Aleksander Zawadzki

Who was Aleksander Zawadzki?

Aleksander Zawadzki was a Polish Communist political figure and head of state of Poland from 1952 to 1964.

A member of the Communist Youth Union, Zawadzki went into exile in the Soviet Union in 1931, after spending six years in prison for subversive activities against the Polish state and for organizing the murder of Antoni Kamiński, a comrade from the Communist Youth Union. He returned to Poland in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, but was immediately arrested. Freed from prison by the Soviet invasion of the country, Zawadzki eventually joined the Soviet-organized Polish People's Army, rising to the rank of major general.

Upon the conclusion of the Vistula-Oder Offensive, he was appointed the new government's representative to the former German territory of Silesia, which was transferred to Poland after the war. He was elected to the Sejm in 1947, and on November 20, 1952 he was appointed chairman of the Polish Council of State, to replace Bolesław Bierut. He died of cancer in 1964.