Abstrakt: | The state of current research in the field of criminal law in the first decade of the
Polish People’s Republic undoubtedly testifies to the striking scale of punitiveness of the criminal
law in the years 1944—1955. Expecting great social resistance during the implementation of the
so-called agricultural reform, the first and fundamental element of the expropriatory action in the
first years of the Polish People’s Republic, the People’s Government penalised the acts directed
against this reform, placing them among crimes against the state, i.e. “counter-revolutionary
crimes.” The most bizarre provision due to the disproportionality of the protected interest to the
penalty was Article 7 of the Decree of 12 December 1944 on the taking over of certain forests
by the State Treasury, which provided for the death penalty for thwarting or hindering the implementation
of the transition of forests and forest lands to State ownership, or for incitement to
acts directed against this transition or acts consisting in public praise for them. Nowadays, there
is no doubt that a characteristic element of ownership transformations related to the so-called
agricultural reform was the instrumental use of the law, including breaking the law (also the new
one). There is also no doubt that the decree on implementing the agricultural reform violated
elementary legal and justice principles adopted in the European legal culture. |