The Myth of Polish Liberalism

...The government's first response was silence, and then, on March 27, Jan Lipski, one of the organizers of the protest letter, was arrested, held for two days, and released...

...Poland is also adopting a much harsher ideological line...

...A decrease in apartment construction has worsened the already tight housing situation...

...In the opinion of veteran Times correspondent Paul Underwood, he stands slightly to the right of Czechoslovakia's Anton Novotny...

...Gestures of accommodation toward the Church ceased...

...The chief Polish advocate of rapprochement between East and West, Julian Hochfeld, had long before been effaced from political life by Gomulka...

...The novels and plays of Witold Gombrowicz were now banned from both publication and the stage...

...We cannot, as Senator Fulbright has suggested, afford myths...

...Meanwhile, during the period 1956-59 Gomulka could concentrate on one essential task: strengthening the Polish Communist Party...

...A much smaller amount, $61 million, is in contrast administered by the Export-Import Bank at 4.5 per cent interest, with the principal repayable in dollars within a period of 20 years beginning five years after each agreement...

...The most recent and dramatic demonstration of the state of Polish freedom is the protest letter signed by 34 leading intellectuals in March...

...Gomulka is an eminently practical man, and history shows us that he has always been as liberal as he has to be...

...There were other reasons, too...

...Assurances were given to Polish farmers by Khrushchev himself that no one (in Poland at least) would be "driven into paradise with a stick," and only 15 per cent of the arable land was collectivized...

...Indeed, the record of the present regime forms an instructive pattern...

...A determined effort should be made to utilize these zlotys on "non-political" projects which will both aid the Polish people and give tangible evidence of American concern for Poland...

...On July 7, 1963, the government called openly for a tightening of liberal policies, but it is generally felt that where literature was concerned the call was pointless, for the gains of October 1956 had already been effectively obliterated by March 1963...

...That it did not is due, first of all, to the master tactician who continues to rule Poland, Wladyslaw Gomulka...

...The real cause of Kornacki's trouble was bis excessively candid diary, excerpts of which he had read at several literary gatherings...

...In 1963 Tribuna Ludu, the official Party organ, proclaimed: "Views . . . that we are entering an epoch of universal integration, that peaceful coexistence leads to the gradual decline of the struggle between the two systems . . . attest to a complete lack of understanding of reality...

...We have reached the point at which myth becomes dogma...

...And Poland itself, more and more, moves closer to Czechoslovakia and East Germany, farther from Yugoslavia and Hungary...

...when the students protested, the school's properties were seized...

...In 1960, the worst year, 200 liberal Polish university professors were forced into premature retirement...

...GOMULKA'S STRATEGY The Myth of Polish Liberalism By Andrew Field Myths have long fascinated me, but until my premature and somewhat unusual invitation to leave the Soviet Union—which is another story—by way of Poland, I had a certain disdain for myth in its political form...

...The two countries, although both "Communist," have as much in common as certain polarities within our own political parties...

...The mood of most Poles at the time was sufficient reason for this tolerance...

...In 1961, religious instruction in schools was prohibited in (almost wholly Catholic) Poland, and a new Minister of Education was appointed who had formerly been a director of the Polish Association of Atheists...

...In late 1957 Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, the Polish Primate, was released from prison following a series of serious demonstrations throughout the country in his behalf...

...No less significant, a multi-party system was instituted within the framework of a revitalized Sejm (parliament...

...Initially the protest was lodged quietly, after the Cultural Commissar, Wincenty Krasko, had ignored objections raised in meetings against increased Party controls over literature...

...When Gomulka took over on October 21, 1956, the political temper of the Poles was anxiously restrained and on edge...

...For a brief time in October 1956, it even appeared that such a repudiation might actually occur...

...His shocking arrest served as a stern warning to Polish writers...

...Caution—the hard-earned lesson of the "martyr nation" sundered and despoiled by European power politics since the end of the 18th century—was counterbalanced by a deep determination that Poland not continue to be ruled from the sprawling Russian Embassy in Warsaw...

...Controversial manuscripts were turned back, the sizes of editions were tightly controlled, and the republication of certain post-1956 books was not permitted...

...the letter was personally delivered to Premier Cyrankiewicz by Poland's foremost poet...

...The United States has a historic stake in the freedom of the Polish people...

...In 1963, the government moved to close down a Church school in Przemysl...

...The reassuring myths that are currently a part of the Johnson Administration's policy toward Warsaw do nothing to aid either U.S...

...This same note has since been sounded by other government officials, most notably by Under Secretary of State Averell Harriman...

...The point is that we are not using our aid toward that goal...

...Poland's highly regarded films, for example, are produced specifically for export in order to bring in hard currency, which the economy desperately needs, and at the same time project a favorable image of Poland abroad...

...they are given extremely limited showings within Poland itself...

...The Gomulka farm policy, to take the most important case, was an economic imperative: Poland was already heavily dependent upon food imports, and the efficiency of the collectives was far below that of the private farms...

...The phrase "new class," I was sardonically informed by several Poles, was not coined by Milovan Djilas but originated in Poland...

...In 1958, the government interposed itself to collect "duty" on several million dollars worth of foodstuffs sent for Church relief by Roman Catholic charity groups in the United States...

...The standard of living has been noticeably ebbing away since the start of the Five Year Plan in 1961, which was heavily weighted toward capital investment...

...To date, however, only two signers have withdrawn, and there has been a demonstration of support by 800 students at Warsaw University...

...This was followed by an assault by the militia on a Poznan church meeting, initiating a series of intimidations against churchgoers...

...A serious blow was dealt to the press in 1962 with the death of Hendiyk Holland, a well-known Leftist journalist...

...In 1960, permission which had previously been granted for a Roman Catholic church in the newly built giant industrial complex of Nowa Huta was suddenly withdrawn without explanation...

...In the cases of Poland and Yugoslavia, we should abandon the illogical and meaningless concept of "PolandYugoslavia...

...These two incidents have had their desired effect upon Polish journalists...

...Professor Richard Staar described the situation most succinctly when he wrote in a recent issue of Current History: "Communist control over Poland...

...First the entire editorial board was dismissed, then the journal was dissolved altogether...

...The American policy of helping the Gomulka regime surmount its economic difficulties, Beam then observed, "has not led to a more liberal evolution in Poland which could have been expected...

...This policy is equally apparent in regard to food, and no Pole expends his time or energy searching for a Polish ham...

...Since it is only .7 per cent and will soon be less, there is all the more reason why these funds must be wisely and carefully administered...

...This lesson was underscored last year when another newspaperman who had been too critical too often was arrested on false charges of homosexuality...

...Information furnished the CIA last year by "Michal Goleniewski," the name given to an important defector from the Polish secret service, revealed the alarming extent of Polish spying activity...

...A popular Warsaw intellectual and literary forum which had been associated with the journal, the Crooked Circle, was also closed, as was a similar forum in Cracow, the Flaming Tomato...

...Gomulka's foreign policy has reflected internal developments in Poland...

...How much longer must we assume that indiscriminate aid is the only alternative to no aid at all...

...From 1960 on, his accord with Russian policies (by 1962 Gomulka could say with some justice that "never in history have relations between Poland and the USSR been so close as now") has been finding even more positive expression...

...One excellent prototype of this kind of project already exists in the $4.3 million American-financed hospital which was established near Cracow for research on children's diseases...

...This somber warning is but one of the extremely stringent measures taken to coerce the 34 intellectuals (among whom are writers Jerzy Andrzejewski and Maria Dabrowska, a leading candidate for the Nobel Prize, and prominent professors Jan Kott and Tadeusz Kotarbinski) to withdraw their signatures...

...Before long, all restraint was abandoned...

...Besides censorship, the intellectuals were disturbed by such matters as the sudden reduction (by onethird) of translations from Western European languages and the refusal of passports to writers and artists to travel abroad...

...The outspoken Po Prostu was the initial victim...

...Wladyslaw Gomulka can best be described as a "patient reactionary...

...But there is certainly no justification to abet the gradual destruction of the limited freedoms the Poles still have, as we are now doing through a foreign policy which is both confused and impulsive...

...For within the past month the Johnson Administration has given a considerable amount of attention to what promises to be an even more active aid and trade program to help support the countries of the Eastern bloc...

...Yet the statements and actions of the Gomulka government offer scant reassurance...

...Something, it would appear, has changed for the better in the internal and external politics of Poland...

...These loans, with no interest and a repayment schedule which begins 10 years from the grant of the loan and concludes after 40 years, are, by any reasonable standard, gifts...

...Embassy in Warsaw were compromised by Polish women who were agents of the Polish secret police...

...The farmers have presented Gomulka with the most effective resistance, but even here he has succeeded in making important inroads...

...That the Polish myth nevertheless persists may be attributed in large part to our natural desire to see in Poland a weakening of Russian influence, but also not a little to the ingenious techniques employed by Gomulka to induce the West to continue to contribute to Poland's still shaky economy...

...In addition, Catholics were granted limited representation in the Sejm, and statements were made by both Wyszynski and Gomulka which indicated that a workable modus vivendi had been achieved...

...We have given $477.2 million to Poland in Public Law 480 funds as "loans...

...Paper was withheld from Church-connected newspapers and journals...

...If anything, they tend to support the sober estimate of former U.S...

...Party people assumed greater control of the Writers' Union...

...Western correspondents in Warsaw told me it has become virtually impossible to have any social contact with their Polish colleagues...

...We shall not "free" the Poles— that is a task they will have to take upon themselves...

...It was said that he leaped to his death from his apartment window when security officers came to arrest him "for his criminal activity...

...In June 1962, the Sejm passed a law authorizing State confiscation of mortgaged or indebted agricultural farms...

...These Party members hold power in all areas of public life, have a personal stake in the survival of Polish Communism which transcends or incorporates any feelings of nationalism, and—judging from my extensive contacts with them—their zeal as imitators far exceeds that of the Soviet functionaries who are their models...

...Imprisonment and trial in Poland, however, stimulated my interest in that country's politics and, subsequently, in the phenomenon of political myths...

...He is still in prison awaiting trial...

...Does this mean American aid to Poland should be stopped or curtailed...

...Secretary of State Dean Rusk has made two key policy speeches, reportedly carefully checked and contributed to by the President himself, which announce Washington's new position...

...A policy of Church taxation was instituted, and the Catholic University at Lublin was subjected to crippling retroactive taxation...

...Equally severe strictures were gradually placed upon writers and journalists...

...This was followed on April 30 by a similar letter signed by 13 Harvard professors...

...So adroitly has Gomulka maneuvered that, while Poland—in the words of Richard Hiscocks, a Gomulka apologist who thinks it should be better yet—"on the whole, has not had a bad press in the West," political, economic and cultural freedom has been pressed to the wall...

...American aid continues nonetheless to play an essential role in the Polish economy, since the Soviet Union cannot afford to assume this additional burden at present...

...When 8,500 collectives were dissolved in 1957, the move both mollified the fearful, inimical peasantry and gave vital economic support to the regime...

...only occasionally did he issue stern warnings about "attempts to incite nationalistic and anti-Soviet feelings...

...Poland's Most Favored Nation status ought also to be re-examined...

...According to the latest figures, in 1963 there were almost 1.5 million Party members in a population of only 30 million, one of the highest percentages of Party representation in any Communist country...

...As his power was strengthened, Gomulka slowly began to bring it to bear...

...Writers have been banned from print, professors from the lecture hall...

...I had the disheartening experience of hearing several times about "how easy it is for Yugoslavia to remain independent with all that American support...

...Building permits for other new churches were similarly denied or withdrawn in what appeared to be a general policy of harrassment...

...Thus 1957 saw the appearance of Slawomir Mrozek's politically impertinent book, The Elephant, as well as plays and novels by Witold Gombrowicz, an émigré existentialist author whom many consider the greatest living Polish writer...

...And conditions are no more favorable in the universities, where the job security of liberal teachers has become highly precarious...

...The Poles, as a people, are obdurately anti-Communist, and most Western commentators agree that Poland is one of the Eastern European countries most likely to repudiate Communism were free elections to be held...

...In regard to Poland Rusk said: "A good deal of the national autonomy and domestic liberalization which the Poles won in 1956 persists...

...Although it was made clear to all that Communism was to be the only acceptable system of government, it seemed that the nature of that Communism could be determined by means of these quasi-parties...

...The full scope of his testimony has still not been released, but it is known that five State Department officials and Marines assigned to guard the U.S...

...We apologize to none for our efforts to help the brave people of Poland to preserve their national identity and their own aspirations...

...Subsequently, the students in four important seminaries received orders to report for military duty...

...Gomulka's efforts met with considerable success...

...The United States finds itself now the largest foreign holder of zlotys (over 11 billion in all), and these can be spent only within Poland...

...And this seems to be only the beginning, notwithstanding the drastically reduced foreign aid request submitted to Congress for the coming year...

...In the interim Gomulka has announced two austerity programs, and incomes have remained substantially frozen while food prices have risen as much as 7 per cent in a single year...

...The gravity of the current situation may be judged from the prayer by Pope Paul VI, given on the occasion of a special service in the Slavic rite last November, for those places "where the Church in silence and in tears awaits the dawn of better days...

...Still, there are many points where a creative American policy could exert leverage to improve significantly our relations with Poland and lessen the pressures in the cold war...

...Attempts at dictation in literature and art by the Party were also eschewed...

...interests or the interests of the Polish people themselves...

...Don't worry, the Poles will free you," said one of my fellow-prisoners, a lawyer and whimsical rebel, "but when will you free the Poles...

...Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of American aid to Poland to date is that Poles are unaware of its extent, or even of its existence...

...Ambassador to Poland Jacob D. Beam, given just two years ago upon his departure from Warsaw...

...For nearly three years, in spite of what John Kenneth Galbraith has referred to as "certain problems of location," Poland seemed to be gaining remarkable internal freedom, if not independence...

...Throughout this period Gomulka was extremely tolerant...

...But contrary to some reports, the Polish writers' protest was a product only of their moral, and not their political, strength...

...is virtually absolute but not yet fully open and acknowledged...

...It would seem both sensible and proper, as long as Polish-American relations remain at their present level (Ambassador John M. Cabot has yet to receive an audience with Gomulka), to set all future grants to Poland at least at this level...

...America's foreign aid program should be about 1.5 per cent of our Gross National Product, if only for reasons of self-interest...

...The respected older writer, Jerzy Kornacki, was arrested on the false charges that he had written scurrilous anonymous letters to important government figures...

...The limitations," begins the letter, "imposed on the distribution of paper for the publication of books and magazines and the sharpening of censorship of the press create a situation dangerous to the development of national culture...

...Censorship was extremely light for the press, and the journal Po Prostu went so far as to walk boldly along the brink of direct criticism of the Soviet Union...

...The Gomulka government, representing itself as heir to the October uprising, has in fact been the opponent and, of late, the outspoken foe of all liberal Polish factions, even those within the Party itself...

...At first, the protest received scant attention in the West, and the absence of Western reaction encouraged still harsher measures by the Gomulka regime...

...In succeeding months the censorship or dismissal of editors took place at numerous other journals...

...For one of the most widely held political myths in the West today is that of the "liberalism" of People's Poland...

...At the same time, it increased the taxes on private farms by 14 per cent and thereby enabled the State to confiscate 45,000 private farms...

...instances of Church censorship occurred with growing frequency...

...Then, on April 18, 21 British writers and artists issued a letter expressing their concern...

...Antoni Slonimski...

...they are almost all in the West...

...The United States has contributed $538.2 million, or slightly over half a billion dollars, to Poland...

...In June 1958, he strongly denounced Marshal Tito and expressed his approval of the execution of Hungary's deposed Premier, Imre Nagy...

...The privileges and salaries of Party members, already quite high, were increased still more, and Party membership was not as tightly restricted as it is in the Soviet Union...