„Wykupywanie towarów spożywczych trwa”, czyli rzecz o reakcjach społeczeństwa polskiego na kryzys kubański na przykładzie województwa szczecińskiego

1962 saw one of the biggest political crises between the super-powers of that time: the USA and the USSR. Never before during the cold war had the lives of the inhabitants of the whole globe been threatened with a total extinction. Was the Polish society conscious of that? Was it prepared for a confrontation, which must have ended in a different way from all the wars that had been waged before? In the documents drawn up by party’s activists and by SB (Public Security Service) functionaries October 1962 constitutes an interesting problem. But that does not refer to decisions made by high-ranking officials. Archival material provides a lot of information concerning the attitude of the society. Therefore it is feasible to answer the question whether the Polish society was conscious of a possible result of the conflict; whether buying out foodstuffs and other necessities could secure their lives; whether the Polish people were interested in and excited about the conflict at all. The author attempts to answer those questions in the article, and – at the same time – to prove that the sources in the archives of the IPN (Institute of National Remembrance) might be useful in investigating problems of social history.