Polish Rural Sociology or the Ancillary, Complaisant and Servile Role of Science

Abstract

The article presents the possibility of taking a look at the history of Polish rural sociology through the prism of social roles played by that discipline in different years. During the period between the two world wars emphasis was being put on rural sociology's "ancillary" function defined by Władysław Grabski as a postulate of studying the rural community in order to adjust to its needs. During the period of communist rule in Poland rural sociology played at first a "servile" role, with sociologists conducting surveys to keep the rural population under surveillance and writing denunciatory reports that revealed the personal data of respondents at the time of intense Stalinist reprisals. Later on, the "complaisant" function became dominant, with the communist party using rural sociology to justify its ideological decisions (glorification of state-owned farms, analyses by peasants-workers, etc.). A permanent feature of Polish rural sociology has for years been excessively strict adherence to the model of rural community that fails to take into account the existence of many elements and the occurrence of many changes, and also the absence of a thorough theoretical reflection. In effect rural sociology lacks a paradigm of its own and sticks to the assumptions of general sociology which is anti-rural, and this results in the tendency to neglect the role of the rural community and agriculture.