O „ludowym” prawie karnym w kontekście przeprowadzenia i zabezpieczenia skutków tak zwanej reformy rolnej z pierwszych lat Polski Ludowej

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.