Initially, Kociołek worked as head-master at an elementary school near Iława following World War II, and in 1957 graduated from Warsaw University. He joined the communist party at his alma mater, and served as leader of its own PZPR party-cell. He quickly rose to become the first secretary of the Warsaw Committee of PZPR (1958–1960 and 1963–1964), as well as the secretary of Socialist Youth Association. Between December 1967 and July 1970 he was the first secretary of communist party in Gdańsk. During the massacre of shipyard workers in 1970 he served as deputy prime minister. Afterwards, he was sent abroad to various diplomatic posts, for his own safety. He was brought back to Warsaw as the first secretary of the Warsaw Committee of PZPR for the crushing of the Solidarity trade union in November 1980, but during the Martial law in Poland resided in Moscow as ambassador (1982-1985). He returned to Poland in 1985, and was charged with communist crimes in 1995, after the collapse of communism. On 1 October 2015, he died at the age of 82.
