J. M. Bates IEC:The "Second Circulation" December 1997
"Taken from the forthcoming Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, edited by Derek Jones, to be published by Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, London, in May 2000"
Second Circulation 1976-1989 Poland
An unofficial publishing network.
The "second (or "other") circulation" is the term now largely used to define the underground publishers and publications that began to appear from the mid-1970s in Poland. It appears to have been employed for the first time in the Association of Polish Journalists' February 1982 Report on the State of Publishing in Poland under Martial Law. It was not current, however, amongst those active in the network. Instead, they preferred the epithets "unofficial", "independent", "uncensored" or "free", but were always careful to avoid any suggestion that their activity was illicit. This approach presented the "second circulation" as a social initiative that enjoyed a legal right to exist on the basis of the agreements concerning fundamental human and civil liberties that were signed by the Polish government as part of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act.
The rise of the unofficial network must be seen against the background of political events in Poland in 1975-6. Intellectuals' protests against the revamping of the constitution resulted in the blacklisting of key writers and bans on the publication of their works in official channels. The development of unofficial publishing followed the workers' riots and strikes against the massive price rises announced by the government at the end of June 1976. The foundation of the Workers' Defence Council ("KOR") in September 1976 was intended to support victimized workers and to persuade the authorities to cease their repressions. This led logically to the construction of an information network, of which KOR's own "Information Bulletin" represented the first example, as a means of providing accurate knowledge about events which, if mentioned at all, were usually grossly misrepresented in the official press. In September 1977 KOR set up Robotnik (The Worker), aimed specifically at workers, which contributed to the creation of independent trades unions as early as 1978.
Another of the earliest initiatives was the first independent literary journal, Zapis (Recorded Work), founded at the end of 1976 by several leading writers of various generations. This journal appeared at regular intervals and numbers were published jointly in Poland and in London (with the aid of Index on Censorship), from whence they would be smuggled back into Poland. The organizers included the poet Stanislaw Baranczak and the eminent novellist Jerzy Andrzejewski who were founding members of KOR; and Zapis adopted that group's strategy of transparency by publishing contributors' names and addresses. This underlined the legality of their activity, but also posed a moral dilemma for those who remained "above ground", and the journal's existence seems to have acted as a means of pressurizing the government for greater allowances. In their discussions with party officials prior to the launch of Zapis Baranczak and the others had insisted that if the texts gathered in the first number were published through official outlets, the journal would have no raison d'etre - in essence, the first number was an almanac of censorship rejects. Baranczak's article "Why Zapis ?, which explained the ramifications of the journal's title, was the only original piece written for the number: "it is not only the right but the duty of a writer to record, to preserve in written form, everything which for him has the value of truth".
By October 1977, another independent artistic journal, Puls, had been established, generally involving younger writers, who followed a different, less "politicized" path. Leszek Szaruga (Warsaw: 1992, p. 325) admits that one of the problems faced by independent writers was the necessity of moral solidarity, which largely precluded critical attacks on the works of fellow dissidents, since these would be exploited by the party authorities. The Central Committee Cultural Department, for its part, pursued a strategy of "divide and rule", endeavouring to lure individual writers back into official circulation on condition that they renounced their connections with the underground. In a sense, this was the original rationale behind the creation of Zapis, and those who "returned to the fold" were not viewed with opprobrium (nor did they necessarily break all ties with the underground). Prior to August 1980, however, the danger of social isolation undoubtedly remained a real one.
It was precisely the scale of the operation which became with time the defining feature of the "second circulation" in contrast to independent publishing in other Bloc countries. The founding of the Independent Publishing House (NOW-a) in the summer of 1977 marked an important stage in the growth of underground publications. Funded primarily by Western and, ultimately, American government sources, NOW-a was able to issue editions of contemporary banned émigré and domestic authors, as well as dissident and anti-Communist classics (Solzhenitsyn, Kundera, Konrad, Orwell, etc.) from the West and from other Bloc countries. Print runs of 2-3, 000 in the late seventies were small and necessarily more expensive than their official and heavily subsidized equivalents (for favoured writers, these could reach 50,000); but for young poets making their debuts, the underground's publishing schedule of six months and the size of the print runs compared highly favourably with the typical two-year process and small editions (under 1,000) of the official circulation. Even despite these material limitations, such major writers as Tadeusz Konwicki preferred to publish their works free of censorship interference: his novels The Polish Complex (1977), A Minor Apocalypse (1978) and Moonrises, Moonsets (1982) all appeared in the "second circulation" in defiance of the Party.
The second circulation's potential expanded enormously with the rise of Solidarity. The trade union made its own publishing resources available to the independents as well as granting access to a far greater readership by storing their publications in its own factory libraries. Solidarity's demands for a free press and proper legislative controls upon censorship in their turn stimulated the development of new periodicals, some of which (Tygodnik "Solidarnosc") operated above ground.
Following the declaration of Martial Law, the state authorities imposed a severe clampdown, which resulted in the confiscation of entire runs of the last numbers of Zapis, for instance, in 1982. Nonetheless, the government failed, and perhaps did not seriously intend, to eradicate underground publishing entirely, although it did introduce new draconian legislation in 1985 to punish printers and distributors of "illegal" materials, which allowed the confiscation of cars or flats in which such materials were discovered. By February 1987, with the Party set on a more liberal course, Cultural Minister Krawczuk announced a new policy of toleration towards underground publishers, so that by autumn 1988, underground publications were widely available in public, especially on university campuses. Finally, during the Round Table Talks of Spring 1989, independent publishers were allowed to participate in the Warsaw International Book Fair. Not all publishers took the opportunity to become legal concerns immediately due to the tax advantages of remaining "unofficial".
The very fact, as well as the scale of underground publishing indicated the weakness of the Communist régime in Poland by the mid-1970s. Paying lip-service to the Helsinki Agreement to avoid jeopardizing Western credits necessitated a relatively lenient approach to the "second circulation". Commentators have seen the government's stance as at times a more positive one of regarding the underground press as a crucial safety-valve for expression of frustrations experienced by intellectuals and society at large. This is not to underestimate the difficulty of pursuing independent publishers, who operated mobile printing presses which often stayed at one location for only 2-3 days, and whose publication details were usually deliberately falsified in order to mislead the police. The understandable secrecy, which often surrounded the "second circulation", therefore makes it highly problematic for today's bibliographers to ascertain its precise dimensions.
Further Reading
Czachowska, Jadwiga & Beata Dorosz, Literatura i krytyka poza cenzura 1977-1989. Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo "Wiedzy o kulturze", 1991
Federowicz, Grazyna et al, Bibliografia podziemnych druków zwartych z lat 1976-1989, Warsaw: Biblioteka Narodowa, 1995
Fedrigo, Claudio & Jacek Sygnarski (ed), Papierowa rewolucja. Les editions clandestines en Pologne communiste 1976-1990, Fribourg: Bibliotheque Cantonale et Universitaire, 1992
Friszke, Andrzej, Opozycja polityczna w PRL 1945-1980, London: Aneks, 1994
Kostecki, Janusz & Alina Brodzka (ed), Pismiennictwo - systemy kontroli - obiegi alternatywne. Tom 2, Warsaw: Biblioteka Narodowa, 1992
Raina, Peter, Political Opposition in Poland 1954-1977, London: Poets and Printers Press, 1978