While World War I would lead to the deaths of many Poles – forced to fight against one another in the armies of Russia, Germany, and Austria, the end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles would see Poland once again emerge as an independent nation. Its borders were a lot smaller than before, however, and the important city of Gdańsk was given to Germany as the ‘free city’ of Danzig. The ‘Second Republic’ of Poland was the sixth-biggest country in Europe, with a population of around 26 million. Initially a democratic republic, it became increasingly unstable and Józef Piłsudski, a national hero of World War I, seized dictatorial control. In 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact that divided Poland between the two powers. On 1 September, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, precipitating the Second World War. Poland was devastated by both invasions. The Soviet Union deported over 1.5 million Poles to other parts of the Soviet Union. Nazi policy sought to eradicate the Polish nation, believing its territory to be Germany’s right. Hundreds of thousands of Poles were moved into forced labour camps in Germany, while the intelligentsia were executed en masse. Even more devastating was Nazi Germany’s policy towards Polish Jews. At first, Jewish people were confined into ghettos, and then shipped off to extermination camps around the country. Around three million Polish Jews died in concentration camps – almost the country’s entire Jewish population. When Hitler unexpectedly attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, all of Poland came under Nazi control. The country would be devastated by the war. Over six million people had lost their lives and the cities lay in ruins. At the end of World War II, Poland found itself within the Soviet bloc. Though formally independent, in reality Poland’s Communist government was heavily influenced by Russia. The regime in Poland, though varying in degree, was never as repressive as in other parts of the Eastern Bloc. In 1980, workers in major ports and shipyards in Gdańsk went out on strike, challenging the increasingly exorbitant cost of living. In response, the government signed an agreement allowing workers to form independent trade unions, which organised under the national banner Solidarity (Solidarność). Solidarity included a wide range of ideologies, creating the conditions for widespread national debate about the processes and goals of reform. This proved too much for the government, and in 1981 it declared martial law, dissolved Solidarity, and imprisoned the leader of the movement, Lech Wałęsa. While martial law meant that Solidarity could no longer function effectively, the spirit of the movement was maintained. Opposition to the regime – and belief in the potential of a democratic Poland – was also nurtured by the Catholic church. The election of Karol Cardinal Wojtyła, the Archbishop of Krakow, as Pope John Paul II in 1979 gave Poles further inspiration in the struggle for democracy. The late 1980s saw the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev to the leadership of the Soviet Union, whose reforms led to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Solidarity, now allowed to reform, participated in partially free elections in 1989 that brought it a sweeping victory. Poland became a full democracy with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991.