Jewish groups had difficulty joining the official Polish resistance umbrella organization, the Home Army (in Polish, Armia Krajowa or AK), the heads of which often referred to them as "bandits". More acceptance was found within the smaller Armia Ludowa, the armed branch of the Polish Workers' Party, leading to some Jewish groups operating under their (and other Soviet partisan groups') auspices or protection, further strengthening the perception of Jews working with Soviets against the Poles. Communist takeover of Poland in the aftermath of World War II The Soviet-backed Communist government was as harsh towards non-Communist Jewish cultural, political and social institutions as they were towards Polish, banning all alternative parties. Thousands of Jews returned from exile in the Soviet Union, but as their number decreased with legalized aliyah to Israel, the PZPR members formed a much larger percentage of the remaining Jewish population. Among them were a number of Jewish communists who played a highly visible role in the unpopular Communist government and its security apparatus. Hilary Minc, the third in command in Bolesław Bierut's political triumvirate of Stalinist leaders, became the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Industry, Industry and Commerce, and the Economic Affairs. He was personally assigned by Stalin first to Industry and then to Transportation ministries of Poland. His wife, Julia, became the Editor-in-Chief of the monopolized Polish Press Agency. Minister Jakub Berman—Stalin's right hand in Poland until 1953—held the Political propaganda and Ideology portfolios. He was responsible for the largest and most notorious secret police in the history of the People's Republic of Poland, the Ministry of Public Security (UB), employing 33,200 permanent security officers, one for every 800 Polish citizens. The new government's hostility to the wartime Polish Government in Exile and its World War II underground resistance—accused by the media of being nationalist, reactionary and antisemitic, and persecuted by Berman—further strengthened Żydokomuna sentiment to the point where in the popular consciousness Jewish Bolshevism was seen as having conquered Poland. It was in this context, reinforced by the immediate post-war lawlessness, that Poland experienced an unprecedented wave of anti-Jewish violence (of which most notable was the Kielce pogrom). According to Michael C. Steinlauf, the Polish communists who took power in Poland were mainly KPP members who sheltered in Moscow during the war, and included many Jews who thus survived the Holocaust. In addition, since Jews were excluded from the government of the Second Polish Republic,