Marian "Marek" Spychalski was a Polish architect in pre-war Poland, and later, military commander and communist politician. During World War II he belonged to the communist underground forces operating within Poland and was one of the leaders of the resistance movement Gwardia Ludowa, then Armia Ludowa.
After World War II, he held a number of offices in the government of Poland, one of his first being mayor of Warsaw, with the war still in progress. Among other posts, he was a long-time member of the Sejm, a close friend of Władysław Gomułka, and from 1945 to 1948 was both Deputy Minister of Defense and a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party. He was removed from his remaining political posts in 1949 and then in 1950 imprisoned as part of the Stalinist purges of social-democrats in 1949–1953, where he was accused of anti-Soviet tendencies akin to Titoism. In 1951 he appeared in a show trial where he was instructed to deliver official testimony against Gomułka. He was only released in the mass release of political prisoners in April 1956, and subsequently reinstated in the Polish United Workers' Party. With Gomułka's rehabilitation and return to power in 1956, Spychalski became the Polish Minister of Defence. In 1959 he again became a member of the Politburo, and in 1963 he was promoted to Field Marshal. In 1968 during the antisemitic purge of the army, at Gomułka's request he left the Polish Army and his job as Minister of Defense, to assume civilian posts as President of the Front of National Unity, and from 10 April 1968 to 23 December 1970 as Chairman of the Council of State – the de factohead of state of Poland – the Council being the de jure executive authority in the People's Republic, although some considered the post to be mostly symbolic.
Descent from power
As head of state, Spychalski was nearly assassinated at Karachi airport in Pakistan on 1 November 1970 during the welcoming ceremonies. The Gettysburg Times informed that an anti-communist Islamic fundamentalist Feroze Abdullah drove a lorry at high speed into the Polish delegation, narrowly missing his intended target but killing the Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Zygfryd Wolniak and three Pakistani representatives including the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Chaudhri Mohammed Nazir, and two photographers. Spychalski lost his posts as close associate of Gomułka, when Edward Gierek replaced Gomułka as First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party during the 1970 Polish protests throughout December. Spychalski retired and wrote a four volume memoir which is now in the archives of the Hoover Institution in California. He died on 7 June 1980, survived by his wife Barbara who also wrote about him.
