Poles and the threat of a new global conflict after 1945. Attitudes towards the Korean war, the Berlin and Cuban crises, and the intervention in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

Poles in their history many times pinned their hopes on war – for instance after losing the independence at the end of 18th century. Similar public mood occurred after World War II. It was expressed by widespread rumors about approaching a new global armed conflict. It was intensified during great international crises. Especially the war in Korea from 1950 influenced people’s imagination. Similar reactions occurred during the Berlin crisis in 1961, Cuban crisis in 1962 and in the first phase of armed intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. The absence of Poland’s sovereignty brought this kind of Polish society reactions. It conduced imagination about new armed conflict, which was considered as the beginning of deep political changes in Poland and in the world. Rumors about the upcoming war described Polish psychosocial status after 1945. At the same time the ineffectiveness of party-state propaganda in a sphere of creating the so-called moral and political social unity was proved. The world powers realized the necessity of conducting peace policy after the end of the 60s of 20th century. Consequently, rumors about the new war became uncommon in Poland.