Polish October
The Polish October marks a loosening of the political climate in the People's Republic of Poland , which peaked in October 1956. The prehistory goes back to the time after Josef Stalin's death on March 5, 1953.
In 1954 Ilja Ehrenburg's last novel " Thaw " was published, which then gave its name to the easing or thaw period in Eastern Europe. After Stalin's death, the political climate in Poland slowly opened up. Many political prisoners left the prison cells. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński was released from his internment and received a stormy welcome. The censorship was relaxed. The youth weekly “Po prostu” (Simple), previously a boring party organ, became the tribune of the young reformers under the editorship of Eligiusz Lasota.
On the XX. At the CPSU party conference (February 14-26, 1956), Nikita Khrushchev gave a secret speech with sharp criticism of Stalin. The 1st Secretary of the PVAP, Bolesław Bierut , fell ill during the Congress and died in Moscow on March 12, 1956. After his funeral, the text of the secret speech was internally copied and copied over 3,000 times by the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (PVAP) in Poland made available to each local party body. One of these copies was also sent to the CIA and the US State Department through a Mossad agent . In Poland, the text of the speech caused a shock and led to critical questions and discussions.
On June 28, 1956, there was an uprising of locomotive workers in Poznan . There were many dead. The situation became more and more tense. On October 19, 1956, the 8th plenary session of the Central Committee of the PVAP began. The day before the meeting, Khrushchev unexpectedly came to Warsaw. Units of the Soviet Army in Poland began to advance towards Warsaw.
On October 21, Władysław Gomułka , the former 1st party secretary and prisoner under Bierut, was elected as the new 1st secretary. On October 24th, Gomułka gave a speech in front of the Warsaw Palace of Culture in front of a few hundred thousand Warsaw residents. The communist suddenly became a national hero. Gomułka went to Moscow from November 16-18, and came back with many Soviet concessions. Many Polish citizens were released from exile in Kazakhstan .
The Soviet Marshal Rokossovsky , Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army , left Warsaw in a hurry. He was followed by many Soviet officers in Polish uniforms. The city of Stalinogród was renamed Katowice . The farmers no longer had to join the collective cooperatives, existing cooperatives were often dissolved. Thousands of political prisoners were legally rehabilitated.
The joy of the Polish democracy movement was clouded by news from Budapest. The Poles donated blood to the victims of the Hungarian uprising . The thaw did not last long. As early as 1957, the paper " Po prostu " was closed due to a deviation from the party guidelines . Gomułka lacked the determination to push reforms forward. The country subsequently sank into stagnation. Gomułka could not find a way out of the steadily deteriorating situation. A decade later, the March 1968 riots broke out , and finally the December 1970 uprising, which brought about the overthrow of the party leadership on December 19, 1970.
literature
- Norman Davies: God's Playground. A History of Poland , Volume 2: 1795 to the Present . Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, ISBN 0-19-925340-4 .
Individual evidence
- ^ William Taubman : Khrushchev: the man and his era . Free Press, London, 2003, ISBN 0743231651 , p. 283.
- ↑ Tony Kemp-Welch: Khrushchev's 'Secret Speech' and Polish Politics: The Spring of 1956 . In: Europe-Asia Studies 48.2 (1996), pp. 181-206, ISSN 0966-8136 .