title: Anthony Modeste (French footballer)

text: Modeste was linked with Chinese Super League side Tianjin Quanjian in 2017 mid-year transfer window. However, 1. FC Köln officially terminated discussions on 28 June 2017 while the two clubs failed to agree on certain terms during negotiations. On 12 July, it was reported that Modeste was loaned to Tianjin Quanjian on a two-year long deal for €6 million, with an option to buy for an extra €29 million at the end. On 15 July 2017, Tianjin Quanjian announced the signing of Modeste. According to another press release, Modeste signed a -year contract, until the end of year 2020.


title: Anthony Modeste (French footballer)

text: In August 2018, Modeste went AWOL and returned to Germany. On 17 November, he was given a contract to return to 1. FC Köln until 2023. Modeste also sued Tianjin Quanjian to FIFA in order to cancel the player contract, which the Chinese club made a counter-sue.


title: Anthony Modeste (French footballer)

text: On 1 February 2021, Köln announced that Modeste would join Ligue 1 club AS Saint-Étienne on a loan deal until the end of the season.


title: Anthony Modeste (French footballer)

text: On 8 August 2022, Borussia Dortmund announced the arrival of Modeste in a tweet, "Bienvenue Tony!" from 1. FC Köln on a one-year contract to replace Sébastien Haller for a while. The 34-year-old forward was assigned the number 20.


title: Anthony Modeste (French footballer)

text: On October 8, he scored a 95th minute equalizer in Der Klassiker against Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga to make the score 2-2.


title: Legion (demons)

text: Legion means a large group or in another parlance it may mean "many". In the Bible, it was used to refer to the group of demons, particularly those in two of three versions of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac, an account in the New Testament of an incident in which Jesus performs an exorcism.


title: Legion (demons)

text: The earliest version of this story exists in the Gospel of Mark, described as taking place in "the country of the Gerasenes". Jesus encounters a possessed man and calls on the demon to emerge, demanding to know its name – an important element of traditional exorcism practice. He finds the man is possessed by a multitude of demons who give the collective name of "Legion". Fearing that Jesus will drive them out of the world and into the abyss, they beg him instead to send them into a herd of pigs, which he does. The pigs then rush into the sea and are drowned ().


title: Legion (demons)

text: This story is also in the other two Synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of Luke shortens the story but retains most of the details including the name (). The Gospel of Matthew shortens it more dramatically, changes the possessed man to two men (a particular stylistic device of this writer) and changes the location to "the country of the Gadarenes". This is probably because the author was aware that Gerasa is actually around 50 km away from the Sea of Galilee (although Gadara is still 10 km distant). In this version, the demons are unnamed ().


title: Legion (demons)

text: According to Michael Willett Newheart, professor of New Testament Language and Literature at the Howard University School of Divinity (2004), the author of the Gospel of Mark could well have expected readers to associate the name "Legion" with the Roman military formation, active in the area at the time (around 70 AD). The intention may be to show that Jesus is stronger than the occupying force of the Romans.


title: Legion (demons)

text: The Biblical scholar Seyoon Kim, however, points out that the Latin "legio" was commonly used as a loanword in Hebrew and Aramaic to indicate an unspecified but large quantity. In the New Testament text it is used as a proper name, which is "saturated with meaning". In this sense, it can mean both the size and power of the occupying Roman army "as well as" a multitude uncounted/ uncountable of demonic spirits. It is the latter sense that has become the common understanding of the term as an adjective in modern English (whereas when used as a noun it indicates the Roman military number, between 3,000 and 6,000 infantry with cavalry; cf. "we are legion" and "we are a legion").


title: John Stagliano

text: John Stagliano (born November 29, 1951), also known as Buttman, is an American entrepreneur, former pornographic film actor, producer and director who founded and owns the Evil Angel pornographic film studio.


title: John Stagliano

text: Stagliano grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and attended high school from 1965 to 1969. He enrolled in college, but dropped out in 1969 for several semesters. He then went back to college and studied subjects including English, journalism, and engineering, before transferring to UCLA to major in economics. He originally planned to get an economics PhD and become a professor. He then switched to studying theater, playwriting, modern dance and jazz dance, partly because there were more women in those classes. He is of Italian ancestry with some of his grandparents from Florence.


title: John Stagliano

text: In the 1970s, he wrote erotic fiction for a small newspaper, and did some softcore modeling. He made his debut in a hardcore pornographic film in an 8 mm loop in 1974. In 1979, he was looking for dancing jobs in Hollywood. He replied to an advertisement in the "Daily Variety" looking for male strippers for the new Chippendales show. He performed with the group four or five nights a week for the next four years. In 1982, when he was 30, he began publishing a small pornographic magazine on newsprint, which he called "Evil Angel".


title: John Stagliano

text: Initially he had little knowledge of film making, but he made his first movie for $8,000 in 1983, titled "Bouncing Buns", starring Stacy Donovan. For the next six years he made films for other companies to manufacture and distribute. In 1989, he started Evil Angel to sell his own films. The origin of the company's name dates back to when Stagliano was working as a stripper. "There was another guy in one of my shows named John. So this MC started calling me Evil John to differentiate us. This was when I was doing Dracula and chains. At the same time I had a girlfriend who called herself Angel when she did strip shows. She was a very nasty girl and I suggested that she call herself Evil Angel. She didn't, but I loved the name and wound up using it for my company."


title: John Stagliano

text: The first Evil Angel film was "Dance Fire", filmed in 1988 by Stagliano, starring himself, Trinity Loren, and Brandy Alexandre.


title: John Stagliano

text: In 1989, he produced "The Adventures of Buttman", the first in a popular series which is credited with sparking the "gonzo" adult film genre. These films involved highlighting the female buttocks, with actors often licking, kissing and playfully biting the female behind. Stagliano has stated that a scene showing Tracey Adams' buttocks inspired him to make the "Buttman" series of films. The clip shows Adams on her hands and knees with her rear end stuck high in the air. "The shot only lasted a couple of seconds," says Stagliano, "but I knew then what I wanted to do." Early Stagliano productions had little to no anal sex in them and were critically acclaimed for the showcasing of his buttocks fetish. Later "Buttman" films included numerous anal sex scenes, often featuring Stagliano himself. In the 1990s, Stagliano became one of the most successful figures in American pornographic films.


title: John Stagliano

text: He has directed series including "Buttman at Nudes a Poppin'", "Buttman Goes to Rio", "Buttman's Anal Divas", "Buttman's Anal Show", "Buttman's Bend Over Babes", "Buttman's Bend Over Brazilian Babes", "Buttman's Big Butt Backdoor Babes", "Buttman's Big Tit Adventure", "Buttman's Butt Freak", "Buttman's European Vacation", "Buttman's Favorite Big Butt Babes", "Face Dance" and "Fashionistas", as well as numerous one-off films. Stagliano also served as mentor, producer, and co-director to Tristan Taormino in her video version of "The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women".


title: John Stagliano

text: From October 2004 through February 2008, Stagliano produced and directed a Las Vegas show called Fashionistas based on his porn film of the same name. In 2008, he won the 'Best Director – Video' award for "Fashionistas Safado: Berlin". ("Safado" is a Portuguese word meaning lewd or salacious.)


title: John Stagliano

text: Stagliano was described by "U.S. News & World Report" magazine in 1998 as "the nation's leading director of hard-core videos".


title: John Stagliano

text: On April 8, 2008, Evil Angel and Stagliano were indicted on federal obscenity charges by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. The scenes selected by the government to support the prosecution involved urination, use of enemas, and bondage.


title: John Stagliano

text: On July 16, 2010, a federal trial began in Washington, D.C. with Stagliano as defendant and after three days all charges were dismissed. Judge Richard J. Leon stated, "I hope the government will learn a lesson from its experience," and called the evidence linking Stagliano to the production and distribution of the DVD videos "woefully insufficient". Although he dismissed the charges on the grounds of insufficient evidence, the judge cited the "difficult, challenging and novel questions" raised in the case against Stagliano, questions concerning extant federal obscenity-statutes, the Internet, free speech, and the rights of criminal defendants. He stated that he hoped "[higher] courts and Congress will give greater guidance to judges in whose courtrooms these cases will be tried."


title: John Stagliano

text: In a June 2013 lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against Stagliano and his company Evil Angel, adult performer Katie Summers alleged "negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, sexual battery and violations of professions code section 17200" because Stagliano didn't inform her of his HIV positive status prior to her performing in the 2010 movie "Buttman's Stretch Class 4". According to the lawsuit, Summers consented to Stagliano engaging in sexual contact within the context of her acting in an adult film. In the scene, Stagliano can be seen handing Summers sex toys and touching her buttocks, but he does not perform hardcore sex with her. Summers claims that had she known of Stagliano's status prior to the scene that she would not have done it.


title: John Stagliano

text: In a press interview, Stagliano's wife Karen disputes the allegations: "John and the company feel that he did not do anything with Katie Summers that would warrant having to inform her of his HIV status," Karen said "He had no genital contact with her, no sexual touching of her genitals at all that would have put her at any sort of a medical risk whatsoever."


title: John Stagliano

text: The suit against Stagliano went into forced arbitration and the plaintiff had her deposition taken, but on September 29, 2014 Summers dropped her lawsuit. According to Stagliano's attorney, Paul Cambria, "[Summers] had no case. I took her testimony and when I was done I could not see any possible way for her to succeed."


title: John Stagliano

text: In 2018, Stagliano directed an Evil Angel scene between Ginger Banks and Jenny Blighe. It was both performers' first scene, after working as webcam models, and they were told the scene was girl-girl. According to Banks and Blighe, Stagliano touched their buttocks without their consent during the filming, in character as Buttman. Stagliano said the pair had been asked to watch a previous scene in which he did a similar thing; Banks and Blighe said that they had concerns after watching the scene, but the production told Banks that Stagliano would not perform as Buttman.


title: John Stagliano

text: After Blighe made her experience public, Banks began experiencing online harassment due to her initial response. She voluntarily stood down as chair of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee in the aftermath. Banks later filed a report of sexual battery against Stagliano and apologized to Blighe both privately and publicly, saying in 2020, "I should be held accountable for my part in the gaslighting and denying her reality". She said that Stagliano mocked her over the incident afterwards, and that she was told by others of similar incidents to her and Blighe's account.


title: John Stagliano

text: In her essay "Crackers and Whackers: The White Trash of Porn", Constance Penley asserts that John Stagliano did for anal fetishism what Woody Allen did for neurosis, pointing out that, "as in so many stag films," Buttman is the "butt of the joke" since, "seeking the perfect shot of a woman's perfect ass," the character "gets mugged, evicted, bankrupted, rejected, and ridiculed –  all in his single-minded quest for perfection."


title: John Stagliano

text: Stagliano was in a relationship with pornographic actress Krysti Lynn (A.K.A Shawna Yager) during 1993. She was driving Stagliano's Acura Legend when she died on December 7, 1995, in an accident in Calabasas.


title: John Stagliano

text: Stagliano espouses a libertarian political philosophy, and has been a significant financial contributor to the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation, both libertarian think tanks.


title: Anu Sithara

text: Anu Sithara is an Indian actress who appears predominantly in Malayalam films. She has also appeared in some Tamil Films .


title: Anu Sithara

text: Anu made her debut in 2013 as a child artist in "Pottas Bomb". Anu also a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and well known for her stage shows.


title: Anu Sithara

text: Anu was born on 21 August 1995 to Renuka and Abdul Salam. She married her boyfriend Vishnu Prasad in 2015. She has a younger sister, Anu Sonara.


title: SS Eastland

text: SS "Eastland" was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On 24 July 1915, the ship rolled over onto its side while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. In total, 844 passengers and crew were killed in what was the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.


title: SS Eastland

text: After the disaster, "Eastland" was salvaged and sold to the United States Navy. After restorations and modifications, "Eastland" was designated a gunboat and renamed USS "Wilmette". She was used primarily as a training vessel on the Great Lakes, and was scrapped after World War II.


title: SS Eastland

text: The ship was commissioned during 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built by the Jenks Ship Building Company of Port Huron, Michigan. The ship was named in May 1903, immediately before her inaugural voyage.


title: SS Eastland

text: On 27 July of her 1903 inaugural season, the ship struck the laid up tugboat "George W. Gardner" and sank her at her dock at the Lake Street Bridge, Chicago, Illinois, but received only minor damage.


title: SS Eastland

text: On 14 August 1903, while on a cruise from Chicago to South Haven, Michigan, six of the ship's firemen refused to stoke the fire for the ship's boiler. They claimed that they had not received their potatoes for a meal. When they refused to return to the fire hole, Captain John Pereue arrested the six men at gunpoint. Firemen George Lippen and Benjamin Myers, who were not a part of the group of six, stoked the fires until the ship reached harbor. Upon the ship's arrival in South Haven, the six men – Glenn Watson, Mike Davern, Frank La Plarte, Edward Fleming, Mike Smith, and William Madden – were taken to the town jail and charged with mutiny. Shortly thereafter, Captain Pereue was replaced.


title: SS Eastland

text: Because the ship did not meet a targeted speed of during her inaugural season, and had a draft too deep for the Black River in South Haven, Michigan, where she was being loaded, the ship returned in September 1903 to Port Huron for modifications, including the addition of an air conditioning system and machinery adjustments to reduce draft. Even though the modifications increased the ship's speed, they added additional weight and reduced her draft, thereby reducing the metacentric height and inherent stability as originally designed.


title: SS Eastland

text: Upon her return to South Haven, in May 1904, the ship handily won a race against the "City of South Haven" to Chicago. In the meantime, the "Eastland" was experiencing periodic problems with her stability while loading and unloading cargo and passengers, and nearly capsized on 17 July 1904, after leaving South Haven with about 3,000 passengers. Subsequently, her capacity was lowered to 2,800 passengers, cabins were removed, lifeboats were added, and the hull was repaired. Then, on 5 August 1906, another incident of listing occurred, which resulted in the filing of complaints against the Chicago-South Haven Line that had purchased the ship earlier that year.


title: SS Eastland

text: Before the 1907 season, the ship was sold to the Lake Shore Navigation Company, and moved to Lake Erie. In 1909, the ship was sold again to the Eastland Navigation Company, and continued running excursions between Cleveland and Cedar Point. After the 1909 season, the remaining 39 cabins were removed, and prior to the 1912 season, the top smoke stack sections were removed to shorten her stack height. On 1 July 1912, another incident occurred when the "Eastland" had a severe listing of around 25° while loading passengers in Cleveland.


title: SS Eastland

text: In June 1914, the "Eastland" was sold to the St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company, and returned to Lake Michigan for St. Joseph, Michigan, to Chicago, Illinois, service.


title: SS Eastland

text: On 24 July 1915, "Eastland" and four other Great Lakes passenger steamers – "Theodore Roosevelt", "Petoskey", "Racine", and "Rochester" – were chartered to take employees from Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana. This was a major event in the lives of the workers, many of whom could not take holidays.


title: SS Eastland

text: During 1915, the new federal Seamen's Act had been passed because of the RMS "Titanic" disaster three years earlier. The law required retrofitting of a complete set of lifeboats on "Eastland", as on many other passenger vessels. This additional weight may have made "Eastland" more dangerous by making her even more top heavy. Some argued that other Great Lakes ships would suffer from the same problem. Nonetheless, it was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. "Eastland" had the option of maintaining a reduced capacity or adding lifeboats to increase capacity. Its leadership elected to add lifeboats to qualify for a license to increase its capacity to 2,570 passengers. "Eastland" was already so top heavy that she had special restrictions concerning the number of passengers that could be carried. Prior to that, during June 1914, "Eastland" had again changed ownership, this time bought by the St. Joseph and Chicago Steamship Company, with Captain Harry Pedersen appointed the ship's master. In 1914, the St. Joseph and Chicago Steamship Company removed the old hardwood flooring of the forward dining room on the cabin level and replaced it with of concrete. They also added a layer of concrete near the aft gangway. Together, this added 15-20 tons of weight.


title: SS Eastland

text: On the morning of 24 July, passengers began boarding "Eastland" on the south bank of the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle Streets about 6:30 am, and by 7:10 am, the ship had reached her capacity of 2,572 passengers. The ship was packed, with many passengers standing on the open upper decks, and began to list slightly to the port side (away from the wharf). The crew attempted to stabilize the ship by admitting water into her ballast tanks, but to little avail. At 7:28 am, "Eastland" lurched sharply to port, and then rolled completely onto her port side, coming to rest on the river bottom, which was only below the surface; barely half the vessel was submerged. Many other passengers had already moved below decks on this relatively cool and damp morning to warm themselves before the departure. Consequently, hundreds of people were trapped inside by the water and the sudden rollover; some were crushed by heavy furniture, including pianos, bookcases, and tables. Although the ship was only 20 feet (6.1 meters) from the wharf, and in spite of the quick response by the crew of a nearby vessel, "Kenosha", which came alongside the hull to allow those stranded on the capsized vessel to leap to safety, 844 passengers and four crew members died in the disaster. Many of the passengers on "Eastland" were immigrants, with large numbers from present-day Czech Republic, Poland, Norway, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Hungary, and Austria. Many of the Czech immigrants had settled in Cicero; of the Czech passengers aboard, 220 perished in the disaster.


title: SS Eastland

text: The bodies of the victims were taken to various temporary morgues established in the area for identification; by afternoon, the remaining unidentified bodies were consolidated in the Armory of the 2nd Regiment.


title: SS Eastland

text: In the aftermath, the Western Electric Company provided $100,000 to relief and recovery efforts of family members of the victims of the disaster.


title: SS Eastland

text: One of the people who were scheduled to be on "Eastland" was 20-year-old George Halas, an American football player, who was delayed leaving for the dock, and arrived after the ship had overturned. His name was listed on the list of deceased in newspapers, but when fraternity brothers visited his home to send their condolences, he was revealed to be unharmed. Halas went on to become coach and owner of the Chicago Bears and a founding member of the National Football League. His friend and future Bears executive Ralph Brizzolara and his brother were on the "Eastland" when she capsized, though they escaped through portholes. Despite stories to the contrary, no reliable evidence indicates Jack Benny was aboard "Eastland" or scheduled to be on the excursion; possibly the basis for this report was that "Eastland" was a training vessel during World War I and Benny received his training in the Great Lakes naval base where "Eastland" was stationed.


title: SS Eastland

text: The first known film footage taken of the recovery efforts was discovered and then released during early 2015 by a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago.


title: SS Eastland

text: Marion Eichholz – the last known survivor of the capsizing – died on 24 November 2014, at the age of 102.


title: SS Eastland

text: Writer Jack Woodford witnessed the disaster and gave a first-hand account to the "Herald and Examiner", a Chicago newspaper. In his autobiography, Woodford writes:


title: SS Eastland

text: Newspapers played a significant part in not only publicizing the "Eastland" disaster, but also creating the public memory of the catastrophe. The newspapers' purpose, audience, and political and business associations influenced the newspapers to publish articles emphasizing who was to blame and why "Eastland" capsized. Consequently, the articles influenced how the court cases proceeded, and contributed to a dispute between Western Electric Company and some of its workers regarding how the company responded to the catastrophe.


title: SS Eastland

text: Carl Sandburg, then known better as a journalist than a poet, wrote an angry account accusing regulators of ignoring safety issues and claimed that many of the workers were there on company orders for a staged picnic. Sandburg also wrote a poem, "The "Eastland"", that contrasts the disaster with the mistreatment and poor health of the lower classes at the time. After first listing the quick, murderous horrors of the disaster, then surveying the slow, murderous horrors of extreme poverty, Sandburg concludes by comparing the two: "I see a dozen "Eastlands"/Every morning on my way to work/And a dozen more going home at night." The poem was too harsh for publication when written but was eventually released as part of a collection of poems during 1993.


title: SS Eastland

text: The "Eastland" disaster was incorporated into the 1999 series premiere of the Disney Channel original series "So Weird". In the episode, teenaged paranormal enthusiast Fiona Phillips (actress Cara DeLizia) encounters the ghost of a young boy who drowned during the capsizing while exploring a nightclub near the Chicago River, and attempts to learn why he has contacted her.


title: SS Eastland

text: During 2012, Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre produced an original musical about the disaster entitled "Eastland: A New Musical", written by Andy White and scored by Ben Collins-Sussman and Andre Pluess.


title: SS Eastland

text: The Eastland disaster is also pivotal to the story of one family told in the play/musical "Failure: A Love Story", written by Philip Dawkins, which premiered in Chicago in 2012 at Victory Gardens Theater. Its Los Angeles production, directed by Michael Matthews, and produced by Couerage Theater Company, premiered on 24 July 2015 – the 100th anniversary of the Eastland tragedy. Ten years after its world premiere, Chicagoland theater Oil Lamp Theater mounted "Failure: A Love Story," directed by Xavier Custodio and stage managed by Rochelle Hovde, and starring Kendal Romero, Trevor Earley, BroadwayWorld Award-winner Van Ferro, Philip Macaluso, BroadwayWorld Award-nominee Jasmine Robertson and Jordan Zelvin as part of its cast. On November 15, 2022, this production garnered 11 nominations from the 2022 BroadwayWorld Chicago Awards: Best Play for Oil Lamp Theater, Best Director of a Play for Custodio; Best Performer in a Play for Earley and Romero; Best Supporting Performer in a Play for Ferro, Macaluso, Robinson, and Zelvin; Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design.


title: SS Eastland

text: A grand jury indicted the president and three other officers of the steamship company for manslaughter, and the ship's captain and engineer for criminal carelessness, and found that the disaster was caused by "conditions of instability" caused by any or all of overloading of passengers, mishandling of water ballast, or the construction of the ship.


title: SS Eastland

text: Federal extradition hearings were held to compel the six indicted men to come from Michigan to Illinois for trial. During the hearings, principal witness Sidney Jenks, president of the shipbuilding company that built "Eastland", testified that her first owners wanted a fast ship to transport fruit, and he designed one capable of making and carrying 500 passengers. Defense counsel Clarence Darrow asked whether he had ever worried about the conversion of the ship into a passenger steamer with a capacity of 2,500 or more passengers. Jenks replied, "I had no way of knowing the quantity of its business after it left our yards... No, I did not worry about the "Eastland"." Jenks testified that an actual stability test of the ship never occurred, and stated that after tilting to an angle of 45° at launching, "it righted itself as straight as a church, satisfactorily demonstrating its stability."


title: SS Eastland

text: The court refused extradition, holding the evidence was too weak, with "barely a scintilla of proof" to establish probable cause to find the six guilty. The court reasoned that the four company officers were not aboard the ship, and that every act charged against the captain and engineer was done in the ordinary course of business, "more consistent with innocence than with guilt." The court also reasoned that "Eastland" "was operated for years and carried thousands safely", and that for this reason no one could say that the accused parties were unjustified in believing the ship seaworthy.


title: SS Eastland

text: After "Eastland" was raised on 14 August 1915, she was sold to the Illinois Naval Reserve and recommissioned as USS "Wilmette" stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base. She was converted to a gunboat, renamed "Wilmette" on 20 February 1918, and commissioned on 20 September 1918, with Captain William B. Wells . Commissioned late in World War I, "Wilmette" did not have any combat service. It trained sailors and experienced normal upkeep and repairs until placed in ordinary at Chicago on 9 July 1919, retaining a 10-man caretaker crew aboard. On 29 June 1920, the gunboat was returned to full commission.


title: SS Eastland

text: On 7 June 1921, "Wilmette" was given the task of sinking "UC-97", a German U-boat surrendered to the United States after World War I. The guns of "Wilmette" were manned by Gunner's Mate J. O. Sabin, who had fired the first American cannon of World War I, and Gunner's Mate A. F. Anderson, the man who fired the first American torpedo of the conflict.


title: SS Eastland

text: For the remainder of her 25-year career, the gunboat served as a training ship for naval reservists of the 9th, 10th, and 11th Naval Districts. It made voyages along the shores of the Great Lakes carrying trainees assigned to her from the Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois. Ernie Pyle, the famed World War II correspondent, was one of those trainees when he spent three weeks on the ship during late summer 1921. "Wilmette" remained in commission, performing her reserve training mission until she was placed "out of commission, in service", on 15 February 1940.


title: SS Eastland

text: Given hull designation IX-29 on 17 February 1941, she resumed training duty at Chicago on 30 March 1942, preparing armed guard crews for duty manning the guns on armed merchantmen. That assignment continued until the end of World War II in Europe obviated measures to protect trans-Atlantic merchant shipping from German U-boats.


title: SS Eastland

text: During August 1943, "Wilmette" was given the honor of transporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Admiral William D. Leahy, James F. Byrnes, and Harry Hopkins on a 10-day cruise to McGregor and Whitefish Bay to plan war strategies.


title: SS Eastland

text: On 9 April 1945, she was returned to full commission for a brief interval. "Wilmette" was decommissioned on 28 November 1945, and her name was deleted from the Navy list on 19 December 1945. During 1946, "Wilmette" was offered for sale. Finding no takers, on 31 October 1946, she was sold to the Hyman Michaels Company for scrapping, which was completed in 1947.


title: SS Eastland

text: A marker commemorating the accident was dedicated on 4 June 1989. This marker was reported stolen on 26 April 2000, and a replacement marker was installed and rededicated on 24 July 2003.


title: SS Eastland

text: Plans exist for a permanent outdoor exhibit with the proposed name "At The River's Edge". This exhibit would be located along the portion of the Chicago Riverwalk adjacent to the waters where the Eastland disaster occurred. The exhibit is planned to consist of six displays, each containing two unique panels which will serve to illustrate the tragedy through text and high-resolution images.


title: SS Eastland

text: On Sunday, 12 July 2015, one hundred years after the SS "Eastland" disaster, a memorial to the dead was dedicated at Bohemian National Cemetery, 5255 N. Pulaski Road, Chicago.


title: Public opinion

text: Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them.


title: Public opinion

text: The term "public opinion" was derived from the French "", which was first used in 1588 by Michel de Montaigne in the second edition of his "Essays" (ch. XXII).


title: Public opinion

text: Precursors of the phrase in English include William Temple's "general opinion" (appearing in his 1672 work "On the Original and Nature of Government") and John Locke's "law of opinion" (appearing in his 1689 work "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding").


title: Public opinion

text: The emergence of public opinion as a significant force in the political realm dates to the late 17th century, but opinion had been regarded as having singular importance much earlier. Medieval "fama publica" or "vox et fama communis" had great legal and social importance from the 12th and 13th centuries onward. Later, William Shakespeare called public opinion the "mistress of success" and Blaise Pascal thought it was "the queen of the world".


title: Public opinion

text: In his treatise, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" c, John Locke considered that man was subject to three laws: the divine law, the civil law and most importantly in Locke's judgement, the law of opinion or reputation. He regarded the latter as of the highest importance because dislike and "ill opinion" force people to conform in their behaviour to social norms, however he didn't consider public opinion as a suitable influence for governments.


title: Public opinion

text: In his 1672 essay "On the Original and Nature of Government", William Temple gave an early formulation of the importance of public opinion. He observed that "when vast numbers of men submit their lives and fortunes absolutely to the will of one, it must be force of custom, or opinion which subjects power to authority". Temple disagreed with the prevalent opinion that the basis of government lay in a social contract and thought that government was merely allowed to exist due to the favour of public opinion.


title: Public opinion

text: The prerequisites for the emergence of a public sphere were increasing levels of literacy which was spurred on by the Reformation, which encouraged individuals to read the Bible in the vernacular, and the rapidly expanding printing presses. During the 18th century religious literature was replaced with secular literature, novels and pamphlets. In parallel to this was the growth in reading societies and clubs. At the turn of the century the first circulating library opened in London and the public library became widespread and available to the public.


title: Public opinion

text: An institution of central importance in the development of public opinion, was the coffee-house, which became widespread throughout Europe in the mid-17th century. Although Charles II later tried to suppress the London coffeehouses as "places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers", the public flocked to them. For several decades following the Restoration, the Wits gathered round John Dryden at Will's Coffee House in Russell Street, Covent Garden. The coffee houses were great social levellers, open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality and republicanism.


title: Public opinion

text: More generally, coffee houses became meeting places where business could be carried on, news exchanged and "The London Gazette" (government announcements) read. Lloyd's of London had its origins in a coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd, where underwriters of ship insurance met to do business. By 1739, there were 551 coffeehouses in London. Each attracted a particular clientele divided by occupation or attitude, such as Tories and Whigs, wits and stockjobbers, merchants and lawyers, booksellers and authors, men of fashion or the "cits" of the old city center. Joseph Addison wanted to have it said of him that he had "brought philosophy out of closets and libraries to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea tables and in coffee houses". According to one French visitor, Antoine François Prévost, coffeehouses, "where you have the right to read all the papers for and against the government", were the "seats of English liberty".


title: Public opinion

text: Gentlemen's clubs proliferated in the 18th century, especially in the West End of London. Clubs took over the role occupied by coffee houses in 18th century London to some degree and reached the height of their influence in the late 19th century. Some notable names were White's, Brooks's, Arthur's and Boodle's which still exist today.


title: Public opinion

text: These social changes, in which a closed and largely illiterate public became an open and politicized one, was to become of tremendous political importance in the 19th century as the mass media was circulated ever more widely and literacy was steadily improved. Governments increasingly recognized the importance of managing and directing public opinion. This trend is exemplified in the career of George Canning who restyled his political career from its aristocratic origins to one of popular consent when he contested and won the parliamentary seat in Liverpool, a city with a growing and affluent middle class which he attributed to the growing influence of "public opinion".


title: Public opinion

text: Jeremy Bentham was an impassioned advocate of the importance of public opinion in the shaping of constitutional governance. He thought it important that all government acts and decisions should be subject to the inspection of public opinion, because "to the pernicious exercise of the power of government it is the only check". He opined that public opinion had the power to ensure that rulers would rule for the greatest happiness of the greater number. He brought in Utilitarian philosophy in order to define theories of public opinion.


title: Public opinion

text: The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies, by using the conceptional tools of his theory of , argued (', 1922), that 'public opinion' has the equivalent social function in societies (') which religion has in communities ().


title: Public opinion

text: German social theorist Jürgen Habermas contributed the idea of public sphere to the discussion of public opinion. According to Habermas, the public sphere, or bourgeois public, is where "something approaching public opinion can be formed". Habermas claimed that the Public Sphere featured universal access, rational debate, and disregard for rank. However, he believes that these three features for how public opinion are best formed are no longer in place in western liberal democratic countries. Public opinion, in western democracy, is highly susceptible to elite manipulation.


title: Public opinion

text: The American sociologist Herbert Blumer has proposed an altogether different conception of the "public". According to Blumer, public opinion is discussed as a form of collective behavior (another specialized term) which is made up of those who are discussing a given public issue at any one time. Given this definition, there are many publics; each of them comes into being when an issue arises and ceases to exist when the issue is resolved. Blumer claims that people participate in public in different capacities and to different degrees. So, public opinion polling cannot measure the public. An educated individual's participation is more important than that of a drunk. The "mass" in which people independently make decisions about, for example, which brand of toothpaste to buy, is a form of collective behavior different from the public.


title: Public opinion

text: Public opinion plays an important role in the political sphere. Cutting across all aspects of relationship between government and public opinion are studies of voting behavior. These have registered the distribution of opinions on a wide variety of issues, have explored the impact of special interest groups on election outcomes and have contributed to our knowledge about the effects of government propaganda and policy.


title: Public opinion

text: Contemporary, quantitative approaches to the study of public opinion may be divided into four categories:


title: Public opinion

text: The rapid spread of public opinion measurement around the world is reflection of the number of uses to which it can be put. Public opinion can be accurately obtained through survey sampling. Both private firms and governments use surveys to inform public policies and public relations.


title: Public opinion

text: Numerous theories and substantial evidence exists to explain the formation and dynamics of individuals' opinions. Much of this research draws on psychological research on attitudes. In communications studies and political science, mass media are often seen as influential forces on public opinion. Additionally, political socialization and behavioral genetics sometimes explain public opinion.


title: Public opinion

text: The formation of public opinion starts with agenda setting by major media outlets throughout the world. This agenda setting dictates what is newsworthy and how and when it will be reported. The media agenda is set by a variety of different environmental and newswork factors that determines which stories will be newsworthy.


title: Public opinion

text: Another key component in the formation of public opinion is framing. Framing is when a story or piece of news is portrayed in a particular way and is meant to sway the consumers attitude one way or the other. Most political issues are heavily framed in order to persuade voters to vote for a particular candidate. For example, if Candidate X once voted on a bill that raised income taxes on the middle class, a framing headline would read "Candidate X Doesn't Care About the Middle Class". This puts Candidate X in a negative frame to the news reader.


title: Public opinion

text: Social desirability is another key component to the formation of public opinion. Social desirability is the idea that people in general will form their opinions based on what they believe is the prevalent opinion of the social group they identify with. Based on media agenda setting and media framing, most often a particular opinion gets repeated throughout various news mediums and social networking sites, until it creates a false vision where the perceived truth can actually be very far away from the actual truth. When asked for their opinion on a subject about which they are uninformed, people often provide pseudo-opinions they believe will please the questioner.


title: Public opinion

text: Public opinion can be influenced by public relations and the political media. Additionally, mass media utilizes a wide variety of advertising techniques to get their message out and change the minds of people. Since the 1950s, television has been the main medium for molding public opinion. Since the late 2000s, the Internet has become a platform for forming public opinion. Surveys have showed that more people get their news from social media and news websites as opposed to print newspapers. The accessibility of social media allows public opinion to be formed by a broader range of social movements and news sources. identifies the Internet's effect on public opinion as being “characterised by an intensified personalisation of political advocacy and increased anti-elitism, popularisation and populism”. Public opinion has become more varied as a result of online news sources being influenced by political communication and agenda setting.


title: Public opinion

text: There have been a variety of academic studies investigating whether or not public opinion is influenced by "influentials", or persons that have a significant effect on influencing opinion of the general public regarding any relevant issues. Many early studies have modeled the transfer of information from mass media sources to the general public as a "two-step" process. In this process, information from mass media and other far-reaching sources of information influences influentials, and influentials then influence the general public as opposed to the mass media directly influencing the public.


title: Public opinion

text: While the "two-step" process regarding public opinion influence has motivated further research on the role of influential persons, a more recent study by Watts and Dodds (2007) suggests that while influentials play some role in influencing public opinion, "non-influential" persons that make up the general public are also just as likely (if not more likely) to influence opinion provided that the general public is composed of persons that are easily influenced. This is referred to in their work as the "Influential Hypothesis". The authors discuss such results by using a model to quantify the number of people influenced by both the general public and influentials. The model can be easily customized to represent a variety of ways that influencers interact with each other as well as the general public. In their study, such a model diverges from the prior paradigm of the "two-step" process. The Watts and Dodds model introduces a model of influence emphasizing lateral channels of influence between the influencers and general public categories. Thus, this leads to a more complex flow of influence amongst the three parties involved in influencing public opinion (i.e. media, influencers and general public).


title: Public opinion

text: The most pervasive issue dividing theories of the opinion-policy relation bears a striking resemblance to the problem of monism-pluralism in the history of philosophy. The controversy deals with the question of whether the structure of socio-political action should be viewed as a more or less centralized process of acts and decisions by a class of key leaders, representing integrated hierarchies of influence in society or whether it is more accurately envisaged as several sets of relatively autonomous opinion and influence groups, interacting with representative decision makers in an official structure of differentiated governmental authority. The former assumption interprets individual, group and official action as part of a single system and reduces politics and governmental policies to a derivative of three basic analytical terms: society, culture and personality.


title: Public opinion

text: Despite philosophical arguments regarding public opinion, social scientists (those in sociology, political science, economics and social psychology) present compelling theories to describe how public opinion shapes public policy and find myriad effects of opinion on policy using various empirical research methods. Moreover, researchers find that causal relationships likely run in both directions from opinion to policy and from policy to opinion. On the one hand, public opinion signals public preferences and potential voting behaviors to policymakers. This impact should be greater under more stable democratic institutions. It should be greatest in the realm of social policy because the public are highly motivated by potential goods and services they get from the state. On the other hand, social policy impacts public opinion. The goods and services the public gets via social policy builds normative expectations that shape public opinion. Furthermore, social policy constitutes the largest share of state spending budgets, making it an active and contentious political area. Together these theories suggest that causal effects are part of a feedback loop between opinion and policy. Using increasingly sophisticated methods, scholars are beginning to grasp and identify the feedback of opinion and policy and use this phenomenon to explain the path dependency of institutions.


title: Public opinion

text: As with public policy, public opinion also has a close relationship with foreign policy. There is much debate concerning what the relationship is and the study of foreign policy's relationship with public opinion has evolved over time, with the Almond–Lippmann consensus being one of the first attempt to define this relationship. Published before the Vietnam War, Gabriel Almond and Walter Lippmann argued that public opinion about foreign policy was unstructured, incoherent, and highly volatile, and that public opinion shouldn't influence foreign policy. More recent studies have rebuked the Almond-Lippmann Consensus, showing how people's opinions are generally stable, and that while individuals may not be entirely informed about every issue, they still act efficiently and rationally.


title: Public opinion

text: People's judgments about issues are often based on heuristics, which are mental shortcuts that allow rational decisions to be made quickly. Heuristics apply to public opinion about domestic as well as foreign policy. The deductive heuristic is one that relies on a person's core values and social groups. Delegative heuristics are influenced by figures of authority such as the media or president.


title: Public opinion

text: Another key theory about how people form their opinions on foreign policy issues is Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley's hierarchical attitudes model. They argue that it is structured, with core values providing the basis for postures which further influence the ultimate issue position. Public opinion about foreign policy is measured in the same way that all public opinion is measured. Through polls and surveys, respondents are asked about their issue positions. Conclusions are drawn by researchers by applying the scientific method.


title: Public opinion

text: According to Robert Shapiro, public opinion and policy-making are fundamental to a democracy, which is linked to electoral accountability, meaning that the leader who was elected "will not deviate far from voters’ opinion". A problem that arises when analyzing the data collected by researchers is how these issues that are "important" are selected when collecting the data about public opinion. It is hard to determine if there has been underdevelopment of certain issues. Another concern is how elites influence public opinion by persuasion and rhetoric, ultimately shaping policy-making. These two variables are ambiguous by nature and are hard to get to any conclusions, in most cases beyond the limits of research. Other variables to look at when analyzing the opinion-policy effect are the size of the majority public, election cycle time, degree of electoral competition, and the type of issue. For example, domestic affairs public opinion will be of greater importance than that of foreign affairs because of the complexity.


title: Public opinion

text: Since presidents have the ability to influence their political agenda, it is easier for them to respond to public opinion. Since they are not an institution (like Congress), they can also "shift the standards by which the public evaluates their performance in office – away from policy concerns and towards more symbolic activities, image, and personality".


title: Public opinion

text: A study by James N. Druckman and Lawrence R. Jacobs discusses how presidents collect their information for policymaking. They found that on one hand, they collect data about the public's preference on salient matters like crime and economy. This reflects a populist type of democracy where the government portrays respect toward the people's views and they are connected. On the other hand, government institutions and elites believe the general populations’ understanding of certain issued is limited, therefore they exercise autonomy when making these decisions.


title: Public opinion

text: Baum and Kernell have stated that a challenge that modern presidents face when trying to persuade public opinion is that there is so many different types of media, that getting people's attention is hard. New media alternatives has also caused on effect on presidential leadership as they now use them to be able to communicate younger generations, but targeting small groups of people.


title: Shikhandi

text: Shikhandi () is a character in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Born as the daughter of Drupada, the King of Panchala, Shikhandi becomes a biological male after agreeing to a sex exchange with a yaksha. He is the brother of Draupadi, the female protagonist of the epic, who is the common wife of the Pandavas.


title: Shikhandi

text: Shikhandi, whose natal female identity is sometimes rendered Shikhandini, is the reincarnation of Amba, a princess who was abducted, and later spurned by Bhishma. The prince fights in the Kurukshetra War on the side of his brothers-in-law, the Pandavas, and is instrumental in causing the death of Bhishma. He also engages in combat with great warriors like Ashwatthama, Kripa, and Kritavarma.


title: Shikhandi

text: In Javanese wayang tradition, Shikhandi is known as Srikandi and is born as a male, and changes into a female. She becomes the second wife of the Pandava brother Arjuna, Draupadi being the first.


title: Shikhandi

text: In the majority of the versions of the Mahabharata, Shikhandi is described as being a princess named Amba in his previous birth. Amba was the eldest daughter of the King of Kashi. Along with her sisters, Ambika and Ambalika, she was abducted from their svayamvara by Bhishma. After defeating several kings, including King Salva, Bhishma returned to Hastinapura with the princesses, and presented them as brides to his younger half-brother, Vichitravirya, the king.


title: Shikhandi

text: Before her wedding ceremony could commence, Amba told Bhishma that she had fallen in love with the King of Salva, and was not ready to marry anyone else. Hearing this from her, Bhishma sent Amba with grandeur to her desired husband. However, Salva rejected her, stating that as Bhishma had bested him at the svayamvara, he regarded him to be her rightful husband. Amba returned to Bhishma and demanded that he marry her according to Kshatriya dharma, but Bhishma declined, due to his vow of celibacy. Lamenting her misfortune, the princess decided to retire to the forest and practise austerities for the remainder of her life. As she wandered, she came across an ashrama, and informed the sages within of her plight. One of the sages happened to be maternal grandfather, Hotravahana, who sympathised with her state of mind, and told her that Parashurama, Bhishma's martial guru, would come to her aid. Parashurama visited Hastinapura, and commanded his disciple to marry Amba. Bhishma refused to obey him, once again citing his vow. Furious, Parashurama engaged in a terrible duel against Bhishma on the field of Kurukshetra for twenty-three days, employing astras, but was unable to best him. He regretfully informed Amba of his failure to change his mind. The princess spent twelve years engaged in severe austerities, which scorched the heavens themselves. Shiva appeared to grant her a boon of her choice, and she solicited the death of Bhishma. Shiva told Amba that she would be born as a girl who would later become a man in her next life, and become a maharathi who would slay Bhishma in battle. Overjoyed, the princess lit a funeral pyre, prayed for the death of Bhishma, and self-immolated.


title: Shikhandi

text: According to an iteration by C. Rajagopalachari, she resorted to a penance and received a garland of blue lotuses from the god Kartikeya, and it was foretold that anyone wearing the garland would become the cause of Bhishma's death. She went to the Panchala, as it were a mighty empire known for its military prowess. However, no one was willing to champion her cause, fearful of antagonising Bhishma. Amba, in anger, hung the garland on the gates of King Drupada and left in agony.


title: Shikhandi

text: Due to his childlessness, King Drupada propitiated Shiva, who told the king that a girl would be born to him, who in due course, would become a man. When Shikhandi was born to Drupada's queen, she was raised and dressed as a boy. When Shikhandi reached the traditional age of maturity, Drupada decided to offer her hand in marriage to the daughter of Hiranyavarman, the King of Dasharna. Shikhandi's wife soon realised that her husband was not a man, and Hiranyavarman soon caught wind of this information. Outraged, he sent a messenger to Drupada to determine the truth, and started preparations for war with the latter. Drupada insisted that Shikhandi was indeed a man. Distressed by her parents' suffering, Shikhandi left the city, deciding to fast to death. She found a forest that humans were terrified to enter, because it was inhabited by a yaksha named Stunakarna. She entered the premises of the yaksha, and started to perform austerities. When Stunakarna enquired regarding her practices, Shikhandi told him her tale. Feeling compassionate, the yaksha offered to exchange his sex with her for a certain period of time, to which Shikhandi agreed. Shikhandi returned to his father as a man, and informed him of this incident. Relieved, Drupada invited Hiranyavarman to send envoys to inspect the manhood of his son. A number of beautiful women were dispatched by Hiranyavarman to Drupada, who confirmed Shikhandi's manhood. Thus, the two kings were able to renew their peace.


title: Shikhandi

text: When Kubera visited Stunakarna's premises, the yaksha did not greet him due to her female form. Angered, Kubera cursed the yaksha, stating that the sex exchange that had been performed would be permanent. When the yaksha begged Kubera to lift the curse, the latter told her that she would regain her true sex after the death of Shikhandi.


title: Shikhandi

text: Before the Kurukshetra War, Bhima opts for Shikandi to be the commander-in-chief of the Pandava army, as he was born to kill Bhishma, but Arjuna and Krishna prefer Dhrishtadyumna instead. Shikandi is made the commander of one of the seven akshauhinis of the Pandava army.


title: Shikhandi

text: On the first day of the war, Shikhandi confronts Ashwatthama, and both warriors wound each other several times, before withdrawing from the battle. On the seventh day of the war, he confronts Ashwatthama again, and manages to wound him on the forehead. However, an enraged Ashwatthama destroys his chariot, and wounds him badly. Luckily, Satyaki comes to his rescue.


title: Shikhandi

text: On the night of the ninth day of battle, after a decisive defeat, the Pandavas and Krishna visit Bhishma. Yudhishthira urges the grandsire to tell them how he may be slain, to prevent the devastating loss of Kshatriya lives. Bhishma informs them that it was impossible for him to be vanquished while he wielded arms; However, he would refuse to fight Shikhandi, since he was originally a woman, and Arjuna may vanquish him when he lays down his arms. So, in the next day's fight, Shikhandi rides with Arjuna, placed in the forefront of the Pandava forces. Numerous warriors of the Kaurava army attempt to stop the pair from reaching Bhishma. However, with the assault of the warriors of the Pandava army, Arjuna and Shikhandi push through, and reach Bhishma. Riding behind Shikhandi, Arjuna attacks Bhishma with a devastating volley of hundreds of arrows, the latter is unable to counter, with Shikhandi in the way. Bhishma falls from his chariot and his role in the war ends, giving up his life on the auspicious Uttaryana.


title: Shikhandi

text: On the twelfth day of the war, Shikkandi’s only son, Kshatradeva, is killed by Duryodhana’s son, Lakshmana Kumara. On the night of fourteenth day, Shikandi is defeated by Kripacharya and is wounded on the sixteenth day, and faints when Kritavarma's arrow pierces his armour. After the death of Shalya, Shikandi greatly destroys the retreating Kaurava army on the seventeenth day of the war.


title: Shikhandi

text: Shikhandi, along with the Upapandavas, are killed by Ashwatthama on the 18th day of the war. Dazed, Shikhandi is killed in a sword fight with Ashwatthama when Ashwatthama, Kripacharya, and Kritavarma attacked the Pandava camp at night.


title: Shikhandi

text: According to Devdutt Pattanaik, Ashwatthama kills Shikhandi's lover in front of him; in other versions, it is Shikhandi's partner who is butchered.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Marxist-Leninist regime in Poland after the end of World War II. These years, while featuring general industrialization, urbanization and many improvements in the standard of living, were marred by early Stalinist repressions, social unrest, political strife and severe economic difficulties.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Near the end of World War II, the advancing Soviet Red Army, along with the , pushed out the Nazi German forces from occupied Poland. In February 1945, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a provisional government of Poland from a compromise coalition, until postwar elections. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, manipulated the implementation of that ruling. A practically communist-controlled Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in Warsaw by ignoring the Polish government-in-exile based in London since 1940.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: During the subsequent Potsdam Conference in July–August 1945, the three major Allies ratified the colossal westerly shift of the Polish frontier and approved its new territory between the Oder–Neisse line and Curzon Line, which resulted in the Polish borders shrinking and resembling those of the former Piast dynasty era. Following the destruction of the Polish-Jewish population in the Holocaust, the flight and expulsion of Germans in the west, resettlement of Ukrainians in the east, and the expulsion and resettlement of Poles from the Eastern Borderlands ("Kresy"), Poland became for the first time in its history an ethnically homogeneous nation-state without prominent minorities. The new government solidified its political power, while the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) under Bolesław Bierut gained firm control over the country, which would remain an independent state within the Soviet sphere of influence. The July Constitution was promulgated on 22 July 1952 and the country officially became the Polish People's Republic (PRL).


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Following Stalin's death in 1953, a political "thaw" allowed a more liberal faction of the Polish communists, led by Władysław Gomułka, to gain power. By the mid-1960s, Poland began experiencing increasing economic as well as political difficulties. They culminated in the 1968 Polish political crisis and the 1970 Polish protests when a consumer price hike led to a wave of strikes. The government introduced a new economic program based on large-scale loans from western creditors, which resulted in a rise in living standards and expectations, but the program meant growing integration of Poland's economy with the world economy and it faltered after the 1973 oil crisis. In 1976, the government of Edward Gierek was forced to raise prices again which led to the June 1976 protests.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: This cycle of repression and reform and the economic-political struggle acquired new characteristics with the 1978 election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. Wojtyła's unexpected elevation strengthened the opposition to the authoritarian and ineffective system of "nomenklatura"-run state socialism, especially with the pope's first visit to Poland in 1979. In early August 1980, a new wave of strikes resulted in the founding of the independent trade union "Solidarity" ("Solidarność") led by Lech Wałęsa. The growing strength and activity of the opposition caused the government of Wojciech Jaruzelski to declare martial law in December 1981. However, with the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, increasing pressure from the West, and dysfunctional economy, the regime was forced to negotiate with its opponents. The 1989 Round Table Talks led to Solidarity's participation in the 1989 election. Its candidates' striking victory gave rise to the first of the succession of transitions from communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe. In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned from the presidency following the presidential election and was succeeded by Wałęsa.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Before World War II, a third of Poland's population was composed of ethnic minorities. Poland had about 35 million inhabitants in 1939, but fewer than 24 million in 1946, within the respective borders. Of the remaining population over three million were ethnic minorities, such as Germans, Ukrainians and Jews, most of whom would soon leave Poland. Poland suffered the heaviest proportionate human losses during World War II, amounting to 16–17 percent of its population. It is estimated that up to 6 million Polish citizens died from war-related causes between 1939 and 1945. The approximate figure includes 3 million Jewish-Polish victims as part of the above total. The number of ethnically Polish victims was perhaps 2 million.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The historical minorities in Poland were most significantly affected, whereas Poland's multiethnic diversity reflected in prior national censuses was all but gone within several years after the war. The Polish educated class suffered greatly. A large proportion of the country's pre-war social and political elite perished or were dispersed.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The implementation of the immense task of reconstructing the country was accompanied by the struggle of the new government to acquire centralized authority, further complicated by the mistrust a considerable part of society held for the new regime and by disputes over Poland's postwar borders, which were not firmly established until mid-1945. The Soviet forces present at that time engaged in plunder of the former eastern territories of Germany which were being transferred to Poland, stripping them of valuable industrial equipment, infrastructure and factories and sending them to the Soviet Union.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: After the Soviet annexation of the Kresy territories east of the Curzon Line, about 2 million Poles were moved, transferred or expelled from these areas into the new western and northern territories east of the Oder–Neisse line, which were transferred from Germany to Poland under the Potsdam Agreement. Others stayed in what had become the Soviet Union and more went to Poland after 1956. Additional settlement with people from central parts of Poland brought the number of Poles in what the government called the Recovered Territories up to 5 million by 1950. Most of the former German population of 10 million had fled or was expelled to post-war Germany by 1950: about 4.4 million fled in the final stages of the war and 3.5 million were removed by the Polish authorities in 1945–1949. The expulsion of the Germans was the result of the Allied decisions finalized in Potsdam.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: With the expulsion of Ukrainians and Belarusians from Poland to the Soviet Union and the 1947 Operation Vistula dispersing the remaining Ukrainians in Poland, and with most of the Polish Jews exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust and many of the survivors emigrating to the West and to newly created Israel, Poland for the first time became an ethnically homogeneous nation state. The government-imposed and spontaneous movements of people amounted to one of the greatest demographic upheavals in European history.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Unlike other European countries, Poland continued the extensive prosecution of both Nazi perpetrators and their collaborators into the 1950s. According to Alexander Prusin, Poland was the most consistent in investigating and prosecuting war crimes among the post-war communist nations; between 1944 and 1985 Polish courts tried over 20,000 defendants including 5,450 German nationals.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Poland suffered catastrophic damage to its infrastructure during the war, which caused it to lag even further behind the West in its industrial output. The losses in national resources and infrastructure amounted to over 30% of the pre-war potential. Poland's capital of Warsaw was among the most devastated cities – over 80 percent destroyed in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The Polish state acquired more highly developed western territories and lost the more economically backward eastern regions. Already in 1948 the prewar level of industrial production was exceeded in global and per capita terms during the Three-Year Plan ("Plan Trzyletni"), implemented first and fueled by the collective desire to rebuild shattered lives. The Three-Year Plan was the work of the Central Planning Office led by Czesław Bobrowski and PPR economist Hilary Minc, who declared the need to preserve elements of market capitalism. Standard of living of the population of Poland markedly improved. Soviet pressure caused the Polish government to reject the American-sponsored Marshall Plan in 1947 and to join the Soviet Union-dominated Comecon in 1949.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Warsaw and other ruined cities were cleared of rubble — mainly by hand — and rebuilt with great speed (one of the successes of the Three-Year Plan) at the expense of former German cities like Wrocław, which often provided the needed construction material. Wrocław, Gdańsk, Szczecin and other formerly German cities were also completely rebuilt.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Historian Norman Davies wrote that the new Polish frontiers, from the Polish interests point of view, entirely advantageous, but realized at the cost of enormous suffering and specious justifications. The radically new Eastern European borders constituted a "colossal feat of political engineering", but could not be derived from immemorial historical determinations, as claimed by the communist propaganda.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Already before the Red Army entered Poland, the Soviet Union was pursuing a strategy of eliminating pro-Western resistance as an organized force to ensure that Poland would fall under its sphere of influence. In 1943, following the revelation of the Katyn massacre, Stalin suspended relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London. At the February 1945 Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union agreed to allow the formation of a coalition government composed of the communists, including the Polish Workers' Party ("Polska Partia Robotnicza", PPR), as well as Polish pro-Western elements in exile and in Poland, and subsequently to arrange for free elections to be held.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: After the prewar Communist Party of Poland was eliminated in Stalin's purges in 1938 (some five thousand Polish communists were brought to Russia and killed), a group of survivors led by Marceli Nowotko, Bolesław Mołojec and Paweł Finder convinced in 1941 the Soviets in Moscow of the need to reestablish a Polish party. The conspiratorial core of the new Polish Workers' Party was assembled in Warsaw in January 1942, and after the deaths or arrests of the above leaders there, Władysław Gomułka emerged as the PPR's first secretary by the end of 1943. Gomułka was a dedicated communist in the national tradition of the Polish leftist movement. He loathed the Soviet practices he experienced while being trained in Russia and Ukraine in the 1930s, but was convinced of the historic necessity of alliance with the Soviet Union. He may have survived the purges because of being imprisoned in Poland for illegal labor-organizing activities in 1938–39. Throughout the German occupation, Gomułka remained in Poland and was not a part of the circle organized in the Soviet Union around the Union of Polish Patriots by Stalin and Wanda Wasilewska. In Polish society of 1945, Gomułka's party was marginally small in comparison to other political groups.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: With the liberation of Polish territories and the failure of the Home Army's Operation Tempest in 1944, control over what was to become post-war Poland passed from the occupying forces of Nazi Germany to the Red Army, and from the Red Army to Polish communists, who formed the Polish Committee of National Liberation ("Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego", PKWN), an early government, in existence from late July 1944 in Lublin. The Polish communists became the most influential Polish factor in the politics of emerging Poland, despite having initially minuscule popular support. The PKWN recognized the legal continuity of the March Constitution of Poland, as opposed to the April Constitution. On 6 September 1944, the PKWN issued its momentous land reform decree, the consequences of which would fundamentally alter the antiquated social and economic structure of the country. Over one million peasant families benefited from parcellation of the larger estates.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The communists, favored by the Yalta decisions, enjoyed the advantages of Soviet support within the Soviet plan of bringing Eastern Europe firmly under the influence of the Soviet Union; they exercised control over crucial government departments, such as the security services (security was in the hands of the Soviet NKVD until its Polish counterparts were developed). Beginning in the later part of 1944, following the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising and the promotion of the populist program of the PKWN, the London exiled government's delegation was increasingly seen by the majority of Poles as a failed enterprise, its political-military organizations became isolated, and the resistance against the new communist political and administrative forces decisively weakened. The population was tired of the years of oppression and conflict and the ideas expressed in the PKWN Manifesto and their progressive implementation attracted widening social support. Beyond the land reform, the PKWN Manifesto foresaw no further radical ownership changes and nationalization of industry was not mentioned. On the contrary, business property was supposed to return to its owners as the economic relations become properly regulated. From 1944 in liberated areas, responding to promulgated slogans, workers spontaneously took over existing factory installations, established workers' councils, undertook reconstruction, activation and production. A considerable labor struggle and compulsion were necessary for the PPR to claim the factories and enforce its own rules.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The PKWN was reshaped into the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland ("Rząd Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej", RTRP), which functioned from January 1945. This government was headed by Edward Osóbka-Morawski, a socialist, but the communists, mostly non-PPR Soviet employees such as Michał Rola-Żymierski, held a majority of key posts. In April 1945, a Polish-Soviet treaty of friendship and cooperation was signed; it severely limited the possibilities of future Western or émigré impact or internal cooperation with non-communist political forces in Poland. The consecutive early Soviet-influenced governments were subordinate to the unelected, communist-controlled parliament, the State National Council ("Krajowa Rada Narodowa", KRN), formed by Gomułka and his PPR in occupied Warsaw in January 1944. The communist governmental structures were not recognized by the increasingly isolated Polish government-in-exile, which had formed its own quasi-parliament, the Council of National Unity ("Rada Jedności Narodowej", RJN).


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The Yalta agreement stipulated a governmental union in Poland of "all democratic and anti-Nazi elements". Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk of the Polish government-in-exile resigned his post in November 1944 and having accepted the Yalta terms went to Moscow, where he negotiated with Bolesław Bierut the shape of a "national unity" government". Mikołajczyk, along with several other exiled Polish leaders, returned to Poland in July 1945.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity ("Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej", TRJN) — as the Polish government was called until the elections of 1947 — was established on 28 June 1945. Osóbka-Morawski was kept as prime minister, Gomułka became first deputy prime minister and Mikołajczyk second deputy and minister of agriculture. The government was "provisional" and the Potsdam Conference soon declared that before a regular government is created, free elections must be held and a permanent constitutional system established.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The communists' principal rivals were veteran activists of the Polish Underground State, Mikołajczyk's Polish People's Party ("Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe", PSL), and veterans of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Of particular practical importance was Mikołajczyk's People's Party (originally a peasant formation), because it was legally recognized by the communists and thus able to function within the political arena. The People's Party wanted to prevent the communists from monopolizing power and eventually establish a parliamentary polity with a market economy by winning the promised elections. Mikołajczyk hoped that an independent Polish state, friendly with the Soviet Union, would be allowed to act as a bridge between the East and the West.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Soviet-oriented parties, backed by the Soviet Red Army and in control of the security forces, held most of the power, concentrated especially in the Polish Workers' Party under Gomułka and Bierut. Bierut represented the influx of appointees to the Polish party coming (during and after the war) from the Soviet Union and imposed by the Soviets, a process accelerated at the time of the PPR Congress of December 1945. The party's membership dramatically increased from perhaps a few thousand in early 1945 to over one million in 1948.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: As a show of Soviet domination, sixteen prominent leaders of the Polish anti-Nazi underground were brought to trial in Moscow in June 1945. Their removal from the political scene precluded the possibility of a democratic transition called for by the Yalta agreements. The trial of the defendants, falsely and absurdly accused of collaboration with the Nazis, was watched by British and American diplomats without protest. The absence of the expected death sentences was their relief. The exiled government in London, after Mikołajczyk's resignation led by Tomasz Arciszewski, ceased to be officially recognized by Great Britain and the United States on 5 July 1945.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: In the years 1945–47, about 500,000 Soviet soldiers were stationed in Poland. Between 1945 and 1948, some 150,000 Poles were imprisoned by the Soviet authorities. Many former Home Army members were apprehended and executed. During the PPR Central Committee Plenum of May 1945, Gomułka complained that the Polish masses regard the Polish communists as the "NKVD's worst agency" and Edward Ochab declared the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Poland a high priority. But in the meantime tens of thousands of Poles died in the postwar struggle and persecution and tens of thousands were sentenced by courts on fabricated and arbitrary charges or deported to the Soviet Union. The status of Soviet troops in Poland was not legalized until late 1956, when the Polish-Soviet declaration "On the legal status of Soviet forces temporarily stationed in Poland" was signed. The Soviet Northern Group of Forces would be permanently stationed in Poland.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Stalin had promised at the Yalta Conference that free elections would be held in Poland. However, the Polish communists, led by Gomułka and Bierut, while having no intention of giving up power, were also aware of the limited support they enjoyed among the general population. To circumvent this difficulty, in 1946 a national plebiscite, known as the "Three Times Yes" referendum ("Trzy razy tak"), was held first, before the parliamentary elections. The referendum comprised three fairly general, but politically charged questions about the Senate, national industries and western borders. It was meant to check and promote the popularity of communist initiatives in Poland. Since most of the important parties at the time were leftist or centrist – and could have easily approved all three options – Mikołajczyk's Polish People's Party (PSL) decided, not to be seen as merging into the government bloc, to ask its supporters to oppose the first one: the abolition of the Senate. The communists voted "Three Times Yes". The partial results, reconstructed by the PSL, showed that the communist side was met with little support on the first question. However, after a campaign marked by electoral fraud and intimidation the communists claimed large majorities on all three questions, which led to the nationalization of industry and state control of economic activity in general, and a unicameral national parliament ("Sejm").


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The communists consolidated power by gradually whittling away the rights of their non-communist foes, particularly by suppressing the leading opposition party – Mikołajczyk's PSL. In some widely publicized cases, the perceived enemies were sentenced to death on trumped up charges — among them Witold Pilecki, the organizer of the Auschwitz resistance. Leaders of the Home Army and of the Council of National Unity were persecuted. Many resistance fighters were murdered extrajudicially or forced to exile. The opposition members were also harassed by administrative means. Although the ongoing persecution of the former anti-Nazi and right-wing organizations by state security kept some partisans in the forests, the actions of the Ministry of Public Security (known as the UB, Department of Security), NKVD and the Red Army steadily diminished their numbers. The right-wing insurgency radically decreased after the amnesty of July 1945 and faded after the amnesty of February 1947.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: By 1946, all rightist parties had been outlawed, and a new pro-government Democratic Bloc was formed in 1947 which included only the Polish Workers' Party and its leftist allies. On 19 January 1947, the first parliamentary elections took place featuring primarily the PPR and allied candidates and a potentially politically potent opposition from the Polish People's Party. However, the PSL's strength and role had already been seriously compromised due to government control and persecution. Election results were adjusted by Stalin to suit the communists, whose bloc claimed 80% of the votes. The British and American governments protested the poll for its blatant violations of the Yalta and Potsdam accords. The rigged elections effectively ended the multiparty system in Poland's politics. After the referendum dress rehearsal, this time the vote fraud was much better concealed and spread into various forms and stages and its actual scale is not known. With all the pressure and manipulations, an NKVD colonel charged with election supervision reported to Stalin that about 50% of the vote was cast for the regime's Democratic Bloc nationwide. In the new "Sejm", out of 444 seats, 27 were given to the Polish People's Party of Stanisław Mikołajczyk. He, having declared the results to be falsified, was threatened with arrest or worse and fled the country in October 1947, helped by the US Embassy; other opposition leaders also left. In February, the new "Sejm" created the Small Constitution of 1947. Over the next two years, the communists monopolized political power in Poland.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Additional force in Polish politics, the long-established Polish Socialist Party ("Polska Partia Socjalistyczna", PPS), suffered a fatal split at this time, as the ruling Stalinists applied the salami tactics to dismember the opposition. Communist politicians cooperated with the left-wing PPS faction led by Józef Cyrankiewicz, prime minister under new president Bierut from February 1947. The socialists' originally tactical decision to collaborate with the communists resulted in their institutional demise. Cyrankiewicz visited Stalin in Moscow in March 1948 to discuss the idea of a party merger. The Kremlin, increasingly uncomfortable with Gomułka's communist party leadership, concurred, and Cyrankiewicz secured his own political place for the future (until 1972). In December 1948, after the removal of Gomułka and imposition of Bierut as the communist Polish Workers' Party chief, the PPR and Cyrankiewicz's rump PPS joined ranks to form the Polish United Workers' Party ("Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza", PZPR), in power for the next four decades. Poland became a "de facto" one-party state and a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Only two other parties were allowed to exist legally: the United People's Party (ZSL) that had split from Mikołajczyk's PSL and was meant to represent rural communities, and the Alliance of Democrats (SD), a token intelligentsia party (see also: List of political parties in Poland).


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: As the period of Sovietization and Stalinism began, the PZPR was anything but united. The most important split among the communists occurred before the union with the PPS, when the Stalinists forced Gomułka out of the PPR's top office and suppressed his native communist faction. The PZPR became divided into several factions, which espoused different views and methods and sought different degrees of the Polish state's distinction and independence from the Soviet Union. While Marxism–Leninism, the official ideology, was new to Poland, the communist regime continued, in many psychologically and practically important ways, the precepts, methods and manners of past Polish ruling circles, including those of the Sanation, the National Democracy, and 19th century traditions of cooperation with the partitioning powers.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: With Poland being a member of the Soviet Bloc, the party's pursuits of power and reform were permanently hindered by the restrictions and limits imposed by the rulers of the Soviet Union, by the resentful attitude of Polish society, conscious of its lack of national independence and freedoms, and by the understanding of the party managers that their positions would terminate once they stop conforming to the requirements of the Soviet alliance (because of both the lack of public support and Soviet reaction). Poland's political history was governed by the mutual dependence of the Soviets and the Polish communists.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The "nomenklatura" political elite developed. It comprised leaders, administrators and managers within the ruling party structure, in all branches of central and local government and in institutions of all kinds. "Nomenklatura" members were appointed by the party and exercised political control in all spheres of public life, for example economic development, industry management, or education. For the party, the privileged "nomenklatura" layer was maintained to assure the proper placement of people who were ideologically reliable and otherwise qualified, but the revisionist dissidents Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski later described this system as a class dictatorship of central political bureaucracy for its own sake. The Polish public widely approved the many social undertakings of the communist government, including family apartment construction, child care, worker vacation and resorts, health care and full employment policies, but the special privileges granted "nomenklatura" and the security services were resented.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: As in other Eastern Bloc countries, there was a Soviet-style political purge of communist officials in Poland after 1948, accused of "nationalist" or other "deviationist" tendencies. The half-hearted in Poland campaign included the arrests and imprisonments of Marian Spychalski from May 1950, and Michał Rola-Żymierski five months after Stalin's death. In September 1948 Władysław Gomułka, who opposed Stalin's direct control of the Polish PPR party, was charged, together with a group of communist leaders who like Gomułka spent the war in Poland, with ideological departure from Leninism, and dismissed from the post of the party's first secretary. Gomułka, accused of "right-wing nationalist deviations", had indeed emphasized the Polish socialist traditions and severely criticized Rosa Luxemburg's Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) party for belittling Polish national aspirations. More insidiously, the Soviets claimed Gomułka's participation in an anti-Soviet international conspiracy. Following Bolesław Bierut's order, he was arrested by the Ministry of Public Security (MBP) in early August 1951 and interrogated by Roman Romkowski and Anatol Fejgin, as demanded by the Soviets. Gomułka was not subjected to physical torture unlike other communists persecuted under the regime of Bierut, Jakub Berman, and other Stalin's associates. Under interrogation he defiantly conducted his defense, threatened to reveal "the whole truth" if put on a trial and remained unbroken. Gomułka was thus placed in prison without a typical show trial (he was released in December 1954). Bierut replaced Gomułka as the PPR (and then the PZPR) leader. Gomułka remained protected by his Polish comrades to the best of their ability and the record of his sometime defiance came in handy when in 1956 there was an opportunity for the Polish party to reassert itself.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The Stalinist government was controlled by Polish communists originating from wartime factions and organizations operating in the Soviet Union under Stalin, such as the Union of Polish Patriots. Their leaders at that time included Wanda Wasilewska and Zygmunt Berling. Now in Poland, those who remained politically active and in favor ruled the country, aided by the MBP and Soviet "advisers", who were placed in every arm of the government and state security as a guarantee of pro-Soviet policy of the state. The most important of them was Konstantin Rokossovsky ("Konstanty Rokossowski" in Polish), defense minister of Poland from 1949 to 1956, Marshal of the Soviet Union and war hero. Military conscription was introduced following a postwar hiatus and the army soon reached its permanent size of 400,000 men.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The Soviet-style secret police including the Department of Security (UB) grew to around 32,000 agents as of 1953. At its Stalinist peak, there was one UB agent for every 800 Polish citizens. The MBP was also in charge of the Internal Security Corps, the Civil Militia (MO), border guard, prison staff and paramilitary police ORMO used for special actions (with over 100,000 members). The ORMO originated from popular self-defense efforts, which were a spontaneous reaction to the explosion of crime in the power vacuum of 1944–45. In February 1946, the PPR channeled and formalized this citizen militia movement, creating its ostensibly crime control voluntary ORMO structure.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Primarily in Stalin's lifetime, public prosecutors and judges as well as functionaries of the Ministry of Public Security and the Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army engaged in acts recognized by international law as crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. One example was the 1951 Mokotów Prison execution in Warsaw of members of the Freedom and Independence (WiN) organization, former participants in anti-Nazi resistance, after the official amnesty and their voluntary disclosure. The postwar Polish Army, intelligence and police were staffed with Soviet NKVD officers who stationed in Poland with the Northern Group of Forces until 1956.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Mass arrests continued during the early 1950s. In October 1950, 5,000 people were arrested in one night in the so-called "Operation K". In 1952, over 21,000 people were arrested. By the second half of 1952, according to official data, 49,500 political prisoners were being held. Former Home Army commander Emil August Fieldorf was subjected to several years of brutal persecution in the Soviet Union and Poland before being executed in February 1953, just before Stalin's death.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Resistance to the Soviet and native Stalinists was widespread among not only the general population but also the PZPR ranks, which limited the oppressive system's damage in Poland to well below that of other European communist-ruled countries. According to Norman Davies, political violence after 1947 was not widespread. The Church, subjected to partial property confiscations, remained largely intact, the marginalized to a considerable degree intelligentsia retained its potential to affect future reforms, the peasantry avoided wholesale collectivization and remnants of private enterprise survived. Gradual liberalizing changes took place between Stalin's death in 1953 and the Polish October of 1956.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: In February 1948, Minister of Industry Hilary Minc, a Marxist economist, attacked the Central Planning Office of Poland as a "bourgeois" remnant, the office was abolished and the Polish Stalinist economy was born. The government, headed by President Bierut, Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz and Minc, embarked on a sweeping program of economic reform and national reconstruction. Poland was brought into line with the Soviet model of a "people's republic" and centrally planned command economy, in place of the façade of democracy and partial market economy which the regime had maintained until 1948.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The relationships of ownership of the industry, the banking sector and rural property after the nationalization and the land reform were fundamentally altered. The changes, implemented in the name of egalitarianism, enjoyed broad societal approval and support.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The structure of Polish economy was established in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. Soviet-style planning begun in 1950 with the Six-Year Plan. The plan focused on rapid development of heavy industry ("accelerated industrialization", after the outbreak of the Korean War driven by Soviet military demands at the expense of many cancelled consumer-oriented investments) and the (eventually futile) collectivization of agriculture. Among the main projects was the Lenin Steelworks and its supporting "socialist city" of Nowa Huta (New Steel Mill), both built from the scratch in the early 1950s near Kraków, of which Nowa Huta soon became a part. The land seized from prewar large landowners was redistributed to the poorer peasants, but subsequent attempts at taking the land from farmers for collectivization met wide resentment. In what became known as the battle for trade, the private trade and industry were nationalized. Within few years most private shops disappeared. The regime embarked on the campaign of collectivization (State Agricultural Farms were created), although the paceA of this change was slower than in other Soviet satellites. Poland remained the only Eastern Bloc country where individual peasants would continue to dominate agriculture. A Soviet-Polish trade treaty, initiated in January 1948, dictated the dominant direction of Poland's future foreign trade and economic cooperation.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: In 1948, the United States announced the Marshall Plan initiative to help rebuild postwar Europe and thus gain more political power there. After initially welcoming the idea of Poland's participation in the plan, the Polish government declined the American offer under pressure from Moscow. Also, following the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, Poland was forced by the Soviet Union to give up its claims to compensation from Germany, which as a result paid no significant compensation for war damages, either to the Polish state or to Polish citizens. Poland received compensation in the form of land and property left behind by the German population of the annexed western territories.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: Despite the lack of American aid, the East European "command economies", including Poland, made some progress in bridging the historically existing wealth gap with the market economy driven Western Europe. Because of the capital accumulation, the Polish national income grew in real terms by over 76% and the agricultural and industrial production more than doubled between 1947 and 1950. The economic transition and industrialization were accompanied and made possible by massive social transformations, as peasants migrated and were converted into city dwelling working class (1.8 million between 1946 and 1955) and the country went through a period of rapid urbanization (total population of the cities increased by 3.1 million). The influx of cheap labor and the availability of the Soviet market facilitated an accumulation of resources, despite low productivity and insufficient investment in new technologies. The centrally planned socialist economies of Eastern Europe in terms of growth during the postwar years did relatively better than the West, only to sustain economic damage later, especially after the 1973 oil crisis. However, the rise in living standards caused by the earlier industrial dynamics was not comparable to that in the West.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The last Polish–Soviet territorial exchange took place in 1951. Some of land along the border were swapped between Poland and the Soviet Union.


title: History of Poland (1945–1989)

text: The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic was promulgated in July 1952 and the state officially became the Polish People's Republic (PRL). Among the rights it guaranteed was universal free health care. The large state-owned enterprises provided to employees an extensive range of welfare and leisure activities, including housing, sports facilities and hospitals, which started to diminish in the 1970s. In the early 1950s, the Stalinist regime also carried out major changes to the education system. The program of free and compulsory school education for all and the establishment of free institutions of higher learning received much support. The communists screened out what facts and interpretations were to be taught; history and other sciences had to follow Marxist views approved by ideological censorship. During 1951–53, a large number of prewar professors who were perceived by the regime as reactionary was dismissed from universities. Government control over art and artists deepened. The Soviet-style socialist realism became the only formula accepted by the authorities after 1949. Most works of art and literature represented propaganda of the party or had to be in line with its views. (See also: Socialist realism in Poland)