Michael Roe - Polish Shipping Under Communism

The Polish shipping sector was one of the great achievements of the communist years as in the pre-war (and pre-communist period) there were few Polish ships, a limited coastline and one relatively new port - Gdynia. There was thus no tradition to build an industry upon - Poland was not an historical maritime nation. After the second world war and the accession of the communists to rule Poland until 1989, the state took the decision - along with most other CMEA countries - to develop a maritime sector looking for the advantages it brought in terms of hard currency income, conventional shipping benefits, security, prestige and employment. By the end of the 1970s there were three state shipping companies - two of which were the largest in Europe of their type - three international ports, and hundreds of smaller state-owned enterprises working in broking, agency, supply, chandelling, freight forwarding, insurance and all the other maritime activities that emerge within a serious maritime state. Poland had its own flag and its own registry. Shipping in general was responsible for around 1.5% of employment and 3% of national production. Unfortunately, all this was developed on the false basis of communist economics which were characterised by meaningless prices, uncalculated subsidy, artificial markets, unrealistic demand, a lack of incentive and a failure to recognise the significance of this within an international market.

The result as we shall see, was the ultimate collapse of the regime from humble stirrings in a ship yard in Gdansk. This book aims to show how the old system worked in the shipping sector from a communist perspective. As such it makes no claims to be unbiased as all the sources for the material are deliberately state governed and thus used as a mouthpiece for political ends until the very final years in the late 1980s. The reader is warned that the data at times may be suspect and the arguments used by commentators commonly politically motivated. The point is to examine how the political and economic system of the time combined through an industry to achieve aims other than those of a conventional, capitalistic economy.

The early chapters look at the background to the economy and the political framework in which the Polish shipping sector had to work. The main shipping companies are then examined followed by the primary ancillary organisations - all of which were state-owned, managed, financed and manipulated. The text finishes by looking at a variety of shipping related issues and activities which characterised the communist approach to an economy and includes reviews of social facilities, education, development and the environment amongst many others. In some ways these latter sections are the most characteristic of communism in Poland at the time.

A chapter is also included on the political and economic crisis of the 1970s and particularly the 1980s which can be linked directly to the fall of communism in 1989. This has been placed near the front of the text not for chronological reasons but because the reader needs to know what happened during the very difficult years between 1980 and 1983 to begin to understand many of the other developments in other sectors of the shipping economy.

A number of the old institutions survive to this day (July 2000) including the three state shipping enterprises - POL, PZB and PZM - Polfracht, Baltona, C. Hartwig, MAS and MAG. Many are now privatised, none operate in the way they did in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or even the 1980s. Poland and its maritime sector has changed forever, and it may be much of it will not survive. This book attempts to assess how it arrived in its condition at the turn of the millennium before the characteristics and problems of the communist approach to an industrial and commercial sector are forgotten forever.