Comrade Werblan's dissertation

On September 18, 2015, I went to the main university library and submitted a request for several publications of Andrzej Werblan, who for many years was the leading Polish communist ideologue and a prominent communist party member. For example, he was the chief of the Institute of Fundamental Problems of Marxism and Leninism from 1974 to 1982. He also held many other top positions within the party.

The publications I asked for where not included in the electronic catalogue of the library. They were part of the old card catalogue. The university clerk informed me it might take up to a month to make appropriate entries in the electronic catalogue and then they would sent me an email when I can come to check out requested publications.

Eight weeks later I still have not heard from the library.

On the same day, 18 Sept. 2015, I asked in the library information office where I could find the doctoral dissertation of Mr. Werblan. His official communist cv informed that he obtained a Master's degree in history from Warsaw University in 1954 and subsequently a Ph.D. in political science from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. He became chief of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza) in 1955 and a full member of the Central Committee in 1956. All his political duties were associated with Warsaw and I wondered how he was able to do a Ph.D. in Poznan, 300 km west of the capital. I have not found information about the dissertation title and date when the doctoral degree was granted. This is strange, when you consider that for many years he was the top communist propagandist.

So far I have not been able to locate the dissertation.

More lately Mr. Werblan, a full communist professor since 1974, was associated with the European School of Law and Administration, a "private" school established in 1997, affiliated with the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. This is not an accident, of course. After 1990 the communists adopted "European" stamps and labels. However, this is a purely deceptive switch.