The Polish October of 1956 - Legends and Reality
The Polish October of 1956 - Legends and Reality

Summary/Abstract: Despite the passing of fifty years, the history of the social unrest and political changes in Poland in 1956 still remains insufficiently researched and described. In addition to issues that we know fairly well and to which we can apply various interpretations, there are other equally important issues about which we can only formulate hypotheses, and issues for which legend is often mistaken for reality. A systematic historical overview of the events of October 1956 in Poland would require a monograph. In this article I will concentrate only on the less known and more debatable aspects of these events, mainly those associated with the ruling circles. In explaining the genesis of the October breakthrough in People.s Poland, emphasis is usually placed on internal causes and driving forces. Depending on authors. ideological attitudes, they stress either the massive social unrest and demonstrations, such as the June events in Poznañ, or the revisionist, de-Stalinizing, and democratic currents within the Polish United Workers. Party (PUWP). The role of geopolitical changes.external to Poland and essentially independent of it, but equally significant for the course and consequences of the events under discussion.are frequently overshadowed. The most important of these changes was the weakened, though not yet shaken, position of the USSR. In the years 1953.1957, the capability of the USSR to pursue imperialist aims was temporarily undermined, while it lost for good its position as the only model for radical-leftist revolutionary trans formations. The Soviet superpower encountered serious difficulties both domestically and internationally.

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