The Polish October 1956 In World Politics

This book strives to make a deeper analysis of the causes and driving forces that led to the October 1956 events in Poland, and to assess them in terms of foreign and domestic policy, from the perspective of half a century later. The articles collected here provide a considerable amount of new information about the reactions and attitudes of political leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain, about how they viewed the events in Poland, and about what motives guided them in their decisions. This publication presents, for the first time in detailed fashion, the Chinese leaders' position on the October 1956 events. At the same time, this publication reveals how much remains to be discovered, how many important questions remain to be answered, and the degree of complexity with which scholars investigating these questions sometimes have to grapple. The articles in this book offer a real image of how the most important capitals in the opposing Cold War blocs reacted to the Polish October 1956. It was yet another lesson in Realpolitik not the first, after all, in Polish history.--

"Rebellious Satellite: Poland 1956 relates the social history of the protests and mass movements that ultimately changed Polish politics and Polish-Soviet relations in 1956, yet avoided an armed Soviet response. Pawel Machcewicz focuses on people's expression of grievances, and even riots, rather than on "top-level" activities such as internal Communist Part struggles, as he carefully depicts the protests that took place in Poznan in June 1956 and across Poland the following October and November." "Based largely on newly available Party and security apparatus documents, which were originally prepared to inform Poland's Party leadership about what was happening on the ground, the book also includes an illuminating selection of photographs from Poznari in June 1956 taken secretly by the police."--Jacket.

This book makes sense of the inner connection between China's political and diplomatic involvement in the Hungarian crisis and the influence this crisis had on a series of mysterious policy shifts.

This volume presents the story of the Hungarian Revolution in 120 original documents, ranging from the minutes of Khrushchev's first meeting with Hungarian leaders after Stalin's death in 1953, to Yeltsin's declaration on Hungary in 1992. The great majority of the material comes from archives that were inaccessible until the 1990s, and appears here in English for the first time. Book jacket.

This volume analyzes US policy toward communist-ruled Poland in the fields of diplomacy, economy, culture, and public diplomacy. It highlights the limitations in developing cooperation between democratic and nondemocratic countries resulting from the Cold War conflict. No comprehensive account of US policy toward Poland from 1956 to 1968 has emerged in historiography. This book aims to answer why, since the political changes of the Polish October 1956, Washington ceased to see Polish affairs as “Soviet-related matters.” Instead, it recognized communist-ruled Poland as a separate political entity among other Kremlin-dependent states in Eastern Europe. This policy, introduced by the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, was continued by his successors John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Recently declassified US and Polish archival sources allow the presentation of more considerations around the decision-making mechanisms by presidential administrations regarding communist Poland after 1956. They also reveal the dependence of the implementation of US actions on the climate of international relations. Moreover, they can now explain how Poland became an “open window” toward the Soviet bloc and a model example of the changes in the US policy of diversifying its approach to Eastern European countries under Soviet control in the next decades.

"This volume analyzes US policy towards communist-ruled Poland in the fields of diplomacy, economy, culture, and public diplomacy. It highlights the limitations in developing cooperation between democratic and non-democratic countries resulting from the Cold War conflict. No comprehensive account of US policy towards Poland from 1956-1968 has emerged in historiography. This book aims to answer why, since the political changes of the Polish October 1956, Washington ceased to see Polish affairs as "Soviet-related matters." Instead, it recognized communist-ruled Poland as a separate political entity among other Kremlin-dependent states in Eastern Europe. This policy, introduced by the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, was continued by his successors John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Recently declassified US and Polish archival sources allow the presentation of more considerations around the decision-making mechanisms by presidential administrations regarding communist Poland after 1956. They also reveal the dependence of the implementation of US actions on the climate of international relations. Moreover, they can now explain how Poland became an "open window" towards the Soviet bloc and a model example of the changes in the US policy of diversifying its approach to Eastern European countries under Soviet control in the next decades"--