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Polish October, also known as October 1956, Polish thaw, or Gomułka's thaw, marked a change in the politics of Poland in the second half of 1956. Some social scientists term it the Polish October Revolution, which, while less dramatic than the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, might have had an even deeper impact on the Eastern Bloc and on the Soviet Union's relationship to its satellite states in Eastern Europe.〔Ivan Berend, ''Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery'', Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-66352-0, (Google Print, p.115-116 )〕 For the People's Republic of Poland, 1956 was a year of transition. The international situation significantly weakened the hard-line Stalinist faction in Poland; Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut died in March; it was three years since Stalin had died and his successor at the Soviet Union's helm, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced him in September. Protests by workers in June in Poznań had highlighted the people's dissatisfaction with their situation. In October, the events set in motion resulted in the rise in power of the reformers' faction, led by Władysław Gomułka. After brief, but tense, negotiations, the Soviets gave permission for Gomułka to stay in control and made several other concessions resulting in greater autonomy for the Polish government. For Polish citizens this meant a temporary liberalization. Eventually though, hopes for full liberalization were proven false, as Gomułka's regime became more oppressive. Nonetheless, the era of Stalinization in Poland had ended. ==Development== Gomułka's thaw was caused by several factors. The death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and the resulting de-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw prompted debates about fundamental issues throughout the entire Eastern Bloc. Nikita Khrushchev's speech, ''On the Personality Cult and its Consequences'', had wide implications for the Soviet Union and other Communist countries as well.〔 In Poland, in addition to criticism of the cult of personality, popular topics of debate centered around the right to steer a more independent course of "local, national socialism" instead of following the Soviet model in every detail. For example, many members of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) criticized Stalin's execution of older Polish Communists during the Great Purge.〔(Reasons for the outbreak ) from the official city of Poznań website dedicated to 1956 events. Last accessed on 3 April 2007.〕 Several other factors contributed to the destabilization of Poland. These included the widely publicized defection in 1953 of high-ranking Polish intelligence agent Józef Światło, resulting in the weakening of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland (Polish secret police). Also, the unexpected death in Moscow in 1956 of Bolesław Bierut, the PZPR First Secretary (known as the "Stalin of Poland"),〔"(Bierut, Boleslaw )." ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Online. Last accessed 12 April 2007〕 led to increased rivalry between various factions of Polish communists and to growing tensions in Polish society, culminating in the Poznań 1956 protests (also known as June '56).〔〔Raymond Pearson, ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire,'' Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, ISBN 0-312-17407-1, (Google Print, p.58–60 )〕〔Paweł Machcewicz, "Social Protest and Political Crisis in 1956", which appears on pp. 99–118 of ''Stalinism in Poland'', 1944–1956, ed. and tr. by A. Kemp-Welch, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-312-22644-6.〕 The PZPR Secretariat decided that Khrushchev's speech should have wide circulation in Poland, a unique decision in the Eastern Bloc. Bierut's successors seized on Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalinist policy as a perfect opportunity to prove their reformist, democratic credentials and their willingness to break with the Stalinist legacy. In late March and early April, thousands of Party meetings were held all over Poland, with Politburo and Secretariat blessing. Tens of thousands took part in such meetings. The Secretariat's plan succeeded beyond what they expected. During this period, the whole political atmosphere changed. Questions were now being asked about taboo subjects like the Polish Communists' legitimacy, responsibility for Stalin's crimes, the arrest of the increasingly popular Gomułka, and issues in Soviet–Polish relations, such as the continued Soviet military presence in Poland, the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, the Katyn massacre, and the Soviet failure to support the Warsaw Uprising. A new Party Congress was demanded, as was a greater role for the Sejm and a guarantee of personal liberties. Alarmed by the process, the Party Secretariat decided to withhold the speech from the general public.〔 In June 1956, there was an insurrection in Poznań. The workers rioted to protest shortages of food and consumer goods, bad housing, decline in real income, trade relations with the Soviet Union and poor management of the economy. The Polish government initially responded by branding the rioters "provocateurs, counterrevolutionaries and imperialist agents". Between 57〔Andrzej Paczkowski, ''Pół wieku dziejów Polski'', Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2005, ISBN 83-01-14487-4, p. 203〕 and 78〔Ł. Jastrząb, "Rozstrzelano moje serce w Poznaniu. Poznański Czerwiec 1956 r. – straty osobowe i ich analiza", Wydawnictwo Comandor, Warszawa 2006〕〔Norbert Wójtowicz, ''Ofiary „Poznańskiego Czerwca”'', Rok 1956 na Węgrzech i w Polsce. Materiały z węgiersko–polskiego seminarium. Wrocław październik 1996, ed. Łukasz Andrzej Kamiński, Wrocław 1996, p. 32–41.〕 people—mostly protesters—were killed, and hundreds were wounded and arrested. Soon, however, the party hierarchy recognized that the riots had awakened a nationalist movement and reversed their opinion. Wages were raised by 50 percent, and economic and political change was promised.〔〔Rothschild and Wingfield: ''Return to Diversity, A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War II'' OUP 2000〕〔 〕 The Poznań protests, although the largest, were not unique in Poland, where social protest resumed its fury that autumn. On November 18, rioters destroyed the militia headquarters and radio-jamming equipment in Bydgoszcz, and on December 10, a crowd in Szczecin attacked public buildings, including a prison, the state prosecutor's office, militia headquarters, and the Soviet consulate. People across the country criticized the security police and asked for the dissolution of the public security committee and the punishment of its guiltiest functionaries. Demands were made for the exposure of secret police collaborators, and suspected collaborators were frequently assaulted. In many localities, crowds gathered outside the secret police headquarters, shouted hostile slogans, and broke its windows. Public meetings, demonstrations, and street marches took place in hundreds of towns across Poland. The meetings were usually organized by local Party cells, local authorities, and trade unions. However, official organizers tended to lose control as political content exceeded their original agenda. Crowds often took radical action, in many cases resulting in unrest on the streets and clashes with police and other law-enforcement agencies. Street activity peaked during and immediately after the 19–21 October "VIII Plenum" meeting of the Central Committee of the PZPR, but continued until late in the year. A concurrent upsurge in religious and clerical sentiment took place. Hymns were sung, and the release of Stefan Wyszyński and the reinstatement of suppressed bishops were demanded, as were the reintroduction of religious education and of crucifixes in classrooms. Nationalism was the cement of mass mobilization and dominated public meetings, during which people sang the national anthem and other patriotic songs, demanded the return of the white eagle to the flag and traditional army uniforms, and attacked Poland's dependence on the Soviet Union and its military. They demanded the return of the eastern territories, an explanation for the Katyn massacre, and elimination of the Russian language from the educational curriculum. In the last ten days of October, monuments to the Red Army, despised by Poles, were attacked: red stars were pulled down from roofs of houses, factories and schools; red flags were destroyed; and portraits of Konstantin Rokossovsky, the military commander in charge of operations that drove the Nazi German forces from Poland, were defaced. Attempts were made to force entries into the homes of Soviet citizens, mostly in Lower Silesia, home to many Soviet troops. However, unlike the protesters in Hungary and Poznań, activists limited their political demands and behavior, which were not purely opposed to communist and the system. The communist authorities were not openly and unequivocally challenged, as they had been in June, and anticommunist slogans that had been prevalent in the June uprising, such as "We want free elections", "Down with Communist dictatorship", or "Down with the Party", were much less prevalent. Party committees were not attacked.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Polish October」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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