1944  

Lublin Committee formed by Soviet patronage (22 July)

1944-1947 

Civil War: liquidation of all resistance to Soviet supremacy

1945  

Formation of Provisional Government of National Unity

1946  

Referendum (30 June)

1947  

First Elections to Sejm (19 January): Allied protest

1948-1956 

Stalinism

1948  

Formation of Polish United Workers' Party : One-Party State launched

1952  

Constitution of Polish People's Republic (22 July)

1955  

Formation of Warsaw Pact by USSR

1956

Hungarian Revolution; Worker protests; VIII Plenum of Party independently elects W. Gomulka as First Secretary

1956-89  

National communist regime

1958  

Re-constitution of COMECON (23 May)

1966  

Celebration of the Polish Millennium

1968  

Student/Academic protests; reprisals (March)

1970  

Baltic riots; Fall of Gomulka; E. Gierek First Secretary

1976  

Worker protests (June); emergence of organized political opposition

1978  

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla elected Pope John Paul II (October 16)

1980  

Country-wide strikes; emergence of Solidarity, free labor union

1981  

Martial law; communist military junta cracks down on oposition

1984  

Secret police agents murder Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko

1986  

Timid economic reforms initiated by the Workers' Party