Poland, Democratization

Only 4 years after the Constitution of the United States of America had been ratified in 1787, Poland established its own supreme law—the Constitution—on May 3, 1791. The Polish Constitution, the second in the world, was actually the first act of this type established in Europe. Poland, a pioneer in establishing democratic rules, did not have much time to practice democracy. For more than one hundred years the country was removed from the world map. The democracy renaissance took place on November 11, 1918, when Poland regained its independence. Again the period of democracy was short. As a result of the Second World War, Poland ceased to be an independent state and became one of the satellites of Soviet Russia. The nation, however, did not stop the struggle for democracy—during the whole period of the communist régime there existed the Polish government-in-exile set up in France and later in the United Kingdom. Activity continued until 1990 when President-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski handed over Polish state insignia to Lech Wa e˛sa, l [Page 553]the first Polish president democratically elected since World War II.

During the Yalta Conference in 1945 the Allies agreed to accept the Curzon line as the border between Poland and the USSR. As a result, nearly half of the former Polish territory became a part of Soviet Russia. Later, the Potsdam Conference again shifted Poland's western border. The conference also legitimized the mass deportation of Germans from the new Polish territory on the one hand and the simultaneous expulsion of Poles from the territory belonging to the USSR on the other. The change of borders, the mass-scale migration in the war-damaged country, the imposition of the Soviet political system, the continued stay of the Soviet troops, and the loss of independence were the factors defining the postwar situation of Poland.

With the help of the Polish communists, as well as the Soviet troops occupying Poland until 1993, the Soviet authorities quickly managed to crush any trace of the opposition against the communist system. Many combatants who during the war formed a number of underground resistance organizations (e.g., Home Army—Armia Krajowa, the biggest underground army during World War II) were executed, deported to the USSR, or sent to prisons and labor camps. The political leaders from the prewar period were imprisoned in Moscow and sentenced to long periods of imprisonment after a mock trial. In July 1944 Joseph Stalin elected the Polish Committee of Nation Liberation (known as PKWN) from its Polish abbreviation. In 1945 the committee became the Provisional Government of National Unity. Although formed by the Soviets, this government was formally recognized by the United States and the United Kingdom in July 1945. It was composed of the representatives of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR), the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), and the Polish Peasants' Party (PSL), led by Deputy Prime Minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk (PSL). However, real power rested with the PPR, which had full control over the army and secret police and enjoyed the Soviet support. After the liquidating the remnants of the underground organizations by terror, the political attack was directed at the independent PSL. Members and associates of this party were arrested, intimidated, executed after fake trials, or secretly murdered. After a rigged referendum about the future of Poland held in June 1946 and the parliamentary elections in January 1947, Mikolajczyk was forced to leave the country. Fully dependent on the Soviets, the Parliament elected Boleslaw Bierut, a Polish communist and a citizen of the USSR, as president of Poland.

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