Nope, when I was young and visited my family in Rzeszowskie district many farmers did plough using horses. Countryside that I remember looked like this. Ofcourse there were tractors, but A LOT of people were using horses - even in the beginning of 90's it depended on how poor a region was.
Harvesters and tractors were often rented for specific tasks.
And two did play it indeed :) Communist propaganda would actually pull a similar trick on the West, focusing the coverage on the stuff that was, well; weird or creepy at best.
For example the "This is America" documentaries (by Romano Vanderbes) were broadcasted on the communist TV in 70s/80s in prime time. An average viewer would assume it to be an accurate representation of the prevalent lifestyle.
i grew up in Poland too, east, and south-east looked like like this, or worse. where did you grow up? not everybody had a tractor, still had plenty of horses around, doesn't mean everybody used them, that'd be ridiculous
Warsaw, with parts of family near Ciechanów and near Piła.
No, not everybody had a tractor - that would be ineffective, given how many small family-owned farms there were. But they did use tractors and combine harvesters. TBH I don't know whether they were shared between neighbors or just unofficially borrowed(#) for a bottle of vodka from the state farms (PGR).
(#)There's this Polish verb "załatwić" which I cannot properly translate to English. It means obtaining products or services using ones connections, cunning and possibly transfer of a usual token of appreciation as in "załatwić za flachę" (obtain something in exchange for a bottle of vodka).
I think the most direct English translation for this word is "finesse". I had only ever known this word as a noun before recently hearing it used as a verb in US prison slang from a documentary.
EDIT: Then again, maybe not. When I hear people in Poland use that word, I'd maybe translate it as "organise" or "arrange", but only in the sense of arranging the acquirement of something.
Kind of "to sort out", but the more specific meaning is lost. The history has filled our vocabulary with quite a lot of such terms that don't lend themselves well to translation. Eg. "chałtura".
Both - as they're commonly referred to - "Poland A" and "Poland B" comprise of significant portions of the population. I can't see why life in one should be considered "real", while in the other, not. There are two sides to this picture.
Because capitals are show off places in oppressive countries. The reality is outside. I grew up in a small city in USSR and sometimes speak to people that grew up in Moscow or Leningrad. The difference is huge... They often owned cars, had frequent access to bananas and oranges, and the stores were generally adequately stocked. Not for us and the rest of the country..
I was plowing with horse when I was 5 years old in 1995 in south-east Poland. This is when we switched to self-made tractor and anyway farm was gone in 2000s when my grandpa stopped to care. Things changed a lot but south-east outside cities is still relatively poor.
And they did have tractors. Plowing with a horse was a curiosity even in the eighties.