Polish underground press

Polish underground press devoted to prohibited materials (sl. Polish: bibuła, lit. semitransparent blotting paper or, alternatively, Polish: drugi obieg, lit. second circulation) has a long history of combatting censorship of oppressive regimes in Poland. It existed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including: under foreign occupation of the country, as well as, during the totalitarian rule of the pro-Soviet government. Throughout the Eastern Bloc, bibuła published until the collapse of communism was known also as samizdat (see below).

In the 19th century in partitioned Poland, many underground newspapers in the Polish language appeared; among the most prominent was the Robotnik, published in over 1,000 copies from 1894.

In the Second World War, in occupied Poland there were thousands of underground publications by the Polish Secret State and the Polish resistance. The Tajne Wojskowe Zakłady Wydawnicze (Secret Military Printing Works) was probably the largest underground publisher in the world.

In the Polish People's Republic during the 1970s and 1980s, several books (sometimes as long as 500 pages) were printed in quantities often exceeding 5,000 copies. Actual newspapers were also published. For example, in 1980, a news-sheet, Solidarność, reached a print run of 30,000 copies daily, and some of the largest runs reached over 100,000 copies.

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