In recent years, Poland’s popular culture has witnessed the
proliferation of communist-era products and symbols. Once-loathed images,
slogans and sensations - a darker specter of Polan’s history, which lurked from
1945 to 1989 - now prove to be highly profitable ventures breaking into the
new-age fashion zone.

by Anna J. Kutor

A young British couple, a Swedish secretary and a
witty Polish history student are all sitting in a funky red and black Trabant,
discussing the pro’s and con’s of communism. No, this is not the beginning of a
ironic joke nor a surreal road-trip movie (although they would both be really
interesting), but rather an increasingly common sight in Kraków, Poland’s
cultural capital. To explain: the Trabant is a kooky, box-shaped car that was
manufactured in East Germany between 1957 and 1991, and it was a celebrated
communist era commodity that people waited 15-20 years to acquire. Today, these
rattling cardboard-and-plastic-made contractions serve as a reminder of the
difficult days of the Soviet occupation, but they have also managed to develop
a “so bad it's good” cult status amongst younger generations of Poles and
other Central Europeans. In Kraków, the enterprising Crazy Tours company has
injected fresh life into these much-ridiculed commie cars by utilising them as
tour-guide vehicles for a range of ‘Communist Tours’ around the city's
infamous Nowa Huta district.

“Tourists really enjoy the ‘back to the past’
experience,” says 24-year-old Jakub Bialach (aka ‘Crazy Jakub’) who has been
working as a tour-guide at Crazy Guides since 2006. “Now that Poland is safe
and civilised, people are increasingly interested in seeing, feeling and
touching what it was really like to live in Kraków during the Soviet regime.”

The first alternative city tour organiser, Crazy
Guides was launched by young, business-savvy Mike Ostrowski in 2004 in order to
give a “personalised and communist oriented tours of Kraków that will get you
off the beaten path and expose you to things you never knew existed.” The
Trabant tours - populated mostly by British, Scandinavian and American tourists
– take travellers around Nowa Huta (literally ‘New Steelworks’), a model
communist district designed in the 1950s. The four-hour-long Communism Delux
Tour (costing 169 PLN/ 33 GBP), for example, showcases the remains of socialist
planning principles, Stalinist architecture and the super-sized steelworks that
polluted the city through the reign of the dictatorship. The tours also feature
a visit to an authentic communist apartment, lunch at a milk bar (where the
factory workers ate lunch every day) and five different shots of vodka.
“Sometimes people are surprised at what they see. They expect a rougher, darker
and more depressing view, but we show them the real, somewhat sarcastic, side
of the Communist era,” adds Bialach.

Photo courtesy Stol Polski

Communism Commodified

When communism crumbled across the Eastern Bloc in 1989, no one thought the
symbols that instilled such vivid fear and outrage in people would soon make a
commercial comeback. Throughout the 1990’s consumers in Poland and other
Central Eastern European countries collectively shunned Soviet products in
favour of the new, mass-produced Western goods. But by the beginning of the
21st century, nostalgia and a newfound appetite for home-grown products brought
a resurgence in old communist brands and products. Today, the growing
fascination with the paraphernalia of everyday life under communism is a trend
that embraces widespread forms of consumption.

Retro fashion is very much in vogue in Poland
right now, from the crazy patterns of the 70’s to the old Soviet military
coats and fur caps of the communist era. To cater to the lucrative trend, a new
generation of savvy designers now blend ‘vintage commie chic’ with modern
elements, injecting new life in products like plastic chairs, synthetic
textiles and even laundry bags. In 2005, Swedish vodka company Absolut asked
ten fashion designers from around the globe to brand the vodka's logo onto
hand bags, launching its Famous Collection of Bags. For this limited edition series,
Polish fashion designer team Aga, Pshemko and Tomek Siereks came up with the
idea to merge the country’s omnipresent blue-and-red-checkered plastic laundry
bag – famously lugged by the country’s most elderly citizens, mostly on and off
buses and to the shops - and decorated it with a large black handle in the
shape of the renowned Absolut vodka bottle. In time, this retrolicious design
might ignite a whole new line of handbags inspired by common Soviet-style
sacks.

An on-going fashion fad for years, t-shirts
printed with iconic communist propaganda images, funky logos and distinguished
brands are the style mantras for fashionistas in the vanguard of cutting-edge
cool. The prints, seen as forms of self-expression and identity validation,
have popularised negative imagery, like the portrait of Marxist murderer Che
Guevara and recognisable insignia of communist totalitarianism. The hammer and
sickle, the five-pointed red star and the Soviet Union’s CCCP abbreviation have
all jumped on the icon-wagon, objectifying the onetime symbols of grim
oppression into something purely decorative. In Poland, communism is now much
more of a fashion statement than a viable political system…at least among the
country’s young and trendy.

This is perfectly illustrated by Leszek, a
28-year-old dance instructor, who wears a Russian ushanka cap and occasionally
flaunts tops with various Soviet-era symbols. “This heavy-duty hat has been in
my family for over thirty years,” he says. “I wear it for purely practical
purposes, as it keeps my head warm and ears covered even in the harshest winter
weather.” The symbol-printed tops are a different issue. “My childhood was
connected to communism so I know exactly what the red star and CCCP stands for,
but I don’t see any harm in wearing t-shirts with these symbols in public.” He
does acknowledge, though: “On the other hand, I would never let my grandparents
see me in a red-star t-shirt, as it would probably really upset them.”

If you are keen to have some communist chic style
for yourself, then go online. Beyond the red star logo, FiberyaPrint.com offers t-shirts bearing the profiles of Lenin and Fidel
Castro and old propaganda slogans. Ironically, the prints are all categorised
on the website under the section called ‘komunó wróc’ (literally meaning ‘Communism,
please come back’). Moda Mix goes a step further and
found the CCCP and hammer-and-sickle symbol suitable for various toddler
garments).
What Polish parent wouldn’t be proud to see their little one playing in the
sandbox in a bold red hammer-and-sickle jumper?

Oldies But Goodies

The revival of products from the paternalistic
state system’s period – in both old and new packaging – is another
manifestation of the 'communism is cool' fad. Going 'back to basics' has
major earning potential in Poland, where the older population harbors strong
nostalgic sentiments toward products they got accustomed to during the forty-year
rule of the Communist authorities. For Poland's elderly population, capitalism
has not worked to their advantage: they have been pushed aside and left behind
and slipped between the cracks. For them, the ‘bad old days’ of oppression and
fear have become the 'good old days' when they had steady jobs and free
medical care – such as it was - and they long to recapture some of this
nostalgia with items and services from the communist era. Thanks to this brand
loyalty by Poland's oldest citizens, producers of items such as Ludwik dish-washing liquid, Inka coffee substitute and SDM table butter are still
assiduously pushing forward and profiting, despite the growing invasion of
competitors – both domestic and international.

Perhaps the greatest ‘oldie but goodie’ coup
took place in 2005, when Polish grocery stores witnessed the reintroduction of
various processed meat products under the label “Wędliny jak za Gierka”
(“Sausages like they were under Gierek”), launched by meat producer and
distributor company, Stół Polski. The fleshy products bear the name of Edward
Gierek, a politician who represents a time of modest prosperity for the Polish
middle-class…and they are the consumer that the brand is now targeting.
“During the numerous sampling actions we organized for our products, the
50-to-60-year-old ladies complained about the monotonous taste of all processed
smoked meats that were available on the market,” explains Natalia Lewicka,
marketing and advertisement specialist at Stół Polski. “That inspired us to
produce meat based on an original recipe from the 1970s; we wanted to recapture
that bygone flavor, one resembling the ones made in the ‘better days’ that are
so close to the heart of our parents.”

Photo courtesy Stol Polski

Popular Propaganda

The ideologically imposed utopian visions of
communism were disseminated in very visual ways, with political propaganda
posters being one of the most memorable (and one of the most internationally-recognized). Posters, dramatically displaying images of strong
men and vigorous, childbearing women working the land of robust machinery, were
coupled with slogans like 'Socialism, work, welfare, peace', 'We work as a
threesome, but we build like a dozen people' and 'We will fulfill the six-year
plan early'. All hearty and heartening, all designed to inspire the populace
to work for the greater glory of Communist principles and ideals…and all
sources of derision and fear under the regime.

Today, however, these posters are seen quite
differently: in recent years, propaganda posters have found their way back into
mainstream media and advertisements, in addition to becoming sought-after
collectible items as examples of communist art. Empik, a Polish nationwide
chain of stores selling books, magazines, films and music, published an assortment
of calendars with well-known propaganda posters. In one compilation, the
January poster portrays a handsome young man sternly pointing to the public
with the slogan reading “What did you do for the realization of the plan?”,
while the February placard shows a scary old man’s words of warning too-late realized: “Moonshine leads to blindness”. It's worth noting that in Poland,
these calendars are selling like hot cakes.

Milking the Communist Cow

To get a sense of what it was like to live and
dine during the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL), stop by one of the remaining
milk bars (bar mleczny) for an affordable, home-made-style Polish meal.
Launched by Communist comrades in the mid-1960s, these state-subsidised
fast-food eateries served milk-based products to a broad cross-section of
society, from the low-income workforce to students and pensioners. With
capitalism came an overwhelming blitz of gastronomic goodies and a major cut in
federal subsidies, both of which forced the majority of milk bars out of
business. Insistence toward tradition, bargain prices, familiar fares and the
enduring yearning for the atmosphere of a bygone era have kept a handful of
milk bars alive; one of the best (and most faithful to its original spirit) is
in Warsaw, and many tourists visit it to get the 'real' milk bar experience.

Situated right next to the Warsaw University
complex at ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 20/22, Bar Uniwersytecki (University
Bar) is the quintessential, must-see milk bar. Unaltered for decades, the décor
boasts oversized photographs of cold-cuts and vegetables and plastic flower
arrangements on the walls, while the uncomfortable red stools, brusque kitchen
ladies in worn aprons, chipped plates and aluminium cutlery all just add to the
nostalgic ‘charm’. The place is packed from morning to night with
budget-conscious professionals, pupils, police and other types of people
forking down pierogi, pyzy (potato balls), pyzy śląskie (dark dumplings),
pancakes or a number of different staples of Polish cuisine.

At the other side of the scale is Oberża Pod
Czerwonym Wieprzem (The Inn Under the Red Hog), a tavern-like restaurant in
downtown Warsaw that claims to be “the last secret of the PRL” and which takes
'communist chic' to a whole new level. According to the story, during the
construction of the restaurant, workmen uncovered fragments of a damaged fresco
depicting the images of Marx, Engles and Lenin, as well as a wooden chest
filled with old army uniforms, medals and decorations. Although the
'findings' are the result of a cleverly concocted marketing gimmick, the
place stays true the spirit of the socialist system through both the interior
design and menu, which is divided under headings such as “For Dignitaries and
the Bourgeoisie” and “For the Proletariat”. Patrons can choose from creatively-named
dishes like Kadar’s Hungarian Potato Pancake, Mao’s Chicken, Fidel’s Cigars and
Wild Boar Roulade a’la Tito. Clearly, communism is now in vogue!

Anna J. Kutor | Content Creator & Strategist

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Anna J. Kutor |
Content Creator & Strategist