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1970 Polish protests
1970 Polish protests
Part of the Cold War and anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–1989)
	Zbyszek Godlewski's body carried by demonstrators in Gdynia
Date	14–19 December 1970
Location	Gdańsk, Gdynia, Elbląg, Szczecin
Caused by	Massive increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs
Methods	Demonstrations, Protests, Riots
Resulted in	Government victory Protests dispersed and violently suppressed; Władysław Gomułka removed from power as First Secretary of the PZPR;
Parties
Polish government Polish Army; Citizens' Militia;	Protesters
Lead figures
	Władysław Gomułka; Marian Spychalski; Józef Cyrankiewicz; Wojciech Jaruzelski; Tadeusz Tuczapski; Zenon Kliszko; Grzegorz Korczyński; Non-centralized leadership
Units involved
	27,000 soldiers; 5,000 members of special squads of police; 550 tanks; 700 armoured personnel carriers; Several thousand protesters
Casualties and losses
Several killed and injured	Deaths: 44; Injuries: 1,000+; Arrests: 3,000+;

The 1970 Polish protests, also known as the December 1970 Events (Polish: Wydarzenia Grudnia 1970), occurred in northern Poland during 14–19 December 1970. The protests were sparked by a sudden increase in the prices of food and other everyday items while wages remained stagnant. Strikes were put down by the Polish People's Army and the Citizen's Militia, resulting in at least 44 people killed and more than 1,000 wounded.

Background

In December 1970, the government suddenly announced major increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs, especially dairy products, after bad harvests throughout the year. The increases proved to be a major shock to ordinary citizens, especially in the larger cities.^[1]

Events

Demonstrations against the price increases broke out in the northern Baltic coastal cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Elbląg, and Szczecin. The regime was concerned about an emerging wave of sabotage, which may have been inspired by the secret police, who wanted to legitimize a harsh response to the protestors.^[2] Another possible reason why the secret police would instigate sabotage and violence would be to precipitate a change in the leadership of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), by causing violent deaths among the workers and then blaming the party for them.^[3]

Protests started on 14 December. When a party official tried to convince the strikers to return to work, addressing them using loudspeakers on a police car, the strikers took over the police car and used the loudspeakers to announce a general strike, and to call for a demonstration in front of the party building to be held the same day. Fighting against the police started in the afternoon, and widespread fighting and rioting, including arson, continued until late in the evening.^[4]

The police started rounding up workers, often random ones who did not participate in protests or rioting, and brutally beating them, commonly using a technique in which the detainee was forced to move along a long row of policemen, all of them beating the detainee with their batons.^[5]

On 15 December in Gdańsk, strikers set fire (reportedly twice) to the building of the Provincial Committee of the ruling party, which became an iconic moment of the protests. They also took some policemen prisoner, transported them to the Gdańsk Shipyard, forced them to change into the workers' work clothing, and then transported them to a police station. Fire consumed the roof of the Provincial Committee's building until the protesters were repelled by a column of twenty OT-62 military armored personnel carriers. At least six people are known to be killed on 15 December in Gdańsk. Two more were shot to death the next morning, at or near the shipyard.^[4]^[6]

Vice prime minister Stanisław Kociołek, in his televised speech on the evening of 16 December, condemned the protesters but also called for the workers to get back to work. However, on the 16–17 December night, the shipyard in Gdynia was surrounded by the police and the army, including tanks. Responding to the vice PM's appeal proved deadly to some of the workers. In Gdynia, the soldiers had orders to stop workers returning to work and on 17 December fired into the crowd of workers emerging from their trains; at least 11 of them were killed. Then, in other parts of Gdynia, people were shot dead while protesting, bringing the official death toll in Gdynia to 18. The number of the wounded in Gdynia is far from certain but is estimated to be in the hundreds.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]

The protest movement then spread to other cities, leading to strikes and occupations. The government mobilized 5,000 members of special squads of police and 27,000 soldiers equipped with heavy tanks and machine guns. Overall, more than 1,000 people were wounded and at least 44 killed.^[9]^[12]^[13]

Resolution

The Party leadership met in Warsaw and decided that a full-scale working-class revolt was inevitable unless drastic steps were taken. With the consent of Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow, Gomułka, Kliszko, and other leaders were forced to resign: if the price rises had been a plot against Gomułka, it succeeded. Since Moscow would not accept Mieczysław Moczar, Edward Gierek was drafted as the new leader. The price increases were reversed, wage increases announced, and sweeping economic and political changes were promised. Gierek went to Gdańsk and met the workers, apologised for the mistakes of the past, promised a political renewal and said that, as a worker himself, he would now govern for the people.^[14]

Stanisław Kociołek lost the position of vice prime minister. For a short time he remained a member of the Central Committee, but in February 1971 he was reassigned to diplomatic service. That was soon after in January 1971, in a reversal of the previous policy of secrecy, government-controlled media published the list of 44 people who were killed during the protests.^[9]

Impact

Although the aims of the protesters were mostly social and economic rather than political, the riots reinvigorated the dormant political activity of Polish society.^[15] Nevertheless, the workers from the coast did not prevent the government from implementing its goal of increased food prices; that was only achieved a few weeks later, after the 1971 Łódź strikes.^[16]

Polish protests elicited broad sympathy and support, both in Western Europe and the Soviet bloc. There were copycat strikes on the Kühlungsborn Pier in East Germany and in Riga; Soviet sailors on stranded Soviet ships shared their food with the citizens of Gdańsk and Szczecin, while Polish strikers shielded Soviet families in Poland from reprisals.^[17]^{[clarification needed]}

Subsequent protests broke out in 1976 and 1980. The latter led to the founding of the Solidarity union.

Monument to victims of the 1970 protests in Gdynia
Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 in Gdańsk
Monument to victims of massacres during the 1970 protests in Elbląg

References

^ Singer, Daniel (1981). The Road to Gdansk. Monthly Review Press,U.S. p. 157. ISBN 0-85345-567-8. Archived from the original on 16 December 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
^ IPN (2000). Jerzy Eisler (ed.). Grudzień 1970 w dokumentach MSW (in Polish). Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. ISBN 83-11-09265-6. Archived from the original on 27 June 2006. Retrieved 6 February 2015.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ "Piotr Brzeziński z IPN: "Czarny czwartek" mógł być prowokacją wymierzoną w Gomułkę". dzieje.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2 August 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
^ ^a ^b "15 grudnia 1970. Komitet płonie, komuniści strzelają do gdańszczan". Gdańsk - oficjalny portal miasta (in Polish). Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
^ "Wyborcza.pl". wyborcza.pl. Archived from the original on 19 September 2021. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^ gdansk.pl. "50. rocznica Grudnia '70. Osiem pamiątkowych płyt uhonoruje gdańskie ofiary". Gdańsk - oficjalny portal miasta. Archived from the original on 15 December 2020. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^ Krzymieniecki, Maciej (26 December 2017). "December 1970: When Polish workers' revolt threatened Stalinist rule". In Defence of Marxism. Archived from the original on 30 April 2019. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
^ "Ballada, która przeszła do historii". www.rmf24.pl. Archived from the original on 14 December 2020. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c miesiące, Polskie. "Lista ofiar Grudnia '70". Polskie miesiące. Archived from the original on 16 December 2020. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^ Media, Instytut Gość (24 July 2014). "Sąd uniewinnił Kociołka". www.gosc.pl. Archived from the original on 1 April 2022. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^ "Grudzień 1970 r. Ludowe Wojsko Polskie przeciwko Społeczeństwu - Aktualnosci WBH - Wojskowe Biuro Historyczne". wbh.wp.mil.pl. Archived from the original on 24 August 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
^ "Polegli". Grudzień 1970 (in Polish). Magazyn Solidarność. Archived from the original on 16 July 2006. Retrieved 6 November 2006.
^ Piotr Golik (June 1998). "Answering for December 1970". Warsaw Voice (789). Archived from the original (Internet Archive) on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
^ Andrzej Burda, ed. (1975). Sejm Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej (in Polish). Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich. p. 55. Archived from the original on 16 December 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
^ Bronisław Misztal (1985). Poland After Solidarity. Transaction Publishers. p. 6. ISBN 0-88738-049-2. Archived from the original on 16 December 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
^ Łódź. Wystawa o robotniczych protestach z lat 1945-1981, 25-08-2010 Archived 2012-04-22 at the Wayback Machine "Ich protest, wsparty strajkami w innych miastach, doprowadził do tego, że podwyżki cen na żywność wprowadzone przez władze w grudniu 1970 roku zostały odwołane."
^ Jan Willem Stutje (2007). Ernest Mandel: A Rebel's Dream Deferred. Verso. p. 178.