page_title: Bolesław Bierut
section_title: Top leader of Stalinist Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Bolesław Bierut / Career / Top leader of Stalinist Poland
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Bolesław Bierut
context_page_description: Bolesław Bierut was a Polish politician, communist activist and leader of Poland between 1947 and 1956. He was President of the State National Council from 1944 to 1947, President of Poland from 1947 to 1952, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party from 1948 to 1956 and temporarily Prime Minister of Poland from 1952 to 1954. Bierut, a self-taught man, with full knowledge and iron resolve aimed to implement the oppressive Stalinist system in Poland. However, together with Władysław Gomułka, his main rival, Bierut is chiefly responsible for the historic changes that Poland underwent in the aftermath of World War II. Unlike any of his communist successors, Bierut ruled Poland until his death.
  Born in Congress Poland on the outskirts of Lublin, Bierut entered politics in 1912 by joining the Polish Socialist Party. Later he became a member of the Communist Party of Poland and spent some years in the Soviet Union, where he functioned as an agent of the Comintern, educated at the Soviet International Lenin School and similar institutions elsewhere in Europe.
context_section_description: Gomułka, general secretary of the PPR (and until that time the principal figure in post-war Polish communist establishment), was accused of a "right-wing nationalistic deviation" and removed from his position during a plenary meeting of the Central Committee in August 1948. The move was Stalin-orchestrated and Stalin's choice to fill the vacated job was President Bierut, who had thus become both the top party leader and top state official.
  The historic PPS was practically taken over by the PPR at the Unification Congress, held in Warsaw in December 1948. The resulting "Marxist-Leninist" Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) was nearly synonymous with the state and Bierut became its first general secretary. The Three-Year Plan of post-war rebuilding and economic consolidation ended in 1949 and was followed by the Six-Year Plan, which intensified the industrialisation process and brought extensive urbanization of Poland.
  In November 1949, Bierut asked the Soviet government to make available Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, a Polish-Soviet politician and famous World War II commander, for service in the government of Poland. Rokossovsky subsequently became a Marshal of Poland and Minister of National Defense.
  In early August 1951, Bierut had his main rival Gomułka and his wife arrested. Imprisoned Gomułka, however, refused to cooperate with his accusers and displayed remarkable ability to defend himself, while Bierut's people bungled the prosecution. According to Edward Ochab, though, Stalin and Beria ordered the arrest and trial of Gomułka, while Bierut and Jakub Berman tried to protect him and caused delays in the proceedings. Informal political reforms, slow to take hold after Stalin's death, eventually materialized and in December 1954 Gomułka was released.
  During the lifetime of Stalin, Bierut was strictly subservient to the Soviet leader, routinely received from him instructions over the phone or was summoned to Moscow for consultations. Bierut still had incomparably more power in Poland than any of his successors, first secretaries of the PZPR. He ruled jointly with his two closest associates, Berman and Hilary Minc. Security issues, including the widespread persecution of opposition, he consulted also with Stanisław Radkiewicz, head of the Ministry of Public Security.
caption: Bolesław Bierut, President of Poland and General Secretary of the PZPR
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