Placing (Post-)Socialism

Abstract

This article explores the postwar development and transformation of Poland’s social, economic and political systems through an exploration of the continual remaking of the town of Nowa Huta in the south of the country. It examines the historical development of the town, linking these changes to wider transformations, including the construction of socialism in Poland, reform socialism in the 1960s and 1970s, the collapse of the Soviet-style economy in Poland in the 1980s and the creation of new market economies in the 1990s. Central to this restructuring is the fate of the town’s steelworks, once the largest in Europe and now undergoing privatization. The article argues that localities are, at least in part, constructed in the image of the dominant relations of production and authority, and that, in turn, economic, social and political practices in particular places play a role in constructing those relations.