His "Nocturne" was singled out for criticism, and later General Włodzimierz Sokorski, Secretary of Culture, announced that Panufnik's "Sinfonia Rustica" had "ceased to exist". Panufnik later described the symphony as "a patently innocent work", and he found it particularly galling that one of the panel that decided on the work's proscription had earlier been on the panel that had awarded it first prize in the Chopin Composition Competition. The work was nevertheless published by the State Publishing House and, as Adrian Thomas has shown, performances of the work continued sporadically in Poland. While his compositions were branded at home as formalist, Panufnik was promoted abroad as a cultural export, both as composer and conductor. The authorities awarded him their highest accolade, Standard of Labour First Class.