Relations with Foreign Fields of Power as a Critical Resource for Elite Formation in Late Communist and Post-Communist Poland

This paper will advance a thesis that international contacts were of crucial importance for the formation of the modern Polish elite, particularly political, but also of the major part of the Polish field of power. During the late communist period, we could see two major types of international connections that mattered for elite members. On the one hand, the old communist nomenklatura elite strongly relied on its connections in Moscow; on the other hand, the anti-communist opposition relied on connections in the broadly understood West. However, there were also occasions at which the members of opposition sought contact with the Kremlin circles in the late communist period, while Wester contacts were also sometimes of importance to the members of the communist elite. The paper will not be based on any systematic empirical study but rather propose a set of hypotheses for future research. It will refer to biographies of selected members of the Polish elite in order to reflect on the nature and role of the international contacts, in particular with members of the Western elite, in their biographies. This will lead to a more general reflection of the role of these contacts in the logic of formation and configuration of the entire field of power. Types of resources circulating during international exchanges will be categorized. Among issues to be discussed, the reflection on the role of diasporas, diplomatic corps, foreign NGOs, and academic institutions will be presented. The most important part of the paper will consist of a presentation of hypotheses on the importance of international contacts for the structuration of the Polish field of power, including the division of the elite into counter-elite and challengers, as well as the correlation of these structures with the main political cleavages. Then, a more general reflection on the role of international contacts in the formation and structuration of fields of power in what could be seen as peripheral or semi-peripheral states of Central and Eastern Europe, both before and after the fall of communism, will be presented. The paper will conclude with a short overview of challenges and problems in the study of the role of international contacts in the given context.