A legal functionary who defined order against a workers’ revolt
On 17 July 1956, he said the investigation would distinguish striking workers from “trouble-makers, criminals and provocateurs.”
Marian Rybicki was a Polish lawyer and communist politician who helped institutionalize the postwar state through senior party, legal, and administrative work. After the Poznań workers’ revolt in 1956, as Prosecutor General, he publicly advanced a “two currents” line distinguishing striking workers from “trouble-makers, criminals and provocateurs.” The distinction separated workers’ economic grievances from alleged criminal responsibility, but it also framed the investigations and trials that followed. He later served as justice minister and worked as a legal scholar concerned with law and governance in a socialist state.
Career Timeline
- 1937Graduated in law from the University of Warsaw
- 1945–1947Worked in the Legal Department of the Presidium of the National National Council
- 1947–1948Served on the Executive Committee and Secretariat of the Polish Socialist Party
- 1948–1954Member of the Organizational Bureau of the Polish United Workers’ Party Central Committee
- 1952–1956First Secretary of the Council of State
- 1956–1957Prosecutor General of the Polish People’s Republic
- 1957–1965Minister of Justice
- 1965–1983Professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of State and Law, and secretary of the All-Poland Committee of the Front of National Unity