Zenon Kliszko

Zenon Kliszko (Łódź, December 8, 1908 – September 4, 1989, Warsaw), was a politician in the Polish People's Republic, considered the right-hand man of Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) leader Władysław Gomułka.

Kliszko graduated from Warsaw University and joined the Polish Communist Party in 1931. He was arrested in 1934 for anti-state agitation and released after the courts established that he was mentally challenged. Kliszko took part in the Warsaw Uprising during Nazi German occupation of Poland and escaped capture by swimming across the river. He met Gomułka in Lublin, befriended him, and became the KC PZPR functionary after the Soviet takeover in 1945.

Kliszko was responsible for issuing an order to regular army units under General Bolesław Chocha to open fire on striking workers in Gdańsk and Gdynia during the Polish 1970 protests. On Kliszko´s advice and recommendation, the communist party took down the production of Dziady by Mickiewicz at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw, leading to 1968 Polish political crisis and the student protests across the country, brutally suppressed by ORMO, as well as the expulsion from Poland of thousands of individuals of Jewish ancestry. He was fired from his job and removed from the Party by Edward Gierek.