Gierek was deported to the Second Polish Republic for his communist advocacy in 1934 but moved to Belgium and was active in the Belgian Resistance during World War II.

Gierek was known for his openness and public speaking, emerging as one of the most respected and progressive politicians in the Poland whilst becoming a strong opponent to Gomułka.

Gierek's first years were marked by improvements in living and working conditions with the construction of blocks of flats, growing industrialization, as well as the loosening of state censorship and openness to new Western ideas which turned Poland into the most liberal country of the Eastern Bloc.

Gierek was removed from power after the Gdańsk Agreement between the state and workers of the emerging Solidarity movement, which was seen as a move to renounce communism by the PZPR's leadership who replaced him as First Secretary with Stanisław Kania.

Gierek is fondly remembered for his patriotism and modernization policies despite dragging Poland into financial and economic decline; over 1.8 million flats were constructed to house the growing population, and he was also responsible for initiating the production of the Fiat 126 car in Poland, and the construction of Warszawa Centralna railway station, the most modern European station at the time of its completion.

[4][5] After completing compulsory military service in Stryi in southeastern Poland (1934–1936), Gierek married Stanisława Jędrusik, but was unable to find employment.

[5][7] Working in the Katowice district PPR organization, in December 1948, as a Sosnowiec delegate he participated in the PPR-PPS unification congress, which resulted in the establishment of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR).

Nikita Khrushchev criticized Gomułka for not retaining Gierek in the Politburo; he remained a Central Committee secretary responsible for economic affairs, however.

On the one hand Gierek was regarded as a pragmatic, non-ideological and economic progress-oriented manager, on the other he was known for his servile attitude toward the Soviet leaders, for whom he was a source of information concerning the PZPR and its personalities.

He was the first Politburo member to speak publicly on the issue of the protests then taking place and later claimed that his motivation was to demonstrate support for Gomułka's rule, threatened by Mieczysław Moczar's intra-party conspiring.

Among Gierek's popular moves was the decision to rebuild the Royal Castle in Warsaw, destroyed during World War II and not included in the post-war restoration of the city's Old Town.

The Church markedly expanded its physical infrastructure and also became a crucial political third force, often involved in mediating conflict between the authorities and opposition activists.

[14] The first secretary's good relations with Western leaders, especially France's Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Helmut Schmidt, were a catalyst for his receiving foreign aid and loans.

Poles, to an unprecedented degree, were able to purchase desired consumer items such as compact cars, travel to the West rather freely, and even a solution to the intractable housing supply problem seemed to be on the horizon.

The widely opposed alterations led to numerous protest letters and other actions, but were supported at the VII Congress of the PZPR in December 1975 and largely implemented by the Sejm in February 1976.

Prime Minister Jaroszewicz forced the price rises, in combination with financial compensation favoring upper income brackets; the policy ultimately was adopted despite strong objections from the Soviet leadership.

Strikes broke out the following day, with particularly serious disturbances, brutally suppressed by the police, taking place in Radom, at Warsaw's Ursus Factory and in Płock.

As was the case with Władysław Gomułka a decade earlier, a foreign policy success created an illusion that the Polish party leader was secure in his statesman aura, while the paramount political facts were being determined by the deteriorating economic situation and the resultant labor unrest.

He responded to Brezhnev's gloomy assessment of the situation in Poland (including the out-of-control indebtedness) with his own upbeat predictions, possibly not fully cognizant of the country's, and his own, predicament.

In the Gdańsk Agreement and other accords reached with Polish workers, Gierek was forced to concede their right to strike, and the Solidarity labor union was born.

[22] Shortly thereafter, in early September 1980, he was replaced by the Central Committee's VI Plenum as party first secretary by Stanisław Kania, and removed from power.

[23] The extraordinary IX Congress of the PZPR, in an unprecedented move, voted in July 1981 to expel Gierek and his close associates from the party, as the delegates considered them responsible for the Solidarity-related crisis in Poland, and the First Secretary Kania was unable to prevent their action.

Unlike the (also-interned) opposition activists, the internment status brought Gierek no social respect; he ended his political career as the era's main pariah.

[23] Edward Gierek died in July 2001 of pneumoconiosis in a hospital in Cieszyn, near the southern mountain resort of Ustroń where he spent his last years.

[26] Others emphasize that the improvements were only made possible by the unwise and unsustainable policies based on huge foreign loans, which led directly to the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s.

[23] According to sociologist and left-wing politician Maciej Gdula, the social and cultural transformation that took place in Poland in the 1970s was even more fundamental than in the 1990s, following the political transition.

Terms like management, initiative, personality, or the individualistic maxim "get educated, work hard and get ahead in life", combined with orderliness, replaced class consciousness and the socialist egalitarian concept, as workers were losing their symbolic status, to be eventually separated into a marginalized stratum.