Wladyslaw Gomulka (Polish: [vwa'diswaf go'muwka]; 6 February 1905 - 1 September 1982) was a Polish communist politician. He was the de facto leader of post-war Poland until 1948. Following the Polish October he became leader again from 1956 to 1970. Gomulka was initially very popular for his reforms; his seeking a "Polish way to socialism"; and giving rise to the period known as "Gomulka's thaw".

Wladyslaw Gomulka was born on 6 February 1905 in Bialobrzegi Franciszkanskie village on the outskirts of Krosno, into a worker's family living in the Austrian Partition (the Galicia region). His parents had met and married in the United States, where each had emigrated in search of work in the late 19th century, but returned to occupied Poland in the early 20th century because Wladyslaw's father Jan was unable to find gainful employment in America. Jan Gomulka then worked as a laborer in the Subcarpathian oil industry. Wladyslaw's older sister Jozefa, born in the US, returned there upon turning eighteen to join her extended family, most of whom had emigrated, and to preserve her US citizenship. Wladyslaw and his two other siblings experienced a childhood of the proverbial Galician poverty: they lived in a dilapidated hut and ate mostly potatoes. Wladyslaw received only rudimentary education before being employed in the oil industry of the region.  Gomulka attended schools in Krosno for six or seven years, until the age of thirteen, when he had to start an apprenticeship in a metalworks shop. Throughout his life Gomulka was an avid reader and accomplished a great deal of self-education, but remained a subject of jokes because of his lack of formal education and demeanor.  In 1922, Gomulka passed his apprenticeship exams and began working at a local refinery. The re-established Polish state of Gomulka's teen years was a scene of growing political polarization and radicalization. The young worker developed connections with the radical Left, joining the Sila (Power) youth organization in 1922 and the Independent Peasant Party in 1925. Gomulka was known for his activism in the metal workers and, from 1922, chemical industry unions. He was involved in union-organized strikes and in 1924, during a protest gathering in Krosno, participated in a polemical debate with Herman Lieberman. He published radical texts in leftist newspapers. In May 1926 the young Gomulka was for the first time arrested, but soon released because of worker demands. The incident was the subject of a parliamentary intervention by the Peasant Party. In October 1926, Gomulka became a secretary of the managing council in the Chemical Industry Workers Union for the Drohobych District and remained involved with that communist-dominated union until 1930. He around this time learned on his own basic Ukrainian.

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