The passing of Gomułka and his group marked the end of an era in post-war Polish history. A group of leaders, formed in the pre-war and wartime underground, passed from the stage. They left behind a political and economic system purged of the worst features of Stalinism, but still over-centralized, run by a narrow political elite, and open to police arbitrariness. As a system acceptable to the Soviet Union, and yet containing features that made it possible for the population to see it as in some sense ‘Polish’, it enjoyed genuine, if limited, popular legitimacy. At the same time this legitimacy was weakened by widespread popular frustration, which increased greatly in the later years of the Gomulka leadership. The main source of the frustration was the failure of the standard of living of the bulk of the working class, white-collar workers and peasants to rise.

The period which began with the assumption of leadership by Edward Gierek was still, at the beginning of 1978, rather an open one, and the final judgement on it would have to wait till it was complete. The last chapter of the history of post-war Poland cannot be more than an epilogue. It might, however, be possible to list the criteria by which the Gierek period is likely to be judged. People's Poland can take just pride in the fulfilment of several vital national tasks: the recovery from war damage, the assimilation of the Western Territories, the development of industry, the ending of mass unemployment in towns and under-employment in the country, the expansion of opportunities for social advance, and the support for the development of national culture.