Wladyslaw Gomulka (Polish: [vwa'diswaf go'muwka]; 6 February 1905 - 1 September 1982) was a Polish communist politician. He was the de facto leader of post-war Poland until 1948. Following the Polish October he became leader again from 1956 to 1970. Gomulka was initially very popular for his reforms; his seeking a "Polish way to socialism"; and giving rise to the period known as "Gomulka's thaw".
Post-war power politics
Gomulka was a deputy prime minister in the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland (Rzad Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej), from January to June 1945, and in the Provisional Government of National Unity (Tymczasowy Rzad Jednosci Narodowej), from 1945 to 1947. As a minister of Recovered Territories (1945-48), he exerted great influence over the rebuilding, integration and economic progress of Poland within its new borders, by supervising the settlement, development and administration of the lands acquired from Germany. Using his position in the PPR and government, Gomulka led the leftist social transformations in Poland and participated in the crushing of the resistance to the communist rule during the post-war years. He also helped the communists in winning the 3 x Tak (3 Times Yes) referendum of 1946. A year later, he played a key role in the 1947 parliamentary elections, which were fraudulently arranged to give the communists and their allies an overwhelming victory. After the elections, all remaining legal opposition in Poland was effectively destroyed. In June 1948, because of the impending unification of the PPR and PPS, Gomulka delivered a talk on the subject of the history of the Polish worker movement.  Gomulka's already well-developed antisemitic tendencies were expressed in a memo written to Stalin in 1948, in which he argued that "some of the Jewish comrades don't feel any link to the Polish nation or to the Polish working class...or they maintain a stance which might be described as 'national nihilism'". As a result, he considered it "absolutely necessary not only to stop any further growth in the percentage of Jews in the state as well as the party apparatus, but also to slowly lower that percentage, especially at the highest levels of the apparatus".  However, a rivalry between Polish communist factions (Gomulka was the leader of a home national group vs. Boleslaw Bierut of Stalin's group reared during the war in the Soviet Union) led to Gomulka's removal from power in 1948. He was accused of "right wing-reactionary deviation" and expelled from the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) (as the Polish Workers' Party was renamed following a merger with the Polish Socialist Party). His public activity was interrupted by an eight year long period (1949-56) during which he performed no official functions and was subjected to persecution and imprisonment.  The Stalinist General Secretary of the PZPR, Bierut, died in March 1956, during the period of de-Stalinization in Poland, which gradually developed after Stalin's death. Edward Ochab became the new first secretary of the Party. In June 1956, violent worker protests broke out in Poznan. The worker riots were harshly suppressed and dozens of workers were killed. However, the Party leadership, which now included many reform-minded officials, recognized to some degree the validity of the protest participants' demands and took steps to placate the workers.

Q: When was the war over?
A: unknown
Who were the leaders post-war?
Gomulka was a deputy prime minister in the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland
Gomulka was a deputy prime minister in the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland