Between Memory and Historical Enquiry: Kalecki and the Warsaw Centre of Research on Underdeveloped Economies in 1962–1968

The study of human and social sciences in communist-era Poland is still awaiting in-depth investigation.1 Generally speaking, the closer these disciplines were to current affairs, politics and ideology, the lower their level. Under Stalinism, sociology as a science was banned — which is actually something that may have benefited it, since it was thus able to avoid the worst compromises that others were forced to make. It was a difficult time for philosophy as well. In history it was more prudent to pursue subdisciplines dealing with distant periods. At the same time, though, politically sensitive issues could appear in an area of science that one would think was the furthest thing from the minds of the authorities and/or ideologues. If in the USSR genetics could take on a fundamental political significance, then obviously so could anything else. For example, in Polish historical writing, at a certain point it became important to prove that the territories that Poland had acquired from Germany after the Second World War had centuries ago been Polish.