The Polish United Workers' Party ( , PZPR) was the Marxist-Leninist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other legally permitted subordinate minor parties together as the Front of National Unity and later Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth. The Polish United Workers' Party had total control over public institutions in the country as well as the Polish People's Army, the UB and SB security agencies, the Citizens' Militia (MO) police force and the media.
The falsified 1947 Polish legislative election granted the Communist Polish Workers' Party (PPR) complete political authority in post-war Poland. The PZPR was founded forthwith in December 1948 through the unification of the PPR and the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). From 1952 onward, the position of "First Secretary" of the Polish United Workers' Party was de facto equivalent to Poland's head of state. Throughout its existence, the PZPR maintained close ties with ideologically similar parties of the Eastern Bloc, most notably the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Between 1948 and 1954, nearly 1.5 million individuals registered as Polish United Workers' Party members, and membership rose to 3 million by 1980.
Ideologically, the party was based on the theories of Marxism–Leninism, with a strong emphasis on left-wing nationalism. It was also described as a "hybrid populist party that combined (nativist) right-wing and (economic) left-wing ideology". Later, in 1988–1989 some factions of the party adopted milder democratic socialism, which was seen as the impact of the perestroika in the neighbouring Soviet Union. Its primary objective was to impose socialist agenda unto Polish society. The communist government sought to nationalize all institutions. Some concepts imported from abroad, such as large-scale collective farming and secularization, failed in their early stages. The PZPR was considered more liberal and pro-Western than its counterparts in East Germany or the Soviet Union, and was more averse to radical politics. Although propaganda was utilized in major media outlets like Trybuna Ludu () and televised Dziennik ('Journal'), censorship became ineffective by the mid-1980s and was gradually abolished. On the other hand, the Polish United Worker's Party was responsible for the pacification of civil resistance and protesters in the Poznań protests of 1956, the 1970 Polish protests and throughout martial law between 1981 and 1983. The PZPR also initiated an antisemitic campaign during the 1968 Polish political crisis, which forced the remainder of Poland's Jews to emigrate.
Amidst the ongoing political and economic crises, the Solidarity movement emerged as a major anti-bureaucratic social movement that pursued social change. With communist rule being relaxed in neighbouring countries, the PZPR systematically lost support and was forced to negotiate with the opposition and adhere to the Polish Round Table Agreement, which permitted free democratic elections. The elections on 4 June 1989 proved victorious for Solidarity, thus bringing 40-year communist rule in Poland to an end. The Polish United Workers' Party was dissolved in January 1990 and was succeeded by Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland along with several parties claiming the legacy of the PZPR. Though the SdRP performed modestly in elections, it was later merged into the Democratic Left Alliance in 1999; and turn became part of the New Left coalition in 2021.
Programme and goals
Until 1989, the PZPR held dictatorial powers (the amendment to the constitution of 1976 mentioned "a leading national force") and controlled an unwieldy bureaucracy, the military, the secret police, and the economy. Its main goal was to create a Communist society and help to propagate Communism all over the world. On paper, the party was organised on the basis of democratic centralism, which assumed a democratic appointment of authorities, making decisions, and managing its activity. These authorities decided about the policy and composition of the main organs; although, according to the statute, it was a responsibility of the members of the congress, which was held every five or six years. Between sessions, the regional, county, district and work committees held party conferences. The smallest organizational unit of the PZPR was the Fundamental Party Organization (FPO), which functioned in workplaces, schools, cultural institutions, etc.
The main part in the PZPR was played by professional politicians, or the so-called "party's hardcore", formed by people who were recommended to manage the main state institutions, social organizations, and trade unions. The crowning time of the PZPR development (the end of the 1970s) consisted of over 3.5 million members. The Political Office of the Central Committee, Secretariat and regional committees appointed the key posts within the party and in all organizations having 'state' in its name – from central offices to even small state and cooperative companies. It was called the nomenklatura system of state and economy management. In certain areas of the economy, e.g., in agriculture, the nomenklatura system was controlled with the approval of the PZPR and by its allied parties, the United People's Party (agriculture and food production), and the Democratic Party (trade community, small enterprise, some cooperatives). After martial law began, the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth was founded to organize these and other parties.
PZPR was regarded as a socially conservative and national communist movement. Political scientist Gerald M. Easter argues that ever since Władysław Gomułka came to power in 1956 and introduced his "Polish road to socialism", the PZPR abandoned any ambition to transform the Polish culture or society, opting instead to preserve traditional values. Polish communists rejected the communist ideal of a radical change in social norms, family and interpersonal relations; Gomułka abandoned collectivization of the agriculture and instead "re-enshrined the family" and "traditional peasant villages". Female tractors drivers, infamous in the 1940s, disappeared in favor of laws that banned women from 'masculine' jobs. Welfare and childcare funding patterns were also changed to encourage return to traditional nurting roles for women, including pushing grandmothers to retire early. Polish communists "stopped trying to create an internationalist, cosmopolitan, socialist subjects" and instead became "national, even nationalistic". This became particularly prominent after the rise of the Endo-Communist Partisans faction to power in the 1960s. Socialist Poland promoted the red-and-white Polish flag while sideling the communist red one, and stressed its national character, always discussing "Polish proletariat" or "Polish communism" in its declarations. According to Easter, the PZPR "glorified ethno-national homogeneity, resurrecting old stories about national martyrdom in the struggle for independence" and promoted "hatred towards foreigners, particularly Germans and Jews". This also led to the members of the Endecja movement collaborating with the communists and attaining prominent positions within the state apparatus. Writing on the fall of the PZPR, Easter wrote:
History Establishment and Sovietization period
On 14 December 1948, the 2nd Congress of the PPR and the 28th Congress of the PPS were held simultaneously, at which the decision was made to unite both parties. The Polish United Workers' Party was established at the unification congress of the Communist Polish Workers' Party and the Polish Socialist Party during meetings held at the main building of the Warsaw University of Technology from 15 to 21 December 1948. The unification was possible because the PPS had effectively been taken over by pro-Communist fellow travelers, and the activists who opposed unification had been forced out of the party. Similarly, the members of the PPR who were accused of "rightist–nationalist deviation" () were expelled. Thus, the merger was actually an absorption of the PPS by the PPR, resulting in what was a renamed and enlarged PPR for all intents and purposes.
The new party included about 1 million members of the PPR and about 0.5 million members of the PPS. The highest positions in the party were taken by members of the PPR. The Political Bureau established during the Unification Congress included: Bierut, Jakub Berman, Józef Cyrankiewicz, Hilary Minc, Stanisław Radkiewicz, Adam Rapacki, Marian Spychalski, Henryk Świątkowski, Roman Zambrowski and Aleksander Zawadzki. All of them - in accordance with the Soviet model - held high positions in the state apparatus at the same time.
"Rightist-nationalist deviation" was a political propaganda term used by the Polish Stalinists against prominent activists, such as Władysław Gomułka and Marian Spychalski who opposed Soviet involvement in the Polish internal affairs, as well as internationalism displayed by the creation of the Cominform and the subsequent merger that created the PZPR. It is believed that it was Joseph Stalin who put pressure on Bolesław Bierut and Jakub Berman to remove Gomułka and Spychalski as well as their followers from power in 1948. It is estimated that over 25% of socialists were removed from power or expelled from political life.
On 20–21 April 1949, a plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party was held, devoted to matters of culture and science. Party apparatchiks demanded a bold "ideological offensive", i.e. the introduction of socialist realism to culture. In this way, the direction of action already imposed on the writers during the January congress in Szczecin was continued. Alongside Jerzy Albrecht and Jerzy Putrament - the main speakers pointing to the need to popularize socialist realism - Henryk Jabłoński appeared, criticizing the state of history teaching at universities.
Bolesław Bierut, an NKVD agent and a hardline Stalinist, served as first Secretary General of the ruling PZPR from 1948 to 1956, playing a leading role in imposing communism and the installation of its repressive regime. He had served as president since 1944 (though on a provisional basis until 1947). After a new constitution abolished the presidency, Bierut took over as prime minister, a post he held until 1954. He remained party leader until his death in 1956.
Bierut oversaw the trials of many Polish wartime military leaders, such as General Stanisław Tatar and Brig. General Emil August Fieldorf, as well as 40 members of the Wolność i Niezawisłość (Freedom and Independence) organisation, various Church officials and many other opponents of the new regime including Witold Pilecki, condemned to death during secret trials. Bierut signed many of those death sentences.
Bierut's mysterious death in Moscow in 1956 (shortly after attending the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) gave rise to much speculation about poisoning or a suicide, and symbolically marked the end of Stalinism era in Poland.