The opening of Krzysztof Lang’s film about March ’68 is scheduled for a premiere at the Polin Museum on Saturday. Rafał’s review engages with the traditional interpretation of Poles’ attitudes during that period, offering a nuanced perspective on the events of late Gomułka’s era. The reviewer notes that the government’s policies intensified anti-Semitic sentiment in society and pushed Jews, labeled as Zionists, to leave the country.
The film centers on a clash within the Polish United Workers’ Party. The Moczar faction, described as boors under the banner of the partisan, leveraged student protests surrounding Mickiewicz’s staging of Forefathers’ Eve at the theatre to settle old scores with rival party elements, including some who were of Jewish descent. In that era, Jews were not part of the partisan faction, in part due to the persecution they faced during the war in occupied Polish territories. This dynamic provided a convenient pretext for those aligned with the People’s Guard to declare that Jews were the problem, a simplification that avoided engaging with the deeper debates of Marxist-Leninist theory.
According to the March events, the Moczarians provoked students and launched a vicious propaganda campaign that cloaked anti-Semitic motives under the slogan of anti-Zionism. As some party members removed Jews from key positions, government and party offices were opened for others to fill. Within two months, the March purge led to the dismissal of four ministers, fourteen deputy ministers, and fifty-eight ministry directors, weakening entrenched clientelist networks in the Polish People’s Republic. In this reshuffling, new people aligned with the so-called March became chairholders in prominent academic posts, while figures like Edward Gierek’s supporters offered strong messages to the hardline PZPR members in the capital. The security landscape also saw Wojciech Jaruzelski ascending to the Ministry of Defense as vacancies appeared across ministries. Early testimonies from the era, such as Beata Dąbrowska’s recollection of an interview with an SB operative, described pressure on Jewish individuals to clear space for Polish associates, though it was not stated outright that the new Polish authorities were simply clearing out Moscow’s agents from the upper echelons.
As is common in episodes marked by provocations and security operations, thousands of ordinary people suffered as a consequence. In total, around 15,000 individuals of Jewish descent left the country, a migration that fueled emigration and contributed to the development of a powerful émigré community abroad. That migration later influenced diverse currents, including foreign support networks associated with labor movements in Poland’s history.
Questions have persisted about the claim of a Polish anti-Semitism wave, including considerations of how ordinary Poles interacted with the state’s power structures, the Central Committee, and security services that facilitated mass departures. Critics argue that some media narratives have framed the events in one light, while others, including those connected with certain editorial circles, have suggested a more complex picture of state and party dynamics, societal attitudes, and regional histories. These debates invite readers to examine how official propaganda, popular sentiment, and geopolitical pressures intersected in 1968, rather than accepting a single, simple explanation for the period.
Contemporary reflections on Warsaw’s memories from residents at the time, such as those offered by Antoni Zambrowski and Bohdan Urbankowski, point to a complicated landscape. If there were ethnic preferences among Poles in the spring of 1967, they appeared less as a uniform national stance and more as a mosaic shaped by recent regional conflicts, international events, and the social climate of the era. The broadened global context, including Israel’s military outcomes and regional shifts, fed into local debates and influenced how young people expressed themselves, sometimes adopting visual cues associated with various groups. The era’s images—rallies with banners and crowds holding placards—reflected the political currents of the time, yet later retellings sometimes simplified the narrative to a single label of mass expulsions.
This simplification obscures more intricate truths: the Puławian faction, which Moczar targeted, was deeply entwined with the regime through various power channels often aided by Soviet security figures. The legacy includes a recognition that some of the people removed from power were part of the broader state apparatus that shaped life in the Polish People’s Republic. It also notes that some of those who opposed Moczar and his allies grew up within that environment, making their later positions in society more a product of their upbringing and circumstances than simple loyalties to a particular ethnic or religious group. Researchers emphasize that the political system’s structure, not merely the actions of a single faction, defined much of the period’s outcomes. This perspective helps explain why the period remains a contested chapter in Polish history, with competing narratives about responsibility and culpability still circulating today.
In the end, the March events are viewed as a convergence of internal party struggles, state power, and the pressures of a changing world. The legacy continues to prompt examination of how political machines use propaganda, how societies respond to upheaval, and how collective memory can diverge from the historical record. The goal for contemporary scholarship is to understand these dynamics with nuance, avoiding oversimplified conclusions while acknowledging the human costs of political conflict.