The People's Republic of Poland or Polish People's Republic (Polish: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1989, during its period of rule by the Communist party, officially called the Polish United Workers' Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, or PZPR). The Communists were in effective control of the Polish government from 1944 onwards, but the new name was not adopted until the 1952 constitution came into effect.
The People's Republic of Poland was a sovereign state as defined by the international law. However its leaders were appointed (Bolesław Bierut) or accepted (since the 1956) by the Soviet leaders. They aligned their policies with those of Moscow, making the People's Republic of Poland a satellite state subordinate to the Soviet Union. The Soviets had much influence over internal affairs and foreign affairs, and Red Army forces were stationed in Poland (1945 - 500,000; until 1955 - 120,000 to 150,000, until 1989 - 60,000 to 80,000). The Ministry of Public Security was responsible to Soviet 'advisors'. In 1945, Soviet generals and advisors formed 80% of the officer cadre of Wojsko Ludowe, by 1948 30 to 40%. Polish communists, responsible only to Soviets, were in total control of the country. Opposition was persecuted and suppressed, and contrary to the Yalta Conference agreement, no 'free and fair' elections were held until 1990.
History
- Main article: History of Poland (1945-1989)
Polish Communist poster — "Youth—forward to fight for the happy socialistic Polish village."
At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin was able to present his western allies, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, with a fait accompli in Poland. His armed forces were in occupation of the country, and his agents, the Polish Communists, were in control of its administration. The USSR was in the process of incorporating the lands in eastern Poland which it had occupied between 1939 and 1941. In compensation, the USSR awarded Poland all the German territories in Pomerania, Silesia and Brandenburg east of the Oder-Neisse Line, plus the southern half of East Prussia. Stalin was determined that Poland's new government would be controlled by the Communists. He had severed relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London in 1943, but to appease Roosevelt and Churchill he agreed at Yalta that a coalition government would be formed. The Communists held a majority of key posts in this new government, and with Soviet support they soon gained almost total control of the country, rigging all elections. Their opponents, led by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, managed only one victory, but it was a substantial one: Poland preserved its status as a semi-independent state, contrary to the plans of some influential communists such as Wanda Wasilewska, who were in favour of Poland becoming another republic of the Soviet Union. This important victory would be their last, however, as the Communists, tightening their grip on power, began political persecution of all opposition. Many of their opponents decided to leave the country, and others were put on staged trials and sentenced to many years of imprisonment or execution.
In 1948, the Communists consolidated their power, forming the Polish United Workers' Party (known in Poland as 'the Party'), which would monopolise political power in Poland until 1989. Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky became Polish Minister of National Defence, with the additional title Marshal of Poland, and in 1952 he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Over the coming years, private industry was nationalised, the land seized from the pre-war landowners and redistributed to the peasants, and millions of Poles were transferred from the lost eastern territories to the lands acquired from Germany. Poland was now to be brought into line with the Soviet model of a "people's democracy" and a centrally-planned socialist economy. The regime also embarked on the collectivisation of agriculture, although the pace was slower than in other satellites: Poland remained the only Soviet bloc country where individual peasants dominated agriculture. Despite the fact that Polish historians estimate that 200,000 to 400,000 people died during the postwar period, Polish Stalinism was not quite as severe as it was in the other satellite states.
In June 1956, workers in the industrial city of Poznań (Posen) went on strike. Voices began to be raised in the Party and among the intellectuals calling for wider reforms of the Stalinist system. Eventually, power shifted towards Władysław Gomułka, who replaced Bolesław Bierut as the head of the government. Hardline Stalinists were removed from power and many Soviet officers serving in the Polish Army were dismissed. This marked the end of the 'Stalin Poland'. However, by the mid 1960s Poland was starting to experience economic as well as political difficulties. As Gomułka's popularity declined, and his "reform Communism" lost its impetus, the regime became steadily less liberal and more repressive.
The next stage of Polish history began in December 1970. Gomułka's government had decided to prop up the failing economy by suddenly announcing massive increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs. The resulting wide-spread protests led to another major change in the government, as Gomułka was replaced by Edward Gierek as the new First Secretary. Gierek's plan for recovery was centered on massive borrowing, mainly from the United States and West Germany, to re-equip and modernise Polish industry, and to import consumer goods to give the workers some incentive to work. While it boosted the Polish economy, and is still remembered as the Golden Age of Communist Poland, the obvious repercussion in the form of massive debt is still felt in Poland even today. This Golden Age came to an end after the 1973 energy crisis. The failure of the Gierek regime, both economically and politically, soon led to the creation of opposition in the form of trade unions, student groups, clandestine newspapers and publishers, imported books and newspapers, and even a "flying university."
Queue waiting to buy toilet paper, a typical view in Poland in 1970s and 1980s
At this juncture, on 16 October 1978, Poland experienced what many Poles believed to be literally a miracle. The Archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła, was elected Pope, taking the name John Paul II. The election of a Polish Pope had an electrifying effect on what was notably one of the most devoutly Catholic nations in Europe. When John Paul toured Poland in June 1979, half a million people heard him speak in Warsaw, and about a quarter of the entire population of the country attended at least one of his outdoor masses. Overnight, John Paul became the de facto leader of Poland, leaving the regime not so much opposed as ignored. John Paul did not call for rebellion, instead he encouraged the creation of an "alternative Poland" of social institutions independent of the government, so that when the next crisis came, the nation would present a united front.
A new wave of strikes undermined Gierek's government, and in September Gierek, who was in poor health, was finally removed from office and replaced as Party leader by Stanisław Kania. However Kania was unable to find an answer for the fast-eroding support of the communism in Poland. Labour turmoil led to the formation of the independent trade union Solidarity (Polish Solidarność) in September 1980, originally led by Lech Wałęsa. In fact Solidarity became a broad anti-communist social movement ranging from people associated with the Roman Catholic Church, to members of the anti-communist left. By the end of 1981, Solidarity had nine million members, a quarter of Poland's population and three times as many as the PUWP had.
On December 13, 1981, the government leader Wojciech Jaruzelski, who had become the party's national secretary and prime minister that year, became fearful of Soviet intervention and started a crack-down on Solidarity. He declared martial law in Poland, suspended the union, and temporarily imprisoned most of its leaders. The government then banned Solidarity on October 8, 1982. Martial law was formally lifted in July, 1983, though many heightened controls on civil liberties and political life, as well as food rationing, remained in place through the mid- to late-1980s.
This did not prevent Solidarity from gaining more support and power. Eventually it eroded the dominance of the Communist Party, which in 1981 lost ca. 85,000 of its 3 million members. Throughout the mid-1980s, Solidarity persisted solely as an underground organization, but by the late 1980s was sufficiently strong to frustrate Jaruzelski's attempts at reform, and nationwide strikes in 1988 were one of the factors that forced the government to open a dialogue with Solidarity.
From February 6 to April 15, talks of 13 working groups in 94 sessions, which became known as the "Roundtable Talks" (Polish: Rozmowy Okrągłego Stołu) radically altered the shape of the Polish government and society. In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's leader and was succeeded by Wałęsa in December. By the end of August, a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December Wałęsa was elected president, resigning from his post in Solidarity. This began the Third Polish Republic and effectively ended the Communist Party's hold on the government.
Government and politics
The government and politics of the People's Republic of Poland were dominated by the Polish United Workers' Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR). In effect, Poland was a single-party state following a communist ideology, dependent on the USSR to the extent of being its puppet state.
Economy
- Main article: Economy of Poland
Poland suffered enormous losses during World War II. While in 1939 Poland had 35.1 million inhabitants, the census of 14 February 1946 showed only 23.9 million inhabitants.(The difference was partially the result of the border revision.) The losses in national resources and infrastructure amounted to 38%. Compared to Western nations, including Germany, Poland was still mostly an agricultural country. The implementation of the immense tasks involved with the reconstruction of the country was intertwined with the struggle of the new government for the stabilisation of power, made even more difficult by the fact that a considerable part of society was mistrustful of the communist government. The liberation of Poland by the Red Army and the support the Soviet Union had shown for the Polish communists was decisive in the left gaining the upper hand in the new Polish government. Poland was unter direct (Red Army, NKVD, Soviet concentration camps in Poland, deportations to the SU) and indirect (NKVD created the Polish political police UB) Soviet control.
As control of the Polish territories passed from occupying forces of Nazi Germany to Red Army, and from Red Army to Polish communists, Poland's new economic system began evolving towards a communist centrally- planned economy. One of the first major steps in that direction involved the agricultural reform issued by the PKWN government on 6th September 1944. All estates over 0.5 km² in pre-war Polish terrotories and all over 1 km² in Regained territories were nationalised without compensation. In total, 31,000 km² of land were nationalised in Poland and 5 million in the Regained Territories, out of which 12,000 km² were redistributed to peasants and the rest remained in the hands of the government. (Most of this was eventually used in the collectivization and creation of sovkhoz-like Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne (PGR).) However, the collectivization of Polish farming never reached the same extent as it did in the Soviet Union or other countries of the Eastern Bloc. [1]
Propaganda poster; the text reads
The structures built for socialism shall be our pride
Nationalization also began in 1944, with the government taking control of German industries on Regained Territories. As nationalization was unpopular, the communists delayed the nationalization reform until 1946, when after the 3xTAK referenda they were fairly certain they had total control of the government and could deal with eventual public protests. However some semi-official nationalisation of various private non-German industries had begun back in 1944.
In 1946, all enterprises with over 50 employees were nationalised, with no compensation to Polish owners. [2]
Heavy industry development, the x-year plans
Shortage economy
Comecon
Culture
- Main article: Culture of Poland
- Main article: Education in the People's Republic of Poland
- Cult tv series:
- Cult movies:
Demographics
Geography
- Main article: Voivodships of Poland
Poland's old and new borders, 1945
After World War II, Poland lost 77,000 km² of eastern regions (Kresy), gaining instead the smaller but much more industrialized Regained Territories on the Oder-Neisse line.
The People's Republic of Poland was divided into several voivodships (the Polish unit of administrative division). After the World War II, the new administrative division was based on pre-war one. The areas in the East that were not annexed by the Soviet Union had their borders left almost unchanged. Newly acquired territories in the west and north were organised into the voivodships of Szczecin, Wrocław, Olsztyn and partially joined to Gdańsk, Katowice and Poznań voivodships. Two cities were granted voivodship status: Warsaw and Łódź.
In 1950 new voivodships were created: Koszalin - previously part of Szczecin, Opole - previously part of Katowice, and Zielona Góra - previously part of Poznań, Wrocław and Szczecin voivodships. In addition, three other cities were granted the voivodship status: Wrocław, Kraków and Poznań.
In 1973, Poland voivodships were changed again. This reorganization of administrative division of Poland was mainly a result of local government reform acts of 1973 to 1975. In place of three level administrative division (voivodship, county, commune), new two-level administrative division was introduced (49 small voidships and communes). The three smallest voivodships: Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź had a special status of municipal voivodship; the city president (mayor) was also province governor.
Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of Poland:
Polish voivodships after 1957)
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Polish voivodships after 1975)
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Reference
- (1995) PRL dla początkujących, p. 348, Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie. ISBN 8370234615.
See also
