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also available as Scanned original in PDF.BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 40-2-53 TITLE: Poland's Communist Party: Its History, Character and Composition BY: DATE: 1959-3-11 COUNTRY: Poland ORIGINAL SUBJECT: Background Research --- Begin --- "E" DISTRIBUTION 400 11 MARCH 1952 RFE NEWS & INFORMATION SERVICE - EVALUATION & RESEARCH SECTION Background Research POLAND'S COMMUNIST PARTY: ITS HISTORY, CHARACTER AND COMPOSITION Polish Evaluation and Research Units Table of Contents I page The Communist Party of Poland and its Forbears 1 II The New Communist Party: the PPR (1942-1948) 12 III The Bierut Era 18 IV Wladyslaw Gomulka's Return to Power 21 Appendices[*] I The PZPR before the Third Congress 34 II The Numerical Strength of the PZPR 36 III Social Composition of the PZPR (in absolute figures) 37 IV Social Composition of the PZPR (in percentages) 35 V Social Composition of the PZPR (at 1 Sept 1958) 39 VI Age of PZPR Members (in percentages) 40 VII Number of Basic Party Organizations in PZPR 41 VIII Numerical Strength of Polish Socialist Party (PPS) 42 IX Social Composition of PPS (in percentages) 43 X Numerical Strength of Polish Workers' Party (PPR) 44 XI Social Composition of PPR 45 XII Numerical Strength of Communist Party of Poland (KPP) 46 XIII Social Composition of KPP in 1933 47 XIV National Composition of KPP in 1933 48 XV The Leaders of the Polish Communists and their Fate 49 XVI Membership of the Politburo (1945-1959) 50 XVII Membership of the Party Secretariat (1348-1959) 52 XVIII Membership of the PZPR Central Committee (1948-1959) 54 XIX Membership of the Audit Commission of the Party 62 XX Membership of the Central Party Control Commission 63 * Appendices 1 to XIV were prepared by T.Zawadzki of the Polish Desk, RFE Munich. POLAND'S COMMUNIST PARTY: ITS HISTORY, CHARACTER AND COMPOSITION I The Communist Party of Poland and its Forbears The Origin of the CP of Poland In order better to understand the history of the Polish Communist Party and the reasons for its liquidation in 1938 as well as the ideological chaos which pestered and decimated the Party during the 20 years of its existence (1918-1938), it is necessary to know these groups and factions which merged on 16 December 1916 into what was first known as Communist Workers' Party of Poland (KPRP), and what was renamed in March 1925, during the 2nd Party Congress, the Communist Party of Poland (KPP). For the sake of clarity the abbreviation KPP will be used here to mean the Communist Party of Poland that is to say that Party which existed since 16 December 1918 until 1938. It should be kept In mind that a Polish Communist Party was re-created, under the name of Polish Workers' Party (PPR) in January 1942, under the German occupation, and was renamed PZPE (Polish United Workers Party) in December 1948. It follows that the Polish Communist Party has had, so far, four names: 1918-1925 KPEP - Komunistycsna Partia Rcbotnicaa Folski; 1925-1938 KPP - Komunistyczna Partia Polski; 1942-1948 PPR - Polska Partia Robotnicza; 1948-PZPR - Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza. Coming back to the KPP, it should be said that it originated from a merger of two parties : Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPIL) and Polish Socialist Party-left (PPS-Lewica). The Union became a fact during the so-called "Merger Congress" on 16 December 1918. It is interesting to note how each of the two component Parts of the KPP had its origin, the in a merger (SDKPiL), the other in a split (PPS-Iewica). The SDKPiL had its origin in two worker parties: [page 2] 1) Union of Polish Workers (Zwiasek Robotnikow Polskich), 1889-1892, founded by Julian Marchlewski (died 1926) and Adolf Warski (real name Warszawski, liquidated by the MKVD in 19370.) 2) Union of Lithuanian Workers, founded in 1892 in Vilna as a branch of the Union of Polish Workers, with Feliks Dzierzynski as its leader. In 1893 the Union of Polish Workers together with some wrecks of the Second Internationale formed a party called the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland, which in 1897 merged with the Union of Lithuanian Workers under a long and rather queer hut common name of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. To the leading group of this new party the following people belonged: Rosa Luxemburg (murdered in Berlin in 1919). Leon-Jogiches (cover name "Tyszka".) Feliks Dzierzynski. Julian Marchlewski. Adolf Warski. Karol Radek. The second component part of the KPP was the Polish Socialist Party-Left, a splinter group of the Polish Socialist Party founded under the name of "Polska Partia Socjalistyczna" (PPS) in Paris in 1892. In 1907 the PPS split into two factions: 1) Revolutionary Faction (Frakcja Rewolucyjna - "fracy") with Josef Pilsudski as its leader, and 2) Polish Socialist Party-Left (PPS-Lewica). The leading group of the PPS-Lewica consisted of the following people: Jerzy Sochacki-Czeszejko Wera Kostrzewa (real name Maria Koszutska) Walecki - real name Maks Horwits Feliks Kon Pawel Lapinski Stefan Rajewski inz. Marian Ciszewski Zaks - (oover name Stanislaw Nerski, "Nerwowy") Kazimiers Cichowski Dr. Slawa Grosserowa Waclaw Wroblewski (cover name "Krzysztof".) [page 3] All these people, with the exception of Feliks Kon, who died a natural death, in the autumn of 1941, were later on liquidated by the NKVD. In the years 1919-192.0. large splinter groups of Jewish Socialist organizations joined the KPP. People came fromt: "Bund" "Poaley Syon" (with Henrychowski, real name Saul-Amsterdam leading the group,) "Ferajnigte" (United). Part of the Socialist Byelorussian Party and part of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party Joined as well. In 1920 the leftist opposition of the Polish Socialist Party (not to be confused with the PPS-Lewica) joined the KPP. Apart from Socialist parties, other political organizations supplied the KPP with their rebel members in the course of the years. These newcomers recruited themselves from such peasant organizations as: "Wyzwolenie" (Liberation), Independent Peasant Party (NPCh), Radical Peasant Party (Radykalne Stronnictwo Chlopskie, also known as Party of Rev. Okon.) People came also from rightist groups, as for instance from the National Workers' Party (NPR), and from Pilsudski's Non--Party Bloc of Cooperation with the Government (BBWR), Senator Boguszewski), as well as from various national minority organisations. The KPP - An Illegal Organization The Polish Communist Party enjoyed legality for a short period only. The First Congress of the Party, which took place in December 1918, passed a number of resolutions which could not please a newly reborn, independent state like Poland. The state authorities declared the KPP to be illegal sometime in 1919. In any case, in 1920 and later on during the whole period of Poland's independence the KPP acted as an illegal, clandestine organization. It came out as an organization once only, during Pilsudski's coup d'etat in May 1926 when they sent him a handful of youngsters to support him in his fight for power. This small group of Communist [page 4] youth was not admitted to take part in street fighting, and when the coup was over the youngsters were sent back to their homes. Polish Communists had some hope a that Pilsudski would grant them legality and an amnesty to those who were in prisons. These hopes did not materialize, a circumstance which became one of the reasons for the negative attitude to Pilsudski after his a victorious coup d'etat. Between Germany and Russia The policy of the KPP was determined by two factors: raison d'etat of the Soviet Union and the problem of the so-called "German revolution". As is generally known, the Bolsheviks regarded Germany as a central point of the revolution in the West and shared the view that only a German revolution would provoke a general European explosion. This, of course, would only be brought about with Soviet assistance. It is obvious that Polish Communists had to mould their policy according to the momentary exigencies of the much expected German revolution. For instance, in order to strengthen the position of German Communists their Polish comrades had to condemn the Versailles Peace Treaty (which granted Poland independence,) and were ready to give up to Germany Danzig, Upper Silesia and Pomerania. Between the hammer of would-be German revolution and the sickle of Soviet interests, the Polish Communists could not avoid a serious clash of opinion with independence-minded Polish masses. This almost continuous conflict had its origin in the "internationalism" of Polish Communists inherited from Rosa Luxemburg's views, later known as the heresy of "luxemburgism", which may be summarized in the following three points: a) it refused to recognize Lenin's slogan of "national self-determination", for a social revolution - according to the classical Marxist version -- would abolish all the frontiers (hence, "luxemburgism" in this respect was to the Bolsheviks what cosmopolitism stands for today;) b) it did not accept Lenin's tactical slogan "land to peasants" (in order to take the land away from the peasants and "nationalize" it at a later date,) for Rosa Luxemburg was for an immediate socialization of the land; c) it was against the "proletarian dictatorship" as carried out by Lenin, i.e. by means of terror, for it would turn to the dictatorship of a single man. [page 5] This ideological inheritance, particularly that pertaining to the disregard of the principle of national self-determination, put the Polish Communists in a position of agents of foreign powers which, from the point of view of Polish national interests and from the legal point of view, they undoubtedly were. For instance, during the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1920 the Soviet invasion was actively supported by the Polish Communists. The Party went so far as to pass a number of resolutions in favor of "the armed help of the Russian proletariat." Even after the signing of the Soviet-Polish peace treaty at Riga in 1921, the KPP never reconciled itself to the existence of an independent Polish Republic and never recognized the Polish frontiers established by the treaty. Consequently in the eastern territories of Poland two separate Communist Parties were established: the Communist Party of the Western Ukraine (KPZU) and the Communist Party of Western Byelorussia (KPZE) with the purpose of detaching these territories from Poland and incorporating them into the Soviet Union. The theoretical organ of the Polish Party "Nowe Drogi" (of January 1959) stated quite frankly that the Communist Party was the only party in Poland which fought constantly for the separation of the eastern territories from Poland. The party historian Daniszewski in the "Problems of Peace and Socialism" (article of January 1959) mentioned above was equally frank and admitted that the Polish Communists had always demanded that the eastern territories "incorporated by force into the Polish state" should be separated "from the bourgeois Polish state." Again, in January 1933, in the wake of what Communists believed to be an imminent German Communist revolution and what turned out to be Hitler's victory, the KPP issued a manifesto "To the People of Upper Silesia!" affirming its determination to incorporate Upper Silesia, Pomerania and Danzing into Gemany. The Manifesto, as quoted by Jan Krzysztof Kwiatkowski in "Komunisci w Polsce" (Brussels, 1946), declared. "The assassimn Versailles Treaty, forced upon the German nation by the coalition of the victorious in the imperialist war, big imperialist robbers of the Entente, had torn Upper Silesia, put Danzig under the yoke of imperialist Poland and created a Polish Corridor which artificially separated Eastern Prussia from Germany. The Communist Party of Poland declared that after 11 years of Polish occupation of Upper Silcsia, the victorious Polish proletariat... will erase all the verdicts of the Versailles Treaty concerning Upper Silcsia and the Pomeranian Corridor and assure the people of these territories the right of self--determination, to separate from Poland." [page 6] Such declarations could only serve to enrage the whole Polish nation and bring about a further dwindling of whatever measure of influence the Communists dared claim. In addition to this setback, the KPP was pestered by internal ideological deviations which, with the only exception of the so-called "May error", were but reflections of the Soviet CP ideological and tactical zig-zags. (It is no wonder that the KPP wag a very small party and never had more than ten to twelve thousand members). There were three main phases of factional struggle within the KPP: Year 1924 the "rightist" deviation, Year 1926 the "majorites" - "minorites" split, Years 1928-1933 - splits in the KPP, in Western Ukraine and Byelorussian CP'a and in the so-called "appendages" (i.e. disguised CP branches,) and a final victory of the "minority" (left) over "majority" (right). "Rightist" Deviatlon The fight against the "rightists" of the KPP which started in 1924 was in fact a reflex of similar happenings in the Soviet Union (Stalin-Trotsky) and in Germany (Thaelmann-Brandler). The issue was rather important from the Communist point of view. Briefly, it was this: "What was the state of world affairs, what could be expected to happen and what tactics should be adopted according to the answer to the two previous questions: Trotsky's analysis was that the capitalist world had entered a period of economic stabilization and that the revolutionary waves had receded. Hence, the Comintern should look for an understanding with leftist groups of social democratic parties and fight in common for what was known as "permanent world revolution". Stalin, who was in favor of the "victory of socialism in one country" theory and wanted to make the interests of the Cominform dependent upon these of the victorious country of socialism, insisted on a "breating spell" which would enable the strengthening of the Soviet economy and a full subjugation of all other Communist parties to the Soviet Union. First of all, however, he wanted to get rid of Trotsky, who had a strong following among Polish Communists. In order to make Trotsky's views a deviation, branded for no reason a "rightist" deviation, Stalin made an alliance with [page 7] Radek and Kamenev, which coalition brought about a resolution of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in July-August 1924 in favor of the thesis of Stalin. Already in December 1923, six months "before the Fifth Congress, the Politburo of the KPP sent a letter to the Central Committee of the WKPbb) in defense of Trotsky. A sentence of this letter read as follows) "... to our Party, to the whole Internationale, and to the whole world revolutionary proletariate the name of Comrade Trotsky is inseparably bound with the victorious October Revolution, the Red Army, with Communism and world revolution." In these circumstances the fate of the "rightist" leadership of the Polish CP could not be envied. Warski, Walecki, Kostrzewa and Pruchniak were removed from their positions In the Politburo and, together with Henryk Iauer ("Brand",) the secretary of the Polish Central Committee,were retained in Moscow. The new leadership of the Polish CP consisted of "leftists" who had been most zealous in fighting their predecessors, the "Three W's", as the latter were called after the initials of their names: Warski Walecki and Wera (Kostrzewa). The new bosses were: Lenski (real name Julian Leszczynski) Domski (cover name Kaminski, real name Henryk Stein Osinska (cover name "Zoska", real name Unszlicht). These personal changes did not mean an end of the faction fight, which continued and which took most violent forms on the occasion of what was known as The "May Error." In 1926 Warski and Pruchniak, both removed from the leadership in 1924, were again admitted to the Central Committee KPP when, of course, they had "confessed" and had been confirmed by the Third Congress of the Polish CP (1925). When in May 1926 Pilsudski ventured a coup d'etat the whole leadership of the KPP decided to support him. This decision was the more strange in that the Polish CP had always been against Pilsudski. The explanation may be found [page 8] in a general mood prevailing then among Polish working masses. Workers and all the democratic left sided with Pilsudski. The Communists followed, more influenced by a general atmosphere than by an elaborated thesis of the day. The only doctrinal reason which led them into the trouble was a principle according to which a Communist Party cannot remain idle while street fighting or any civil commotion is going on Communists should be in in order to take over the leadership. The principle was sound from the Marxist point of view, but in the circumstances harmful to Moscow. It is no wonder that the leadership of the Polish CP got a tremendous lashing from the Kremlin. The "May error" brought about an ideological split of the Party into a number of groups, of which the two most important were: the majority of the Politburo (hence "majorites") with Warski as its exponent, the minority of the Politburo ("minorites") led by lenski. The discussion on the "May error" continued for three years. Apart from the "May error" issue, there were scores of minor problems on which new factions and petty groupings were to crop up from the well fertilized ideological soil. Time and again, Moscow would make some order out of the mess -- a short-lived order, of course, -- for its makers would often change their own views on what was right and what was wrong. Prom among all these little problems, three deserve attentions economic stabilization, the role of the PPS (Polish Socialist Party), the role of the petty bourgeois class. l)The "majorites" regarded the economic stabilization of the period as being "relative" or "momentary" {przejsciowa), but did not, however, deny its existence. The "minorites" opposed this view as "rightist", and making use of Staling respective definition were of the opinion that only a "rotten" and, what follows, a non-existing stabilization could be spoken about. [page 9] 2) The PPS was meant to represent not only its own Party interests, but also those of the middle and small-holding peasantry, the working intelligentsia, middle and lower groups of petty bourgeois class and of the so-called "top" of the workers class. As to the role of the PPS, the majority faction of the Polish CP made a "rightist" error, for they said that this role was double-edged, that Is to say in order to have the masses on their side, Social1sts had to use some slogans which, objectively speaking, act in favor of the revolution. This thesis of "double-edgedness" (oboslecznosc) was immediately used up by the "mlnorites" in their violent attacks upon the "majorites", and became a favorite subject of continuous discussions. 3) In the years 1921-1923 the role of the petty bourgeois was discussed. Wera Kostrzewa put forward a thesis on "the independent role" of this class. This time it was again "majorites" who sinned. The theory happened to be "rightist", and after the Kay coup an anathema was thrown on the heresy by the Comintern. The "majorites" must have been Incorrigible sinners, because in spite of what had already been found a heresy they made the same error when they said that the Sejm (Polish Parliament) was an instrument in the hands of petty bourgeois in the latter's struggle against Pilsudski's dictatorship. Again an "independent role" and again anathemas. The last Stage The third and the last stage of factional fights falls in the period of 1928-1933 when serious splits developed in various Party organizations and the "majorites" (or "rightists") were eventually removed from all the leading positions. A severe crisis took place in the PKZU and KPZB (CP's of the Western Ukraine and of Western Byelorussia, that is to say of these Polish territories which were regarded by the USSR to be parts of the Ukraine and Byelorussia.) The bone of contention was Soviet policy of russianization carried on in the Soviet parts of the Ukraine and Byelorussia. It should be kept in mind that both PEZU and KPZB received orders from Moscow to organize acts of sabotage and of terror in Western Poland. To a large extent Moscow was responsible also for the growth of nationalism, especially for Ukrainian nationalism. Such a trend would not be allowed to develop in the USSR, but on orders of the Kremlin it was supported by Communists in Poland. What was a crime to a Soviet [page 10] Ukrainian was an act of duty to a Polish Ukrainian Communist. Too many member a of the KPZU and of the KPZB saw clearly the maochiavellian methods of the Soviets. These people broke off the Party. In the KPZU the whole leadership and large groups of the rank and file rebelled. These happenings were also influenced by a wavering attitude of the Polish OP. According to the caprices of Moscow, the acts of sabotage and terror performed by Ukrainian nationalists were regarded by the. KPP once as a "bourgeois provocation", once as an expression of the fight of "people's masses". This "tic-tac" policy brought about a split in the Warsaw Party organization which rebelled against the then (1928) "majorite" Central Committee. The latter dissolved the Warsaw Committee and appointed a new one. The old Committee did not accept this decision and continued in office. This brought about a situation in which the Warsaw Communist community had two competing bishops until the Sixth Congress of the Comintern made null and void the decision of the national Central Committee, and removed the two men most involved in the affairs Rylski (real name Lubieniecki) a "majorite", and Henrychowski (real name Saul Amsterdam), a "minorite". At that time the Comintern led a double-front attack against the "ultraleft" and against the "right". Hence, the order issued to Polish Communists was a unique one: the conflicting parties should make peace and the XPP should "consolidate". It was too late to speak about peace- The factional fight had already gone to the point of breaking personal relations between "majorites" and "minorites". Eventually, Molotov gave the order. After the fall of Bukharin, who was a "rightist", Molotov took over the comintern. He aided with the minority faction of the KPP, be it only for the fact that Bukharin was for the majority. Step by step, Molotov removed Polish "majorites" from Party positions- In 1933 the KPP was led entirely by "minorites". The "majorites" were called to Moscow and were assigned various jobs either abroad in Comintern and Profintern (Communist TU Internationale) organisations, or in Soviet Russia, in economic and other offices and enterprises. Subsequently one by one they were recalled to Moscow and arrested, The wave of arrests did rot spare the "minorites" either. [page 11] In April 1938 the Comintern decided to dissolve the KPP under the pretext that it had been infiltrated by police provocateurs and agents of the Polish Military Intelligence. All its leaders and activists were liquidated on Stalin's orders, and the remaining members were sent to slave labor camps where many of them perished. This mass extermination of the Polish Communists was to some extent mitigated by the ironical fact that some of them were at that time in Polish prisons and consequently out of danger. They were about the only Polish Communists to survive the purge. [page 12] II The New Communist Party: the PPR (1942-1948) The Polish Workers Party (PPR) the successor of the ill-fated KPP, was established at the beginning of 1942. It was composed of the remnants of Polish Communists who survived in Poland and who constituted mostly rank and file Communists, at best members of the former middle Party apparatus (e.g. Gomulka). The rest were in Russia, and consisted of those who survived the Stalin purge of the late thirties in the Soviet Union, who either escaped to the USSR in the face of the invading German armies September 1939) or who lived in the eastern part of Poland overrun and annexed by USSR at the same time. As time went on a clear division arose between two groups: "kraijowcy" (natives) or those who lived under the German occupation in Poland, and the much more influential group of those imported, during and after the occupation, from the USSR. The Party as a group and its members individually, took a considerable time to recover from a series of organizational and ideological crises. There were recent memories of the dissolution of the KPP, the only CP to have ever been dissolved in the history of Communist movement, of the brutal purge of its leadership, of the Soviet-Nazi alliance of 1939-1941. There were no leaders of any stature left in Poland and there were none in Russia. In these circumstances the new leaders were chosen from among the middle Party apparatus. Stalin realized that they should be known to at least certain circles of Polish Communists, and the choice fell on former KPP members who were genuine Poles and who had spent the pre-war years in Poland. At the beginning of 1942 some of them were refugees In Moscow. So it happened that the core of the new leadership had to be dropped into Poland by parachute. Three names deserve attention: Marceli ITowotko, Pawel Finder and Malgorzata Fornalska. Later on they were joined by those leaders who were in Poland (e.g. Gomulka). At that time the Polish Home Army and the Polish parties of every political persuasion had already been engaged in underground armed resistance against the German occupation for more than two years. The attitude of the whole nation was one of stubborn resistance against the occupant. In order to gain any following the Communists had to join the resistance movement. They did so although their aim was different from that of the nation. The Communist aim was first to help the Soviet Union in its struggle against Germany, second to pave the way for a Communist domination of Poland. To achieve the latter they tried to destroy all active elements in the Polish underground state in order to make the achievement of true Polish independence more difficult. The secretary-general of the PPR and a Communist hero of today, Marceli Nowotko, had been entrusted by Moscow with a mission to discover the network of the Polish underground movement and to destroy it in close collaboration with the Gestapo. (over) [page 13] Consequently Nowotko created a special department for this purpose, which actively helped the Nazis to hunt down and dispose of the Polish leaders. The close collaboration of the PPR with the Gestapo had unforeseen consequences. Two young Polish Communists, the brothers Molojec, convinced that Nowotko was a Gestapo agent shot him in the street (in November 1942) and were later executed by the Communists (cf. "News from Behind the Iron Cutrau", The Swiatlo Story, Vol.4, No. 3, 1955). This taught the Communists a lesson, and they probably stopped or limited their collaboration with the Gestapo, At any rate, Nowotko's successor, Pawel Finder himself fell a victim of the Gestapo terror; he was arrested in November 1943 and later shot He was succeeded as secretary-general of the Party by Wladyslaw Gomulka, who inherited a small Party and a not very important factor in the underground movement. The Communist role, however, increased rapidly as the Soviet armies approached the Polish frontier. To create the appearances of democratic institutions, the Communists set up their own underground parliament under the name of "Krajowa Rada Narodowa" (National Council of the Homeland). Its chairman, Boleslaw Bierut, was an old Comintern agent, trained in Moscow, and blindy obedient to Stalin. Of the 19 participants of the first session of the KRN (31 December 1943-1 January 1944) at least 17 were Communists, who, however, claimed to represent 14 "groups" of various political and social bodies. At least in this instance there was much truth in the claim since these "groups" were simply Communist agents ("plants") within these bodies. There seems to be little doubt that Bierut (parachuted into Poland in 1943) was sent by Moscow as a trusted Stalin agent to keep an eye on the "native" ("kraowe") leadership of the Party. Future developments fully confirmed this mission and as early as 1943 an incident occurred which was a grim pointer for the future: "In consequence of obstacles of a varied nature" Wladyslaw Gomulka and his two closest friends, Zenon Kliszko and Ignacy Loga-Sowinski, did not take part in the first session of the KKft, although they were its members. The first decree of the Council (KRN) passed during the fateful night (31 December I943-1 January 1944) concerned the creation of the People's Army (Armia Ludowa) as "a basic armed force of the Polish nation". Through these steps the Polish Communists set up a pattern of future domination. The principle of "proletarian dictatorship" was expressed by the Party, the administrative organ of the state was embodied in the KM (which took over the functions of a parliament and a government at the same time) while its armed power was to be the AL ("People's Army"). At the same time similar pattern was set up in the Soviet Union where -- as distinct from Communist institutions in Poland -- (over) [page 14] two bodies were created: The Union of Polish Patriots (ZPP) which formally was a social body but actually performed the functions of both a Party and a government, and a small Polish army consisting at the beginning of Just one division, the Kosciussko Division. Thus, despite the establishment of the Polish Workers Party in Poland, Stalin, always, distrustful of Poles, set up in Moscow another Polish Communist body under his own direct control. As head of the Tinion of Polish Patriots Stalin chose a Polish writer, Wanda Wssliewska, who became during the war a Soviet citizen and a member of the Surpeme Soviet. The real aim of the Union of Polish Patriots was to force upon Poland a Communist regime, with the help of the Soviet army, although the organization never stopped proclaiming that its aim was "free and independent" Poland. One of the main tasks of the Union of Polish Patriots was to help to organize the small Polish army set up in the USSR; its commander was General Zygmunt Berling. This army was never proclaimed to be a Communist army, but its political leadership rested with Communists selected by the Union, and its officers, particularly higher rank: officers, were regular Red Army officers - either pure Russians or Russians of Polish origin. This Army marched toward Poland alongside the Soviet Army, and in August 1944 approached Warsaw. At that time the two embryo institutions of Communist domination (Polish and Russian) were already fused into one. On 21 July 1944, the KRN set up in Lublin a Committee of national liberation (the "Lublin Committee") composed of fake representatives of various political parties and entirely dominated by the Communists. The Committee issued its Manifesto on 22 July 1944 officially confirming the fusion of Communist organizations get up in Poland and in Russia, and proclaiming that these organizations were the only legal bodies of state power and the only representatives of the Polish nation. The Communist Tactics It is relevant and necessary even in this short study to say a few words on the Communist tactics of the time. In an attempt at deceiving the Polish masses, the Communists created their own organizations and parties parallel to the existing polish organizations and parties, under the same or similar names, For instance the underground Polish Parliament in which all Polish political parties participated was called : Rada Jednosci Narodowej (Council of National Unity) , The Communists created their own Krajowa Rada Narodowa (National Council of the Homeland) and this unrepresentative body took over the functions of an interim Parliament. The name of the Polish underground army was Amia Krajowa (Home Army), the Communists called their partisans Armia Ludowa (People's Army). The same tactics were applied to political parties. Through their agents or allies within these parties the Communists (over) [page 15] set up their own organisations. The example of the Peasant Party (Stronnictwo Ludowe) is typical. A pro-Communist splinter group usurped the name of the wellknown Stronnictwo Ludowe (SL).When the peasant leader Stanislaw Mikolajczyk arrived in Poland (from London via Moscow) his peasant party had to drop its traditional name and assume a new one: Polskie Stronnictwo ludowe (PSL). The Emergence of the Polish United Workers' Party The Communists never had any strong workers following in Poland. The only influential workers' party both before and after the war was the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). Although the leadership of the post-war PPS was composed of Communist agents or sympathizers, the traditional name of the new party attracted the masses of workers who instead of joining the PPR -- as the Communists would have liked -- thought that the PPS though different from the genuine pre-war PPS) was the right organization guarding their interests. For these reasons the Communists decided to bring about an official merger of the two parties: the PPS and the PPR. This was accomplished at the so-called Merger Congress (16-21 December 1948) when the present ruling party: the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) was born. As is evident from the name of the new party, the PPS disappeared while the PPR remained under its old name to which one "Z" (for united) was added. At the beginning there were many ex-Socialists elected to the highest Party organs, but their representation was sharply reduced as time went one. Gomulka's Nationalist Deviation Gomulka's first term of power as secretary-general (a title corresponding to the present first secretary) of the Party lasted from November 1943 to 6 September 1948 when, at a Party conference, Boleslaw Bierut delivered a crushing speech against him. As already pointed out, Stalin was distrustful of Polish Communists, and would stand only those whom he regarded as his blind servants. Bierut was one. Gomulka was never a "democrat" or a "liberal". He was a ruthless Communist who did not hesitate using extreme terror in the fight with his political opponents. He crushed the Mikolajczyk Polish Peasant Party whose members were arrested, tortured and even murdered. By similar means he also softened up the PPS to make it ripe for the merger with Communists. But he wanted to be master in his own house, and opposed Soviet interference into every detail of Polish Communist policy and tactics. While he most ruthlessly introduced Communism in Poland, he was speaking of "Polish road to Communism" long before 1948, His attitude to the Soviet Union was made clear in an article he wrote in connection with the Party Plenum in May 1945: "There are two reasons why Poland cannot be a Soviet republic, Firstly - this is not desired by the Polish nation, secondly this is not desired (over) [page 16] by the Soviet Union... The PPR as a party participating in the coalition government and as a party most deeply connected with the Polish nation takes over the standpoint of sovereignty and independence of Poland from the democratic spirit of the Polish nation". In the same article he wrote that the task of "reaction" was made easier by spreading rumors about "kolkhozes". On the subject of kolkhozes there was also a mention in the resolution of the Plenum of 26 May 1945: "The Central Committee states that hostile propaganda of reaction, intimidating the peasants' masses by alleging that there' are the tendencies and efforts of the Polish Workers Party and of the Provisional Government, toward the 'sovietisation' of Poland and collectivization of the agriculture, is made easy by the sectarian tendencies of certain members of the Party and some- rash instructions of the lower authorities of the state apparatus." Another sin or political error of Gomulka was his opposition to the expulsion of Tito from the Cominform, although he did not actually pparticipate in. the Bucharest session of the Cominform at which the Yugoslav CP was expelled from that body (28 June 1948). In fact from mid-June till early September 1948 he did not appear in public. This was the period of the busy Plenary Sessions of the Central Committee in June, July, August, which ended with a conference in September, At the June Plenum Gomulka delivered, without submitting it to the opinion of the Politburo, the speech on "the historic traditions of the Polish workers' movement". This speech was never published but according to "Bierut "was undoubtedly a conscious revision of Leninist appreciation of the history of our movement, based on the complete divorce of the struggle for national independence from the class struggle". All this brought about Gomulka's downfall. The charges leveled against him were summarized in the following three points: 1. He underestimated the decisive role of the Bolshevik Party in the struggle against imperialism and surrendered to the nationalistic and bourgeois influences. 2. He did not understand the necessity of the sharp class struggle against the peasant capitalists (kulaks). 3. He favored conciliatory tactics toward the leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party not realizing the essence of their deviation. Despite these grave charges Gromulka retained [*] for the time being most (of his previous positions, the Central Committee taking into consideration his achievements in the struggle against the "reactionary policy" of Mikolajczyk and against the "reborn fascism supported by Anglo-American imperialism". The post of the secretary--general of the Party went to Bierrut, but G-omulka still remained a member of the Politburo, a member of the Central Committee of the Party, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regained Territories (over) [page 17] In the Government, and deputy to the Sejm. But his downfall had begun and three years later was to end in his imprisonment. At the "Merger Congress" of December 1948 ha was not elected to Politburo. On 20 January 1949 he was relieved of his government posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Regained Territories, allegedly, at his own request. He still remained a member of the Central Committee and a deputy to the Sejm. In March 1949 he was appointed Vice-President of the Supreme Chamber of State Control, and after being released from that position he was given the quite insignificant job of one of the directors of the State Social Security Fund. At the third Plenum of the Party (11 to 13 November 1949) he, along with Zenon Kliszko, was dismissed from the Central Committee and deprived of the right to perform any function within the Party. On 31 October 1951 the Sejm "acceded to the request made by the Public Prosecutor-that legal proceedings be instituted against Gomulka who is guilty of practices contrary to the interest of the Polish People's Republic". His parliamentary immunity was withdrawn, and he was arrested. According to Lt. Col. Swiatlo (a senior Security offical who escaped to the West in December 1935) he was imprisoned in a comfortable villa, which the Ministry of Public Security had maintained especially for such prominent prisoners, and was treated well. Swiatlo says also that no member of the Central Committee would undertake the task of interrogating Gomulka, and consequently three senior officers of the Security Service were detailed to that job. They also were not overburdened by their task, since, throughout the whole period of Gomulka's imprisonment he was interrogated for perhaps 15 days only. All those years, says Swiatlo, were spent on collecting and arranging materials against him, but the Security Service was unable to produce anything coherent against him that could satisfy the requirements of Elerut, though Moscow pressed Warsaw for a speedy trial. The death of Stalin and the change of atmosphere in the Communist world brought about his release from jail in September 1954. [page 18] III The Bierut Era When Boleslaw Bierut took over the leadership of the Party on 6 September 1948 the spade work of the consolidation of Communist power in the country had already been done by Gomulka and his assistants: Hilary Mine (economic matters), Jakub Berman (Party ideology and supervision over instruments of terror), Boman Zambrowski (organization of state structure), Marian Spychalski (military), and Jersy Borejsza (press and cultural matters). However, this was just the initial stage, and much remained to be done to model the Party and the society according to the wishes of Stalin. Hardly a year had passed since the Merger Congress of the PZPR when the pattern of a new era (known as Stalinist or Bierut era) was set. Personal changes in the Party leadership (Politburo) were closely connected with the hardening of the course. Only three names continued to appear on the list of Politburo: Hilary Minc, Jakub Berman and Roman Zamlbrowski. New were added. Of these the most important were: Stanislaw Radkiewicz (chief of the secret police), Aleksander Zawadzki Franciszek Mazur, Hilary Ohelchowski, Zenon Nowak, and Edward Ochab, all diehard Communists and obedient followers of the Party (at that time Stalin) line. To preserve the appearances of workers' unity two names of former PPS members continue to appear in the lists of the Polithbunase Jozef Cyrankiewics and Adam Rapacki. These two were no simple stooges or easy tools of the Communists. They seemed to be just clever opportunists who knew their precarious position, and did not exceed the limits placed on them by the exigencies of the new hard course. Great changes occurred during 1949 in the life of the country. At a congress of culture and science workers in Szczecin Marxist (Stalinist) teaching was adopted as the only inspiration. Following this decision and "helped" by dismissals and the terror the Polish press, literature and science switched to socialist realism and Stalinism. In November 1949 the Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossowski took over the Polish armed forces. Marian Spychalski the Deputy Minister of Defense was removed (13 November 1949) from all Party [page 19] posts and from his military command, later imprisoned and charged of "right nationalistic deviation."). A brutal purge of Polish high ranking officers followed, then a series of public and secret trials at which several of them were condemned to death. The secret police (controlled by Radkiewicz) slowly gained a position of limitless power. Communist dictatorship was replaced by simple police terror modeled on Soviet MVD examples. A powerful youth organization modeled on the Soviet Komsomol was set up under the name of Union of Polish Youth (ZMP) led by two relatively young Communists: Jarzy Morawski and Wladyslaw Matwin. Admissions to higher educational establishments, scholarship grants, etc. were made dependent either on membership in the ZMF or on the Union's favorable opinion. In 1952 a new Constitution of the Polish People's Republic was proclaimed, and new elections to the Sejm produced a rubber stamp "parliament" automatically approving all the decrees passed by the Communist government. Peace and order, in Stalinist meaning of the words, settled. The Communist hierarchy lived in luxury, the workers were terrorized, the peasants either collectivized (since 1949 till 1956 over 10,000 collective farms -- kolkhozes -- were established) or ruined by excessive taxation and compulsory deliveries. The ideological unity of the Party was assured. Supreme loyalty to Stalin and to the Soviet CP was expressed publicly at every occasion. Soviet officers led the Army, and Soviet "advisors" controlled the economic and political life of the country. After the Death of Stalin This undisturbed state of "peace" continued to Stalin's death in March 1953. The introduction of "collective leadership" in the Soviet CP, the "thaw" and an almost automatic loosening of the grip after-the death of the tyrant brought about the first ideological confusion into the PZPR leadership- Against this background two tendencies emerge, though it is difficult to say that the partisans of these tendencies were organized in Party factions: 1) a dictatorial tendency aiming at the retention of the conditions existing in the "previous period", inimical to all liberal trends evident among the intellectuals [page 20] (cf. Adam Wazyk's "Poem for the Adults" published in August 1955). The exponents of this tendency were already in mid-1955 called Stalinists. Edward Ochab, the "toothy Bolshevik1' as Stalin called him on an occasion, is regarded as the leader of that dictatorial or Stalinist group. 2) a liberal tendency whose exponent seemed to be Cyrankiewicz. Unofficial sources claim that Cyrankiewics, trying to make the best of the Kremlin struggle for power and of the resulting confusion among the Soviet CP leadership, aimed at further liberalization of the Party life (inner-Party democracy) and of its policy in the country. In case of Soviet intervention -- Gyrankiewica is said to have argued -- the PZPR was ready to atop at the stage it had achieved at the moment of the intervention and retain the status quo of that moment but not draw back to Stalinist conditions. However, almost nothing changed in the internal structure of the Party leadership or in the life of the Party, The Second Party Congress (10-17 March 1954) dealt with economic and organisational matters, and seemed to affirm the existing status quo of limitless power of the Party and of its leader Bierut, The change occurred only after his a death in Moscow on 12 March 1956 and after the contents of Khrushchev's secret speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU had become known in Poland. [page 21] IV Wladyslaw Gomuka's Return to Power On 20 March 1956 Edward Ochab, was elected first secretary of the Party. Although already during Bierut's lifetime he was regarded as his logical successor, his election was a compromise solution between Franciszek Masur (who was supported by Khrushchev but apparently disliked by the Polish Communists) and Roman Zambrowski (who was opposed by Khrushchev because of his Jewish origin). Ochab was a bad choice for the leading post. Always a faithful follower of the Party line he was used to accepting and carrying out orders rather than issuing the orders. It. must be said by way of defense that the situation within the Party was not enviable to any leader. The shock brought about by Khrushchev's revelations about Stalin and the ensuing ideological disintegration of the Party and ZMP (youth) produced a state of chaos and an almost total disappearance of the authority of Party leadership. These revelations did not constitute the only blow to Party authority in Poland. In 1954 the whole Poland was shocked by the revelations of former high ranking officer of the Polish Secret police (Ministry of Public Security), Lt. Col. Josef Swiatlo who in December 1953 escaped to Eerlin and thence to the United State. All the abuses of the Party and of the secret police cane to light. Bierut presorted to the half measures of reorganising the security service in name rather than in essence (the Ministry was abolished and a Committee for the Matters of Public Security established), and of demoting Stanislaw Radkiewicz, the Minister of Public Security, to the rank of Minister of State Farms, However, this was not enough. The pressure of public opinion was too strong. At the Third Plenum of the CC (January 1955) the problem of the security service was further discussed and a resolution passed regarding the work of the service and "the control of the Party" over its organs. But it wag Edward Ochab who had to deal more energetically with the problem. Three high ranking officers of the former Ministry of Public Security, Roman Romkowski, Anatol Fejgin and Josef Eosanski, were arrested and sentenced. Several arrests of minor police officers followed-. At the same time several political prisoners were set free and rehabilitated. All these steps simply underlined Swiatlo's revelations and instead of contributing toward [page 22] Party popularity increased the distrust of the population and of the Party membership. The Posnan rising of June 1956 and its bloody suppression revealed the extent of people's misery and dissatisfaction, and brought about a further disintegration of Party and state authority. In addition to being gravely frightened, the Party leadership split into more groups according to the lines of policy each section favored in order to cope with the situation, A third tendency appeared alongside the dictatorial and liberal tendencies discussed in previous chapters -- that of a "middle of the road" policy of some liberalization but strictly inspired and controlled by the Party. The exponent of this group was said to be Roman Zambrowski. This so-called Pulawaka group (from the name of a street in Warsaw) comprised among others the following CC members: Stefan Jedrychowski, Bugeniusz Szyr (both economic planners), Stefan ZolkiewsKi (cultural and educational expert), and Antcni Alster (secret police). The group opposed the "thaw" and liberalization, and in this respect almost shared the Stalinis group's views. They divided with Stalinists on the issue of anti-Semitism (advocated by Stalinists) and on the issue of tactics. Zambrowski and his group understood that the Party could not afford -- at the given moment -- a ruthless suppression of liberalization. The Stalinist group, also known as the Natolin group (from the name of a suburban Warsaw locality), thought that the Polish masses could be pacified by the removal and persecution of a number of Jews in high Party and government positions (the would be scapegoats: Mine, Herman, and a number of secret police officers), opposed liberalization at every cost, and leaned heavily on Soviet help (direct armed intervention if necessary) in retaining power. The chief exponents of the group were: Zenon Nowak, Franciszek Mazur, Wiktor Klosiewios (the Trade Union boas), Kazimierz Mijal, Bole slaw Ruminski and General Kasimiers Witaszewski (Deputy Defense Minister for political and educational matters.) The Poznan rising helped the three tendencies to crystalize. First of all Cyrankiewics came out almost publicly for liberalization. Then Ochab was reported to have deserted the dictatorial group, apparently under the influence of Gomulka with whom he had several conferences. The composition of the "liberal" group was less clear. It seemed to be the largest group but was poorly organized. Of the members of the Politburo only Cyrankiewicz and Adam Rapacki [page 23] belonged to it. Within the Central Committee almost all former members of the PPS were reported to be "liberal". They were Oskar Lange, Konstanty Dabrowski, and Marian Rybicki. Two young Communists, members of the CC, also seemed to have such tendencies: Wladyslaw Matwin and Jerzy Morawski. Although not well organized, this group was most powerful, thanks to the support of Party and non-Party intellectuals and of the nation as a whole. What was most important, the groups had the support of the youth inspired by bold articles of the mouthpiece of young Communist intellectuals, "Po Prostu". October 1956 In October 1956 the incredible happened, During the historic Eighth Plenum of the Party Wladyslaw Gomulka was elected member of the CC (19 October 1956), and in spite of Khrushchev's personal intervention was elected the first secretary of the Partly on 21 October 1956. It is not intended in this short study to write a description of the events following Gomulka's election, of the wave of enthusiasm and high hopes in drastic changes since these events are generally known. It will be enough to summarize briefly the decisions taken at the Eighth Plenum (under Gomulka): the acceptance of the principle of voluntary collectivisation of the countryside (as a result 90 per cent of collective farms dissolved almost at once), cutting down of the economic growth of industry to the possibilities of the country more than to the requirements of the Soyiet Union, the abolition of police terror and the establishment of 'socialist legality, the establishment of a road to socialism" different from that dictated by the Soviet Union and adapted to Polish conditions. Further practical steps taken by Gomulka were ?? release of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski from imprisonment and a reconciliation with the Church and his popular dismissal of Marshal Rokossowski and a number of other senior Soviet officers from their commands in the Polish Army. Events have shown that all these steps were clever tactical moves aimed at restoring the Party position in the country. This is most evident from a confidential letter of the Central Committee of the Party issued in Warsaw in February 1957, after the victorious January elections to the Sejm. The letter, addressed to Party organizations, simply reaffirmed that nothing had changed in the [page 24] Communist nature of the state, and that all attempts of "reactionaries" at restoring any sort of "bourgeois" society would be dealt with promptly. Factions and Deviations The most important part of the letter concerned the situation within the Party, torn by factional struggle. The letter stated: "The most urgent task is to fight all the deviations from the line of the Eighth Plenum of the CC: against revisionism and liberal petty bourgeois nationalist or anarchistic digressions from the principles of the program of our Party, against sectarianism, dogmatism and attempts at returning to the old bureaucratic and administrative methods of leading and ruling." What were all these deviations and factions? These were described in a contribution by Ernst Halperin to "Der Monat" (of March 1957). Helperin described a meeting in Warsaw with an old friend, a member of the Party hierarchy and a follower of Gomulka. It is worth repeating at length what this Communist told Halperin: "At present, we are living through a serious crisis of the Party. The enthusiasm and unity of the days in October (1956) proved to be a brief inebriation. Now we have a hang-over- The Party is split into several groups. "The present crisis really started as early as July (1956) after the Posnan Revolt. We were not certain then what attitude to assume with regard to Poznan, and what consequences to draw from this bad failure, For technical reasons alone it was impossible to represent Foznan as the result of an imperialist conspiracy. False admissions would have had to be produced to this purpose. And during the months preceding Posnan, a large number of officials of the security police and of the office of the attorney-general had been punished and imprisoned because they had extorted false admissions during the big purge of 1949 to 1953, The authorities entrusted with the investigation of the Poznan affair had no intention of exposing themselves to the same danger by extorting further admissions. They gave a truthful report of the investigation which included no mention of the machinations of imperialist agents. "Toward the end of June, high Soviet visitors arrived in Warsaw, namely Bulganin and Marshal Zhukov. They made a very [page 25] simple and skillful proposal. The Poznan Revolt was to be blamed on the bad economic situation of the workers, and the wrath of the people directed mainly against the security police. Who, however, was responsible for the bad economic policy of the regime? The highest leader of planning, the Jew Hilary Mine! And who until recently had controlled the security police? The man most hated in the whole country, the Jew Jakub Berman! Let's therefore have a trial of Berman and Mine, thereby regaining the confidence of the people. "The large majority of the leadership of the Party, however, rejected this way out. The Seventh Plenum of the Central Committee (in July 1956) decided to take on the collective responsibility for Poznan and to promise abasic political and economic change of policy. There was only a small minority, faithful to Moscow, which formed the Natolin group, which refused to submit to the decision of the Party and started making anti-Semitic propaganda of its own in accordance with Moscow's directives. "As late as October (1956), the Natolin-people were in complete isolation. But then a second group of conservatives came into being. I will call them the neo-Stalinists in contrast to the old Stalinists Natolin-guard. They were people who to some extent had welcomed Gomulka's coming to power enthusiastically, and who participated considerably in the preparation and the execution of the October Revolution. Then, however, they began to slow down, They were afraid that democratization might go too far, that it might lead to the ideological and political rupture with the "socialist camp" on the one hand, and to the end of the rule of the Party, hence the loss of their own position of power, on the other. Even though they did not want to have anything to do with the Natolin-people, were even personally hostile to them, a cooperation in factual questions began to evolve such as, for instance, in the opposition against Gomulka's agricultural policy which assures the peasants of their property right to their land. "Ever since, the formation of groups in the Party has even progressed further. Today, the following groups exist within the Partys first the Natolin-people or the old-Stalinists; secondly the neo-Stalinists who after the October (1956) events split from the reform movement. Both of these groups are being backed by the overhelming majority of the Party apparatus. Thirdly there are Gomulka's personal followers who are working closely with the former social-democrats of the circle around Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz. They have but weak representation in the Party [page 26] apparatus, but have a very strong following among average members and among the workers generally. Fourthly there are the people who believe that Gomulka did not go far enough, who are reproaching him with having too much consideration for the Soviet Union in his foreign policy and for the Stalinists with regard to domestic affairs. This last group may be again divided into two groups: Those who approve of the evolution toward a parliamentary mutliple-party system and those who demand a complete change of our political and economic system on the Yugoslav pattern, including the autonomy of factories and municipalities..." Was the Party so unharmonious a mosaic as Halperin's friend made out? Almost all observers at the time would have agreed with him. Gomulka's speech at the 10th Plenum (24 October 1957) confirms the impression: "Ideological confusion is the cause of the decomposition of the unity of the Party organization. In the present state of affairs the Party is only formally unified as an organization. In fact, two wings are at work within the Party which in a more or leas explicit manner, are opposing the Party line, sabotaging the decisions of the supreme Party authorities. "It is true that neither the one nor the other of the wings existing within the Party has assumed the organizational form of a faction, but this fact does not at all affect the extent of the damage which they bring to the Party while carrying on various forms of group activity. I would even say that it is easier to cope with a faction which openly presents its program of action, than with a formally unorganized group mixture which most of the time endeavors to hide behind the Party line and at the same time is carrying on its own policy. Such a state of affairs introduces disorientation and confusion into the Party ranks. This results in a whole chain of negative consequences". The greatest dangers to the Party Gomulka considered to be the revisionists and the dogmatists. Each of these factions was again splintered into several groups. This is how Gomulka presented the situation to the 10th Plenum: "The wing that I call revisionist is by no means composed of revisionists only. The revisionist group proper is very small. But the results of its activities are dangerous [page 27] In a wide range. Because the revisionists utilized and are partly still utilizing various means of propaganda especially a part of the press and certain periodicals. "The best representative of the revisionist wing was 'Po Prostu'. Shoulder to shoulder with them are standing the disguised opponents of socialism, people who joined the Party guided by their self-interest, so alien to the Party. There is no room in the Party for either of them. "There is a third category, which could not easily be considered as belonging to the revisionist wing in the Party and which at the same time could not be spoken of as keeping to the Party line. These are the Party members who yield to revisionism, are under its influence, and adopt a wavering attitude toward the Party line. They constitute the periphery of the revisionist wing... "The revisionist wing must be severed from the Party. On such wings the Party, People's Poland and socialism could only fly into an abyss... "We shall liquidate with equal determination any organized or individual manifestations of anti-Party activities conducted from a position of dogmatism. For such people there cannot be any room in the Party either. "Among the advocates of the dogmatic-sectarian attitude one can find some who reject all the transformations which have been taking place in the last few years in the international workers' movement. Even the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which opened such vast, new prospects before socialism, is described as a 'great misfortune' to the workers1 movement. "This dogmatic-sectarian attitude and, the longing for a return to the old methods can only separate the Party from the broad working masses and are thus objectively playing into the hands of forces hostile to socialism. Gomulka then presented his own analysis of the Party members. He divided them into the following groups: [page 28] "The first group are the Communists conscious of their purpose, irrespective of whether they came originally from the Communist Party of Poland and the Polish Workers Party or the Polish Socialist Party... The second group includes members of the Party who support socialism with heart and reason. They are good Party members, although not very lively or active. "The third group are people who joined the Party for their own interests. This group is a mill-stone around the neck of the Party. It is the Party's unnecessary and harmful burden. This group is considerable in size. In principle this group should leave the Party... "There is also in the Party a special category of people particularly undesirable. These are trouble-makers, demagogues and double-faced people, full of negation of socialism and of the Party leadership. Recently we even had strikes organized and demagogic demands put forward by Party members of this sort. "There are also devoted followers of the Church and clergy, conducting activities contrary to Party policy. "Finally there are various speculators and purely criminal elements, who disguise their motives behind a screen of apparent Party activity." Gromulka decided that a drastic purge must be carried out from top to the bottom- He declared: "We must cleanse the Party of liquidators and revisionists and of organizers of group activity opposed to the general line of the Party, free the Party from climbers and corrupt people who are morally decayed, rid ourselves of elements alien to the socialist idea, free the Party from trouble--makers, inveterate drunkards and adventurers, from the cumbersome burden of people indifferent to the Party and socialism." [page 29] The Stalinist (Natolin) Opposition And so the purge or "verification" began. Everybody assumed that the "verification" would-be directed first of all against Gomulka's most bitter enemies, the Stalinists, since they were waging against him a campaign of slander and abuse. They had not for a moment ceased to plot against him, counting on at least the unofficial support and blessing of Moscow. At every meeting of the Central Committee or the provincial Committee's, bitter assaults on Gomulka's policies were made. Gomulka was not entirely passive in the face of this barrage. At a meeting of the Central Committee in May 1957, when Kazimierz Mijal, a former minister of Local Government, demanded that the Polish Party "must acknowledge the primacy of the Soviet Union" Gomulka told him bluntly he was for internationalism but not for servility. Ochab was even more outspoken. He told the Stalinists: "We have had enough speeches written with imported ink... We do not want foreign patterns and lectures. Some people ask that the phrase 'with the Soviet Union at the head' should always be used. This is not always a just principle. In some instances when this has been unjustly used, it has cost us a great deal." The Central Committee on this occasion, decided to expel from the Party one of the most powerful of the Stalinists, Jakub Berman, the former Minister of Security, Stanislaw Radkiewicz and one of the chiefs of the security police, Stanislaw Mietkowski. This defeat did not discourage the Stalinists. At a conference of the Party's Warsaw Committee (on 26 June 1957) a new assault on Gomulka's policies was undertaken by the former chairman of the Committee of Public Security. Wladyslaw Dworakowski. He attacked the decision of the Central Committee to expel Berman and Radkiewicz. He said in effect that Radkiewics had been made a scapegoat for other Party leaders who had been responsible for the police terror. He named Cyrankiewicz, Edward Ochab and Roman Zambrowski. Dworakowski was also reported to have accused G-omulka of weakening the Polish-Soviet alliance through the "introduction of capitalism in the countryside". At the beginning of October 1957 it was disclosed in Warsaw that a mimeographed pamphlet attacking Wladyslaw Gomulka had been circulating through Communist ranks in Poland for two months. The pamphlet called, by "Trybuna Ludu" of 13 November 1957"a characteristic encyclopedia of current Polish dogmatism" consisted of 54 pages. It was signed by "Jan Kosa" (probably a pseudonym) and charged that the first secretary was "leading Poland back to capitalism" and destroying the Party's unity and ideology. It attacked not only Gomulka's agricultural policy and his "coexistence pact" with the Roman Catholic Church but even the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It called on "old Communists" to oppose the [page 30] present Party leaders. A security police investigation failed to uncover the authorship of the pamphlet. That the pamphlet produced some damage to Gomulka's authority within the Party is evident from the fact that he felt necessary to refer to it in hie speech at the 10th Plenum: "Those who combat the Party from a hiding place, secretly publishing or spreading slander, undermining unity and paralyzing Party activity, have ceased to be Communists, even though they might have a long Party record. There can be no room in the Party for such people..." As time went on the influence of the Natolin group decreased. Some were sent out abroad, as for instance Franciszek Mazur and Kazimiers Witassewski appointed Polish ambassador and military attache in Prague respectively, some were removed from the CC (Wiktor Klosiewicz), some deprived of their positions of voivodship secretaries (Stanislaw Pawlak in Warsaw, Feliks Earanowski in Bydgosscz), some were removed from their ministerial positions in the government (Stanislaw Lapot, Marian Minor, Soleslaw Ruminski). The position of the chief exponent of the Stalinist faction Zenon Nowak was most enigmatic. Re-appointed Deputy Prime Minister in October 1956, this leader of the Natolin group mostly opposed to Gomulka's return to power, was reported to have switched to Gomulka's side. Whatever the truth, there is no evidence to the contrary, at any rate not in Nowak's public statements. Consolidation of Gomulka's Power Because of the division of the Party into various factions Gomulka had to postpone the date of the Third Party Congress, first from 1957 to 1958 and then again to the 10 March 1959. Bmulka himself in a speech at the 10th Plenum of the Party (on 24 October 1957) stated quite frankly: "Preparation for the Congress cannot take place in an atmosphere of discussion on dozens of doubts which preoccupy various bourgeois and social-democratic philosophers as to the possibility of building socialism in Poland and in other countries, During the pre-Congress discussion we can and should discuss the forms of putting into practice the principles of proletarian internationalism, but the discussion cannot be conducted from the position of the absurd thesis on the 'geographical situation of Poland'. "The Congress of the Party is confronted with many problems which await solution. In order to solve them in a correct manner, the Congress should be a Congress of a Party whose links are all capable of correctly implementing its decisions. This leads to the following [page 31] conclusion: It is necessary to change the actuation in the Party and to hold the Congress of the Party only in the change d situation." At the beginning of 1959 the situation has changed considerably. The Party has certainly strengthened its position and its political power. It is far from having the iron grip of the Stalinist era but it has also come a long way from the post-October 1956 chaos. The major objectives outlined in the Politburo letter of February 1957 have been achieved. This refers particularly to so-called Party unity. "Revisionist, petty bourgeois, nationalist or chauvinist" tendencies and trends have been driven into the obscure corners of cafes. Polish revisionists are disorganized and powerless; their influence is negligible. As one wit recently remarked, Communism in Poland is a fiction, hence one cannot expect much of a revisionist of a fiction. But, if the revisionists' influence is negligible, their impact is evidently still considerable; the Party in particular is aware of the tremendous potential of revisionism and continues to consider it as the main danger. In his closing speech at the 12th Plenum of the Central Committee (15-18. October 1958) Gomulka himself emphasized this and noted with satisfaction that his view was shared by all the participants in the Plenum, The dogmatists, or hardline Party activists, have been pacified by at least a partial restitution of their privileges and power. Their position, however, is still not undisputed, particularly at the local level where power and influence are divided among the Party secretary, the parish priest and possibly the local government (peasant) representative, but the situation is much better for the Party man than it was two years ago. The "verification" (purge) neither rejuvenated nor strengthened the Party in terms of militancy or ideological fervor. The Party has merely ridden itself of corrupt and passive elements although about 14 per cent of those purged were "removed" for various offenses "against the policy of the Party" and 792 persons were expelled for the "spreading of views and for conducting activities at variance with the Party line". Of 1,266,754 members, 213,945 were dropped from Party lists, thus leaving l,052,809 members on 31 March 1958 ("Tryhuna Ludu" 25 May 1958) From 1 January to 31 August 1958 a total of 9,483 candidates were accepted, among them relatively few workers and youth ("Trybuna Ludu" 30 September 1958). The relatively small Influx of workers and youth into its ranks continues to be a headache, as does the small membership and lack of popularity of the Socialist Youth Union, the Polish Komsomol (only 170,000 members, according to" Sztandar Mlodych" 18-19 October 1958). The alignment of forces within the Central Committee has shifted in Gomulka's favor. The position of the Natolin [page 32] group within the CC reminds one of the position of revisionists in the Party as a whole. With Zenon Noways reported desertion to Gomulka's side the rallying to Gomulka' of Tadeusz Gede, ambassador to Moscow (as evident from his speech during the 12th Plenum and the expulsion of Wiktor Klosiewics at the end of February the group has remained powerless, with only Franciszek Mazur waging his private war from Prague where he is Polish ambassador. (He is said to make regular trips to Moscow stopping in Warsaw to get in touch with his old allies.) The most powerful group, that of Roman Zambrowski, with a handful of Josef Cyrankiewica' s followers, have come very close to Gomulka. They are reported to form an alliance of at least 50 out of just over 75 members of the Committee. The strength of Gomulka's position was clearly reflected at the Central Committee's 12th Plenum. The discussions at this Plenum do reveal various shades of opinion but there was nothing like the direct opposition to Party policy which has been apparent in the past. Resolutions were unanimously approved and the Natolin no longer in a position to attack openly, fell back on criticisms and suggestions. Eugeniusz Szyr, Bole slaw Ruminski and Stanislaw Lapot thought the planned rate of economic development too slow and appealed for more "dynamism" (i.e. Stalinism). Buttinski and Lapot also advocated more firmness in the "socialisation" of the countryside, the latter urging the renewal of the "class struggle" but both significantly admitted that rural socialization could not be carried out overnight. In the discussion on cultural matters at the Plenum there was some criticism by Jersy Putrament Adam Schaff and Leon Kruczkowski but it was of an ambivalent nature and cannot clearly be construed as an attack on the Party line. All three attacked by inference Minister of Education Wladyslaw Bienkowski and the Minister of Higher Education, Stefan Zolkiewski, who is also editor of "Nowa Kultura"; all three discussed the alternatives of persuasion or coercion as an instrument of cultural policy, but in the end the views of all three were ultimately reflected in Gomulka's conclusion that it was wiser to play a waiting game with the literary recalcitrants rather than declare open war. The Katolin is, therefore, still there; its political approach has not changed, so weak has it become, however, that Gomulka could refer to its criticisms, almost contemptuously, as a" small rivulet" flowing near the main stream of discussion, a rivulet hardly worth charting on the present political map of Poland. Gomulka's g position in the nation, always his great asset, is also still strong if only in a negative way. His popularity has dropped tremendously, "but hardly anybody would wish his replacement. He seems to have come to the Third Party Congress in March full of confidence in his own power. Within the Communist bloc he is no longer considered a black sheep. With his Gdansk speech in June 1958 he came sufficiently close to the Soviet line on the Nagy execution and the [page 33] Yugoslav heresy, the recent visits to the USSR produced a number of declarations showing that he has formally returned to the fold. This is probably the price he must pay for the peculiar Polish detours on the common road to the Communist brand of "socialism". Whatever his ways and means no enemy of his can claim that he is not as firm a Communist as he has ever been. [page 34] Appendix I THE PZPR BEFORE THE III CONGRESS (10.3.1959) PZPR LOSSES AFTER 10 YEARS Total Membership On the day it was formed, on 15.12.1948, the Party numbered 1,500,000 members and candidates. According to official data during the period from 15-12.1948 to 31.12.1958 at least 709,000 persons were admitted to the Party. This gives a total number of 2,209,000. According to official data on 31.12.1958 the Party numbered 1,072,000 members. And thus losses due to members leaving the Party, being crossed out of the list of the Party, expulsion, verification and death amount to: 2,209,000 - 1,072,000 = 1,137,000 Workers On 15.12.1948 there were 900,000 workers in the ranks of the Party. On 1.9.58 - 381,000 workers (out of this number only 261,000 employed directly in production). Loss - 519,000. In reality it is greater, but the respective figure cannot be closely established in view of the lack of exact statistical data. Peasants On 15.12.1948 the Party had an its ranks 268,000 peasants. Until 10.3.1954 52,400 peasants were admitted to the Party. The figures of peasants admitted during the period 1O.3.1954 - 30.9.1958 are only fragmentary, but it is quite certain that there were over 6,000 them. On 1.9.1958 there were 125.000 peasants in the PSPR, which means that during the period of 10 years the Party lost over 200,000 peasants. Youth On 31.12.1955 the Party had 15.9 per cent Party members (or candidates) up to the age of 25 but on 1 September 1958 the percentage dropped to 6.8 percent. The process of the ageing of the Party also shows the percentage of members over 50 years of age. On 10.3.1954 there were 16.6 per cent of them, and on 1.9.1958 - 20.6 per cent. [page 35] Remarks Between the First and Second Congress, i.e. till 10.3.1954, 413,449 persons were admitted to the Party ("Nove Drogi" No. 3 of 1954). From September 1953 till December 1954, 217,331 persons were admitted ("Nowe Drogi" No.6 of 1956); however 80,000 admitted before 10.3.1954 have to be deducted from the latter figure ("Nowe Drogi" No.3 of 1954) as already added to the figure of 413,339. Thus, the figure of 137,331 remains. In 1955, 123,843 were admitted ( "Nowe Drogi" No.6 of 1956). During the three first quarters of 1957, more than 11,000 persons joined the Party (calculation based on "Zycie Party" No.11 of 19 57). Between September 1957 and September 1958, 12,334 persons were admitted ("Trybuna Ludu" of 28.12.1958). In the fourth quarter of 1958, 11,878 were admitted ("Trybuna Mazowiecka" of l.1.1959). There are no figures available for 1956. No exact figures concerning the number of admitted workers are available. It is known from calculations that between 1.12.1949 and 1.12.1950 about 25,000 workers joined the Party ("Nowe Drogi" No.l of 1951), and during the first half of 1952 - about 17,000 ("Nowe Drogi" No.8 of 1952). One can estimate that the figure of 413,449, admitted to the Party until 10.3.1954, contained at least 120,000 workers. In the period from September 1957 till September 1958, _4,000 workers were admitted to the Party ("Trybuna Ludu" of 28.12.1958). The official figures concerning the number of admitted peasants are only fragmentary. Between April 1950 and 10.3.1954, 52,443 peasants were admitted ("Nowe Drogi" No. 3 of 1954). In 1955, in the Warsaw Voivodship, at least 1,100 peasants were admitted (see "Nowe Drogi" No.6 of 1956). In the period between September 1957 and September 1958, 3,270 peasants were admitted to the Party ("Trybuna Ludu" of 28.12.1958). [page 36] Appendix II THE NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE PZPR (figures 'below 1,000 have been left out) 15.XII.1948 1,500,000 Zambrowaki's speech at the 1st Party Congress, "Trybuna Ludu" of 21.XII. 1948. 1.III.1949 1,368,000 Bierut's speech at the Second Party Congress, "Nowe Drogi" No.3 of 1954. 11-13.XI. 1949 1,360,000 " " " " " " " 1950 1,240,000 " " " " " " " 1951 1,138,000 " " " " " " " 1952 1,146,000 " " " " " " " 1953 1,226,000 " " " " " " " 28.II.1954 1,296,000 " " " " " " " 31.XII.1955 1,343,000 "Nowe Drogi" No.6 of 19 56. 30,IT, 1951 1,23.1,000 "Zycie Warszawy" 25.X.1957. 30,IX.1958. 1,023,000 "Trybuna Ludu" 28.TIT. 1958 31,XII.1958 1,072,000 "Trybuna Masowiecka" 28.1.1959 [page 37] Appendix III SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PZPR (in absolute figures) Date Workers Peasants Agricultural workers "White collar" employees Others Sources 15. XII.1948 (1st Congress) 900.000 268.000 -x) 260.000 -x) Trybuna Ludu 21.12.48 l. v. 1949 781.000 197.436 56.809 311.772 21.274 Nowe Drogi No. 1.1951 xx) 10. III. 1954 (2nd Congress) 627.000 171.000 -x) 471.000 -x) Worked out one the basis of Nowe Drogi No. 3 1954 31. XII. 1955 575.828 175.358 71.982 485.540 -x) Nowe Drogi No. 6 1956 1. IX. 1958 xxx)381.324 125.015 45.914 431.178 40.146 Booklet by L. Krasucki: "On the Leading Role of the Party" REMARKS: x) lack of data in official statistics xx) approximate figures, worked out on the basis of B.Bierut's report at the 2nd PZPR Congress xxx) out of this number there were 261,261,877 workers directly employed in the production [page 38] Appendix IV SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PZPR (in percentages) Date Workers Peasants Agricultural workers "White collar" employees Others Source 15.XII. 1948 1st Congress 60 18 -x) 17 5 Trybuna Ludu 21.12.1948 1.IV. 1949 57.1 14.4 4.2 22.8 1.5 Nowe Drogi No. 1 1951 XI.1949 51.9 14.3 4.9 26.1 2.8 Special issue of ND with report on Third Plenum 1.X. 1950 50.6 14.1 4.1 28.9 2.3 Nowe Drogi No.1 1951 10.III. 1954 2nd Congress 48.3 a) 13.2 -b) 36.4 2.1 Nowe Drogi No.6 1956 31. XII. 1955 42.8 13 5.4 36.1 2.7 Nowe Drogi No.6 1956 30. IX. 1957 39.9 12.8 4.8 33.8 9.3 Zycie Warszawy 25.10.57 30. IX. 1958 37.3 12.2 4.5 42.1 3.9 Ludwik Krasucki "On the Leading Role of the Party (January 1959) REMAKS: x) data have not been published, agricultural workers have either been incorporated into "peasants" or to "workers or partly to both of those columns a)this column includes -- no doubt -- agricultural workers b) data have not been published. Probably for reasons named under a) [page 39] Appendix V SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PZPR (as at 1 September 1958)x) There are workers in the Party including 31324 That is 37.3% those directly employed in the production 261877 " " 25.6% Agricultural Workers 45,914 " " 4.5% Peasants 125,015 " " 12.2% "White Collar" employees including: 431,178 " " 42.1% engineers, architects, technicians, masters & miner foremen 75,734 " " 7.4% leading apparatus of the economic administration 41,338 " " 7.4% agronomists and agricultural "intelligentsia" 7,632 " " 0.7% scientific workers totally 3,842 " " 0.4% teachers 32,487 " " 3.2% health service employees 7,512 " " 0.7% artists, journalists, writers and other creative employees 3,183 " " 0.3% officials 161,331 " " 15.8% Others (handworkers, housewives, pensioneers). 40,146 " " 3.9% x) Ludwik Krasucki: "On the Leading Role of the Party" (January 1959) [page 40] Appendix VI THE AGE OF PZPR MEMBERS IN PERCENTAGE Date Up to 25 years Over 50 years Source 10. III. 1954 2nd Congress 14.2 16.6 "Nowe Drogi" No. 3 1954 31.XII. 1955 15.9 17.4 "Nowe Drogi" No. 6 1956 1.IX. 1958 6.8 20.6 L. Krasucki: "On the Leading Role of the Party" (January 1959 [page 41] Appendix VII THE NUMBER OF BASIC PARTY ORGANIZATIONS OF THE PZPR Date Number Source 15. XII. 1948 46,700 "Trybuna Ludu" 21.XII. 1948 30.IX. 1958 51,418 "Trybuna Ludu" 28.XII.1958 [page 42] Appendix VIII NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF POLISH SOCIALIST PARTY -- PPS (Before creation of PZPR) Date Strength Source August 1946 250,000 "Robotnik" 27.VIII.1946 March 1947 Nearly 700,000 "Robotnik" 24.III.1947 December 1947 750,000 "Robotnik" 17.XII.1947x) December 1948 520,000 "Robotnik" 15.XII.1948xx) x) including 130,000 peasants ("Robotnik" 9.VII.1947) xx) the reduction of strength caused by "purges" before the merger with the PPR (Polish Workers Party) [page 43] Appendix IX SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF PPS (in percentages) Date Workers Peasants "White collar" employees Others Sources 30.VI.1947 60 16 14 10 "Robotnik" 21.X.1947 17.XII. 1947 60 15 - - "Robotnik" 17.XII. 1947 29.IX. 1948 57 10 23 10 "Przeglad Socjalistyczny" No. 9-12, 1948 [page 44] Appendix X NUMBERICAL STRENGTH OF THE POLISH WORKERS' PARTY -- PPR (Before creation of PZPR) Date Strength Sources January 1945 30,000 Booklet of 1946 by R. Zambrowski: "For A Mass, Million-Member Party" July 1945 160,000 " " " October 1945 210,000 " " " December 1945 235,000 "Nowe Drogi" No.1, 1954 December 1946 555,000 " " " " December 1947 820,000 " " " " December 1948 1,006,000 " " " " [page 45] Appendix XI SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF PPR (in percentages) Date Workers Agricultural workers Peasants "White collar" employees Others Source 1945 62.2 - 28.2 9.6 - "Nowe Drogi" 15.XII. 48 53.6 5.2 21.3 17.6 2.3 " " [page 46] Appendix XII NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF POLAND -- KPP Date Strength Source 1924 5,000 members According to Piatnicki's report at the 5th Comintern Congress July 1930 3,300 " "Polityka" 29.XI.1958 March 1931 4,500 " " " Oct. 1931 6,800 " " " March 1932 8,000 " " " March 1933 9,200 " " " 1935 10,300 " "Polityka" 20-27.XII. 1958 [page 47] Appendix XIII SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE KPP IN 1933 [*] (in percentages) Factory workers 17% Workers of the small industry and others 31% Unemployed 18% Agricultural workers 4% Peasants 30% * Taken from "Polityka" 29 November 1958 [page 48] Appendix XIV THE NATIONAL COMPOSITION OF THE KPP IN 1933 * (in percentages) Poles 71% Jews 26% Ukrainians 3% * Taken from "Polityka" 29 November 1958 [page 49] Appendix XV THE LEADERS OF THE POLISH COMMUNISTS AND THEIR FATE Name of the Party Name of the leaders What happened to them Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKP iL) Luxemburg Rosa Murdered by German officiers in Berlin on 15 January 1919 Polish Socialist Party - Left (PPS-Lewica) Sochacki-Czeszejko Jerzy Liquidated in Moscow in 1933 Communist Workers Party of Poland (KPRP) Warski-Warszawski Adolf Kostrzewa Wera (Koszutska Maria) Walexki-Horwitz Maksymilian Liquidated in the years 1937-1938 in Soviet Union Communist Party of Poland (KPP) Leszcynski-Lenski Julian Pruchniak-Sewer Edward Ryng-Heryng Jerzy Liquidated in Soviet Union in 1937-1938 Polish Workers Party (PPR) Nowotko Marceli Shot by a Communist Molojec for alleged collaboration with the Gestapo in November 1942 Finder Pawel Arrested by the Gestapo in November 1943 and later executed Gomulka Wladyslaw Removed from the leadership on 3 September 1948 and later arrested Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) Bierut Boleslaw Died in Moscow in March 1956 Ochab Edward Resigned in OCtober 1956 Gomulka Wladyslaw The present leader [page 50] Appendix XVI MEMBERSHIP OF THE POLITBURO (1945-1959) 1945 Polish Workers Party 1948 Polish Workers Party 1948 United Workers Party 1950 United Workers Party 1952 United Workers Party Gomulka Wladyslaw - - - - Berman Jakub Berman Jakub Berman Jakub Berman Jakub Berman Jakub Minc Hilary Minc Hilary Minc Hilary Minc Hilary Minc Hilary Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Spychalski Mardian Spychalski Marian Spychalski Marian - - Bore jsza Jerzy - - - - Modzelewski Zygmunt - - - - Bierut Boleslaw Bierut Boleslaw Bierut Boleslaw Bierut Boleslaw Jozwiak Franciszek jozwiak Franciszek Joswiak Franciszek Jozwiak Franciszek Zawadzki Aleksander Zawadzki Aleksander Zawadzki Aleksander Zawadzki Aleksander Radkiewicz Stanislaw Radkiewicz Stanislaw Radkiewicz Stanislaw Radkiewicz Stanislaw Mazur Franciszek Mazur Franciszek(1) Masur Francissek Mazur Franciszek Ochab Edward(1) Ochab Edward(1) Ochab Edward(1) Ochab Edward Chelchowsi Hilary (1) Chelchowski Hilary(1) Chelchowaki Hilary(1) Chelchowski Hilary(1) Cyrankiewicz Jozef Cyrenkiewicz Jozef Cyrankiewicz Jozef Swiatkowski Henryk - - Rapacki Adam Repacki Adam Rapacki Adam Rokossowski Konstanty Rokossowski Konstan Nowak Zonon(1) Nowak Zenon Matuszewski Stofan(1) Matuszewski Stefan(1) Dworakowski Wladyslaw(1) (1) candidate-member [page 51] Membership of the Politburo (1945-1959) - continued 1953 1954 July 1956 October 1956 Bierut Boleslaw Bierut Boleslaw - - Berman Jakub Berman Jakub - - Cyrankiewicz Jozef Cyrankiewicz Jozef Cyrankiewicz Jozef Cyramkiewicz Jozef Jozwiak Franciszek Jozwiak Franciszek Jozwiak Franciszek - Mazur Franciszek Mazur Franciszek Mazur Franciszek - Minc Hilary Minc Hilary Minc Hilary - Ochab Edward Ochab Edward Ochab Edward Ochab Edward Nowak Zenon Nowak Zenon Nowak Zenon - Radkiewicz Stanislaw Radkiewicz Stanislaw - - Rapacki Adam Rapacki Adam(1) Rapacki Adam Rapacki Adam Rokossowski Konstanty Rokossowski Konstanty Rokossowski Konstanty - Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Zawadzki Aleksander Zawadzki Aleksander Zawadzki Aleksander Zawadzki Aleksander Matuszewski Stefan (1) - - - Dworakowaki Wladyslaw (1) Dworakowski Wladyslaw Dworakowaki Wladyslaw - chelchowski Hilary (1) Chelchowski Hilary (1) Chelchowski Hilary - Gierek Edward - Nowak Roman - Jedrychowski Stefan (1) Jedrychowski Stefan Stawinski Eugeniusz (1) Loga-Sowinski Ignacy Morawski Jerzy Gomulka Wladyslaw (1) candidate-member [page 52] Appendix XVII THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE PARTY SECRETARIAT (1948-1959) 1948 1950 1953 1954 Bierut Boleslaw Bierut Boleslaw Bierut Boleslaw Bierut Boleslaw Berman Jakub - - - Cyrankiewicz Jozef Cyrankiewicz Jozef - - Minc Hilary - - - Swiatkowski Henryk - - - Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman - Zawadzki Aleksanier Zawadzki Aleksander Zawadzki Aleksander - Ochab Edward Ochab Edward Ochab Edward Nowak Zenon Nowak Zenon - Mazur Franciszek Masur Franciszek Mazur Franciszek Dworakowski Wladyslaw Dworakowski Wladyslaw Pszczolkowski Edmund - [page 53] The Membership of the Party Secretariat (1948-1959) - continued July 1956 October 1956 May 1957 Ochab Edward Ochab Edward - Mazur Franciszek - - Matwin Wladyslaw Matwin Wladyslaw Matin Wladyslaw Morawski Jerzy - Morawski Jerzy Albrecht Jerzy Albrecht Jerzy Albrecht Jerzy Gierek Edward Gierek Edward Gierek Edward Jarosinski Witold Jarosinaki Witold Jarosinski Wittold Zambrowski Roman Zambrowski Roman Gomulka Wladyslaw Gomulka Wladyslaw Kliszko Zenon [page 54] Appendix XVIII MEMBERSHIP OF THE PZPR CENTRAL COMMITTEE (1948-1959) The first Central Committee of the Polish Communist Party (the PPR) was probably elected or nomnated in 1942, but the ful list of the members was never published. From various Party publications the following names can be established: Nowotko Marceli Finder Pawel Fornalska Malgorzata Wieczorek Jozef Malinowski Franciszek Kowalczyk Anastazy Krasicki Janek Gomulka Wladyslaw Bierut Boleslaw Chelchowski Hilary Jozwiak Franciszek Our tables show all the members of the Central Committee from 1948 when the present Party, the Polish United Workers Party was born, to the current Central Committee at the Third Congress of the Party. [page 55] The membership of the Central Committee (1948-1959) - continued 1948 The first (unity) Congress 1953 1954 The Second Congress 1959 On the eve of the Third Congress Albrecht Jerzy Albrecht Jerzy Albrecht Jerzy Albrecht Jerzy Alster Antoni Alster Antoni Alster Antoni Alster Antoni Arski Stefan Arski Stefan Baranowski Feliks Baranowski Feliks Baranowski Feliks Baranowski Feliks Berman Jakub (3) Blinowski Franciszek Berman Jakub Berman Jakub Bierut Boleslaw (4) Borizilowski Hilary Burski Alexksander Burski Alekaander Bordzilowski Jerzy Cyrankiewicz Jozef Chelchowski Hilary Chelchowski Hilary Chelchowski Hilary Daniszewski Tadeusz Cwik Tadeusz Cwik Tadeusz Cyrankiewicz Jozef Dabrowski Konstanty Cyrankiewicz Jozef Cyrankiewicz Jozef Daniszewski Tadeusz Dietrich Tadeusz Daniszewski Tadeusz Daiszewski Tadeusz Dabrowski Konstanty Dluski Ostap Dabrowski Konstanty Dabrowski Konstanty Dietrich Tadeusz Dolsnski Adam Dietrich Tadeusz Dietrich Tadeusz Dluski Ostap Dworakowaki Wladyslaw Dluski Cstap Dluski Ostap Dolinski Adam Gajaler Roman Duniak Stanislaw Dunkak Stanislaw Dworakowski Wlaiyslaw Gede Tadeusz Dolinski Adam Dolinski Adam Wiedler Franciszek (5) Gierek Edward Dworakowski Wladyslaw Dworakowski Wladyslaw Gajzler Roman Gomulka Wladyslaw (6) Fiedler Franciszek Fiedler Franciszek Gede Tadeusz Hoffman Mieczyslaw Gomulka Wladyslaw 1) Gede Tadeuaz 2) Gierek Edward Izydorczyk Jan 1) Removed Nov. 1949 2) Nominated March 1953 3) Removed after Minth Plenum 4) Died March 1956 5) Died November 1956 6) Nominated to CE on 19 Oct. 1956 [page 56] The Membership of the Central Committe (1948-1959) - continued 1948 The First (unity) Congress 1953 1954 The Second Congress 1959 On the eve of the Third Congress Hoffman Mieczyslaw Hoffman Mieczyslaw Hoffman Mieczyslaw Jablonski Henryk Izydorczyk Jan Izydorczyk Jan Izydorczyk Jan Jarosinski Witold Jablonski Henryk Jablonski Henryk Jablonsky Henryk Jaroszewicz Piotr Jaroszewicz Piotr Jaroszewicz Piotr Jarosinski Witold Jaworska Helena 4) Jedrychowsk Stefan Jedrychowski Stefan Jaroszewicz Piotr Jedrychowski Stefan Jozwiak Franciszek Jozwiak Franciszek Jedrychowski Stefan Jozwiak Franciszek Jozwiak Franciszek Jozwiak Franciszek Jedrychowski Stefan Jozwiak Franciszek Kasman Leon Kasman Leon Jozwiak Franciszek Kalinowski Steran Kluszynska Dorota Kluszynska Dorota Falinowski Stefan Kasman Leon Kole Julian Kole Julian Easman Leon Kliszko Zenon 5) Kozlowska Helena Kozlowska Helena Elosiewicz Wiktor 2) Kole Julian Korczyc Wladyslaw Korczyc Wladyslaw Eole Julian Kowarz Jan Kurylowicz Adams Kurylowicz Adam Eozlowska Helena Kruczek Wladyslaw Lange Oskar Lange Oskar Kruczek Wladyslaw Kuligowski Antoni Lewikowski Waclaw Lewikowski Waclaw Kuligowski Antoni Lange Oskar Machno Jozef Machno Jozef Lange Oskar Lewikowski Waclaw Matwin Wladyslaw Matwin Wladyslaw Lewikowski Waclaw Loge-Sowinsky Ignacy 6) Matuszewski Stefan Matuszwski Stefan Lapot Stanieslaw Lapot Stanisalw Mazur Franciszek Mazur Franciszek Machno Jozef Machno Jozef Mietkowski Mieczyslaw Mietkowski Mieczyslaw Matwin Wladyslaw Matwin Wldyslaw Mijal Kazmierz Mijal Kazimierz Mazur Franciszek Mazur Franciszek Minc Hilary Mino Hilary Mietkowski Mieczyslaw 3) Mijal Kazimierz Modzelewski Zygmunt Modzelewski Zygmunt Mijal Kazimierz Minc Hilary Motyka Lucjan Motyka Lucjan Minc Hilary Misiaszek Stefan Nowak Zenon Naszkowski Marian 1) Misiaszek Stefan Moczar Mieczyslaw 7) 1) Nominated July 1950 2) 2)Removed 1 March 1958 3) Removed after Eight Plenum 4) Nominated 28 July 1956 5) Nominated 19 Oct. 1956 6) Nominated 19 Oct. 1956 7) Nominated 28 July 1956 [page 57] The membership of the Central Committe (1948-1959) - continued 1948 The First (unity) Congress 1953 1954 The Second Congress 1959 On the eve of the Third Congress Ochab Edward Nowak Zenon Modzelewsk Zygmunt 5) Morawski Jerzy Oks Mateusz Ochab Edward Morawski Jerzy Motyka Lucjan Pasenkiewicz Kazimierz Oks Mateusz Motyka Lucjan Naszkowski Marian Popiel Mieozyslaw Pasenkiewicz Kazimierz Naszkowski Marian Nowak Roman Pragierowa Eugenia Popiel Mieczyslaw Nowak Roman Nowak Zenon Radkiewicz Stanislaw Poplawski Stanislaw 2) Nowak Zenon Ochab Edward Rapacki Adam Pragierowa Eugenia Ochab Edward Oks Mateusz Reczek Wlodzimierz Pszcolkowski Edmund 3) Oks Mateusz Olszewski Jozef Romkowski Roman Radkiewicz Stanislaw Olszewski Jozef Pawlak Stanislaw Rusinek Kazimierz Rapacki Adam Pawlak Stanislaw Pezczolkowski Edmund Rybicki Marian Reczek Wlodzimierz Poplawski Stanislaw 6) Rapacki Adam Skowronski Ignacy Rokossowski Konstanty 4) Pszczolkowski Edmund Reczek Wlodzimierz Skrzeszewski Stanislaw Romkowski Roman Radkiewicz Stanislaw 7) Ruminski Boleslaw 11) Spychalski Marian 1) Rusinek Kazimierz Rapacki Adam Rybicki Marian Swiatkowski Henryk Rybicki Marian Teczek Wlodzimierz Skrzeszewski Stanislaw Swietlik Konrad Skowronski Ignacy Rokossowski Konstanty 8) Spychalski Marian 12) Strzeleck Ryszard Skrzeszewski Stanislaw Romkowski Roman 9) Stawinski Eugeniusz 13) Szozesniak Jozef Swiatkowski Henryk Rybicki Marian Strzelecki Ryszard Szymanowaki Zygmunt Strzelecki Ryszard Strzelecki Ryszard Szyr Eugeniusz Szyr Eugeniusz Szczesniak Jozef Sztachelski Jerzy Swietlik Konrad Wierblowski Stefan Sztachelski Jerzy Szynanowski Zygmunt 10) Tatarkowna Michaline 14) Witaszewski Kazimierz Szymanowski Zygmunt Szyr Eugeniusz Titkow Walenty Wolski Wladyslaw Swietlik Konrad Tokaraki Julian Zambrowski Roman Titkow Walenty 1) Removed and arrested in 1950 2)According to "Trybuna Ludu" 29.1.1952 3)Nominated in March 1953 4) Nominated in November 1949 5) Died April 1954 6) Sent back to USSR 7) Removed after 9th Plenum 8) Sent back to USSR Octber 1956 9) Removed January 1955, arrested April 1956 10) Died Mary 1956 11) Nominated 28 July 1956 12) Nominated to CC on 19 October 1956 13) Nominated 28 July 1956 14) Nominated 28 July 1956 [page 58] The Membership of the Central Committee (1948-1959) - continued 1948 The First (unity Congress 1953 1954 The Second Congress 1959 On the eve of the Third Congress Zarzycki Janusz Szyr Eugeniusz Tokarski Julian Wasilkowska Zofja Zawadzki Aleksander Wierblowski Stefan Wasilkowska Zofia Werblan Andrzej 1) Zawadzki Stanislaw Witaszewski Kazimierz Wierblowski Stefan Witaszewski Kazimierz Wolski Wladyslaw Witaszewaki Kazimierz Wierblowski Stefan Zambrowski Roman Wojas Pawl Wojas Pawel Zarzycki Janusz Zambrowski Roman Zamdzki Aleksaander Zawdzki Stanislaw Zolkiewski Stefan Zolkiewski Stefan 1) Nominated 28 July 1956 [page 59] The Candidate Members of the Central Committee (1948-1959) - continued 1948 The First (unity) Congress 1953 1954 The Second Congress 1959 Third Congress Blinowski Franciszek Blinowski Franciszek Bendek Boleslaw Bendek Boleslaw Bodalski Mieczyslaw Bodalski Miecyslaw Bodalski Mieczyslaw Bodalski Mieczyslaw Borejsza Jerzy Borejsza Jerzy Brodzinski Stanislaw Brodzinski Stanislaw Ciepielowa Helena Ciepielowa Helena Bydzynska Celina Budzynska Celina Dabek Stefan Dabek Stefan Domagala Czeslaw Domagala Dzeslaw Elozewski Maciej Elczewski Maciej Dominski Jerzy Dominski Jerzy Finkelsztajn Leon Finkelsztajn Leon Finkielsztajn Julian Finkielsztejn Julian Geizler Roman Geizler Roman Granas Romana Granas Romana Hetmanska Wiktoria Granas Romana 2) Jablonski Jan Jablonski Jan Hochfeld Jlian Hetmanska Wiktoria Jagielski Mieczyslaw Jagielski Mieczyslaw Jaszczuk Borys Hochfeld Julian Jaszczuk Boleslaw Jaszczuk Boleslaw Kaczmarski Wilhelm Jarosinski Witold 3) Jaworska Helena 6) Kaczmarski Wilhelm Kalinowski Jozef Jaszczuk Borys Kaczmarski Wilhelm Kalinowaki Jozef Kaminski Antoni Kaczmarski Wilhelm Kalinowski Jozef Klecha Jan Kliszko Zenon 1) Kalinowski Jozef Klecha Jan Kownlski Boleslaw Klosiewicz Wiktor Kaminski Antoni Kowalski Boleslaw Krajewski Michal Kowalczewski Marian Klosiewicz Wiktor Krajewski Michal Kruczkowski Leon Kozlowski Jan Kowalxzewski Marian Kruczkowski Leon Kuleszynska Wanda 8) Krajewski Jakub Kozlowski Jan Lewinska Pelagia Lewinska Pelagia Kubecki Ignacy Krajewski Jakub Lorek Feliks Lorek Feliks Kuligowski Ryszard Krajewski Michal 4) Laszewicz Arkadiusz Laszewicz Arkadiusz Kurylowicz Boleslaw Kruczek Wladyslaw 5) Minor Marian Minor Marian Lech Jan Kubecki Ignacy Moczar Mieczyslaw 7) Musialowa Aljoja Loga-Sowinski Ignacy Kuligowski Ryszard Musialowa alicja Nagcrzanski Jozef 1) Removed November 1949 2) Nominated November 1949 3) Nominated November 1949 4) Nominated November 1949 5) Nominated March 1953 6) Nominated in CC 28 July 1956 7) Nominated in CC 28 July 1956 8) Nominated Sept. 1955 [page 60] The Candidate Members of the Central Committee (1948-1959) - continued 1948 The First (unity) Congress 1953 1954 The Second Congress 1959 On the eve of the Third Congress Lapot Stanislaw Kurylowicz Boleslaw Nagorzanski Jozef Nieszporek Ryszard Metera Piotr Lech Jan Nieszpcrek Ryszard Pilawka Stanislaw Minor Marian Loga-Sowinksi Ignacy Pilawka Stanislaw Piwowarska Irena Moczar Mieczyslaw Lapot Stanislaw Piwowarska Irena Popiel Mieczyslaw Morawski Jerzy Metera Piotr Popiel Mieczyslaw Pryma Jerzy Nieszporek Ryszard Minor Marian Pryma Jerzy Ptasinski Jan Nowak Roman Moczar Mieczyslaw Ptasinski Jan Putrament Jerzy Clszewaki Jozef Morawski Jerzy Putrament Jerzy Schaff Adam Orlowska Edwards Nieszporek Ryszard Ruminaski Boleslaw 1) Sendek Jan Petruczynik Feliks Nowak Roman Schaff Adam Sokorski Wlodzimierz Pietrzyk Mieczyslaw Olszewaki Jozef Sendek Jan Starewicz Artur Piwowarska Irena Orlowska Edwarda Skowronski Ignacy Staszewski Stefan Pszczolkowaki Edmund Petruczynik Feliks Sokorski Wlodzimierz Tepicht Jerzy Putrament Jerzy Pietrzyk Mieczyslaw Starewicz Artur Tkaczow Stanislaw Ruminski Boleslaw Piwowarska Irena Staszewski Stefan Trusz Jan Salcewicz Jozef Pszczolkowski Edmund Stawinski Eugeniusz 2) Wachowicz Franciszek Sokorski Wlodzimierz Putrament Jerzy Szymanski Stanislaw 3) Wagrowski Mieczyslaw Szymanski Stanislaw Rumanski Boleslaw Tatarkowna Michalina 4) Wagrowski Mieczyslaw 1) Nominated to CC 28 July 1956 2) Nominated to CC 28 July 1956 3) Died October 1956 4) Nominated to CC 28 July 1956 [page 61] The Candidate Members of the Central Committe (1948-1959) - continued 1948 The First (unity) Congress 1953 1954 The Second Congress 1959 On the eve of the Third Congress Tepicht Jerzy Salcewicz Jozef Tepicht Jerzy Wrfel Roman Tkaczow Stanislaw Sokorski Wlodzimierz Tkaczow Stanislaw Wysokinski Stanislaw Tokarski Julian Stawinski Eugeniusz 1) Trusz Jan Wasilkowska Zofia Staszewski Stefan 2) Wachowicz Franciszek Wagrowski Mieczyslaw Szymanski Stanislaw Wagrowski Mieczyslaw Werblan Andrzej Tepicht Jerzy Werblan Andrzej 5) Werfel Roman Tkaczow Stanislaw Wagrowski Mieczyslaw Werblan Andrzej Tepicht Jerzy Werblan Andrzej 5) Werfel Roman Tkaczow Stanislaw Werfel Roman Wojas Pawel Titkow Walenty 3) Wysokinski Starislaw Wudzki Leon Tokarski Julian Wysokinski Stanislaw Wagrowski Mieczyslaw Zolkiewski Stefan Wasilkowska Zofia Werblan Andrzej Werfel Roman Wojas Pawel Wudzki Leon Wysckinski Stanislaw Zolkiewski Stefan 1) Nominated April 1949 2) Nominated April 1949 3) Nominated March 1953 4) Nominated March 1953 5) Nominated to CC July 1956 [page 62] Appendix XIX MEMBERSHIP OF THE AUDIT COMMISSION OF THE PARTY 1948 The First Congress 1954 The Second Congress Balicki Zygmunt Arski Stefan Bielski Roman Balicki Zygmunt Fotek Antoni Bakowski Karol Leczycki Franciszek Bielski Leon Rozga Stefan Czerwinski Marian Stawinski Eugeniusz Elczewski Maciej Szafranski Nehryk Goralski Wladyslaw Szwalbe Kowalczyk Stanislaw Tureniec Mieczyslaw Leczycki Franciszek Wojciechowski Grzegorz Marzec Mieczyslaw Zaruk-Michalski ALedksander Matuszewski Stefan Orlowska Edwarda Pragierowa Eugenia Rozga Waclaw Rygliszyn Jozef Stachacz Stanislaw Stasiak Leon Wicha Wladyslaw Wojciechowski Grzegorz Zarzycki Janusz Zieleniec Leon Zaruk-Michalski Aledksander [page 63] Appendix XX MEMBERSHIP OF THE CENTRAL PARTY CONTROL COMISSION 1948 The First Congress 1954 The Second Congress Brystygier Julja Adalinska Halina Czerwinski Marian Cabo Wojciech Dechnik Jozef Czerwinski Marian Domagala Czeslaw Dolinski Adam Feder Teodora Gajzler Roman Geizler Roman Jankowska Ludwika Heller Rudolf Jozwiak Franciszek 1) Jankowska Ludwika Kalinowski Stefan Kalinowski Stefan Kedzierski Jan 2) Kaminska Maria Kowalczyk Jozef Kembrowski Eugeniusz Kozlowska Janian 3) Kedzierski Jan Kromer Tadeusz Komar Waclaw Krupinski Tadeusz Kowalczyk Jozef Kubica Walenty Lewikowski Waclaw Malecka Maria 4) Lewinska Pelagia Misiaszek Stefan Malecka Maria Mortasowa Wladyslawa Marczewski Stanislaw Nowak Roman 6) Misiaszek Stefan Ochal Aleksander Nowicka Malgorzata Paterowa Zofia Pasenkiewicz Kazimierz Polturzycki Bronislaw Paterowa Zofia Pilawka Stanislaw Petruczynik Feliks Rowinski Waclaw 7) Pieczynska Maria Rutkowski Szymon Rowinski Waclaw Skrzypkowski Waclaw Rutkowski Jan Sobkowicz Kazimierz Staskiak Leon Starzec Adolf Walczyk Stanislaw Witaszewski Kanislaw Witaszewski Kazimierz Wudzki Leon Zachariasz Szymon 1) Charirman: dismissed from post 28 July 1956 2) Died February 1958 3) Coopted 28 July 1956 4) Died November 1953 5) Coopted 28 July 1956 6) Coopted and appointed chairman 28 July 1956 7) Died February 1956 [page 64] Membership of the Party Central Control Commission - continued 1948 The First Congress 1954 The Second Congress Swietlik Konrad Zebrun Olga Sztachelski Jerzy Zubowicz Wladyslaw Szydlowski Jozef Tomorowicz Janusz Treblinska Magdalena Wudzki Leon Zachariasz Szymon End
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