Warsaw - Fewer Poles are critical of the country's communist past as opinion remains split on life in the former Soviet bloc, said a survey Friday in the daily Rzeczpospolita.

Some 44 per cent of Poles rated the communist state "positive" in the survey of some 1,000 people. Another 43 per cent gave a negative mark to the then People's Republic of Poland, which ruled from 1952 to 1989.

Elderly Poles were least critical of communism, with 54 per cent remembering the period fondly.

"We want to leave the past behind us to have a bit of stability," sociologist Andrzej Szpocinski told the daily. "Many people who lived back then forget in time the bad features of that system. What's left is nostalgia for youth."

Other analysts said the survey was not surprising. Only a minority resisted communism during the regime's rule, they said, and the majority would not want to negatively gauge their own past. (dpa)