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Poland The Gomulka Years
The elevation of Gomulka to first secretary marked a
milestone in the history of communist Poland. Most
importantly,
it was the first time that popular opinion had influenced
a
change at the top of any communist government. Gomulka's
regime
began auspiciously by curbing the secret police, returning
most
collective farmland to private ownership, loosening
censorship,
freeing political prisoners, improving relations with the
Catholic Church, and pledging democratization of communist
party
management. In general, Gomulka's Poland gained a deserved
reputation as one of the more open societies in Eastern
Europe.
The new party chief disappointed many Poles, however, by
failing
to dismantle the fundamentals of the Stalinist system.
Regarding
himself as a loyal communist and striving to overcome the
traditional Polish-Russian enmity, Gomulka came to favor
only
those reforms necessary to secure public toleration of the
party's dominion. The PZPR was to be both the defender of
Polish
nationalism and the keeper of communist ideology. By the
late
1960s, Gomulka's leadership had grown more orthodox and
stagnant
as the memory of the Poznan uprising faded. In 1968
Gomulka
encouraged the
Warsaw Pact (see Glossary)
military suppression of
the democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia.
Gomulka's hold on power weakened that year when Polish
students, inspired by the idealism of the
Prague Spring (see Glossary),
demonstrated to protest suppression of
intellectual
freedom. Popular disenchantment mounted as police attacked
student demonstrators in Warsaw. The PZPR hardliners, who
had
been alarmed by Gomulka's modest reforms, seized the
opportunity
to force the first secretary into purging Jews from party
and
professional positions, exacerbating discontent among the
most
vocal elements of Polish society.
The downfall of the Gomulka regime in December 1970 was
triggered by a renewed outbreak of labor violence
protesting
drastic price rises on basic goods. When strikes spread
from the
Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk to other industrial centers on
the
Baltic coast, Gomulka interpreted the peaceful stoppages
and
walkouts as counterrevolution and ordered them met with
deadly
force. The bloodshed claimed hundreds of victims and
inflamed the
entire coastline before the party annulled the price
increases
and pushed Gomulka into retirement. The Baltic slayings
permanently embittered millions of workers, while the
events of
the later Gomulka period convinced Polish progressives
that
enlightened communist rule was a futile hope. Many of the
future
leaders of Solidarity and other opposition movements
gained their
formative political experiences in 1968 and 1970.
Data as of October 1992
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