Posted on 10/16/2006 5:20:31 AM PDT by Nextrush
Polish Communist leaders were in desperation following the Poznan Rebellion.
Reformers organized in factories wanting to have more freedom to make their own decisions citing Tito's Yugoslavia as an example.
Party leaders who came to the factories were challenged by the workers.
Calls were made for Wladyslaw Gomulka, an out of favor Communist, to be returned to power.
Leaders of the Polish United Workers Party (Communist Party) decided to bring Gomulka back.
The Eighth Plenum of the PUWP met on October 19th, 1956 to make Gomulka its leader.
But Moscow was not pleased and its leadership, led personally by Nikita Kruschchev, crashed the meeting in Warsaw to stop Gomulka's ascension to power.
A tense standoff went on for a few days as Soviet troops came out of their Polish bases to converge on Warsaw and other Soviet forces massed on the Polish border.
Polish troops and workers responded by taking up defensive positions.
In the end the Soviets backed down to accept the leadership of Gomulka, who promised to keep Poland in the Warsaw Pact under Soviet domination.
Gomulka pledged to stop criticism of the Soviet Union in the Polish press.
Internally, Gomulka acted making a few concessions. He allowed independent workers committees to be formed in factories that lasted for a while until they were rendered powerless. Most notably he allowed the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Wysinski, out of prison and a policy of "co-existence" began with Catholicism in Poland.
These developments in Poland drew attention around the world where Western observers had been expecting trouble.
Foreign correspondents like CBS's Howard K. Smith, based in London, made their way to Poland for what they expected to be "the big story."
But in fact the Polish developments were merely a fuse that ended in Hungary, where "the big story" was about to happen............
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