‘They were like soldiers.’ The case of the Polish builders in Czechoslovakia and their perception by Czechs (1967-1990)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article deals with Polish construction companies in Czechoslovakia during the last two decades of state socialism. Although Czechoslovakia became the largest importer of Polish construction services in the world, this aspect of the relations between the two countries remains almost entirely unknown. I am seeking the answers to two questions. First, why did Czechoslovak leaders grant the Poles such a large share of crucial investments in the modernization of the country, even though the services were not cheap? Second, how did the local population integrate encounters with foreign builders into their working-class culture and their ethnic stereotype of the Poles? I argue that Polish construction companies, operating under de facto market conditions, achieved significantly better and faster results than their Czechoslovak counterparts. In the second part of the article, I explain the paradox of why the Czech population held the Polish builders in high esteem while simultaneously rejecting them as role models. I argue that the Poles were discredited because they seriously violated the Czechs’ deep-held sense of egalitarian values. Yet in their interactions both Czechs and Poles defended their working-class values and maintained a perceived moral superiority over each other and the communist regime.