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
7 - The Revolutions Betrayed? The Poznań Revolt and the Polish Road to Nationalist Socialism, 1956–60
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 have a similar phenomenon now. On the one hand there has been, and there still is, pressure from Moscow, and on the other an active and quite large group of people in Poland who are opposed to democracy and reform and who are hostile to the increase in tendencies towards freedom. The bureaucratic party, army and security apparatus have found sympathy and a readiness to cooperate among the most reactionary ideological elements of prewar Poland—imperialists and chauvinists. It's no accident that old National Democrats gravitate towards old communists at such times.
—Stefan Staszewski, during an interview with the Solidarity journalist Teresa TorańskaOn Thursday, June 28, 1956, the people of Poznań revolted against People's Power. Like both the workers' uprising in East Berlin almost three years earlier and the Hungarian revolution that followed, Poznań's “Black Thursday” is a striking example of spontaneous national revolution. The people of Poznań demonstrated a unity of revolutionary purpose, based upon a shared belief in a common national identity and values, that led them to challenge the authorities. The spark of a single mass protest by workers in one of the city's major factories led tens of thousands of people—without an agreedpon ideological program, with no plan of action or central organization to guide them—to struggle for control of their region's capital and to destroy the most hated symbols of People's Power. protests, this was not a “workers' revolt.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Clean Sweep?The Politics of Ethnic Cleansing in Western Poland, 1945–1960, pp. 153 - 185Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006