In late March and early April 1956, thousands of PZPR meetings were held all over Poland, with the blessing of the
Politburo and the Secretariat. Tens of thousands took part in such meetings. The Secretariat's plan succeeded beyond what it had expected. The political atmosphere in Poland shifted as questions were increasingly asked about
taboo subjects like the Polish communists' legitimacy, the responsibility for Stalin's crimes, the arrest of the increasingly-popular
Władysław Gomułka, and issues in Soviet–Polish relations, such as the continued
Soviet military presence in Poland, the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the
Katyn massacre and the Soviet failure to support the
Warsaw Uprising. A new Party Congress was demanded, as were a greater role for the
Sejm and a guarantee of personal liberties. Alarmed by the process, the Party Secretariat decided to withhold the speech from the general public. They began a spontaneous
strike when around 80% of the factory's workers had lost their
bonus pay when the government suddenly raised the required work quota. This grew into a wider protest against issues such as shortages of food and
consumer goods, bad housing, the decline in
real income, trade relations with the Soviet Union, and the poor management of the economy. The Polish government responded with a harsh crackdown, branding the protestors as "
provocateurs,
counterrevolutionaries and
imperialist agents," and the demonstration soon turned into a violent riot. Between 57 and 78 people, mostly protesters, were killed, and hundreds were wounded and arrested. Soon, however, the party hierarchy recognised that the riots had awakened a nationalist movement and reversed their opinion. Wages were raised by 50%, and economic and political change was promised.
Autumn protests The Poznań protests, although the largest, were not unique in Poland, where social protest resumed its fury that autumn. On November 18, rioters destroyed the
Milicja Obywatelska headquarters and
radio jamming equipment in
Bydgoszcz, and on 10 December a crowd in
Szczecin attacked public buildings, including a prison, the state prosecutor's office, Milicja headquarters and the Soviet
consulate. People across the country criticised the security police and asked for the dissolution of the public security committee and the punishment of its most guilty functionaries. Demands were made for the exposure of secret police collaborators, and suspected collaborators were frequently assaulted. In many localities, crowds gathered outside the secret police headquarters, shouted hostile slogans and broke windows. Public meetings, demonstrations and street marches took place in hundreds of towns across Poland. The meetings were usually organized by local party cells, local authorities and
trade unions. However, official organisers tended to lose control as the political content exceeded their original agenda. Most of the striking workers were opposed to the Stalinist system, but did not call for a return to capitalism. The principle inspiration was Yugoslavia where a system of worker's self-management of factories had been instituted. Most of the economic demands made by the protest called for a system similar to what existed in Yugoslavia. Crowds often took radical action, which often resulted in unrest on the streets and clashes with police and other law enforcement agencies. Street activity peaked during and immediately after the 19–21 October "VIII Plenum" meeting of the
Central Committee of the PZPR but continued until late in the year. A concurrent upsurge in religious and
clerical sentiment took place.
Hymns were sung, and the release of
Stefan Wyszyński and the reinstatement of suppressed
bishops were demanded. Nationalism was the cement of mass mobilisation and dominated public meetings during which people sang the
Polish national anthem and other patriotic songs, demanded the return of the
White Eagle to the flag and traditional army uniforms, and attacked Poland's dependence on the Soviet Union and its military. They demanded the return of the
eastern territories from the Soviets, an explanation for the Katyn massacre, and the elimination of the
Russian language from the educational curriculum. In the last ten days of October, monuments to the
Red Army, despised by Poles, were attacked.
Red stars were pulled down from roofs of houses, factories and schools,
red flags were destroyed, and portraits of Red Army general
Konstantin Rokossovsky were defaced. Attempts were made to force entries into the homes of Soviet citizens, mostly in
Lower Silesia, which was home to many
Soviet Army troops. However, unlike the protesters in Hungary and Poznań, activists limited their political demands and behaviour, which were not purely opposed to the communist system. The communist authorities were not openly and unequivocally challenged, as they had been in June, and anti-communist slogans, which had been prevalent in the June uprising, such as "We want free elections", "Down with Communist dictatorship" or "Down with the Party", were much less prevalent. Local PZPR committees were not attacked by the protesters. ==Change in the political leadership==