Edward Gierek (Polish pronunciation: [ˈɛdvart ˈɡʲɛrɛk]; 6 January 1913 – 29 July 2001) was a Polish communist politician who served as the de facto leader of the Polish People's Republic between 1970 and 1980. Gierek replaced Władysław Gomułka as the First Secretary of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR).

Gierek came from a coal mining family and grew up in France from a young age, becoming active in the French communist movement and the Polish community in France. 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 returned to Poland in 1948 and attended in the founding of the PZPR as a representative of Silesia, being appointed to the Sejm in 1952, the Central Committee of the PZPR under Bolesław Bierut in 1956, and the Politburo of the PZPR in 1959. Gierek was known for his openness and public speaking, emerging as one of the most respected and progressive politicians in Poland, whilst becoming a strong opponent to Gomułka.

Gierek became First Secretary when Gomułka was removed from office after the 1970 Polish protests were violently suppressed under his authority. Gierek's first years were marked by improvements in living and working conditions with the construction of blocks of flats, growing industrialisation, 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 opened the first fully-operational highway in Poland from Warsaw to Katowice in 1976. Gierek's policies were funded by large foreign loans and Poland continued to submerge into economic decline by the end of the 1970s. Gierek's government was unable to pay its creditors and the country was so heavily indebted that rationing was introduced due to shortages. 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 was expelled from the PZPR and arrested briefly in 1981 during martial law in Poland, living the remainder of his life in retirement until his death in 2001.

Gierek is fondly remembered for his patriotism and modernisation policies despite dragging Poland into financial and economic decline; over 2 million flats were constructed during his tenure to house the growing population at a record rate of over 200,000 flats a year, which was only again reached almost 40 years later (by 2019) and he was also responsible for initiating the production of the Fiat 126 car in Poland, the reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, and the construction of Warsaw Central, the most modern railway station in Europe at the time of its completion. Numerous aphorisms and sayings were popularised during his term; those referring to food shortages were later promoted by Ronald Reagan.

Edward Gierek was born in Porąbka, now part of Sosnowiec, into a coal-mining family. His father was killed in an accident at a pit when he was four. His mother remarried and emigrated to northern France, where he lived from the age of 10 and worked in a coal mine from the age of 13. Gierek joined the French Communist Party in 1931, and in 1934 was deported to Poland for organising a strike. After completing compulsory military service in Stryi in southeastern Poland (1934–1936), Gierek married Stanisława Jędrusik, but was unable to find employment. The Giereks went to Belgium, where Edward worked in the coal mines of Waterschei, where he contracted pneumoconiosis (black lung disease). In 1939, Gierek joined the Communist Party of Belgium. During the German occupation, he participated in communist anti-Nazi Belgian resistance activities. After the war Gierek remained politically active among the Polish immigrant community. He was a co-founder of the Belgian branch of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and a chairman of the National Council of Poles in Belgium.

Gierek, who in 1948 was 35 and had spent 22 years abroad, was directed by the PPR authorities to return to Poland, which he did with his wife and their two sons. Working in the Katowice district PPR organisation, 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). In 1949, he was designated for and attended a two-year higher party course in Warsaw, where he was judged to be poorly qualified for intellectual endeavors but highly motivated for party work. In 1951, Roman Zambrowski sent Gierek to a striking coal mine, charging him with restoring order. Gierek was able to resolve the situation using persuasion; the use of force was avoided. He was a member of the Sejm, Polish parliament, from 1952. During the II Congress of the PZPR (March 1954), he was elected a member of the party's Central Committee. As chief of the Central Committee's Heavy Industry Division, he worked directly under First Secretary Bolesław Bierut in Warsaw.

In March 1956, when Edward Ochab became the party's first secretary, Gierek became a secretary of the Central Committee, even though he publicly expressed doubts about his own qualifications. On 28 June 1956, he was sent to Poznań, where a workers' protest was taking place. Afterward, delegated by the Politburo, he headed the commission charged with investigating the causes and course of the Poznań events. They presented their report on 7 July, blaming a hostile, anti-socialist foreign-inspired conspiracy that took advantage of worker discontent in Poznań enterprises. In July, Gierek became a member of the PZPR Politburo, but lasted in that position only until October, when Władysław Gomułka replaced Ochab as first secretary. Nikita Khrushchev criticised Gomułka for not retaining Gierek in the Politburo; he remained a Central Committee secretary responsible for economic affairs, however. He returned to the Politburo in March 1959, at the III Congress of the PZPR.

In March 1957, in addition to his Central Committee duties, Gierek became the first secretary of the Katowice Voivodeship PZPR organisation, a job he kept until 1970. He created a personal power base in the Katowice region and became the nationally recognised leader of the young technocrat faction of the party. 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. Both the industrial supremacy of Gierek's well-run Upper Silesia territory and the special relationship with the Soviets he cultivated made many believe that Gierek was a likely successor to Gomułka.