Page "History of Poland (1945–1989)" Paragraph 41

Realizing the need for new leadership, in what became known as the Polish October, the 8th Plenum chose Władysław Gomułka – released from house arrest – as the new First Secretary of PZPR.

He was elected on October 19, 1956.

Gomułka, pledging to dismantle Stalinism, convinced the Soviet Union that he would not allow its influence on Eastern Europe to diminish.

Even so, Poland's relations with Kremlin were not nearly as strained as Yugoslavia's, and the end of Soviet influence in Poland was nowhere in sight ; after all, on 14 May 1955 the Warsaw Pact was signed in the Polish capital, to counteract the establishment of NATO.