The three main branches of Polish Scouting included the Strzelec paramilitary organization for boys, a sport and education society Sokół and the anti-alcoholic association Eleusis.

After the invasion of Poland of 1939, the ZHP, many of whom joined defense militias, were branded partisans and criminals by Nazi Germany, who had executed many scouts and guides, along with other possible resistance leaders (for example during the Katowice massacre[2]).

The wartime scouts evolved into the paramilitary Szare Szeregi (Grey Ranks), cooperating with the Polish underground state and the Armia Krajowa resistance.

At the same time, the youngest scouts were involved in so-called small sabotage under the auspice of the Wawer organization, which included dropping leaflets or painting the kotwica sign on the walls.

[3] The organization was integrated into the Polish United Workers' Party, with most of its members now part of a new Soviet-style, government-sponsored pioneer organization – the Scouts of the Working Youth of Poland (Scouting Organisation of the Association of Polish Youth – Organizacja Harcerska Związku Młodzieży Polskiej or ZMP-OH), which retained the original Polish scouting movement's motto while adopting pioneer traditions of Eastern Bloc countries, save for the uniform and the pioneer salute used in the Soviet Union and other pioneer associations of the Eastern Bloc (the scouts retained the two-finger salute in honor of the young boys and girls who fought in the Second World War with both the Polish People's Army and the Home Army).

[4] In 1956, after Stalin's and Bolesław Bierut's death, the Polish United Workers' Party youth movement ZMP OH was transformed and renamed to ZHP.

After 1958 many pre-war instructors were removed from the new ZHP or marginalized (like Aleksander Kamiński) and the original oath, law, educational content and methods were changed (mention of God was removed from the oath, Lenin introduced as a hero, the Bolshevik Revolution was commemorated, the brigades became co-educational similar to Eastern Bloc Pioneer associations).

The Polish Scouts were engaged in a variety of duties, varying from helping in the fields of the poorest regions to organizing the visits of Pope John Paul II.

[citation needed] In 1989, after the period of peaceful transformation began, many groups of instructors formed separate Scouting organizations (like the ZHR,[5] Stowarzyszenie Harcerstwa Katolickiego Zawisza[6] or ZHP-1918[7]).

When martial law was imposed in December 1981, a large number of organisations were outlawed, so ZHR was forced to conduct their activities – weekly meetings, yearly camps and so on – underground.

Several groups or/and troops from a specified area (borough, village, town) form a hufiec (district) which in turn is a part of one of the regions called chorągiew (literally banner).