1946 Polish people's referendum

The referendum presented an opportunity for the forces vying for political control of Poland following World War II to test their popularity among the general population.

Nonetheless, the party's opposition to the first question was used by the communists to declare the more liberal PSL activists "traitors".

[4] The official results, published on 12 July 1946, showed that from a population of 13,160,451 eligible voters, 90.1% or 11,857,986 had taken part in the referendum.

The communists, who already de facto controlled much of the government and had the backing of the military (both the Polish Wojsko Ludowe and Soviet Red Army), used the police (Milicja Obywatelska) and the secret services (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa) to threaten, assault and even murder opposition activists, switch real ballots for false ones, stuff ballot boxes with false votes, consider blank ballots as "yes" votes, destroy votes not in favour of all or any of the three questions or simply falsify votes.

[4] PSL, which was able to obtain real records for approximately 48% of the voting districts, estimated that a "yes" for all three questions was chosen by 16.7% of respondents.

[2] Materials published after the communists lost power in Poland in 1989 showed that only the third question received a majority of votes in favor.