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Sejm Elections in Communist Poland: An Overview and a Reappraisal

1978; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0007123400001472

1469-2112

George Sakwa, Martin Crouch,

Polish Historical and Cultural Studies

Traditionally, and for some good reasons, elections in Communist one-party states have been treated as relatively unimportant phenomena, essentially ‘massive demonstrations of ritualized affirmation’, or simply a test of the Communist party's mobilization powers. The absence of competing political parties and consequently opposing goals and programmes does clearly mean that such elections are very different from those in liberal democratic states. They do not and cannot, for example, resolve the often crucial question of political succession.