ABSTRACT
Poland, with its awkward and recalcitrant peasantry who stubbornly refused collectivization and its flourishing, indeed almost dominant ‘second economy’,1 was in many ways the maverick state of socialist Eastern Europe. The profligate Gierek years saw the creation of a massive national debt. Hungry for hard currency, the Government allowed and even encouraged the growth of a black market which extended to every possible commodity and service. Throughout the 1970s in Poland, the vast discrepancy between official policy and actual practice was openly acknowledged in all but the highest official circles. As I was often told by the villagers in the highlands where I did research,
‘Tutaj nic nie jest wolno, ale wszystko jest mo liwe’ (‘here nothing is allowed but everything is possible’).
