Mieczysław Moczar (; birth name Mikołaj Diomko,

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

''Mietek'', 23 December 1913 in – 1 November 1986) was a Polish

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

politician who played a prominent role in the history of the

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...

. He is most known for his unorthodox, alternative socialist views attitude which influenced

Polish United Workers' Party The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...

politics in the late 1960s. During this time, Moczar and his supporters challenged

Władysław Gomułka Władysław Gomułka (; 6 February 1905 – 1 September 1982) was a Polish communist politician. He was the ''de facto'' leader of post-war Poland from 1947 until 1948. Following the Polish October he became leader again from 1956 to 1970. Go ...

's authority. Moczar was heavily involved in the

March 1968 events The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known in Poland as March 1968, Students' March, or March events ( pl, Marzec 1968; studencki Marzec; wydarzenia marcowe), was a series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Poli ...

in Poland against Polish Jews, in which he led the faction of hardliners inside the Communist Party.

Biography

Early life

Moczar's father was Orthodox Belarusian and an activist of the

Communist Party of Poland The interwar Communist Party of Poland ( pl, Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) was a communist party active in Poland during the Second Polish Republic. It resulted from a December 1918 merger of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland a ...

, and his mother was a Polish Catholic. Moczar was a member of the Communist Party before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. During the occupation, Moczar organized communist guerillas in the

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...

and

Kielce Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the bank ...

regions. His active role in the Communist underground during the resistance allowed him to become known as "the leader of Poland's 'Partisans'" in the 1960s. Immediately following World War II, Moczar became the secret police chief in Łódź, but was dismissed from his position in 1952 on charges of "nationalist deviation." During this "period of widespread suspicion against the self-made Communist veterans of the Communist resistance," Moczar was briefly held in detention. When

returned to power as the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party in 1956, Moczar started to work for the

Interior Ministry An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...

. In the early 1960s, Moczar served as Vice Minister of the Interior.

Minister of the Interior

In December 1964, he was named the Minister of the Interior, a position he retained until 1968. Moczar's position as Minister of the Interior placed him in charge of the police. When Moczar was appointed to this position in 1964, it was perceived to be "a reaction to recent liberalizing trends in Poland." Gomułka, who was known for his centralist approach, was seen as trying to balance contending factions in the party and Government by appointing Moczar. Moczar was known for favoring stricter police controls and discouraging Poles from any foreign contacts. According to a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' article from the time, "General Moczar's promotion is... regarded by many Poles as symbolic of the increased police activity that has occurred since the great liberalization at the end of the Stalinist period in 1956." Lajos Lederer, a correspondent for the London Observer, called Moczar "a

de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...

-type figure who is both an authoritarian Communist and a strong Polish nationalist." A popular joke in Poland from the time period illustrates how the average citizen viewed Moczar. "What do you get when you take away the 'czar' from Moczar?" (Czar is pronounced like Char and means charm in Polish). The answer is "Mo," which were the initials for the Polish police, "

Milicja Obywatelska Milicja Obywatelska (), in English known as the Citizens' Militia and commonly abbreviated to MO, was the national police organization of the Polish People's Republic. It was established on 7 October 1944 by the Polish Committee of National Libera ...

The "Partisan" faction

Moczar's main power base was the communist party faction called the "Partisans". Most of the "Partisans" were men in their 40s and 50s, who were veterans of the Communist underground like Moczar himself. Moczar tended to play down the significance of the role of the

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...

while glorifying smaller pro-Communist resistance movements. The "Partisans" used Polish nationalism to gain support. Within the party, the enemy of the "Partisans" was the "Muscovite" faction: Poles who had escaped to the Soviet Union during World War II and then returned with the Red Army. Some of the "Muscovites" were Polish Jews trained and supported by the Soviet Union who held important roles in the party and the secret police during the period of Stalinist terror. Moczar took advantage of this in his campaign and in the mid-1960s, the nationalism of some of the "Partisans" began to take on anti-Semitic tones.

March 1968

At that time, Moczar became the leader of an influential faction of "partisans" fighting for power in the Polish United Workers' Party. He consistently built his image of a partisan hero, the symbol of which was "The Colors of the Battle" - Moczar's quickly filmed memories of the war, which had as many as thirteen editions. To this day, it has not been possible to establish who their author was, because the suspected writer

Wojciech Żukrowski Wojciech Żukrowski (14 April 1916 in Kraków – 26 August 2000 in Warsaw) was a Polish prosaist, poet, reporter, essayist and literary critic. Life In 1936, Żukrowski graduated from High School Zana in Pruszkow. In the same year he made his wr ...

categorically denied it. But it was certainly not Moczar himself, whose reluctance to express his thoughts in writing was legendary. He liked to speak for it, especially to his subordinates, and the preserved records of these speeches are an important testimony of the era. For example, in 1965 he lamented the excessive frequency of Poles' visits to Western embassies while boasting that 1.5 thousand citizens are monitored by the ministry in connection with their contacts with foreign diplomats. Another time he rebuked his opponents from the Puławy faction, saying: "... yesterday's organizers of evil, depravity, they became the organizers of renewal, humanism and, at the same time, the creators of anti-Soviet propaganda, despite the fact that until now without the words "with the Soviet Union at the fore" - they were unable to construct even the simplest sentence. Now the same people: Stefan Staszewski, Werfel, Woroszylski and quite a large group of them like them - consider themselves humanists... What a bottomless perfidy lies in them". When student protests erupted in March 1968, Moczar wanted to suppress them by brute force. It was widely believed that Gomułka's reliance on Moczar during the 1968 events made Moczar "become too strong for omułka'ssafety." Moczar used the student uprising to initiate an anti-Semitic campaign, and he soon became a driving force in the 1968 purging of Jews from important party and government posts. He accused Jewish students of having instigated the demonstrations. Observers speculated two chief purposes for Moczar's anti-Semitic campaign: "to clear Jews out of responsible positions so those can be filled by General Moczar's supporters, and to fix responsibility on non-Jewish leaders, probably including Mr. Gomułka, for failure to act more decisively against what Moczar called 'the Zionist Infiltration'". The Moczar-driven campaign of anti-Semitism caused a mass emigration of Polish Jews in 1968, most of which were government operatives and officials as well as doctors, professors, lawyers, or engineers.

Gomułka versus Moczar

In 1968, Gomułka was re-elected First Secretary and thus prevented Moczar from gaining more power. Gomułka, whose wife was Jewish, began to isolate Moczar by removing anti-Semitic propagandists close to Moczar and by removing his supporters from key positions. A report from

Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...

in 1971 refers to Gomułka's campaign as an attempt to "de-Moczarize" the security service and mass media. By 1969, Moczar was no longer Gomułka's main rival but remained a member of the Central Committee and a member of its Politburo. However, Moczar had a hand in the December 1970 shootings in Gdynia, which resulted from Grzegorz Korczyński's assessment of the situation and recommendations in the striking Gdansk region. The bloody December strikes brought down Gomułka and replaced him with

Edward Gierek Edward Gierek (; 6 January 1913 – 29 July 2001) was a Polish communism in Poland, Communist politician and ''de facto'' leader of Poland between 1970 and 1980. Gierek replaced Władysław Gomułka as General Secretary of the Communist Party, F ...

, a technocrat who emphasized economic progress. The Russians, who suspected Moczar of plotting, preferred Gierek rather than an ardent nationalist communist with illustrious wartime past. Moczar was eliminated from power by Gierek to return briefly in 1980 as a possible replacement for Stanisław Kania when he was eased out by General Wojciech Jaruzelski. He wrote ''Barwy walki'' (The colours of a fight or Colors of Struggle or Color of Battle, first released in 1962) (1963, 1979, 1988) Published by Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, . This book is a personal memoir by General Moczar. It was made into a movie in 1965 and is viewed as an effort to strengthen the "Partisans" as it "depicts the Partisans as the spearhead of Polish resistance".

Subsequent life

Moczar was a highly placed member of the

Polish United Workers Party The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...

, a member of its

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...

from 1965 to 1981 (one of its secretaries in 1968-1971) a candidate member of the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...

in 1968-1970 and a full member from 1970-1971 and 1980-1981. He was a general in the

Polish People's Army The Polish People's Army ( pl, Ludowe Wojsko Polskie , LWP) constituted the second formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in 1943–1945, and in 1945–1989 the armed forces of the Polish communist state ( from 1952, the Polish Pe ...

and held many high level posts in the government, serving as Minister of the Interior (1964-1968) and chairman of

The Supreme Chamber of Control of Poland The Supreme Audit Office (, abbreviated ''NIK'') is the supreme audit institution and also one of the oldest state institutions in Poland, created under the Second Republic of Poland, Second Republic on February 7, 1919, barely 3 months after the ...

(1971-1983).

References

*Costello, Michael. "The Political Fortunes of Mieczysław Moczar," report for Radio Free Europe, 2 June 1971. Accessible online at: . *Dziewanowski, M.K. The Communist Party of Poland. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1976. *Lederer, Lajos. "New Group Threatens to Take Over in Poland," Los Angeles Times, 25 September 1966: F3. *Lukas, J. Anthony. "Concern Over Anti-Semitism," New York Times, 20 April 1968: 1. *"Poland Appoints 3 New Ministers," New York Times, 13 December 1964: 12. *"Polish Faction Uses War Film in a Fight for Party Supremacy," New York Times, 20 January 1965: 13. *"Polish Leaders Recall War Days." New York Times, 10 June 1962: 23. *Szporer, Michael. "Secret Police Tsar: Mieczysław Moczar" oland National ExhibitGlobal Museum on Communism. *Randal, Jonathan. "Gomulka's Rival Wins High Posts," New York Times, 10 July 1968: 9. *"The Leader of Poland's 'Partisans'," New York Times, 20 April 1968: 14.