Polish 1968 political crisis: Encyclopedia II - Polish 1968 political crisis - Background

Polish 1968 political crisis - Background

In 1967, during the time leading up to and during the Six Day War, the Polish public was generally sympathetic towards Israel. A popular joke of that era based on the knowledge that a significant percent of the Jews living in Israel were emigrants from Poland stated "The Polish Jews won [the war] with the Russian Arabs" (Polscy Żydzi wygrali z ruskimi arabami). This contrasted with the party line in the Soviet Union, which had begun to attack Zionism and Israel and had switched their allegiance to the Arab states. Władysław Gomułka and the Polish leadership saw an opportunity to both please Moscow by moving against pro-Israeli sentiment, and to bolster Gomułka's own government by using anti-Jewish sentiment to clamp down on political dissidence.

Gomułka had previously begun a quiet campaign against the Jews, as well as other minorities. In 1965, the Politburo had decided to ease Jews out of executive positions and other jobs by 1970, and had already taken action through making Tadeusz Walichnowski, an "anti-Zionist expert," the head of the minorities branch of the government, and by moving that department from social services to counter-intelligence. In the words of Polish scholar Wlodzimierz Rozenbaum:

Thus Gomułka ordered that anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda be increased, and on June 19th, 1967 he gave a speech calling the Jews "the fifth column" suggesting they should be transferred to Israel. The Polish Communist party began a process to purge Zionist (Jewish) elements. Many Jews were accused of being Zionists, and were expelled from the party.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Background", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki