Polish Committee of National Liberation in the context of "Warsaw Rising"

The Warsaw Uprising (Polish: powstanie warszawskie; German: Warschauer Aufstand), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (Polish: powstanie sierpniowe), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa). The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II. The defeat of the uprising and suppression of the Home Army enabled the pro-Soviet Polish administration, instead of the Polish government-in-exile based in London, to take control of Poland afterwards. Poland would remain as part of the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc throughout the Cold War until 1989.

The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland's capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet Union and Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, which already controlled eastern Poland, could assume control. Other immediate causes included a threat of mass German round-ups of able-bodied Poles for "evacuation"; calls by Radio Moscow's Polish Service for uprising; and an emotional Polish desire for justice and revenge against the enemy after five years of German occupation.

The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic (also known as the July Constitution or the Constitution of 1952) was a communist state constitution that acted as the supreme law. It passed in communist-ruled Poland on 22 July 1952. It superseded the post-World War II provisional Small Constitution of 1947, which in turn replaced the pre-war April Constitution of 1935.

The 1952 constitution introduced a new name for the Polish state, the Polish People's Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL), replacing the previously used Republic of Poland (Rzeczpospolita Polska). The communist-led Sejm (legislature) was declared to be the highest state authority. The real source of supreme state power, the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), was not regulated by the constitution; it was ruled by its own statute. The constitution legalized many practices that had been introduced in Poland, in the wake of the Soviet Red Army and the Polish People's Army defeat of Nazi Germany in 1944–1945, by Polish-communist governmental bodies, including the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) and its successors.

The Milicja Obywatelska (Polish pronunciation: [miˈlit͡sja ɔbɨvaˈtɛlska]; MO), known as the Citizens' Militia in English, was the national police organization of the Polish People's Republic.

The MO was established on 7 October 1944 by the Polish Committee of National Liberation under Chief Commander Franciszek Jóźwiak to police Red Army controlled areas of Poland during World War II. It became the official police force with the founding of the Polish People's Republic in 1947, effectively replacing the pre-war Policja as the main uniformed civilian police of Poland during the communist era. The MO was headquartered in Warsaw while training for the force was conducted in the town of Legionowo.

The Polish Underground State (Polish: Polskie Państwo Podziemne, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile in London. The first elements of the Underground State were established in the final days of the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, in late September 1939. The Underground State was perceived by supporters as a legal continuation of the pre-war Republic of Poland (and its institutions) that waged an armed struggle against the country's occupying powers: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Underground State encompassed not only military resistance, one of the largest in the world, but also civilian structures, such as justice, education, culture and social services.

Although the Underground State enjoyed broad support throughout much of the war, it was not supported or recognized by the communists and some of the right-wing extremists. The influence of the communists eventually declined amid military reversals (most notably, the failure of the Warsaw Uprising) and the growing hostility of the USSR. The Soviet Union had created an alternative, puppet government in 1944 (the Polish Committee of National Liberation) and ensured it formed the basis of the post-war government in Poland. During the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland at the end of the war, many Underground State members were prosecuted as alleged traitors and died in captivity. Abandoned by the Western Allies, finding it impossible to negotiate with the Soviets, and wishing to avoid a civil war, the key institutions of the Underground State dissolved themselves in the first half of 1945.

The Manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, also known as the July Manifesto (Polish: Manifest lipcowy) or the PKWN Manifesto (Manifest PKWN), was a political manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN), a Soviet-backed administration, which operated in opposition to the London-based Polish government in exile.

It was officially proclaimed in Chełm on 22 July 1944, and shortly after, its text was personally amended by Joseph Stalin in Moscow, before being printed there as well. Printing in Poland was staged for the media by the Soviets.