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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 3, 16 January 1950, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The arrest of the French diplomats in Poland accused of espionage has distracted the world’s attention from the recent appointment of the Russian Marshal Rokossovsky as “czarevitch” of Poland.
Although, as we predicted, “Czarevitch” Rokossovsky has not provoked the far-reaching events so anxiously expected by the Anglo-American bourgeoisie, he has proceeded to make certain “readjustments” within the official Stalinist party, causing a real panic among the dignitaries of the “popular democracy” in true Asiatic or Georgian style.
The arrests have reached the ministries and the leading posts in the Stalinist party. Of course, the purge was primarily directed against Gomulka’s “nationalist” faction. Not only has Gomulka (Wieslaw) been arrested, but also those who in their time dared vote with him. such as Zenon Kliszko, Kowalski, and many others whose names we do not know.
But the purge ordered by the new “Grand Duke Constantine” Rokossovsky has not been limited solely to the Gomulka wing of the Stalinist party; the antagonism existing between the Stalinist leaders and militants who were shaped and hardened in the underground struggles inside Poland, on the one hand, and on the other those who lived in Russia during those years eating the well earned bread of Stalin’s lackeys, has been brought into the open; the breach is now official.
The former, called the “krajowey” (country-men), conserved something of the traditions of the old Polish revolutionary movement; similarly they preserved a certain attachment to their country, a regard for the Polish workers’ movement, and the remnants of a feeling of independence with regard to Moscow. To this group belong (outside the Gomulka faction) Minister of Industry Mine, Chief of Militia Jozwiak, Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz (who is not important politically and has no Communist past) and various others of lesser importance.
To the ranks of the second group, whom we can call “russkiye liudi” (Russian men), belong the “Czarevitch” Rokossovsky, “President” Bierut, Minister of Security Radkiewicz (a White Russian), General Zawadzky, and various others.
During the first period of Polish occupation, the Kremlin mainly used the “nationals” for the official posts of prestige. The “Russian men” remained in the shadows, controlling the key positions. There was always an antagonism and rivalry between these bureaucratic camarillas, which the GPU took Machiavellian care to foment.
The “Russian men” always felt themselves the real bosses, nearer the Kremlin heaven, and looked down with scorn on the “native” puppets. Now this struggle has broken out with a fury and hatred, since Statin considers the “natives” as a potential source of danger, the potential “Titoists,” whom he wishes to eliminate.
Panic has seized the reigning camarilla in Warsaw to such a degree that the position of Berman himself, considered until now the brains of the government, is not considered very sure. In spite of his Jewish antecedents, Berman is suspected of a true attachment to Poland and is considered a “national” and not a “ruskij chelaviek.”
The same thing has occurred to poor Mine, former economic dictator of Poland, whose merits in the economic reconstruction of his country are undeniable. The “nationals,” who take seriously the interests of their country, constitute a danger for the Russian occupiers.
Their liquidation is being carried out, not in the Bulgarian or Hungarian style, but silently, in the night, in the dungeons of the GPU; all means are being used to cloak these events from the eyes of public opinion in the country and the world. The elimination, first political and then physical, is proceeding according to ruthless plan, accompanied by a fierce hatred, cannibalistic in intensity.
The purge has been broadened also to take in the “paputchikis” (fellow travelers), the leaders of the shadowparties who surrendered to Stalinism with so much servility. The vice-ministers arrested, in their majority, belong to these groups. And of course the Polish intellectuals have begun their “self-criticisms” and entered the road of moral self-destruction, among them the “grand priest” of literary criticism, Zolkiewski, a semi-intellectual of the new Stalinist stamp. Similarly, the notorious Borejsza, ex-dictator of the press, is considered excessively “national,” and has fallen into disgrace.
The appointment of Rokossovsky is having grave consequences in the reorganization of the official Stalinist, party. The struggle goes on in silence, in conspiratorial silence. It seems that Stalin fears to provoke Polish resistance. But the silent purge prepares the way for a bloody slaughter in Poland.
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Last updated: 23 February 2023