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From Labor Action, Vol. 11 No. 10, 10 March 1947, p. 6.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
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Who are the people at the head of the present Stalinist puppet government in Poland? Do they have a past In the great revolutionary movement of Poland, or are they mere officials of the GPU created by Stalin? These were the questions Labor Action addressed to its special correspondent on Polish affairs, A. Rudzlenski, whose exclusive dispatches on the subject have been unrivalled in thé American press for wealth of information and depth of Marxist analysis, the adjoining article is his answer to the above questions. |
Now let us pass to the petty-bourgeois-reformist group of second rank in the bureaucratic hierarchy of the “New Poland.” Its spiritual mother is Wasilewska, president of ZPP (Association of Patriotic Poles in the USSR) which was created by Stalin to prepare the way for the policy of conquest in Poland.
As a writer, Wasilewska tried to create an organ with a reputation to fight against the government of Mikolajczyk in London, with which Stalin then still maintained “cordial” relations. Wasilewska never played a militant role in the ranks of the Polish labor movement, even though Stalinist propaganda tried to pass her off as an “important Socialist,” exploiting the prestige of her father, a Socialist theoretician.
Wazilewska fell into disgrace by proposing aid to Warsaw in 1944. In addition she tried to explain to Stalin that to grant the Order of Suvorov to General Berling (Suvorov was the butcher of the people of Warsaw in the revolution of Kosciuszko in 1794, when 4,000 defenseless inhabitants of Fraga were assassinated) would certainly create indignation among the Polish workers.
Stalin heard Wasilewska out, agreed with her, had the order of Suvorov replaced by another decoration, but nevertheless, Wasilewska and her husband, Kornejczuk, ex-minister of the Ukraine, fell into disgrace. For this reason she could not return to Poland, and played no part in either the Lublin Committee or the Warsaw government.
The same fate befell General Berling, old Chief of the Polish army in Russia, who was horrified upon receiving the Order of Suvorov. Also the reformists Drobner and Kaneman, old ministers of the Lublin Committee, have been isolated because they lack the full confidence of the GPU.
Edward Osobka-Morawski, first minister of Poland, now heads the group of puppet-Socialists. He has no political past whatsoever. Before the war he was an obscure bureaucrat of a cooperative in Wielun, a small town of 2,000 inhabitants. His career begins in 1943 when he headed the RPPS, a group created by the GPU in order to split the illegal workers movement. In 1944 he appears as an important personality in the Lublin Committee. Then he organizes the “expropriation” of the authentic Underground Socialist Party. He directs the organ Rabotnik in Lublin when the true Rabotnik is being printed in bloody Warsaw. He organizes two “congresses” of the PPS when the true PPS is struggling against the Nazis.
Osobka-Morawski is a creature of the GPU, a mediocre bureaucrat, without personality or character, lacking in the substance of Marxist doctrine and inflated by Stalinist propaganda into a “national figure” of Poland. His lack of apolitical capacity and understanding is proverbial among the Stalinists. He has a loose tongue which at times says more than is necessary. He is a typical puppet-figure, a loudspeaker repeating the record dictated by the Kremlin. Only the naive Laski could consider him as the “representative of Polish Socialism.” In spite of his loyalty, to Moscow, he is considered “inadequate” in installing the totalitarian régime and in eliminating the opposition in Poland. The conflict between Osobka and Gomulka has been solved under Stalin’s auspices, in order to consolidate the Stalinist bloc against the right and left opposition. But should the Stalinist régime Succeed in consolidating itself, the fate of Osobka will be that of Wasilewska, Drobner, Berling and so many. others.
The true Socialist Party (PPS) is in the Underground, in emigration or is grouped around Zygmunt Zulawski. It is fear of this which compels the Stalinists to tolerate the officially recognized “PPS.”
A tendency much more pronounced in the Warsaw government than the reformist puppet-group is the reactionary group, composed of adherents of both the reactionary parties of Poland, the old, anti-Semitic National Democratic Party and the fascist party of the Colonels. The National Democratic Party always supported the program of Polish autonomy under the sceptre of the Czar as against the program of the PPS for an Independent Republic. This party introduced anti-Semitism and the pogroms into Poland.
The theoretician of National-Democracy, Stanislaw Grabski, old apologist for Czarism, advocate of the national slavery of Poland, anti-Semite, is now a vice-president of the National Council. His role is decorative, but is of considerable value to the regime. In his declarations, he always praises the “great Stalin.”
After him comes Grubecki, minister of Warsaw, organizer of the anti-Semitic pogroms in Lvov, which we all remember, a fascist of the whole cloth, now a dignitary of the “democratic” Poland.
Piasecki and Dziarmaga, chiefs of the ONRX (fascist) and of the Nationalist armed forces have come to an agreement with Bierut and now support the regime. The presence of these anti-Semites may explain to some extent the pogroms of Kielce.
To this same group belongs “Marshal” Rola-Zymierski, who replaced General Berling, of the Order of Suvorov fame. This cavalier belonged to the rightist opposition to Pilsudski. He wanted a “Poland for the Poles,” with the “Jews outside.” Now he Is quite content because the Stalinists are finishing Hitler’s work, organizing the Jewish ghettos in lower Silesia. This same cavalier was once sent to jail for misappropriating army funds. On finishing his sentence he went to Paris where he speculated in arms for the Spanish Republic. He made good money. Now he is “Marshal” of Poland. The Stalinists could find neither a Socialist nor an ex-Communist for this job. Berling himself, ex-legionary of Pilsudski, was too “leftist” for them.
The ex-Pilsudskists group is led by Wicenty Rzymowski, Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was a most ardent defender of the “May Revolution,” Pilsudski’s Bonapartist coup, his principal theoretician, and “golden pen” of the regime. In the period of the pogroms, when the leaders of the Opposition were imprisoned in Brest-Litovsk, Rzymowski was a most warm-hearted advocate of elections “en bloc.” For plagiarizing from Bertrand Russell he was expelled from the Polish Academy of Literature. Now he is a minister of Stalin in Poland. The Stalinists consider him an old fool, and foreign affairs are handled by Modzelewski (true name, Fiszhaut) a GPU creature.
Kwiatkowski, ex-minister of Pilsudski is now a commissar of the coastal maritime, an important figure in the regime: Mlynarski, Nazi collaborator, one of the few Polish collaborators, continues to head the National Bank as in the time of the Colonels and the Nazis: Kirtiklis, ex-governor of Vilna, “pacifier” of the Communists, the workers and the White-Russian peasants, they also support the Stalinist regime. General Zeligowski, chief of the Polish army in White Russia in 1918, pogromist, organizer of the assault against Vilna in 1921, is now an important figure in the régime.
The most amusing figure of all is that of Prince Krzysztof Radziwill, member of one of the feudal dynasties of Europe, master of half of Lithuania and Eastern Poland, who is now chief of protocol for Bierut. To Stalin, princes, Popes, Bishops, gendarmes, political prostitutes all look alike, so long as they can be of same use to him for a while.
These personal characteristics of the public authority define clearly the political and social character of the régime in Poland. Its political composition demonstrates the reactionary character of the Stalinist regime in Poland.
The true leaders of the Polish proletariat lie under the Russian earth, shot in the back? the remainder, at the head of which stand the Socialists, are in prison, or in the opposition which is still tolerated out of sheer necessity. The working class opposition, whether it be Communist in character or Socialist-reformist, is persecuted savagely.
The peasant leaders are also in opposition. Only this opposition has the legal rights, illusory though they may be, which the régime has been compelled to grant.
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