The Sociology of Work and Factory Sociologists in Communist Poland

In Communist Poland the sociology of work was one of the most prosperous social science branches. It was perceived as particularly important due to the Marxist emphasis on the category of work, as well as its supposed significance for national economy. It might have been even perceived as a dream come true by those who imagined social science as a scientific guidance for the practice. Besides academic field, in which the branch was hindered by imprecise definition of the very subject of its study, normative bias, censorship and, mostly, self-censorship, the sociology of work spread to big socialist enterprises which employed professional sociologists in 1960s and 1970s. Their role was significant also due to the role of the workplace as the backbone of Socialist civil society. As a result, new occupation and potentially interesting field of intellectual activity opened for young sociologists.

The paper will base on period literature dealing with factory sociologists - limited yet existing - as well as on archive resources and interviews with ex-factory sociologists. Due to fragmentary data it will not probably be possible to describe typical social profile or career paths of factory sociologists, so the paper will concentrate on those cases in which some more detailed biographical data is available. The study will aim at describing their professional role which was by no means clearly defined, position in the factory structure/hierarchy - somewhere in between the management, Party secretary and labor unions - as well as their expectations and factual content of their work. It will also refer to their professional aspirations and career paths. A special concern of the paper will be intellectual ambitions of factory sociologists and their relations with the academic field from which they were rather isolated, what in turn caused their constant dissatisfaction.