Polish criminal law of the post-war period was often used by the new Communist authorities as a tool for dismantling and replacing the prior legal and social structure”. One of the legal acts which functioned as the state authority’s instrument, and simplified the construction of a social and economic system based on Soviet examples, was the decree of 13 June 1946, commonly referred to as the “small” penal code, on crimes which were particularly dangerous during the period of reconstruction in the country. Article 22 of the decree penalised the crime of so-called ‘whispering campaigns’. The case law of the District Court in Cracow in the period of 1946-1950 covers a number of proceedings conducted on the basis of article 22 of the small penal code. Herein, over twenty cases are presented among which fourteen defendants were convicted, six were acquitted, and three proceedings were annulled, including two amnesties. The most serious penalty was a sentence of imprisonment for three years and six months, and the mildest was a two-month detention. The analysis of the cases leads to a conclusion that, on the basis of article 22 of the decree, people were convicted for different statements which, though quite often neutral, were perceived by the law enforcement authorities as an attack against the new political, social, and economic reality. The imprecise attributes of what constituted criminal acts as described in article 22 of the small penal code enabled the authorities to pursue criminal prosecution for almost any statement concerning the above mentioned spheres. The social origin of those convicted for whispering campaigns varied. Defendants varied from those who were illiterate to those who were well-educated.
