Imprisoned, Brought Forward, Rebuked, Promoted… The Meanders of a Political Career of Tadeusz Duda, Party Activist and State Official

Abstract

The article describes the life of Tadeusz Duda, a 20th-century politician and official from the Lublin region, who, among others, headed the Office of Internal Affairs at the Presidium of the Provincial National Council in Lublin and sat in the Presidiums of the County National Councils in Lubartów and Biała Podlaska. Hence he was a significant figure in the regional authorities in the Lublin Voivodeship and he certainly should be seen as a representative of the ruling elite in People's Poland. The stranger is that it remains virtually unknown. This happened probably because he was unlucky for some time to fall out of favor with the ruling party as a result of being punished twice by disciplinary penalties by the party control committees of the Polish Workers’ Party and the Polish United Workers’ Party – sort of party courts. It was important not only because of the role played by those parties, on which the status and social position of citizens depended, but also because he was with them (and with their ideological predecessor, the Communist Union of Polish Youth) ideologically and professionally connected from his youth – as an employee of the full-time party apparatus at the poviat and voivodeship level (including secretary of the Poviat Committee of the PPR in Lubartów). The blame for the punishments imposed on him, was partly borne by himself, by making such and no other decisions, partly by people who had personal quarrels with him. However, the determination he showed in the fight to regain his good name meant that he finally managed to obtain the desired higher education and take an important position in the provincial state administration.