The Polish October (Polish: Polski październik [ˈpɔl.ski paʑˈd͡ʑɛr.ɲik]), also known as the Polish thaw or Gomułka's thaw, as well as the "small stabilization" (Polish: mała stabilizacja) 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.
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'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. 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. 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 57 and 78 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.
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.
Crowds often took radical action, which often resulted in unrest on the streets and clashes with police and other law enforcement agencies. Street activity peaked during and immediately after the 19–21 October "VIII Plenum" meeting of the Central Committee of the PZPR but continued until late in the year. A concurrent upsurge in religious and clerical sentiment took place. Hymns were sung, and the release of Stefan Wyszyński and the reinstatement of suppressed bishops were demanded. Nationalism was the cement of mass mobilisation and dominated public meetings during which people sang the Polish national anthem and other patriotic songs, demanded the return of the White Eagle to the flag and traditional army uniforms, and attacked Poland's dependence on the Soviet Union and its military. They demanded the return of the eastern territories from the Soviets, an explanation for the Katyn massacre, and the elimination of the Russian language from the educational curriculum. In the last ten days of October, monuments to the Red Army, despised by Poles, were attacked. Red stars were pulled down from roofs of houses, factories and schools, red flags were destroyed, and portraits of Red Army general Konstantin Rokossovsky were defaced. Attempts were made to force entries into the homes of Soviet citizens, mostly in Lower Silesia, which was home to many Soviet Army troops. However, unlike the protesters in Hungary and Poznań, activists limited their political demands and behaviour, which were not purely opposed to the communist system. The communist authorities were not openly and unequivocally challenged, as they had been in June, and anti-communist slogans, which had been prevalent in the June uprising, such as "We want free elections", "Down with Communist dictatorship" or "Down with the Party", were much less prevalent. Local PZPR committees were not attacked by the protesters.
Change in the political leadership
Return of Gomułka
In October, Edward Ochab, the First Secretary of the PZPR since Bierut's death, proposed Władysław Gomułka for election as First Secretary during the 8th Plenum meeting. Gomułka and Bierut had been archrivals in the State National Council during World War II. Gomułka was a moderate communist skeptical of the Soviets, in contrast to Bierut who was a devout Stalinist loyal to Moscow. Gomułka had been the General Secretary of the Polish Workers' Party (predecessor to the PZPR) since 1943, and had served as the de facto leader of Poland from 1947 until being ousted from power by the Stalinists in 1948. He was expelled from the party in 1949 and imprisoned in 1951 after accusastions of "right-wing nationalist deviation" by Stalinist hardliners, along with Bierut, until being released in 1954.
Gomułka proved to be acceptable to both factions of Polish communists: the reformers, who were arguing for liberalization of the system, and the hardliners, who realised that they needed to compromise. Gomułka insisted on being given real powers to implement reforms. One specific condition that he set was Soviet Marshal Rokossovsky, who had mobilized troops against the Poznań workers, be removed from the Politburo of the PZPR and Ministry of National Defence, to which Ochab agreed. The majority of the Polish leadership, backed by both the Polish People's Army and the Internal Security Corps, brought Gomułka and several associates into the Politburo and designated Gomułka as First Secretary. Untouched by the scandals of Stalinism, Gomułka was acceptable to the Polish masses but at first was viewed with much suspicion by Moscow.