Freedom and Independence Association

Polish anticommunist organisation (1945 52)
Freedom and Independence Association (Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość, or WiN) was a Polish underground anticommunist organisation founded on September 2, 1945 and active until 1952.

The main purpose of its activity was to prevent Soviet domination over Poland and to fight communism. Although the pursuit of those goals was supposed to be largely peaceful, the fact of Soviet domination over Poland and the increasingly hostile and provocative behavior of local communists frequently resulted in WiN having its hand forced and in military confrontation. Although the WiN forces were well armed and highly disciplined, they could not hope to fight a prolonged guerrilla war against the Soviet Red Army and NKVD units, a fact clearly understood by the leadership. Thus, to the extent possible WiN attempted instead to concentrate not on military action but rather on providing assistance (false documents and money) for former soldiers of Home Army, National Armed Forces and other Polish resistance organizations believed not to be allied with the Soviets.

The WiN was the first to carry the news of the falsification of the 1946 Polish people's referendum in an announcement to the United Nations Security Council. Members of the organization were persecuted by both the Soviets and the local communists. NKVD soldiers and Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego agents carried out a bloody war with its 30,000 men in Mazowsze and Lubelskie region. The WiN's soldiers liberated many Soviet jails in Poland, and killed collaborators and communist agents. However, the organization was penetrated by Urząd Bezpieczeństwa agents, and its security compromised as early as late 1945.

Despite protests by the DSZ leadership, recognizing their common origins and similar goals of ridding both Poland and Ukraine of the Soviets, WiN engaged in talks with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). By spring 1947 in the Lublin region and Podlasie, the WiN had signed an armistice with the UPA. Occasionally, WiN and UPA cooperated in destroying Soviet establishments (such as in a joint May 1946 attack on secret police headquarters in Hrubieszów). Similar agreements were reached in May 1945 in Ruda Różaniecka, as well as April 1945 in Siedliska.

In April 1947, many WiN members came out of hiding to take advantage of an apparent amnesty issued by the communist authorities. Instead, many were killed. Members of the organization were accused of plotting the overthrow of the People's Republic along with the Polish leaders in the West such as General Władysław Anders and the CIA. The show trials for most of the leadership took place in 1947. The Communist repression apparatus under Jakub Berman and Stanislaw Radkiewicz exterminated most of the leadership, and by 1953, the organization had been destroyed. Nonetheless, individual units continued to fight for Polish independence until 1963. Information published later indicated that one of the reasons for the failure of the WIN mission to Poland by the Gehlen Organization was that inside information had been provided to the Soviet Intelligence services by "moles". The Gehlen Organization was an intelligence agency that was established in June 1946 by US occupation authorities in West Germany and controlled by the CIA.