The 5th

World Festival of Youth and Students The World Festival of Youth and Students is an international event organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union of Students after 1947. History The festival has been held regularly since 1947 as an eve ...

(WFYS) was held from 31 July to 15 August 1955 in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, capital city of the then

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...

. The

World Federation of Democratic Youth The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) is an international youth organization, and has historically characterized itself as left-wing and anti-imperialist. WFDY was founded in London in 1945 as a broad international youth movement, ...

organized this festival during the rise of the

peaceful coexistence Peaceful coexistence (russian: Мирное сосуществование, translit=Mirnoye sosushchestvovaniye) was a theory, developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of primarily Marxist� ...

concept introduced by

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

among the socialist bloc. At the end of the 1950s, the colonialism was in its last years, and in the same year, the Bandung Conference was held. The conference strongly criticized the western powers for keeping their colonial possessions. The need for a struggle against the danger of nuclear annihilation and for the end of colonialism dominated the festival. More than 30,000 young people from 114 countries participated in this edition of the festival. The motto of the festival was ''For Peace and Friendship – Against the Aggressive Imperialist Pacts''. The festival's sports programme featured an athletics competition.World Student Games (UIE)
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2014-12-09. The ''Arsenał'' art exhibition opened at the festival, featuring striking works by young Polish painters. This exhibition was the subject of debate among art critics over its use of expressionist styles.

Influence

Designed to be a vast propaganda exercise, a meeting place for Eastern European communists and their comrades from Western Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. This event brought hundred of thousands of Polish spectators to Warsaw for the five days, watching dancing, theater and other attractions. However, the real attractions for the Polish people were the foreigners, of whom many were from Western Europe and contrasted starkly with local Poles because they shared similar culture but were much richer and more open. Deeply stricken, many Poles realized that a decades' worth of anti-Western rhetoric was false. Poles, Germans, Hungarians, Czechs and others from the Communist bloc actively socialized with one another. With the more exotic visitors, Poles also socialized in private apartments all around the city. College students even held debate meetings with foreigners, many of whom turned out not to be communists. The event may be viewed as a precursor of

Polish October Polish October (), also known as October 1956, Polish thaw, or Gomułka's thaw, marked a change in the politics of Poland in the second half of 1956. Some social scientists term it the Polish October Revolution, which was less dramatic than the ...

References

World Festival of Youth and Students 1955 in Poland 1955 conferences Festivals in Poland 1955 in multi-sport events Multi-sport events in Poland 20th century in Warsaw Sports festivals in Europe {{festival-stub