My grandparents both lived in the Polish People's Republic during its early years before moving to the US. One of the most noticeable things they told me about was the police/government presence. Various types of patrols would regularly go through the streets and monitor places, regardless of population size or density, on a daily basis. While you could say this was done to protect political stability in the wake of a new governance system and independence shortly after a war, having regular patrols in a bumfuck-ass town in eastern Poland is really overkill I'd say.