People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Political and party leadership 24 Government and administration 8 Military command 9 Security, intelligence and policing 2 Diplomacy and international organization 3 Economy, finance and planning 2 Industry and production 1 Social movements and organizing 18 Scholarship and theory 2 Literature and arts 2 Religion 2 Law and justice 2
Affiliation

Most people

Any Polandstate 1

All 1 affiliations

Poland

Polandstate 1
Position
Any Marxism and communism 1
Citizenship(set)
Any Soviet Union 32 Russia 8 East Germany 2 Hungary 2 Poland 2 Benin 1 Democratic People's Republic of Korea 1 Estonia 1 Finland 1 Germany 1 Greece 1 Italy 1 Romania 1 United States 1
Background
Any Poland 2
Era
Any

People of the wider world

The Cold War and decolonization1945–현재 2
Law and justice Citizenship: Poland Clear all

Stanisław Hejmowski

Stanisław Hejmowski
Poland Polish 1900–1969 ○ Natural causes

The lawyer who confronted state violence

In court, he rejected the authorities’ division of the workers into ‘hooligans’ and argued that state violence had helped create the conditions for the explosion.

Stanisław Hejmowski was a Polish lawyer who defended political defendants and vulnerable people in the postwar years. After the 1956 Poznań workers’ uprising, he represented participants and argued that the cases had to be understood not as ordinary crime but as a social conflict produced by state policy and security-force violence. His advocacy challenged coerced investigations and the authorities’ portrayal of workers as hooligans, defending their dignity and legal rights. He was later punished through surveillance, a press campaign, a heavy fine, and suspension from legal practice.

Career timeline
  • 1900Born in Libau, Courland
  • 1924Graduated in law from the University of Warsaw
  • 1928–1930Worked as a prosecutor in Poznań, then entered the bar
  • 1946Defended Arthur Greiser before the Supreme National Tribunal
  • 1956Defended Poznań June participants Jerzy Sroka and Roman Bulczyński
  • 1959Became a major target of Polish security-service surveillance
  • 1961Was suspended from practice and subjected to financial repression
  • 1969Died in Poznań

Marian Rybicki

Marian Rybicki
Poland Communism Poland Polish 1915–1987 ○ Natural causes

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