WiN i ruch narodowy wobec wyborów do Sejmu Ustawodawczego w 1947 r.

Abstract

In accordance with the decisions made at the conference of the Great Powers held in Yalta in February 1945, the Provisional National Unity Government, created several months later (in June), was to conduct elections to the Legislative Sejm. In a country subjugated by the Soviet Union, the activity pursued by Polish communists, steered by Moscow, led to the ousting from the election campaign of the National Party, the Polish Socialist Party, and the „sanacja”, whose members remained abroad or were relegated underground. The ensuing three extremities of political life were the communist camp headed by the Polish Workers Party, the legal opposition (the Polish Peasant Party and a fragment of the Labour Party) and the Underground, whose strongest members were WiN (Freedom and Independence) and the national camp. Leaders of the legal opposition, headed by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, and certain members of the Underground claimed that support rendered by the West would enable them to win the elections and deprive the communists of power. With time, and in the face of growing terror, an increasing number of people became aware of the character of the new totalitarian system, which aimed at a complete elimination of the opposition and an enslavement of society. In that situation, a free parliamentary election, recognised in the West as the norms of political life, did not take place and its outcome was meaningless. The opposition, without effective Anglo-American backing, lost. Such a course of events was anticipated by a rising number of members of the Underground, emigres and even the Polish Peasant Party already from the turn of 1945, and predominantly after the referendum held in June 1946. Nonetheless, the struggle was continued. What were its participants counting on? The last aspiration seemed to attached to growing tension on the international arena, which could lead to a war between the West and the Soviet Union. It was expected that as a result of such a confrontation, the Western powers would vanquish the Soviet Union and Poland - regain her independence. From the present-day viewpoint such prospects appear to be entirely unrealistic, but at that time it was not quite clear whether Stalin was not readying himself for a new war against the West. Much seemed to indicate that this was the case. It should be also kept in mind that this particular generation remembered the first world war when the defeat of Russia and other partitioning powers enabled Poland to recover her independence. Presumably, it was hoped that history would repeat itself.