Letter from Poland

...wherever exchange is possible Polish currency is shunned, downgraded, while capitalist currency is eagerly sought...

...For the moment, though, let us speak of religiosity...

...Members of the higher clergy are almost completely of village origin, and they are not only the sons of well-to-do peasants, but of the dirt-poor villagers as well...

...The Church is the single political adversary which has to be taken into account by the Communist regime, and moreover, against which the government could win only with considerable assistance from the Soviet Union...

...The representatives of labor in the so-called capitalist countries protect the working man's interests...

...A call for Soviet aid in such a fight would be necessary, and that would render Poland more dependent on the Soviet Union, at a time when the cohesion of the satellite countries and their obedience to Moscow are clearly diminishing...

...Surrounded as we are by a partitioned Germany and by Communist regimes in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, no serious, responsible Pole would accept the feasibility of an independent government in Warsaw...

...Each group—the peasantry, the bureaucracy and white collar classes, and the urban working class —is in its way hostile, yet weak...

...Indeed, how fortunate we are...

...The government suffered an even more tangible setback in its harassment of the sick in hospitals...

...Politically, the peasant will act precisely as he is told by the village priest...

...In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the actresses of Paris also received miserly remuneration, yet for roles in plays about the haut monde, they had to buy expensive costumes...

...The Polish worker receives packages and letters from his relatives in the United States and in West Germany...

...The government must likewise recognize that a battle against Polish Catholicism far exceeds the power of Polish Communism...

...Even the sons and daughters of Party dignitaries, who parade at mass rallies with anti-religious slogans, are caught up in this religious fervor...

...People are human, and want to live like human beings...

...The bureaucracy and white collar groups are undeniably privileged...

...So a deserving, talented, grand old man is left without a means of subsistence—after all, he will not be able to get into print again...

...Hospital staffs, for the most part, simply refused to carry out the edict...

...As a people who have loved freedom above all from the beginning of time (I wax eloquent...

...In one way or another they get the minor writers to toe the line...

...By thus adopting this Convention —which is really aimed at the removal of discrimanatory barriers against Negroes in schools—the government took on the obligation of allowing both private and parochial schools in Poland...

...Membership in the Party is peculiar: It is important chiefly to the educated white collar worker...

...Right here in Warsaw certain kinds of liquor can be bought for dollars only...

...But it is a closed and isolated class: The peasant has no voice in the "People's Republic...

...It might be different if the working man were faced with the type of socialism represented by, say, the Socialist party of Sweden...

...But, alas, nothing has changed...

...It nationalized the entire economy—not just heavy industry, mining, and banking—but everything, right down to the beer hall, the soda fountain, the shoe repair shop, and the local laundry...

...They constitute the ruling social class, because the peasants and the industrial workers have no say at all in our "People's Republic' This bureaucratic class has a considerable majority in the United Polish party...

...But anyone who imagines that the Party members are Communists by conviction, probably believes in the stork as well...

...Nonetheless, for a time the Sino-Soviet conflict promised some changes...

...The situation provokes constant (and justified) indignation on the part of the very regime which led the country into this predicament...

...A Pole in the grip of illness, or facing death, loves to look at a crucifix...

...It would seem more advantageous for Poland to profit from, and adapt to this political trend, by permitting at least a touch of freedom of thought...

...There is no real political life in Poland today...

...he is totally under the influence of the Catholic Church and its clergy...

...That would be an anti-government act, an act of presumption upon the budget...

...is the working class...

...They are sharp in tone, but not as cutting as those which frequently appear in France attacking de Gaulle...

...The government issued an edict for the removal of all crucifixes from hospitals...

...Robespierre's bon mot about the Good Lord applies to the Polish Communists: If they had not existed, they would have had to be invented...

...But a worker who is a member of these organizations would never dare speak up for a wage increase...

...He knows that the working man in capitalist countries earns more, and pays less for what he buys...

...Gomulka, after all, merits the title of "national breadwinner," for it was he who opposed the collectivization of agriculture...

...Now, just as before, crucifixes hang above the beds of the sick...

...And he draws the appropriate conclusions...

...I am neither calling for a battle on this issue, nor definitely predicting that there will be one...

...This brings to mind an ironic comparison...

...This is not to suggest that everyone takes money on the side, or participates in the notorious scandals in the meat-packing and leather industries and the customs and foreign currency operations, or in the many areas of petty graft which are either kept out of the press entirely or referred to only discreetly...

...Asked why he sent regards to Putrament in Morocco when the poet lives in Warsaw, Grzedzinski replied, "Well, Giedroyc doesn't live in Morocco either, but in Paris...

...The peasantry is a privileged class because it is free to profit from the results of its labors and to dispose of the profits as it pleases...

...economically it lets people live, makes wheels turn, and provides at least some prospect for minimal existence...

...Ironically, the one class which is most hostile to the regime, and which hates the very term "socialism...

...So it took up a course of postponing ratification...

...Instead, instructed to shun the Church, they violate the rules of the summer camps by running off to church services, en masse...

...Jan Grzedzinski, editor of a political weekly before the War and once a Left-leaning Pilsudski supporter, now in his 70s, has been subjected to repeated interrogations because of a purely personal letter written to a friend in Morocco...

...It might well be said that this obligation runs counter to the basic structure of a state which has nationalized everything from top to bottom— but if the government did not want that obligation, it should not have signed the Convention in the first place...

...Morally this is a disgusting state of affairs...

...I do not mean to exaggerate the devoutness of the Polish people...

...It is the most immoral of paradoxes that everyone would be worse off...

...He had always been a Leftist...

...The Polish worker is industrious, able, and above all, not stupid...

...Government suppression of Catholic observances in the schools has achieved results exactly opposite to those desired...

...There are only the bitter, powerless opponents, and potential opponents...

...The opposition to the government by a few men of letters is no more annoying than a few mosquito bites...

...Since the Church rules the village, it can really be said that the clergy is a political organization, and further, that the Polish village priest is the political representative of the Polish peasant...

...The present-day situation of the Polish civil servant is similar...

...Recently there arose the possibility of a renewed open conflict between the government and the Church over the interpretation of the 1960 U N E S C O Convention Against Discrimination in Education...

...and no person or group of persons should be compelled to receive religious instructions inconsistent with his or their convictions.' The Polish government saw that the Convention could cause serious difficulties here...

...Yet it is equally true that the regime itself does almost everything poorly, and has no supporters in the country...

...at the same time 1 do not wish to underestimate their piety...

...No one refuses membership...

...The bureaucracy, however, gets starvation wages...

...This display of resistance was enough: The regime was frightened, and it retreated...

...The reasons are clear: The government of the Polish '"People's Republic" applies its obsolete and absurd economic doctrines to the fullest...

...Labor is indeed the most dissatisfied and exploited class in Poland...

...the Poles deserve that much...

...Miller was also summoned before a board of the Writers" Union for sarcastically referring to that holy of holies, the subservient J. Iwaskiewicz' "Socialistically creative" memoirs, The Fame and the Glory, as "The Fame without the Glory...

...My point is that it is not Polish religiosity but rather general hostility toward the Polish government which lays the foundation for the political power of the Catholic Church here...

...He has been indicted on the same charges as Grzedzinski, and his pension has been withheld...

...those with more prestige they throw in jail, and that takes care of that...

...Clearly the Communists came to power not on any wave of popular enthusiasm, but because England sold us to Stalin, in the most time-honored manner...

...They used to constitute a weak minority faction...

...The Church ought to keep in mind that in recent years Poland has suffered from, and has been weakened by, diverse and explosive conflicts...

...Grzedzinski facetiously explained to his interrogators that he was referring to Jerzy Putrament, the orthodox Communist poet...

...If children were given compulsory religious instruction, they would no doubt sleep in class...

...Afterward, one sleeps at Party meetings, unless one choose to indulge in Party intrigues or in illicit business speculations facilitated through Party connections...

...The positions of the other components of Polish society today hardly compare with that of the Church...

...No one was so crass as to inquire where they got the money to do this...

...The young journalistic "bards" of Warsaw berated Miller in the press for attacking the authorities of the "People's Republic," from whom he has received literary awards, and a pension—as if a literary prize were a sort of hand-out which, once accepted, obliges the recipient to be forever loyal and obedient to his benefactor...

...The comic inconsequence of the government's actions is all too apparent to him...

...What would happen if no one took money in graft, if there were no crooked deals...

...For Poland, this means that the present Communist regime is the only possible one, and is irreplacable...

...Imperial Russia was supported by the pillars of bureaucracy and officialdom, yet the mere fact that a man held an official position did not make him automatically a Tsarist monarchist as well...

...Now the issue is out in the open...

...Everything in the country is completely government-controlled— with one exception: The Roman Catholic Church survives as a free institution and is in a position to make its own policies...

...Gomulka and a few other leaders must believe in the system, but even they realize that things ought to be better...

...Gomulka and others, in spite of everything, are at least in some measure Polish patriots...

...But in Poland, socialism means nothing but a completely nationalized economy...

...Nevertheless, it is true that the quieter, less lucrative varieties of graft, of "wheeling and dealing," do make a satisfactory supplement to a starvation wage...

...If everyone were content with the level of his wages, did not look for more in crooked ways, and rested on his behind like an Indian on the Ganges, the state of the nation would be far more miserable than it is...

...Grzedzinski is free, though he has been indicted under Article 23 of the Penal Code, which specifies three to 15 years imprisonment for slandering the "People's Republic' Jan Miller, the oldest of the older generation currently under attack, is also in his 70s...

...Thus does the regime keep writers in line...

...before the War Poland had fewer confirmed Communists than either England or France...

...in Poland they serve to keep a tight grip on the workers, to make sure that he neither complains nor strikes, but keeps clapping his hands and remaining obedient toward that super-boss and sole capitalist, the Polish state itself...

...It is not the Communists' fault that they rule us...

...The letter contained the innocent phrase, "Say hello to Jerzy from me," and it is charged that this must be Jerzy Giedroyc, editor of Kultura, who is about as popular here as the atomic bomb...

...Article 5, Item B of the Convention reads: "It is essential to respect the liberty of parents and, where applicable, of legal guardians, firstly to choose for their children institutions other than those maintained by the public authorities but conforming to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the competent authorities and, secondly, to insure in a manner consistent with the procedures followed in the state for the application of its legislation, the religious and moral education of the children in conformity with their own convictions...

...The leadership of the now defunct Peasant party was not as monolithically rural as is the higher city clergy today...

...Had we been blessed with collective farms, Warsaw would have died of hunger, the same hunger common to that great fatherland of Lenin's...

...The whole mess functions so catastrophically that almost everyone— not only the bureaucracy—has to resort to underhand dealings...

...THE 'PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC AND THE PEOPLE Letter from Poland By Gaston de Cerizay WARSAW The relationship between the Soviet Union and the West dictates a certain status quo for countries caught in the middle...

...Propaganda and police harassment are currently directed toward the older writers...

...The articles appeared under the pseudonym "Niemira," and dealt with conditions in Poland...

...On July 13, 1964, after three and a half years of deliberation, the State Council solemnly declared the Convention "Accepted, ratified, and confirmed...

...Peasant and priest get along very well indeed...

...The government tries to use the press to promote popular support— resulting in journalists having to write precisely the opposite of what they say in private conversation...

...Industrial workers' councils do exist and a certain, though not overly large, number of workers does belong to the United party...

...The doctrinaire harangues at meetings, the trashy, propagandists: newspaper articles all abound with predictions of the impending demise of capitalism—despite the strength of capitalist money in our market places...

...So we cannot replace the Communists...

...now he is accused of publishing articles in the reactionary Wiadomsci (News), a London emigre journal, and of exhibiting unseemly eagerness to have a collection of essays entitled "Without the Dot on the I " published by the state publishing house...

...There are no followers and obviously, if there are no followers, 99.99 per cent of the people hate the "People's Republic...

...Such is the power of the Catholic Church in Poland...