They wanted bread and got tanks: The history of workers’ revolts in communist Poland

They did not set out to make a revolution. Polish workers wanted decent pay, fair treatment and the right to express their anger. Again and again, however, protests that began inside factories moved onto the streets, where communist authorities answered with batons, guns and troops.

Poznań in 1956, the Baltic coast in December 1970, and Radom and Ursus in June 1976 became symbols of workers confronting a system that claimed to rule in their name. Each uprising had its own causes and course, but all left behind victims, thousands of personal tragedies and the conviction that the Polish People’s Republic would not solve social problems through dialogue.

Economic grievances usually provided the immediate spark: price increases, falling living standards and deteriorating working conditions. The protests quickly became broader challenges to the way power was exercised. Workers demanded not only bread, but also respect, honesty and the right to be heard. Instead, they encountered propaganda, repression and violence.

The state’s greatest weakness was its repeated decision to turn against people it officially described as the “foundation of the nation’s leading force.” Every protest crushed in blood further damaged the credibility of communist rule and weakened its social support. The Poznań June of 1956 accelerated the retreat from the harshest form of Stalinism. The December 1970 protests brought down Władysław Gomułka’s leadership, while June 1976 helped spur the creation of the Workers’ Defence Committee.

The uprisings shook the foundations of the system and prepared the ground for democratic opposition, the emergence of Solidarity and the changes that eventually brought communism down in Poland. The first major workers’ revolt came in Poznań on June 28, 1956, when employees at the Józef Stalin Works, later and formerly known as the Hipolit Cegielski Works, struck after months of complaints about production quotas, low wages and poor working conditions. A delegation sent to Warsaw had received promises that the main problems would be resolved, but the promises soon proved hollow. The workforce went on strike and marched into Poznań, where employees from other factories rapidly joined them.

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foundation of the nation’s leading force