Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Hearts and Minds and Land: Ethnic Cleansing and the Stabilization of Postwar Poland
- 1 How the East Was Lost: Germany's Struggle for the Polish-German Borderlands, 1870–1945
- 2 Who Won the West: The Colonists and Ethnic Cleansers of Poznań and Eastern Brandenburg in 1945
- 3 Acts of Sacrifice: Poland's Ethnic Cleansing and the End of Political Pluralism, 1945–47
- 4 Counterrevolution from Above and Abroad: The Delocalization of Politics and the Beginning of Polish Stalinism's Antinational Counterrevolution, 1947–49
- 5 Waging Counterrevolution: The Party-State's Struggle for Hearts, Minds, and Land in Wielkopolska, 1949–53
- 6 Revolutions before the Revolution: National Solidarity and the Long Retreat of Stalinism in Wielkopolska, 1953–56
- 7 The Revolutions Betrayed? The Poznań Revolt and the Polish Road to Nationalist Socialism, 1956–60
- Conclusion: A Near Run Thing From National Solidarity to Solidarity
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Revolutions before the Revolution: National Solidarity and the Long Retreat of Stalinism in Wielkopolska, 1953–56
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Hearts and Minds and Land: Ethnic Cleansing and the Stabilization of Postwar Poland
- 1 How the East Was Lost: Germany's Struggle for the Polish-German Borderlands, 1870–1945
- 2 Who Won the West: The Colonists and Ethnic Cleansers of Poznań and Eastern Brandenburg in 1945
- 3 Acts of Sacrifice: Poland's Ethnic Cleansing and the End of Political Pluralism, 1945–47
- 4 Counterrevolution from Above and Abroad: The Delocalization of Politics and the Beginning of Polish Stalinism's Antinational Counterrevolution, 1947–49
- 5 Waging Counterrevolution: The Party-State's Struggle for Hearts, Minds, and Land in Wielkopolska, 1949–53
- 6 Revolutions before the Revolution: National Solidarity and the Long Retreat of Stalinism in Wielkopolska, 1953–56
- 7 The Revolutions Betrayed? The Poznań Revolt and the Polish Road to Nationalist Socialism, 1956–60
- Conclusion: A Near Run Thing From National Solidarity to Solidarity
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
We are receiving a series of signals from the terrain that all is still not well.
—Comrade Siankiewicz speaking at a Provincial Central Committee meeting in Poznań on the problems facing the party in work among university youth in November, 1955Stalin's death on March 5, 1953 was not a major milestone for Polish Stalinism. In Wielkopolska it was an occasion of sincere mourning for some in the PZPR—and for the almost two hundred persons against whom the UB conducted preventative arrests to ensure that rites commemorating the passing of the Truest Ally and Greatest Friend of the Polish nation would be observed with due solemnity. Many hoped that with Stalin's death, the party-state would cease waging its social and cultural revolutions from above, but the authorities initially redoubled their ongoing efforts to Stalinize Poland. The year 1953 became the high tide of the regime's revolutionary activism, while the years that followed saw a rapid retreat that in June 1956 became a rout.
The authorities' efforts in 1953 to advance Stalinism in Poland strengthened national solidarity throughout Wielkopolska. Two major political offensives defined the party-state's efforts to break through to Socialism in that year. A month prior to Stalin's death, the regime launched a national campaign to suborn the Catholic Church. This culminated in the arrest of Cardinal Wyszyński on September 29, 1953 and the rise to prominence of the proregime Patriotic Priest movement.
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- Information
- A Clean Sweep?The Politics of Ethnic Cleansing in Western Poland, 1945–1960, pp. 131 - 152Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006