People dangerous, people connected? On the Popular Front and the literary left milieu in the margins of a 1936 Ministry of the Interior document

Abstract

The presented document and the text constituting scholarly introduction to it reveal a fragment of the political reality of Poland and Europe in the mid-1930s. They say much about the political climate of the time, determined by the rise in popularity of fascism and the leftist mobilisation against it. The Popular Front, formed with the approval of the Communist International (Comintern), united the hitherto dispersed forces of social democrats and communists, and revitalised various cultural circles for a time. This could also be observed in Polish literature. The document produced by the Polish political police brings knowledge about how deeply left-wing literary circles were identified in the interwar period, and indirec­tly also informs about where the Polish government camp saw a real ideological enemy. It may be of interest to historians and political scientists as well as literary historians.