December 1970. Wrzała all of Poland – “there was its own massacre”
December 1970. The communists ruled Poland for a quarter of a century, ordinary people oriented towards worse and worse. Small sites may manage make ends meet somehow, but alternatives can be managed to avoid. Meanwhile, the joint opening up Christmas. The perfect place to have a unique time. As you know, people do more shopping just before Christmas.
Price increases
It was on December 12, 1970, the current information about the training about the high price of a 23 percent increase in food products, then it was then that the www. country).
It was evening and the shops are now closed. Nobody managed to make purchases before the prices were increased, which was a deliberate action of the communist authorities. The new, higher prices were effective from the next day, December 13.
The communists had to make the call hikes fluctuate because the eleven of the future service had already triggered a high-ranking state. There was no mistake. On December 13, the Poles created against us drastic against, as well as against other people, against their own bad list of the country. Demands were made to remove Władysław Gomułka, Józef Cyrankiewicz and Stanisław Kociołek from power.
December 1970 in many Polish cities
On December 14, 1970, it began at the Shipyard. Lenin in Gdańsk. The workers left their position and went to the seat of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party. The first clashes with the militia took place. After a few hours, the students of the Medical Academy in Gdańsk and the Gdańsk University of Technology joined the protesting workers.
The next day, to the Shipyard. Lenin was joined by other workplaces, incl. Shipyard them. The Paris Commune in Gdynia and Zamech from Elbląg. In Gdańsk, the protesters again went to the building of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, where there was a walk with the militia. Batons. The workers managed to approach the building which they set on fire the evening of the same day. The fighting continued, shots were fired and the first people were killed.
The next day, the protests spread to the next city. On December 17, in the face of increasingly harsh protests by workers, the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic decided to send a motion against the army.
In the morning of the same day, a defenseless crowd of employees of The Paris Commune in Gdynia was shelled by the army. 18 people were killed. The workers did not succumb to it. They formed a procession along the streets of Gdynia. At the head of the procession, there is a place at the door of the killed Zbigniew Godlewski. The view of the killed young man became December ’70 “Janek Wiśniewski”.
“It is hard (…) not to notice that – while in Gdańsk, and then in Elbla and especially in Szczecin, we had to deal with street fights, in Gdynia – there are massacres of countries. The army and the militia shot at defenseless people on their way to work there in the morning ”. – we read on the website of the Institute of National Remembrance.
At that time, there were protests in Elbląg, Szczecin and Słupsk. Apart from the coast, protests took place in Warsaw, Kraków, Oświęcim, Białystok, Wałbrzych, Chorzów, Bydgoszcz, Olsztyn and Wrocław, as well as in many smaller cities. “Although the file became dramatic and became events for (…) also in the interior of the country from December 14 to 20> breaks in work All over the country – wrote Mieczysław F. Rakowski years ago – the campaign of distributing leaflets, slogans and inscriptions of PZPR critics intensified and persuading to organize rallies and demonstrations. There was a real collateral that took the next week that he created that would get out of hand. There is a threat of chaos over Poland and the shedding of great blood to my brother<./>Only on December 19 investors in Poland about 100 in 7 (out of 17) voivodships. It seems that these numbers are lower, as soon as in an organized aglobate where they are protesting in the collective, but they have signed the stock exchange, these are stipulated or 120 ”. (IPN)
On December 17, in Szczecin, the protesters set fire to the building of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party. And there was also the army. 16 people were killed.
The strikes began to expire on December 18. Until December 22, still in Szczecin. In the cities where riots took place, there was a curfew and a state of emergency.
Balance of fights and change of changes
“In total, from 14 to 19 December, in several cities (…), several tens of thousands of people took part in street clashes – more or less active. The fights took on a very specific character, and the value of lossy consumables 19 public utility buildings were set on fire and completely or completely destroyed, including, inter alia, the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party in Gdańsk and Szczecin.
The commission used a total of around 27,000 soldiers and 550 tanks, 750 armored personnel carriers and 2,100 cars to pacify the protests on the Coast. 108 actors and policemen were also involved, as well as 40 Navy vessels. (IPN)
Gomułki’s protests in the 1970s were used more and more frequently to remove the communist parts from the judiciary. Although the protests cannot find their way to the top of the United Workers’ Party structures directly for change, they have given rise to a group of “reformers” acquired.
On December 18, just before midnight, the Administrative Institute of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, Stanisław Kania, and the deputy minister, make Franciszek Szlachcic reach the apartment of Edward Gierek, who proposed entering the function of first secretary. Gierek, demonstratively disagreed, except for the times that happened in the days of working in the mine. In Szlachcia, he had a phrase: “Edek, you can see your fate, that you are the first secretary. There are several candidates, but the earliest for the position is imposed. ”
On December 20, Edward Gierek became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party. In March 1971, the new authorities of the Polish People’s Republic withdrew from the ones imposed in the repair.