Boleslaw Bierut

Bolesław Bierut (true name Bolesław Biernacki, April 18, 1892–March 12, 1956) was a Polish Communist leader, a Stalinist who led Poland in the aftermath of World War II.

Bierut was born near Lublin. In 1925 he went to Moscow to be trained at the school of the Communist International. When the Polish Communist Party was dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1938, he was lucky to survive the following purge of the Polish communists. Recalled to head the new Polish Workers' Party in 1943, he functioned as head of the Polish provisional government from 1944 to 1947. Bierut was instrumental in the Soviet takeover of Poland by the Communists. Under the Bierut Decree of March 8, 1946, German lands and properties were confiscated. From 1947 to 1952, he was President of the Republic of Poland.

Although Bierut imposed Stalinist Communism on Poland, he refused to stage show trials of politicians in 1948, sparing his eventual successor Władysław Gomułka. He did, however, sanction the show trials of World War II military leaders such as General Stanisław Tatar, 40 members of the WiN (Freedom and Independence) organisation and church leaders. Many more opponents of the regime were sentenced to death in secret trials.