“The Goal and the Way” – the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in Exile

The article is devoted to the activity of the Polish Socialist Party (Polish abbreviation: PPS) in exile in the years 1945–1989. The political goals of the Polish emigration and the activities of the Polish Socialists are presented in this context. The differences in the strategy of the various political centers, as well as the possibilities of using the Socialist International (SI), including the Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe (SUCEE) for the “Polish cause” are also outlined. The point was to ensure that the problem of the countries behind the Iron Curtain did not disappear from the international agenda. The article presents the differing approaches of the main ideologues of the Polish socialist movement (Zygmunt Zaremba and Adam Ciołkosz) to the changes in Poland after 1956. The essence of the dispute at the time was the answer to the question of whether the Polish political system was subject to evolutionary transformation towards democracy, or whether the communist system was inherently undemocratic and therefore any changes were merely cosmetic. Both activists personified the argument – which gained most notoriety in the 1960s in the West – assuming a gradual convergence between capitalist and communist societies. Ultimately, history conceded the point to Ciołkosz, who said that “liberalisation of the communist dictatorship is impossible” and that the goal of socialists in exile is “its liquidation.”