The Polish October ( ), also known as the Polish thaw or Gomułka's thaw, as well as the "small stabilization" (Grzegorz Ekiert, Dominika Kruszewska, Manufactured Ambiguity: Party-State Mobilization Strategy in March 1968 Crisis in Poland., In: Ruling by Other Means, 2000, pp.24-56) was a change in the politics of the Polish People's Republic that occurred in October 1956. Władysław Gomułka was appointed First Secretary of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) marking the end of Stalinism in Poland.
The hardline Stalinist faction of the PZPR was weakened in 1956 from the Secret Speech by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in February, the death of Polish leader Bolesław Bierut in March, and the violent protests in Poznań in June. These events highlighted the people's dissatisfaction with the situation in Poland which allowed Gomułka's nationalist reformer faction to come to power. The Soviets were pressured to compromise with the Gomułka faction, leading to brief but tense negotiations. The Soviets gave permission for Gomułka to stay in power and greater autonomy to Poland in exchange for maintaining its loyalty to Moscow.
The Polish October resulted in a temporary liberalisation and the effective end of Stalinism in Poland, though Gomułka's regime became more oppressive during the 1960s. News of the events in Poland contributed to the more violent but less successful Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Some social scientists term it the Polish October Revolution which, despite being less dramatic than the Hungarian Revolution, may have had an even deeper impact on the Eastern Bloc and on the Soviet Union's relationship with its satellite states.Iván T. Berend, Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery, Cambridge University Press, 1999, , Google Print, p.115-116
Background The Polish October was caused by several factors. The death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and the resulting Destalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw prompted debates about fundamental issues throughout the entire Eastern Bloc. Criticism of Stalin and Stalinism had been unthinkable during his lifetime, but his death led to a succession crisis for leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), giving an opportunity for anti-Stalinists to attain power and influence policy. The widely publicised defection of high-ranking Polish secret police agent Józef Światło had embarrassed the PZPR internationally and resulted in the weakening of the Ministry of Public Security.
In the summer of 1955, the 5th World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Warsaw. Designed to be a vast propaganda exercise and a meeting place for Eastern European communists and their comrades from Western Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, the event brought hundreds of thousands of Polish spectators to Warsaw for the five days to watch dancing, theatre and other attractions. However, the real attractions for the Polish people were the foreigners, many of whom were from Western Europe and contrasted starkly with local Poles because they shared a similar culture but were much richer and more open. Deeply stricken, many Poles realised that a decade's worth of anti-Western rhetoric had been false. Poles, East Germans, Hungarians, Czechoslovaks and others from the communist bloc actively socialised with one another. With the more exotic visitors, Poles also socialised in private apartments all around the city. College students even held debating meetings with foreigners, many of whom turned out not to be communists.
By 1956, Nikita Khrushchev had emerged as the CPSU's First Secretary, making him the successor to Stalin. In February, during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev delivered the speech titled On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences (commonly known as the Secret Speech) with wide implications for the Soviet Union and other communist countries. Khrushchev was highly critical of Stalin, denouncing both him personally and his rule, much to the shock of those in attendance and eventually the communist world as news of the speech had spread. However, this broke the social stigma towards criticising Stalin and Stalinism within the communist movement. Bolesław Bierut, the General Secretary of the PZPR known as the "Stalin of Poland" for his devout Stalinism, was in Moscow to attend the 20th Congress."Bierut, Boleslaw." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Last accessed 12 April 2007 Bierut's poor health caused him to be hospitalised and he remained in Moscow while the rest of the Polish delegation returned, creating a prime opportunity for the anti-Stalinists. The PZPR Secretariat decided that Khrushchev's speech should have wide circulation in Poland, a unique decision in the Eastern Bloc.
In Poland, in addition to criticism of the cult of personality, popular topics of debate centered on the right to steer a more independent course of "local, national socialism", instead of following the Soviet model in every detail. For example, many members of the PZPR criticised Stalin's execution of older Polish communists during the Great Purge.Reasons for the outbreak from the official city of Poznań website dedicated to 1956 events. Last accessed on 3 April 2007. On 3 March, during a conference of PZPR activists in Warsaw, Stefan Staszewski and others severely criticized the contemporary party leadership, including the absent Bierut. On 12 March, Beirut died unexpectedly while still in Moscow, leading to increased rivalry between various factions of the PZPR and growing tensions in Polish society. Bierut's successors seized on Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalinist policy as an opportunity to prove their reformist democratic credentials and their willingness to break with the Stalinist legacy.
Protests and riots In late March and early April 1956, thousands of PZPR meetings were held all over Poland, with the blessing of the Politburo and the Secretariat. Tens of thousands took part in such meetings. The Secretariat's plan succeeded beyond what it had expected. The political atmosphere in Poland shifted as questions were increasingly asked about taboo subjects like the Polish communists' legitimacy, the responsibility for Stalin's crimes, the arrest of the increasingly-popular Władysław Gomułka, and issues in Soviet–Polish relations, such as the continued Soviet military presence in Poland, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Katyn massacre and the Soviet failure to support the Warsaw Uprising. A new Party Congress was demanded, as were a greater role for the Sejm and a guarantee of personal liberties. Alarmed by the process, the Party Secretariat decided to withhold the speech from the general public.
Poznań protests
In June, dissatisfaction with the status quo eventually led to a mass demonstration by factory workers at the Joseph Stalin Metal Industries in the city of Poznań.Raymond Pearson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, , Google Print, p.58–60Paweł Machcewicz, "Social Protest and Political Crisis in 1956", which appears on pp. 99–118 of Stalinism in Poland, 1944–1956, ed. and tr. by A. Kemp-Welch, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999, . They began a spontaneous strike when around 80% of the factory's workers had lost their bonus pay when the government suddenly raised the required work quota. This grew into a wider protest against issues such as shortages of food and consumer goods, bad housing, the decline in real income, trade relations with the Soviet Union, and the poor management of the economy. The Polish government responded with a harsh crackdown, branding the protestors as "provocateurs, counterrevolutionaries and imperialist agents," and the demonstration soon turned into a violent riot. Between 57Andrzej Paczkowski, Pół wieku dziejów Polski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2005, , p. 203 and 78Ł. Jastrząb, "Rozstrzelano moje serce w Poznaniu. Poznański Czerwiec 1956 r. – straty osobowe i ich analiza", Wydawnictwo Comandor, Warszawa 2006Norbert Wójtowicz, Ofiary "Poznańskiego Czerwca", Rok 1956 na Węgrzech i w Polsce. Materiały z węgiersko–polskiego seminarium. Wrocław październik 1996, ed. Łukasz Andrzej Kamiński, Wrocław 1996, p. 32–41. people, mostly protesters, were killed, and hundreds were wounded and arrested. Soon, however, the party hierarchy recognised that the riots had awakened a nationalist movement and reversed their opinion. Wages were raised by 50%, and economic and political change was promised.Rothschild and Wingfield: Return to Diversity, A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War II OUP 2000
Autumn protests The Poznań protests, although the largest, were not unique in Poland, where social protest resumed its fury that autumn. On November 18, rioters destroyed the Milicja Obywatelska headquarters and radio jamming equipment in Bydgoszcz, and on 10 December a crowd in Szczecin attacked public buildings, including a prison, the state prosecutor's office, Milicja headquarters and the Soviet consulate. People across the country criticised the security police and asked for the dissolution of the public security committee and the punishment of its most guilty functionaries. Demands were made for the exposure of secret police collaborators, and suspected collaborators were frequently assaulted. In many localities, crowds gathered outside the secret police headquarters, shouted hostile slogans and broke windows. Public meetings, demonstrations and street marches took place in hundreds of towns across Poland. The meetings were usually organized by local party cells, local authorities and trade unions. However, official organisers tended to lose control as the political content exceeded their original agenda. Most of the striking workers were opposed to the Stalinist system, but did not call for a return to capitalism. The principle inspiration was Yugoslavia where a system of worker's self-management of factories had been instituted. Most of the economic demands made by the protest called for a system similar to what existed in Yugoslavia.