Members and supporters of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) held commemorations on 1 November, visiting the graves of historical figures from the Polish workers’ movement, communist militants, anti-fascist fighters and members of the party.
CP of Poland commemorates fallen workers’ movement activists and anti-fascist fighters
The commemorations took place in Kraków, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Warsaw and Hajnówka.
In a report published on its website late on 1 November, the KPP described the visits as an act of remembrance for distinguished activists of the workers’ movement, including members of the pre-war Communist Party of Poland and the contemporary KPP.
In Kraków, party members visited, among others, the grave of Jan Hećko (1908–1962), a KPP activist who had been imprisoned in the Bereza Kartuska detention camp and later worked with partisan units during the Second World War. They also paid tribute to Józef Łabuz (1903–1972), an editor of KPP publications, sociologist and historian who had been a member of the People's Guard during the war, and Jonasz Stern (1904–1988), a painter, graphic artist and educator who had belonged to the KPP and later the Polish United Workers’ Party. The party also named several other activists whose graves were visited.
In Dąbrowa Górnicza, KPP members commemorated former comrades including Marian Indelak and Jerzy Majczak.
In Warsaw, they visited the graves of pre-war KPP activists at the Powązki Military Cemetery, as well as those of fighters from the People's Guard and People's Army and Polish volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War. They also remembered members of the contemporary KPP, including Jerzy Grzymkowski and Kazimierz Jarzębowski, and party sympathiser Adam Zapyłkin, buried at Bródno Cemetery.
The commemorations also extended beyond the graves of individual activists. In Hajnówka, party members lit a memorial candle at the Soviet Soldiers’ Cemetery, where more than 3,000 Soviet soldiers who died in the area during the Second World War are buried.
The KPP concluded its account with the words “Honour to their memory!”, presenting the visits as a tribute to generations of communist and workers’ movement activists and to those who fought fascism.
The commemorations come amid continued legal and political pressure on the party. The Constitutional Tribunal ruled against the KPP in December 2025, but the party announced in June 2026 that it had returned to the register of political parties following an appeal against its removal. The KPP has described the legal proceedings as politically motivated and continues to defend its right to operate.