The Soviet Liberation of Poland and the Polish Left, 1943–5

Abstract

In November 1943 the Polska Partja Robotnicza (PPR — Polish Workers Party) publicized its programme in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Entitled ‘What we are fighting for?’ it laid down the basic principles for the future struggle. The organization was little known and, among wartime underground movements, it was, at the time of the publication of the programme, an entirely irrelevant political grouping.1 The two first drafts of the PPR’s declaration had been prepared by Pawel Finder, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the PPR, and the third one was prepared by Władysaw Gomułka, the First Secretary of the Warsaw Party cell.2 The final draft was agreed with Georgi Dimitrov, the head of the Comintern. Within the context of conspiratorial politics of the time the publication of a programme constituted a bid for the leadership of left-wing underground organizations. It was nevertheless a situation abundant with paradoxes. The PPR, although set up by a group of Polish ex-Communist Party members who were parachuted from the Soviet Union to Poland in December 1941, was not allowed to refer to its Communist past. The Komunistyczna Partja Polski (KPP — Polish Communist Party), had been accused of sectarianism and as a result had been disbanded by the Comintern in 1938. Subsequently, in all its activities, and most notably in its programme, the PPR sought to break links with the KPP and to assert continuity with the Socialist and peasant movement in Poland.3KeywordsCentral CommitteePolitical GroupLeft WingPolitical ProgrammeSocialist MovementThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.