Polish Committee of National Liberation
provisional government of Poland, proclaimed in 1944
The Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polish: Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego, PKWN), also known as the Lublin Committee, was an executive governing authority established by the Soviet-backed communists in Poland at the later stage of World War II. It was officially proclaimed on 22 July 1944 in Chełm, installed on 26 July in Lublin and placed formally under the direction of the State National Council (Krajowa Rada Narodowa, KRN). The PKWN was a provisional entity functioning in opposition to the London-based Polish government-in-exile, which was recognized by the Western allies.[a] The PKWN exercised control over Polish territory retaken from Nazi Germany by the Soviet Red Army and the Polish People's Army. It was sponsored and controlled by the Soviet Union and dominated by Polish communists.
Formation
At the time of the formation of the PKWN, the principal Polish authority in German-occupied Poland was the Polish Underground State network of organizations loyal to the Polish government-in-exile, resident in London. As the Red Army, fighting Nazi German forces, entered Polish territory, Joseph Stalin and Polish communists proceeded with the establishment of a rival executive authority, one that they could trust.[b]
The PKWN was formed in negotiations involving primarily the main Polish communist organizations, the Union of Polish Patriots (ZPP) and the Polish Workers' Party (PPR). The Polish communist movement had been decimated during the Soviet purges in the 1930s, but revived under Stalin's auspices beginning in 1940. The PPR was a new party organized in occupied Poland, the ZPP originated during the war in the Soviet Union. The PPR had already established in Warsaw a conspiratorial State National Council (KRN), which they declared to be the wartime national parliament. Because of war-related obstacles, the communist leaders arriving from Warsaw (the PPR delegation that included Władysław Gomułka and Bolesław Bierut) reached Lublin only on 31 July, and attained full agreement with the group from Moscow (ZPP) on 15 August. The documents they produced were antedated to 21 July to comply with the declarations issued as of 22 July.
“Polish Committee of National Liberation” enters the record as provisional government of Poland, proclaimed in 1944. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Polish, Committee and National can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q40147. VIAF identifies the subject as 141413300. The Library of Congress control number is n86003609. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Polish Committee of National Liberation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.