Berman, Jacob

Born in a family of Jewish intelligentsia. In 1925 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Warsaw and became an assistant to the Marxist sociologist Ludwik Kshivitsky . Worked on a doctoral dissertation, but did not complete it.

He was a member of the youth communist organization, since 1928 - a member of the Communist Party of Poland .

After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Jakub Berman fled to Bialystok , which was in the Soviet zone of occupation of Poland . In the spring of 1941 he moved to Minsk . He was the editor of the newspaper Sztandar Wolności ( Banner of Freedom ) - the Polish-language publication of the Belarusian Communist Party .

In the summer of 1941 , after the German invasion of the Soviet Union , Berman arrived in Moscow , then moved to Ufa , where he became an instructor in the school of the Comintern . He conducted political training for activists of the Communist Polish Workers Party (PPR).

In December 1943, Yakub Berman met in the Kremlin with Stalin . Having won his confidence, Berman moved to the leadership of the Polish Communists. Since 1944 - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PPR.

After returning to Poland in 1944, Jakub Berman, together with Boleslav Bierut and Hilary Mintz, entered the ruling Stalinist triumvirate. Take was the first person in the party-state apparatus, Mintz determined economic policy, Berman led the punitive bodies, ideology and agitprop .

In 1948 - 1956, Jakub Berman was a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP). In 1952 - 1954 - member of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the NDP , in 1954-1956 - Deputy Prime Minister (the heads of the NDP government during this period were Boleslav Bierut and Jozef Tsirankevich ).

Yakub Berman oversaw the punitive bodies of the NDP - the Ministry of Public Security (the Polish counterpart to the NKVD ) and the military organization of the Communist Party - the Voluntary Reserve of Civilian Police . Led the Security Commission of the Central Committee of the PUWP - the main coordinating body of political repression ^[1] . He acted in close political alliance with the Minister of Public Security Stanislav Radkevich , who was under his command.

Conduct at least one public trial against reactionaries in each province in September. To appoint Comrade Berman to be responsible for this action.
Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PPR of August 22, 1945 ^[2]

In this capacity, Berman led political terror against opponents of the communist regime ^[3] . According to Berman-led structures alone, more than 6,000 death sentences were passed in court alone (mainly to members of the Craiova Army and clergy).

Some modern Polish sources associate Orthodox communism, Stalinism and the pro-Soviet orientation of Berman with his ethnic origin, claim that the political course was determined by national aggression, the strategy of "Jewish domination". However, reference is made to certain “secret reports” of non-obvious authorship ^[4] . These versions do not have reliable confirmation.

From December 1952 to March 1954, Jakub Berman also oversaw the education system as Secretary of the Central Committee. This function provided him with control over the ideological and propaganda apparatus of the PUWP.

Jakub Berman personified the Stalinist course of the PUWP. The death of Stalin, the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the Khrushchev thaw inevitably entailed political changes in Poland ^[5] .

After the death of the first secretary of the PUWP, Boleslav Berut and the coming to power of Vladislav Gomulka in 1956, limited liberalization of the NDP regime began. Jakub Berman was brought to party responsibility for the massive "violations of socialist legality" during the reign of Bierut. Some state security functionaries — in particular, General Romkovsky , Deputy Minister Radkevich, and Colonel Rozhansky , the head of the Investigation Department of the IOB — were brought to trial and received prison sentences.

By way of de-Stalinization, in 1957, Yakub Berman was removed from the Politburo and the Central Committee. He performed a ritual of “self-criticism” and “admission of mistakes”, but at the same time claimed that he had prevented “even worse excesses” that Beria allegedly imposed on the Polish state security ^[6] . In 1958, expelled from the PUWP.

After being expelled from the leadership and expelled from the party, Jakub Berman worked as a lecturer in the state publishing house Book and Knowledge ( Polish. Książka i Wiedza ).

Since 1969 (after the anti-Semitic campaign of 1968 ) retired. Under the rule of Edward Gerek and Wojciech Jaruzelski, Jakub Berman remained in the shadows, without any publicity. In political events - the working uprising of 1970 on the Baltic coast , the confrontation between the PUWP and Solidarity - did not take part.

In 1980, Berman had a serious car accident, after which he spent about one and a half years in hospitals.

He died four years after the accident at the age of 82. He was buried in the Military Ponzki cemetery.

Jakub Berman had two brothers and two sisters. Adolf Berman was an activist of the Zionist movement and a communist politician in Israel . Mechislav Berman died in Treblinka . Anna Volek lost her husband and daughter in Treblinka. Irena Oletskaya is a famous Polish teacher.

For 50 years, Jakub Berman was married to Gustava Greenberg. Their daughter Lucina was the wife of the famous historian Felix Tykh ^[7] .

There are reasonable assumptions about Berman’s extramarital affair with Yulia Bristiger, the head of the V (political) department of the IOB (nicknamed the “Bloody Moon”) ^[8] .

In 2009, the publishing house of the Institute of National Remembrance published a monograph by historian Anna Sobur-Sviderskaya Jakub Berman. Biografia komunisty - “Jakub Berman. The biography of the communist . " In the annotation, Berman is described as “one of the most controversial politicians in post-war Poland” ^[9] .

• Teresa Torańska , Them: Stalin's Polish Puppets, Harper & Row, 1987, ISBN 0-06-015657-0 .
• Wolfgang Leonhard: Die Revolution entläßt ihre Kinder. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 1955, ISBN 3-462-01463-3 .
• John Sack: Auge um Auge, Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-8225-0339-8