Local Party Labor Center in Radzyń Podlaski (1982-1989) - an element of the organization structure of the Polish United Workers' Party, documents creator, archival fonds

Abstract

Local Party Labor Centers were created in January 1982, in connection with reorganization of assignments of the Polish United Workers’ Party in the new socio-political situation after the declaration of martial law in Poland. The article present this element of the complex bureaucratic structure, holding dictatorial authority in the party, by describing its political history and documentary legacy from the archival perspective. The laboratory example is the Local Party Labor Center in Radzyń Podlaski. The author set himself a task to describe what was the role of the Center in the Polish communist party – a formation so characteristic for the last decade of existence of the Party. The LPLCs were not elective statutory bodies of the PUWP, but they were a bureaucratic structure, that served an advisory and coordination function towards basic levels of the communist party. The LPLC in Radzyń Podlaski was one of four such formations created in the Bielsk Podlaski Voivodeship, and its area of action were counties from the period before the administrative reform in 1975. The scope of the Center were district committees of the PUWP situated in Czemierniki, Drelów, Kąkolewnica, Komarówka Podlaska, Międzyrzec Podlaski, Ulan, Wohyń; the Town Committee in Międzyrzec Podlaski and the Town-Distric Committee in Radzyń Podlaski. Archival materials of the
LPLC in Radzyń Podlaski were transmitted on September 2, 1992 with documentation created by the County, the District, the Town and the Town-Disctrict Committee from 1950 to 1989. The materials were scattered. In 2007–2008 fonds of this documentation were recognized and in 2011 the materials of the LPLC were arranged and described in the State Archive in Lublin, Branch in Radzyń Podlaski.