Polish People's Republic
The Polish People's Republic (, ) was a state in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989, and the predecessor of the modern democratic Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million inhabitants near the end of its existence, it was the most populous state of the Eastern Bloc after the Soviet Union. Having a unitary Marxist–Leninist communist government, it was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact. The official capital since 1947 and largest city was Warsaw, followed by industrial Łódź and cultural Kraków.
Communism in Poland
In 1939, World War II began and Poland was conquered by Nazi Germany. The government of the Polish Republic went into exile. In 1942, Polish communists in German-occupied Poland established a new Polish communist party, the Polish Workers' Party ("Polska Partia Robotnicza", PPR). Władysław Gomułka soon became its leader. But in the Soviet Union, Stalin and Wanda Wasilewska created the Union of Polish Patriots as a communist organization under Soviet control. As Germany was being defeated, the Polish communists cooperated with the Soviet Union, in opposition to the Polish government-in-exile, to establish a Soviet-dependent Polish state. This led to the creation of the Polish People's Republic. The PPR merged with the Polish Socialist Party ("Polska Partia Socjalistyczna", PPS), to form the Polish United Workers' Party ("Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza", PZPR), which ruled Poland until 1989. In post-World War II Poland, the communists initially enjoyed significant popular support due to the land reform, a mass scale rebuilding program and progressive social policies. The popular support eroded because of repressions, economic difficulties, and the lack of freedoms, but the PZPR was kept in power for four decades under the Soviet influence.