Poznan Workers' Riots
Poland 1956
Synopsis
On the morning of 28 June 1956, about 16,000 factory workers in Poznan, Poland, walked off their jobs and staged an impromptu street march to protest their low wages. The action quickly turned into a mass protest by 100,000 citizens of Poznan against the communist regime that governed the country under the close supervision of the Soviet Union. The mass protests were put down by violent repression that left an estimated 80 demonstrators dead. The incident also led to a power struggle within the Polish United Workers' Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR), which governed the country as its only recognized political entity. In the end, public pressure plus the support of some key PZPR officials brought Wladyslaw Gomulka, who had been silenced in 1951, back into power in October 1956. The appointment was at first opposed by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who allowed it to go forward only after he was convinced of Gomulka's willingness to keep Poland firmly within the Soviet orbit. Gomulka's ascension to power on the basis of public support was a stunning development for the Soviet Bloc and influenced the abortive Hungarian Revolution that began on 23 October 1956.
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