December 1970 uprising in Poland

Protesters carry the shot Zbyszek Godlewski in Gdynia

The December 1970 uprising in Poland was a workers' uprising from December 14-22 , 1970 in the People's Republic of Poland ; There were strikes , mass rallies , demonstrations in Gdynia , Danzig , Stettin and Elblag . The unrest was triggered by sudden and drastic price increases for food and everyday items.

Prehistory and course

From 1967 the economy of the People's Republic of Poland suffered from an increasing recession . In 1968 there was also student unrest across the country . The political leadership under Władysław Gomułka got the domestic political situation under control only to a limited extent and by the summer of 1970 there were rumors among the population about imminent price increases. The mood was only temporarily calmed by the conclusion of the Warsaw Treaty with the Federal Republic of Germany on December 7, 1970. In the hope that this foreign policy success would distract the population from the crisis, the prices, especially for consumer goods, actually rose shortly before Christmas by up to increased to 38%.

As a reaction to such drastic price increases, there were first strikes in the Gdańsk shipyards . There were also demonstrations all over Poland. The country was temporarily on the brink of civil war . The authorities responded with massive use of militia forces and the military . In violent clashes with protesters, 45 people were officially killed. In fact, the death toll was roughly twice that. More than a thousand people were injured in the operations.

The unrest marked the end of Gomułka's rule after 14 years in the post of Chairman of the Polish Central Committee. The Politburo of the Marxist-Leninist PZPR forced the government to withdraw on December 19, 1970 in order to secure its rule. Gomułka's successor was Edward Gierek on December 20, 1970 .

aftermath

The August strikes of 1980 , which led to the admission of free trade unions, are expressly in the tradition of the events of 1970. The erection of a memorial to the victims of December 1970 was one of the demands of the 1980 strikes .

During the unveiling of the monument on the square in front of the Gdańsk Shipyard ( Lenin Shipyard ) on December 16, 1980, the Lacrimosa (later part of the Polish Requiem ) by Krzysztof Penderecki , commissioned by Solidarność for this event , was heard for the first time in front of 100,000 people had been.