Maintenance Costs of a Communist Party in Biała Podlaska Voivodeship (1975–1989)

Abstract

The following study includes financial costs that the Polish nation had to bear after World War II, when the communist party established itself by the Polish authority. The article does not only present the way significant resources were allocated to the Polish United Workers’ Party’s activity, but, additionally, illustrates the role it played in the post-war Poland. Money for the party's budget came from membership fees, however, it was enough to merely meet PUWP’s basic bureaucratic expenses. In fact, the financing was provided mainly from the state budget in a form of subsidies and subventions that covered the party’s operation. Among others the resources included the National Bank of Poland's remitted loans, hundred per cent reliefs in social security fees from communist employees’ salaries, free-of-charge compulsory military service or so-called subbotniks. These were substantial sums of money considering the magnitude and omnipresence of the PUWP in the country. The article aims to reveal the communist party’s sources of funding based on the apparatus operating within the Biała Podlaska Voivodeship and attempts to estimate its total maintenance costs incurred by the Polish in the aforementioned period.