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1952 Polish parliamentary election

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Polish legislative election, 1952
← 1947 October 26, 1952 (1952-10-26) 1957 →
All 425 seats in the Sejm
Turnout95.00%
  First party
 
Leader Bolesław Bierut
Party FJN - PZPR
Leader since December 22, 1948
Leader's seat Warsaw-Prague
Seats won 388 (PZPR - 273, ZSL - 90, SD - 25), 91.2%
Premier before election

Józef Cyrankiewicz
PZPR

Premier

Józef Cyrankiewicz
PZPR

Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 26 October 1952.[1] They were the first elections to the Sejm, the parliament of the People's Republic of Poland. They were also the first under undisguised Communist rule; the government had dropped all pretense of being a coalition after the fraudulent 1947 election. The official rules for the elections were outlined in the new Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland and lesser acts.

Background

The Communists had spent the five years since winning the flagrantly rigged 1947 elections tightening their grip on the country. A little more than a year after the election, what remained of the Polish Socialist Party, nominally a partner in the Communist-dominated "coalition," merged with the Communist Polish Workers' Party to form the Polish United Workers' Party.[2][3] However, the merger was concluded almost entirely on PPR terms,[4] and by this time the PPS was largely subservient to the PPR.[3] Despite this, former Socialist Józef Cyrankiewicz remained as prime minister.[5] By 1949, the Polish People's Party, which had led the opposition in 1947 (and claimed that it would have won in a landslide had the election been honest[6][7]), had been emasculated when it was forced to merge with the pro-Communist People's Party to form the United People's Party (ZSL).[8]

PPR leader Władysław Gomułka, who had been largely responsible for the PPR's heavy-handed suppression of opposition, believed he was now free to pursue a more independent course. He wanted to adapt the Soviet blueprint to Polish circumstances, and believed it was possible to be both a Communist and a Polish patriot at the same time. He was also wary of the Cominform, and opposed forced collectivization of agriculture. For this, he was pushed out as party leader in 1948 for "rightist-nationalist deviation." He was succeeded by President Bolesław Bierut, a hardline Stalinist.[9][7]

Conduct

The election would set the tone for all subsequent elections held during the 42 years of undisguised Communist rule in Poland. As would be the case with all elections held during this time, the election was blatantly rigged, and the results falsified on a massive scale. Along with the 1947 election, the 1952 election is considered among the least free of elections held in Communist Poland. This was very common during the era of Stalinization. The Bierut government, like its kindred regimes in the rest of the Soviet bloc, was determined to tighten its control over society as much as possible. As mentioned above, all opposition parties had been either eliminated or driven underground by this time. The regime's opponents were subject to arrest and torture. Voters were presented with a single list from the Front of National Unity, comprising the PZPR and its two satellite parties, the Democratic Party and the ZSL. The number of candidates permitted to run in the elections was equal to the number of seats in parliament.[10]

There were 425 seats.[11] The number of seats would be increased in the subsequent elections.[11] In return for accepting the "leading role" of the PZPR—a condition of their continued existence—the minor parties in the Front received a fixed number of seats in the Sejm.[12]

Results

Party Votes % Seats
Front of National Unity Polish United Workers' Party 15,459,849 99.8 273
United People's Party 90
Democratic Party 25
Independents 37
Blank ballots 31,321 0.2 –
Invalid votes 4,645 – –
Total 15,495,815 100 425
Registered voters/turnout 16,305,891 95.0 –
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

The official results showed that 99.8% of the voters approved the FJN list. Candidates from the FJN parties took 91.2% of the Sejm, with 8.7% falling to the nominal "independents." Within the FJN, the PZPR won an absolute majority with 273 seats (64.2% total), its best result both in total number of seats and percentage of the Sejm controlled.[11] However, as the other parties and "independents" were completely subservient to the PZPR, communist control of the Sejm was, in fact, total.[11][13] In later years, the communist-dominated list would be credited with between 98 and 99% of the vote, a trend which would continue until 1989.

The term of the Sejm elected in 1951 was due to finish in 1956, but due to political shifts in Poland, the next elections took place in early 1957 in a more liberal atmosphere, although still not free.[10]

References

  1. ^ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1491 ISBN 9783832956097
  2. ^ "Polish History - Part 13". Poloniatoday.com. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008. Retrieved 2009-08-22. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b Poland at Encyclopedia Britannica
  4. ^ Władysław Gomułka at Encyclopedia Britannica
  5. ^ Józef Cyrankiewicz at Encyclopedia Britannica
  6. ^ Dariusz Baliszewski. "Wprost 24 - Demokracja urn". Wprost.pl. Archived from the original on 2009-02-08. Retrieved 2009-08-22. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ a b Wrobel, Piotr (2014). Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945-1996. Routledge. ISBN 9781135927011.
  8. ^ David Ost, Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics, pp. 34-36, 1990 Philadelphia, Temple University Press, ISBN 0-87722-655-5
  9. ^ Boleslaw Bierut at Encyclopedia Britannica
  10. ^ a b Template:Pl icon Bartłomiej Kozłowski, Wybory styczniowe do Sejmu 1957 Archived 2009-01-03 at the Wayback Machine Last accessed on 5 April 2007
  11. ^ a b c d Norman Davies (May 2005). God's Playground: 1795 to the present. Columbia University Press. p. 459. ISBN 978-0-231-12819-3. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  12. ^ Poland: a country study. Library of Congress Federal Research Division, December 1989.
  13. ^ Andrzej Paczkowski; Jane Cave (2003). The spring will be ours: Poland and the Poles from occupation to freedom. Penn State Press. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-271-02308-3. Retrieved 3 June 2011.

Further reading

  • Jerzy Drygalski, Jacek Kwasniewski, No-Choice Elections, Soviet Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 295–315, JSTOR
  • George Sakwa, Martin Crouch, Sejm Elections in Communist Poland: An Overview and a Reappraisal, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Oct., 1978), pp. 403–424,
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