oct 21, 1956 - Władysław Gomułka is made First Secretary of the Polish United Workers Party - leader of Poland, without the approval of the Soviet Union

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[Following Khruschev's cult of personality speech] "The Polish Communist Party took the lesson to heart…and began to release political prisoners and remove Stalinists from positions of authority – only to have riots break out, as had happened under similar circumstances in East Germany…the hard-liners, however, did not regain power: instead the Poles brought back Gomulka and installed him in the leadership without Khrushchev’s approval. Furious he flew uninvited to Warsaw, threw a tantrum, threatened to send in Soviet troops, but in the end quietly accepted the new Polish government, which had after all only promised what he himself had said he wanted to do." (Gaddis 2006, p. 108)

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