A report on Polish People's Republic

The Polish People's Republic in 1989
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 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.
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.
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 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard Strike and subsequent Summer 1981 Hunger Demonstrations were instrumental in strengthening the Solidarity movement's influence.
Logo of the Polish United Workers' Party
Władysław Gomułka and Leonid Brezhnev in East Berlin, 1967
An abandoned State Agricultural Farm in south-eastern Poland. State farms were a form of collective farming created in 1949.
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
Supersam Warsaw, the first self-serve shopping centre in Poland, 1969
Pewex, a chain of hard currency stores which sold unobtainable Western goods and items
Ration cards for sugar, 1977
Bar mleczny, a former milk bar in Gdynia. These canteens offered value meals to citizens throughout Communist Poland.
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
Allegory of communist censorship, Poland, 1989. Newspapers visible are from all Eastern Bloc countries including East Germany, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia
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
Smyk Department Store, 1960s
Polish university students during lecture, 1964
One of many schools constructed in central Warsaw in the 1960s
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.
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.
Poland's old and new borders, 1945

Country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland.

- Polish People's Republic

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Andrzej Munk

Andrzej Munk

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Polish film director, screen writer and documentalist.

Polish film director, screen writer and documentalist.

Andrzej Munk

He was one of the most influential artists of the post-Stalinist period in the People's Republic of Poland.

The Curzon Line and territorial changes of Poland, 1939 to 1945. The pink and yellow areas represent the pre-war Polish territory (Kresy) and pre-war German territory (Recovered Territories), respectively.

Polish population transfers (1944–1946)

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The Polish population transfers in 1944–1946 from the eastern half of prewar Poland (also known as the expulsions of Poles from the Kresy macroregion), were the forced migrations of Poles toward the end and in the aftermath of World War II.

The Polish population transfers in 1944–1946 from the eastern half of prewar Poland (also known as the expulsions of Poles from the Kresy macroregion), were the forced migrations of Poles toward the end and in the aftermath of World War II.

The Curzon Line and territorial changes of Poland, 1939 to 1945. The pink and yellow areas represent the pre-war Polish territory (Kresy) and pre-war German territory (Recovered Territories), respectively.

Many of the deported Poles were settled in formerly German eastern provinces; after 1945, these were referred to as the "Recovered Territories" of the People's Republic of 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.

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.

Katyn-Kharkov-Mednoye memorial in Świętokrzyskie Mountains, Poland
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
Aerial view of the Katyn massacre grave
Photo from 1943 exhumation of mass grave of Polish officers killed by NKVD in Katyń Forest
A mass grave at Katyn, 1943
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
Katyn exhumation, 1943
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 remained a political taboo in the Polish People's Republic until the fall of the Eastern Bloc in 1989.

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

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Independent federal socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous of the Soviet socialist republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR.

Independent federal socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous of the Soviet socialist republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR.

The Russian SFSR (red) within the Soviet Union (red and light yellow) between 1956 and 1991
The Russian SFSR in 1922
The Russian SFSR (red) within the Soviet Union (red and light yellow) between 1956 and 1991
The Russian SFSR in 1924
The Russian SFSR in 1929
The Russian SFSR in 1936
The Russian SFSR in 1940
Flag adopted by the Russian SFSR national parliament in 1991
Matryoshka doll taken apart

The international borders of the RSFSR touched Poland on the west; Norway and Finland of Scandinavia on the northwest; and to its southeast in eastern Asia were the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Mongolian People's Republic (Mongolia) and the People's Republic of China (China, formerly the Republic of China; 1911–1949).

Karol Świerczewski in 1946.

Karol Świerczewski

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Polish and Soviet Red Army general and statesman.

Polish and Soviet Red Army general and statesman.

Karol Świerczewski in 1946.
Michał Rola-Żymierski, Marian Spychalski and Karol Świerczewski (from left to right)
Świerczewski's monument near his place of death, in Bieszczady mountains. It has since been demolished.
Popular scientific conference on Karol Wacław Świerczewski in Stężnica in Gmina Baligród

According to his official biography in the Polish People's Republic he was a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania.

Edward Osóbka-Morawski

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Polish activist and politician in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) before World War II, and after the Soviet takeover of Poland, Chairman of the Communist-dominated interim government, the Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego) formed in Lublin with Stalin's approval.

Polish activist and politician in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) before World War II, and after the Soviet takeover of Poland, Chairman of the Communist-dominated interim government, the Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego) formed in Lublin with Stalin's approval.

He then worked as a party official throughout most of his life in the People's Republic of Poland prior to the Revolutions of 1989, and in 1990 failed in his attempt to recreate the old Polish Socialist Party.

The Szczecin Voivodeship within Poland, between 1950 and 1975.

Szczecin Voivodeship (1946–1975)

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Voivodeship with capital in Szczecin, that was centered on the Farther Pomerania.

Voivodeship with capital in Szczecin, that was centered on the Farther Pomerania.

The Szczecin Voivodeship within Poland, between 1950 and 1975.
The administrative subdivisions of Poland from 1946 to 1950, including the Szczecin Voivodeship.
The counties of Poland in 1968, including the counties of the Szczecin Voivodeship.

Until 19 February 1947 it was under the administration of Provisional Government of National Unity, which then was replaced by the Polish People's Republic.

Opole

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City located in southern Poland on the Oder River and the historical capital of Upper Silesia.

City located in southern Poland on the Oder River and the historical capital of Upper Silesia.

Contemporary model of the early medieval Polish stronghold in Opole
A fragment of medieval defensive walls that once surrounded Opole
The oldest known view of Opole seen from southeast, circa 1535
18th-century view of Opole
Stamps after the plebiscite in August 1921 featured the German name of Oppeln
The Piast Castle, prior to its demolition by the German authorities
Plaque at the main railway station commemorating deportations of Poles from Opole to concentration camps in 1939
Architecture of the Main Marketplace
Piast Bridge and Opole Cathedral in the background with its two iconic Gothic towers
City hall on the Main Market Square
Water canal along the Old Town
General view of Opole
Opole - a view of the city centre
The building of Collegium Maius of Opole University
Administrative subdivisions (districts) of Opole
Opole city budget income sources as of 2015.
Solaris Centre Mall
Jan Kasprowicz
Miroslav Klose
Remigiusz Mróz
Jesuit College, now a regional museum
Church of the Holy Trinity
Rynek (Market Square) filled with historic townhouses
Green Bridge
Młynówka Canal (Little Venice)
Ceres Fountain
Opole Główne railway station
John Paul II Library
Church of St. Adalbert, also known as the "Church on the Rock" and "Church on the Hill"
Signs showing direction of twin cities

Because of this, the post-war Polish state administration after the annexation of Silesia in 1945 did not initiate a general expulsion of all former inhabitants of Opole, as was done in Lower Silesia, for instance, where the population almost exclusively spoke the German language.

The Szczecin Voivodeship within Poland, between 1950 and 1975.

Koszalin Voivodeship (1950–1975)

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The Szczecin Voivodeship within Poland, between 1950 and 1975.
The counties of Poland in 1968, including the counties of the Koszalin Voivodeship.

The Koszalin Voivodeship was a voivodeship (province) of the Polish People's Republic, with capital in Koszalin, that existed from 1950 to 1975.

The Gdańsk Voivodeship within Poland, between 1950 and 1975.

Gdańsk Voivodeship (1945–1975)

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Voivodeship with capital in Gdańsk, that was located in the region of Pomerelia.

Voivodeship with capital in Gdańsk, that was located in the region of Pomerelia.

The Gdańsk Voivodeship within Poland, between 1950 and 1975.
Gdańsk Voivodeship within Poland, from 1946 to 1950.
The counties of Poland in 1968, including the counties of the Gdańsk Voivodeship.

On, 19 February 1947, the provisional government was replaced by the Polish People's Republic.