Poznań 1956 protests

Poznański Czerwiec 56 (Poznań June '56)
Part of the Cold War
"We demand bread!" (secret police photo)
Date June 28–30, 1956 Location Poznań, People's Republic of Poland Result State military victory; beginning of the Polish October
Belligerents
Protesters	LWP, KBW, UB
Commanders and leaders
Strike committee	Stanisław Popławski
Strength
100,000, including less than 200 armed	10,000 & 390 tanks
Casualties and losses
57–100+ killed, 600 wounded	8 killed, several wounded

The Poznań 1956 protests, also known as the Poznań 1956 uprising or Poznań June (Polish: Poznański Czerwiec), were the first of several massive protests against the government of the People's Republic of Poland. Demonstrations by workers demanding better conditions began on June 28, 1956 at Poznań's Cegielski Factories and were met with violent repression.

A crowd of approximately 100,000 gathered in the city center near the local Ministry of Public Security building. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of the People's Army of Poland and the Internal Security Corps under Polish-Soviet general Stanislav Poplavsky were ordered to suppress the demonstration and during the fired at the protesting civilians.

The death toll was placed between 57 and over a hundred people, including a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzałkowski. Hundreds of people sustained injuries. The Poznań protests were an important milestone on the way to the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government in Poland in October.

After Joseph Stalin's death, the process of destalinization prompted debates about fundamental issues throughout the entire Eastern Bloc. Nikita Khrushchev's speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences had wide implications outside the Soviet Union and in other communist countries. In Poland, in addition to the criticism of the cult of personality, popular topics of debate centered on the right to steer a more independent course of 'local, national socialism' instead of following the Soviet model down to every little detail; such views were seen in discussion and critique by many Polish United Workers' Party members of Stalin's execution of older Polish communists from Communist Party of Poland during the Great Purge.

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