Marian "Marek" Spychalski (; 6 December 1906 – 7 June 1980) was a Polish architect in pre-war Poland, and later, military commander and a communist politician. During World War II he belonged to the Polish underground forces operating within Poland and was one of the leaders of the People's Guard, then People's Army. and kept his membership after the Nazi-Soviet invasion, when in 1942 KPP became the Polish Workers' Party, renamed in 1948 as the Polish United Workers' Party. Spychalski fought in the Spanish Civil War.
World War Two
He was in Warsaw during the German invasion and it was not until December 1939 that he fled to Lemberg where his wife and daughter were already waiting for him. However, the family only stayed briefly in Soviet-occupied Lviv and returned to Warsaw in January 1940. Until 1942 he officially held a position in the Warsaw city administration as an architect, but also worked illegally and took part in the activities of the Polish resistance. At first he was involved in publishing a bulletin for a group of communist intellectuals, and from 1941 he became a member of the organization Związek Walki Wyzwoleńczej (League of the Liberation Struggle). From 1942 he was temporarily chief of the general staff of the communist Armia Ludowa and from July 22, 1944, of the Polish People's Army. He had also been a member of the Polish Workers' Party since it was founded in 1942.
Polish People's Republic
After World War II, he held a number of offices in the government of Poland, one of his first being mayor of Warsaw (18 September 1944 – March 1945), with the war still in progress. Among other posts, he was a long-time member of the parliament, a close friend of Władysław Gomułka, and from 1945 to 1948 was both Deputy Minister of Defense and a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party.
He was removed from his remaining political posts in 1949. He spent several months in Wrocław, where he worked as an architect (among other things, he designed a development plan for the Grunwaldzki Square area, implementing the principles of socialist realism – the first plan of its kind in Poland). In 1950 he was imprisoned as part of the Stalinist purges of social-democrats in 1949–1953, where he was accused of anti-Soviet tendencies akin to Titoism and right-wing nationalism. During his interrogations, which were conducted under torture, he confessed to charges such as cooperation with the Gestapo and the Home Army during the war. In 1959 he again became a member of the Politburo, and in 1963 he was promoted to Field Marshal. although some considered the post to be mostly symbolic.
Descent from power
As head of state, Spychalski was nearly assassinated at Karachi airport in Pakistan on 1 November 1970 during the welcoming ceremonies. The Gettysburg Times informed that an anti-communist Islamic fundamentalist Feroze Abdullah drove a lorry at high speed into the Polish delegation, narrowly missing his intended target but killing the Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Zygfryd Wolniak (48) and three Pakistani representatives including the deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau, Chaudhri Mohammed Nazir, and two photographers.
Spychalski lost his posts as close associate of Gomułka, when Edward Gierek replaced Gomułka as First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party during the 1970 Polish protests throughout December.