Polish Uprising

Marta Rodríguez Vizcaya. Society and Culture in Communist Poland. UAM. 2011-2012.

THE POLISH UPRISING
1956

Marta Rodríguez Vizcaya.
Society and Culture in Communist Poland.
UAM
2011-2012
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Marta Rodríguez Vizcaya. Society and Culture in Communist Poland. UAM. 2011-2012.

1. BACKGROUND OF THE POLISH SITUATION

Already during the 1930's, and as a result of the "crash" of 1929,the countries of
Central and Eastern Europe considered that it was prudent to incorporate the State to
the national economy. The reflections of the Po lish Kalecki alerted of the dangers of
pure liberalism and its crisis, he established a connection between state intervention,
full employment and the role of the state in Polish four-year plan of 19361.

After the Second World War, since theKremlin Stalin ists budgets all institutions,
economy and culture from Poland were subordinated to the directives of the Communist
Party, the Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (PZPR). But also in these years there
was a notable attempt to overcome this situation by “European Movement”, creating the
“Study Section of Eastern Europe” in which had an exiles´ representatives from several
ofthese countries. The Movement sponsored a conference about Central and Eastern
Europe in London which raised the impossibility of economic and political progress in a
“Sovietized Europe”.

The intention was to promote the necessary changes for these countries would
modify their institutions. They should be able to join the beginning of what would be the
construction of Europe. This began to cometrue with the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC), in the same year. It was even proposed the transfer of military
funds to assist in its transformation, since it was not so necessary for the defense of
peace, at that time.

When Stalin died in 1953, exiled people from East linked with European Movement
believed that it was the moment, even more, after the XX Congress of the CPSU in1956. But the project fell into the void when the USSR was not going to allow any

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MAZOWER, M: La Europa Negra, p. 160, citado por DUARTE, A. en Martin de la Guardia, R. y Pérez
Sánchez, G. (coords.): La Europa del Este. Del Telón de Acero a la integración en la Unión Eu ropea. Biblioteca
Nueva, Madrid, 2002, p. 45

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Marta Rodríguez Vizcaya. Society and Culture in Communist Poland.UAM. 2011-2012.

substantial change in the postwar status quo2. Also, the U.S.A. demonstrated its full
support to Yaita´s agreements and their distribution of zones of influence in later years.

In Poland, in 1955, the party's reformist section required the return of Wladislaw
Gomulka who had grown extensively during the war, when Warsaw rose against the
Germans waiting to receive Russiansupport which was never arrived and which caused
as many communists deaths as from the other parties of resistance.

The reformists and the wishes of change were not exclus ive of Poland, but shared
by other countries in the region, particularly Hungary. The causes of discomfort were
mainly two:
● The feeling of patriotic humiliation policy dictated from the USSR.
● The misery of life andlevel of disappointment at the measures that the USSR
tried to alleviate the daily economic crisis and which had no success.

Signs of this situation appear in the testimony of Spain's ambassador to Finland,
Fulgencio Vidal y Saura, who knew the situation by Finnish diplomat Shelman,
secretary of the Finnish Embassy in Warsaw. According to the observations of Shelman
marriage, the USSR usedstrategies without success continuously to ingratiate
themselves with the Polish population, as the appointment of a leader Army who had
come from Russia but of Polish origin, or building a spectacular skyscraper for cultural
center. These measures were taken as conciliatory but not enough to satisfy the Poles
and they showed their rejection preferring 'the West', event supporting the granting...