1968 Polish political crisis

The political turmoil of the late 1960s was exemplified in the West by increasingly violent protests against the Vietnam War and included numerous instances of protest and revolt, especially among students, that reverberated across Europe in 1968. The movement was reflected in the Eastern Bloc by the events of the Prague Spring, beginning 5 January 1968. In Poland, a growing crisis having to do with communist party control over universities, the literary community, and intellectuals in general, marked the mid-1960s. Those persecuted for political activism on campus included Jacek Kuroń, Karol Modzelewski, Adam Michnik and Barbara Toruńczyk, among others. A decade earlier, Poland was a scene of the Poznań 1956 protests and the Polish October events. ==Reaction to Arab–Israeli war of 1967==

with Leonid Brezhnev in Berlin on 17 April 1967 The events of 1967 and Polish communist leaders' necessity to follow the Soviet lead altered the relatively benign relations between People's Poland and Israel. The combination of international and domestic factors gave rise in Poland to a campaign of hate against purported internal enemies, among whom the Jews would become the most salient target. As the Israeli–Arab Six-Day War started on 5 June 1967, the Polish Politburo met the following day and made policy determinations, declaring condemnation of "Israel's aggression" and full support for the "just struggle of the Arab countries". First Secretary Władysław Gomułka and Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz went to Moscow on 9 June for a Middle East conference of communist leaders. The participants deliberated in a depressing atmosphere. The decisions made included the Warsaw Pact's continuation of military and financial support for the Arab states and the breaking of diplomatic relations with Israel, in which only Romania refused to participate. A media campaign commenced in Poland and was soon followed by "anti-Israeli imperialism" rallies held in various towns and places of employment. About 150 Jewish military officers were fired in 1967–1968, including Czesław Mankiewicz, national air defense chief. Minister of Defense Marian Spychalski tried to defend Mankiewicz and by doing so compromised his own position. The Ministry of Internal Affairs renewed its proposal to ban the Jewish organizations from receiving foreign contributions from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. This time, unlike on previous occasions, the request was quickly granted by the Secretariat of the PZPR's Central Committee and the well-developed Jewish social, educational and cultural organized activities in Poland faced stiff reductions or even practical liquidation. About 200 people lost their jobs and were removed from the party top leadership in 1967, including Leon Kasman, chief editor of Trybuna Ludu, the party's main daily newspaper. On 19 June 1967, Gomułka warned in his speech: "We don't want an establishment of a fifth column in our country". The sentence was deleted from a published version, but such views he repeated and developed further in successive speeches, for example on 19 March 1968. Following Gomułka's anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric, the security services began screening officials of Jewish origin and looking for 'hidden Zionists' in Polish institutions. ==Protest in Warsaw==

'' theatrical event and its cancellation triggered student protests and violent response by the authorities The outbreak of the March 1968 unrest was seemingly triggered by a series of events in Warsaw, but in reality, it was a culmination of trends accumulating in Poland over several years. The economic situation was deteriorating and a drastic increase in the prices of meat came into effect in 1967. In 1968, the market was destabilized further by rumors of upcoming currency exchange and the ensuing panic. Higher norms were enforced for industrial productivity with wages reduced at the same time. First Secretary Gomułka was afraid of all changes. The increasingly heavy censorship stifled intellectual life, the boredom of stagnation and the mood of hopelessness (lack of career prospects) generated social conflict. The disparity between the expectations raised by the Polish October movement of 1956 and the actuality of the "real socialism" life of the 1960s led to mounting frustration. At the end of January 1968, after its poor reception by the Central Committee of the ruling PZPR, the government authorities banned the performance of a Romantic play by Adam Mickiewicz called Dziady (written in 1824), directed by Kazimierz Dejmek at the National Theatre, Warsaw. It was claimed that the play contained Russophobic and anti-Soviet references and represented an unduly pro-religion stance. the last time on 30 January. The ban was followed by a demonstration after the final performance, which resulted in numerous police detentions. Dejmek was expelled from the party and subsequently fired from the National Theatre. He left Poland and returned in 1973, to continue directing theatrical productions. In mid-February, a petition signed by 3,000 people (or over 4,200, depending on the source) protesting the censorship of Dziady was submitted to parliament by student protester Irena Lasota. The speakers blamed the faction of Minister Moczar and the party in general for antisemitic incidents, as that campaign was gaining traction. On 4 March, the removal from the University of Warsaw of dissidents Adam Michnik and Henryk Szlajfer, members of the Komandosi group, was announced by officials. A crowd of some 500 (or about 1,000) students rallying at the university on 8 March was attacked violently by organized "worker activists" (probably plainclothes police) and by police in uniform. Nonetheless, other institutions of higher learning in Warsaw joined the protest a day later. ==Student- and intellectual-led movement==

Dariusz Gawin of the Polish Academy of Sciences pointed out that the March 1968 events have been mythologized in subsequent decades beyond their modest original aims, under the lasting influence of former members of Komandosi, a left-wing student political activity group. During the 1968 crisis, the dissident academic circles produced very little in terms of written accounts or programs. They experienced a moral shock because of propaganda misrepresentations of their intentions and actions and the unexpectedly violent repressions. They also experienced an ideological shock, caused by the reaction of the authorities (aggression) and society (indifference) to their idealistic attempts to bring about revolutionary reform in the Polish People's Republic. The alienation of the reform movement from the ostensibly socialist system (and their own leftist views) had begun. The storming of Warsaw University by the (fake) factory worker activists thus came as a total surprise to the students. The participants of the 8 March rally were met with violent beatings from ORMO volunteer reserve and ZOMO riot squads just as they were about to go home. The disproportionately brutal reaction of the security forces appeared to many observers to be a provocation perpetrated to aggravate the unrest and facilitate further rounds of repression, in the self-interest of political leaders. In later accounts, however, the founding mythology of Poland's civil society movement (the late 1970s) and then of the establishment of the new democratic-liberal Poland would obliterate the socialist, leftist and revolutionary aspects of the March 1968 movement. University students comprised less than 25% of those arrested for participating in opposition activities in March and April 1968 (their numerical predominance in the movement was a part of the subsequent myth, wrote historian Łukasz Kamiński). The leading role in the spreading countrywide street protests was played by young factory workers and secondary school students. ==Repressions==

A media campaign besmirching targeted groups and individuals was conducted from 11 March. The Stalinist and Jewish ("non-Polish") roots of the supposed instigators were "exposed" and most printed press participated in the propagation of slander, with the notable exceptions of Polityka and Tygodnik Powszechny. Mass "spontaneous" rallies at places of employment and in squares of major cities took place. The participants demanded "Students resume their studies, writers their writing", "Zionists go to Zion!", or threatened "We'll tear off the head of the anti-Polish hydra". On 14 March, regional party secretary Edward Gierek in Katowice used strong language addressing the Upper Silesian crowds: (people who want to) "make our peaceful Silesian water more turbid ... those Zambrowskis, Staszewskis, Słonimskis and the company of the Kisielewski and Jasienica kind ... revisionists, Zionists, lackeys of imperialism ... Silesian water will crush their bones ...". Gierek introduced a new element during his speech: a statement of support for First Secretary Gomułka, who so far had been silent on the student protests, Zionism and other currently pressing issues. The first secretary attempted to pacify the growing antisemitic wave, asserting that most citizens of Jewish origin were loyal to Poland and were not a threat. The internal bulletin of Mieczysław Moczar's Ministry of Internal Affairs spoke of a lack of clear declaration on Zionism on Gomułka's part and of "public hiding of criminals". Such criticism of the top party leader was unheard of and indicated the increasing influence and determination of Moczar's faction. In public, Moczar concentrated on issuing condemnations of the communists who came after the war from the Soviet Union and persecuted Polish patriots (including, from 1948, Gomułka himself, which may in part explain the first secretary's failure to dissociate himself from and his tacit approval of anti-Jewish excesses). National coordination by the students was attempted through a 25 March meeting in Wrocław; most of its attendees were jailed by the end of April. The student protest activities, planned for 22 April, were prevented by the arrest campaign conducted in Warsaw, Kraków and Wrocław. By mid-March, the protest campaign had spread to smaller towns. The distribution of fliers was reported in one hundred towns in March, forty in April, and, despite numerous arrests, continued even during the later months. Street demonstrations occurred in several localities in March. In different cities, the arrests and trials proceeded at a different pace, in part because of the discretion exercised by local authorities. Gdańsk had by far the highest rate of both the "penal-administrative procedures" and the cases that actually went to courts. The largest proportion of the arrested and detained nationwide during the March/April unrest belonged to the "workers" category. ==Anti-Zionist mobilization and purges, party politics==

initiated and led the widespread antisemitic campaign of 1968 In March 1968, the anti-Zionist campaign, loud propaganda and mass mobilization were greatly intensified. The process of purging Jewish officials, ex-Stalinists, high-ranking rival communists and moral supporters of the current liberal opposition movement, was accelerated. On 11 April 1968, the Sejm instituted changes in some major leadership positions. Spychalski, leaving the Ministry of Defense, replaced Ochab in the more titular role as the chairman of the Council of State. Wojciech Jaruzelski became the new minister of defense. Rapacki, another opponent of antisemitic purges, was replaced by Stefan Jędrychowski at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A new higher education statute was designed to give the government greater control over the academic environment. One banner hung at a Rzeszów high school on 27 April read: "We hail our Zionist comrades." The party leader was responding to a wave of Western criticism and took advantage of some published reports that were incompatible with the Polish collective memory of historical events, World War II and the Holocaust in particular. Moczar himself campaigned ruthlessly in an ultimately failed attempt to become Gomułka's replacement or successor. ==Emigration of Polish citizens of Jewish origin==

In a parliamentary speech on 11 April 1968, Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz spelled out the government's official position: "Loyalty to socialist Poland and imperialist Israel is not possible simultaneously. ... Whoever wants to face these consequences in the form of emigration will not encounter any obstacle." The departing had their Polish citizenship revoked. According to Dariusz Stola of the Polish Academy of Sciences, "the term 'anti-Zionist campaign' is misleading in two ways since the campaign began as an anti-Israeli policy but quickly turned into an anti-semitic campaign, and this evident anti-Jewish character remained its distinctive feature". Most survivors who claimed their Jewish nationality status at the end of World War II, including those who registered with the Central Committee of Polish Jews in 1945, had emigrated from postwar Poland already in its first years of existence. According to David Engel's estimates, of the fewer than 281,000 Jews present in Poland at different times before July 1946, only about 90,000 were left in the country by the middle of 1947. An additional 30,000 arrived from the Soviet Union in 1957, but almost 50,000, typically people actively expressing Jewish identity, left Poland in 1957–59, under Gomułka and with his government's encouragement. From the end of World War II, the Soviet-imposed government in Poland, lacking strong popular support, found it expedient to depend disproportionately on Jews for performing clerical and administrative jobs and many Jews rose to high positions within the political and internal security ranks. For complex historical reasons, Jews held many positions of repressive authority under the post-war Polish communist administrations. In March 1968, some of those officials became the center of an organized campaign to equate Jewish origins with Stalinist sympathies and crimes. The political purges, often ostensibly directed at functionaries of the Stalinist era, affected all Polish Jews regardless of background. The media "exposed" various past and present Jewish conspiracies directed against socialist Poland, often using prejudicial Jewish stereotypes, which supposedly added up to a grand Jewish anti-Polish scheme. West German-Israeli and American-Zionist anti-Poland blocs were also "revealed". In Poland, it was claimed, the old Jewish Stalinists were secretly preparing their own return to power, to thwart the Polish October gains. The small number of Jews remaining in Poland were subjected to unbearable pressures generated by the state monopolistic media, often dominated by sympathizers of Minister Moczar. Many Jews and non-Jews were smeared and removed by their local Basic Party Organizations (POP), after which they had to be fired from their jobs. Many professionals and non-members of the party fell victim as well. Most of the last wave (1968–69) of emigrants chose destinations other than Israel, which contradicted the government's claim of their pro-Israeli devotion. Disproportionately in Polish society, they represented highly educated, professional, and accomplished people. Over a thousand former hardline Stalinists of Jewish origin left Poland in and after 1968, among them former prosecutor Helena Wolińska-Brus and judge Stefan Michnik. The IPN had investigated Stalinist crimes committed by some of the March 1968 emigrants including Michnik, who settled in Sweden, and Wolińska-Brus, who resided in the United Kingdom. Both were accused of being an "accessory to a court murder". Applications were made for their extradition based on the European Arrest Warrants. Between 1961 and 1967, the average rate of Jewish emigration from Poland was 500–900 persons per year. In 1968, a total of 3,900 Jews applied to leave the country. Between January and August 1969, the number of emigrating Jews was almost 7,300, all according to records of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The security organs maintained comprehensive data on persons with "family background in Israel" or of Jewish origin, including those dismissed from their positions and those who did not hold any official positions but applied for emigration to Israel. ==Termination of the anti-Zionist campaign==

On 11 April 1968, Secretary of the Central Committee Artur Starewicz gave Gomułka a comprehensive letter, in which he pointed out the destructiveness of the demagoguery, anti-Jewish obsession and other aspects of the campaign. In late April Gomułka realized that the campaign he allowed had outlived its usefulness and was getting out of control; many participants became overzealous and complaints from various quarters multiplied. However, ending it and restoring normal party control and discipline took several weeks of repeated warnings and other efforts. On 5 July, Gomułka acknowledged "certain problems" with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and announced the removal of Minister Moczar from the cabinet position, which disconnected him from his power base at that department. Moczar's sidelining was presented as a promotion: he became secretary of the Central Committee and a deputy member of the Politburo. "Comrade Moczar is a disciplined man and he'll do as he is told", was how Gomułka saw the resolution. Gomułka's ability to decisively dismantle the Internal Affairs' anti-Jewish smear campaign and punish its perpetrators (for challenging the party leadership) shows that he could have done so earlier, had he chosen to act in a timely manner. During the XII Plenum of the Central Committee (8–9 July), Zenon Kliszko officially closed the "anti-Zionist" campaign. Internal attacks and obstruction within the party, the military and the security services (SB), now directed against Gomułka and Kliszko, continued for some time. The media propaganda machine was by early summer preoccupied with denouncing the Prague Spring. ==Consequences of the events of 1968==

The Fifth Congress of the PZPR took place in November, under Gomułka' s active lead. His position was confirmed. The gathering, numerically dominated by the supporters of Moczar, was maneuvered into complying with Gomułka faction's personnel decisions. The party now had 2.1 million members (only 40% were workers), after the recent purging of over 230,000. The Jewish activists were gone, but many other veterans remained, as the generational change in the communist leadership was beginning to take place. Gomułka was able to rule with his few close associates until December 1970, but his prestige suffered in Poland, abroad, and among the Soviet and other Eastern Bloc leaders. Many Polish intellectuals opposed the government campaign, often openly. Another effect was the activity by Polish emigrants to the West in organizations that encouraged opposition within Poland. A Central Committee report even suggested an introduction of dual citizenship to improve relations with the Jews who left Poland. ==Aftermath==

in Warsaw. After the fall of the communist rule, the Sejm in 1998 issued an official condemnation of the antisemitism of the March 1968 events. In 2000, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski gave his own apology in front of a group of Jewish students "as the president of Poland and as a Pole". On the 30th anniversary of their departures, a memorial plaque was placed at Warszawa Gdańska train station, from which most of the exiled Poles took a train to Vienna. Duda's distinction between the past Polish government whom he framed as culpable, and Polish citizens whom he framed as innocent, was seen as a non-apology by critics. Duda's statement also echoed Jewish stereotypes in framing the loss to Poland: "You are the elite of the intelligentsia but in other countries, you are people of remarkable success, respected, but in other countries, your creative powers, your scientific output, your splendid achievements have not done credit to the Republic of Poland". ==See also==