The Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland of 1967–1968: Documents

THE anti-Zionist campaign in Poland which culminated in March 1968 has been given much attention in the last few years by historians. However, for the most part, published works have focused on anecdotal evidence rather than analysis, mainly because of restricted access to the archives, lack of familiarity with primary sources, and insufficient knowledge of the period. Furthermore, the Jewish aspect of the events of March 1968 has been relegated to the status of an almost secondary, ‘embarrassing’ factor, and the authentic heroes of the events who chose to remain in Poland ‘Polonized’ the character of these events in their own recollections and analyses. A monograph by Dariusz Stola, a historian at the Instytut Studiów Politycznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk (Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences) in Warsaw, is a remarkable departure from the standard literature on the subject published to date.

Stola sets the record straight in his introduction, referring to the perverse character of the anti-Zionist campaign:

The name ‘anti-Zionist campaign’ is misleading on two counts, because … [First, it] began as anti-Israeli, but soon it became anti-Jewish, and this clearly anti-Jewish designator remained until the end. In 1968 the words Zionism and Zionist, repeated in hundreds of propaganda publications and in thousands of meetings, were not meant to characterize properly a certain variety of nationalism, but served as substitutes for the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’. Secondly, a Zionist meant a ‘Jew’ even when the person branded as such was not Jewish…. The events discussed had two acts: the summer of 1967 and the spring of 1968. (p. 7)

How was such a campaign possible in Poland? Stola offers the following major reasons:

The Soviet origins of the instruments of power in communist Poland.

The struggle with the right-wing nationalist deviation in 1948–9, when local communist leaders were replaced by leaders from Moscow—Stola takes a traditional, one-sided view of this. There is no doubt that Gomułka's abrasive and uncompromising character contributed to the strong animosity felt towards him by the party leadership, and his complaints to Stalin about Jewish comrades caused additional strain in his relationship with party leaders.

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The Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland of 1967–1968: Documents

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