1956 Poznań protests
The 1956 Poznań protests, also known as Poznań June (Polish: Poznański Czerwiec), were the first of several massive protests against the communist government of the Polish People's Republic. Demonstrations by workers demanding better working conditions began on 28 June 1956 at Poznań's Cegielski Factories and were met with violent repression.
A crowd of approximately 100,000 people gathered in the city centre near the local Ministry of Public Security building. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of the Polish People's Army and the Internal Security Corps under the command of the Polish-Soviet general Stanislav Poplavsky were ordered to suppress the demonstration and during the pacification fired at the protesting civilians.
The death toll is estimated from 57[3] to over a hundred people,[2] including a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzałkowski. Hundreds of people sustained injuries. The Poznań protests were an important milestone on the way to the Polish October and the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government.
Background[edit]
After Joseph Stalin's death, the process of de-Stalinization prompted debates on fundamental issues throughout the entire Eastern Bloc. Nikita Khrushchev's speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences had wide implications both inside the Soviet Union and in other communist countries. In Poland, in addition to the criticism of the cult of personality, popular topics of debate centered on the right to steer a more independent course of "local, national path[s] to socialism" instead of following the Soviet model down to every little detail; such views were shared by many Polish United Workers' Party members in the discussion and critique of Stalin's execution of older Polish communists from the Communist Party of Poland during the Great Purge.[4] The death of Poland's hardline Communist leader Bolesław Bierut on 12 March 1956—allegedly from shock at the content of the Secret Speech—gave further fuel to the movement for change.
Anti-communist resistance in Poland was also bolstered, and a group of opposition leaders and cultural figures founded the Crooked Circle Club (Polish: Klub Krzywego Koła) in Warsaw. It promoted discussions about Polish independence, questioned the efficiency of the state controlled economy, and government disdain and even persecution of World War II veterans of Polish Armed Forces in the West and Armia Krajowa. While the intelligentsia expressed their dissatisfaction with discussions and publications (bibuła), workers took to the streets. The living conditions in Poland did not improve, contrary to government propaganda, and workers increasingly found that they had little power compared to bureaucracy of the Party (nomenklatura).[4]
The city of Poznań was one of the largest urban and industrial centers of the Polish People's Republic. Tensions were growing there, particularly since autumn of 1955. Workers in the largest factory in the city, the Joseph Stalin Metal Industries, were complaining about higher taxes for the most productive workers (udarnik), which affected several thousands of workers. Local directors were unable to make any significant decisions due to micromanagement by the higher officials; over several months, petitions, letters and delegations were sent to the Polish Ministry of Machine Industry and the Central Committee of Polish United Workers' Party, to no avail.[4]
Finally, a delegation of about 27 workers was sent to Warsaw around 23 June. On the night of 26 June, the delegation returned to Poznań, confident that some of their demands had been considered in a favourable light. However, the next morning, the Minister of Machine Industry met with the workers and withdrew several promises that their delegation had been given in Warsaw.[4]