People’s democracy/ social democracy from the contemporary perspective

After over twenty years of experiences with rebuilding the values of democracy and democratic organizations in Poland, the time has come to undertake scholarly reflection on the past of the democracy as an ideological project and social practice in the era of real socialism. During the first decade of the second post-war period, the model of people’s democracy and then until 1956 the model of social democracy was realized. The two models were typical examples of pseudo-democratic solutions that had a facade character of totalitarian and authoritarian political regimes. There were, indeed, various democratic institutions e.g. representative institutions, but political competition was impossible. Only political entities that were penetrated by the members of the government took part in the elections and the society could not choose between alternative programmes. There was also no rule of rotation in the government. Parliamentary and local elections served only as the reinforcement of the position of the ruling elite in the country. Thus, Poland’s negative experiences confirm the necessity of continuous concern for maintaining the proper state of democracy that is possible to achieve only through its real practicing and ensuring firm social and economic fundaments