The reconstruction of Polish social policy during the life of the Provisional Government (January–June 1945)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show the main areas of the activity of the Provisional Government and its bodies related to social policy and to present the most important legal and organizational decisions concerning social policy, made in the first half of 1945. During the existence of the Provisional Government there was a necessary reconstruction of social policy institutions, which involved the restoration of the traditional functions they had carried out before the war. The Provisional Government provided a strong impulse to the unification of the applicable legal basis of social policy. At that time, important legal changes were also made. They aimed at winning the support of the society and they heralded the political transformations which were to take place in the second half of the 40s. As time showed, the fundamental organizational changes concerning the structures that managed respective sections of social policy, and which were brought about by the Government, took the same directions. The creation of the Ministry of Health and assigning the responsibility of taking care of children and youngsters to the Ministry of Education were important steps towards the centralization, nationalization and planning in both spheres which were under the influence of the state and which were reomved from the competences of the department of labour and social welfare. That way, not only did the Provisional Government play an important role in the restitution of Polish social policy and its institutions (which had been initiated in the period of the Polish Committee of National Liberation) but also in the creation of the future solutions related to Stalinization.