Youth and early career Bierut was born in Rury,
Congress Poland (then part of the
Russian Empire), now a part of
Lublin, to Wojciech and Marianna Salomea (Wolska) Bierut,
peasants from the
Tarnobrzeg area, the youngest of their six children. In 1900, he attended an elementary school in Lublin. In 1905, he was removed from the school for instigating anti-
Russian protests. From the age of fourteen he was employed in various trades, but obtained further education through self-studies. Influenced by the
leftist intellectual Jan Hempel, who in 1910 arrived in Lublin, before
World War I Bierut joined the
Polish Socialist Party – Left (
PPS – Lewica). From 1915, Bierut was active in the
cooperative movement. In 1916, he became trade manager of the Lublin Food Cooperative, and from 1918 was its top leader, declaring the cooperative's "
class-
socialist" character. During World War I, he stayed at times at Hempel's apartment in
Warsaw and took
trade and cooperative courses at the
Warsaw School of Economics. Already trusted by the
Soviets and knowing the
Russian language well, from October 1925 to June 1926 Bierut was in the
Moscow area, sent there for training at the secret school of the
Communist International. Bierut left Warsaw for Lublin, from where he proceeded to
Kovel. Eastern Poland was soon occupied by the
Red Army and Bierut was about to spend a part of
World War II in the
Soviet Union. From early October, he was employed by the Soviets in political capacities, including vice-chairmanship of a regional election commission before the
Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. The two assemblies, once established, voted for the incorporation of the previously Polish territories into the respective
Soviet republics. Bierut spent the rest of 1939, 1940 and the first part of 1941 in the Soviet Union, in
Kiev and Moscow, working, making efforts to sanitize his record as a communist and searching for Fornalska, whom he met in Moscow in July 1940 and again in May 1941 in
Białystok, where she had moved with Aleksandra. The mother and daughter were evacuated to
Yershov in the Soviet Union after the June 1941 outbreak of the
Soviet-German war, but Bierut ended up in
Minsk. From November 1941, he was employed there by the
German occupation authorities as a manager in the trade and food distribution department of the city government. In the summer of 1943, Bierut arrived in
Nazi-occupied Poland, likely dispatched there as a trusted Soviet operative. He came to join the leadership of the
Polish Workers' Party (PPR), a new communist party founded in January 1942. He may have been recommended for the job by Fornalska; parachuted into the
General Government in the spring of 1942, she was in charge of the PPR's radio communications with Moscow. While there are many accounts and stories relating to Bierut during the 1939–1943 period, not much is known with certainty about his activities and the accounts are often speculative or amount to hearsay. In a major blow to the re-emergent Polish communist party, Finder and Fornalska were arrested by the
Gestapo on 14 November 1943. They were executed in July 1944. They were the only people with the knowledge of radio codes needed to communicate with Moscow and such communications were indeed interrupted for several months. On 23 November 1943, the PPR chose Gomułka as its general secretary. In May 1944, the KRN delegation flew into Moscow. They were officially received at the
Kremlin by
Joseph Stalin; supremacy of the KRN was recognized by the
Union of Polish Patriots, which operated in the Soviet Union under communist leadership. After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, Bierut arrived in Moscow. On 6–7 August 1944, together with
Wanda Wasilewska and
Michał Rola-Żymierski, he conducted negotiations with Prime Minister
Stanisław Mikołajczyk of the
Polish government-in-exile. Mikołajczyk refused their offer of the job of prime minister in a coalition government, which otherwise would be dominated by the communists. Bierut's daughter Krystyna participated in the uprising as a soldier of
Armia Ludowa and was gravely wounded. In February 1945, the
Yalta Conference took place in
Crimea. At that time Bierut, together with the PPR leadership and government departments, moved to the capital city of Warsaw. The city was in ruins and its rebuilding and expansion became a major concern and preoccupation for Bierut during the years that followed. Poland's newly acquired "
Recovered Territories" had thus reached their maximum attainable size. On 22 September 1946, the KRN passed the electoral rules and in November set the date; the delayed
legislative elections were held on 19 January 1947. The PPR-led coalition, running as the
Democratic Bloc, was opposed by Mikołajczyk's PSL. The long-standing trope of the "Judeo-Bolshevik", or
Żydokomuna, was used by the far-right in anti-communist propaganda to cast Polish communism as a plot to control Poland by Russian Jews. While Stalin and Beria discouraged and ridiculed Bierut's efforts, in some cases his exertions brought positive results. Bierut was a gallant man, well-liked by women. His wife Janina did not live with him and was not known to many of his associates. She occasionally visited him in his offices and seemed intimidated by the surroundings and her husband's position. On the other hand, his son and two daughters had seen Bierut frequently; they spent with him holidays and vacations and he appeared to genuinely enjoy their company. Bierut's actual female partner, after Fornalska's arrest, was Wanda Górska. She worked as his secretary and in other capacities, controlled access to him and visitors often thought of her as Bierut's wife. Informal political reforms, slow to take hold after Stalin's death, eventually materialized and in December 1954 Gomułka was released. Bierut still had far more power in Poland than any of his successors as First Secretary of the PZPR. He ruled jointly with his two closest associates, Berman and
Hilary Minc. Security issues he also consulted with
Stanisław Radkiewicz, head of the
Ministry of Public Security. As the PZPR leadership felt ready to sanction its rule in a fundamental legal document, a new constitution was being worked on. On 26 May 1951, the
Sejm passed a statute concerning the preparation and passing of the constitution. The Constitutional Committee, led by Bierut, commenced its deliberations on 19 September. In the fall of 1951, a Russian translation of the draft constitution was examined by Stalin, who inserted dozens of corrections, subsequently implemented in the Polish text by Bierut. The officially proclaimed national public discussion resulted in hundreds of other proposed changes. After all the delays and the necessary extension of the term of the
Sejm, the
Constitution of the Polish People's Republic was officially proclaimed on 22 July 1952. The regime's relations with the
Catholic Church kept deteriorating. The authorities imprisoned Bishop Czesław Kaczmarek and interned Poland's
primate, Cardinal
Stefan Wyszyński. On 3 March, during a conference of PZPR activists in Warsaw,
Stefan Staszewski and others severely criticized the contemporary party leadership, including the absent Bierut. Bierut, however, would not die until sixteen days after that speech and four members of the delegation of Polish students who studied in Moscow, who met him on 25 February 1956, told Eisler that the first secretary showed signs of physical distress already at that time. The deceased leader was given a splendid funeral in Warsaw. A period of national mourning was declared. Catholic bishops conceded to the demand that church bells ring all over the country on the day of the funeral. In a radio address on 14 March, Helena Jaworska, chairperson of the board of the
Union of Polish Youth, eulogized Bierut on behalf of the Polish youth. She recalled Bierut's war and post-war activities and declared that "the beloved friend of the youth has departed". She spoke of the "great son of the Polish nation" and "a beautiful, loved person". The funeral, which took place on 16 March, was transmitted by the Polish Radio over many hours. Warsaw residents were given a day-off from work to be able to participate. Large crowds of people gathered and joined the funeral procession, which began at the
Palace of Culture and Science and proceeded toward the
Powązki Military Cemetery, where the burial took place and where, for logistic reasons, only invited guests and delegations could enter. ==Remembrance in communist and post-communist Poland==