Interbellum Poland remains an important example of a polyethnic state and society in European history. Its short existence between the wars does not diminish the importance of its many peculiar aspects, nor does the fact that it can be defined as an unsuccessful example in organizing, institutionally and socially, a polyethnic community. The theoretical definition of the Polish experience has puzzled historians in the past. Polish historiography substantially ignored or steadfastly marginalized the nationalities in the Second Republic and in earlier historical times, an attitude echoed by Marxist historians in post-bellum Poland. Now, indirectly, the topic is attracting attention again as a consequence of the new problematic caused by current European historical events both in the East and West.

At the formation of the second Polish republic in 1918 the Communist Workers Party of Poland (KPRP) displayed total disregard for the Polish national feelings. Polish communists actively opposed the creation of the new Polish state which they thought would impede the march of revolution from Russia to the West. They saw Polish national liberation as an expression of a bourgeois ideology hostile to the interests of the Polish workers. True national liberation, they maintained, could only be achieved by the way of the international proletarian revolution.

The Communist movement in interbellum Poland was a small political entity that did not constitute a threat to the power of the state, nor did it become a visible presence since it failed to attract a majority of the working class. The movement, overall, consisted of a number of parties, organizations and groups, usually illegal, but some at times provisionally legal. The Communist Party of Poland - CPP (Komunistyczna Partia Polski - KPP) was the main party, entrusted with the guiding role by the Comintern, and also the umbrella organization and ideological reference point for the Communists throughout the twenty-year existence of the Second Polish Republic. The CPP was originally formed under the name “Communist Workers' Party of Poland” - CWPP, (Komunistyczna Partia Robotnicza Polski-KPRP). In 1920, it briefly took on the designation “Section of the Communist International” of which it was a founding member. By virtue of its name, the Party proclaimed a total proletarian orientation, ignoring the reality of an almost completely agricultural Poland at the time.

In a time of international crisis, a small group of Polish Communist intellectuals on Soviet territory, with approval from the Stalinist government, harnessed the national myths of a people faced with total destruction in the name of fascist Aryan supremacy. These intellectuals, ethnic Poles and Polish Jews, rejected, revitalized, or revolutionized old national myths and created a new mythology. They coordinated their efforts closely with the anti-Hitlerite National Front Strategy adopted by the Comintern following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941. They sincerely, albeit naïvely, believed that their creation manifestly assured the Poles of their national identity. They also believed that the new mythology promised not only the survival of an honorable people but also the rebirth of their state in a brighter future in solidarity with fellow Slavs, and ultimately with the Stalinist Soviet state which they admired.

The first years of Communist rule in Poland profoundly shaped the 45 year political experience of the country until the 1989 democratic breakthrough. These formative years encompassed such historic developments as postwar reconstruction and central economic planning, the emergence of new and the disappearance of old political parties, the heretical notion of a Polish road to socialism but also the advent of high Stalinism. Even with the redrawing of Poland's postwar boundaries and with increasing Communist hegemony over political life, the period between 1945 and 1948 was characterized by considerably more political and ethnic heterogeneity than the decades that followed. A significant and, ultimately, controversial role in the shaping of postwar Poland - in its rebuilding, in its economic program, political configuration, national security organization, and in its minorities policies - was played by Jewish Communists.

The 1960's formed the last stretch of the path that was to end in the existential defeat of a generation of Polish-Jewish communists. The 1960's were preceded by the shared experience of turmoil of the thaw, the so-called Polish October, which gained its peak in October 1956. For most members of the generation, the thaw meant a painful awakening from the trance of holy madness, shocking realizations, new hopes - and subsequent frustrations.