This book presents to researchers and advanced students the essential knowledge about Polish political institutions when the country was a socialist peoples democracy between 1944 and 1989. The focus is on organized and individual political actors, state bodies, parties, and socio-political movements. There are also chapters on the formalized legal framework that defined the forms of possible political activity and the specific political goals connected to them. The book brings together valuable material that has so far remained outside the mainstream of research and will contribute, especially among the researchers of English-speaking countries, to a better understanding of the latest history of Poland.

Marek Jablonowski is a professor at the Institute of Political Sciences of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn. Wojciech Jakubowski, Professor of Social Sciences, is Head of the Department of Political History at the University of Warsaw. Daniel Przastek is Dean of the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Warsaw.