Władysław Gomułka
Władysław Gomułka | |
---|---|
First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party | |
In office 21 October 1956 – 20 December 1970 | |
Prime Minister | Józef Cyrankiewicz |
Chairman | Aleksander Zawadzki Edward Ochab Marian Spychalski |
Preceded by | Edward Ochab |
Succeeded by | Edward Gierek |
First Secretary of the Polish Workers' Party | |
In office 23 November 1943 – 3 September 1948 | |
Preceded by | Paweł Finder |
Succeeded by | Bolesław Bierut |
Personal details | |
Born | Krosno, Austria-Hungary | 6 February 1905
Died | 1 September 1982 Konstancin, Polish People's Republic | (aged 77)
Resting place | Powązki Military Cemetery, Warsaw |
Nationality | Polish |
Political party |
|
Spouse | Liwa (Zofia) née Szoken (1902–1986) |
Władysław Gomułka (Polish:
Born in 1905 in
Following the
In 1967 to 1968, Gomułka allowed outbursts of anti-Zionist and antisemitic political campaign,[2][3] pursued primarily by others in the Party, but utilized by Gomułka to retain power by shifting the attention from the stagnating economy. Many of the remaining Polish Jews left the country. At that time he was also responsible for persecuting protesting students and toughening censorship of the media. Gomułka supported Poland's participation in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
In the
Childhood and education
Władysław Gomułka was born on 6 February 1905 in Białobrzegi Franciszkańskie village on the outskirts of
Gomułka attended schools in Krosno for six or seven years, until the age of thirteen when he had to start an apprenticeship in a metalworks shop. Throughout his life Gomułka was an avid reader and accomplished a great deal of self-education, but remained a subject of jokes because of his lack of formal education and demeanor.[4] In 1922, Gomułka passed his apprenticeship exams and began working at a local refinery.
Early revolutionary activities
Involvement with labor unions and first imprisonment
The re-established Polish state of Gomułka's teen years was a scene of growing political polarization and radicalization. The young worker developed connections with the radical Left, joining the Siła (Power) youth organization in 1922 and the Independent Peasant Party in 1925. Gomułka was known for his activism in the metal workers and, from 1922, chemical industry unions. He was involved in union-organized strikes and in 1924, during a protest gathering in Krosno, participated in a polemical debate with Herman Lieberman. He published radical texts in leftist newspapers. In May 1926 the young Gomułka was for the first time arrested but soon released because of worker demands. The incident was the subject of a parliamentary intervention by the Peasant Party. In October 1926, Gomułka became a secretary of the managing council in the Chemical Industry Workers Union for the Drohobych District and remained involved with that communist-dominated union until 1930. He around this time learned on his own basic Ukrainian.[5][6]
In late 1926, while in Drohobych, Gomułka became a member of the illegal-but-functioning Communist Party of Poland (Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) and was arrested for political agitation. Technically, at this time he was a member of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, which was an autonomous branch of the Communist Party of Poland. He was interested primarily in social issues, including the trade and labor movement, and concentrated on practical activities.[4][7] In mid-1927, Gomułka was brought to Warsaw, where he remained active until drafted for military service at the end of the year. After several months, the military released him because of a health problem with his right leg. Gomułka returned to communist party work, organizing strike actions and speaking at gatherings of workers at all major industrial centers of Poland. During this period he was arrested several times and lived under police supervision.[5][7]
Gomułka was an activist in the leftist labor unions from 1926 and in the Central Trade Department of the KPP
In August 1932, he was arrested by the Sanation police while participating in a conference of textile worker delegates in Łódź. When he later tried to escape, Gomułka sustained a gunshot wound in the left thigh which ultimately left him with permanent walking impairment.[5]
Journey to the Soviet Union and second imprisonment
Despite being sentenced to a four-year prison term on 1 June 1933, he was temporarily released for surgery on his injured leg in March 1934. Following his release, Gomułka requested that the KPP send him to the Soviet Union for medical treatment and further political training. He arrived in the Soviet Union in June and went to the
Gomułka resumed his communist and labor conspiratorial activities and kept advancing within the KPP organization until, as the secretary of the Party's Silesian branch, he was arrested in Chorzów in April 1936. He was then tried by the District Court in Katowice and sentenced to seven years in prison where he remained jailed until the beginning of World War II. Ironically, this internment most likely saved Gomułka's life, because the majority of the KPP leadership would be murdered in the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, caught up in the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin's orders.
Gomułka's experiences turned him into an extremely suspicious and distrustful person and contributed to his lifelong conviction that
World War II
Invasion of Poland
The outbreak of the war with Nazi Germany freed Gomułka from his prison confinement. On 7 September 1939, he arrived in Warsaw, where he stayed for a few weeks, working in the besieged capital on the construction of defensive fortifications. From there, like many other Polish communists, Gomułka fled to eastern Poland which was invaded by the Soviet Union on 17 September 1939. In Białystok he ran a home for former political prisoners arriving from other parts of Poland. To be reunited with his luckily found wife, at the end of 1939 Gomułka moved to Soviet-controlled Lviv.[9]
Like other members of the dissolved Communist Party of Poland, Gomułka sought a membership in the Soviet
The circumstances of the Polish communists' lives changed dramatically after 1941 German attack on the Soviet positions in eastern Poland. Reduced to penury in now German-occupied Lviv, the Gomułkas managed to join Władysław's family in Krosno by the end of 1941. However, a momentous development soon took place in the sphere of communist political activity: in January 1942, Joseph Stalin reestablished in Warsaw a Polish communist party under the name of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR).[9]
In 1942, Gomułka participated in the reformation of a Polish communist party (the KPP was destroyed in
In late 1942 and early 1943, the PPR experienced a severe crisis because of the murder of its first secretary Marceli Nowotko. Gomułka participated in the party investigation directed against another member of the leadership, Bolesław Mołojec, that resulted in Mołojec's execution. Together with Paweł Finder, who was made First Secretary of the party, and Franciszek Jóźwiak, Gomułka (under the pseudonym "Wiesław") was included in the Party's new inner leadership, established in January 1943. The Central Committee was enlarged in the following months to include Bolesław Bierut, among others.[9]
In February 1943, Gomułka led the communist side in a series of important meetings in Warsaw between the PPR and the Government Delegation of the London-based Polish government-in-exile and the Home Army. The talks produced no results because of the divergent interests of the parties involved and a mutual lack of confidence. The Delegation officially discontinued the negotiations on April 28, three days after the Soviet government broke diplomatic relations with the Polish government.[9] He became the Party's main ideologist. He wrote the "What do we fight for?" (O co walczymy?) publication dated 1 March 1943, and the much more comprehensive declaration that emerged under the same title in November. "Wiesław" supervised the Party's main editorial and publishing undertaking.[9]
Gomułka made efforts, largely unsuccessful, to secure for the PPR cooperation of other political forces in occupied Poland. Bierut, meanwhile, was indifferent to any such attempts and counted simply on compulsion provided by a future presence of the Red Army in Poland. The different strategies resulted in a sharp conflict between the two communist politicians.[10]
State National Council, Polish Committee of National Liberation
In the fall of 1943, the PPR leadership began discussing the creation of a Polish quasi-parliamentary, communist-led body, to be named the
The founding meeting of the State National Council took place in the late evening of 31 December 1943. The new body's chairman Bierut was becoming Gomułka's main rival. In mid-January 1944 Dimitrov was finally informed of the KRN's existence, which surprised both him and the Polish communist leaders in Moscow, increasingly led by Jakub Berman, who had other, competing ideas concerning the establishment of a Polish communist ruling party and government.[11]
Gomułka felt that the Polish communists in occupied Poland had a better understanding of Polish realities than their brethren in Moscow and that the State National Council should determine the shape of the future executive government of Poland. Nevertheless, to gain Soviet approval and to clear any misunderstandings a KRN delegation left Warsaw in mid-March heading for Moscow, where it arrived two months later. By that time Stalin concluded that the existence of the KRN was a positive development and the Poles arriving from Warsaw were received and greeted by him and other Soviet dignitaries. The
On 20 July, the Soviet forces under Marshal
Post-war political career
Role in communist takeover of Poland
Gomułka was a deputy prime minister in the
In a memo written to Stalin in 1948, Gomułka argued that "some of the Jewish comrades don't feel any link to the Polish nation or to the Polish working class … or they maintain a stance which might be described as ‘national nihilism’".[12] As a result, he considered it "absolutely necessary not only to stop any further growth in the percentage of Jews in the state as well as the party apparatus, but also to slowly lower that percentage, especially at the highest levels of the apparatus".[12] Nikita Khrushchev, who was intimately involved in Polish affairs in the 1940s, according to Khrushchev′s memoirs, believed that Gomułka had a valid point in opposing the personnel policies pursued by Roman Zambrowski, Jakub Berman, and Hilary Minc, all of them of Jewish descent and brought to Poland from the Soviet Union.[13] Nevertheless, Khrushchev attributed Gomułka′s subsequent downfall to his rivals having succeeded in portraying Gomułka as being pro-Yugoslav; the charges were not made public but were brought to Stalin′s attention and became crucial in his decision-making on whose side he would support — in view of the Soviet–Yugoslavia rift that occurred in 1948.[13]
Temporary withdrawal from politics
In the late 1940s, Poland's communist government was split by a rivalry between Gomułka and President Bolesław Bierut. Gomułka led a home national group while Bierut headed a group reared by Stalin in the Soviet Union. The struggle ultimately led to Gomułka's removal from power in 1948. While Bierut advocated a policy of complete subservience to Moscow, Gomułka wanted to adapt the Communist blueprint to Polish circumstances. Among other things, he opposed forced collectivization and was skeptical of the Cominform. The Bierut faction had Stalin's ear, and on Stalin's orders, Gomułka was sacked as party leader for "rightist-nationalist deviation," replaced by Bierut. In December, soon after the PPR and Polish Socialist Party merged to form Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) (which was essentially the PPR under a new name), Gomułka was dropped from the merged party's Politburo. He was stripped of his remaining government posts in January 1949 and expelled from the party altogether in November. For the next eight years, he performed no official functions and was subjected to persecution, including almost four years of imprisonment from 1951 to 1954.[14][15][16][17]
Bierut died in March 1956, during a period of de-Stalinization in Poland which gradually developed after Stalin's death. Edward Ochab became the new first secretary of the Party. Soon afterward, Gomułka was partially rehabilitated when Ochab conceded that Gomułka should not have been jailed, while reiterating the charges of "rightist-nationalist deviation" against him.[15]
Rise to power
In June 1956, violent
The reformers in the Party wanted a political rehabilitation of Gomułka and his return to the Party leadership. Gomułka insisted that he be given real power to implement further reforms. He wanted a replacement of some of the Party leaders, including the pro-Soviet Minister of Defense Konstantin Rokossovsky.
The Soviet leadership viewed events in Poland with alarm. Simultaneously with Soviet troop movements deep into Poland, a high-level Soviet delegation flew to Warsaw. It was led by Nikita Khrushchev and included Anastas Mikoyan, Nikolai Bulganin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Ivan Konev and others. Ochab and Gomułka made it clear that Polish forces would resist if Soviet troops advanced, but reassured the Soviets that the reforms were internal matters and that Poland had no intention of abandoning the communist bloc or its treaties with the Soviet Union. The Soviets yielded.[20]
Following the wishes of the majority of the
Leadership of the Polish People's Republic
Relations with other Eastern Bloc countries
A major factor that influenced Gomułka was the
During the events of the Prague Spring, Gomułka was one of the key leaders of the Warsaw Pact and supported Poland's participation in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
Domestic policies
In 1967–68 Gomułka allowed outbursts of
Resignation and retirement
In December 1970, economic difficulties led to price rises and subsequent
Gomułka's negative image in communist propaganda after his removal was gradually modified and some of his constructive contributions were recognized. He is seen as an honest and austere believer in the socialist system, who, unable to resolve Poland's formidable difficulties and satisfy mutually contradictory demands, grew more rigid and despotic later in his career. A heavy smoker,[26] he died in 1982 at the age of 77 of lung cancer. Gomułka's memoirs were not published until 1994, long after his death, and five years after the collapse of the communist regime which he served and led.
The American journalist John Gunther described Gomułka in 1961 as being "professorial in manner, aloof, and angular, with a peculiar spry pepperiness".[27]
Gomułka was buried at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.
Decorations and awards
- Polish People's Republic:
- Order of the Builders of People's Poland
- Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta
- Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st class)
- Partisan Cross
- Medal "For Warsaw 1939-1945"
- Medal Rodła
- Other countries:
- Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour (France)
- Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Italy)
- Order of Lenin (Soviet Union)
- Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (Soviet Union)
- Order of the Yugoslav Great Star (Yugoslavia)[28]
See also
- History of Poland (1945–89)
References
- ^ "Rebellious Compromiser". Time Magazine. 10 December 1956. Archived from the original on 12 April 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2006.
- ^ Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York, The Penguin Press, pp. 434–35
- ISBN 978-0-226-50447-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-83-7700-042-7, pp. 174–75
- ^ a b c d e f g Jerzy Eisler, Siedmiu wspaniałych. Poczet pierwszych sekretarzy KC PZPR, pp. 175–78
- ISBN 83-05-11972-6, pp. 20–25
- ^ a b Andrzej Werblan, Władysław Gomułka. Sekretarz Generalny PPR [Władysław Gomułka: Secretary General of the PPR], pp. 25–44
- ^ [Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation's Life and Death in Marxism, 1918–1968, p. 149]
- ^ a b c d e f g Jerzy Eisler, Siedmiu wspaniałych. Poczet pierwszych sekretarzy KC PZPR, pp. 178–82
- ISBN 83-85719-61-X.
- ^ a b c d Jerzy Eisler, Siedmiu wspaniałych. Poczet pierwszych sekretarzy KC PZPR, pp. 182–85
- ^ a b Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–56. London: Penguin, 2013, p. 156
- ^ a b Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev; Edward Crankshaw; Strobe Talbott; Jerrold L Schecter. Khrushchev remembers (volume 2): the last testament. London: Deutsch, 1974, pp. 222–224.
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- ^ Encyclopedia Britannica
- ISBN 9781135927011.
- ^ Andrzej Werblan, Władysław Gomułka. Sekretarz Generalny PPR [Władysław Gomułka: Secretary General of the PPR], p. 5
- ^ a b "The defection of Jozef Swiatlo and the Search for Jewish Scapegoats in the Polish United Workers' Party, 1953–1954" (PDF). Fourth Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities. Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York City. 15–17 April 1999. Retrieved 27 October 2007.
- ^ Rothschild and Wingfield: Return to Diversity, A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War II OUP 2000
- ^ "Notes from the Minutes of the CPSU CC Presidium Meeting with Satellite Leaders, October 24, 1956" (PDF). The 1956 Hungarian Revolution, A History in Documents. George Washington University: The National Security Archive. 4 November 2002. Retrieved 2 September 2006.
- ^ a b Granville, Johanna "From the Archives of Warsaw and Budapest: A Comparison of the Events of 1956" pp. 521–63 from East European Politics and Societies, Volume 16, Issue #2, April 2002 pp. 540–41
- ^ Granville, Johanna "Reactions to the Events of 1956: New Findings from the Budapest and Warsaw Archives" pages 261-290 from Journal of Contemporary History, Volume 38, Issue #2, April 2003 pp. 284–85.
- ^ Granville, Johanna "From the Archives of Warsaw and Budapest: A Comparison of the Events of 1956" pp. 521–63 from East European Politics and Societies, Volume 16, Issue #2, April 2002 p. 541
- ^ Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York, The Penguin Press pp. 434–35
- ^ a b Adam Leszczyński (17 January 2014). "Towarzysz Zenon, prawa ręka towarzysza Wiesława" [Tovarishch Zenon, the right hand of comrade Wiesław]. Gazeta Wyborcza. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
- ^ WP (7 March 2015). "Władysław Gomułka – gorliwy samouk". Galerie: "Dyktatura ciemniaków". Wiadomości. p. 2.
- LCCN 61-9706.
- ^ "ПРЕДСЕДНИКУ ТИТУ и ЧЛАНОВИМА ЊЕГОВЕ ПРАТЊЕ УРУЧЕНА НАЈВИША ПОЉСКА ОДЛИКОВАЊА". Borba. XXIX (173): 2. 26 June 1964.