History of Poland

The History of Poland is rooted in the arrival of the Slavs, who gave rise to permanent settlement and historic development on Polish lands. During the Piast dynasty Christianity was adopted in 966 and medieval monarchy established. The Jagiellon dynasty period brought close ties with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, cultural development and territorial expansion, culminating in the establishment of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569.

The Commonwealth in its early phase constituted a continuation of the Jagiellon prosperity, with its remarkable development of a sophisticated noble democracy. From the mid-17th century, the huge state entered a period of decline caused by devastating wars and deterioration of the country's system of government. Significant internal reforms were introduced during the later part of the 18th century, but the reform process was not allowed to run its course, as the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy through a series of invasions and partitions terminated the Commonwealth's independent existence in 1795.

From then until 1918 there was no independent Polish state. The Poles engaged intermittently in armed resistance until 1864. After the failure of the last uprising, the nation preserved its identity through educational uplift and the program called "organic work", intended to modernize the economy and society. The opportunity for freedom appeared only after World War I, when the partitioning imperial powers were defeated by war and revolution.

The Second Polish Republic was established and existed from 1918 to 1939. It was destroyed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union by their Invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II. Millions of Polish citizens perished in the course of the Nazi occupation. The Polish government in exile kept functioning and through the many Polish military formations on the western and eastern fronts the Poles contributed to the Allied victory. Nazi Germany's forces were compelled to retreat from Poland as the Soviet Red Army advanced, which led to the creation of the People's Republic of Poland.

The country's geographic location was shifted to the west and Poland existed as a Soviet satellite state. Poland largely lost its traditional multi-ethnic character and the communist system was imposed. By the late 1980s Solidarity, a Polish reform movement, became crucial in causing a peaceful transition from a communist state to the capitalist system and parliamentary democracy. This process resulted in the creation of the modern Polish state.

Prehistory and protohistory

Further information: Prehistory and protohistory of Poland

Humans have lived in the glaciation disrupted environment of north Central Europe for a long time. In prehistoric and protohistoric times, over the period of at least 800,000 years, the area of present-day Poland went through the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age stages of development, along with the nearby regions. Settled agricultural people have lived there for the past 7500 years, since their first arrival at the outset of the Neolithic period. Following the earlier La Tène and Roman influence cultures, the Slavic people have been in this territory for over 1500 years. They organized first into tribal units, and then combined into larger political structures.

Piast dynasty

Further information: History of Poland during the Piast dynasty

Poland expanded under its first two rulers. Dark pink area represents Poland at end of rule of Mieszko I (992); light pink area added (northwest lost) during reign of Bolesław I (died 1025).

During the Piast dynasty rule (10th–14th century), Poland was formed and established as a state and a nation. The historically recorded Polish state begins with the rule of Mieszko I in the second half of the 10th century. Mieszko chose to be baptized in the Western Latin Rite in 966. Mieszko completed the unification of the West Slavic tribal lands fundamental to the new country's existence. Following its emergence, the Polish nation was led by a series of rulers who converted the population to Christianity, created a strong kingdom and integrated Poland into the European culture.

Władysław I the Elbow-high

Mieszko's son Bolesław I Chrobry established a Polish Church province, pursued territorial conquests and was officially crowned in 1025, becoming the first King of Poland. This was followed by a collapse of the monarchy and restoration under Casimir I. Casimir's son Bolesław II the Bold became fatally involved in a conflict with the ecclesiastical authority, and was expelled from the country. After Bolesław III divided the country among his sons, internal fragmentation eroded the initial Piast monarchy structure in the 12th and 13th centuries. One of the regional Piast dukes invited the Teutonic Knights to help him fight the Baltic Prussian pagans, which caused centuries of Poland's warfare with the Knights and then with the German Prussian state. The Kingdom was restored under Władysław I the Elbow-high, strengthened and expanded by his son Casimir III the Great. The western provinces of Silesia and Pomerania were lost after the fragmentation, and Poland began expanding to the east. The consolidation in the 14th century laid the base for, after the reigns of two members of the Angevin dynasty, the new powerful Kingdom of Poland that was to follow.

Jagiellon dynasty

Further information: History of Poland during the Jagiellon dynasty

Wawel Castle, Renaissance courtyard

Beginning with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila (Władysław II Jagiełło), the Jagiellon dynasty (1386–1572) formed the Polish–Lithuanian union. The partnership brought vast Lithuania-controlled Rus' areas into Poland's sphere of influence and proved beneficial for the Poles and Lithuanians, who coexisted and cooperated in one of the largest political entities in Europe for the next four centuries. In the Baltic Sea region, Poland's struggle with the Teutonic Knights continued and included the Battle of Grunwald (German: Battle of Tannenberg; Lithuanian: Battle of Žalgiris) (1410) and in 1466 the milestone Peace of Thorn under King Casimir IV Jagiellon; the treaty created the future Duchy of Prussia. In the south, Poland confronted the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars, and in the east helped Lithuania fight the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Poland was developing as a feudal state, with predominantly agricultural economy and an increasingly dominant landed nobility component. The Nihil novi act adopted by the Polish Sejm (parliament) in 1505, transferred most of the legislative power from the monarch to the Sejm. This event marked the beginning of the period known as "Golden Liberty", when the state was ruled by the "free and equal" Polish nobility. Protestant Reformation movements made deep inroads into the Polish Christianity, which resulted in unique at that time in Europe policies of religious tolerance. The European Renaissance currents evoked in late Jagiellon Poland (kings Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus) an immense cultural and scientific flowering, of which the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus is the best known representative. Poland's and Lithuania's territorial expansion included the far north region of Livonia.

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Further information: History of Poland (1569–1795), Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Establishment (1569–1648)

Further information: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648)

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at its greatest extent, after the Truce of Deulino (Dywilino) of 1619

The Union of Lublin of 1569 established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a more closely unified federal state. The Union was largely run by the nobility, through the system of the central parliament and local assemblies, but led by elected kings. The formal rule of the proportionally more numerous than in other European countries nobility constituted an early democratic system ("a sophisticated noble democracy"), in contrast to the absolute monarchies prevalent at that time in the rest of Europe. The beginning of the Commonwealth coincided with the period of Poland's great power, civilizational advancement and prosperity. The Polish–Lithuanian Union had become an influential player in Europe and a vital cultural entity, spreading the Western culture eastward. In the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a huge state in central-eastern Europe, with an area approaching one million square kilometers. The Catholic Church embarked on an ideological counteroffensive and Counter-Reformation claimed many converts from Protestant circles. The Union of Brest split the Eastern Christians of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth, assertive militarily under King Stephen Báthory, suffered from dynastic distractions during the reigns of the Vasa kings Sigismund III and Władysław IV. The Commonwealth fought wars with Russia, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire and dealt with a series of Cossack uprisings. Allied with the Habsburg Monarchy, it did not directly participate in the Thirty Years' War.

Decline (1648–1764)

Further information: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1648–1764)

King John III Sobieski with son Jakub, whom he tried to position to be his successor. Sobieski led the Commonwealth to its last victories.

Beginning in the middle of the 17th century, the nobles' democracy, subjected to devastating wars, falling into internal disorder and then anarchy, gradually declined, making the once powerful Commonwealth vulnerable to foreign intervention. From 1648, the Cossack Khmelnytsky Uprising engulfed the south and east, and was soon followed by a Swedish invasion, which raged through core Polish lands. Warfare with the Cossacks and Russia left Ukraine divided, with the eastern part, lost by the Commonwealth, becoming the Tsardom's dependency. John III Sobieski, fighting protracted wars with the Ottoman Empire, revived the Commonwealth's military might once more, in process helping decisively in 1683 to deliver Vienna from a Turkish onslaught. From there, it all went downhill. The Commonwealth, subjected to almost constant warfare until 1720, suffered enormous population losses as well as massive damage to its economy and social structure. The government became ineffective because of large scale internal conflicts (e.g. Lubomirski's Rokosz against John II Casimir and rebellious confederations), corrupted legislative processes and manipulation by foreign interests. The nobility class fell under control of a handful of powerful families with established territorial domains, the urban population and infrastructure fell into ruin, together with most peasant farms. The reigns of two kings of the Saxon Wettin dynasty, Augustus II and Augustus III, brought the Commonwealth further disintegration. The Great Northern War, a period seen by the contemporaries as a passing eclipse, may have been the fatal blow destined to bring down the Noble Republic. The Kingdom of Prussia became a strong regional power and took Silesia from the Habsburg Monarchy. The Commonwealth-Saxony personal union however gave rise to the emergence of the reform movement in the Commonwealth, and the beginnings of the Polish Enlightenment culture.

Reforms and loss of statehood (1764–1795)

Further information: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1764–1795)

In 1791 the Great or Four-Year Sejm adopted the May 3 Constitution at Warsaw's Royal Castle

During the later part of the 18th century, the Commonwealth attempted fundamental internal reforms. The reform activity provoked hostile reaction and eventually military response on the part of the neighboring powers. The second half of the century brought improved economy and significant growth of the population. The most populous capital city of Warsaw replaced Danzig (Gdańsk) as the leading trade center, and the role of the more prosperous urban strata was increasing. The last decades of the independent Commonwealth existence were characterized by intense reform movements and far-reaching progress in the areas of education, intellectual life, art, and especially toward the end of the period, evolution of the social and political system. The royal election of 1764 resulted in the elevation of Stanisław August Poniatowski, a refined and worldly aristocrat connected to a major magnate faction, but hand-picked and imposed by Empress Catherine II of Russia, who expected Poniatowski to be her obedient follower. The King accordingly spent his reign torn between his desire to implement reforms necessary to save the state, and his perceived necessity of remaining in subordinate relationship with his Russian sponsors. The Bar Confederation of 1768 was a szlachta rebellion directed against Russia and the Polish king, fought to preserve Poland's independence and in support of szlachta's traditional causes. It was brought under control and followed in 1772 by the First Partition of the Commonwealth, a permanent encroachment on the outer Commonwealth provinces by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg Austria. The "Partition Sejm" under duress "ratified" the partition fait accompli, but in 1773 also established the Commission of National Education, a pioneering in Europe government education authority.

Kościuszko Uprising began with Tadeusz Kościuszko taking the oath, Kraków 1794

The long-lasting sejm convened by Stanisław August in 1788 is known as the Great, or Four-Year Sejm. The sejm's landmark achievement was the passing of the May 3 Constitution, the first in modern Europe singular pronouncement of a supreme law of the state. The reformist but moderate document, accused by detractors of French Revolution sympathies, soon generated strong opposition coming from the Commonwealth's upper nobility conservative circles and Catherine II, determined to prevent a rebirth of the strong Commonwealth. The nobility's Targowica Confederation appealed to the Empress for help and in May 1792 the Russian army entered the territory of the Commonwealth. The defensive war fought by the forces of the Commonwealth ended when the King, convinced of the futility of resistance, capitulated by joining the Targowica Confederation. The Confederation took over the government, but Russia and Prussia in 1793 arranged for and executed the Second Partition of the Commonwealth, which left the country with critically reduced territory, practically incapable of independent existence. The radicalized by the recent events reformers, in the still nominally Commonwealth area and in exile, were soon working on national insurrection preparations. Tadeusz Kościuszko was chosen as its leader; the popular general came from abroad and on March 24, 1794 in Cracow (Kraków) declared a national uprising under his supreme command. Kościuszko emancipated and enrolled in his army many peasants, but the hard-fought insurrection, strongly supported also by urban plebeian masses, proved incapable of generating the necessary foreign collaboration and aid. It ended suppressed by the forces of Russia and Prussia, with Warsaw captured in November. The third and final partition of the Commonwealth was undertaken again by all three partitioning powers, and in 1795 the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth effectively ceased to exist.

Partitioned Poland

Further information: History of Poland (1795–1918)

Armed resistance (1795–1864)

The three Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772, 1793, and 1795)

While there was no separate Polish state at all, the idea of Polish independence was kept alive throughout the 19th century and led to more Polish uprisings and other warfare against the partitioning powers. Military efforts after the Partitions were first based on Polish alliances with post-revolutionary France. Henryk Dąbrowski's Polish Legions fought in French campaigns outside of Poland, hoping that their involvement and contribution result in liberation of their Polish homeland. The Polish national anthem - Dąbrowski's Mazurka - was written in praise of his actions by Józef Wybicki in 1797. The Duchy of Warsaw, a small, semi-independent Polish state, was created in 1807 by Napoleon Bonaparte, following his defeat of Prussia. The Duchy's military forces, led by Józef Poniatowski, participated in numerous campaigns, including the Polish–Austrian War of 1809, the French invasion of Russia in 1812, and the German campaign of 1813.

Józef Poniatowski's leap into the Elster at the Battle of Leipzig to some epitomized Poland's fate

After the defeat of Napoleon, a new European order was established at the Congress of Vienna. Adam Czartoryski became the leading advocate for the Polish national cause. The Congress implemented a new partition scheme, which took into account some of the gains realized by the Poles during the Napoleonic period. The Duchy of Warsaw was replaced with the Kingdom of Poland, a residual Polish state in personal union with the Russian Empire, ruled by the Russian tsar. East of the Kingdom, large areas of the former Commonwealth remained directly incorporated into the Empire; together with the Kingdom they were part of the Russian partition. There was a Prussian partition, with a portion of it separated as the Grand Duchy of Posen, and an Austrian partition. The newly created Republic of Kraków was a tiny state under a joint supervision of the three partitioning powers. "Partitions" were the lands of the former Commonwealth, not actual administrative units.

Frédéric Chopin wrote modern improvisation-like piano pieces, many inspired by Polish folk music

The increasingly repressive policies of the partitioning powers led to Polish conspiracies, and in 1830 to the November Uprising in the Kingdom. The uprising developed into a full-scale war with Russia, but the leadership was taken over by the Polish conservative circles reluctant to challenge the Empire, and hostile to broadening the independence movement's social base through measures such as land reform. Despite the significant resources mobilized and self-sacrifice of the participants, a series of missteps by several successive unwilling or incompetent chief commanders appointed by the Polish government ultimately led to the defeat of the insurgents by the Russian army.

After the fall of the November Uprising, thousands of former Polish combatants and other activists emigrated to Western Europe, where they were initially enthusiastically received. This element, known as the Great Emigration, soon dominated the Polish political and intellectual life. Together with the leaders of the independence movement, the exile community included the greatest Polish literary and artistic minds, including the Romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Cyprian Norwid, and composer Frédéric Chopin. In the occupied and repressed Poland, some sought progress through self-improvement activities known as organic work; others, in cooperation with emigrant circles, organized conspiracies and prepared for the next armed insurrection.

The planned national uprising, after authorities in the partitions had found out about secret preparations, ended in a fiasco in early 1846. In its most significant manifestation, the Kraków Uprising of February 1846, patriotic action was combined with revolutionary demands, but the result was the incorporation of the Republic of Kraków into the Austrian partition. Austrian authorities took advantage of peasant discontent by inciting the villagers against noble-dominated insurgent units; it led to the Galician slaughter, a violent anti-feudal rebellion, beyond the intended scope of the provocation. A new wave of Polish military and other involvement, in the partitions and in other parts of Europe, soon took place in the context of the 1848 Spring of Nations revolutions. In particular, the events in Berlin precipitated the Greater Poland Uprising, where peasants in Prussia, who were by then largely enfranchised, played a prominent role.

Romuald Traugutt, the last "dictator" of the January Uprising

A renewal of popular liberation activities took place in 1860-1861; during the large scale demonstrations in Warsaw the Russian forces inflicted numerous casualties on the civilian participants. The "Red", or left-wing conspiracy faction, which promoted peasant enfranchisement and cooperated with Russian revolutionaries, became involved in immediate preparations for a national uprising. The "White", or right-wing faction, inclined to cooperate with the Russian authorities, countered with partial reform proposals. Aleksander Wielopolski, the conservative leader of the Kingdom's government, in order to cripple the manpower potential of the Reds, arranged for a partial selective conscription of young Poles for the Russian army, which hastened the outbreak of the hostilities. The January Uprising, joined and led after the initial period by the Whites, was fought by partisan units against an overwhelming enemy advantage. The warfare was limited to the Kingdom and lasted from January 1863 to the spring of 1864, when Romuald Traugutt, the dedicated last supreme commander of the insurgence, was captured by the tsarist police.

On March 2, 1864, the Russian authority — compelled by the uprising to compete for the loyalty of Polish peasants — officially published an enfranchisement decree in the Kingdom, along the lines of an earlier insurgent land reform proclamation. The act created the conditions necessary for the development of the capitalist system on central Polish lands. At the time when the futility of armed resistance without external support was realized by most Poles, the various segments of the Polish society were undergoing deep and far-reaching social, economic and cultural transformations.

Formation of modern Polish society under foreign rule (1864–1918)

Maria Konopnicka was one of the authors representative of the socially engaged attitudes of the times

Following the failure of the last of the national uprisings, the January Uprising of 1863, the Polish nation, subjected within the territories under the Russian and Prussian administrations to still stricter controls and increased persecution, preserved its identity in nonviolent ways. After the Uprising Congress Poland, downgraded in official usage from the Kingdom of Poland to the Vistula Land, was more fully integrated into Russia proper, but not entirely obliterated. The Russian and German languages were respectively imposed in all public communication and the Catholic Church was not spared from severe repression. On the other hand the Galicia region in western Ukraine and southern Poland, economically and socially backward, but under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy rule increasingly allowed limited autonomy, experienced gradual relaxation of authoritarian policies and even a Polish cultural revival. Positivism replaced Romanticism as the leading intellectual, social and literary trend.

"Organic work" social activities consisted of self-help organizations that promoted economic advancement and worked on improving competitiveness of Polish-held business entities, industrial, agricultural, or other. New commercial methods and ways of generating higher productivity were discussed and implemented through trade associations and special interest groups, while Polish banking and cooperative financial institutions made necessary business loans available. The other major area of organic work concern was education and intellectual development of the common people. Many libraries and reading rooms were established in small towns and villages, and numerous printed periodicals reflected the growing interest in popular education. Scientific and educational societies were active in a number of cities.

19th century factory building in Łódź, a great textile manufacturing center

Economic and social changes, such as land reform and industrialization, combined with the effects of foreign domination, altered the centuries old social structure of the Polish society. Among the newly emergent strata were wealthy industrialists and financiers, distinct from the traditional, but still critically important landed aristocracy. The intelligentsia, an educated, professional or business middle class, often originated from gentry alienated from their rural possessions (many smaller serfdom-based agricultural enterprises had not survived the land reforms) and from urban people. Industrial proletariat, the new underprivileged class, were usually poor peasants or townspeople forced by deteriorating conditions to migrate and search for work in urban centers in countries of their origin or abroad. Millions of residents of the former Commonwealth of various ethnic backgrounds worked or settled in Europe and in North and South America.

Roman Dmowski's nationalist ideology proved highly influential

The changes were partial and gradual, and the degree of the fast-paced in some areas industrialization and capitalist development on Polish lands lagged behind the advanced regions of western Europe. The three partitions developed different economies, and were economically integrated with their mother states more than with each other. In the 1870s-1890s, large scale socialist, nationalist and agrarian movements of great ideological fervor and corresponding political parties became established in partitioned Poland and Lithuania. The main minority ethnic groups of the former Commonwealth, including Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Jews, were getting involved in their own national movements and plans, which met with disapproval on the part of those ethnically Polish independence activists, who counted on an eventual rebirth of the Commonwealth. Around the start of the 20th century the Young Poland cultural movement, centered on Galicia and taking advantage of the conducive to liberal expression milieu there, was the source of Poland's finest artistic and literary productions. Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a pioneer radiation scientist, who did her groundbreaking research in Paris.

The 1905 Russian Revolution arose new waves of Polish unrest, political maneuvering, strikes and rebellion, with Roman Dmowski and Józef Piłsudski active as leaders of the nationalist and socialist factions respectively. As the authorities reestablished control within the Empire, the revolt in the Kingdom, placed under martial law, had withered as well, leaving tsarist concessions in the areas of national and workers' rights, including Polish representation in the newly created Russian Duma. Some of the acquired gains were however rolled back, which coupled with intensified Germanization in the Prussian partition, left the Austrian Galicia as the most amenable to patriotic action territory.

"The Commandant": Józef Piłsudski with his legionaries in 1915

After the outbreak of World War I, which confronted the partitioning powers against each other, Piłsudski's paramilitary units stationed in Galicia were turned into the Polish Legions, and as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Army fought on the Russian front.

World War I and the political turbulence that was sweeping Europe in 1914 offered the Polish nation hopes for regaining independence. On the outbreak of war the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of Germany, Austria and Russia, and forced to fight each other in a war that was not theirs. Although many Poles sympathized with France and Britain, they found it hard to fight for their ally, Russia. They also had little sympathy for the Germans. Total deaths from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within the 1919–1939 borders, were estimated at 1,128,000. By the end of World War I Poland had seen the defeat or retreat of all three partitioning powers.

During the course of the war the area of Congress Poland became occupied by the Central Powers, with Warsaw captured by the Germans on 5 August 1915. In the Act of 5th November 1916, the Kingdom of Poland (Królestwo Regencyjne) was recreated by Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary on formerly Russian-controlled territory. This new puppet state existed until November 1918, when it was replaced by the newly established Republic of Poland. The independence of Poland had been campaigned for in the West by Dmowski and Ignacy Paderewski. With Woodrow Wilson's support, Polish independence was officially endorsed in June 1918 by the Entente Powers, on whose fronts sizable armies of Polish volunteers had been mobilized and fought. On the ground in Poland in October–November the final upsurge of the push for independence was taking place, with Ignacy Daszyński heading a short-lived Polish government in Lublin from November 6. Germany decided to withdraw its forces from Warsaw and released imprisoned Piłsudski, who arrived in Warsaw on November 10.

Second Polish Republic (1918–1939)

Further information: History of Poland (1918–1939), Second Polish Republic

Polish–Soviet War, defenses near Warsaw, August 1920

After more than a century of rule by its neighbors, Poland regained its independence in 1918, internationally recognized in 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles. The Paris Peace Conference and the Versailles treaty that followed resolved the issue of Poland's western border with Germany, including the Polish Corridor, which gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea, and the separate status of the Free City of Danzig. Plebiscites in southern East Prussia and Upper Silesia were provided for, while the issues of other northern, eastern and southern borders remained undetermined, inviting military action.

Of the several border-settling conflicts that ensued, the Polish–Soviet War of 1919-1921 was the confrontation fought on a very large scale. Piłsudski had entertained far-reaching anti-Russian cooperative designs for Eastern Europe, and in 1919 the Polish forces pushed eastward into Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine (previously a theater of the Polish–Ukrainian War), taking advantage of the Russian preoccupation with the civil war. By June 1920, the Polish armies were past Vilnius, Minsk and (allied with the Directorate of Ukraine) reached Kiev, but then the massive Bolshevik counteroffensive moved the Poles out of most of Ukraine and on the northern front arrived at the outskirts of Warsaw. The seemingly certain disaster was averted in August by the combination of Piłsudski's military skills and a dedicated national defense effort.

Wincenty Witos (right) and Ignacy Daszyński headed a wartime cabinet in 1920. Witos was an agrarian party leader and a centrist politician, later persecuted under the Sanation regime.

The Russian armies were separated, defeated and pushed back, which forced Lenin and the Soviet leadership to abandon for the time being their strategic objective of linking up with the German and other European revolution-minded comrades (Lenin's hope of generating support for the Red Army in Poland had already failed to materialize). Piłsudski's seizure of Vilnius (Wilno) in October 1920 poisoned Polish–Lithuanian relations for the remainder of the interwar period. Piłsudski's planned East European federation of states (inspired by the tradition of the multiethnic "Republic of Both Nations" and including a hypothetical multinational successor state to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) was incompatible, at the time of rising national movements, with his assumption of Polish domination and with the encroachment on the neighboring peoples' lands and aspirations; as such it was doomed to failure.^[a] A larger federated structure was also opposed by Dmowski's National Democrats. Their representative at the Peace of Riga talks opted for leaving Minsk, Berdychiv, Kamianets-Podilskyi and the surrounding areas on the Soviet side of the border, not wanting to allow population shifts National Democrats considered politically undesirable, including what would be a reduced proportion of citizens who were ethnically Polish.

Funeral of President Gabriel Narutowicz

The Treaty of Riga of 1921 settled the eastern border, preserving for Poland, at the cost of partitioning the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuania and Belarus) and Ukraine, a good portion of the old Commonwealth's eastern lands. Ukrainians ended up with no state of their own and felt betrayed by the Riga arrangements; their resentment gave rise to extreme nationalism and anti-Polish hostility. The territories in the east won by 1921 would form the basis for a swap arranged and carried out by the Soviets in 1943-1945, who at that time compensated the reemerging Polish state for its eastern lands lost to the Soviet Union with conquered areas of eastern Germany.

The successful outcome of the Polish–Soviet War gave Poland a false sense of being a major and self-sufficient military power, and the government a justification for trying to resolve international problems through imposed unilateral solutions. The interwar period's Polish territorial and ethnic policies contributed to bad relations with most of Poland's neighbors and to uneasy cooperation with the more distant centers of power, including France, Britain and the League of Nations.

Piłsudski's May Coup of 1926 defined Poland's political reality for the years leading to World War II

The rapidly growing population of Poland within the new boundaries was ¾ agricultural and ¼ urban, with Polish being the primary language of ⅔ of the inhabitants. A constitution was adopted in 1921. Due to the insistence of the National Democrats, worried about the potential power of Piłsudski if elected, it introduced limited prerogatives for the presidency.

What followed was the Second Republic's short (1921–1926) and turbulent period of constitutional order and parliamentary democracy. The legislature remained fragmented and lacking stable majorities, governments changed frequently, corruption was commonplace. The open-minded Gabriel Narutowicz was constitutionally elected president by the National Assembly in 1922, but deemed not pure enough by the nationalist right wing, was assassinated. Poland had suffered under a plethora of economic calamities, but there were also signs of progress and stabilization (Władysław Grabski's economically competent government lasted for almost two years). The achievements of the democratic period, such as the establishment, strengthening or expansion of the various governmental and civil society structures and integrative processes necessary for normal functioning of the reunited state and nation, were too easily overlooked. Lurking on the sidelines was the disgusted army upper corps, not willing to subject itself to civilian control, but ready to follow its equally dissatisfied, at that time retired, legendary chief.

Last leaders of the Republic: Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły and President Ignacy Mościcki in 1936

On May 12, 1926, Piłsudski, prompted by mutinous units seeking his leadership and intent on preventing the three-time prime minister Wincenty Witos of the peasant Polish People's Party from forming another coalition, staged a military overthrow of the Polish government, confronting President Stanisław Wojciechowski and overpowering the troops loyal to him. Hundreds died in fratricidal fighting. Piłsudski was supported by several leftist factions, who ensured the success of his coup by blocking during the fighting the railway transportation of government forces, but the authoritarian "Sanation" regime that he was to lead for the rest of his life and that stayed in power until World War II, was neither leftist, nor overtly fascist. Political institutions and parties were allowed to function, which was combined with electoral manipulation and strong-arming of those not willing to cooperate into submission. Eventually persistent opponents of the regime, many of the leftist persuasion, were subjected to long staged trials and harsh sentences, or detained in camps for political prisoners. Rebellious peasants, striking industrial workers and nationalist Ukrainians became targets of ruthless military pacification, other minorities were harassed. Piłsudski, conscious of Poland's precarious international situation, signed non-aggression pacts with the Soviet Union in 1932 and with Nazi Germany in 1934.

Krasiński Square in prewar Warsaw

The mainstream of the Polish society was not affected by the repressions of the Sanation authorities; many enjoyed the relative prosperity (the economy improved between 1926 and 1929) and supported the government. Polish independence had boosted the development of thriving culture and intellectual achievement was high, but the Great Depression brought huge unemployment and increased social tensions, including rising antisemitism. The reconstituted Polish state had had only 20 years of relative stability and uneasy peace between the two wars. A major economic transformation and national industrial development plan led by Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, the main architect of the Gdynia seaport project, was in progress at the time of the outbreak of the war. The interwar period's overall economic situation in Poland was, however, stagnant. The total industrial production (within the pre-1939 borders) had barely increased between 1913 and 1939, but because of the population growth, the per capita output actually decreased by 17.8%.

Second Polish Republic (until 1939)

The lack of sufficient domestic or foreign investment funding precluded by 1939 the level of industrial development necessary for creating modern armed forces for successful self-defense; because of its strategic and tactical priorities, the ruling establishment had not primarily prepared the country for a major war on the western front. The regime of Piłsudski's "colonels", left in power after the Marshal's death, had neither the vision nor resources to cope with the deteriorating situation in Europe. The government (foreign policy conduct was the responsibility of Józef Beck) undertook opportunistic hostile actions against Lithuania and Czechoslovakia, while it failed to control the increasingly fractured situation at home, where fringe groups and extreme nationalist circles were getting more outspoken (one Camp of National Unity was connected to the new strongman, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły).

In 1939, the Polish government rejected the German offer of forming an alliance on terms which would amount to an end or severe curtailment of Poland's sovereignty; Hitler abrogated the Polish-German pact. Before the war broke out, Poland entered into a full military alliance with Britain and France; the western powers lacked the will to confront Nazi Germany and their (false) assurances of imminent military action were only intended as pressure applied to deter Hitler. The mid-August British-French talks with the Soviets on forming an anti-Nazi defensive military alliance had failed, in part over the Polish government's refusal to allow the Red Army to operate on Polish territory.^[b] On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, which secretly provided for the dismemberment of Poland into Nazi and Soviet-controlled zones.

World War II: invasion and partition

Further information: History of Poland (1939–1945)

German battleship Schleswig-Holstein shelling Westerplatte on September 1, 1939

On September 1, 1939 Hitler ordered his troops into Poland. Poland had signed a pact with Britain (as recently as August 25) and France and the two western powers soon declared a war on Germany, but remained rather inactive and extended no aid to the attacked country. On September 17, the Soviet troops moved in and took control of most of the areas of eastern Poland having significant Ukrainian and Belarusian populations under the terms of the German-Soviet agreement. While Poland's military forces were fighting the invading armies, Poland's top government officials and military high command left the country (September 17/18). Among the military operations that held out the longest (until late September or early October) were the Defense of Warsaw, the Defense of Hel and the resistance of the Polesie Group.

Fighting the initial "September Campaign" of World War II was the most significant Polish contribution to the allied war effort. The nearly one million Polish soldiers mobilized significantly delayed Hitler's attack on Western Europe, planned for 1939. When the Nazi offensive did happen, the delay caused it to be less effective, a possibly crucial factor in the case of the defense of Britain.

Polish cavalry in the Battle of the Bzura, September 1939

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Poland was completely occupied by German troops.

The Poles formed an underground resistance movement and a Polish government in exile, first in Paris and later in London, which was recognized by the Soviet Union (diplomatic relations, broken since September 1939, were resumed in July 1941). During World War II, about 400,000 Poles joined the underground Polish Home Army, about 300,000 fought under the Soviet command, and about 200,000 went into combat on western fronts in units loyal to the Polish government in exile.

In April 1943, the Soviet Union broke the deteriorating relations with the Polish government in exile after the German military announced that they had discovered mass graves of murdered Polish army officers at Katyn, in the USSR. The Soviets claimed that the Poles had committed a hostile act by requesting that the Red Cross investigate these reports.

No. 303 Fighter Squadron pilots became famous for fighting the Germans during the Battle of Britain

As the Jewish ghetto in occupied Warsaw was being liquidated by the Nazi SS units, in 1943 the city was the scene of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The eliminations of the ghettos took place in Polish cities and uprisings were fought there against impossible odds by desperate Jewish insurgents, whose people were being removed and exterminated.

At the time of the western Allies' increasing cooperation with the Soviet Union, the standing and influence of the Polish government in exile were seriously diminished by the death of its most prominent leader — Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski — on July 4, 1943.

In July 1944, the Soviet Red Army and the People's Army of Poland controlled by the Soviets entered Poland, and through protracted fighting in 1944 and 1945 defeated the Germans, losing 600,000 of their soldiers.

The greatest single instance of armed struggle in the occupied Poland and a major political event of World War II was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The uprising, in which most of the Warsaw population participated, was instigated by the underground Armia Krajowa (Home Army) and approved by the Polish government in exile, in an attempt to establish a non-communist Polish administration ahead of the approaching Red Army. The uprising was planned with the expectation that the Soviet forces, who had arrived in the course of their offensive and were present on the other side of the Vistula River, would help in battle over Warsaw. However, the Soviets stopped their advance at the Vistula and were mostly passive as the Germans brutally suppressed the forces of the pro-Western Polish underground.

General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, shortly before his death

The bitterly fought uprising lasted for two months and resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilians killed and expelled. After a hopeless surrender on the part of the Poles (October 2), the Germans carried out Hitler's order to destroy the remaining infrastructure of the city. The Polish First Army, fighting along the Soviet Red Army, entered Warsaw on 17 January 1945.

As a consequence of the war and by the decision of the Soviet leadership, agreed to by the United States and Britain beginning with the Tehran Conference (late 1943), Poland's geographic location was fundamentally altered.^[c] Stalin's proposal that Poland should be moved very far to the west was readily accepted by Polish communists, who were at that time at the early stages of forming the post-war government. In July 1944, a communist-controlled "Polish Committee of National Liberation" was established in Lublin, which caused protests by Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk and the Polish government in exile.

By the time of the Yalta Conference (February 1945), seen by many Poles as the pivotal point when the nation's fate was sealed by the Great Powers, the communists had established a provisional government in Poland. The Soviet position at the Conference was strong, corresponding to their advance on the German battlefield. The three Great Powers gave assurances for the conversion of the communist provisional government, by including in it democratic forces from within the country and currently active abroad (the Provisional Government of National Unity and subsequent democratic elections were the agreed stated goals), but the London-based government in exile was not mentioned.

Jewish prisoners liberated by Polish soldiers in the beginning of the Warsaw Uprising

After the final (for all practical purposes) settlement at Potsdam, the Soviet Union retained most of the territories captured as a result of the 1939 German-Soviet pact (now western Ukraine, western Belarus and part of Lithuania around Vilnius). Poland was compensated with parts of Silesia including Breslau (Wrocław) and Grünberg (Zielona Góra), of Pomerania including Stettin (Szczecin), and of East Prussia, along with Danzig (Gdańsk), collectively referred to as the "Recovered Territories", which were incorporated into the reconstituted Polish state. Most of the German population there was expelled to Germany. 1.5-2 million Poles were expelled from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. The vast majority of them were resettled in the former German territories.

Scientific and numerically correct estimation of the human losses suffered by Polish citizens during World War II does not seem possible because of the paucity of available data. Some conjectures can be arrived at and they suggest that assertions made in the past have been incorrect and motivated by political needs. To begin with, the total population of 1939 Poland and of the several nationalities/ethnicities present there are not accurately known, since the last population census took place in 1931.

Polish generals on the Eastern Front

Modern research indicates that during the war about 5 million Polish citizens were killed, including 3 million Polish Jews. According to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, at least 1.9 to two million ethnic Poles and 3 million Polish Jews were killed. Millions were deported to Germany for forced labor or to German extermination camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz. According to a recent estimate, between 2.35 and 2.9 million Polish Jews and about 2 million ethnic Poles were killed. The Nazis executed tens of thousands of members of the Polish intelligentsia during the AB Aktion and the Operation Tannenberg, and the Soviets did the same during the Katyn massacre.^[j] Over 95% of the Polish Jewish losses (less directly also many of the rest)^[d] and 90% of the ethnic Polish losses were caused by Nazi Germany; 5% of the ethnic Polish losses were caused by the Soviets and 5% by Ukrainian nationalists. This Jewish loss of life, together with the numerically much less significant waves of displacement during the war and emigration after the war, after the Polish October 1956 thaw and following the 1968 Polish political crisis, put an end to several centuries of large scale, well-established Jewish settlement and presence in Poland. The magnitudes of the (also substantial) losses of Polish citizens of German, Ukrainian, Belarusian and other nationalities are not known.

In 1940-1941, some 325,000 Polish citizens were deported by the Soviet regime. The number of Polish citizen deaths at the hands of the Soviets is estimated at less than 100,000. In 1943–1944, Ukrainian nationalists (OUN and Ukrainian Insurgent Army) massacred tens of thousands of Poles in Volhynia and Galicia.

Warsaw destroyed, January 1945

Approximately 90% of Poland's war losses were the victims of prisons, death camps, raids, executions, annihilation of ghettos, epidemics, starvation, excessive work and ill treatment. There were one million war orphans and 590,000 war disabled. The country lost 38% of its national assets (Britain lost 0.8%, France 1.5%). Nearly half the prewar Poland was expropriated by the Soviet Union, including the two great cultural centers of Lwów and Wilno. Many Poles could not return to the country for which they had fought because they belonged to the "wrong" political group, or came from prewar eastern Poland incorporated into the Soviet Union (see Polish population transfers (1944–1946)), or having fought in the West were warned not to return because of the high risk of persecution. Others were pursued, arrested, tortured and imprisoned by the Soviet authorities for belonging to the Home Army (see Cursed soldiers), or persecuted because of having fought on the western front.

With Germany's defeat, as the reestablished Polish state was shifted west to the area between the Oder–Neisse and Curzon lines, the Germans who had not fled were expelled. Of those who remained, many chose to emigrate to post-war Germany. According to a recently quoted estimate, of the 200-250 thousand Jews who escaped the Nazis, 40-60 thousand had survived in Poland. More had been repatriated from the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and the February 1946 population census showed ca. 300,000 Jews within the new borders.^[e] Of the surviving Jews, many chose or felt compelled to emigrate. Of the Ukrainians and Lemkos living in Poland within the new borders (about 700,000), close to 95% were forcibly moved to Soviet Ukraine (see Repatriation of Ukrainians from Poland to the Soviet Union), and in 1947 to the new territories in northern and western Poland under Operation Vistula. In all the mutual violence in the 1940s (during and after the war), about 70,000 Poles and about 20,000 Ukrainians were killed.

Because of the changing borders and of mass movements of people of various nationalities, sponsored by governments and spontaneous, the emerging communist Poland ended up with a mainly homogeneous, ethnically Polish population (97.6% according to the December 1950 census). The remaining members of the minorities were not encouraged, by the authorities or by their neighbors, to emphasize their ethnic identity.

People's Republic of Poland (1945–1989)

Further information: History of Poland (1945–1989), People's Republic of Poland

At the end of World War II, the gray territories were transferred from Poland to the Soviet Union, and the pink territories from Germany to Poland. The post-war Poland consists of the white and pink portions.

In June 1945, as an implementation of the February Yalta Conference directives, according to the Soviet interpretation, a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity was formed; it was soon recognized by the United States and many other countries. A communist rule and Soviet domination were apparent from the beginning: sixteen prominent leaders of the Polish anti-Nazi underground were brought to trial in Moscow in June 1945.

A national referendum arranged for by the communist Polish Workers' Party was used to legitimize its dominance in Polish politics and claim widespread support for the party's policies. Although the Yalta agreement called for free elections, those held in January 1947 were controlled by the communists. Some democratic and pro-Western elements, led by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, the former Prime Minister in Exile, participated in the Provisional National Unity Government and the 1947 elections, but were ultimately eliminated through electoral fraud, intimidation and violence. In times of radical change, they attempted to preserve some degree of mixed economy. The Polish government in exile had remained in continuous existence until 1990, although its influence was degraded.

A Polish People's Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa) was created under the communist Polish United Workers' Party rule after the brief period of coalition "National Unity" government. The ruling party itself was a result of the forced amalgamation (December 1948) of the communist Polish Workers' Party and the historically non-communist, more popular Polish Socialist Party (the party, reestablished in 1944, had been from that time allied with the communists). The ruling communists, who in post-war Poland preferred to use the term "socialism",^[f] needed to include the socialist junior partner to broaden their appeal, claim greater legitimacy and eliminate competition on the left. The socialists, who were losing their organization, had to be subjected to political pressure, ideological cleansing and purges in order to become suitable for the unification on the "Workers' Party"'s terms. The socialist pro-communist leader was the long-term prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz.

Władysław Gomułka declared in 1947 a "Polish road to socialism" (curbing, rather than eradicating, capitalist elements), but was soon overruled. Gomułka's career was interrupted when he was removed and imprisoned by Stalinist authorities a few years later.

During the most oppressive Stalinist period, terror, justified by the necessity to eliminate the reactionary subversion, was widespread. Many thousands of perceived opponents of the regime were arbitrarily tried and large numbers executed, especially in 1945-1948. The People's Republic was led by discredited Moscow's operatives such as Bolesław Bierut, Jakub Berman and Konstantin Rokossovsky. In 1953 and after, despite a partial thaw after Stalin's death, the persecution of the independent Polish Catholic Church intensified and its head, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, was detained.

Larger rural estates and agricultural holdings as well as post-German property were redistributed through land reform and industry was nationalized beginning in 1944. Communist-introduced restructuring and imposition of work-space rules encountered active worker opposition already in 1945-1947. The Three-Year Plan (1947–1949) continued with the rebuilding, socialization and restructuring of the economy. The rejection of the Marshall Plan (1947), however, made the aspirations of catching-up with the West European standard of living unrealistic.

The government's economic high priority was the development of militarily useful heavy industry. State-run institutions, collectivization and cooperative entities were imposed (the last category dismantled in the 1940s as not socialist enough, later reestablished), while even small-scale private enterprises were being eradicated. Stalinism introduced heavy political and ideological indoctrination in social life, culture and education.

Great strides, however, were made in the areas of universal public education (including elimination of adult illiteracy), health care and recreational amenities for working people. Many historic sites, including central districts of war-destroyed Warsaw and Gdańsk (Danzig), were rebuilt at a great cost. A majority of Poland's urban residents still live in apartment blocks built during the communist era.

Communist aspirations were symbolized by the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw

In October 1956, after the 20th Soviet Party Congress in Moscow ushered in de-Stalinization and riots by workers in Poznań ensued, there was a shakeup in the communist regime. While retaining most traditional communist economic and social aims, the regime led by the Polish Communist Party's First Secretary Władysław Gomułka began to liberalize internal life in Poland. Several years of relative stabilization followed the legislative election of 1957.

In 1965, the Conference of Polish Bishops issued the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops. In 1966, the celebrations of the 1,000th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland led by Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and other bishops turned into a huge demonstration of the power and popularity of the Polish Catholic Church.

Sophisticated cultural life developed under Gomułka and his successors, even if the creative process had often been compromised by state censorship. Significant productions were accomplished in fields such as literature, theater, cinema and music, among others. Journalism of veiled understanding and native varieties of popular trends and styles of western mass culture were well represented. Uncensored information and works generated by émigré circles were conveyed by a variety of channels, the Radio Free Europe being of foremost importance.

In 1968, the liberalizing trend was reversed when student demonstrations were suppressed and an anti-Zionist campaign initially directed against Gomułka supporters within the party eventually led to the emigration of much of Poland's remaining Jewish population. In August 1968, the Polish People's Army took part in the infamous Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

One of the fatalities of the 1970 protests on the Baltic Coast

In 1970, the governments of Poland and West Germany signed a treaty which normalized their relations and in which the Federal Republic recognized the post-war de facto borders between Poland and East Germany.

In December 1970, disturbances and strikes in the port cities of Gdańsk (Danzig), Gdynia, and Szczecin (Stettin), triggered by a government-announced price increase for essential consumer goods, reflected deep dissatisfaction with living and working conditions in the country. Edward Gierek replaced Gomułka as First Secretary of the Communist Party.^[g]

Another attempt to raise food prices resulted in the June 1976 protests. The Workers' Defense Committee (KOR), established in response to the crackdown, consisted of dissident intellectuals willing to openly support industrial workers struggling with the authorities.

Lech Wałęsa in 1980

Fueled by large infusions of Western credit, Poland's economic growth rate was one of the world's highest during the first half of the 1970s. But much of the borrowed capital was misspent, and the centrally planned economy was unable to use the new resources effectively. The growing debt burden became insupportable in the late 1970s, and economic growth had become negative by 1979.

In October 1978, the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła, became Pope John Paul II, head of the Roman Catholic Church. Polish Catholics rejoiced at the elevation of a Pole to the papacy and greeted his June 1979 visit to Poland with an outpouring of emotion.

On July 1, 1980, with the Polish foreign debt at more than $20 billion, the government made another attempt to increase meat prices. A chain reaction of strikes virtually paralyzed the Baltic coast by the end of August and, for the first time, closed most coal mines in Silesia. Poland was entering into an extended crisis that would change the course of its future development.

On August 31, workers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, led by an electrician named Lech Wałęsa, signed a 21-point agreement with the government that ended their strike. Similar agreements were signed at Szczecin and in Silesia. The key provision of these agreements was the guarantee of the workers' right to form independent trade unions and the right to strike. After the Gdańsk Agreement was signed, a new national union movement "Solidarity" swept Poland.

General Wojciech Jaruzelski meeting Soviet security chief Yuri Andropov during the 1980 crisis. Jaruzelski was about to become the (last) leader of communist Poland.

The discontent underlying the strikes was intensified by revelations of widespread corruption and mismanagement within the Polish state and party leadership. In September 1980, Gierek was replaced by Stanisław Kania as First Secretary.

Alarmed by the rapid deterioration of the Party's authority following the Gdańsk agreement, the Soviet Union proceeded with a massive military buildup along Poland's border in December 1980. In February 1981, Defense Minister Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski assumed the position of Prime Minister, and in October 1981, was named First Secretary. At the first Solidarity national congress in September–October 1981, Lech Wałęsa was elected national chairman of the union.

On December 12–13, the regime declared martial law, under which the army and ZOMO riot police were used to crush the union. Virtually all Solidarity leaders and many affiliated intellectuals were arrested or detained. The United States and other Western countries responded to martial law by imposing economic sanctions against the Polish regime and against the Soviet Union. Unrest in Poland continued for several years thereafter.

Pope John Paul II in Poland in 1987

Having achieved some semblance of stability, the Polish regime in several stages relaxed and then rescinded martial law. By December 1982, martial law was suspended, and a small number of political prisoners, including Wałęsa, were released. Although martial law formally ended in July 1983 and a partial amnesty was enacted, several hundred political prisoners remained in jail.

In September 1986, general amnesty was declared and the government released nearly all political prisoners. Throughout the period the authorities continued to harass dissidents and Solidarity activists. Solidarity remained proscribed and its publications banned; independent publications were censored. However, with the economic crisis unresolved and societal institutions dysfunctional, both the ruling establishment and Solidarity-led opposition began looking for ways out of the stalemate, and exploratory contacts were being established.

The government's inability to forestall Poland's economic decline led to waves of strikes across the country in April, May and August 1988. Under the reformist leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union was becoming increasingly destabilized and unwilling to apply military and other pressure to prop up allied regimes in trouble. In the late 1980s, the government was forced to negotiate with Solidarity in the Polish Round Table Negotiations. The resulting Polish legislative election in 1989 was a watershed event marking the fall of communism in Poland.

Third Polish Republic (1989–today)

Further information: History of Poland (1989–present), Politics of Poland

File:Okragly Stol 1989.jpg

Round-table negotiations 1989

The "round-table" talks with the opposition began in February 1989. These talks produced the Round Table Agreement in April for partly open National Assembly elections. The failure of the communists at the polls produced a political crisis. The agreement called for a communist president, and on July 19, the National Assembly, with the support of a number of Solidarity deputies, elected General Wojciech Jaruzelski to that office. However, two attempts by the communists to form governments failed.

On August 19, President Jaruzelski asked journalist/Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to form a government; on September 12, the Sejm (national legislature) voted approval of Prime Minister Mazowiecki and his cabinet. For the first time in post-war history, Poland had a government led by noncommunists, setting a precedent to be soon followed by many other communist-ruled nations.

In December 1989, the Sejm approved the government's reform program to transform the Polish economy rapidly from centrally planned to free-market, amended the constitution to eliminate references to the "leading role" of the Communist Party, and renamed the country the "Republic of Poland." The Polish United Workers' (Communist) Party dissolved itself in January 1990, creating in its place a new party, Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland.

President Aleksander Kwaśniewski with Lech Wałęsa in 2005. Kwaśniewski defeated Wałęsa in the presidential election of 1995; he was one of the several "post-communist" politicians elected to highest offices.

In October 1990, the constitution was amended to curtail the term of President Jaruzelski.

In the early 1990s, Poland made great progress towards achieving a fully democratic government and a market economy. In November 1990, Lech Wałęsa was elected president for a five-year term. In December Wałęsa became the first popularly elected President of Poland.

Poland's first free parliamentary election was held in 1991. More than 100 parties participated, and no single party received more than 13% of the total vote. In 1993 parliamentary election the "post-communist" Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) received the largest share of votes. In 1993 the Soviet Northern Group of Forces finally left Poland.

In November 1995, Poland held its second post-war free presidential election. SLD leader Aleksander Kwaśniewski defeated Wałęsa by a narrow margin—51.7% to 48.3%.

In 1997 parliamentary election two parties with roots in the Solidarity movement — Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) and the Freedom Union (UW) — won 261 of the 460 seats in the Sejm and formed a coalition government. In April 1997, the new Constitution of Poland was finalized, and in July put into effect, replacing the previously used amended communist statute.

Poland joined NATO in 1999. Elements of the Polish Armed Forces have since participated in the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War.

In the presidential election of 2000, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, the incumbent former leader of the SLD, was re-elected in the first round of voting. After September 2001 parliamentary election SLD (a successor of the communist party) formed a coalition with the agrarian Polish People's Party (PSL) and the leftist Labor Union (UP).

Castle Square in Warsaw's rebuilt Old Town

Poland joined the European Union in May 2004. Both President Kwaśniewski and the government were vocal in their support for this cause. The only party decidedly opposed to EU entry was the populist right-wing League of Polish Families (LPR).

After the fall of communism, the government policy of guaranteed full employment had ended and many large unprofitable state enterprises were closed or restructured. Beginning in 1989, the Balcerowicz Plan and liberal economic policies in general had been implemented with the support of the leading Solidarity figures.

The restructuring and other economic woes of the transition period caused the unemployment to be at times as high as 20%. With the EU access, the gradual opening of West European labor markets to Polish workers, combined with the domestic economic growth, led to marked improvement in the employment situation (currently at around or above 10%) in Poland.

September's 2005 parliamentary election was expected to produce a coalition of two center-right parties, PiS (Law and Justice) and PO (Civic Platform). During the bitter campaign PiS overtook PO, gaining 27% of votes cast and becoming the largest party in the Sejm, ahead of PO with 24%. In the presidential election in October the early favorite, Donald Tusk, leader of the PO, was beaten 54% to 46% in the second round by the PiS candidate Lech Kaczyński. Coalition talks ensued simultaneously with the presidential elections, but negotiations ended up in a stalemate and the PO decided to go into opposition. PiS formed a minority government which relied on the support of smaller populist and agrarian parties (Samoobrona, LPR) to govern. This became a formal coalition, but its deteriorating state made early parliamentary election necessary.

Current president Bronislaw Komorowski as the Marshal of the Sejm

In the 2007 parliamentary election, the Civic Platform was most successful (41.5%), ahead of Law and Justice (32%), and the government of Donald Tusk, the chairman of PO, was formed. PO governs in a parliamentary majority coalition with the smaller Polish People's Party (PSL).

In the current great worldwide economic downturn, triggered and exemplified in particular by the 2008 USA collapse and bailout of the banking system, the Polish economy has weathered the crisis, in comparison with many European and other countries, relatively unscathed. Worrisome signs, signalling upcoming difficulties are however present, and the European sovereign debt crisis, unraveling some of Europe's economies, is expected to negatively affect also the economy of Poland, currently not a member of the eurozone.

The social price paid by the Poles for the implementation of liberal free market economic policies has been the sharply more inequitable distribution of wealth and the associated impoverishment of large segments of the society. According to 2010 Eurostat data, 14% of Poles were "severely materially deprived", compared to the 8% EU average. This however represents the steepest of any European country drop in poverty rates over the past several years (it has taken place since Poland joined the EU).^[h]

Poland's president Lech Kaczyński and all aboard died in a plane crash on April 10, 2010 in western Russia, near Smolensk. President Kaczyński and other prominent Poles were on the way to the Katyn massacre anniversary commemoration.

Poles hope for historically unprecedented stability within the European Union. The introduction of the euro currency and its timing are difficult decisions, given the economic crisis in the eurozone.

In the second final round of the Polish presidential election on July 4, 2010, Bronisław Komorowski, Acting President, Marshal of the Sejm and a Civic Platform politician, defeated Jarosław Kaczyński by 53% to 47%.

The Smolensk tragedy brought into the open deep divisions within the Polish society and became a destabilizing factor in Poland's politics.

Poland's relations with its European neighbors have been good or improving, with Belarus being a sore point.^[i] The Eastern Partnership summit, hosted in September 2011 by Poland, the holder of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, resulted in no agreement on near future expansion of the Union to include the several considered Eastern European and Caucasus states, formerly Soviet republics. The European Union membership for at least some of those states, including Ukraine, has long been a goal of Polish diplomacy. Poland has also been promoting NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, a plan seen by Russia as threatening to its security and so far not supported by a majority of Ukrainian voters. For a number of years, Poland and Russia have disagreed on the planned NATO missile defense system in Europe, in which Poland has sought to be an active participant, and which Russia opposes.

The 2011 parliamentary election results were generally an affirmation of the current distribution of political forces. The Civic Platform won over 39% of the votes, Law and Justice almost 30%, Palikot's Movement 10%, the Polish People's Party and the Democratic Left Alliance over 8% each. The new element was the successful debut of the left-of-center movement of Janusz Palikot, a maverick politician, which resulted in decreased electoral appeal of the Democratic Left Alliance.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk's governing coalition received in October 2011 a majority of parliamentary seats again

Poland's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, delivered a speech on 28 November 2011 in Berlin, in which he emphatically appealed to Germany and other European Union countries for closer economic and political integration and coordination, to be accomplished through a more powerful central government of the Union. Sikorski feels that decisive action and substantial reform, led by Germany, are necessary to prevent a collapse of the euro and subsequent destabilization and possible demise of the European Union. His remarks, directed primarily at the German audience, encountered hostile reception in Poland from Jarosław Kaczyński and his conservative parliamentary opposition, who accused the minister of betraying Poland's sovereignty and demanded his ouster and trial. Sikorski identified in his speech several areas important to Polish traditionalists, which, he said, should permanently remain within the domain of individual national governments.

File:Warsaw6vb.jpg

Warsaw high-rise district. The city's affluence and low unemployment rate attract newcomers.

As of 9 December 2011 UE summit in Brussels, the British opposition prevented any changes to the EU Treaty. All the remaining UE governments, including the actively involved Polish delegation led by Prime Minister Tusk, indicated support for the new "fiscal compact" and greater coordination agreement, intended to impose financial discipline on member states and to cure the present instability in the eurozone. The agreed reforms will be implemented in the laws of individual states.

In January 2012, Poland's Prosecutor General's office initiated investigative proceedings against Zbigniew Siemiątkowski, the former Polish intelligence chief. Siemiątkowski is charged with facilitating the alleged CIA detention operation in Poland, where foreign suspects may have been tortured in the context of the War on Terror. The alleged constitutional and international law trespasses took place when Leszek Miller, presently member of parliament and leader of the Democratic Left Alliance, was Prime Minister (2001-2004), and he may also be subjected to future legal action. Aleksander Kwaśniewski, the President of Poland at that time, acknowledged knowing about and consenting to (together with the Prime Minister) the secret "CIA prisons".

During the Russian Patriarch's visit to Poland on August 16–19, 2012, Kirill I, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and Archbishop Józef Michalik, President of the Catholic Conference of Polish Bishops, signed a historic Polish-Russian church message on reconciliation and mutual forgiveness.

See also

• History of Austria
• History of Belarus
• History of the Czech Republic
• History of Europe
• History of the European Union
• History of Germany
• History of Lithuania
• History of Russia
• History of Slovakia
• History of Sweden
• History of Ukraine
• List of Kings of Poland
• List of Presidents of Poland
• List of Prime Ministers of Poland
• Military history of Poland
• Old Polish units of measurement
• Polish American
• Polish British
• Polish United Workers' Party
• Politics of Poland

• Sources to History of Poland Template:Pl icon
• Atlas of Poland (many maps for History of Poland)

Maps

• Poland and West-Slavs 800–950
• Poland 990–1040
• Poland 1040–1090
• Poland 1090–1140
• Poland 1140–1250
• Poland 1250–1290
• Poland 1290–1333
• Poland 1333–1350
• Poland 1350–1370
• Poland 1550
• Poland 1773
• Poland 2004
• Poland (flash version)

Notes

a.^{^} Piłsudski's family roots in the Polonized gentry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the resulting point of view (seeing himself and people like him as legitimate Lithuanians) put him in conflict with the modern Lithuanian nationalists (who in Piłsudski's lifetime redefined the scope of the "Lithuanian" connotation), by extension with other nationalists, and also with the Polish modern nationalist movement.

b.^{^} The Polish ruling elites considered the Soviets in some ways more threatening then the Nazis. The outbreak of the war followed the periods of Stalinist terror.

Poland and the Baltic areas after the treaties of Versailles and Brest-Litovsk and before the Peace of Riga

c.^{^} An establishment of Poland restricted to "minimal size", according to ethnographic boundaries (such as the ones shown on this 1920 map, or the lands common to both prewar Poland and postwar Poland), was recommended by Ivan Maisky to Vyacheslav Molotov in early 1944, because of what Maisky saw as Poland's historically unfriendly disposition toward Russia and the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin opted for a larger version, allowing a "swap" (territorial compensation for Poland), which involved the eastern lands gained by Poland at the Peace of Riga of 1921 and now lost, and eastern Germany conquered form the Nazis in 1944-1945. Other territorial and ethnic scenarios were also possible, generally with outcomes less favorable to Poland than its present form.

d.^{^} Timothy Snyder spoke of about 100,000 Jews killed by Poles during the Nazi occupation, majority probably by members of the collaborationist Blue Police. This number would have likely been many times higher had Poland entered into an alliance with Germany in 1939, as advocated by some Polish post-war and post-1989 historians and others.

e.^{^} Some may have had falsely claimed the Jewish identity hoping for permissions to emigrate. The communist authorities, pursuing the concept of Poland of single ethnicity (in accordance with the recent border changes and expulsions), were allowing the Jews to leave the country. For a discussion of early communist Poland's ethnic politics, see Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations, chapters on modern "Ukrainian Borderland".

f.^{^} A Communist Party of Poland had existed in the past, but was eliminated in Stalin's purges in 1938.

g.^{^} The Soviet leadership, which had previously ordered the Uprising in East Germany, the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring crushed, now became worried about the demoralization of the Polish army, a crucial Warsaw Pact component, because of it being used against Polish workers. The Soviets withdrew their support for Gomułka, who insisted on the use of force, and the Polish politburo ousted him and his close associates.

h.^{^} The shrinking poverty sphere has been possible because of the reduced unemployment and the influx of the European Union funds. Over two million Poles however have left the country to work abroad. According to some Polish academic researchers, the Eurostat data, based on the information collected by Central Statistical Office of Poland, does not fully reflect the scope of poverty in Poland. Poverty is becoming increasingly permanent in post-industrial urban areas and has highest levels among children. The two articles quoted agree on the greatest poverty rate reduction of any European country, both invoke Eurostat, but give widely divergent numerical figures.

i.^{^} Following the presidential election of Viktor Yanukovych and the subsequent persecution of Yulia Tymoshenko, Poland's and European Union's relations with Ukraine have also entered a period of difficulty.

j.^{^} "All the currently available documents of Nazi administration show that, together with the Jews, the stratum of the Polish intelligentsia was marked for total extermination. In fact, Nazi Germany achieved this goal almost by half, since Poland lost 50 percent of her citizens with university diplomas and 35 percent of those with a gimnazium diploma."

References

Further reading

More recent general history of Poland books in English

• Biskupski, M. B. The History of Poland. Greenwood, 2000. 264 pp. online edition
• The Cambridge History of Poland, 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941 (1697–1935), 1950 (to 1696). New York: Octagon Books, 1971 online edition vol 1 to 1696, old fashioned but highly detailed
• Davies, Norman. God's Playground. A History of Poland. Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795, Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-925339-0 / ISBN 0-19-925340-4.
• Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland. Oxford University Press, 1984. 511 pp. excerpt and text search
• Frucht, Richard. Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall of Communism Garland Pub., 2000 online edition
• Oskar Halecki. History of Poland, New York: Roy Publishers, 1942. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1993, ISBN 0-679-51087-7
• Kenney, Padraic. “After the Blank Spots Are Filled: Recent Perspectives on Modern Poland,” Journal of Modern History Volume 79, Number 1, March 2007 pp 134–61, historiography
• Stefan Kieniewicz, History of Poland, Hippocrene Books, 1982, ISBN 0-88254-695-3
• Kloczowski, Jerzy. A History of Polish Christianity. Cambridge U. Pr., 2000. 385 pp.
• Lerski, George J. Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945. Greenwood, 1996. 750 pp. online edition
• Leslie, R. F. et al. The History of Poland since 1863. Cambridge U. Press, 1980. 494 pp.
• Lewinski-Corwin, Edward Henry. The Political History of Poland (1917), well-illustrated; 650pp online at books.google.com
• Lukowski, Jerzy and Zawadzki, Hubert. A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge U. Press, 2nd ed 2006. 408pp. excerpts and search
• Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski. Poland: An Illustrated History, New York: Hippocrene Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7818-0757-3
• Pogonowski, Iwo Cyprian. Poland: A Historical Atlas. Hippocrene, 1987. 321 pp.
• Anita J. Prazmowska. A History of Poland, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2004, ISBN 0-333-97254-6
• Radzilowski, John. A Traveller's History of Poland, Northampton, Massachusetts: Interlink Books, 2007, ISBN 1-56656-655-X
• Roos, Hans. A History of Modern Poland (1966)
• Sanford, George. Historical Dictionary of Poland. Scarecrow Press, 2003. 291 pp.
• Wróbel, Piotr. Historical Dictionary of Poland, 1945-1996. Greenwood, 1998. 397 pp.
• Zamoyski, Adam. The Polish Way. A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and their Culture. J. Murray, 1987. 422 pp.; heavily illustrated excerpt and text search

Published in Poland

• History of Poland, Aleksander Gieysztor et al. Warsaw: PWN, 1968
• History of Poland, Stefan Kieniewicz et al. Warsaw: PWN, 1979
• An Outline History of Poland, by Jerzy Topolski. Warsaw: Interpress Publishers, 1986, ISBN 83-223-2118-X
• An Illustrated History of Poland, by Dariusz Banaszak, Tomasz Biber, Maciej Leszczyński. Poznań: Publicat, 2008, ISBN 978-83-245-1587-5
• Poland: History of Poland, by Stanisław Kołodziejski, Roman Marcinek, Jakub Polit. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 2005, 2009, ISBN 83-7447-018-6

External links

Movie (on-line)

• Animated history of Poland, (PARP, Expo 2010 Shanghai China)
• Borders of Poland, A.D. 990 - 2008

Other

• Halecki, Oscar. "BORDERLANDS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION A History of East Central Europe" (PDF). Oscar Halecki. Retrieved 2010-08-08.
• History of Poland, in paintings
• History of Poland on Historycy.org forum
• Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures: Poland's Heritage