Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: When was the Polish People’s Republic established?
The Polish People's Republic ("Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa") was established under the rule of the communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). The name change from the Polish Republic was not officially adopted, however, until the proclamation of the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic in 1952.
On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Polish government formally surrendered to Nazi Germany on 27 September 1939, but Pilecki and many of his men continued fighting as partisans. His division was disbanded on 17 October, with parts of it surrendering to the enemy. Pilecki went into hiding in Warsaw with his commander Major Włodarkiewicz. On 9 November 1939, the two men founded the Secret Polish Army ("Tajna Armia Polska", TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland. Pilecki became organizational commander of TAP as it expanded to cover Warsaw, Siedlce, Radom, Lublin, and other major cities of central Poland.
Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established by the Union of Lublin in 1569 and merged the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Seimas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Both countries had centuries-long tradition of public participation in policy making, traced to the Slavic assembly known as the "wiec". Another form of public decision making in Poland was that of royal election, which occurred when there was no clear heir to the throne, or the heir's appointment had to be confirmed. With time the power of such assemblies grew, entrenched with milestone privileges obtained by the nobility ("szlachta") particularly during periods of transition from one dynasty or royal succession system to another (such as the Privilege of Koszyce of 1374). Tracing the history of the Sejm of Poland, Bardach points to the national assemblies of the early 15th century, Jędruch prefers, as "a convenient time marker", the sejm of 1493, the first recorded bicameral session of the Polish parliament. Sedlar, however, noted that 1493 is simply the first time such a session was clearly recorded in sources, and the first bicameral session might have taken place earlier.
The Party was established during the Four-Year Sejm (Great Sejm) of 1788–92 by individuals that sought reforms aimed at bolstering the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including seeking to reassert Poland's independence from the Russian Empire. Its aim was to draft and pass legislation to fix the ailing Commonwealth. The Party worked to abolish the magnate and Russian dominated Permanent Council, and to enlarge the Polish Army. The Party was modeled after similar organization that recently began operating in revolutionary France.
The party was established by Jan Stapiński on 5 April 1914 as a breakaway from the Polish People's Party. In the January 1919 elections to elect the first Sejm of the Second Polish Republic it received 3.5% of the vote, winning 12 seats. However, the 1922 elections saw it reduced to two seats in the Sejm and fail to win a seat in the Senate.
Poland is a representative democracy, with a president as a head of state, whose current constitution dates from 1997. Poland ranks in the top 20 percent of the most peaceful countries in the world, according to the Global Peace Index. The government structure centers on the Council of Ministers, led by a prime minister. The president appoints the cabinet according to the proposals of the prime minister, typically from the majority coalition in the Sejm. The president is elected by popular vote every five years. The current president is Andrzej Duda and the prime minister is Mateusz Morawiecki.
Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of South Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1806, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw. Following the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the center of the Congress Poland, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with Imperial Russia. During this period under the rule of the relatively liberal Russian Emperor Alexander I, Warsaw experienced much growth such as the founding of the Royal University of Warsaw was established (1816) and what is today's main street of the city—Aleje Jerozolimskie—was marked out. In 1818, the Town Hall on the Old Town Market was pulled down because it had become too small for the city, which had expanded after it incorporated the "jurydykas". The city's authorities moved to Jabłonowski's Palace (by the Great Theater), where it stayed until World War II.
The People's Republic of Hungary remained in existence until 1989, when opposition forces brought the end of communism in Hungary. The state considered itself the heir to the Republic of Councils in Hungary, which was formed in 1919 as the first communist state created after the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR). It was designated a people's democratic republic by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. Geographically, it bordered Romania and the Soviet Union (via the Ukrainian SSR) to the east; Yugoslavia to the southwest; Czechoslovakia to the north and Austria to the west.
The main Polish success was concluding signing a military alliance with the Ukrainian People's Republic of Symon Petliura. Ukrainians, who have faced a series of defeats on hands of both Poles and Soviets, decided that the only way to preserve some form of independence was to ally themselves with one faction and majority of Ukrainian leaders chose Poland as the less imperialistic of their enemies. Petliura had, after his government's defeat by the Bolsheviks, found asylum in Poland and now headed a new Ukrainian Army. The Polish–Ukrainian War ended around July 1919 and from September both Polish and Ukrainians fought together against the Soviets.
As Czechoslovakia was being absorbed into the German Reich, Zaolzie, the Czech half of Cieszyn, was annexed by Poland in 1938 following the Munich Agreement and the First Vienna Award. At noon on September 30, Poland gave an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government. It demanded the immediate evacuation of Czech troops and police from Zaolzie and gave Prague until noon the following day. At 11:45 a.m. on October 1 the Czech foreign ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have what it wanted. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Nazi Germany – a charge that Warsaw was hard put to deny. 
Poland seized land from northern Spisz and northern Orawa, including territories around Suchá Hora and Hladovka, around Javorina, around Leśnica in the Pieniny Mountains, a small territory around Skalité, and some other very small border regions. They officially received the territories on 1 November 1938. Polish military groups began to carry out assimilation of the population. Polish was introduced as the only official language and the Slovak Intelligence were displaced from the territories.
In 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland and partitioned it pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Warsaw's development, however, was accompanied by an intensive assault on Polish national identity. Russian authorities closed Polish schools and built more and more Orthodox churches. These acts were strongly opposed. On 27 February 1861, Russian troops fired on a Warsaw crowd that was protesting Russian rule. Five people were killed. On 22 January 1863 a new uprising broke out. The Underground Polish National Government resided in Warsaw during January Uprising in 1863–4. However, this uprising was mainly in the character of guerilla, therefore Warsaw did not distinguish itself in it. But, as a penalty, President Kalikst Witkowski, the Russian general and predecessor of Sokrates Starynkiewicz, constantly imposed tributes on Warsaw. The last serious riots took place in 1905 (after the St. Petersburg's “bloody Sunday”), when the Cossacks and police fired to the people demonstrating in Warsaw.
In 1897 Warsaw was 56.5% Polish, 35.8% Jewish and 4.9% Russian.
In October 1989, the Communist Party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party. In a historic session from 16 October to 20 October, the parliament adopted legislation providing for multi-party parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election. The legislation transformed Hungary from a People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensured separation of powers among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government. On 23 October 1989 at Kossuth tér, Budapest, the Republic of Hungary was proclaimed.
The state of Lithuania formed in the 1230s, when threatened by the Livonian Order in the north and the Teutonic Knights in the west, the Baltic tribes united under the leadership of Mindaugas. He became the only crowned king of Lithuania. His state became known as Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After Grand Duke Jogaila became also king of Poland in 1386, the two states became closer connected and since 1440 both were ruled by a common ruler. In 1569 Union of Lublin was signed and a new entity—the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—emerged. The commonwealth was partitioned in 1795 and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire till 16 February 1918. The Council of Lithuania was able to establish the sovereignty only in 1919, after Germany lost World War I. The first republic of Lithuania existed until 1940 when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. During the Soviet-German War, Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1944, as Germany was losing the war, Russia re-occupied Lithuania and established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence. The restored Republic of Lithuania is a democratic republic, a member of both the European Union and NATO.
It was founded as a Royal University on 19 November 1816, when the Partitions of Poland separated Warsaw from the oldest and most influential University of Kraków. Alexander I granted permission for the establishment of five faculties – law and political science, medicine, philosophy, theology and the humanities. The university expanded rapidly, but was closed during November Uprising in 1830. It was reopened in 1857 as the Warsaw Academy of Medicine, which was now based in the nearby Staszic Palace with only medical and pharmaceutical faculties. All Polish-language campuses were closed in 1869 after the failed January Uprising, but the university managed to train 3,000 students, many of whom were important part of the Polish intelligentsia; meanwhile the Main Building was reopened for training military personnel. The university was resurrected during the First World War and the number of students reached 4,500 in 1918. After Poland's independence the new government focused on improving the university, and in the early 1930s it became the country's largest. New faculties were established and the curriculum was extended. Following the Second World War and the devastation of Warsaw, the University successfully reopened in 1945.
The Second World War in 1939 ended the sovereign Second Polish Republic. The German invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, one week after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. On that day, Germany and Slovakia attacked Poland, and on 17 September the Soviets attacked eastern Poland. Warsaw fell to the Nazis on 28 September after a twenty-day siege. Open organized Polish resistance ended on 6 October 1939 after the Battle of Kock, with Germany and the Soviet Union occupying most of the country. Lithuania annexed the area of Wilno, and Slovakia seized areas along Poland's southern border - including Górna Orawa and Tatranská Javorina - which Poland had annexed from Czechoslovakia in October 1938. Poland did not surrender to the invaders, but continued fighting under the auspices of the Polish government-in-exile and of the Polish Underground State. After the signing of the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation on 28 September 1939, Polish areas occupied by Nazi Germany either became directly annexed to the Third Reich, or became part of the so-called General Government. The Soviet Union, following Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus (22 October 1939), annexed eastern Poland partly to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and partly to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (November 1939).
Polish war plans (Plan West and Plan East) failed as soon as Germany invaded in 1939. The Polish losses in combat against Germans (killed and missing in action) amounted to ca. 70,000 men. Some 420,000 of them were taken prisoners. Losses against the Red Army (which invaded Poland on 17 September) added up to 6,000 to 7,000 of casualties and MIA, 250,000 were taken prisoners. Although the Polish army – considering the inactivity of the Allies – was in an unfavorable position – it managed to inflict serious losses to the enemies: 14,000 German soldiers were killed or MIA, 674 tanks and 319 armored vehicles destroyed or badly damaged, 230 aircraft shot down; the Red Army lost (killed and MIA) about 2,500 soldiers, 150 combat vehicles and 20 aircraft. The Soviet invasion of Poland, and lack of promised aid from the Western Allies, contributed to the Polish forces defeat by 6 October 1939.
A popular myth is that Polish cavalry armed with lances charged German tanks during the September 1939 campaign. This often repeated account, first reported by Italian journalists as German propaganda, concerned an action by the Polish 18th Lancer Regiment near Chojnice. This arose from misreporting of a single clash on 1 September 1939 near Krojanty, when two squadrons of the Polish 18th Lancers armed with sabers surprised and wiped out a German infantry formation with a mounted sabre charge. Shortly after midnight the 2nd (Motorized) Division was compelled to withdraw by Polish cavalry, before the Poles were caught in the open by German armored cars. The story arose because some German armored cars appeared and gunned down 20 troopers as the cavalry escaped. Even this failed to persuade everyone to reexamine their beliefs—there were some who thought Polish cavalry had been improperly employed in 1939.
In 1807 Napoleon created a powerful outpost of his empire in Central Europe. Poland had recently been partitioned by its three large neighbours, but Napoleon created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which depended on France from the very beginning. The duchy consisted of lands seized by Austria and Prussia; its Grand Duke was Napoleon's ally the king of Saxony, but Napoleon appointed the intendants who ran the country. The population of 4.3 million was released from occupation and by 1814 sent about 200,000 men to Napoleon's armies. That included about 90,000 who marched with him to Moscow; few marched back. The Russians strongly opposed any move towards an independent Poland and one reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was to punish them. The Grand Duchy was dissolved in 1815 and Poland did not become a state until 1918. Napoleon's impact on Poland was huge, including the Napoleonic legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class bureaucracies.
Polish people are the sixth largest national group in the European Union. Estimates vary depending on source, though available data suggest a total number of around 60 million people worldwide (with roughly 21 million living outside of Poland, many of whom are not of Polish ethnicity, but Polish nationals). There are almost 38 million Poles in Poland alone. There are also Polish minorities in the surrounding countries including (Germany), and indigenous minorities in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, northern and eastern Lithuania, western Ukraine, and western Belarus. There are some smaller indigenous minorities in nearby countries such as Moldova. There is also a Polish minority in Russia which includes indigenous Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after World War II; the total number of Poles in what was the former Soviet Union is estimated at up to 3 million.
The order of precedence for members of the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was created at the same time as the Commonwealth itself – at the Lublin Sejm in 1569. The Commonwealth was a union, in existence from 1569 to 1795, of two constituent nations: the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (commonly known as "Korona", or "the Crown") and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The union's legislative power was vested in a diet (assembly) known as the Sejm which consisted of the three Estates of the Sejm: the monarch, holding the titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania; the Senate; and the House of Deputies.
After the end of World War I, Poland regained her independence and the pre-war commander of I and IV departments, Capt. Józef Hłasko, returned to Warsaw from Moscow (where he served as the commander of that city's firefighters) and became the successor of Tuliszkowski. In 1920, during the Polish-Bolshevik War, the Polish Ministry of Interior decided to nationalize the unit. However, the authorities of Warsaw have sued the state authorities and the decision was withdrawn. Until World War II the Warsaw Fire Guards were the only privately owned fire brigade in Poland and one of the very few such units in the world. Officially their status was similar to that of the Municipal Police. The private ownership (most of the shares were held by the city of Warsaw) allowed for fast modernization of the Guards. In 1928 the last horse-drawn cart was decommissioned; since then the Guard has been fully motorized. In 1936 a new headquarters was built at Polna street, where one of the branches is located even now.
In Poland, after the death of the last Piast in 1370, Polish kings were initially elected by a small council; gradually, this privilege was granted to all members of the "szlachta" (Polish nobility). Kings of Poland and Grand Dukes of Lithuania during the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) were elected by gatherings of crowds of nobles at a field in Wola, today a neighbourhood of Warsaw. Since in Poland all sons of a noble were nobles, and not only the eldest, every one of an estimated 500,000 nobles could potentially have participated in such elections in person – by far the widest franchise of any European country at the time. During the election period, the function of the king was performed by an interrex (usually in the person of the primate of Poland). This unique Polish election was termed the free election ("wolna elekcja").
Following the repeated violations of the Polish constitution by the Russians (especially after the Alexander I's death, when the reactionary Nicholas I assumed power), the 1830 November Uprising broke out. It started with the assault on Belvedere - the residence of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, the commander-in-chief of Polish army and "de facto" viceroy of the Congress Poland, as well as at the Arsenal. The 1830 uprising led to the Polish-Russian war (1831), the greatest battle of which took place on 25 February 1831 in Grochów—a village in the modern northern part of the district, Praga Południe. Because the Polish commanders were stalled, the war ended in defeat, and curtailment of the Kingdom's autonomy. The Emperor established a military administration in Warsaw. An estate of pretty manors on the north of New Town was eradicated and on this place the Citadel was built, where was a fortress and prison. The Sejm was suspended, the Polish army dissolved, and the University closed.
The Second Polish Republic, commonly known as interwar Poland, refers to the country of Poland in the period between the First and Second World Wars (1918–1939). Officially known as the Republic of Poland (), sometimes Commonwealth of Poland, the Polish state was re-established in 1918, in the aftermath of World War I. When, after several regional conflicts, the borders of the state were fixed in 1922, Poland's neighbours were Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Free City of Danzig, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and the Soviet Union. It had access to the Baltic Sea via a short strip of coastline either side of the city of Gdynia. Between March and August 1939, Poland also shared a border with the then-Hungarian governorate of Subcarpathia. The Second Republic ceased to exist in 1939, when Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the Slovak Republic, marking the beginning of European theatre of World War II.
In 1939, World War II began and Poland was conquered by Nazi Germany. The government of the Polish Republic went into exile. In 1942, Polish communists in German-occupied Poland established a new Polish communist party, the Polish Workers' Party ("Polska Partia Robotnicza", PPR). Władysław Gomułka soon became its leader. But in the Soviet Union, Stalin and Wanda Wasilewska created the Union of Polish Patriots as a communist organization under Soviet control. As Germany was being defeated, the Polish communists cooperated with the Soviet Union, in opposition to the Polish government-in-exile, to establish a Soviet-dependent Polish state. This led to the creation of the Polish People's Republic. The PPR merged with the Polish Socialist Party ("Polska Partia Socjalistyczna", PPS), to form the Polish United Workers' Party ("Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza", PZPR), which ruled Poland until 1989. In post-World War II Poland, the communists initially enjoyed significant popular support due to the land reform, a mass scale rebuilding program and progressive social policies. The popular support eroded because of repressions, economic difficulties, and the lack of freedoms, but the PZPR was kept in power for four decades under the Soviet influence.
Administrative division of Polish People's Republic was subject to several reforms. The first of those established administrative division over the Polish territories that had shifted significantly westwardly. The Polish People's Republic administrative division was reformed in: 1946, 1950, 1957 and 1975. The 1975 division survived the fall of communism in 1990 and was replaced only in 1999 by the most current administrative division of Poland, which closely resembles the 1945-75 scheme but with different names (the Communists tended to simply name the voivodeships after their capitals, whereas the current ones use more historical names) and changes in the borders in certain areas.
The government and politics of the Polish People's Republic were governed by the Polish United Workers' Party ("Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR"). Despite the presence of two minor parties, the United People's Party and the Democratic Party, the country was generally reckoned by western nations as a one-party state because these two parties were supposedly completely subservient to the Communists and had to accept the PZPR's "leading role" as a condition of their existence. It was dependent on the USSR to the extent of being its satellite state. From 1952 the PRP's highest law was the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic, and the Polish Council of State replaced the presidency of Poland. Elections were held on the single lists of the Front of National Unity.