After the prewar Communist Party of Poland was eliminated in Stalin 's purges in 1938 ( some five thousand Polish communists were brought to Russia and killed ) , a group of survivors led by Marceli Nowotko , Bolesław Mołojec and Paweł Finder convinced in 1941 the Soviets in Moscow of the need to reestablish a Polish party . The conspiratorial core of the new Polish Workers ' Party was assembled in Warsaw in January 1942 , and after the deaths or arrests of the above leaders there , Władysław Gomułka emerged as the PPR 's first secretary by the end of 1943 . Gomułka was a dedicated communist in the national tradition of the Polish leftist movement . He loathed the Soviet practices he experienced while being trained in Russia and Ukraine in the 1930s , but was convinced of the historic necessity of alliance with the Soviet Union . He may have survived the purges because of being imprisoned in Poland for illegal labor-organizing activities in 1938 – 39 . Throughout the German occupation , Gomułka remained in Poland and was not a part of the circle organized in the Soviet Union around the Union of Polish Patriots by Stalin and Wanda Wasilewska . In Polish society of 1945 , Gomułka 's party was marginally small in comparison to other political groups
Stalin 's purges
Great Purge
History of Poland (1945–1989)