December 1970 protests

In December 1970, the communists again shot at innocent people demanding bread and freedom. At the gate of the Gdańsk shipyard, in Elbląg and Szczecin, the army and militia killed several dozen people with around 1,000 injured. As a result, the government changed. W. Gomułka, shamed already two years previously by his handling of the student protests and fuelling anti-Semitic sentiments, was forced to resign and E. Gierek became the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the PUWP.