During (and a few years after the II World War) the Polish Army had a strong and well trained non-commissioned officer (NCO) Corp. After the war, Poland fell under the strong influence of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, their military doctrine at that time focused on size not actual training and professionalism of military forces: the bigger Army you had, the better. During next 50 years things in NCO Corp went even worse. We changed the ranks in NCO and warrant officer (WO) Corp. After the war, we had only four NCO ranks and only one WO rank. In 1953, for the first time, we added ranks to both Corps. We increased the number of NCO ranks to seven, and WO ranks to five. In 1998 we added one more rank to NCO and WO Corp. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and establishment of the Warsaw Pact, we were able to start changes in our Army, reorganize NCO and WO Corps, to become a partner for western Armies.

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