ABSTRACT
This chapter examines certain features of Polish agricultural policy since the imposition of martial law in December 1981. The incontestable conclusion that emerges from an examination of the official policy followed in the 1970s and 1980s is that the Polish leadership essentially had reverted to its traditional stance of regarding agriculture as a marginal sector that had to be tolerated as a necessary evil. The imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981, accompanied by the arrest of the leadership of Rural Solidarity affected the Polish agriculture and the peasants much less than it did their industrial counterparts. The Polish regime could pass constitutional amendments, promise the peasants a new deal, and declare its undying support of the private sector without eliciting an increase in farm output. One of the major victims of nonsensical policies was the smychka, the worker-peasant alliance, which had formed one of the ideological foundations of the Polish communist system.
