ZAMBROWSKI, ROMAN

ZAMBROWSKI, ROMAN (1909–1977), Polish Communist politician. Zambrowski joined the Communist youth movement as a young man, becoming its first secretary and its representative on the central committee of the Polish Communist Party. He also represented the Polish Communists on the executive committee of the Youth International in Moscow. He was arrested several times by the Polish authorities and imprisoned, among other places, in the notorious Bereza Kartuska concentration camp. During World War ii Zambrowski lived in the Soviet Union and became one of the chief organizers of the Union of Polish Patriots sponsored by the Soviet authorities. He took an active part in the formation of Polish army units which fought alongside the Soviet army. His special responsibility was the appointment of political staff attached to these units, and he was a member of the Communist central bureau at Polish army headquarters. After World War ii Zambrowski became head of the Polish United Workers' Party. He was a member of the Political Bureau of the Polish government and between 1956 and 1963 was secretary of the party's central committee. For a short time he occupied the post of minister for state control. In 1964, after a quarrel with the group in power led by Wladyslaw Gomulka, he was removed from leading positions in the party and government. During the antisemitic campaign launched by the Polish authorities after the *Six-Day War (1967) he was publicly accused of revisionism and sympathy for Zionism and retired from public life.

[Abraham Wein]