Based on a systematic study of Polish sociological literature produced in the period stretching between the elevation of Władysław Gomułka to the post of the Party's first secretary in October 1956 to the first free elections in Poland in June 1989, the author of this article offers an account of the main dilemmas and the varieties of pluralism in Polish sociology during the state socialist era. The author claims that, with the exception of the Stalinist period, Polish sociologists always occupied diverse positions on 'government' and 'society', but this diversity yielded to change in response to a particular time. Generally, in 1956-1989 Polish sociology was something unique in comparison with sociology in other so-called people's democracies, as it had a considerably high status in the country and in the world, including the West. The author argues that Polish sociology did not have to undergo a revolution in 1989 and make the move from Marxist to bourgeois sociology, as since 1956 (or even earlier, since 1945) it had been undergoing continuous change and constant reform (in theoretical domain and concerning its division into sub-disciplines) and maintained a consistent level of diversity in various respects.