School Students Participated

The Regime Organized Around the Communist Party (Officially Called the United Polish Workers' Party) Was Faltering; the Ruling Bureaucracy Was Mired in Factional Fighting. To Legitimize Himself, He Invited His Former Leader Władysław Gomułka, Who Had Been in Prison for Several Years – the Stalinists Had Accused Him of “right-wing Nationalist Deviation” – to Take Over the Leadership of the Party Again. The Polish Communists Dared to Make a Decision That, Until Then, Had Not Been Made in Warsaw but in Moscow. In the Kremlin They Were Furious. Khrushchev, Uninvited, Came to Restore Order Under the Threat of Military Intervention.

At Noon, All the High in an Assembly to Discuss Whether to Reform or Dissolve the Single Youth Organization and Form a New One – or Perhaps Several Different Ones. During the Debate the Director Suddenly Burst Into the UK Mobile Database Classroom. With a Very Martial Expression on His Face, He Took the Floor to Pronounce Three Sentences That Would Be Engraved in My Memory: «soviet Troops Are Approaching Our City. If They Enter, Students Must Not Miss the Barricades. We Are a Patriotic High School, Our Patron is Tadeusz Kościuszko». And He Left. Back Home, I Cycled to the Outskirts of the City and on a Wooded Road.





I Ran Into a Group of Soviet Soldiers. From Afar, With Decisive Gestures, They Ordered Me to Turn Back. It Was Later Learned That That Day, While Gomułka and Khrushchev Argued Fiercely Behind Closed Doors in Warsaw, Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovski, Poland's Defense Minister, and Other Russian Generals Firmly Maintained Control Over the Ground Troops of the Polish Armed Forces. However, They Lost It to the Air Force and Navy Commands. Furthermore, the Troops of the Ministry of the Interior Were Beyond Their Control. All These Military Forces Were Already Under the Command of the Generals Belonging to the "Reform" Faction of the Party.