The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known
in Poland as March 1968 or March events (Polish:
Marzec 1968; wydarzenia marcowe), pertains
to a series of major student, intellectual
and other protests against the government
of the Polish People's Republic.
The crisis resulted in the suppression of
student strikes by security forces in all
major academic centres across the country
and the subsequent repression of the Polish
dissident movement.
It was also accompanied by mass emigration
following an antisemitic (branded "anti-Zionist")
campaign waged by the minister of internal
affairs, General Mieczysław Moczar, with
the approval of First Secretary Władysław
Gomułka of the Polish United Workers' Party
(PZPR).
The protests coincided with the events of
the Prague Spring in neighboring Czechoslovakia
– raising new hopes of democratic reforms
among the intelligentsia.
The unrest culminated in the Warsaw Pact invasion
of Czechoslovakia on 20 August 1968.The anti-Jewish
campaign had already begun in 1967.
The policy was carried out in conjunction
with the Soviet withdrawal of all diplomatic
relations with Israel after the Six-Day War,
but also involved a power struggle within
the Polish communist party itself.
The subsequent purges within the ruling party,
led by Mieczysław Moczar and his faction,
failed to topple Gomułka's government, but
resulted in an exile from Poland of thousands
of individuals of Jewish ancestry, including
professionals, party officials and secret
police functionaries.
In carefully staged public displays of support,
factory workers across Poland were assembled
to publicly denounce Zionism.
At least 13,000 Poles of Jewish origin emigrated
in 1968–72 as a result of being fired from
their positions and various other forms of
harassment.
== Background ==
Political turmoil of the late 1960s was exemplified
in the West by the increasingly violent protests
against the Vietnam War and included numerous
instances of protest and revolt, especially
among students, that reverberated across Europe
in 1968.
The movement was reflected in the Eastern
Bloc by the events of the Prague Spring, which
began on 5 January 1968.
A wave of protests in Czechoslovakia marked
the high point of a broader series of dissident
social mobilization.
According to Ivan Krastev, the 1968 movement
in Western Europe, with its emphasis on individual
sovereignty, was fundamentally different from
that in the Eastern Bloc, concerned primarily
with national sovereignty, and this dichotomy
is reflected in the different societal models
that have since evolved in the respective
parts of the continent.In Poland, a growing
crisis having to do with communist party control
over universities, the literary community,
and intellectuals in general, marked the mid-1960s.
Those persecuted for political activism on
campus included Jacek Kuroń, Karol Modzelewski,
Adam Michnik, Barbara Toruńczyk and a number
of others.
A decade earlier, Poland was a scene of the
Poznań 1956 protests and the Polish October
events.
== Reaction to Arab–Israeli war of 1967
==
The events of 1967 and Polish communist leaders'
necessity to follow the Soviet lead altered
the relatively correct relations between People's
Poland and Israel.
The combination of international and domestic
factors gave rise in Poland to a campaign
of hate against purported internal enemies,
among whom the Jews would become the most
salient target.As the Israeli–Arab Six-Day
War started on 5 June 1967, the Polish Politburo
met the following day and made policy determinations,
declaring condemnation of "Israel's aggression"
and full support for the "just struggle of
the Arab countries".
First Secretary Władysław Gomułka and Prime
Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz went to Moscow
on 9 June for a Middle East conference of
communist leaders.
The participants deliberated in a depressed
atmosphere.
The decisions made included the Warsaw Pact's
continuation of military and financial support
for the Arab states and the breaking of diplomatic
relations with Israel, in which only Romania
refused to participate.A media campaign commenced
in Poland and was soon followed by "anti-Israeli
imperialism" rallies held in various towns
and places of employment.
After the government delegation's return to
Warsaw, Gomułka, pessimistic and fearful
of a possible nuclear confrontation and irritated
by the reports of support for Israel among
many Polish Jews, on 19 June proclaimed at
the Trade Union Congress that Israel's aggression
had been "met with applause in Zionist circles
of Jews – Polish citizens."
Gomułka specifically invited "those who feel
that these words are addressed to them" to
emigrate, but Edward Ochab and some other
Politburo members objected and the statement
was deleted before the speech's publication.
Gomułka did not issue a call for anti-Jewish
personnel purges, but the so-called "anti-Zionist"
campaign got underway anyway, supported by
his close associates Zenon Kliszko and Ignacy
Loga-Sowiński.
It was eagerly amplified by General Mieczysław
Moczar, minister of internal affairs, by some
military leaders who had long been waiting
for an opportunity to "settle with the Jews",
and by other officials.
A list of 382 "Zionists" was presented at
the ministry on 28 June and the purge slowly
developed, beginning with Jewish generals
and other high-ranking officers of the Polish
armed forces.
About 150 Jewish military officers were fired
in 1967–68, including Czesław Mankiewicz,
national air defense chief.
Minister of Defense Marian Spychalski tried
to defend Mankiewicz and by doing so compromised
his own position.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs renewed its
proposal to ban the Jewish organizations from
receiving foreign contributions from the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
This time, unlike on previous occasions, the
request was quickly granted by the Secretariat
of the PZPR's Central Committee and the well-developed
Jewish social, educational and cultural organized
activities in Poland faced stiff reductions
or even practical liquidation.Only about 200
people lost their jobs and were removed from
the party in 1967, including Leon Kasman,
chief editor of Trybuna Ludu, the party's
main daily newspaper.
Kasman was Moczar's hated rival from the time
of the war, when he arrived from the Soviet
Union and was parachuted in Poland.
After March 1968, when Moczar's ministry was
finally given the free hand it had long sought,
40 employees were fired from the editorial
staff of the Polish Scientific Publishers
(PWN).
This major state publishing house had produced
a number of volumes of the official Great
Universal Encyclopedia.
Moczar and others protested in the fall of
1967 the supposedly unbalanced treatment of
World War II issues, namely stressing Jewish
martyrdom and the disproportionate numbers
of Jews killed in Nazi extermination camps.In
the words of Polish scholar Włodzimierz Rozenbaum,
the Six-Day War "provided Gomułka with an
opportunity 'to kill several birds with one
stone': he could use an 'anti-Zionist' policy
to undercut the appeal of the liberal wing
of the party; he could bring forward the Jewish
issue to weaken the support for the nationalist
faction (in the party) and make his own position
even stronger...", while securing political
prospects for his own supporters.In the 19
June 1967 speech Gomułka warned: "We don't
want an establishment of a fifth column in
our country".
The sentence was deleted from a published
version, but such views he repeated and developed
further in successive speeches, for example
on 19 March 1968.
On 27 June 1967, the first secretary characterized
Romania's position as shameful, predicted
production of nuclear arms by Israel and spoke
generally of consequences faced by people
who had "two souls and two fatherlands".
Following Gomułka's anti-Israel and anti-Jewish
rhetoric, the security services began screening
officials of Jewish origin and looking for
'hidden Zionists' in Polish institutions.
== Protest in Warsaw ==
The outbreak of the March 1968 unrest was
seemingly triggered by a series of events
in Warsaw, but in reality it was a culmination
of trends accumulating in Poland over several
years.
The economic situation was deteriorating and
a drastic increase in the prices of meat came
into effect in 1967.
In 1968, the market was destabilized further
by rumors of an upcoming currency exchange
and the ensuing panic.
Higher norms were enforced for industrial
productivity with wages reduced at the same
time.
First Secretary Gomułka was afraid of all
changes.
The increasingly heavy censorship stifled
intellectual life, the boredom of stagnation
and the mood of hopelessness (lack of career
prospects) generated social conflict.
The disparity between the expectations raised
by the Polish October movement of 1956 and
the actuality of the "real socialism" life
of the 1960s led to mounting frustration.At
the end of January 1968, after its poor reception
at the Central Committee of the ruling PZPR,
the government authorities banned the performance
of a Romantic play by Adam Mickiewicz called
Dziady (written in 1824), directed by Kazimierz
Dejmek at the National Theatre, Warsaw.
It was claimed that the play contained Russophobic
and anti-Soviet references and represented
an unduly pro-religion stance.
Dziady had been staged 14 times, the last
time on 30 January.
The ban was followed by a demonstration after
the final performance, which resulted in numerous
police detentions.
Dejmek was expelled from the party and subsequently
fired from the National Theatre.
He left Poland and returned in 1973, to continue
directing theatrical productions.In mid-February,
a petition signed by 3,000 people (or over
4,200, depending on the source) protesting
the censorship of Dziady was submitted to
parliament by student protester Irena Lasota.
Gathered for an extraordinary meeting on 29
February with over 400 attendees, the Warsaw
chapter of the Polish Writers' Union condemned
the ban and other encroachments on free speech
rights.
The speakers blamed the faction of Minister
Moczar and the party in general for antisemitic
incidents, as that campaign was gaining traction.
On 4 March, the removal from the University
of Warsaw of dissidents Adam Michnik and Henryk
Szlajfer, members of the Komandosi group,
was announced by officials.
A crowd of some 500 (or about 1,000) students
rallying at the university on 8 March was
attacked violently by a state-mobilized "worker
squad" (probably plainclothes police) and
by police in uniform.
Nonetheless, other institutions of higher
learning in Warsaw joined the protest a day
later.
== Student- and intellectual-led movement
==
Historian Dariusz Gawin of the Polish Academy
of Sciences pointed out that the March 1968
events have been mythologized in subsequent
decades beyond their modest original aims,
under the lasting influence of former members
of Komandosi, a left-wing student political
activity group.
During the 1968 crisis, the dissident academic
circles produced very little in terms of written
accounts or programs.
They experienced a moral shock because of
propaganda misrepresentations of their intentions
and actions and the unexpectedly violent repressions.
They also experienced an ideological shock,
caused by the reaction of the authorities
(aggression) and society (indifference) to
their idealistic attempts to bring about revolutionary
reform in the Polish People's Republic.
The alienation of the reform movement from
the ostensibly socialist system (and their
own leftist views) had begun.The students
were naïve in terms of practical politics,
but their leaders professed strongly leftist
convictions, expressed in brief proclamations
distributed in 1968.
Following the spirit of the 1964 "revisionist"
manifesto by Karol Modzelewski and Jacek Kuroń,
they demanded respect for the ideals of the
Marxist–Leninist "dictatorship of the proletariat"
and principles of socialism.
The protesting students sang "The Internationale"
anthem.
The storming of Warsaw University by the (fake)
factory workers thus came as a total surprise
to the students.
The participants of the 8 March rally were
met with violent beatings from ORMO volunteer
reserve and ZOMO riot squads just as they
were about to go home.
The disproportionately brutal reaction of
the security forces appeared to many observers
to be a provocation perpetrated to aggravate
the unrest and facilitate further rounds of
repression, in the self-interest of political
leaders.
A comparable demonstration originated on 9
March at the Warsaw University of Technology,
and was also followed by confrontations with
the police and arrests.
Kuroń, Modzelewski and Michnik were imprisoned
again and a majority of the Komandosi members
were detained.
In later accounts, however, the founding mythology
of Poland's civil society movement (late 1970s)
and then of the establishment of the new democratic-liberal
Poland would obliterate the socialist, leftist
and revolutionary aspects of the March 1968
movement.Within a few days protests spread
to Kraków, Lublin, Gliwice, Katowice, and
Łódź (from 11 March), Wrocław, Gdańsk,
and Poznań (12 March).
The frequent demonstrations at the above locations
were brutally suppressed by the police.
Mass student strikes took place in Wrocław
on 14–16 March, Kraków on 14–20 March,
and Opole.
A student committee at Warsaw University (11
March) and an inter-university committee in
Kraków (13 March) were formed; attempts to
organize were also made in Łódź and Wrocław.
Efforts aimed at getting industrial workers
involved, for example employees of the state
enterprises in Gdańsk, Wrocław and Kraków's
Nowa Huta, produced no tangible effects.
But on 15 March in Gdańsk, 20,000 students
and workers marched and fought several types
of security forces totaling 3,700 men, into
the late evening.University students comprised
less than 25% of those arrested for participating
in opposition activities in March and April
1968 (their numerical predominance in the
movement was a part of the subsequent myth,
wrote historian Łukasz Kamiński).
The leading role in the spreading countrywide
street protests was played by young factory
workers and secondary school students.
== Repressions ==
A 
media campaign besmirching targeted groups
and individuals was conducted from 11 March.
The Stalinist and Jewish ("non-Polish") roots
of the supposed instigators were "exposed"
and most printed press participated in the
propagation of slander, with the notable exceptions
of Polityka and Tygodnik Powszechny.
Mass "spontaneous" rallies at places of employment
and in squares of major cities took place.
The participants demanded "Students resume
their studies, writers their writing", "Zionists
go to Zion!", or threatened "We'll tear off
the head of the anti-Polish hydra".
On 14 March, regional party secretary Edward
Gierek in Katowice used strong language addressing
the Upper Silesian crowds: (people who want
to) "make our peaceful Silesian water more
turbid ... those Zambrowskis, Staszewskis,
Słonimskis and the company of the Kisielewski
and Jasienica kind ... revisionists, Zionists,
lackeys of imperialism ... Silesian water
will crush their bones ...". Gierek introduced
a new element during his speech: a statement
of support for First Secretary Gomułka, who
so far had been silent on the student protests,
Zionism and other currently pressing issues.This
initial reluctance of the top leadership to
express their position ended with a speech
by Gomułka on 19 March.
He eliminated the possibility of government
negotiations with the strikers, extinguishing
the participants' hope for a quick favorable
settlement.
Gomułka's speech, delivered before three
thousand ("outstanding during the difficult
days") party activists, was full of anti-intelligentsia
accusations.
The party management realized, he made it
clear, that it was too early to fully comprehend
and evaluate the nature and scope of the present
difficulties.
Gomułka sharply attacked the opposition leaders
and named the few writers he particularly
abhorred (Kisielewski, Jasienica and Szpotański),
but offered a complex and differentiated analysis
of the situation in Poland (Słonimski was
named as an example of a Polish citizen whose
sentiments were "cosmopolitan").
The first secretary attempted to pacify the
growing antisemitic wave, asserting that most
citizens of Jewish origin were loyal to Poland
and were not a threat.
Loyalty to Poland and socialism, not ethnicity,
was the only criterion, the party valued highly
those who had contributed and was opposed
to any phenomena of antisemitic nature.
It was understood that some people could feel
ambivalent about where they belonged, and
if some felt definitely more closely connected
with Israel, Gomułka expected them to eventually
emigrate.
However, it may have been too late for such
reasoned arguments and the carefully screened
audience did not react positively: their collective
display of hatred was shown on national television.
Gomułka's remarks (reviewed, corrected and
approved in advance by members of the Politburo
and the Central Committee) were criticized
a few days later at the meeting of first secretaries
of the provincial party committees and the
anti-Jewish campaign continued unabated.
The internal bulletin of Mieczysław Moczar's
Ministry of Internal Affairs spoke of a lack
of clear declaration on Zionism on Gomułka's
part and of "public hiding of criminals".
Such criticism of the top party leader was
unheard of and indicated the increasing influence
and determination of Moczar's faction.
In public, Moczar concentrated on issuing
condemnations of the communists who came after
the war from the Soviet Union and persecuted
Polish patriots (including, from 1948, Gomułka
himself, which may in part explain the first
secretary's failure to dissociate himself
from and his tacit approval of anti-Jewish
excesses).
The purges and attempts to resolve the power
struggle at top echelons of the party entered
their accelerated phase.The mass protest movement
and the repressions continued throughout March
and April.
The revolt was met with dissolution of entire
academic departments, expulsion of thousands
of students and many sympathizing faculty
members (including Zygmunt Bauman, Leszek
Kołakowski and Stefan Żółkiewski), arrests
and court trials.
National coordination by the students was
attempted through a 25 March meeting in Wrocław;
most of its attendees were jailed by the end
of April.
On 28 March, students at the University of
Warsaw reacted to the firing of prominent
faculty by adopting the Declaration of the
Student Movement, which presented an outline
of mature systemic reforms for Poland.
The document formulated a new framework for
opposition activities and established a conceptual
precedent for the future Solidarity opposition
movement postulates.
The authorities responded by eliminating several
university departments and enlisting many
students in the military.
The student protest activities, planned for
22 April, were prevented by the arrest campaign
conducted in Warsaw, Kraków and Wrocław.At
least 2,725 people were arrested between 7
March and 6 April.
According to internal government reports,
the suppression was effective, although students
were still able to disrupt the May Day ceremonies
in Wrocław.
Except for the relatively few well-recognized
protest leaders, the known participants of
the 1968 revolt generally did not reappear
in later waves of opposition movement in Poland.By
mid-March, the protest campaign had spread
to smaller towns.
The distribution of fliers was reported in
one hundred towns in March, forty in April,
and, despite numerous arrests, continued even
during the later months.
Street demonstrations occurred in several
localities in March.
In different cities, the arrests and trials
proceeded at different pace, in part because
of the discretion exercised by local authorities.
Gdańsk had by far the highest rate of both
the "penal-administrative procedures" and
the cases that actually went to courts.
The largest proportion of the arrested and
detained nationwide during the March/April
unrest belonged to the "workers" category.A
few dared to openly defend the students, including
some writers, bishops, and the small parliamentary
group of Catholic deputies Znak, led by Jerzy
Zawieyski.
Znak submitted an official interpellation
on 11 March, addressed to the prime minister.
They questioned the brutal anti-student interventions
by the police and inquired about the government's
intentions regarding the democratic demands
of the students and of the "broad public opinion".Following
the Politburo meeting on 8 April, during which
Stefan Jędrychowski strongly criticized the
antisemitic campaign but a majority of the
participants expressed the opposite view or
supported Gomułka's "middle" course, a Sejm
session indirectly dealt with the crisis on
9–11 April.
Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz asserted
that the Radio Free Europe used the Znak interpellation
for its propaganda.
Other speakers claimed that the interpellation
was primarily aimed at getting the hostile
foreign interests involved in Poland's affairs.
Zawieyski spoke in conciliatory tone, directing
his comments and appealing to Gomułka and
Zenon Kliszko, recognizing them as victims
of past (Stalinist) political persecution.
He interpreted the recent beating by "unknown
assailants" of Stefan Kisielewski, a Catholic
publicist, as an attack on a representative
of the Polish culture.
The party leaders responded by terminating
Zawieyski's membership in the Polish Council
of State, a collective head of state organ,
and banning him from holding a political office
in the future.
The participants in the public Sejm debate
concentrated on attacking Znak and avoided
altogether discussing the events and issues
of the March protests or their suppression
(the subjects of the interpellation).The effectiveness
of the ORMO interventions on university campuses
and the eruption of further citizen discontent
(see 1970 Polish protests) prompted the Ministry
of Public Security to engage in massive expansion
of this force, which at its peak in 1979 reached
over 450,000 members.
== Anti-Jewish mobilization and purges, party
politics ==
In March 1968, the anti-Jewish smear campaign,
loud propaganda and mass mobilization were
greatly intensified.
The process of purging Jewish and other officials,
ex-Stalinists, high-ranking rival communists
and moral supporters of the current liberal
opposition movement, was accelerated.
Roman Zambrowski, Stefan Staszewski, Edward
Ochab, Adam Rapacki and Marian Spychalski
were among the top echelon party leaders removed
or neutralized.
Zambrowski, a Jewish veteran of the Polish
communist movement, was singled out and purged
from the party first (13 March), even though
he had been politically inactive for several
years and had nothing to do with the current
crisis.
Former First Secretary Ochab resigned his
several high offices to protest "against the
antisemitic campaign".
On 11 April 1968, the Sejm instituted changes
in some major leadership positions.
Spychalski, leaving the Ministry of Defense,
replaced Ochab in the more titular role as
the chairman of the Council of State.
Wojciech Jaruzelski became the new minister
of defense.
Rapacki, another opponent of antisemitic purges,
was replaced by Stefan Jędrychowski at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A new higher education statute was designed
to give the government greater control over
the academic environment.Gomułka himself
considered revisionism rather than "Zionism"
to be the main "danger".
According to historian Dariusz Stola, the
first secretary, whose wife was Jewish, harbored
no antisemitic prejudices.
But he opportunistically and instrumentally
allowed and accepted the anti-Jewish initiative
of Minister Moczar and the secret services
Moczar controlled.
The campaign gave Gomułka the tools he needed
to combat the intellectual rebellion, prevent
it from spreading into the worker masses (by
"mobilizing" them and channeling their frustration
against the stealth and alien "enemy"), resolve
the party rivalries ultimately to his own
advantage and stabilize the situation in Poland
at the dangerous for the party time of the
Prague Spring liberalizing movement in Czechoslovakia.
Many Poles (irrespective of ethnic background)
were accused of being Zionists.
They were expelled from the party and/or had
their careers terminated by policies that
were cynical, prejudicial, or both.
Long (sometimes conducted over several days)
party meetings and discussions took place
at the end of March and in early April within
various state institutions and enterprises.
They dealt with the "Zionism" issue and were
devoted to the identification of those responsible
and guilty (within the institution's own ranks),
their expulsion from the party and demands
for their removal from the positions they
held.Attempts were made to steer the attention
of the general public away from the student
movement and advocacy for social reform, centered
around the defense of freedom of speech for
intellectuals and artists and the right to
criticize the regime and its policies.
Moczar, the leader of the hardline Stalinist
faction of the party, blamed the student protests
on "Zionists" and used the protest activity
as a pretext for a larger antisemitic campaign
(officially described as "anti-Zionist") and
party purges.
In reality, the student and intellectual protests
were generally not related to Zionism or other
Jewish issues.
The propagated idea of the "Zionist inspiration"
of student rebellion originated in part from
the presence of children of Jewish communists
among those contesting the political order,
including especially members of the Komandosi
group.
To augment their numbers, figures of speech
such as the "Michniks, Szlajfers, Zambrowskis"
were used.
The national strike call from Warsaw (13 March)
opposed both antisemitism and Zionism.
One banner hung at a Rzeszów high school
on 27 April read: "We hail our Zionist comrades."However,
Gomułka warned that "Zionism and antisemitism
are two sides of the same nationalist medal"
and insisted that communism rejects all forms
of nationalism.
According to Gomułka, who rejected the Western
allegations of antisemitism, "Official circles
in the United States have involved themselves
in the dirty anti-Polish campaign by making
statements accusing Poland of antisemitism.
We propose that the ruling circles in the
United States check whether American citizens
of Polish descent have ever had or have now
the same opportunities that Polish citizens
of Jewish descent have for good living conditions
and education and for occupying positions
of responsibility.
Then it would emerge clearly who might accuse
whom of national discrimination."
He went on to say that "the Western Zionist
centers that today charge us with antisemitism
failed to lift a finger when Hitler's genocide
policies exterminated Jews in subjugated Poland,
punishing Poles who hid and helped the Jews
with death."
The party leader was responding to a wave
of Western criticism and took advantage of
some published reports that were incompatible
with the Polish collective memory of historical
events, World War II and the Holocaust in
particular.The Moczar challenge, often presented
in terms of competing political visions (he
was the informal head of the nationalist communist
party faction known as "the Partisans"), reflected,
according to historian Andrzej Chojnowski,
primarily a push for generational change in
the party leadership and at other levels,
throughout the country.
By 1968 Gomułka, whose public relations skills
were poor, was unpopular and had lost touch
with the population he ruled.
Personnel changes, resisted by Gomułka, were
generally desired and expected, and in the
party General Moczar was the alternative.
Large numbers of generally younger functionaries
mobilized behind him, motivated by the potential
opportunity to advance their stagnant careers.
Finding scapegoats (possibly by just claiming
that someone was enthusiastic about the Israeli
victory) and becoming their replacements meant
in 1968 progress in that direction.
The Moczar faction's activity was one of the
major factors that contributed to the 1968
uproar, but the overdue generational change
within the party materialized fully only when
Edward Gierek replaced Gomułka in December
1970.
Moczar himself campaigned ruthlessly in an
ultimately failed attempt to become Gomułka's
replacement or successor.
== Emigration of Polish citizens of Jewish
origin ==
In a parliamentary speech on 11 April 1968,
Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz spelled out the
government's official position: "Loyalty to
socialist Poland and imperialist Israel is
not possible simultaneously.
... Whoever wants to face these consequences
in the form of emigration will not encounter
any obstacle."
The departing had their Polish citizenship
revoked.Historian David Engel of the YIVO
Institute wrote: "The Interior Ministry compiled
a card index of all Polish citizens of Jewish
origin, even those who had been detached from
organized Jewish life for generations.
Jews were removed from jobs in public service,
including from teaching positions in schools
and universities.
Pressure was placed upon them to leave the
country by bureaucratic actions aimed at undermining
their sources of livelihood and sometimes
even by physical brutality."
According to Dariusz Stola of the Polish Academy
of Sciences, "the term 'anti-Zionist campaign'
is misleading in two ways, since the campaign
began as an anti-Israeli policy but quickly
turned into an anti-Jewish campaign, and this
evident anti-Jewish character remained its
distinctive feature".
The propaganda equated Jewish origins with
Zionist sympathies and thus disloyalty to
communist Poland.
Antisemitic slogans were used in rallies.
Prominent Jews, supposedly of Zionist beliefs,
including academics, managers and journalists,
lost their jobs.
According to the Polish state's Institute
of National Remembrance, which investigated
events that took place in 1968–69 in Łodź,
"in each case the decision of dismissal was
preceded by a party resolution about expelling
from the party".According to Jonathan Ornstein,
of the 3.5 million Polish Jews, 350,000 or
fewer remained after the Holocaust.
Most survivors who claimed their Jewish nationality
status at the end of World War II, including
those who registered with the Central Committee
of Polish Jews in 1945, had emigrated from
postwar Poland already in its first years
of existence.
According to David Engel's estimates, of the
fewer than 281,000 Jews present in Poland
at different times before July 1946, only
about 90,000 were left in the country by the
middle of 1947.
Fewer than 80,000 remained by 1951, when the
government prohibited emigration to Israel.
An additional 30,000 arrived from the Soviet
Union in 1957, but almost 50,000, typically
people actively expressing Jewish identity,
left Poland in 1957–59, under Gomułka and
with his government's encouragement.
Approximately 25,000–30,000 Jews lived in
Poland by 1967.
As a group, they had become increasingly assimilated
and secular and had well-developed and functioning
Jewish secular institutions.
Of the Jews who stayed in Poland, many did
so for political and career reasons.
Their situation changed after the 1967 Arab–Israeli
war and the 1968 Polish academic revolt, when
the Jews were used as scapegoats by the warring
party factions and pressured to emigrate en
masse once more.
According to Engel, some 25,000 Jews left
Poland during the 1968–70 period, leaving
only between 5,000 and 10,000 Jews in the
country.From the end of World War II, the
Soviet imposed government in Poland, lacking
strong popular support, found it expedient
to depend disproportionately on Jews for performing
clerical and administrative jobs and many
Jews rose to high positions within the political
and internal security ranks.
Consequently, as noted by historian Michael
C. Steinlauf – "their group profile ever
more closely resembled the mythic Żydokomuna"
(see also Jewish Bolshevism).
For complex historical reasons, Jews held
many positions of repressive authority under
the post-war Polish communist administrations.
In March 1968, some of those officials became
the center of an organized campaign to equate
Jewish origins with Stalinist sympathies and
crimes.
The political purges, often ostensibly directed
at functionaries of the Stalinist era, affected
all Polish Jews regardless of background.Prior
to the 1967–68 events, Polish-Jewish relations
had been a taboo subject in communist Poland.
Available information was limited to the dissemination
of shallow and distorted official versions
of historical events, while much of the traditional
social antisemitic resentment was brewing
under the surface, despite the scarcity of
Jewish targets.
Popular antisemitism of the post-war years
was closely linked to anticommunist and anti-Soviet
attitudes and as such was resisted by the
authorities.
Because of this historically right-wing orientation
of Polish antisemitism, the Jews generally
felt safe in communist Poland and experienced
a "March shock" when many in the ruling regime
adopted the antisemitic views of pre-war Polish
nationalists to justify an application of
aggressive propaganda and psychological terror.
The Stalinist in many respects character of
the campaign was paradoxically combined with
anti-Stalinist and anti-Żydokomuna rhetoric.
The media "exposed" various past and present
Jewish conspiracies directed against socialist
Poland, often using prejudicial Jewish stereotypes,
which supposedly added up to a grand Jewish
anti-Polish scheme.
West German-Israeli and American-Zionist anti-Poland
blocs were also "revealed".
In Poland, it was claimed, the old Jewish
Stalinists were secretly preparing their own
return to power, to thwart the Polish October
gains.
The small number of Jews remaining in Poland
were subjected to unbearable pressures generated
by the state monopolistic media, often dominated
by sympathizers of Minister Moczar.
Many Jews and non-Jews were smeared and removed
by their local Basic Party Organizations (POP),
after which they had to be fired from their
jobs.
Many professionals and non-members of the
party fell victims as well.Most of the last
wave (1968–69) of emigrants chose destinations
other than Israel, which contradicted the
government claim of their pro-Israeli devotion.
Disproportionately in Polish society, they
represented highly educated, professional,
and accomplished people.
Some communist party activists had previously
perceived this factor as an undue "density"
of Jews in positions of importance, a remnant
of Stalinist times, which resulted in calls
for their marginalization and removal from
the country.The Catholic Church and Catholic
intelligentsia circles engaged in defense
of protesting students, but remained silent
on the issue of anti-Jewish campaign and the
consequent exodus of Polish Jews.Over a thousand
former hardline Stalinists of Jewish origin
left Poland in and after 1968, among them
former prosecutor Helena Wolińska-Brus and
judge Stefan Michnik.
The Institute of National Remembrance had
investigated Stalinist crimes committed by
some of the March 1968 emigrants including
Michnik, who settled in Sweden, and Wolińska-Brus,
who resided in the United Kingdom.
Both were accused of being an "accessory to
a court murder".
Applications were made for their extradition
based on the European Arrest Warrants.Between
1961 and 1967, the average rate of Jewish
emigration from Poland was 500–900 persons
per year.
In 1968, a total of 3,900 Jews applied to
leave the country.
Between January and August 1969, the number
of emigrating Jews was almost 7,300, all according
to records of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The security organs maintained comprehensive
data on persons with "family background in
Israel" or of Jewish origin, including those
dismissed from their positions and those who
did not hold any official positions but applied
for emigration to Israel.
== Termination of the "anti-Zionist" campaign
==
On 11 April 1968, Secretary of the Central
Committee Artur Starewicz gave Gomułka a
comprehensive letter, in which he pointed
out the destructiveness of the demagoguery,
anti-Jewish obsession and other aspects of
the campaign.
In late April Gomułka realized that the campaign
he allowed had outlived its usefulness and
was getting out of control; many participants
became overzealous and complaints from various
quarters multiplied.
However, ending it and restoring normal party
control and discipline took several weeks
of repeated warnings and other efforts.
On 24 June, Gomułka sharply criticized Stefan
Olszowski, the party propaganda chief, and
the role played by the PAX publications.
Both were heavily involved in the "anti-Zionist",
but also "nationalistic" media campaign from
11 March.
On 1 July, Leopold Domb (Leopold Trepper),
former chairman of the Sociocultural Association
of Jews (in Poland), wrote a letter to his
party boss Gomułka.
Domb bitterly complained of the progressive
liquidation of the thousand years of Polish-Jewish
civilizational achievement and listed numerous
instances of such destruction of society and
culture taking place in contemporary communist
Poland.On 5 July, Gomułka acknowledged "certain
problems" with the Ministry of Internal Affairs
and announced the removal of Minister Moczar
from the cabinet position, which disconnected
him from his power base at that department.
Moczar's sidelining was presented as a promotion:
he became secretary of the Central Committee
and a deputy member of the Politburo.
"Comrade Moczar is a disciplined man and he'll
do as he is told", was how Gomułka saw the
resolution.
Gomułka's ability to decisively dismantle
the Internal Affairs' anti-Jewish smear campaign
and punish its perpetrators (for challenging
the party leadership) shows that he could
have done so earlier, had he chosen to act
in a timely manner.
During the XII Plenum of the Central Committee
(8–9 July), Zenon Kliszko officially closed
the "anti-Zionist" campaign.
Internal attacks and obstruction within the
party, the military and the security services
(SB), now directed against Gomułka and Kliszko,
continued for some time.
In reality, SB's "anti-Zionist" activities
were never completely abandoned.
During 1970–80, General Jaruzelski demoted
to the rank of private 1,348 Jewish officers
who had emigrated, not only around 1968.
Such continued activities were conducted in
secret.The media propaganda machine was by
early summer preoccupied with denouncing the
Prague Spring.
In August, the Polish People's Army participated
in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
== Consequences of the events of 1968 ==
The Fifth Congress of the PZPR took place
in November, under Gomułka' s active lead.
His position was confirmed.
The gathering, numerically dominated by the
supporters of Moczar, was maneuvered into
complying with Gomułka faction's personnel
decisions.
The party now had 2.1 million members (only
40% were workers), after the recent purging
of over 230,000.
The Jewish activists were gone, but many other
veterans remained, as the generational change
in the communist leadership was beginning
to take place.
Gomułka was able to rule with his few close
associates until December 1970, but his prestige
suffered in Poland, abroad, and among the
Soviet and other Eastern Bloc leaders.A consequence
of the protest events and their repercussions
was the alienation of the regime from the
leftist intelligentsia, who were disgusted
at the official promotion of antisemitism
and the adoption of nationalistic rhetoric.
Many Polish intellectuals opposed the government
campaign, often openly.
Another effect was the activity by Polish
emigrants to the West in organizations that
encouraged opposition within Poland.The alienation
of Polish intelligentsia had a long afterlife
and eventually contributed to the downfall
of the communist dictatorship: the 1968 events
were a turning point in the ideological evolution
of those who would challenge the system in
the years to come.
Jacek Kuroń, for example, twice a party member
and an activist imprisoned for his participation
in the 1968 events, later played important
roles in the Workers' Defence Committee and
the Solidarity workers' movement.
The events of 1968, preceded by those in 1956
and followed by those of 1970, 1976 and 1980,
showed that Poland, with its strong nationalist
traditions, a civil society, and the powerful
Catholic Church, was the source of instability
and weakness in the Eastern Bloc.
The dangers presented to the PZPR by the "reactionary"
coalition of 1968, against which some had
already warned back then, turned out not to
be imaginary, but their realization took another
two decades.The antisemitic, anti-intellectual
and anti-student campaign damaged Poland's
reputation, particularly in the West.
Despite the worldwide condemnation of the
March 1968 repressions, for many years the
communist governments would not admit the
antisemitic nature of the "anti-Zionist" campaign,
though some newspapers published critical
articles.
In February and March 1988, the Polish government
announced official apologies for the antisemitic
excesses of 1968: first in Israel at a conference
on Polish Jewry, and then in a statement printed
in Trybuna Ludu.
A Central Committee report even suggested
an introduction of double citizenship to improve
relations with the Jews who left Poland.
== Aftermath ==
After the fall of the communist rule, the
Sejm in 1998 issued an official condemnation
of the antisemitism of the March 1968 events.
In 2000, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski
gave his own apology in front of a group of
Jewish students "as the president of Poland
and as a Pole".
On the 30th anniversary of their departures,
a memorial plaque was placed at Warszawa Gdańska
train station, from which most of the exiled
Poles took a train to Vienna.On 8 March 2018,
President Andrzej Duda addressed participants
gathered at the University of Warsaw to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the March 1968 events.
President's remarks followed the controversy
caused by the recent amendment to the Act
on the Institute of National Remembrance,
passed by both houses of parliament and signed
by the president.
The president praised the "heroes" of March
1968, mentioning the Komandosi group and specifically
Karol Modzelewski and Adam Michnik.
Referring to the 15,000 expelled Jews, President
Duda apologized: "Please forgive, please forgive
the Republic of Poland, please forgive the
Poles, please forgive Poland of the time,
for having perpetrated such a shameful act".
== See also ==
Slánský trial
Doctors' plot
History of the Jews in Poland
Protests of 1968
Józef Różański
Jakub Berman
Helena Wolińska-Brus
Stefan Michnik
Puławianie
