Political views and attitudes of PSYU activists. Research results

The paper presents results of research on political views and attitudes of activists of Polish Socialist Youth Union (PSYU). While carrying out a dynamic analysis of participation of youth in the institutionalized public life in the years 1970-1906, the paper aims at the explanation of decreasing participation of the young generation in the youth organizations and Polish United Workers' Party. Special attention is paid to the problem of social, intra-organization and individual conditioning of political activity of the young. The study shows specific character of functioning of PSYU and simultaneously it describes political views and attitudes of the Union activists towards: socialism, prospects of the political system development, representatives of the Government and opposition, current situation in the world politics, the position of Poland in the world, and religion. A comparative analysis of the data showed that leaders of youth organizations share many characteristic features with the whole population of young Poles, regarding both life values and religion. Life attitudes of PSYU activists form a kind of synthesis of Christian and socialist attitudes, however it see characteristic that their pro-socialist attitude is rather unstable