“We will never give up the power we have once gained! We will destroy all reactionary bandits without scruples! You can keep shouting that the blood of the Polish nation is being spilled, that the NKVD rules Poland, but it will not turn us from our path!” These words were shouted by Comrade Gomułka in the faces of émigré politicians from the Polish People’s Party (PSL) who were seeking an understanding with the communists during talks in Moscow. It was June 1945. Eleven years later, in October 1956, the man responsible for the ruthless suppression of the independence underground, for open, covert and judicial murders, was once again lifted to power by social anger directed against the communists. And in December 1970, in defense of the power he had gained, Gomułka once again ordered people to be killed.
Crude socialism – this is how Gomułka’s rule is sometimes described. Comrade “Wiesław” was guided by his own phobias: hostility toward the intelligentsia, fear of Germany, disgust for any form of “luxury,” and hatred of the Catholic Church. The result? Living conditions for Poles that offended human dignity, work beyond human strength, no prospects, repression against independent thinkers. After 14 years, nothing remained of the trust credit extended to him by society. The savior of the nation became its oppressor, a blinded despot and doctrinaire convinced that everyone must hold the same views as he did. That is why, when on December 7, 1970, he managed to conclude a treaty with the Federal Republic of Germany, which recognized Poland’s western borders, he decided to immediately capitalize on this success and slightly improve the dire economic situation. Of course, the simplest way to do this was to raise food prices.
25 Years After the War, and Things Are Getting Worse…
News of the planned price hikes spread widely, though unofficially. In front of shops, in the freezing cold, long queues formed of exhausted people buying sugar and groats by the sack, alcohol by the liter, and – fearing an unfavorable currency exchange, as in 1950 – investing their savings in jewelry.
The official announcement of the increases was made on Saturday evening, December 12, when the shops were already closed. At first, there was cheerful news that televisions, refrigerators, tape recorders, washing machines and light bulbs would become cheaper – the latter by as much as 32%! This mattered little, as most of these goods were unavailable anyway. Meanwhile, meat and meat products, groats, pasta, jams, cookies, dairy products, shoes and fuel became more expensive. For workers who worked overtime to provide their families with at least a modest living, this was the last straw: hard-earned money intended for holiday shopping and modest gifts lost part of its value. The party that called itself workers’ suddenly faced the genuine anger of workers.
The Week That Shook Poland
On December 14, anger grew from the morning. In Gdańsk, at the Lenin Shipyard, workers stopped work and marched to the Voivodeship Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR). Events gained momentum, and there are justified suspicions that “someone” was inflaming emotions and radicalizing slogans. In the evening, the first clashes with the militia took place, the first wounded were taken to hospitals, and the first detainees to jails.
On Tuesday, people began to die: in Gdańsk, shipyard workers supported by employees of other workplaces fought outside the Voivodeship Headquarters of the Citizens’ Militia (MO), set fire to the building of the party’s Voivodeship Committee and the regime-controlled trade unions. Shots were fired, demonstrators used improvised weapons, and a militiaman who shot a worker was beaten to death with planks. Gomułka ordered the shooting. The number of wounded reached into the hundreds – military helicopters circled above the demonstrators, and reportedly from one of them Grzegorz Korczyński, deputy minister of national defense, a notorious murderer from the GL/AL underground, fired at people with a Kalashnikov. Demonstrations swept through the streets of Gdynia.
At night, the army entered the Tri-City area. At Shipyard Gate No. 2, someone – to this day unknown – fired a burst into the crowd. Over the bodies of their fallen colleagues, shipyard workers shouted “Murderers!” Shock and mourning suppressed protests in Gdańsk. In Gdynia, Kliszko, Gomułka’s right-hand man, ordered the army to block the shipyard, while the Voivodeship First Secretary Kociołek called on shipyard workers to return to work the next day. In the Kremlin, “Soviet comrades” watched the situation with growing concern, being kept fully informed by Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz and Minister Jaruzelski. They lost confidence in Gomułka, and a game began to change the leadership of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR). Brezhnev pointed to Edward Gierek, First Secretary from Katowice.
Black Thursday
December 17 went down in history as “Black Thursday.” Shipyard workers from Gdynia traveling to work were massacred by the army at the Gdynia Shipyard commuter rail station. Colonel Łomot ordered machine guns to fire at their legs. Bullets ricocheting off the granite pavement tore through the crowd, killing 11 young men. In Szczecin, a workers’ uprising broke out, the voivodeship committee and militia headquarters burned, and militia and military vehicles and tanks were set on fire. The militia and army killed, often blindly: in her own home, 16-year-old Jadwiga Kowalczyk was shot dead. Gomułka spoke by phone with Brezhnev. This conversation is the best proof that Comrade “Wiesław” was losing touch with reality. When Brezhnev tried to convince him that a workers’ party should not shoot at the working class, he began shouting, “This is no working class, this is a counterrevolution and we will deal with it properly!” The Russian replied, “If you shoot at workers, then with whom will you build socialism, Comrade Gomułka?” To this Comrade “Wiesław” answered, “There are no normal workers there, normal workers do not raise a hand against people’s power. I repeat to you, this is a counterrevolution!”
On Friday, the situation calmed down in the Tri-City, fierce fighting continued in Szczecin, but gradually the Citywide Strike Committee took control of the mood and practically assumed power in the city. In Szczecin, according to official data, 16 people were killed, 117 wounded, several hundred detained and brutally beaten.
On Saturday, secret talks with Edward Gierek began, on Sunday Gomułka was hospitalized and forced to resign. Along with him left his people, the perpetrators of the crimes, including the “eternal prime minister,” a renegade from the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), responsible for the death of Witold Pilecki, Józef Cyrankiewicz.
History Moves On
As expected, the change of leadership (and the approaching holidays) dampened the strikes – the last to leave were the Szczecin “Warski” shipyard workers on December 22. Gdańsk, Gdynia, Szczecin and Elbląg were plunged into mourning after the deaths of 45 people (over 1,100 were wounded). What remained was hatred: “An officer of the People’s Polish Army boarded the tram I was riding. He reached the stop at the last moment… breathless, he stood on the platform. And the tram did not move. A dead silence fell, all conversations ceased and only the officer’s hurried breathing could be heard… And the silence lasted, growing, until it hurt in the ears. The driver sat hunched on his stool, staring somewhere between the rails, cold wind blowing in through the open doors. And suddenly the officer understood, hunched over and with a heavy, completely unmilitary step slipped out of the car. The doors closed, the tram started, people began talking again, and I understood the terrible power of silence, more threatening than shouted slogans,” recalled Maciej Rybiński of his stay in Gdańsk in January 1971.
No One Wanted to Help
The new leadership initially behaved as if society’s trust was owed to it. Edward Gierek, modern and elegant, shone on television and radio, used words previously absent from party speeches, addressed the nation, believers and compatriots. But the “party apparatus” and the services quickly returned to old habits. In January 1971 in Gdańsk, a drunk militiaman drove his service Nysa van onto the sidewalk and killed a girl. His defense attorney claimed that “he was still under the influence of the December events and had not yet cooled down from the fervor of struggle, and in a group of school youth he saw… his December enemies…” When on January 20 “Głos Szczeciński” lied that shipyard workers, supporting the new First Secretary, had undertaken production commitments, the “Warski” workers went on strike again. The strike was an occupation, and the demands were political, including free elections to union authorities. Unexpectedly, on January 24 Edward Gierek appeared at the shipyard. It was the one and only case in the history of the entire communist bloc when the head of the party entered a striking workplace and engaged in dialogue with workers. The meeting lasted seven hours and ended at 3 a.m. with Gierek’s success: workers once again believed and agreed to end the strike.
Now the First Secretary decided to go to Gdańsk. However, after the dramatic debate in Szczecin, it was decided to stage-manage the Gdańsk meeting, carefully select the audience, and secure the area with more than a thousand officers. Gierek could therefore speak smoothly and vaguely: “You can be sure that we are all made of the same clay and have no other goal than the one we have declared. If you help us, then I believe we can achieve this goal together. So how about it – will you help?” No, there was no thunderous shipyard “We will help!” at that moment. In reality, the response was weak, timid applause. It was official propaganda that used all media to convince society that it was worth trusting, worth believing, once again gritting one’s teeth and working, working, working. Perhaps even Edward Gierek believed in the authenticity of this fabricated support. Ten years later, the communist experiment was definitively discredited. Gomułka still managed to support the martial law introduced by his former defense minister, but he did not live to see the moment which, according to the communists, was never supposed to come – when they had to give up power, at least part of it.