1947 Polish parliamentary election

none October 2025 Poland 1928 legislative 1938 Polish parliamentary election 1938 1952 Polish parliamentary election 1952 All 444 seats in the Sejm 1947 01 17 y Prezydent Bierut 1947 (cropped).png 211 120 160 15 45 center Bolesław Bierut Democratic Bloc ED1C24 394 9,003,682 80.07% Mikolajczyk.jpg 130 120 160 0 9 center Stanisław Mikołajczyk Polish People's Party (1945–1949) 28 1,154,847 10.27% Tadeusz Michejda 001.jpg 118 120 160 0 0 center Tadeusz Michejda Labour Faction (1937) 007FFF 12 530,979 4.72% Bronisław Drzewiecki Polish People's Party "Nowe Wyzwolenie" 80461B 7 397,754 3.54% Premier Premier Edward Osóbka-Morawski Polish Socialist Party Józef Cyrankiewicz Polish Socialist Party Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 19 January 1947,Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1491 978-3-8329-5609-7 the first since World War II. According to the official results, the Democratic Bloc (Blok Demokratyczny), dominated by the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and also including the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), People's Party (SL), Democratic Party (SD), and non-partisan candidates officially received 80% of the vote and 394 of the 444 seats in the Legislative Sejm. The largest opposition party, the Polish People's Party, was officially credited with 28 seats; however, the elections were characterized by violence; anti-Communist opposition candidates and activists were persecuted by the Volunteer Reserve Militia (ORMO).http://www.polityka.pl/historia/1513094,1,jak-ormo-czuwalo.read Jak ORMO czuwało Polityka.pl Historia February 20, 2011 Sep 2, 2013 Piotr Osęka pl The elections were heavily manipulated,Nohlen & Stöver, p1475 and the opposition claimed that it would have won in a landslide had the election been conducted in a fair manner.Janusz Wrona (ed.), Kampania wyborcza i wybory do Sejmu Ustawodawczego 19 stycznia 1947 (Elections campaign and the elections to the Legislative Sejm of 19 January 1947), Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, 1999 83-7059-322-4 September 2020 The election gave the Soviets, as well as the Communist-dominated Polish satellite government,https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/countries/pl/pl_overview.html Commanding Heights : Poland Overview | on PBS PBS 1990-01-01 2009-08-22 enough legitimacy to claim that Poland was "free and democratic", thus allowing Poland to sign the charter of the United Nations.Stephen Schlesinger, Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations, Westview Press, 2003, 0-8133-3324-5 "On January 19, 1947, the first Polish elections were held. They were widely seen as fraudulent." Google Print, p.225 Background By 1946, Poland was mostly under the control of the Soviet Union and its proxies, the PPR. In 1946, the Communists already tested their strength by falsifying the "3xYES Referendum",Tom Buchanan, Europe's Troubled Peace, 1945-2000: 1945-2000, Blackwell Publishing, 2005, 0-631-22162-X, "...the elections of January 1947 [...] were clearly rigged."Google Print, p.84 and banning the vast majority of right-wing parties (under the pretext of their pro-Nazi stance). By 1947, the only remaining legal opposition was the Polish People's Party (PSL) of Stanisław Mikołajczyk.http://www.bartleby.com/65/po/Poland.html Poland. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05 2006-05-15 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20060420161118/http://www.bartleby.com/65/po/Poland.html 2006-04-20 http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/longhist6.html The Historical Setting: The Polish People's Republic Info-poland.buffalo.edu 2009-08-22 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20090615172355/http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/longhist6.html 2009-06-15 The Yalta agreement called for "free and unfettered" elections in Poland. However, the Kremlin and the PPR had no intention of permitting an honest election. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was well aware that if Poland held a free election, it would result in an anti-Soviet government. Conditioned in part by the Hungarian Communists' weak showing in 1945, the PPR proposed to present voters with a single list from all of the legal parties in the country. The PSL rejected this proposal almost out of hand. Eventually, only the PPS, SD and SL joined the Democratic Bloc.https://books.google.com/books?id=U2O2AgAAQBAJ&q=Poland+Communist+dominated+list&pg=PA1887 Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945-1996 Wrobel Piotr 2014 Routledge 9781135927011 Every electoral district had Democratic Bloc's candidates on List 3. The January 1947 elections held under the supervision of the PPR fell well short of being "free and unfettered". The PPR, under the leadership of general secretary Władysław Gomułka, embarked on a ruthless campaign to snuff out the PSL and all other potential opposition. Electoral laws introduced before the elections allowed the government – which since its establishment in 1944 by the Polish Committee of National Liberation had been dominated by the Communists – to remove 409,326 people from the electoral rolls,Instytut Pamięci Narodowej Pełna treść artykułu http://ipn.gov.pl/kalendarium-historyczne/sfalszowane-wybory-19-stycznia-1947-roku/pelna-tresc-artykulu dead https://web.archive.org/web/20150408154348/http://ipn.gov.pl/kalendarium-historyczne/sfalszowane-wybory-19-stycznia-1947-roku/pelna-tresc-artykulu 2015-04-08 2021-11-12 Instytut Pamięci Narodonowej as "anti-government bandits" (i.e. the Home Army and other Polish resistance movements loyal to the Polish government in exile). Over 80,000 members of the Polish People's Party were arrested under various false charges in the month preceding the election,July 2019 and around 100 of them were murdered by the Polish Secret Police (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, UB).Barbara Polak, Do wyborów w 1947 r. PSL wchodzi już mocno osłabione. CENA WYGRANEJ. Biuletyn IPN, Nr 1 - 1.2002. pl 98 opposition parliamentary candidates were also crossed from the registration lists under these accusations. In some regions the government disqualified the entire People's Party list under various technical and legal pretenses, most commonly in regions known to be People's Party strongholds. The electoral fraud was organized and closely monitored by UB specialists, who worked closely with their Soviet counterparts like Aron Palkin ru Палкин, Арон Моисеевич and Semyon Davydov, both high-ranking officers from the Soviet MGB. Bolesław Bierut, head of the provisional Polish parliament (State National Council) and acting president, asked for Soviet assistance in the election.Nikita Pietrow http://www.wprost.pl/ar/?O=88365 Wprost 24 - Wybory Pałkina Wprost.pl 2009-08-22 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20110607145846/http://www.wprost.pl/ar/?O=88365 2011-06-07 Over 40% of the members of the electoral commissions who were supposed to monitor the voting were recruited by the UB.Co to jest RSS? http://wiadomosci.polska.pl/kalendarz/kalendarium/article.htm?id=79742 Kalendarium wydarzeń - Kalendarium - Polska.pl Wiadomosci.polska.pl 2009-08-22 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20080422203141/http://wiadomosci.polska.pl/kalendarz/kalendarium/article.htm?id=79742 2008-04-22 Conduct Opposition candidates and activists were persecuted until election day; only the PPR and its allies were allowed to campaign unhindered.February 2023 The publicized results were falsified, with the official results known to selected government officials long before the actual elections took place and any votes were counted.http://www.konstytucje.pl/pub/t024.htm Pułkownik Pałkin raportuje: Sfałszowanie wyborów w Polsce nie zbulwersowało opinii Zachodu Konstytucje.pl https://web.archive.org/web/20060928005001/http://www.konstytucje.pl/pub/t024.htm 2006-09-28 2009-08-22 The real results were not known to anyone.February 2023 In areas where the government had sufficient control, some of the ballot boxes were simply destroyed without being counted, or exchanged with boxes filled with prepared votes. Where possible, government officials simply filled in the numbers in the relevant documents as per instructions from Soviet and PPR officials without bothering to count the real votes. A Time article covering the elections noted in its lead paragraph: "In a spirit of partisan exuberance tempered with terror, Poland approached its first nationwide popular election, ten days hence. By last week most of the combined opposition (Socialist and Polish Peasant Party) candidates had been jailed, and their supporters more or less completely cowed by the secret police, by striking their names from voting lists and by arrest. The Communist-dominated Government ventured to predict an 'overwhelming' victory."POLAND: Free Election http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,855579,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050220063938/http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,855579,00.html dead February 20, 2005 TIME 1947-01-13 2009-08-22 Historian Piotr Wrobel wrote that this election saw "the highest level of repression and terror" that was ever seen during the four decades of Communist rule in Poland. Results File:Polish Parliament_1947.svg Democratic Bloc 5 Polish Socialist Party 9003682 5 116 Polish Workers' Party 114 People’s Party 109 #008000 Alliance of Democrats 41 #6495ED Independents 14 Polish People's Party 1154847 28 Labour Faction 530979 12 Polish People’s Party "New Liberation" 397754 7 Independents 157611 3 y 96610 12701058 , Wybory do Sejmu Ustawodawczego 19.01.1947 2021-09-02 sztetl.org.pl https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/slownik/wybory-do-sejmu-ustawodawczego-19011947 Nohlen & Stöver In his post-election report to Stalin, Pałkin estimated that the real results (i.e. votes cast) gave the Democratic Bloc about 50% of the vote. The opposition contended that it had the support of 63 percent of the voting population, and would have received about 80% of the votes,Dariusz Baliszewski http://www.wprost.pl/ar/?O=81483&C=57 Wprost 24 - Demokracja urn Wprost.pl 2009-08-22 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20090208220802/http://www.wprost.pl/ar/?O=81483&C=57 2009-02-08 had the elections been free and fair. The only official electoral document known to exist showed the PSL taking 54 percent of the vote in Kielce Voivodeship to the Democratic Bloc's 44 percent. Aftermath thumb|President Bierut, 1947 Many members of opposition parties, including Mikołajczyk who would have likely become the Prime Minister of Poland had the election been honest,Alexander Cockburn, The Golden Age Is in Us: Journeys and Encounters, 1987-1994, Verso, 1997, 0-86091-664-2 "By January [1947...] the fixed Polish election that sent the Peasant Party leader Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who probably should have won, into exile."Google Print, p.157 saw no hope in further struggle; fearing for their lives, they left the country. Western governments issued only token protests, if any, which led many anti-Communist Poles to speak of postwar "Western betrayal". In the same year, the new Communist-dominated legislative Sejm adopted the Small Constitution of 1947, and Bierut, who was also a Soviet citizen, was elected president by the parliament. With the support of a majority in its own right and the departure of Mikołajczyk, the Communist-dominated government set about consolidating its now-total control over the country—a process completed in 1948, when the Communists forced what remained of the Polish Socialist Party to merge with them to form the Polish United Workers' Party.Poland at Encyclopedia Britannicahttp://www.poloniatoday.com/history13.htm Polish History - Part 13 Poloniatoday.com 2009-08-22 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20080117214309/http://www.poloniatoday.com/history13.htm January 17, 2008 Gomułka wanted to adapt the Soviet blueprint to Polish circumstances, and believed it was possible to be both a Communist and a Polish patriot at the same time. He was also wary of the Cominform and opposed forced collectivization of agriculture. His line was branded as "rightist-nationalist deviation", and he was pushed out as party leader in 1948 in favour of Bierut.Boleslaw Bierut at Encyclopedia Britannica The PSL lingered on for a year and a half under increasing harassment. In 1949, the rump of the PSL merged with the pro-Communist People's Party to form the United People's Party.David Ost, Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics, pp. 34-36, 1990 Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 0-87722-655-5 Along with the other legal minor party in Poland, the Democratic Party, it was part of the Communist-led coalition; however, this grouping increasingly took on a character similar to other "coalitions" in the Communist world. The ZSL and SD were reduced to being mostly subservient satellites of the Communists, and were required to accept the Communists' "leading role" as a condition of their continued existence.Poland: a country study. Library of Congress Federal Research Division, December 1989. As a result, this would be the last election in which true opposition parties would be even nominally allowed to take part until the partly free election of 1989. See also History of Poland#Post-war struggle for power References Further reading Michał Skoczylas, Wybory do Sejmu Ustawodawczego z 19 stycznia 1947 roku w świetle skarg ludności (Elections to the Legislative Sejm on 19 January 1947 in the light of citizens complains), TRIO, 2003, 83-88542-43-5 Jerzy Drygalski, Jacek Kwasniewski, No-Choice Elections, Soviet Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 295–315, JSTOR Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy the History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000, Oxford University Press, 2002, 0-19-504479-7 "In January 1947, manifestly rigged Polish elections gave Communists 80.1% of the vote..."Google Print, p.300 George Sakwa, Martin Crouch, Sejm Elections in Communist Poland: An Overview and a Reappraisal, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Oct., 1978), pp. 403–424, Richard F. Staar, Elections in Communist Poland, Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. 2, No. 2 (May, 1958), pp. 200–218, JSTOR Nikita Petrov, The Role of the MGB of USSR in the Sovietization of Poland: the Referendum and Sejm Elections in 1946-1947 () Davies Norman God's Playground: A History of Poland, Volume II, 1795 to the Present 1981 Clarendon Press Oxford 019-822592-X 569–570, 575 External links Results of the 1947 elections pl Pułkownik Pałkin raportuje: Sfałszowanie wyborów w Polsce nie zbulwersowało opinii Zachodu. pl Sfałszowane wybory – 19 stycznia 1947 roku pl Jak sfałszowano pierwsze powojenne wybory, Polityka, 20 stycznia 2007 r. pl Wybory 1947, Institute of National Remembrance Category:Electoral fraud in Poland Poland Category:Parliamentary elections in Poland Category:Stalinism in Poland Category:Elections in the Polish People's Republic Poland Parliamentary Category:Soviet involvement in regime change Category:Russian foreign electoral intervention