Padraic Kenney

The first book to examine the communist takeover in Poland from the bottom up, and the first to use archives opened in 1989, Rebuilding Poland provides a radically new interpretation of the communist experience. Padraic Kenney argues that the postwar takeover was also a social revolution, in which workers expressed their hopes for dramatic social change and influenced the evolution--and eventual downfall--of the communist regime.Kenney compares Lödz, Poland's largest manufacturing center, and Wroclaw, a city rebuilt as Polish upon the ruins of wartime destruction. His account of dramatic strikes in the textile mills of Lödz shows how workers resisted the communist party's encroachment on factory terrain and its infringements of worker dignity. The contrasting absence of labor conflict among migrants in the frontier city of Wroclaw holds important clues to the nature of stalinism in Poland: communist power was strongest where workers lacked organizational ties or cultural roots. In the collective reaction of workers in Lödz and the individualism of those in Wroclaw, Kenney locates the beginnings of the end of the communist regime. Losing the battle for worker identity, the communists placed their hopes in labor competition, which ultimately left the regime hostage to a resistant work force and an overextended economy incapable of reform.

Workers and Communists, 1945-1950

Rebuilding Poland

This is the first history of the revolutions that toppled communism in Europe to look behind the scenes at the grassroots movements that made those revolutions happen. It looks for answers not in the salons of power brokers and famed intellectuals, not in decrepit economies--but in the whirlwind of activity that stirred so crucially, unstoppably, on the street. Melding his experience in Solidarity-era Poland with the sensibility of a historian, Padraic Kenney takes us into the hearts and minds of those revolutionaries across much of Central Europe who have since faded namelessly back into everyday life. This is a riveting story of musicians, artists, and guerrilla theater collectives subverting traditions and state power; a story of youthful social movements emerging in the 1980s in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and parts of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Kenney argues that these movements were active well before glasnost. Some protested military or environmental policy. Others sought to revive national traditions or to help those at the margins of society. Many crossed forbidden borders to meet their counterparts in neighboring countries. They all conquered fear and apathy to bring people out into the streets. The result was a revolution unlike any other before: nonviolent, exuberant, even light-hearted, but also with a relentless political focus--a revolution that leapt from country to country in the exciting events of 1988 and 1989. A Carnival of Revolution resounds with the atmosphere of those turbulent years: the daring of new movements, the unpredictability of street demonstrations, and the hopes and regrets of the young participants. A vivid photo-essay complements engaging prose to fully capture the drama. Based on over two hundred interviews in twelve countries, and drawing on samizdat and other writings in six languages, this is among the most insightful and compelling accounts ever published of the historical milestone that ushered in our age.

Central Europe 1989

A Carnival of Revolution

Gerd-Rainer Horn

Offering a broad introduction to the methodology & practice of transnational history, this work focuses on three defining moments of 20th century European history, when changes affected the whole of the continent.

Europe 1945, 1968, 1989

Transnational Moments of Change

"What part does the imprisoned activist play in the conflict between regimes and their opponents around the world? Political incarceration today seems to offer the clearest evidence of a repressive regime, and of a determined political opposition. Yet surely there are more effective alternatives, for both states and their opponents, than incarceration. Imprisoned opponents, like those of the African National Congress in South Africa, or of Solidarity in Poland, or of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, may eventually claim or share power, while those who are executed or exiled will not pose the same threat. From the opposition's point of view, imprisonment, even though it deprives the movement of a valued contributor, is often a badge of honor. Our perceptions of political prisoners are awash in clichaes and archetypes. We think of Nelson Mandela, or perhaps Vaaclav Havel: good men, engaged in a moral struggle. But can that really be an acceptable definition, when Adolph Hitler too was a political prisoner? Can we understand what political prisoners are and what they do if we do not include those whose goals or ethics are different from our own? Dance in Chains--the title inspired by a song composed by a socialist on death row in a Warsaw prison 120 years ago--draws upon research in Poland, Ireland, South Africa and includes over a dozen different regimes over the last 150 years. These cases serve as pillars holding up a global investigation of the phenomenon. In each case, generations of political opponents have gone to prison since at least the turn of the twentieth century. Yet they also vary widely. Taken together, they yield a sufficiently wide spectrum to allow the reader to understand one of the central characters of modern political history"--Provided by publisher.

Padraic Kenney

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