After World War II, the communist regime did not view self-government as a force independent from authoritarian government. In 1950, local governments were abolished and their assets were nationalized. The figure was replaced by a system of people’s councils (
rady narodowe, soviets
), which later became territorial branches of the central government. The councils suffered from a lack of electoral democracy, independent powers and independent budgets. These councils had nothing to do with local local government in terms of com-munities having the right to manage their own affairs