The Polish People's Republic would be fine if it wasn't for one problem ... meat. Its inaccessibility organized people's daily lives, and price increases and supply difficulties sparked massive social protests.
On July 8, 1980, the workers working in WSK-PZL Świdnik were agitated by the increase in prices in the employee buffet. The price of the cutlet went up from PLN 10.20 to PLN 18.10. Someone in the canteen shouted "strike", others picked up and so began "Lublin July 80". WSK and more than 150 other businesses in the region have come to fruition . After July, there was "August 80" on the coast and throughout the country. The same reason is the shortage of supplies, especially meat.
Edward Gierek, 1980.
Looking at the history of workers' protests in the People's Republic of Poland, their immediate cause was price increases, shortages in supplies, and most often both. In 1976, "Radom" and "Ursus" were built. The strikes were a response to the government announced drastic increase in the prices of basic food products. The meat was to become more expensive by 69%. Admittedly, compensation was introduced, but so that the highest earners were to get the highest. In retrospect, it is known that price regulation and adjustment were necessary, but the government scared the workers . The reasons for the protests were also disappointed hopes for an increase in the quality of life in the era of Gierek. The genesis of the bloody protests in 1970 was also the increase in prices, including meat - by 18%. The raise was a trigger, and the reason was difficult living conditions.
The guilty speculators
The history of the People's Republic of Poland is a history of constant shortages in supplies, queues in shops with more or less intensity. The economy was inefficient, as was the case in the entire socialist camp, but in the neighboring countries:Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, shops were well stocked. Certainly, the shortage of supply in food products was the result of ineffective, fragmented agriculture, export at all costs, which was to bring foreign currency, and the government's fear of society, which did not allow prices to be brought to real and fueled further crises.
Meat postcard
Of course, the authorities tried to find those guilty, mainly the so-called speculators. The most glaring example of this took place in 1965, when it was the court murder of Stanisław Wawrzecki, one of the directors of the Miejski Handel Mięsem. Wawrzecki was sentenced to death for taking bribes from store managers . In return, he delivered goods. The sentence was carried out. The course of the trial was of a typically propaganda character. The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, Władysław Gomułka, wanted to show the public that thieves and bribers are to blame for any shortages in the market.
Cods! I think for a cat
Other methods have also been tried to reduce the demand for meat and meat products. In 1959, "meatless Monday" was introduced in gastronomy and trade. This was, of course, explained as a concern for health, otherwise rightly so. The press promoted healthy cuisine based on fruit, vegetables and products containing protein . Poles, however, still wanted to eat pork chops, pork knuckles, sausage, ham and ham. When cheap cod became commercially available in large quantities, the public replied with a rhyme:"eat cod, shit is worse." The cods did not catch on. Cabaret Tey ridiculed these ideas while mocking vegetarianism:
"Because we must be strong and healthy
even on starch, even on starch,
Because we must be less greedy, herbivorous, herbivore today.
We have sirloin and pork loin, it doesn't taste like sorrel. "
Meat arguments came from different sides. Fighting for the registration of NSZZ Individual Farmers Solidarity coined the slogan:"If you register us, you will eat a roll with ham." They registered, the ham was gone.
Before the war, in peasant and working class families, meat was a luxury, it was eaten on special occasions. So why such expectations and determination to eat them almost every day? Paradoxically, it resulted from an increase in the quality of life in the scale of the entire society. The memory of the war and post-war poverty with enormous malnutrition was still there. Caring mothers and grandmothers force their children sandwiches with ham or ham to make it "look good", the plumper the better. Meanwhile, many of them even dreamed of cream cheese instead of fatty ham.
The economy was inefficient, as in the entire socialist camp, but in the neighboring countries:Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, shops were well stocked.
Despite the difficulties, meat consumption in the People's Republic of Poland grew. In 1960, a statistical Pole ate almost 43 kg of meat a year, and a decade later 10 kg more . Today, unlike in People's Poland, meat consumption is falling. In 2010, the statistical consumer ate 67 kg of meat per year, nine years later almost 7 kg less. According to the World Health Organization, this is still almost half as much. Eating a lot of meat is not for your health and it is not for the environment to produce it.
The pious attitude towards meat also resulted from the poverty of the culinary art of the time, that is, often mothers and grandmothers cooked perfectly, but were rather reluctant to experiment in the kitchen. Today we eat less meat, and some do not eat meat at all, because we are more health-conscious and know more about it in the kitchen. We are more willing to use other products. The contemporary perception of cod is a good example. It can be said that we still eat more meat than in the People's Republic of Poland, only then the restrictions in its consumption resulted from shortages, today they are a conscious choice.
Bibliography:
- Adam Leszczyński, PRL - Anatomy of protest. Workers' strikes.
- Krzysztof Madej, K macaw of death for meat, IPN.