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Poland From Stalinism to the Polish October
Communist social engineering transformed Poland nearly
as
much as did the war. In the early years of the new regime,
Poland
became more urban and industrial as a modern working class
came
into existence. The Polish People's Republic attained its
principal accomplishments in this initial, relatively
dynamic
phase of its existence. The greatest gains were made in
postwar
reconstruction and in integration of the territories
annexed from
Germany. Imposition of the Soviet model on the political,
economic, and social aspects of Polish life was generally
slower
and less traumatic than in the other East European
countries
following World War II. The PZPR took great care, for
example, to
limit the pace of agricultural collectivization lest
Soviet-style
reform antagonize Polish farmers
(see Agriculture
, ch. 3).
Nevertheless, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, PZPR
rule
grew steadily more totalitarian and developed the full
range of
Stalinist features then obligatory within the Soviet
European
empire: ideological regimentation, the police state,
strict
subordination to the Soviet Union, a rigid command
economy,
persecution of the Roman Catholic Church, and blatant
distortion
of history, especially as it concerned the more sensitive
aspects
of Poland's relations with the Soviet Union. Stringent
censorship
stifled artistic and intellectual creativity or drove its
exponents into exile. At the same time, popular
restiveness
increased as initial postwar gains gave way to the
economic
malaise that would become chronic in the party-state
(see System Structure
, ch. 3).
Soviet-style centralized state planning was introduced
in the
First Six-Year Plan, which began in 1950. The plan called
for
accelerated development of heavy industry and forced
collectivation of agriculture, abandoning the previous
go-slow
policy in that area. As the earlier policy had cautioned,
however, collectivization met stubborn peasant resistance,
and
the process moved much more slowly than anticipated. The
state
also took control of nearly all commercial and industrial
enterprises. Leaving only family-run shops in the private
sector,
the government harassed such independent shopkeepers with
bureaucratic requirements.
In its relations with the Roman Catholic Church, the
communist government carefully avoided open intervention,
seeking
rather to foment anticlerical sentiment in society. Polish
Catholic clergy denounced the atheism and materialism in
the
regime; in 1949 the Vatican's excommunication of Catholics
belonging to the PZPR brought open hostility from both
sides,
including state control of church institutions and
propaganda
against them and church officials. By 1954 nine high
Polish
churchmen, including Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, had been
imprisoned
(see Religion
, ch. 2).
A brief liberalizing "thaw" in Eastern Europe followed
the
death of Stalin in early 1953. In Poland this event
stirred
ferment, calls for systemic reform, and conflict in the
ranks of
the PZPR. The de-Stalinization of official Soviet dogma
left
Poland's Stalinist regime in a difficult position,
especially
following Nikita S. Khrushchev's 1956 attack on Stalin's
cult of
personality. In the same month as Khrushchev's speech, the
death
of hard-liner Boleslaw Bierut exacerbated an existing
split in
the PZPR. In 1951 Bierut had won a struggle with Wladyslaw
Gomulka for the top position in the party. In June 1956,
scores
of demonstrators died when army troops quelled street
riots in
Poznan, inaugurating a recurrent phenomenon of Polish
worker
protest against the self-proclaimed workers' state.
Realizing the need for new leadership, the PZPR chose
Gomulka
as first secretary in October 1956. This decision was made
despite Moscow's threats to invade Poland if the PZPR
picked
Gomulka, a moderate who had been purged after losing his
battle
with Bierut. When Khrushchev was reassured that Gomulka
would not
alter the basic foundations of Polish communism, he
withdrew the
invasion threat. On the other hand, Gomulka's pledge to
follow a
"Polish road to socialism" more in harmony with national
traditions and preferences caused many Poles to interpret
the
dramatic "Polish October" confrontation of 1956 as a sign
that
the end of the dictatorship was in sight.
Data as of October 1992
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