Edward Gierek

Edward Gierek (1913-2001), Polish Communist Party leader from 1970 to 1980. Born in Będzin, near Katowice, he grew up in France, where, at the age of 13, he began to work in mines. He joined the French Communist Party in 1931 and, during World War II (1939-1945), fought the Germans with the Belgian Communist underground. Returning to Poland in 1948, he obtained a degree as a mining engineer in 1954 and rose through the Communist hierarchy to become party boss from 1957 to 1970 of Katowice, Poland’s most important industrial region. When price increases led to riots among Polish workers in 1970, he replaced Władysław Gomułka as first secretary of the Communist Party. However, economic problems continued: The foreign debt increased, import prices rose, and shortages worsened. When Gierek’s government announced an increase in food prices in 1980, strikes broke out across Poland. Gierek was discredited, forced to step down, and expelled from the party in July 1981. Blamed for the economic crisis and Poland’s foreign debt, which was more than $20 billion, Gierek was arrested in December 1981 and interned for a year.