page_title: Polish People's Republic
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Polish People's Republic / Economy / Early years
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Pustý kravín bývalého PGR (státní statek) v polské obci Krościenko English: PGR Krościenko, Poland Polski: Obora byłego PGR w Krościenku N49 28.526 E22 39.911
context_page_description: The Polish People's Republic was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989, and the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million inhabitants near the end of its existence, it was the most populous communist and Eastern Bloc country in Europe after the Soviet Union. Having a unitary Marxist–Leninist government imposed by the USSR following World War II, it was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact alliance. The largest city and official capital since 1947 was Warsaw, followed by the industrial city of Łódź and cultural city of Kraków.
  The country was bordered by the Baltic Sea to the north, the Soviet Union to the east, Czechoslovakia to the south, and East Germany to the west.
  The former country covers the history of contemporary Poland between 1952 and 1989 under the Soviet-backed communist administration established after the Red Army's release of its territory from German occupation in World War II. The state's official name was the "Republic of Poland" between 1947 and 1952 in accordance with the temporary Small Constitution of 1947.
context_section_description: Poland suffered tremendous economic losses during World War II. In 1939, Poland had 35.1 million inhabitants, but the census of 14 February 1946 showed only 23.9 million inhabitants. (The difference was partially the result of the border revision.) The losses in national resources and infrastructure amounted to 38%. Compared to Western European nations, including Germany, Poland was still mostly an agrarian country. The implementation of the immense tasks involved with the reconstruction of the country was intertwined with the struggle of the new government for the stabilisation of power, made even more difficult by the fact that a considerable part of society was mistrustful of the communist government. The occupation of Poland by the Red Army and the support the Soviet Union had shown for the Polish communists was decisive in the communists gaining the upper hand in the new Polish government. Poland was under Soviet control, both directly (Red Army, NKVD, deportations to the SU) and indirectly (NKVD created the Polish political police UB).
  As control of the Polish territories passed from occupying forces of Nazi Germany to the subsequent occupying forces of the Soviet Union, and from the Soviet Union to the Soviet-imposed puppet satellite state, Poland's new economic system was forcibly imposed and began moving towards a radical, communist centrally planned economy. One of the first major steps in that direction involved the agricultural reform issued by the Polish Committee of National Liberation government on 6 September 1944. All estates over 0.5 km² in pre-war Polish territories and all over 1 km² in former German territories were nationalised without compensation. In total, 31,000 km² of land were nationalised in Poland and 5 million in the former German territories, out of which 12,000 km² were redistributed to farmers and the rest remained in the hands of the government (Most of this was eventually used in the collectivization and creation of sovkhoz-like State Agricultural Farms "PGR"). However, the collectivization of Polish farming never reached the same extent as it did in the Soviet Union or other countries of the Eastern Bloc.
  Nationalisation began in 1944, with the pro-Soviet government taking over industries in the newly acquired territories along with the rest of the country. As nationalization was unpopular, the communists delayed the nationalization reform until 1946, when after the 3xTAK referendums they were fairly certain they had total control of the state and could deal a heavy blow to eventual public protests. Some semi-official nationalisation of various private enterprises had begun also in 1944. In 1946, all enterprises with over 50 employees were nationalised, with no compensation to Polish owners.
  The Allied punishment of Germany for the war of destruction was intended to include large-scale reparations to Poland. However, those were truncated into insignificance by the break-up of Germany into East and West and the onset of the Cold War. Poland was then relegated to receive her share from the Soviet-controlled East Germany. However, even this was attenuated, as the Soviets pressured the Polish Government to cease receiving the reparations far ahead of schedule as a sign of 'friendship' between the two new communist neighbors and, therefore, now friends. Thus, without the reparations and without the massive Marshall Plan implemented in the West at that time, Poland's postwar recovery was much harder than it could have been.
caption: An abandoned State Agricultural Farm in south-eastern Poland. State farms were a form of collective farming created in 1949.
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