The aftermath of World War II

The suffering, destruction, and humiliation endured by the Polish people during World War II recast Poland. Geographically, it was moved west, and its population changed from one of the most heterogeneous to one of the most homogeneous in Europe. Much of the prewar political and cultural elite of the nation was annihilated by Stalin and Hitler, and its remnants were forced into long, involuntary exile. The Poland that emerged from the war was psychologically, sociologically, and economically different from the Second Republic. In psychological terms, World War II, unlike Pilsudki's struggle for independence, was a truly national war embracing every layer of Polish society and embodying a powerful collective experience on an unprecedented scale. Economically, the harnessing of Poland's economy to the Reich's war machine resulted in significant industrialization of the country (in the area between the Oder and Bug rivers, the number of industrial workers increased threefold during the war) as well as the establishment of economic etatism, which did not exist before the war.

Sociologically, the Polish elite that emerged from the ruins of the war developed a very different sense of Poland's place within the international system, as well as a notion of Polishness that differed markedly from that of the interwar elite. Not only were the old Polish intelligentsia and elite annihilated or driven abroad, but also, as Krystyna Kersten noted: “The middle class ceased to exist as a social stratum, as did the land owners, as a result of the land reform, more than 10,000 landowners were expropriated, 13, 243 estates were either parceled out or placed under state control.”