Józef Cyrankiewicz

Józef Adam Zygmunt Cyrankiewicz [ˈjuzɛf t͡sɨranˈkʲɛvit͡ʂ] (listen) (23 April 1911 – 20 January 1989) was a Polish Socialist (PPS) and after 1948 Communist politician. He served as premier of the People's Republic of Poland between 1947 and 1952, and again for 16 years between 1954 and 1970. He also served as Chairman of the Polish Council of State from 1970 to 1972.[1][2]

Józef Cyrankiewicz
Prime Minister of Poland
In office
18 March 1954 – 23 December 1970
Deputy
ChairmanAleksander Zawadzki
Edward Ochab
Marian Spychalski
First SecretaryBolesław Bierut
Edward Ochab
Władysław Gomułka
Edward Gierek
Preceded byBolesław Bierut
Succeeded byPiotr Jaroszewicz
In office
6 February 1947 – 20 November 1952
PresidentBolesław Bierut
DeputyWładysław Gomułka
Antoni Korzycki
Aleksander Zawadzki
Hilary Minc
Hilary Chełchowski
Stefan Jędrychowski
Tadeusz Gede
First SecretaryWładysław Gomułka
Bolesław Bierut
Preceded byEdward Osóbka-Morawski
Succeeded byBolesław Bierut
4th Chairman of the Council of State of the People's Republic of Poland
In office
23 December 1970 – 28 March 1972
Prime MinisterPiotr Jaroszewicz
First SecretaryEdward Gierek
Preceded byMarian Spychalski
Succeeded byHenryk Jabłoński
Personal details
Born23 April 1911
Tarnów, Austro-Hungary (now Poland)
Died20 January 1989(1989-01-20) (aged 77)
Warsaw, Polish People's Republic
Political partyPPS (1930s-1948)
PZPR (1948-1989)

Early life

Born in Tarnów in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to father Józef (1881-1939)[3] and mother Regina née Szpak (1880-1966).[4] His father was a local activist of the National Democracy[5] as well as lieutenant in the Polish Armed Forces[6] while his mother was an owner of several sawmills.[7] Cyrankiewicz attended the Jagiellonian University. He became secretary of the Kraków branch of the Polish Socialist Party in 1935.[8]

World War II

Active in the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, later renamed to Armia Krajowa), the Polish resistance organisation, from the beginning of Poland's 1939 defeat at the start of World War II, Cyrankiewicz was captured by the Gestapo in the spring of 1941 and after imprisonment at Montelupich was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He arrived on 4 September 1942, and received registration number 62,933.[9]

While there, Communist propaganda claims he attempted to organise a resistance movement among the other imprisoned socialists and also worked on bringing the various international prisoners' groups together. This organisation then, apparently, struggled to alert the outside world about what was happening in the camp. Others claim he collaborated with the Gestapo and sold stolen Jewish possessions. These claims, however, come from right-wing publicists and are likely due to negative attitude towards his role as one of the leaders of Stalinist Poland. He, along with other Auschwitz prisoners, was eventually transferred to Mauthausen as the Soviet front line approached Auschwitz late in the war. He was eventually liberated by the US Army.

Rise to power

First period in office
Cyrankiewicz and Joseph Stalin, 1947

Following the end of the war, he became secretary-general of the Polish Socialist Party's central executive committee in 1946. However, factional infighting split the Party into two camps: one led by Cyrankiewicz, the other by Edward Osóbka-Morawski, who was also prime minister.

Osóbka-Morawski thought the PSP should join with the other non-communist party in Poland, the Polish Peasant Party, to form a united front against communism. Cyrankiewicz argued that the PPS should support the communists (who held most of the posts in the government) in carrying through a socialist programme, while opposing the imposition of one party rule. The Communist Polish Workers' Party (PPR) played on this division within the PSP, dismissing Osóbka-Morawski and making Cyrankiewicz prime minister.

The PPS merged with the PPR in 1948 to form the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). Although the PZPR was the PPR under a new name, Cyrankiewicz remained as prime minister. He was also named a secretary of the PZPR Central Committee.[10]

Implicated in Witold Pilecki's state murder

Although like Witold Pilecki Cyrankiewicz had been a concentration camp inmate during the war, their political and power differences played out after hostilities ended and he failed to intercede in the false conviction of war hero Pilecki. The show trial took place on 3 March 1948.[11] Pilecki was charged with illegal border crossing, use of forged documents, not enlisting with the military, carrying illegal arms, espionage for General Władysław Anders and espionage for "foreign imperialism" (British intelligence).[12] He was sentenced to death on 15 May with three of his comrades, and was executed with a shot to the back of the head at the Mokotów Prison in Warsaw on 25 May 1948 by Staff Sergeant Piotr Śmietański (nicknamed "The Butcher of Mokotow Prison" by the inmates).[13][14]In 1990 Witold Pilecki (and others convicted at the show trial) were rehabilitated.[15] Witold Pilecki was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle in 2006, the highest Polish decoration.[16][17] On 6 September 2013, Pilecki was posthumously promoted to the rank of Colonel by the Minister of National Defence.[18]

Cyrankiewicz gave up the prime minister's post in 1952 because party boss Bolesław Bierut wanted the post for himself. He did, however, become a deputy premier under Bierut.

Second period in office

However, in 1954, after Poland returned to "collective leadership," Cyrankiewicz returned to the premiership, a post he would hold until 1970. By this time, there was little left of Cyrankiewicz the socialist, as evidenced during the 1956 upheaval following Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech." He tried to repress the rioting that erupted across the country at first, threatening that "any provocateur or lunatic who raises his hand against the people's government may be sure that this hand will be chopped off."[19]

Cyrankiewicz was also responsible for the order to fire on the protesters during the 1970 demonstrations on the coast in which 42 people were killed and more than a 1,000 wounded. A few months after these demonstrations, Cyrankiewicz went into semi-retirement and was named chairman of the Council of State—a post equivalent to that of a ceremonial president. He held this post until he retired in 1972.

Cyrankiewicz died in 1989, a few months before the collapse of the communist regime. However Cyrankiewicz (and others involved in the 1948 show trial) was posthumously charged in 2003 with complicity in Witold Pilecki's murder.

gollark: You don't know that. We can't really test this. Even people who support utilitarian philosophy abstractly might not want to pull the lever in a real visceral trolley problem.
gollark: Almost certainly mostly environment, yes.
gollark: It's easy to say that if you are just vaguely considering that, running it through the relatively unhurried processes of philosophizing™, that sort of thing. But probably less so if it's actually being turned over to emotion and such, because broadly speaking people reaaaallly don't want to die.
gollark: Am I better at resisting peer pressure than other people: well, I'd *like* to think so, but so would probably everyone else ever.
gollark: Anyway, I have, I think, reasonably strong "no genocide" ethics. But I don't know if, in a situation where everyone seemed implicitly/explicitly okay with helping with genocides, and where I feared that I would be punished if I either didn't help in some way or didn't appear supportive of helping, I would actually stick to this, since I don't think I've ever been in an environment with those sorts of pressures.

See also

References
  1. Andrzej Krajewski (28 kwietnia 2011), Józef Cyrankiewicz, czyli jak kończą idealiści. Newsweek.pl. Archived December 9, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  2. Jerzy Reuter (24 sierpnia 2009), Józef Cyrankiewicz. Tarnowski Kurier Kulturalny. Archived November 23, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  3. "Rocznik Oficerski Rezerw". Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  4. "Regina Szpak". Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  5. Kienzler, Iwona (2015). Kronika PRL 1944–1989. Czerwona arystokracja. Warsaw. p. 67.
  6. "Rocznik oficerski 1923". Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  7. "Tak kończą idealiści". Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  8. "Dane osoby z katalogu kierowniczych stanowisk partyjnych i państwowych PRL". Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  9. "30 lat temu zmarł Józef Cyrankiewicz, najdłużej sprawujący swą funkcję premier PRL". Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  10. Davies, Norman (1991). Boże igrzysko. Historia Polski. T. 2: Od roku 1795. Warsaw: Znak. p. 704.
  11. The Times, 1948
  12. Tchorek 2009
  13. Piekarski 1990, p. 249
  14. Płużański, Tadeusz M. "Strzał w tył głowy." Publicystyka Antysocjalistycznego Mazowsza.
  15. Jack Fairweather (2019). The Volunteer:The true Story of the Resistance Hero Who infiltrated Auschwitz. London: WH Allen. ISBN 978-0753545164.
  16. Świerczek, Lidia. Pilecki's life. Institute of National Remembrance. Last accessed on 14 March 2009.
  17. (in Polish) "60 lat temu zginął rotmistrz Witold Pilecki" (Sixty years ago Captain Witold Pilecki died) Gazeta Wyborcza, PAP, 23 May 2008.
  18. "MON awansował Witolda Pileckiego" (in Polish). RMF FM/PAP. September 6, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2013.
  19. "29 czerwca 1956 r. Cyrankiewicz: Każdemu, kto podniesie rękę na władzę, władza tę rękę odrąbie". Retrieved August 10, 2020.
Political offices
Preceded by
Edward Osóbka-Morawski		 Prime Minister of Poland
1947–1952		 Succeeded by
Bolesław Bierut
Preceded by
Bolesław Bierut		 Prime Minister of Poland
1954–1970		 Succeeded by
Piotr Jaroszewicz
Preceded by
Marian Spychalski		 Chairman of the Polish Council of State
1970–1972		 Succeeded by
Henryk Jabłoński
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