Polish Soviet Socialist Republic

The **Polish Soviet Socialist Republic**, known shortly as the Polish SSR, is a member republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, founded in late 1923 with the formation of the USSR. The Polish SSR persists of territories occupied by Poles in the previous Russian Empire, after Tsarist Russia annexed Poland following the Third Partition of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's forced dissolution. The Polish people remained without a state for over 100 years before the creation of the Polish SSR, facing heavy ethnic discrimination and persecution under the Tsar regime. Warsaw is the capital and largest city of the Polish SSR, and is governed as a one-party socialist state under the Communist Party of Poland (CPP), a subsidiary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

The area of Soviet Poland remained a heavy battleground during the Polish Civil War, with the Bolsheviks and Minsheviks holding major territories. Polish groups also fought wars for Polish independence Nationalists, Anarchists, and Communists. However, the Bolsheviks would emerge victorious, and the Polish SSR would emerge as a founding member of the Soviet Union. Its border would change several times throughout its history, especially in the first few years after its formation, and after WWII, when strips of land along the eastern Prussian border were annexed. After its creation, the Polish SSR engaged in literacy programs, collectivization, economic planning, and other socialist policies congruent with the USSR, resulting in millions escaping poverty, the near eradication of crime (including prostitution, drug trafficking, theft, and more), the establishment of universal healthcare, the elimination of unemployment, and widespread access to education.

Before WWII, the Polish SSR shared a large border with Nazi Germany, foreseeing the rise of Nazism just past its borders. The Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe began in 1938, with the invasion of the Polish SSR by Germany taking place. Its government went into exile and supporters of the communists were sent to concentration camps. Poles and Jews faced heavy repression and genocide by Nazi occupiers during the Holocaust, with more than a million civilians dying and millions more affected. Nazi occupation saw many Poles themselves joining Nazi police forces and repressing and massacring fellow citizens, as many Jews and Poles of certain communities were relocated into concentration camps and extermination camps. The genocide of Poles and Jews continued throughout the Nazi occupation until 1944 and 1945, when Allied forces in the war began to push out Axis invaders. The Polish SSR was eventually liberated in its entirety, and its previous government in exile again took power.

After WWII, and the creation of the independent Prussian Democratic Republic, the Polish SSR annexed some of its eastern territories previously a part of the Greater German Reich. Recovering from the Holocaust and destruction of countless cities due to war, the USSR began mass reconstruction, and the Polish SSR was eventually rebuilt and economically rebounded. The 1950s and 1960s saw economic boom in the USSR, as the Polish economy continued to grow. Throughout the Cold War, the Polish SSR served as a strategic location for the USSR and Vienna Pact, being the closest Soviet border to Nazi Germany and serving as the main Soviet link to its allied Prussia.