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Title: Jakub Berman papers
Date (inclusive): 1941-1983
Collection Number: 2008C88
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
Polish
Physical Description:
2 manuscript boxes
(0.8 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Memoirs, other speeches and writings, notes, correspondence, and photographs relating to the Polish communist movement and
to post-World War II political conditions in Poland.
Creator:
Berman, Jakub, 1901-1984
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2008.
[Identification of item], Jakub Berman papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Jakub Berman was born in 1901 in Warsaw into a Jewish middle-class family. He completed a degree in law at Warsaw University
in 1925. Three years later he joined the Polish Communist Party (KPP). After the Nazi-Soviet attack and partition of Poland
in September 1939, Berman moved to the Soviet side of Poland. Initially, he worked as a newspaper editor and later became
an instructor in the Comintern school, which trained activists for Josef Stalin's new party for Polish communists, the Polish
Workers' Party.
Stalin was favorably impressed with Berman's intellectual abilities and political commitment during meetings in the Kremlin
in 1943. In the summer of 1944, as the Soviet armies were driving the Germans out of occupied Poland, Berman became a Politburo
member, second only to Boleslaw Bierut, an ethnic Pole of peasant origin, chosen by Stalin to lead the new Polish state. Between
1944 and 1956, during which he was a member of the Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza Biuro Polityczne, Berman was one of
the most powerful Polish communist politicians. Berman's responsibilities in the Politburo included oversight of the Security
Office (UB), ideology, and propaganda. During his tenure at least 200,000 people were imprisoned for real or imagined political
offenses, of whom some 6,000 were executed.
During the relative political "thaw" following the deaths of Stalin in 1953 and Bierut in 1956, Berman was forced to resign
from the Politburo and the Central Committee. He was officially blamed for "Stalinist errors and deviations" but never prosecuted.
His name is associated with the Sovietization of Poland following World War II and repressions against the opponents of the
communist regime. Berman died in retirement in Warsaw in 1984.
Scope and Content of Collection
Memoirs, other speeches and writings, notes, correspondence, and photographs relating to the Polish communist movement and
the Polish People's Republic, post-World War II political conditions in Poland, and the Sovietization of Eastern Europe.
Stefan Jędrychowski papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Roman Zambrowski papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Henryk Jablonski papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Edward Osóbka-Morawski papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Poland -- Politics and government -- 1945-1980
Communism -- Poland
Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza