Wladyslaw Gomulka (6 February 1905-1 September 1982) was First Secretary of the Polish Workers' Party from 1943 to 1948 (succeeding Pawel Finder and preceding Boleslaw Bierut) and First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party from 21 October 1956 to 20 December 1970 (succeeding Edward Ochab and preceding Edward Gierek). Gomulka initially supported a moderate form of communism ("Gomulka's thaw"), but he became more rigid and authoritarian during the 1960s, supporting the persecution of the Catholic Church and anti-Semitism. In 1970, he resigned after bloody clashes with shipyard workers on the Baltic coast left dozens dead.
Biography[]
Wladyslaw Gomulka was born in Krosno, Silesia, Austria-Hungary on 6 February 1905, and he became an active trade unionist before joining the Communist Party of Poland on its foundation in 1918. He was a member of the party's central committee from 1931, and he was jailed ofr his party activities from 1932 to 1924 and from 1936 to 1939, spending World War II working for the Polish underground resistance. In 1943, he became First Secretary of the Polish Workers' Party, and in 1945 was Boleslaw Bierut's deputy, responsible for the German territories under Polish administration. Unlike Bierut, he advocated the adaptation of Marxism-Leninism to Polish conditions rather than the blind implementation of Stalinism. This took him out of favor with Joseph Stalin and Bierut in 1948, when he was dismissed, but enhanced his credibility to succeed Bierut once Stalinism was discredited in Moscow. His "Polish way" to communism entailed a relatively free agricultural sector, toleration of the independence of the Catholic Church, and relatively great personal freedom (such as foreign travel). While emphasizing Poland's autonomy against the USSR, he was happy to send troops to suppress the Prague Spring in 1968. In the end, however, the economy remained stifled and inefficient through economic mismanagement and lack of incentive. His increase of the price of foodstuffs in 1970 caused widespread riots, leading to his replacement by Edward Gierek.