The Spirit of Realism
The Spirit of Realism The Defeat of the Polish Democrats Strengthens the Sanacja By Waclaw Lednicki THE prewar Polish regime tried to immunize the nation against the totalitarian powers which...
...These who think that they may save the world by their pontifical defense of realistic commonsense In this war, are wrong...
...This spirit establishes the barbarian cult •/ the fact as a power against which ideat can have h* prestige...
...There remain exactly these who praise power, violence, dictatorship, totalitarianism...
...This underground movement from its very beginning was in constant communication with the Polish Government abroad...
...Under the pressure of thee* two factors he went very far: he even agreed to negogiate with the Lublin agents of Stalin to preserve the good alliance between the allies...
...They had neither respect for, nor faith in, the liberal democratic traditions of the '.'stupid nineteenth century...
...Poland took it ss s challenge to her moral integrity and as s violation of principles of international law...
...Sikorski and the Polish democrats, liberals, idealists were still hoping that the situation might improve, and they considered the universal alms of this war as more important than the domestic Russian-Polish quarrels, tragic as they were...
...In order to justify the breach of relations, the responsibility for this catastrophe wss put on the shoulders of the Polish Government And from all sides there came attacks, snd accusations sgsinst Poland ss an undemocratic count...
...In the middle of the war Russia pushed into Poland...
...The best elements of that nation were occupied with the organisation of opposition to these ideas...
...This army took part In the Narvik expedition...
...The Russian campaign of denigration supported by all satellites of Russia finally met with success...
...I* that the real aim of this war...
...They had no hope that the United States would abandon isolationism...
...The Spirit of Realism The Defeat of the Polish Democrats Strengthens the Sanacja By Waclaw Lednicki THE prewar Polish regime tried to immunize the nation against the totalitarian powers which were established on both sides of Poland and in other European countries...
...Mikolajcsyk had an enormously difficult task—not only because he had to replace the great Sikorski, but because he came to power after the new break in Russian Polish relations...
...The Soviets broke their relations with Sikorski at the moment when the perspective of s new occupation of Polsnd was becoming more and more concrete...
...The realists, those who still believed that the "Russian hyenas" were only in temporary retreat, swept back by Hitlerite guns and weapons...
...The Polish Government of that time accepted the war against Hitler because such was the moral background of the whole country...
...Warsaw has been completely destroyed...
...Their realistic conception of the world and of this war should give them the conscience, and at the same time, the courage, t* see that there still I* a parallelism between the politics...
...Again the Polish, realists...
...Polish officers and soldiers disappeared in concentration camps and the majority of them have never been released...
...Polish citizens, hundreds of thousands of them deported to Russia, were regarded as Russian citizens...
...Betraying Poland, betraying Serbia, betraying the Baltic States, betraying China, taty do hot open the gate to victory...
...Poles were under Germsn bombardment constantly and vainly looking for the' arrival in the Polish skies of British planes...
...And Sikorski, at the head of some 40,000 Polish soldiers, appeared on the shores of England as the first ally of the besieged island...
...Opposed to this faith snd belief were those who represented in Poland the "spirit of realism," of immtunixstion of the country sgsinst foreign violence by domestic violence, sgsinst foreign usurpation by domestic usurpation, against foreign enslavement by domestic enslavement...
...The men representing these tendencies were "realintt," who believed that force had become the prevailing factor in Europe...
...The Russian radio stations snd the attitude of many Russian commentators snd soldiers encouraged Poles to believe that Russia was coming to help them...
...England alone must not fight . **e political battle of Europe...
...This is da* to the "spirit of realism" which is spreading hi the western democratic countries, snd leads not only Poland but the wheat world to believe the words which some sixteen years age Mussolini vociferated: "Ideas are goed, weeds are good, but * gins are still batter...
...An amorphous mass...
...The Polish Government in London symbolizing the continuation and the independence of Poland has been weakened...
...As I stressed many times in my former publications (see Ru$tian-Poli$h Relation*, etc., published by the Polish National Alliance Educational Department, Chicago, 1944), It was not easy for Sikorski to shake hands with Stalin after all that had happened in Poland from 1989 up to June, 1941, under the Russian occupation: hundreds of thousands of Poles deported to Siberia...
...The war will not b* finished until the democracies have established their «*a dialetic of principles and ideal...
...The representatives of the "spirit of realism" are precisely those who attack Poland for her allegedly undemocratic spirit sal try to designate the Polish Government as S reactionary one...
...The "tpirit of reaU ism" become* a serf of cancer in the brain of demoeratuf nation...
...Again the most idealistic, liberal, democratic Polish elements believed that s great supra-historical event was taking place: that after centuries of Slavic "domestic quarrels," the two gnat Slavic Nations, the Russians and the Poles, Were about to achieve the great miracle of union of Slavs against the Teutonic aggressors...
...The Polish Government, headed by General Sikorski, who, with his collaborators, represented the opposition to the prewar ruling regime, succeeded in organizing s very powerful Polish army in France...
...The geopolitical situation of Poland and the general political climate of Euro pe,appea red to justify the tendencies represented by the Polish ruling clique...
...The "spirit of realism' which embraces so many fntelaKtual circles in this country is manifested in young aad attractive American faces, stigmatized by the same "spirit of realism," by the cruel inhuman Communist outlook...
...This is the picture of the biological extermination of a nation, of the extermination of its culture and spirit Oa the political aide we have the same picture— the Polish democrats, the idealists, those who represent the spirit ef progress sad faith in democratic ideals, are led to political elimination...
...We must acknowledge that this is a'very consistent development of events...
...The greater part of the Polish nation was opposed to such conceptions...
...And again the realistic reactionaries made political capital of the tragic events...
...The fighters of the underground movement were exterminated...
...The policy of France and England gave them no encouragement...
...We are now ^nesting not only the killing of nations but killing the truth...
...They scorned "corrupt France...
...The trsgie mystery of the Katyn forest still remains to be solved: ' we do not know who killed these 8,000 officers...
...Later on, when it appeared impossible to deny the truth, the uprising wss called untimely...
...Since that time the Polish Government in London, democratic ss it was, became aa object of furious attacks from the Soviets snd from the Sovietophlle press in England and America...
...But in spite of all this, most Poles remained faithful to Polish traditions, snd to the hope that the western democracies would finally be roused from their torpor...
...Then came the German invasion of Poland...
...At the seme time Mikolajcsyk, guided on the one hsnd by • still vital and dynamic Polish enthusiasm, idealism snd faith and on the other hand pressed by the westers allies of Poland, was continuing his efforts to restore Russian-Polish relations...
...He was aware of the delicate, ambiguous and complicated phenomenon of the alliance between the western democracies and the dictatorial Soviet state...
...Mikolajcsyk is a leader of the Polish Peasant Party...
...Inii the meantime, Russia organised a committee of Poles, nominees of Stalin, whose function was to become a rival government ef Polsnd...
...It was the realists at that time who tried U persuade Sikorski to support Petatn, since the war then appeared to them as definitely lost Everyone knows the heroic snd decisive contribution of Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain...
...It would be an indication of a complete disaster for Polish democratic forces...
...Russia slone must not ' ** intrusted with the organization of eastern Kuope...
...The Russian aim as far as Poland is concerned appears to be mainly attained...
...In the meantime, the best elements of Polish society, the intellectuals, the youth, the Peasant Parly, Socialists, organised the most powerful underground movement of all the occupied countries of Europe...
...And this underground movement during the five years of the occupation of Poland never ceased fighting the German oppressors...
...Who remain...
...At the ssme time the Polish underground agents who collaborated with the Russian army for the liberation of Polish towns snd cities—like Wilno, Lwow, and so on—were arrested, and many of them executed, by the Russians...
...dialectic represented by Hitler and of the political dialetic represented by Stalin...
...It wouldn't be at all surprising if they were to take control of the official Polish policy...
...v The fat* of Poland ia symbolic not only because of her Phyilcal torture but because of her moral catastrophic* which bring her to the same point at which the war 'jP...
...And this is dae net Only to Stalin, net only to Hitler...
...It appeared a few months later, in spite of the Russian-Polish agreement that the Soviet Government did not consider the territorial gains which it obtained from its collaboration with Hitler as lost The Polish territories seised in collaboration with Hitler were already considered as Russian...
...This spirit h represented in 'this country by some of the meet fssaeas columnists...
...The Muscovite army remained for those terrible two months st Prage, in the suburbs of Warsaw...
...Was there any bitterness among Poles against England and France at the time T None...
...they considered the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and some other European countries aa unable to create any efficient resistance against the three dictatorships in Europe—Russia, Germany and Italy...
...When Sikorski died so tragically, he was replaced by s man who even more than Sikorski represented the popular democratic masses of Poland...
...Without the doss collaboration of all United Nations ahirope and the whole world will remain in a etate of aba...
...It la easy t* understand hew Stalin could look on passively st the ruthless German extermination of the best elements in Poland, bat it is sstonishins snd incredible, that the Ante*, so soon after the tragic lesson ef Wsrssw, could sgsin remain unprotesting spectators...
...The realists have won s victory...
...Diplomatic discussions of these problems started in the fall of 1941, a few montha after the signing of the Russian-Polish agreement, and they were conducted by the Russians in an unbelievably arrogant tone which might be taken as proof that the fate of Poland was already predetermined in Moscow...
...the executions, confiscstions, whole factories, social institutions, learned societies bodily transferred from Poland to Russia...
...Poland sent her best people, her soldiers, and her pilots, her naval men through the moot terrific German barrage to France, and there a Polish Government of Resistance and a large army were organized...
...Hitler and Stalin for five years have done their best to exterminate in - Poland all elements of moral and national activity and independence...
...This war was for Polsnd a * question of principles...
...The Polish Navy took part in some of the greatest sea battles of the war...
...The defense of the stores of Scotland was allotted to the Poles...
...Mikolajcyk had to resign, because he had not been supported strongly enough by the western allies ef Polsnd...
...a- a e SlKORSKI has shown loyalty to democratic liberal principles...
...This terrible reality of Russian-Polish relations, persisting even after the Sikorski-Stalin agreement, was never revealed by Sikorski to world public opinion...
...Sikorski constantly praised the achievements of the Red Army, of Stalin, and stressed the necessity of a second front...
...His conception of a central European federation is the best proof of it A more eloquent one is to be found in the initiative which Sikorski took towards Russia when Hitler attacked Stalin...
...Whose achievement would it be...
...Who were they...
...Warsaw was abandoned...
...the whole population of Warsaw put in concentration camps or sent to forced labor in Germany...
...In the summer of 1941, an agreement between Sikorski and Stalin was signed and that agreement annulled all territorial...
...changes in Poland which had been created as s result of the Stalin-Hitler pact Englsnd snd America confirmed that annullment Again the Polish democrats, liberals, idealist* supported the wise policy of General Sikorski Who were against it...
...What is the result...
...Th« war will not be finished until a general program has bsefi, established by the allies and imposed on the allies on all the allies...
...The Polish underground movement was accused for a whole year by the Soviets of not fighting against the Germans...
...And those people saw the Russian armies as packs of "hyenas" coming to devour the dying body of Poland The western democracies did nothing to help the Poles who had been encouraged by them to resist...
...it fought on the fields of France, snd after the defest of France It appesred to be the single military unit which wss not disintegrated by the French catastrophe...
...After a year of such accusations and after a whole month of constant appeals addressed to the population of Warsaw to start sn uprising against the Germans, when the uprising did take place, Moscow announced that it was s sham...
...The attitude of England in the ease of Austria and Czechoslovakia supported their totalitarian faith...
...These centers of Polish politics...
...And who attacked Mikolajcsyk for his spirit of compromise...
...Poland has lost 7,000,000 people...
...This policy ousted the Polish democrats snd opened the wsy to those who repeseat in Poland this same "spirit of realism...
...and on many occasions they mistook the Soviet planes for the English or French...
...This is specially striking in connection with the fact that Stalin and Hitler at that time announced urbi et orbi the complete and eternal liquidation of the Polish state...
...There were some elements in Poland and among Poles abroad who expressed bitterness against the western democracies...
...opposition went through many disillusionments...
...Who will remain...
...At the time the Poles did not realise what wss Russia's real purpose...
...snd sgsinst the Polish Government ss s government of "landowners," "bankers," "fascists," and so on...
...The same realists, the totalitariana...
...After six weeks of desperate struggle the war was over in Poland...
...it opens the way to doctrine* which destroy in human Jtearte the faith in /usUee sad in the moral vaves...
Vol. 28 • February 1945 • No. 7
