1947 Polish parliamentary election

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

1947 Polish parliamentary election
← 1938 17 January 1947 (1947-01-17) 1952 →
All 444 seats in the Sejm
  Majority party Minority party
 
Prezydent Bierut 1947 (cropped).png
Mikolajczyk.jpg
Leader Bolesław Bierut Stanisław Mikołajczyk
Party Democratic Bloc PSL
Seats won 394 28
Popular vote 9,003,682 1,154,847
Percentage 80.07% 10.27%
  Third party Fourth party
 
Tadeusz Michejda 001.jpg
Leader Tadeusz Michejda Bronisław Drzewiecki
Party SP PSL "NW"
Seats won 12 7
Popular vote 530,979 397,754
Percentage 4.72% 3.54%
Premier before election

Edward Osóbka-Morawski
PPS

Premier

Józef Cyrankiewicz
PPS

Politics of Poland
Government
Legislature

  • Deputy Marshals
Executive
Judiciary
Elections
Political parties
Administrative divisions
Foreign relations
  • Ambassadors
Related topics

Parliamentary elections were held in

anti-communist opposition candidates and activists were persecuted by the Volunteer Reserve Militia (ORMO).[3] The elections were heavily manipulated,[4] and the opposition claimed that it would have won in a landslide had the election been conducted in a fair manner.[5][2][6]

The election gave the Soviets and the communist-dominated Polish

satellite government[7] enough legitimacy to claim that Poland was 'free and democratic', thus allowing Poland to sign the charter of the United Nations.[8]

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

Nazi stance). By 1947 the only remaining legal opposition was the Polish People's Party (PSL) of Stanisław Mikołajczyk.[10][11]

The

Yalta agreement called for "free and unfettered" elections in Poland.[12] 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.[2] 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.[2]
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."

Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, UB).[14] 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.[14]

The electoral fraud was organized and closely monitored by UB specialists, who worked closely with their Soviet counterparts like

MGB. Bolesław Bierut, head of the provisional Polish parliament (State National Council) and acting president, asked for Soviet assistance in the election.[15] Over 40% of the members of the electoral commissions who were supposed to monitor the voting were recruited by the UB.[16]

Conduct

Opposition candidates and activists were persecuted until election day; only the PPR and its allies were allowed to campaign unhindered.[citation needed] The publicized results were falsified,[5] with the official results known to selected government officials long before the actual elections took place and any votes were counted.[17]

The real results were not known to anyone.[citation needed] In areas where the government had sufficient control, some of the ballot boxes were simply destroyed without being counted,[14] or exchanged with boxes filled with prepared votes.[15] 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.[15]

A Time Magazine 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."[18] 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.[2]

Results

PartyVotes%Seats
Democratic Bloc9,003,68280.07394
Polish People's Party1,154,84710.2728
Labour Faction530,9794.7212
Polish People's Party "Nowe Wyzwolenie"397,7543.547
Local lists157,6111.403
Total11,244,873100.00444
Valid votes11,244,87399.15
Invalid/blank votes96,6100.85
Total votes11,341,483100.00
Registered voters/turnout12,701,05889.30
Source: 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.[17] The opposition contended that it had the support of 63 percent of the voting population[2] and would have received about 80% of the votes[6] 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.[2]

Aftermath

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[19] – saw no hope in further struggle and, fearing for their lives, left the country.[9] 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 citizen of the USSR, 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.[12][20]

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

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.[21][2]

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

leading role" as a condition of their continued existence.[23] 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

References

  1. ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. ^
    ISBN 9781135927011
    .
  3. ^ Piotr Osęka (February 20, 2011). "Jak ORMO czuwało". Historia (in Polish). Polityka.pl. Retrieved Sep 2, 2013.
  4. ^ Nohlen & Stöver, p1475
  5. ^
    ISBN 83-7059-322-4 [page needed
    ]
  6. ^ a b Dariusz Baliszewski. "Wprost 24 - Demokracja urn". Wprost.pl. Archived from the original on 2009-02-08. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  7. PBS
    . 1990-01-01. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  8. ISBN 0-8133-3324-5 "On January 19, 1947, the first Polish elections were held. They were widely seen as fraudulent." Google Print, p.225
  9. ^
    ISBN 0-631-22162-X, "...the elections of January 1947 [...] were clearly rigged."Google Print, p.84
  10. ^ "Poland. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05". Archived from the original on 2006-04-20. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  11. ^ "The Historical Setting: The Polish People's Republic". Info-poland.buffalo.edu. Archived from the original on 2009-06-15. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  12. ^
    Encyclopedia Britannica
  13. ^ "Instytut Pamięci Narodowej | Pełna treść artykułu". Instytut Pamięci Narodonowej. Archived from the original on 2015-04-08. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  14. ^ a b c Barbara Polak, Do wyborów w 1947 r. PSL wchodzi już mocno osłabione. CENA WYGRANEJ. Biuletyn IPN, Nr 1 - 1.2002. (in Polish)
  15. ^ a b c Nikita Pietrow. "Wprost 24 - Wybory Pałkina". Wprost.pl. Archived from the original on 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  16. ^ Co to jest RSS?. "Kalendarium wydarzeń - Kalendarium - Polska.pl". Wiadomosci.polska.pl. Archived from the original on 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  17. ^ a b "Pułkownik Pałkin raportuje: Sfałszowanie wyborów w Polsce nie zbulwersowało opinii Zachodu". Konstytucje.pl. Archived from the original on 2006-09-28. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  18. ^ "POLAND: Free Election". TIME. 1947-01-13. Archived from the original on February 20, 2005. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  19. ISBN 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
  20. ^ "Polish History - Part 13". Poloniatoday.com. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  21. Encyclopedia Britannica
  22. ISBN 0-87722-655-5
  23. ^ Poland: a country study. Library of Congress Federal Research Division, December 1989.

Further reading

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1947_Polish_parliamentary_election&oldid=1227582080"