A report on History of Poland (1945–1989)

Poland's old and new borders, 1945
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
Destroyed Warsaw, January 1945
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.
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
ORMO paramilitary police unit during street parade at the Victory Square, 9 June 1946, Warsaw
Logo of the Polish United Workers' Party
The show trial of Captain Witold Pilecki, sentenced to death and executed May 1948
The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, initially called the Stalin's Palace, was a controversial gift from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
Avenue of the Roses, Nowa Huta
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)
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Primate of Poland
Władysław Gomułka
The Fourth Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party, held in 1963
The Polski Fiat 125p, produced in Poland from the late 1960s, was based on technology purchased from Fiat
Standard-bearers of the 27 Tank Regiment, mid-1960s
Dziady, a theatrical event that spawned nationwide protests
Demonstrators in Gdynia carry the body of Zbigniew Godlewski, who was shot and killed during the protests of 1970
Edward Gierek
Queue line, a frequent scene at times of shortages of consumer goods in the 1970s and 1980s
Millions cheer Pope John Paul II in his first visit to Poland as pontiff in 1979
Lech Wałęsa speaks during the strike at the Gdańsk Shipyard, August 1980
25th anniversary of Solidarity, summer 2005 in Gdańsk
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
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.
Adam Michnik, an influential leader in the transformation of Poland

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)
Poland's old and new borders, 1945

61 related topics with Alpha

Overall
Eastern Bloc

Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–1981

2 links

Eastern Bloc
Andropov and Jaruzelski

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.

Gierek in 1980

Edward Gierek

5 links

Polish Communist politician and de facto leader of Poland between 1970 and 1980.

Polish Communist politician and de facto leader of Poland between 1970 and 1980.

Gierek in 1980
Gierek and wife contribute on Party Volunteer Labor Day
First Secretary Edward Gierek (second from left)
Gierek participated in hundreds of field trips and visitations, meeting ordinary people and seeking their feedback
Katowice Steelworks, Gierek's major industrial project
1973 Polish Fiat 126p, nicknamed maluch (tiny)
Edward Gierek personally made the official opening of the new Warszawa Centralna railway station on 5 December 1975.
Gierek with President Jimmy Carter
1976 food ration card
Gierek with East German leader Erich Honecker
Grave of Edward and Stanisława Gierek in Sosnowiec

According to sociologist and left-wing politician Maciej Gdula, the social and cultural transformation that took place in Poland in the 1970s was even more fundamental than the one which occurred in the 1990s, following the Hpolitical transition.

German and Soviet soldiers stroll around Sambir after the German-Soviet invasion of Poland.

Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)

4 links

Formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945.

Formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945.

German and Soviet soldiers stroll around Sambir after the German-Soviet invasion of Poland.
Expulsion of Poles from western Poland, with Poles led to the trains under German army escort, 1939.
Public execution of Polish civilians randomly caught in a street roundup in German-occupied Bydgoszcz, September 1939
Nur für Deutsche ("For Germans only") sign, on Kraków line-8 streetcar
Polish teachers guarded by members of ethnic German Selbstschutz battalion before execution
Polish Franciscan, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, at Auschwitz, volunteered to die in place of another prisoner.
1941 announcement of death penalty for Jews caught outside the Ghetto, and for Poles helping Jews
Photos from The Black Book of Poland, published in London in 1942 by the Polish government-in-exile.
Public execution of Polish priests and civilians in Bydgoszcz's Old Market Square on 9 September 1939.
Boys' roll call at main children's concentration camp in Łódź (Kinder-KZ Litzmannstadt). A sub-camp was KZ Dzierżązna, for Polish girls as young as eight.
Earliest World War II partisan unit, commanded by Henryk "Hubal" Dobrzański, winter 1939
German Panther tank captured by the Poles during 1944 Warsaw Uprising, with Batalion Zośka armored platoon commanded by Wacław Micuta
Walling-off Świętokrzyska Street seen from Marszałkowska Street on the 'Aryan side' of the Warsaw Ghetto, 1940
Identifying ethnic German prisoners massacred by Soviet secret police NKVD near Tarnopol, July 1941
Sovietization propaganda poster addressed to the Ukrainian population residing within Polish borders. The text reads "Electors of the working people! Vote for joining of Western Ukraine into the Soviet Ukraine"
Residents of a town in Eastern Poland (now West Belarus) assembled to greet the arrival of the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. The Russian text reads "Long Live the great theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin-Stalin" and contains a spelling error. Such welcomings were organized by the activists of the Communist Party of West Belarus affiliated with the Communist Party of Poland, delegalized in both countries by 1938.
During 1942–1945, nearly 30,000 Poles were deported by the Soviet Union to Karachi (then under British rule). This photo shows a memorial to the refugees who died in Karachi and were buried at the Karachi graveyard.
Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East, Warsaw
Polish-forced-workers' badge
Poster in German and Polish listing decrees of labour obligations
Notice of death penalty for Poles refusing to work during harvest

To this day the events of those and the following years are one of the stumbling blocks in Polish-Russian foreign relations.

Nowa Huta

2 links

Easternmost district of Kraków, Poland.

Easternmost district of Kraków, Poland.

Nowa Huta's street hierarchy and certain buildings often resemble Paris
Post office in the 28th Osiedle ('Estate') of Nowa Huta
A socialist classicist bookstore in central Nowa Huta
Solidarity Avenue, 2010
Park Szwedzki (Swedish Park) during winter
Kino Świt, a cinema in Nowa Huta
Arka Pana (Lord's Ark) Church, Bieńczyce

Since the Historyfall of socialism, the city that was once a showpiece for Stalinism now boasts many tributes to ardent opponents of the ideology.

Czesław Kiszczak

2 links

Kiszczak - SED chief Erich Honecker meeting 1988
General Kiszczak's grave (November 2015)

Czesław Jan Kiszczak (19 October 1925 – 5 November 2015) was a Polish general, communist-era interior minister (1981–1990) and prime minister (1989).

Nuclear warfare is a common theme of World War III scenarios. Such a conflict has been hypothesized to result in human extinction.

World War III

0 links

World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II.

World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II.

Nuclear warfare is a common theme of World War III scenarios. Such a conflict has been hypothesized to result in human extinction.
If activated, Operation Reforger would have largely consisted of convoys like this one from Operation Earnest Will in 1987, although much larger. While troops could easily fly across the Atlantic, the heavy equipment and armor reinforcements would have to come by sea.
A Warsaw Pact invasion would have come via three main paths through West Germany.
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky, who later told the west how close the Able Archer 83 exercise had brought the Soviets to ordering a First Strike.
Protest in Amsterdam against the nuclear arms race between the U.S./NATO and the Soviet Union, 1981
United States M48 tanks face Soviet Union T-55 tanks at Checkpoint Charlie, October 1961.
A US Navy HSS-1 Seabat helicopter hovers over Soviet submarine B-59, forced to the surface by US Naval forces in the Caribbean near Cuba. B-59 had a nuclear torpedo on board, and three officer keys were required to use it. Only one dissent prevented the submarine from attacking the US fleet nearby, a spark that could have led to a Third World War (28–29 October 1962).
Destruction of Russian BMP-3 IFV by Ukrainian troops in Mariupol on 7 March
Large nuclear weapons stockpile with global range (dark blue), smaller stockpile with global range (medium blue), smaller stockpile with regional range (light blue)
September 11 attacks

In response, the Soviets readied their nuclear forces and placed air units in East Germany and Poland on alert.

Warsaw Pact

4 links

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.

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.

The Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, where the Warsaw Pact was established and signed on 14 May 1955
The Iron Curtain (black line)
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

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

Edward Gierek in visit to the Rząśnik PGR

State Agricultural Farm

1 links

Form of collective farming in the People's Republic of Poland, similar to Soviet sovkhoz and to the East German Volkseigenes Gut.

Form of collective farming in the People's Republic of Poland, similar to Soviet sovkhoz and to the East German Volkseigenes Gut.

Edward Gierek in visit to the Rząśnik PGR
Former PGR in Szczyrzyc
One of the many agricultural machines used in the State Farms - harvester Bison model Z056
PGR Wieżanka
PGR Żelechów
PGR Krościenko
PGR Gwoździany
PGR Rybotycze
PGR Grąziowa
PGR Pieszcz
PGR Wielopole
PGR Grabowo

Relatively inefficient and subsidized by the government, most PGRs went bankrupt quickly after the fall of communism and adoption of a market economy by Poland.

Communism in Poland

2 links

Founded in 1882.

Founded in 1882.

However, former communists, including members of the Politburo of the PZPR, remained active on the political scene after the transition to liberal democracy.

1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała

0 links

The 1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała took place between January 27 and February 6, 1981, in the southern Polish city of Bielsko-Biała, It was the first strike action during the final decade of Communist Poland which was "purely political" in the sense of aiming directly at Communist Party officials without economic demands, such as calls higher wages.