Sądy wojenne w Ludowym Wojsku Polskim (1943–1945)

Abstract

Since its inception the communist forces’ system of military justice had constituted a part of the system of subordinating entire front-line units to the communist rule, and the advancing Sovietisation of the Polish People’s Army. The Soviet communists had their own experience in the fields of enforcing obedience and wide-scale infiltration, including that of the armed forces. Red Army, SMERSH and NKVD officers detached to the PPA and the security apparatus involved, introduced Soviet-inspired police terror and disciplinary tactics in the army, temporarily making use of pre-war symbolism and cynically referring to the tradition of the Second Polish Republic. The judicial practice of courts-martial was aimed at preparing the Polish army and war-weary population to accept the communist ideology, and for clearing the military of those discontented with post-Yalta reality.