Second Polish Republic

Overview

Poland regained independence on 11 November 1918 after 123 years of partition. The Second Republic, led initially by Marshal Józef Piłsudski, secured its eastern borders in the Polish–Soviet War (1919–1921, the "Miracle on the Vistula"). Democratic but unstable, it turned semi-authoritarian after Piłsudski's May 1926 coup (the Sanacja regime). Poland was the first victim of World War II: invaded by Germany on 1 September 1939 and by the USSR on 17 September under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it was partitioned and subjected to genocidal occupation. Roughly six million Polish citizens died in the war (about half of them Jews murdered in the Holocaust — the major German death camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibór, Bełżec, were on occupied Polish soil). The Soviets perpetrated the Katyn massacre of Polish officers and elites in April–May 1940: Soviet documents declassified in 1990 (notably the 1959 Shelepin memo) record that exactly 21,857 Polish prisoners were shot by the NKVD — 14,552 prisoners of war and 7,305 prison inmates — hence the common estimate of about 22,000. A Polish government-in-exile (London) directed the Home Army resistance and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.

At Yalta and Potsdam Poland was shifted westward, losing its eastern territories ("Kresy") to the USSR and gaining former German lands, with enormous population transfers. A Soviet-imposed communist regime consolidated power; the Polish People's Republic (PRL) was formally constituted in 1952. It saw recurring upheavals (1956, 1968, 1970, 1976) culminating in the Solidarity free-trade-union movement (1980), martial law (1981–83 under General Jaruzelski), and the Round Table Talks that produced the partially free elections of June 1989 — the first breach in the Eastern Bloc.

Present status (Sept 2026)

parliamentary republic; President Karol Nawrocki (independent, PiS-backed). In the second round of the presidential election on 1 June 2025, Poland's National Electoral Commission recorded Nawrocki winning 50.89% (10,606,877 votes) against Rafał Trzaskowski's 49.11% (10,237,286 votes), on a turnout of 71.63% — the narrowest margin in the history of Polish presidential elections. Nawrocki took office 6 August 2025. Prime Minister Donald Tusk (Civic Coalition) has governed since December 2023 and is now in tense "cohabitation" with a nationalist president.