The Union Movement in Poland

Paper Summary:

The paper traces the roots of the movement back to the election of Wladyslaw Gomulka to head the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP). According to the writer, this helped pave the way for the strengthening of the movement and prepared the workers for the changes to come. The paper outlines the political repercussions of this movement.

From the Paper:

"Gomulka was born into a working-class family in 1905 and became a Communist leader of the trade union left, and he returned to the political scene after being released from prison in 1956. The reforms he promised never came to pass, though, for being a traditional Communist, he believed that a centrally controlled, one-party state would be the only way to insure Socialism, and decentralization of the industrial systems would hinder efforts to achieve this. Gomulka failed to deliver on his word to the workers and the intelligentsia, who wanted to liberalize the economic, cultural, and religious practices of Poland. According to the Polish student newspaper Po Prostu, the goal of the workers and the intelligentsia was "to bring about a radical transformation of the Stalinist model of Socialism to a Polish model, genuinely Socialist"(MacShane 33). Gomulka did not accept this ideal as expected, and it became apparel that such a radical goal could not be achieved in Gomulka's traditional one-party system."

More papers on The Union Movement in Poland:

• Term Paper # 96641 : "The Political Climate of the 1980s"
• Essay # 59799 : "The Cold War"
• Term Paper # 93446 : "Estonia"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: