page_title: Formation of the Eastern Bloc
section_title: Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Formation of the Eastern Bloc / Poland
context_page_description: The Eastern Bloc is a collective term for the former Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This generally encompasses the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact.
  When Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov expressed concern that the Yalta Agreement's wording might impede Stalin's plans in Central Europe, Stalin responded "Never mind. We'll do it our own way later." After Soviet forces remained in Eastern and Central European countries, with the beginnings of Communist puppet regimes installed in those countries, by falsified elections, Churchill referred to the region as being behind an "Iron Curtain" of control from Moscow.
context_section_description: After the Soviet invasion of German-occupied Poland in July 1944, Polish government-in-exile prime minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk flew to Moscow with Churchill to argue against the annexation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact portion of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union. Poland served as the first real test of the American President Roosevelt's Soviet policy of "giving" to Stalin assuming noblesse oblige, with Roosevelt telling Mikołajczyk before the visit, "Don't worry. Stalin doesn't intend to take freedom from you" and after assuring U.S. backing, concluding "I shall see to it that your country does not come out of this war injured."
  Mikołajczyk offered a smaller section of land, but Stalin declined, telling him that he would allow the exiled government to participate in the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN and later "Lublin Committee"), which consisted of Communists and satellite parties set up under the direct control by the Soviet plenipotentiary Colonel-General Nikolai Bulganin. An agreement was reached at the Yalta Conference permitting the annexation of most of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact portion of Eastern Poland, while granting Poland part of East Germany in return.  Thereafter, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic were expanded to include eastern Poland.
  The Soviet Union then compensated what remained of Poland by ceding to it the portion of Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line, which contained much of Germany's fertile land.  An agreement was reached at Yalta that the Soviets' Provisional Government made up of PKWN members would be re-organised "on a broad democratic basis" including the exiled government, and that the re-organised government's primary task would be to prepare for elections.
  Pretending that it was an indigenous body representing Polish society, the PKWN took the role of a governmental authority and challenged the pre–World War II Polish government-in-exile in London.  Doubts began to arise whether the "free and unfettered elections" promised at the Yalta Conference would occur. Non-Stalinists and partisans, including those that fought the Nazis, were systematically persecuted.  Hopes for a new free start were immediately dampened when the PKWN claimed they were entitled to choose who they wanted to take part in the government, and the Soviet NKVD seized sixteen Polish underground leaders who had wanted to participate in negotiations on the re-organisation in March 1945 brought them to the Soviet Union for a show trial in June.
  While underground leaders were sentenced to long prison terms, assurances that political prisoners would be released and that Soviet forces and security would leave failed to be supported by concrete safeguards or implementation plans. Polish government-in-exile figures, including Stanisław Mikołajczyk then returned to a popular reception, and were able to lure several parties to their cause, effectively undermining Bloc politics.
  When the Mikołajczyk's People's Party (PPP) continued to resist pressure to renounce a ticket of its own outside the party bloc, it was exposed to open terror, including the disqualification of PPP candidates in one quarter of the districts and the arrest of over 1000,000 PPP activists, followed by vote rigging that resulted in Gomułka's candidates winning a majority in the carefully controlled poll.
  Mikołajczyk lost hope and left the country. His followers were subjected to unlimited ruthless persecution.  Following the forged referendum, in October 1946, the new government nationalised all enterprises employing over 50 people and all but two banks.  Public opposition had been essentially crushed by 1946, but underground activity still existed.
  Fraudulent Polish elections held in January 1947 resulted in Poland's official transformation to a non-democratic Communist state by 1949, the People's Republic of Poland. Resistance fighters continued to battle Soviet forces in the Ukrainian annexed portions of eastern Poland, the Soviet response to which included the arrest of as many as 6
caption: Line waiting to enter a store, a typical view in Poland in the 1950s and 1980s.
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