Polish Committee of National Liberation

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A propaganda photo of a citizen reading the PKWN Manifesto, issued on July 22, 1944

The Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polish Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego, PKWN), also known as the Lublin Committee, was a provisional Polish communist government created by the Soviet Union. It was officially proclaimed on July 21, 1944 in Chełm, under the direction of State National Council (Krajowa Rada Narodowa, KRN) in opposition to the Polish government in exile. In fact the decision about creation and prerogatives of PKWN had been made much earlier in Moscow by Josef Stalin. The PKWN was, therefore, a puppet government of the Soviet Union.

The following day, its manifesto was published, announcing radical social, political and economical reform, continuation of the fight against Nazi Germany, nationalisation of industry and a "decent border in the West". It also proclaimed the PKWN to be "the only legitimate Polish government", thus formally rejecting the Polish government in exile. Soon afterwards, the Soviet Union started to transfer power in the Soviet-controlled areas of Lublin, Białystok, Rzeszów and Warsaw Voivodships to the PKWN. Actual control over those areas remained in the hands of the NKVD and the Red Army, however. Beginning August 1, 1944, the Committee was officially headquartered in Lublin. Nikolai Bulganin represented Soviet administration.

Among the members of the PKWN were politicians of various communist and leftist parties accepted by the communist authorities. Its chairman was Edward Osóbka-Morawski (Polish Socialist Party, PPS). His deputies were Wanda Wasilewska (Union of Polish Patriots, ZPP) and Andrzej Witos (People's Political Party, SL), a younger brother of Wincenty Witos, a notable pre-war politician. Andrzej Witos was later replaced by Stanisław Janusz.

The PKWN Manifesto, issued on July 22, 1944

Other members included those from KRN, ZPP, Worker's Party of Polish Socialists (RPPS), SL, Democratic Party (SD), Polish Workers Party (PPR) and unaffiliated. Most of these organisations and politicians were largely unknown to Polish society.

On December 31, 1944, the PKWN was joined by several members of the Polish government in exile, among them Stanisław Mikołajczyk. In January 1945, after the Soviet Union conquered Warsaw, it was then transformed into the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rząd Tymczasowy Republiki Polskiej, RTRP) that was to govern the areas taken by the Red Army from Nazi Germany until the elections were held.

[edit] International reactions

The creation of a communist puppet government by the Soviet Union, which was part of the Stalin's attempt to create completed facts in East Europe before negotiations with its allies, heightened the tension between the Soviet Union and the other members of the Anti-Hitler-Coalition which would eventually lead to the Cold War.

Similar events took place in many of the other East European states under control of the Red Army, as, for example, in Romania in March, 1945, where a communist government was elected through a combination of vote manipulation, elimination and forced mergers of competing parties.

The Allies saw these events with great distress, especially because Stalin has previously accepted the Atlantic Charter in principal, signed it at the Yalta Conference, promised to hold democratic elections in the countries controlled by the Red Army and signed the "Declaration about the Liberated Europe".