'A Life Path So Beautifully Called ‘Social Advancement': Social Upward Mobility in the First Decades of the Polish People’s Republic

• In Event: Experiencing, Remembering, and Forgetting Social Advancement in (Post)Socialist Societies

Abstract

This paper examines how the socialist promise of social advancement for workers and peasants was presented, negotiated, and perceived in the Polish People’s Republic. It explores both, the local social infrastructure established to support upward mobility, and the expectations evoked by the promise of social advancement. By analyzing public debates, political measures, and autobiographical accounts, the paper provides a multilayered perspective on one of the most important social processes in the Polish People’s Republic.

Author

• Laura Clarissa Loew, Justus Liebig U Giessen (Germany)