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This study, originally published in 1980, was based on previously unavailable documents brought to the West in 1972. It provides a detailed account of the problems faced by a communist party taking power in a country in which it was opposed by the majority of the population. The eighteen months covered in this book were crucial for the establishment of communist rule in Poland. They saw the setting up of a governmental structure effectively dominated by the communists and the emergence of a security apparatus. The documents bring out clearly the conflicts within the Polish Workers Party over strategy and tactics and reveal the way Soviet officials, and above all Stalin, exercised close supervision and control over the situation in Poland.

The work is significant not only because of the light it sheds on Polish politics in the last years of the Second World War, but also because of the way it illuminates Soviet policy. It constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of how Soviet power was established in Eastern Europe and is essential reading for all those interested in the area and in the origins of the Cold War.