of the same year.5

It is worth remembering that post-war censorship functioned in Poland against the officially binding constitution of March 1921, recognized by the government. According to its article 105: "Freedom of the press is guaranteed. Censorship, or the system of licensing printed matter, may not be introduced."6 Similarly, when the constitution of the Polish People's Republic was enacted on July 22, 1952, the existence of censorship was contrary to its article 71, which read: "The Polish People's Republic shall guarantee its citizens freedom of speech, of the press, of meetings and assemblies, of processions and demonstrations."7

Research Assumptions

The censor has no right to abuse the scissors, he is not allowed to trim a work according to his literary or political taste.8

During the period of institutional control of speech, which was imposed in the Polish People's Republic in the years 1944-1990, every cultural text related to literature, journalism, painting, music, theater or film, was subjected to assessment by functionaries of the censorship office.9 The supervisory system was total, at least according to the assumptions of its creators: there were attempts to extend the state "care" to all products of human creative activity, as a result of which "censorship numbers were found on bread stickers."10 However, the invigilation apparatus designed in this way was not perfect; for example, underground publications and samizdat issued without state supervision found their way to the publishing market. This phenomenon appeared on a larger scale in the 1970s, but examples of such activities can already be found in the earlier period.11 Books published by Instytut Literacki and other émigré publishing houses also reached Poland, smuggled across the borders (which involved considerable difficulty and risk).12

Aware of the existence of those "islands of freedom," I have chosen to focus on the art which was, to varying degrees, enslaved and mutilated; the art which was born in direct confrontation with the censorship office. This choice was a consequence of my multi-year research into constraints put on freedom of speech. In my earlier works, I also described post-war Polish culture in the context of the activities of the censorship office,13 but in this case, I decided to investigate poorly explored sources, namely, the confidential Bulletins for censors. I was primarily interested in the articles published there devoted to fiction, although my research also covered materials on non-fiction and other texts of culture.

Once again, my several years of studying the Bulletins confirmed that it is impossible to discuss the history of the literature of People's Poland without outlining the political context. This is evident from reading the articles published there, which did not conceal the fact that the reviews of literary, film or dramatic works were meant to bolster ideology. Censors discussed specific texts, referring to current political events and adjusting their assessment to the guidelines formulated by the leadership of the Polish Workers' Party, and from 1948, the Polish United Workers' Party.

Taking into account both of these contexts - cultural and political - had a fundamental influence on the shape of this book. An additional role was also played by the way in which I decided to present materials published in censorship periodicals. Bulletins, like any serial publications, can be read and analyzed chronologically - according to the order of their appearance - or problematically - devoting attention to selected topics and questions; both types of reading perform slightly different functions. The former allows us to look at the periodicals in their historical development; the latter, to isolate and discuss only the topics of interest. However, even if we forgo a linear reading and focus on selected problems, considering the chronology is still possible during the presentation of the material, and in the case of texts so politically entangled, it even seems necessary.

Bearing this in mind, I have adopted a problem-based system, devoting subsequent chapters to separate topics, the selection of which organizes the main structure of the book. Although the chronological order has been applied to the presentation of the censorship documents only in a few cases, this system is strongly present in all parts of the work. My goal was to analyze the material in relation to the time in which it was created and in the context of the cultural and political situation. In this way, I have avoided "reading out of context,"14 whether it was historical, political, social, or cultural factors. I hope that I have reconciled the two systems, because I do not believe that a "pure alternative: either by chronology or by problems"15 could have been employed.

This book could not possibly cover all the topics that had surfaced over the eleven years of my research.16 However, I have tried to point out the problems that garnered particular attention, recurred in the censors' "reflections" or shed new light on previous knowledge about "Mysia Street and its environs" (throughout its existence, the Main Office for the Control was located at 5 Mysia Street in Warsaw).17

Considering the above, I have divided the book into three main parts, preceded by the "Introduction" and concluded with the "Summary."

In the first part, entitled "In Search of a Definition: What Were the Confidential Bulletins for Censors? Characteristics of the Source Material," I have presented basic information about the Bulletins: the purposes they served, their structure and the nature of the material presented in them. The reflections end with a definition of confidential Bulletins for censors.

The main objective of the second part, "Literature and Current Literary Phenomena," was to reconstruct the picture of literary life as it was presented in the Bulletins in the years 1945-1956. I was interested in how texts that were produced in the post-war geopolitical conditions were discussed, as well as in the attitude towards the past - broadly understood as the domestic and foreign heritage, from the early literary activity to the texts describing the war and occupation. Do the periodicals contain familiar strategies with which "Mysia Street" attempted to train or eliminate authors? Did subsequent issues of the magazine reflect the changes that the post-war literary era was undergoing? To what extent did contemporary writing constitute an important segment of the Bulletins' reflections?

In order to answer these and other questions, it was necessary to include not only materials discussing literary phenomena, but also those which explored other issues, especially cultural ones. In the last part entitled "'Camera Censorica.' What Else Was Discussed in the Bulletins?" I briefly outlined the matters that were not the subject of previous discussion, including those concerning film, radio and plays, as well as the institutional base of control. The last section of the main considerations is devoted to censors who were also artists. In the chapter "Before the Proper Summary, or... the Censor as an Artist: The Literary Work of the Functionaries of 'Mysia Street and Its Environs,'" I provide "evidence" for the literary bent of the political functionaries, as the censors were called in the 1950s. Employees of the Main Office and those in field branches scattered around Poland not only practiced the difficult skill of controlling others; some of them aspired to create their own literary works. The main reflections are concluded with one such poem.

In the "Summary," I synthesized the results of my observations on how literature and other arts were presented in the confidential Bulletins for censors produced from 1945 to 1956.

The book ends with "Bibliography," including the List of Authors and Works Documented in the Bulletins for Censors from 1945-1956 (Selection) and the List of the Bulletins for Censors and Biblioteczki Biuletynu Informacyjno-Instrukcyjnego GUKPPiW - I treat these elements as inherent parts of the story of communist censorship that require no comment.

State of the Art

Compiled information is fruit for thought,

therefore, it is harmful.18

The bibliography on literary issues discussed in the confidential Bulletins for censors from 1945-1956 is relatively modest.

The journal is part of a large collection of training and instructional materials produced by "Mysia Street" and most often appears in this context in the statements of researchers describing the specificity and division of labor in the institution. The training and instructional materials created in the Main Office were investigated by the representatives of different fields - historians, historians of the press and the publishing market, political analysts, bibliologists and library scholars, including Zbigniew Romek, Bogusław Gogol, Dariusz Jarosz, Kamila Kamińska-Chełminiak, Daria Nałęcz, Piotr Nowak, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stanisław Adam Kondek, Aleksander Pawlicki and Robert Looby.19 In some of the studies, issues related to the publishing market appeared, however, the censors' "reflections" on specific literary works or analyses of the country's cultural life presented in the Bulletins were only on the margins of the main deliberations (if they were discussed at all).

The first literary studies fully devoted to the Bulletins were published by Kamila Budrowska. In 2011, she published the article "Tajne pismo cenzury. Biuletyn Informacyjno-Instrukcyjny w latach 1952-1955"20 [The secret journal of censorship. Informational and Instructional Bulletin between 1952-1955]. In the subsequent essay, "Wewnętrzne pismo cenzury. Biuletyn Informacyjno-Instrukcyjny w latach 1952-1955" [The internal journal of censorship. Informational and Instructional Bulletin between 1952-1955], the researcher offered an overview of the content of the indicated resource,21 while in the article "Od orderu do 'zapisu.' Jak GUKPPiW oceniał pisarzy w latach 1952-1955?" [From honors to "the Index." How did the GUKPPiW rate writers in the years 1952-1955?], she focused on a specific issue, namely, the "relationship: writer - state," which was precarious and ambiguous in People's Poland.22 She used the Bulletin records as the basis for her considerations.

Three years later Budrowska published "archival material from the fonds of the Main Office for the Control of the Press, Publications, and Public Performances from mid-1955" on Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna's work - the text indicated came from a Bulletin issued in July of that year.23 Work on the confidential Bulletins from 1955 continued in the Białystok fonds. Its effect was a selection of documents from the journal from that year, published under Budrowska's editorship.24 It should be added that already in 2009, the researcher had made several references to the advisories in question, and in 2013, she pointed to the latest findings on what period these confidential advisories were written.25

In the works mentioned so far, the main focus was on the Bulletins from 1952-1955. In the resources of the State Archive in Gdańsk, I found subsequent issues of the journal (from 1945, 1949, 1950 and 1956), which at that time had been poorly studied or lacked any analyses. This was an important addition to the considerations, which helped complement the previous findings. The results of my research were published in 2017 and 2019 in the articles "'O wyższy poziom pracy nad książką' - biuletyny urzędu cenzury z lat 1945-1956 w perspektywie literaturoznawczej. Rekonesans" ["For a higher level of work on the book" - bulletins for censors from 1945 to 1956 from a literary studies perspective. A reconnaissance study] and "Bulletins of the Polish censorship office from 1945 to 1956. A reconnaissance study."26 The resources of the State Archive in Poznań also turned out to be helpful; they contained other issues, which were little known and absent from literary studies. I presented the results of my work on the voluminous folder containing 291 folia of Bulletins from the years 1945-1951 in the article "Archiwalia 'pionierskiego' okresu powojennej cenzury. Literatura w poufnych biuletynach urzędu cenzury (1945-1951)"27 [Archival records of the "pioneer" period of post-war censorship. Literature in the confidential bulletins for censors (1945-1951)].

In 2020, I published two more texts about the Bulletins. This time I examined the "Competition for a censorship review of Wanda Wasilewska's novel Rzeki Płoną," which was announced in one of the Bulletins published in 1952.28 In a popular science article entitled "'Cenzura jest jak stara kochanka...,' czyli o czym pisano w poufnych poradnikach dla cenzorów" ["Censorship is like a long-time mistress...," or the content of confidential advisories for censors], I synthesized the results of previous research, while also examining the censors' own creative work presented in the advisories.29

In recent years there have been several literary studies articles based on instructional materials from "Mysia Street." One of them is Barbara Tyszkiewicz's text from 2016, entitled "Sztuka czytania między wierszami. Z problematyki cenzorskich instruktaży drugiej połowy lat 70."30 [The art of reading between the lines: on censorship instructions from the second half of the 1970s]. The researcher studied Informacje Instruktażowe from this very period and analyzed cultural problems presented there. Sygnały - another type of instructional document, which featured typescripts of contested texts - was the subject of Budrowska's article from 2014. She described the material deposited in the GUKPPiW as "a confidential, internal bulletin of the office."31 Training materials were also used by such authors as Wiktor Gardocki and Joanna Hobot.32 However, despite the frequent convergence of nomenclature, not all instructional archives analyzed in the above-mentioned articles could be defined as "Bulletins for censors."33

Source Material

Not a single word (generally speaking) shall be printed or distributed without our scrutiny or knowledge.34

The basic source material used in the book were Bulletins for censors issued in the years 1945-1956. These documents are deposited in several state archives in Poland, e.g., in Gdańsk, Poznań and the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw.35 I have compared the individual issues of the periodicals stored in the above-mentioned centers and can confirm that there are no major differences between them; most of the deviations that I have noticed, e.g., missing pages in some of the issues, were hardly intentional action on the part of the editors of the magazine, but had to do with archival work done later or some unforeseen circumstances or mistakes.36 Some of the copies bear handwritten annotations, which, of course, cannot be treated as a difference in the actual content of the periodical.37 The hypothesis of variance in the vocabulary used in different copies of the same issue of the Bulletin requires further research.38

The oldest Bulletin I have located is dated May 1945, while the last one comes from February 1956. In total, I have analyzed all the Bulletins from the years 1945-1956 that I was able to find in the archives, i.e., four complete years from 1952 to 1955, twelve issues a year (some appeared as double issues); eleven other issues (or possibly thirteen, which is discussed below) - one each from 1950 and 1951, and two each from 1945, 1948, 1949, and 1956; and one undated Bulletin, referenced only with the number 4 (prepared certainly after November 1946 and before October 30, 1948). Due to the lack of the title page, it is difficult to determine whether two additional documents, i.e., ["Materiały z odprawy"; Briefing materials] and "Na marginesie narodowej dyskusji" [On the margin of the national discussion], filed in the folder "Biuletyny Instrukcyjno-Szkoleniowe 1945-1951", can be regarded as two subsequent issues of the periodical in question.39 It is possible considering that both texts were placed in the folder with other Bulletins; furthermore, this collection, as well as others, contain the so-called special issues presenting transcripts of conferences, briefings and meetings. It seems, however, that it is too early to settle the status of these "problematic" materials, which could have found their way into this collection accidentally.40

The discussed periodicals had a supplement entitled Biblioteczki Biuletynu Informacyjno-Instrukcyjnego GUKPPiW, also published by the censorship office. So far, I have managed to find seven issues of the supplement, all dated 1955.41

Narrowing the material down only to the issues that could unquestionably be classified as confidential Bulletins for censors, I have analyzed 59 issues of the periodical and seven Biblioteczki, that is, about 2,670 typewritten pages in total.

While working on the book, I also used other archival materials, mainly documents created in the Main Office or the Voivodeship Offices for the Control of the Press, Publications and Public Performances. When it was justified, I quoted some of them, confronting the information contained therein with the position presented in the Bulletins, e.g., in the case of censorship reviews featured in the magazine.

Rules for Presenting the Material

The censor's pencil should resemble a surgical lancet

rather than a Stone Age club.42

The archival sources sometimes contained errors. In most cases, it was not possible to render them in English, but the most glaring mistakes have been indicated by the phrase [sic]. My additions to quotations are put in square brackets [...]. The abbreviations appearing in the statements of censors and other functionaries of the censorship office are not expounded; in exceptional cases (e.g., when the abbreviation makes it impossible to understand the text) I provide full names, for example, Non-per[iodical] Public[ations] Department. A list of all abbreviations used is provided at the end of the book.

In a few places, the Bulletins transformed into a kind of "palimpsest," thanks to deletions, corrections and extra information added to the original version. I include this variability in the citations because it reveals the process of working on the text, changes in the censor's thinking or differences in the assessments made by the Office's staff.

In a censor's sheet, also known as a "review form,"43 there are usually two or three dates: 1) the date the work was submitted to the reviewer (meaning, the date a particular censor was assigned to the task; not to be confused with the date the publication reached the Office); 2) the date below the reviewer's motion (i.e., the date the evaluation was completed); 3) finally, the date when the supervisor evaluating the motion issued a decision. In this book, the default date is the one when the first assessment was made. In exceptional cases, if it is essential for the argument, I include all three dates.

In light of the subject of the work, I have taken particular care in quoting the full titles of the texts reviewed, as well as the names and surnames of the authors, which the editors of the Bulletin repeatedly failed to do. The Bulletin versions that were inaccurate and incomplete, and sometimes erroneous, are signaled in the footnote the first time a given author or title appears.

Fig. 1. The first page of the oldest Bulletin yet found, Biuletyn Instrukcyjny no. 1, dated May 1945 (APP, WUKPPiW, file ref. no. 4, fol. 1r).

Part One.

In Search of a Definition: What Were the Confidential Bulletins for Censors? Characteristics of the Source Material

1. The Purpose of Creating a Confidential Periodical for Censors

What do you think about all this, dear GUKP?44

The decision to start publishing the Bulletin for censors was made "as a result of the agreement between the party apparatus and the chief censorship institutions."45 It was largely a response to the grassroots voices of functionaries, who complained that they had no instructional manual. The fact that censorship practice required theoretical foundations was repeatedly stressed in the Bulletins from the very beginning.46 In 1945, the June Bulletin quoted relevant statements from the First National Conference of Managers and Delegates of Voivodeship Offices for the Control of the Press, Publications and Public Performances, which took place in Warsaw from May 23 to 25, 1945.47 The then deputy head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party, Ferdynand Chaber, argued that it was necessary to create something like a "book of censorship wisdom."48 According to him, the functionaries of the Office worked "in a segment" that had "no established tradition nor literature."49 It may have been the first attempt to create a user-friendly and comprehensible instructional manual for censors, which would go beyond the rigid framework of regulations that often deterred the functionaries.

The first preserved issue formulated the Bulletin's tasks: "to showcase the work of a good censor and disseminate positive achievements, to reveal mistakes and warn against them, to improve the activities of our offices and raise their standards."50 Subsequent issues repeatedly set up essentially the same objectives, sometimes supplementing them with additional guidelines or elaborating on certain elements, an example of which is the "Introduction" to the 1950 Biuletyn Szkoleniowy:

We present Issue No. 1 of the Training Bulletin. Leaning on our censorship practice, this bulletin will examine the challenges we encounter in the segment of the press, publications and performances. The problems will be arranged thematically, and they primarily include omissions and interferences as well as overlooked ideological distortions (when, instead of interference, a signal to GUKP would have sufficed).51

The content of this issue of the Bulletin confirms these assumptions: the material was sorted by problems and the "training" contained in the title of the magazine was based on "learning from mistakes"; drawing not from regulations, but the censorship practice. The articles focused on omissions and unnecessary intrusions, which usually came with a commentary. In most of the periodicals analyzed, this was a typical approach to presenting the material.

It was also the case in the January 1952 issue, which reiterated the reasons for creating the internal censorship magazine:

The decision to publish the Informational and Instructional Bulletin systematically was prompted by the need to provide collective assistance to the GUKP employees both in Warsaw and in the field to aid them in their difficult and responsible work.52

It seems that the magazine was not immediately embraced by the rank-and-file functionaries, because as late as July 1952 attempts were made to persuade them to make use of the periodical more regularly and to take an active part in its creation:

There is another major aid to training and instruction - not yet sufficiently appreciated and applied - and that is our Bulletin. There is no doubt that its regular publication is an extraordinary achievement in our work. The material it contains serves to help every censor. In the course of our work on the Bulletin, we have made a fair share of mistakes, and we have had to overcome a number of difficulties. Above all, it has been a question of establishing the right character and profile of the Bulletin.

The further development of the Bulletin largely depends on the co-operation of our comrades from voivodeship offices.

Is it normal that the majority of comrades from the head offices have not written a single article for the Bulletin in six months? Is there really nothing to write about? In our opinion, there is. We must admit to ourselves that at times, the attitude towards the Bulletin testifies to a political underestimation of its importance for our work. Therefore, the key task in this segment is to radically change this attitude and have every political worker treat the Bulletin as their auxiliary instrument in their work for the Office.53

Also in December 1952 and in January of the following year, there were complaints about the insufficient use of the Bulletin in censorship practice, about the lack of materials sent from voivodeship offices and the little interest in co-operating with the magazine's editorial board. There were reminders that some "collectives have not yet sent a single word to the Bulletin."54 Other materials, on the other hand, emphasized the benefits of reading the Bulletin: according to the censors' testimonies, the number of omissions and unjustified interferences supposedly decreased and there was a noticeable improvement in the level of professional competence of the functionaries.55

To recapitulate, confidential Bulletins for censors were designed to go beyond the dry regulations and guidelines formulated by the state apparatus. Indeed, the journal placed great emphasis on their explication, citing and discussing a number of specific interferences. Thanks to this, the periodical often provided answers to questions and doubts, constituting a concrete "aid in the work of censors"56 and an excellent conduit for the exchange of professional experience. However, even though it also published texts written by rank-and-file functionaries, the Bulletin retained the classic structure of an instructional text.

2. The Censor as the Co-Author of Bulletins for Censors

You must understand: the Bulletin can only be effective if you are engaged with it.57

The Bulletins of "The Ministry of Truth" (as the censorship office might be called after Orwell's 1984, which was banned in communist Poland58) were dominated by instructional and training texts, whose task was to advise and educate the model censor. The vast majority of such articles were written by the "Bul-letin's Editorial Board,"59 which as a rule, remained unknown to the average reader of the magazine. None of the analyzed issues mentioned its members, and only once was the editorial material signed with a specific name; this was in February 1956, when the introduction of the "Bulletin's editor," S. Wilner, was published.60 While most of the editorials were anonymous, sometimes it was signaled that a text was sent by an administrative unit of the Office, such as Departament Nadzoru i Instruktażu [Department of Supervision and Instruction].61

Fig. 2. The appeal by the Bulletin's editorial board encouraging censors to cooperate with the magazine, published in the February 1953 issue (APG, WUKPPiW, file ref. no. 18, p. 43): "Please send us the plans for your teams' cooperation with the Bulletin's editors for the months of March and April as soon as possible. Feel free to send critical remarks on the material contained in the recent issue as well as notes, articles, and secondary works for future issues."

In addition to this type of training and instructional material, we can find reports, balance sheets, and summaries, which came from field centers. The purpose of these reports was, among other things, to boast about the team's achievements and possibly to help colleagues from other branches. However, in most publications of this type, the monologue prevailed over the dialogue, and an official clerical style was maintained.62

Nonetheless, an effort was made to offset this somewhat authoritarian tone and the subjunctive nature of the statements with materials in which both heads of field branches and rank-and-file political workers wrote more freely. The magazine encouraged correspondent-censors to provide such testimonies and to contribute to the work of the editorial board by submitting plans for cooperation, notes, articles, and critical comments.63

Obviously, the editorial board could not be open to a real dialogue: the only critical materials that were published were those that could be used to attack or lecture selected censorship teams, individual functionaries, or even the entire censorship community, but never the system as a whole. However, the encouragement of free expression, different from tedious reports and balance sheets, was certainly intended to loosen the rigid editorial form of the periodical and make it more "friendly" and accessible than other materials created in the Office.

Some materials about the Bulletins, including letters to the editors (also those printed in the magazine), have been preserved in censorship documents in archives scattered around Poland. The following materials from Poznań may serve as an example: "Dyskusja nad Biuletynem" [A discussion about the Bulletin] and "Terenowy głos w dyskusji" [The field's voice in the discussion].