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The Communist Regime
A unicameral parliament was established (1946) after a referendum. Legal opposition was limited almost entirely to Mikolajczyk's Peasant party, but nationalists, rightists, and some other opponents operated as underground forces. The government-controlled elections of 1947 gave the government bloc an overwhelming majority; Mikolajczyk resigned and fled abroad. Boleslaw Bierut, a Pole who was a Communist and a citizen of the USSR, was elected president of Poland by the parliament. The Sovietization of Poland was accelerated; in 1949, Soviet Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky was made minister of defense and commander in chief of the Polish army. The constitution of 1952 made Poland a people's republic on the Soviet model.
In 1949, Poland joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and in 1955 it became a charter member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Polish foreign policy became identical with that of the USSR. Relations with the Vatican were severed; the church became a chief target of government persecution, which included the arrest (1953) of the primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski. Partly as a result of the more relaxed atmosphere following Stalin's death (1953), workers and students in Poznan rioted (late June, 1956) in a mass demonstration against Communist and Soviet control of Poland. Discontent soon became widespread, and the government was forced to reconsider its policies.
In Oct., 1956, Wladyslaw Gomulka, purged in 1949 from the Polish Communist party as a "rightist deviationist" and imprisoned from 1951 to early 1956, was elected leader of the Polish United Workers (Communist) party (PZPR) and became the symbol of revolt against Moscow. Gomulka denounced the terror of the Stalinist period, ousted many Stalinists from the government and the party, relieved Rokossovsky of his posts, and freed Cardinal Wyszynski from detention. Collectivization of agriculture was halted, and the Poles were given far more freedom than under the previous regime. Relations with the church improved, and economic and cultural ties with the West were broadened. However, Poland retained close ties with the USSR. By the early 1960s Gomulka was tightening the party's hold on Poland; intellectual freedom was curbed, the church again was a target of government polemics, political rhetoric was infused with an anti-Semitic nationalistic fervor, and renewed attempts were made to have peasants join state groups.
In Aug., 1968, Poland joined other East European countries and the USSR in invading Czechoslovakia. In early Dec., 1970, Poland and West Germany signed a treaty (ratified in 1972) that recognized the Oder-Neisse line as Poland's western boundary (recognized in 1950 by East Germany) and provided for normal diplomatic relations. Later in the same month, rapidly increasing food prices led to riots by workers in the Baltic ports of Gdansk, Gdynia, and Szczecin. Gomulka was ousted and replaced by Edward Gierek, who sought, with some success, to ease the living conditions of the average citizen. By the mid-1970s, however, recession necessitated price hikes that led to strikes and the arrests of hundreds of protesters. The bishop of KrakOw, Karol Wojtyla, became Pope John Paul II in 1978, and his subsequent visit to Poland in June, 1979, drew several crowds of over a million people.
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