Władysław Gomułka
First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party
In office 21 October 1956 – 20 December 1970
Preceded by	Edward Ochab
Succeeded by	Edward Gierek
First Secretary of the Polish Workers' Party
In office 1943–1948
Preceded by	Paweł Finder
Succeeded by	Bolesław Bierut
Personal details
Born	(1905-02-06)6 February 1905 Krosno, Austria-Hungary
Died	1 September 1982(1982-09-01) (aged 77) Konstancin, Poland
Nationality	Polish
Political party	Polish United Workers' Party
Religion	none (atheist)

Władysław Gomułka (Polish pronunciation: [vwaˈdɨswaf ɡɔˈmuwka]; 6 February 1905, Krosno – 1 September 1982, Konstancin) was a Polish Communist leader. He was the de facto leader of Poland from 1945 to 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970.

Gomułka with Leonid Brezhnev in East Germany

Life and career[link]

Gomułka was a member of the Communist Party of Poland (Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) starting in 1926.

In 1934 Gomułka went to Moscow, where he lived for a year. Upon his return to Poland he was arrested and spent most of his time in prison until the beginning of World War II. During the war, Gomułka became an influential Polish Communist and in 1943 convinced Stalin to allow the reformation of the local Communist party under the name Polish Workers' Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza). He was a Deputy Prime Minister in the Provisional Government of Republic of Poland - Rząd Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, from January to June 1945, and in the Provisional Government of National Unity (Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej), from 1945 to 1947. Using his position in the government, he crushed all meaningful resistance to the Communists. He also helped the Communists in winning the 3 x Tak (3 Times Yes) referendum of 1946. A year later, he played a key role in the 1947 parliamentary elections, which saw the Communists and their allies win an overwhelming majority. It later emerged that the Communists had only won both of these votes through massive fraud.

With the onset of undisguised Communist rule, Gomułka became, as he said, "the hegemon of Poland". However, between 1951–1954, skirmishes between various Party factions led to Gomułka's imprisonment, denounced as right-wing and reactionary, and expelled from the Polish United Workers' Party (as the Communist Party was renamed following a merger with the Polish Socialist Party).

After the death of Stalinist Prime Minister Bolesław Bierut in 1956, a brief period of de-Stalinization began, raising popular hope for reform. In June 1956, an insurrection began in Poznań. The workers rioted to protest shortages of food and consumer goods, bad housing, decline in genuine income, shipments of commodities to the Soviet Union and poor management of the economy. The Polish government initially responded by branding the rioters "provocateurs, counterrevolutionaries and imperialist agents". Security forces killed and wounded scores of protesters. Soon, however, the party hierarchy recognized the riots had awakened nationalist sentiment and reversed their opinion. The rioters became "honest workers with legitimate grievances". Wages were raised by 50% and economic and political change was promised.^[1][2]

Gomułka with Nicolae Ceauşescu after the official visit to Romania

Edward Ochab, Bierut's successor, invited the now-rehabilitated Gomułka to serve as First Secretary of the Party. Gomułka insisted that he be given real power to implement reforms. One specific condition he set was that the Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, who had ordered troops against the Poznan workers, be removed from the Polish Politburo and Defense Ministry, to which Ochab agreed. On 19 October, the majority of the Polish leadership, backed by the army and also the Internal Security Corps, brought Gomułka and several associates into the Politburo and designated Gomułka as First Secretary of the Party. The Soviet leadership viewed events in Poland with alarm. Simultaneously with troop 'maneuvers' on the Soviet-Polish border, a high-level delegation of the Soviet Central Committee flew to Poland. It was led by Nikita Khrushchev and included Mikoyan, Bulganin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Marshal Konev and others. Gomułka made it clear that Polish troops would resist if Soviet troops advanced, but reassured the Soviets that the reforms were internal matters and that Poland had no intention of abandoning Communism or its treaties with the Soviet Union. The Soviets yielded.^[3] Gomułka was confirmed in his new position. Information about events in Poland reached the people of Hungary via Radio Free Europe's news and commentary services during 19–22 October 1956. A student demonstration in Budapest in support of Gomułka, asking for similar reforms in Hungary, soon sparked the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

Gomułka was initially very popular for his reforms and seeking a "Polish way to socialism",^[4] and beginning an era known as Gomułka's thaw. However, during the 1960s he became more conservative under growing Soviet pressure. In the 1960s he supported persecution of the Roman Catholic Church and intellectuals (notably Leszek Kołakowski who was forced into exile). He participated in the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. At that time he was also responsible for persecuting students as well as toughening censorship of the media. In 1968 he incited an anti-Zionist propaganda campaign (No credible reference available), as a result of Soviet bloc opposition to the Six-Day War.^[2] It has been alleged that this was simply a thinly veiled anti-Semitic campaign designed to keep himself in power by shifting the attention of the populace from stagnating economy and Stalinist mismanagement. Gomułka later claimed that this was not deliberate.

In December 1970, a bloody clash with shipyard workers in which several dozen workers were fatally shot forced his resignation (officially for health reasons; he had in fact suffered a stroke). A dynamic younger man, Edward Gierek, took over the Party leadership and tensions eased. Gomułka was forced to retire. After his death in 1982 of cancer, his negative image in Communist propaganda was modified and some of his constructive contributions were recognized. His memoirs were first published in 1994.

References[link]

See also[link]

• History of Poland (1945–1989)

v t e First Secretaries of the Central Committee of the PUWP Bolesław Bierut · Edward Ochab · Władysław Gomułka · Edward Gierek · Stanisław Kania · Wojciech Jaruzelski · Mieczysław Rakowski

Imre Nagy (7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions. Nagy's second term ended when his non-Soviet-backed government was brought down by Soviet invasion in the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, resulting in Nagy's execution on charges of treason two years later.

Early life and career[link]

Nagy (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈnɒɟ]) was born in Kaposvár, to a peasant family and was apprenticed to a locksmith. He enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and served on the Eastern Front. He was taken prisoner in 1915. He became a member of the Russian Communist Party, and joined the Red Army.

Nagy returned to Hungary in 1921. In 1930 he travelled to the Soviet Union and joined the communist party. He was engaged in agricultural research, and also worked in the Hungarian section of the Comintern. He was expelled from the party in 1936 and later worked for the Soviet Statistical Service. Rumours that he was an agent of the Soviet secret service surfaced later, begun by Hungarian party-leader Károly Grósz in 1989 in an attempt to discredit Nagy.^[1] There is evidence, however, that Nagy did serve as an informant for the NKVD during his time in Moscow and provided names to the secret police as a way to prove his loyalty (not an uncommon tactic for foreign communists in the Soviet Union at the time).^[2]

Imre Nagy, statue at Vértanúk tere (Martyrs' square) in Budapest.

After the war Nagy returned to Hungary. He was the Minister of Agriculture in the government of Béla Miklós de Dálnok, delegated by the Hungarian Communist Party. He distributed land among the peasant population. In the next government, led by Tildy, he was the Minister of Interior. At this period he played an active role controlling the expulsion of Germans.^[3]

In the Communist government, he served as Minister of Agriculture and in other posts. He was also Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary 1947–1949.

After two years as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary (1953–1955), during which he promoted his "New Course" in Socialism, Nagy fell out of favour with the Soviet Politburo. He was deprived of his Hungarian Central Committee, Politburo and all other Party functions and on 18 April 1955, he was sacked as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Revolution[link]

Main article: Hungarian Revolution of 1956

Nagy became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary again, this time by popular demand, during the anti-Soviet revolution in 1956. Soon he moved toward a multiparty political system.

On 1 November, he announced Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and appealed through the UN for the great powers, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, to recognise Hungary's status as a neutral state.^[4] Throughout this period, Nagy remained steadfastly committed to Marxism; but his conception of Marxism was as "a science that cannot remain static", and he railed against the "rigid dogmatism" of "the Stalinist monopoly".^[5]

Statue of Imre Nagy, facing the Parliament.

When the revolution was crushed by the Soviet invasion of Hungary, Nagy, with a few others, was given sanctuary in the Yugoslav Embassy. In spite of a written safe conduct of free passage by János Kádár, on 22 November, Nagy was arrested by the Soviet forces as he was leaving the Yugoslav Embassy, and taken to Snagov, Romania.

Secret trial and execution[link]

Subsequently, the Soviets returned him to Hungary, where he was secretly charged with organising the overthrow of the Hungarian people's democratic state and with treason. Nagy was secretly tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in June 1958.^[6] His trial and execution were made public only after the sentence had been carried out.^[7] According to Fedor Burlatsky, a Kremlin insider, Nikita Khrushchev had Nagy executed, "as a lesson to all other leaders in socialist countries."^[8]

He was buried, along with his co-defendants, in the prison yard where the executions were carried out and years later moved to a distant corner (section 301) of the Municipal Cemetery of Budapest.,^[9] face-down, and with his hands and feet tied with barbed wire. Next to his grave stands a memorial bell inscribed in Latin, Hungarian, German and English. The Latin reads: "Vivos voco / Mortuos plango / Fulgura frango," which is translated as: "I call the living, I mourn the dead, I master (lit. "break") the lightning."^{[citation needed]}

Memorials and political rehabilitation[link]

During the time when the Communist leadership of Hungary would not permit his death to be commemorated, or permit access to his burial place, a cenotaph in his honour was erected in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

In 1989, Imre Nagy was rehabilitated and his remains reburied on the 31st anniversary of his execution in the same plot after a funeral organised in part by opponents of the country's communist regime.^[10] Over 100,000 people are estimated to have attended Nagy's reinterment. The occasion of Nagy's funeral was an important factor in the end of the Communist government in Hungary.

Writings[link]

The collected writings of Nagy, most of which he wrote after his dismissal as Chairman of the Council of Ministers in April 1955, were smuggled out of Hungary and published in the West under the title "Imre Nagy on Communism".

Family[link]

Nagy was married to Mária Égető. The couple had one daughter, Erzsébet Nagy (1927–2008), a Hungarian writer and translator.^[11] Erzsébet Nagy married Ferenc Jánosi. Imre Nagy did not object to his daughter's romance and eventual marriage to a Protestant minister, attending their religious wedding ceremony in 1946 without Politburo permission. In 1982, Erzsébet Nagy married János Vészi.^[2]

Nagy in film and the arts[link]

In 2003 and 2004, the Hungarian director Márta Mészáros produced a film based on Nagy's life after the revolution, entitled A Temetetlen halott (English: The Unburied Body) (IMDb entry).

Nagy is mentioned and seen in the movie Children of Glory.

Imre Nagy's home in Budapest[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

1. Gyula Háy (Julius Hay). Born 1900: memoirs. Hutchinson: 1974.
2. Granville, Johanna. "Imre Nagy aka 'Volodya' – A Dent in the Martyr's Halo?", "Cold War International History Project Bulletin", no. 5 (Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC), Spring, 1995, pp. 28, and 34–37.
3. Granville, Johanna, The First Domino: International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956, Texas A & M University Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58544-298-4
4. KGB Chief Vladimir Kryuchkov to CC CPSU, 16 June 1989 (trans. Johanna Granville). Cold War International History Project Bulletin 5 (1995): 36 [from: TsKhSD, F. 89, Per. 45, Dok. 82.]
5. Alajos Dornbach, The Secret Trial of Imre Nagy, Greenwood Press, 1995. ISBN 0-275-94332-1
6. Peter Unwin, Voice in the Wilderness: Imre Nagy and the Hungarian Revolution, Little, Brown, 1991. ISBN 0-356-20316-6
7. Karl Benziger, Imre Nagy, Martyr Of The Nation: Contested History, Legitimacy, and Popular Memory in Hungary. Lexington Books, 2008. ISBN 0-7391-2330-0

Primary sources[link]

• Johanna Granville, trans., "Soviet Archival Documents on the Hungarian Revolution, 24 October – 4 November 1956",

Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 5 (Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC), Spring, 1995, pp. 22–23, 29–34.

v t e Prime Ministers of Hungary (list) Revolution of 1848 Batthyány · Récsey · Kossuth · Szemere Kingdom of Hungary Andrássy · Lónyay · Szlávy · Bittó · Wenckheim · K. Tisza · Szapáry · Wekerle · Bánffy · Széll · Khuen-Héderváry · I. Tisza · Fejérváry · Wekerle · Khuen-Héderváry · Lukács · I. Tisza · Esterházy · Wekerle · Hadik Transition period M. Károlyi · Berinkey · Garbai · Peidl (opposed by G. Károlyi · Pattantyús-Ábrahám) · Friedrich · Huszár Regency Simonyi-Semadam · Teleki · Bethlen (opposed by Rakovszky) · G. Károlyi · Gömbös · Darányi · Imrédy · Teleki · Keresztes-Fischer · Bárdossy · Keresztes-Fischer · Kállay · Sztójay · Lakatos Transition period Szálasi · Miklós · Tildy  · F. Nagy · Dinnyés Communist Hungary Dobi · Rákosi · I. Nagy · Hegedüs · (I. Nagy) · Kádár · Münnich · Kádár · Kállai · Fock · Lázár · Grósz · Németh Hungary Antall · Boross · Horn · Orbán · Medgyessy · Gyurcsány · Bajnai · Orbán Italics indicates interim holder

v t e Speakers of the National Assembly of Hungary House of Magnates (1848 -1918) Majláth, Sr. Perényi (I) G. Apponyi Sennyey Majláth, Jr. Szőgyény-Marich Sennyey Vay Szlávy Tóth Károlyi Csáky Dessewffy Csáky Jósika Hadik-Barkóczy Wlassics House of Representatives (1848 -1918) Pázmándy P. Almásy Palóczy Ghyczy Szentiványi Somssich Bittó B. Perczel Ghyczy Szlávy Péchy Bánffy Szilágyi Madarász D. Perczel A. Apponyi D. Perczel Justh S. Gál Berzeviczy Návay Tisza Beőthy Szász National Assembly (1920 -1927) Rakovszky Gaál Scitovszky Zsitvay House of Magnates (1927 -1945) Wlassics Széchényi Perényi (III) Rátz House of Representatives (1920 -1945) Zsitvay L. Almásy Sztranyavszky Kornis Darányi Tasnádi Nagy Provisional National Assembly (1944 -1945) Vásáry Zsedényi National Assembly (since 1945) F. Nagy Varga Szabó I. Nagy Olt Drahos Dögei Rónai Metzker Vass Kállai Apró Sarlós Stadinger Szűrös (Fodor) Göncz Szabad Z. Gál Áder Szili Katona Schmitt Kövér