The Socialist Project for a New Intelligentsia and Its Limits. Academic Careers in the Polish Post-War University: A Biographical Perspective

The paper examines the post-war period of reconstruction of the Polish academic system from the perspective of young academicians and students of that time. The generation born in the 1920s and early 1930s witnessed a profound change in Polish society, when its intelligentsia and universities had to face the dramatic events of post-WWII. The forthcoming reform of science and the higher education system was an attempt to build a socialist university and an egalitarian society. Those processes are often viewed as the political domination of academia, the captivity of professors, and seduction of students. It is a part of the story. On the contrary, it is argued herein that the academic field and its associated processes shaped the biographical paths of erstwhile scientists/academics as strongly, if not stronger, than the political factors which usually are brought to the forefront by researchers. Three chosen academic biographies present the complexity of those processes, and at the same time they reveal different patterns of the interplay between political changes, the university, the academic habitus and higher education reform.

email: agatazysiak@gmail.com many obstacles, entered walls of academia less than a decade prior to the event. To him this kind of biographical path had once been beyond the horizon of his imagination, not to mention his aspirations. But, this particular decade was indeed a time of social revolution. After the dreadful events of WWII, from 1945 onwards there was no going back to inter-war model of academia. The whole university structure went through deep and rapid changes during implementation of 'Soviet solutions' for science. Its aim was to build an egalitarian society, to modernize the economy, and reform the educational system, especially higher education. Engineers, teachers and doctors were needed more than ever before. While intellectuals debated and quarrelled over the shape of future academia and politicians struggled for power and influence, another important layer of social change was taking place. Via the daily press, public speeches and everyday experiences the social imagination was being reconstructed, shaping the educational desires of the masses. The construction of a socialist university was a factor and response to those newly-created desires. The traditional elitist university was supposed to be reformed into a socialist one.
There are two contrasting narratives present in today's literature about the post-war period and higher education during the People's Republic of Poland: 1) that it created a new intelligentsia, or the so called 'ZMP-generation', 2 loyal to the Communist Party and in many cases grateful for the of Culture. The research team conducted almost thirty interviews with retired professors. 2 ZMP (Związek Młodzieży Polskiej [Union of Polish Youth]), was the official youth organization established in 1948 by the Polish United Workers Party. Before it disbanded it enrolled more than 2 million people. possibilities of upward mobility offered by the new system (Palska 1994;Świda-Ziemba 2010); 2) that for universities and the inter-war professors it was a time of oppression, captivity, the decline of science and the loss of autonomy (Connelly 2000;Herczyński 2008). According to this latter notion, the situation of higher education during the People's Republic of Poland is mainly presented as a dark period of terror and captivity, and the most recent 3 It should be noted that the narration of captivity does not exclude spaces for opposition or resistance, which are underlined especially in writings of John Connelly. His works underlined ability of Polish academia to preserve values of traditional university, still were framed by totalitarian paradigm, which I am trying to overcome. 4 The recent wave of publications and vividness of this notion is seen as a revival of the so-called totalitarian paradigm, dominant in English-speaking discourse about Central Europe and Soviet Russia in the Cold War period. According to this paradigm, totalitarianism was focused on power, legislation and the destructive influence of the system on societies. Furthermore, this attitude was in a way part of a wider political struggle between two superpowers. In opposition to this notion the revisionist paradigm appeared, underlining the importance of economic and social aspects of change. In the 1990s, after the opening of formerly closed archives and the transition enthusiasm in Central Europe, the totalitarian paradigm again became dominant, mainly in the Post-Soviet academic discourse (Kotkin 1998;Malia 2008). 5 It is worth mentioning, that the term "new intelligentsia" was applied to a group of professionals, not a narrow intellectual elite. Those two notions interact with each other within the frame of generational conflict.
However, I would like to revise such a totalitarian paradigm (Kotkin 1998). From a more revisionist perspective, the reform of universities, despite its political (in the narrow sense) context, can be seen not only as the oppression of a foreign superpower over Polish academia or the brainwashing of naive students. Such a point of view (i.e., the totalitarian paradigm) needs to be amended by taking into consideration two additional important factors. First, at the beginning (that is between 1945-1948), it was not known how the political situation was going to develop, which allowed considerable latitude for the accumulation of wide-ranging support for a new political project. Second, even after the political situation had already been defined, rapid modernization, upward social mobility, and simply the postwar stabilization were important factors which, for many Polish citizens, helped secure the legitimization of the new order. The construction of a new social order and socialist university can be seen as a modernization project, as an attempt to build the world anew, to create an egalitarian university and democratize access to higher education (Arnason 2000;Stoica 1997). In the following decades thousands of workers and peasants' children would enter universities and obtain a higher education, slowly fulfilling modernization dreams (including in their monstrous form).
I argue that the process of post-war social change, traced from the biographical perspective, was much more complicated than simply the struggle to protect universities' autonomy against external inter-

Stalinization and Modernization
During the Second Republic of Poland (1918Poland ( -1939 there were five public universities in the country: in A special place on the post-war map of higher education was occupied by the young, working class city of Lodz. Following the conclusion of the war in 1945 only 30% of its former citizens remained, but its material structure was well preserved, and together, with the influx of internally displaced Poles, it became a temporary, informal capital of the country. It was also a magnet for leftist intellectuals (Connelly 2000). Although it was the second biggest city after Warsaw, because of its lack of any previous higher education institutions (the only one being a local branch of the non-public university of Warsaw) it had no previous academic structures to be reproduced. However, as an industrial giant Lodz was considered to be a "red" city with its tradition of the 1905 Revolution and labour movements, historically playing a kind of figure of the 'Other' in Polish culture (Zysiak 2014). All in all, it was a perfect place to build a university for the new times, and one could easily feel and become a part of this change.

Reform and the New Intelligentsia
One of the most important goals of higher education reform was its democratization. This term was understood as the reconstruction of the social structure of students (and graduates) so it would reflect the social structure of society. If society was mainly rural, then mainly peasant children should attend the lectures. The need for more egalitarian access to higher education was seen, as well by many scholars, who actively participated in this process. In the first postwar years a variety of solutions were implemented, like the 'initial year', preparatory courses, 6 the special quota of registration indices reserved for the disposition of the Ministry of Education, and some preferences for children of working-class origin. 7 The academic year 1949/1950 was crucial for Polish academia as the central reform of science was in its 6 Both were designed to overcome gaps in education and allow students without a high school diploma to enter university. 7 An affirmative action program awarding additional points during enrollment was not implemented until the 1960s, when the effects of democratization turned out to be very poor. early stage of implementation. Science was parametrized and the universities were obliged to respect the assigned quotas of students and graduates.
Courses became obligatory, and in opposition to the so-called "aristocratic manner of studying", students were supposed to work on the basis of rules similar to workers in a factory, with almost 8 hours per day of classes, roll-call, and supervision of their efficiency. The first three years of study were designed to prepare students for practical tasks, and the additional final two years to give them more advanced skills and the masters degree (M.A.). They were expected to contact a future workplace during their studies in order to obtain work experience in a factory or public institution. Universities were thus to become part of a production process aimed at training skilled specialists. Censorship was strengthened, international cooperation strictly controlled, and many courses -like sociology -were labelled as "bourgeois science" and simply cancelled.
Despite the reform's negative effect on the autonomy of academia, for the system of education and society as such it still meant new paths of upward mobility for many. It was a parallel process to the global shift from elite towards mass universities, which occurred in most developed and developing countries in the second half of 20 th century (Scott 1995), both in socialist and capitalistic countries. Polish reformers planned to provide higher education for as many as 80% of each year's group of high school students (Hübner 1983:172). During the reform in the 1950s, the assumptions were more realistic and workers' children supposed to make up 30% of students, and peasants -20% (Słabek 2001:367). In com- It was thought that in this way it would play the role of a new type of university, closer to meeting the social and economic needs of workers, and open to as many people as were needed to build a socialist welfare state. There was no need to bring high culture to the masses; instead it was time to create a new mass culture.
While the traditional university model was supposed to be isolated from society and create pure science, with academic relations based on a craft model of master/mentor-pupil; the socialist mode was opposite to all these features: its role was supposed to be an active one as one of the tools of change in building a socialist society based on an organized, planned and collective effort of the working intelligentsia, not individual professors ("intellectual aristocrats"). The traditional model was politically neutral, or as critics would say "above people's needs", while the second was strongly devoted to social improvement and modernization. The first assumed that science is a way to get to know oneself, and the second that it is a public good, serving the development of a socialist society (Zysiak 2015).
The attempts to build a socialist university were most intense in the early post-war years in the working class city of Lodz, where over ten higher education institutions were created in the first post-war years. As already mentioned, before the war Lodz was labeled as the Red City. It was a textile industry center with the lowest percentage of intelligentsia and highest illiteracy rate among Polish cities (Baranowski 1996). While in 1957 1/3 of its citizens were still not able to read and write and 7% of adults had never attended school (Kamiński 1962), in 1988, after over 30 years of socialist experiment and with Lodz's population exceeding 850,000, over 95% of its citizens had secondary or higher education (Dziciuchowicz 2009:228). While in 1960 only 415,000 people had graduated from universities, before PRL's collapse in 1988 the number had reached almost two million (Karpiński 2005:160). But, the core of social change was sup-  (Słomczyński 1973:122), and these were mainly comprised of two groups occupying opposite positions in the social structure: the intelligentsia and unskilled workers, starting from lowest po-sitions. Even if the post-war press was encouraging the working classes to enrol in universities, this was still a rather rare choice for them. The mobility ladder for them was the trade schools, and even though a considerable number of working-class children entered the universities as well, they were still definitely a minority. Therefore, while political careers and even management positions were more open to working-class people (Słabek 2001;Szczepański 1993), the academic field also served as a testing ground for upward mobility. As the most elitist and hermetic social field, and also probably the one most sceptical to educational reform, academia revealed the limits of upward mobility.

Academic Biographies
In this second part of the paper I present three bi- The research project "Academic Lodz -university in biographies" (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014) was inspired by the methodological approach proposed first by Fritz Schutze and developed, inter alia, by the so-called Lodz biographical school (Kaźmierska 1999;Rokuszewska-Pawełek 2002;Waniek 2012).

Agata Zysiak
The Socialist Project for a New Intelligentsia and Its Limits. Academic Careers in the Polish Post-War University:

A Biographical Perspective
In this group, most of the interviewees were born into intelligentsia families with high symbolical capital, and only a few came from peasant families (and none from workers). Intelligentsia should be understood here in a wide sense, including inter-war offi cers (military), teachers and even rail-way workers (Żarnowski 1965), as these were families with the highest symbolical and often economical capital. Although nobility was not to be counted as a part of intelligentsia (Jakubowska 2012), it was also a group characterized by a high symbolical capital.
An additional inspiring context was provided by the autobiographies writt en by professors themselves The fi rst two cases -"the obvious" and "the roman-

The Obvious
The fi rst narrator was born into a well-situated intel- While this manner of arranging contacts was partly related to the war circumstances, still her educational career seems to be quite typical for an intelligentsia child, strongly supported by her family's social networks. It was obvious that she would start studies at university, as her older sister did, and she Although she lost her post at university during the peak of Stalinization (1952)(1953), this event seems to have had only a minor impact on her academic path.
She mentioned it only in the course of describing Her biographical path is in many places and moments typical of that of a traditional university academic in inter-war academia -she is from a well-sit-

The Romantic
The Her initial social engagement passed quickly and did not help her in her academic career -from the perspective of the local Party executive her social background seemed more important. While still studying and being active in many student projects, she began to work at the University as a typist and moved smoothly to an academic position after graduation. Throughout her whole narration a noticeable amount of space is given to her political and social activity.
This case may seem to be similar to the previous one, but the difference lies in her initial engagement and attitude towards political activity.
She wanted to be an active subject in the current changes and was interested in politics and its relation with academia. However, following her initial engagement in communist youth organizations she became highly critical of the existing order.
The more she became involved in the academic community and its traditional values, the more she became distanced from the governmental reforms of universities and the political order in general.
Hers is a case of a politically active academician who at first became enraptured by the new system and later became disillusioned with it, albeit still involved in ongoing social change. Her academic career developed smoothly with the strong support of her husband (also an academician and dissident) and a close circle of scientists.

The Unexpected
The last of the narrators presented here is also the youngest. He was born into a peasant family in 1934. As he avoided talking about his childhood, we know only that his entire family except for his grandmother was killed during the war. Despite year he became the best student, surprised that he was given an award for his high marks, as studying was "just his duty". He was also active in student communist youth organizations, successfully seeking opportunities to participate in both the political and cultural life of a big city. To sum up the main differences between these three biographies I have focused on a few specific moments and aspects of their biographical paths, which were related with their academic careers.   A closer look at the biographical material provides a basis for criticism of the one-dimensional picture of post-war academia, which seems to dominate historical studies on the issue. The post-war reform created new paths of social mobility, making space for people earlier excluded from this type of career.
What is interesting is that even those who benefited From Pierre Bourdie's perspective, from which I borrow the terms 'academic and political field', this process could be described as hysteresis, a term employed to indicate a cultural lag or mismatch between habitus and the changing rules, values and regularities of a field. (Hardy 2012) Bourdieu described the hysteresis effect in Homo academicus as a reactionary mobilization in defense of what previously had been taken-for-granted practices and dispositions and a "profound transformation in the logic of the professors' collective action, by substituting concerted action deliberately orientated towards the preservation of the status quo for a spontaneously orchestrated ensemble of actions inspired by the solidarity with an 'elite'." (Grenfell 2012:133;Bourdieu 1988:151).
imagination had been reconstructed and educational desires emerged, still the habitus of working class children had to adjust to the academic field. Those who experienced the upward mobility path to intelligentsia entered an unknown and alien culture.
The field of academia valued inter-war patterns of behaviour, rules and the traditional model of university, and it remained highly critical of the socialist model of university and the modernization project as such. Those who entered academia had to socialize themselves into the traditional university, and if they wanted to continue their academic careers they needed to adjust. This is why they would not become the new intelligentsia.
The changes provided by socialist reform were a shallow facade, and the rules of the academic field at that particular historical moment were preserved, as is clearly visible in case of "The Obvious", who views her loss of her job as only a temporary setback. During the reform eleven assistant professors lost their jobs, yet nine of them -like our as ours chosen narrator -later continued their academic careers. Furthermore, while academic titles were granted to 302 people in 1951-54, only 41 were Party members (Connelly 1999:198). The fail- wished for their children only to avoid physical work, the intelligentsia aimed at an academic career for their children -becoming a professor was a dream biographical plan (Szczepański 1960). In the 1980s 68% of academicians teaching at universities were of intelligentsia origin, as were the students planning an academic career (Najduchowska and Wnuk-Lipińska 1990).
On one hand, the academic field was supposed to adjust to the political reform, but this evoked, on the other hand, the resistance of inter-war academicians and led to an attempt to preserve the model of a tra-

Acknowledgments
The work on this article was part of a research proj-