Władysław Gomułka in the context of "Bolesław Bierut"

The Polish Workers' Party (Polish: Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 to form the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). From the end of World War II the PPR led Poland, with the Soviet Union exercising moderate influence. During the PPR years, the centers of opposition activity were largely diminished, and a socialist system was established in the country.

Arriving from the Soviet Union, a group of Polish communists was parachuted into occupied Poland in December 1941. With Joseph Stalin's permission, in January 1942 they established the Polish Workers' Party, a new communist party. The PPR established a partisan military organization Gwardia Ludowa, later renamed Armia Ludowa. In November 1943, Władysław Gomułka became secretary (chief executive) of the Central Committee of the PPR. On 1 January 1944 the party created the State National Council (KRN), proclaimed to be a wartime parliament of Poland; the body was chaired by Bolesław Bierut. In June 1944 the Union of Polish Patriots, a rival to the PPR Polish-communist organization operating in the Soviet Union, recognized the KRN as "the true representation of the Polish nation". The PPR was initially a small party with marginal support; it grew because of its alliance with the victorious Soviet Union.

A series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Polish United Workers' Party of the Polish People's Republic took place in Poland in March 1968. The crisis led to the suppression of student strikes by security forces in all major academic centres across the country and the subsequent repression of the Polish dissident movement. It was also accompanied by mass emigration following an antisemitic (branded "anti-Zionist") campaign waged by the minister of internal affairs, General Mieczysław Moczar, with the approval of First Secretary Władysław Gomułka of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). The protests overlapped with the events of the Prague Spring in neighboring Czechoslovakia – raising new hopes of democratic reforms among the intelligentsia. The Czechoslovak unrest culminated in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on 20 August 1968.

The anti-Zionist campaign began in 1967, and was carried out in conjunction with the USSR's withdrawal of all diplomatic relations with Israel after the Six-Day War, but also involved a power struggle within the PZPR itself. The subsequent purges within the ruling party, led by Moczar and his faction, failed to topple Gomułka's government but resulted in an exile from Poland of thousands of communist individuals of Jewish ancestry, including professionals, party officials and secret police functionaries appointed by Joseph Stalin following the Second World War. In carefully staged public displays of support, factory workers across Poland were assembled to publicly denounce Zionism. At least 13,000 Poles of Jewish origin emigrated in 1968–1972 as a result of being fired from their positions and various other forms of harassment.

Krajowa Rada Narodowa in Polish (translated as State National Council or Homeland National Council, abbreviated to KRN) was a parliament-like political body created during the later stages of World War II in German-occupied Warsaw, Poland. It was intended as a communist-controlled center of authority, challenging organs of the Polish Underground State. The existence of the KRN was later accepted by the Soviet Union and the council became to a large extent subjugated and controlled by the Soviets.

The KRN was established on the night of 31 December 1943 on the initiative of the Polish communist party, the Polish Workers' Party (PPR), then led by Władysław Gomułka. It was the implementation of the party's Central Committee decision of 7 November 1943. The council was declared to be the "actual political representation of the Polish nation, empowered to act on behalf of the nation and manage its affairs until the time of Poland's liberation from the occupation". From the beginning, the KRN viewed the prewar Sanation government and the contemporary Polish government in exile as illegitimate, based on the "elitist-totalitarian" April Constitution, "whose legality had never been recognized by the nation", and as representative of narrow reactionary interests. The new government formation would be based on the "worker-peasant alliance" and on the alliance with the Soviet Union. The Armia Ludowa was established as the KRN's armed force. The exile government and the Polish Underground State, especially the Armia Krajowa command, were worried by this development and by the progressing social radicalization in Poland by Soviet strings. They accelerated the formation of the already planned Council of National Unity (Rada Jedności Narodowej, RJN), their own parliament, created on 9 January 1944.

Mieczysław Moczar (Polish pronunciation: [mjɛˈt͡ʂɨswaf ˈmɔt͡ʂar]; birth name Mikołaj Diomko, pseudonym Mietek, 23 December 1913 – 1 November 1986) was a Polish communist politician who played a prominent role in the history of the Polish People's Republic. He is most known for his unorthodox, alternative socialist views attitude, known as Endo-Communism, which influenced Polish United Workers' Party politics in the late 1960s. During this time, Moczar and his supporters challenged Władysław Gomułka's authority.

Moczar was heavily involved in the March 1968 events in Poland against Polish Jews, in which he led the faction of hardliners inside the Communist Party.