Rigged Elections
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Jerry VashchookRigged Elections
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Jerry VashchookRIGGED ELECTIONS
ORMO paramilitary communist police unit during street parade at the Victory
Square, 9 June 1946, Warsaw, Poland
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.[51] 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.[52] 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,[53][52] which led to the nationalization of industry and state control of economic activity in
general, and a unicameral national parliament (Sejm).[26][31][54][55]
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.[44] 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.[56] 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[57] and faded after the amnesty of
February 1947.[58][59]
By 1946, all rightist parties had been outlawed,[31] 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.[31] 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.[60] The rigged elections effectively ended the multiparty system in Poland's
politics.[25][26][31][54][55] 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.[61] 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.[55][61] In February, the new Sejm created
the Small Constitution of 1947. Over the next two years, the communists monopolized political power in
Poland.[31]
As a show of Soviet domination, sixteen prominent leaders of the Polish anti-Nazi
underground were brought to trial in Moscow in June 1945.[46] Their removal from the political
scene precluded the possibility of a democratic transition called for by the Yalta
agreements.[47] 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.[42] 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.[48]
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.[49] 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.[41] 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.[4