A report on Polish People's Republic and History of Poland (1945–1989)

Map showing the different borders and territories of Poland and Germany during the 20th century, with the current areas of Germany and Poland in dark gray

Poland's fate was heavily discussed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Joseph Stalin, whose Red Army occupied the entire country, presented several alternatives which granted Poland industrialized territories in the west whilst the Red Army simultaneously permanently annexed Polish territories in the east, resulting in Poland losing over 20% of its pre-war borders - areas primarily inhabited by ethnic Belarusians or Ukrainians. Soviet-backed Polish communists came to power and oversaw the country's entry into the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

Border changes of Poland after World War II. The eastern territories (Kresy) were annexed by the Soviets. The western territories, referred to as the "Recovered Territories", were granted as war reparations. Despite the western lands being more industrialized, Poland lost 77,035 km2 (29,743 sq mi) and major cities like Lviv and Vilnius.

The PKWN Manifesto, officially issued on 22 July 1944. In reality it was not finished until mid-August, after the Polish communist Moscow group was joined by the late-arriving Warsaw group, led by Gomułka and Bierut.

The 1970 Polish protests were put down by the Communist authorities and Citizens' Militia. The riots resulted in the deaths of 42 people and over 1,000 injured.

Postwar Polish communist propaganda poster depicting "The giant and the putrid reactionary midget", meaning the communist People's Army soldier and the pro-Western Home Army soldier, respectively

Queues waiting to enter grocery stores in Warsaw and other Polish cities and towns were typical in the late 1980s. The availability of food and goods varied at times, and the most sought after basic item was toilet paper.

ORMO paramilitary police unit during street parade at the Victory Square, 9 June 1946, Warsaw

The new Warszawa Centralna railway station in Warsaw had automatic doors and escalators. It was a flagship project during the 1970s economic boom and was dubbed the most modern station in Europe at the time of its completion in 1975.

Lech Wałęsa co-founded and headed the Solidarity movement which toppled Communism. He later became the President of Poland.

The show trial of Captain Witold Pilecki, sentenced to death and executed May 1948

The 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard Strike and subsequent Summer 1981 Hunger Demonstrations were instrumental in strengthening the Solidarity movement's influence.

The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, initially called the Stalin's Palace, was a controversial gift from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin

Władysław Gomułka and Leonid Brezhnev in East Berlin, 1967

1951 East German stamp commemorative of the Treaty of Zgorzelec establishing the Oder–Neisse line as a "border of peace", featuring the presidents Wilhelm Pieck (GDR) and Bolesław Bierut (Poland)

An abandoned State Agricultural Farm in south-eastern Poland. State farms were a form of collective farming created in 1949.

Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Primate of Poland

Łódź was Poland's largest city after the destruction of Warsaw during World War II. It was also a major industrial centre in Europe and served as the temporary capital due to its economic significance in the 1940s.

Female textile workers in a state-run factory, Łódź, 1950s

The Fourth Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party, held in 1963

Supersam Warsaw, the first self-serve shopping centre in Poland, 1969

The Polski Fiat 125p, produced in Poland from the late 1960s, was based on technology purchased from Fiat

Pewex, a chain of hard currency stores which sold unobtainable Western goods and items

Standard-bearers of the 27 Tank Regiment, mid-1960s

Dziady, a theatrical event that spawned nationwide protests

Bar mleczny, a former milk bar in Gdynia. These canteens offered value meals to citizens throughout Communist Poland.

Demonstrators in Gdynia carry the body of Zbigniew Godlewski, who was shot and killed during the protests of 1970

Trybuna Ludu (People's Tribune) was a government-sponsored newspaper and propaganda outlet

Andrzej Wajda was a key figure in Polish cinematography during and after the fall of communism

Queue line, a frequent scene at times of shortages of consumer goods in the 1970s and 1980s

Allegory of communist censorship, Poland, 1989. Newspapers visible are from all Eastern Bloc countries including East Germany, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia

Millions cheer Pope John Paul II in his first visit to Poland as pontiff in 1979

The 237-meter Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, constructed in 1955. At the time of its completion it was one of the tallest buildings in Europe

Lech Wałęsa speaks during the strike at the Gdańsk Shipyard, August 1980

25th anniversary of Solidarity, summer 2005 in Gdańsk

Polish university students during lecture, 1964

General Wojciech Jaruzelski led the People's Republic during its final decade and became one of the key players in the systemic transition of 1989–90

One of many schools constructed in central Warsaw in the 1960s

Apartment block residences built in People's Poland loom over the urban landscape of the entire country. In the past administratively distributed for permanent use, after 1989 most were sold to residents at discounted prices.

Jerzy Popiełuszko was a Roman Catholic priest who supported the anti-communist opposition. He was murdered by the Security Services "SB" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Adam Michnik, an influential leader in the transformation of Poland

A demographics graph illustrating population growth between 1900 and 2010. The highest birth rate was during the Second Polish Republic and consequently under the Polish People's Republic.

A typical socialist apartment building in Warsaw representing the style of functionalism, built due to the ever-growing population and high birth rate at the time

Konstantin Rokossovsky, pictured in a Polish uniform, was Marshal of the Soviet Union and Marshal of Poland until being deposed during the Polish October in 1956.

The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of communist rule imposed over Poland after the end of World War II.

- History of Poland (1945–1989)

During the Gierek era, Poland borrowed large sums from Western creditors in exchange for promise of social and economic reforms.

- Polish People's Republic

27 related topics with Alpha

Draft of the Polish constitution, with revisions and annotations hand-written by Bolesław Bierut

Constitution of the Polish People's Republic

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A meeting of the Polish Council of State during the 1960s

The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic (also known as the July Constitution or the Constitution of 1952) was a supreme law passed in communist-ruled Poland on 22 July 1952.

The 1952 constitution introduced a new name for the Polish state, the Polish People's Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL), replacing the previously used Republic of Poland (Rzeczpospolita Polska).

Polish government-in-exile

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The government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, which brought to an end the Second Polish Republic.

Władysław Sikorski, first Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile.

After the war, as the Polish territory came under the control of the communist Polish People's Republic, the government-in-exile remained in existence, though largely unrecognised and without effective power.

Only after the end of Communist rule in Poland did the government-in-exile formally pass on its responsibilities to the new government of the Third Polish Republic in December 1990.

Citroën Traction Avant, a car commonly used by the UB

Ministry of Public Security (Poland)

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The PKWN Manifesto, issued on 22 July 1944

Józef Światło, born Izaak Fleischfarb, defected to the West and spoke publicly of UB's brutal actions

Ministry office in Warsaw (current Ministry of Justice)

Office of Public Security regional location in Szczecin, Poland

Ministry of Public Security organization for 1953, (Organizacja Ministerstwa Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego na rok 1953, M Malinowski)

Ministry of Public Security field organization, 1953

Stamp of the Committee for Public Security, 1954–1956

The Ministry of Public Security (Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego), commonly known as UB or later SB, was the secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage agency operating in the Polish People's Republic.

The SB functioned as the chief secret service until the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989 and was disbanded in 1990.

Edward Ochab

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Polish communist politician and top leader of Poland between March and October 1956.

Grave of Edward Ochab and wife Rozalia at the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw

In Stalinist Poland he was responsible for enlisting the so-called enemies of the people to forced labour in the mines of southern Poland.

Władysław Gomułka, at the height of his popularity, on 24 October 1956, addressing hundreds of thousands of people in Warsaw, asked for an end to demonstrations and a return to work. "United with the working class and the nation", he concluded, "the Party will lead Poland along a new way of socialism".

Polish October

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Polish October (Polski październik), also known as October 1956, Polish thaw, or Gomułka's thaw, marked a change in the politics of Poland in the second half of 1956.

For the Polish People's Republic, 1956 was a year of transition.

Nonetheless, the era of Stalinism in Poland had ended.

Warsaw Pact

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The Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, where the Warsaw Pact was established and signed on 14 May 1955

A "Soviet Big Seven" threats poster, displaying the equipment of the militaries of the Warsaw Pact

A typical Soviet military jeep UAZ-469, used by most countries of the Warsaw Pact

Meeting of the seven representatives of the Warsaw Pact countries in East Berlin in May 1987. From left to right: Gustáv Husák, Todor Zhivkov, Erich Honecker, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Wojciech Jaruzelski, and János Kádár

Soviet tanks, marked with white crosses to distinguish them from Czechoslovak tanks, on the streets of Prague during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968

Protest in Amsterdam against the nuclear arms race between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, 1981

The Pan-European Picnic took place on the Hungarian-Austrian border in 1989.

The Warsaw Pact before its 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, showing the Soviet Union and its satellites (red) and the two independent non-Soviet members: Romania and Albania (pink)

A Romanian TR-85 tank in December 1989 (Romania's TR-85 and TR-580 tanks were the only non-Soviet tanks in the Warsaw Pact on which restrictions were placed under the 1990 CFE Treaty )

The Romanian IAR-93 Vultur was the only combat jet designed and built by a non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact.

Expansion of NATO before and after the collapse of communism throughout Central and Eastern Europe

The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War.

From 1989 to 1991, Communist governments were overthrown in Albania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union.

1956 Poznań protests

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Poznań 1956, Kochanowskiego Street; transporting one of the victims

Tanks on the empty Joseph Stalin Square in the center of Poznań

Trial of "the Nine" after riots June 1956

Funeral of one of the victims in June 1956

The 1956 Poznań protests, also known as Poznań June (Poznański Czerwiec), were the first of several massive protests against the communist government of the Polish People's Republic.

Many historians consider the Poznań 1956 protests to be an important milestone in modern history of Poland, and one of the events that precipitated the fall of communism in Poland.

Katyn-Kharkov-Mednoye memorial in Świętokrzyskie Mountains, Poland

Katyn massacre

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Series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD in April and May 1940.

Map of the sites related to the Katyn massacre

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signs the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Behind him: Ribbentrop and Stalin.

Polish POWs captured by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Poland

Memo from Beria to Stalin, proposing the execution of Polish officers

Photo from 1943 exhumation of mass grave of Polish officers killed by NKVD in Katyń Forest

Secretary of State of the Vichy regime Fernand de Brinon and others in Katyn at the graves of Mieczysław Smorawiński and Bronisław Bohatyrewicz, April 1943

Polish banknotes and epaulets recovered from mass graves

British, Canadian, and American officers (POWs) brought by the Germans to view the exhumations

Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet Jr communication on Katyn

Monument in Katowice, Poland, memorializing "Katyn, Kharkiv, Mednoye and other places of killing in the former USSR in 1940"

Ceremony of military upgrading of Katyn massacre victims, Piłsudski Square, Warsaw, 10 November 2007

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski laying wreaths at the Katyn massacre memorial complex, 11 April 2011

Katyn was a forbidden topic in post-war Poland.

Katyn remained a political taboo in the Polish People's Republic until the fall of the Eastern Bloc in 1989.

Northern Group of Forces

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Former Soviet nuclear weapons warehouse Granit 2 near Szprotawa, Poland

The Northern Group of Forces (Северная группа войск; Północna grupa wojsk) was the military formation of the Soviet Army stationed in Poland from the end of Second World War in 1945 until 1993 when they were withdrawn in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union.

After the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, and with the signs of the fall of the Soviet Union, the new Polish government wanted the Soviet troops to leave Poland.

Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–1981

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The Polish crisis of 1980–1981, associated with the emergence of the Solidarity mass movement in the Polish People's Republic, challenged the rule of the Polish United Workers' Party and Poland's alignment with the Soviet Union.