nics *

Report from

Poland

WARSAW ©

TEEMING, often rough-
tongued discussion and ques-
tioning of almost everything has
been raging in Poland, particu-
larly since the bombshell revela-
*tions of the 20th Congress of
the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union.

But one fundamental aspect
of life that has been neither
discussed nor questioned, is the
system of People’s Democracy,
established at the liberation 11
years ago.

It would seem that to pro- |

pose such measures as. the re-
turn to landlordism or the pri-
vate ownership of industry
would be to label oneself as a
political Rip Van Winkle, a
crackpot.

I think it is true to say that
what the Polish people want. is
that their socialist system should

work more efficently and pro- —

vide them with. higher living
standards,

Politically, they want the
broad democratic provisions of
the constitution to be more fully
and consistently put into prac-
tice. F

And although the great dis-

cussion around those ideas was —

finally released by the “shock
treatment” of the 20th Congress,
the ideas themselves were not
conceived then.

Prime Minister Josef Cyran-
kiewicz in his opening speech
to the eighth session of the Pol-
ish parliament last month point-
ed out: that all the measures
for ‘the process of democratiza-
tion of our lives” were contain-
ed in decisions taken at the
‘third plenum of the United
Workers’ party held way back
in November 1954.

' But in the main they werd
executed in a too tentative a
manner. Consider, for example,
-the question of justice and se-
curity.

ig ‘ .

The release and rehabilitation
of prisoners unjustly convicted
for alleged political crimes has
been going on for some time.

The tendency to interpret poli- -

tical differences and deviations
as indicating that the persons
involved ‘were necessarily “ene-
mies of the people” and “agents
of foreign powers” has long been
discarded. .—

But it took the 20th Congress,
and in particular Khrushchev’s
deadly exposure of the cult of.
the individual to create a situ-
ation in Poland in which:

+ The minister of justice and
the supreme military prosecutor
were both dismissed for not ex-
€rcising sufficient control over
the work for which they were
Tresponsibile.

+ High-ranking security of-

_ ficials were brought to trial for

Practising and _ encouraging

8rossly illegal methods.

+ A most comprehensive am-
hesty bill was passed that will
Probably affect 80,000 people.

Those benefitting from the bill
Will include persons already
Serving prison sentences; others
Who have been arrested but not
yet brought to trial; and still

_ Others whose cases were being

Investigated.

‘The bureaucrats are in
_ trouble as the workers
_ do some sorting out

*

The Second World War left Warsaw ‘in ruins, but with every
passing year the new and more beautiful city takes shape as
building programs are completed.

By GORDON CRUIKSHANK

Something like 30,000 prison-
ers will actually be released
from jail and thousands will
have their prison sentences re-
duced.

An analysis of the figures
given me by the office of the
prosecutor-general reveals that
of 9,000 people justly convicted
for political offences half are
being released and the sentences
of the remainder are being re-
quced. :

The other prisoners receiving
the amnesty were mostly con-
victed for crimes against the
state, ranging from minor small-
time black marketing and il-
legal currency rackets to major

offences such as espionage and
terrorist assault,

Politically the amnesty ex-
presses confidence in the poli-
tical maturity and sound com-
mon sense of the Polish people.

It marks a new estimate of
the political bankruptcy of those
forces opposed to the regime.
It. is an act. of pardon but not
en admission of unjust convic-
tions.

Its beneficiaries are not to be
confused with those relatively
few ‘political and military fig-

ures who were unjustly arrest-
ed and who have since been re-
leased and rehabilitated.
Vladyslayv Gomulka, for ex-
ample, one-time general secre-
tary of the United Workers’
party, has been free for more
than a year. His political views

are still considered to have been '

dangerously misguided, but.
charges that he was “an agent

of a foreign power” were found
to be completely unfounded.

*

What does the ordinary Pol-
ish citizen feel about all these
developments? It is not diffi-
cult to find that out.

The are “blowing off steam”
and (to mix metaphors) “letting
their hair down.”

At plant meetings, workers
have been spotlighting cases of
incompetency, negligence, waste,
graft, inefficiency and inade-
quate payments and poor con-
ditions.

Many managerial faces are
red and others are pale. There
is no doubt that the industrial
workers are standing up on

their feet and laying down the
law.

As one worker put it: “We

tsok over this country 12 years.

ago. It was a backward, ruin-
ed shambles. : :

“We began rebuilding it al-
most with our bare hands to
begin with. Now we're a real
‘industrial power.

“That’s good. But we’ve come
to a stage when things have got
to be sorted out and we’re go-
ing to do the sorting out. We
are the masters here.”

Other workers of course ex-
pressed doubts. ‘Let’s hope
that after all this talk we’ll be
better off.”

It-is a fact however, that 3,-
400,000 workers are to benefit
from a wage increase. Mini-
mum wages are to be raised all
round. Intellectuals, artists and
students are particularly voci-
ferous about civil and cultural
liberties.

. They say that unqualified
“bureaucrats” have been dictat-
ing to the arts and sciences and
to the cultural and academic in-
stitutions. A group of young
artists in Cracow Violently pro-
tested to me against-their be-
ing “isolated from Western art
movements.” :

They said: “We shall demon-

strate for artists to have the -

same freedom to travel that
sportsmen have.”

In fact, during the first three
months of this year 8,000 pass-
ports have been issued which is
as many as in the whole of 1954
and half as many as in the
whole of 1955.

Students are demanding that
their curricula be decided more
by. profesSors and less by min-
isterial administrators.

In the May Day demonstra-
tions, they carried banners an-
nouncing “knowledge before
bureaucracy.” The “bureau-
crats” said to be everywhere in
ministries and other powerful
institutions. are definitely hate
figures.

One young woman referred
to them with uninhibited venom
as “Those little tin-pot officials

who glory in their tiny bit of
rower.”

A jovial director commenting
on a certain highly paid official
in a very important ministry
said with a laugh: “If he says
Yes, ’'m doubtful. If he says
No, I believe him.”

And what is behind all this
alleged bureaucracy? The most
charitable answer given is that
many officials have been so
afraid of the possible conse-
quences of making wrong deci-
sions, that they have preferred
to make none.

“Buck-passing,” said one caus-
tic wit, “became a way of life
in Poland. Certainly many peo-
ple appear to have some cause
for irritation or mortification
because of ‘bureaucracy.’ Even
the parliamentary committees,
it has been stated, sometimes
tended to be ‘rubber-stamp’
bodies.”

*

But it is now felt that the
source of all such practices is
being rooted out. And in this
new, healthy, invigorating poli-
tical climate, relations with the
Soviet Union, far from being
weakened, as some people pro-
phesied, look better than ever.

There’s a widespread feeling
that Khrushchev’s speech pro-
duced, just the kind of results
everyone was waiting for.

The- United Workers’ party,
according to a statement made
by Edward Ochab, first secre-
tary of the central committee,
is “going through a difficult
time.”

But it seems that by openly
admitting mistakes, by taking
swift action to remedy them,
«nd above all, by opening the
floodgates for @iscussion, and
giving full scope to the people’s
political initiative, the party will
probably emerge from it all
with heightened standing.

I have met at least one young
man who is anxious to join the
party. “I hesitated before,” he
told me, “because I knew what
was going on. Now all my
aoubts have gone.” :

I do not know how repre-
sentative his case is, but this I
am certain of: in Poland today
past errors and past misdeeds
are the least interesting aspect
of life.

Vital and intensely interest-
ing are the present and the fut-
ure. For here is a people with
a socialist economy struggling
to bring to fullest life a new
high level of democratic ,prac-
tice. :
They want the democratic
content of day-to-day life to
match the framework of de-
mocracy they have already
fashioned. They want the words ,
of their constitution to become

‘day-to-day realities.

They want everybody to live
cemocracy. Their success must
mean the achievement of a free
way of life which will be a
model for other peoples.

WASHINGTON
HE TWO mighty armies of
the U.S. Civil War have
dwindled from 3,500,000 men
to four. But the widows of
participants in that conflict
still are almost a_ brigade
strong.

Nearly a century after the
outbreak of the war, more
than 7,000 widows are receiv-
ing pensions or compensation
payments from the federal
government or from 14 south-
arn and border states.

The U.S. Veterans Admin-
istration showed 4,931 Union
widows on its rolls in Febru-
ary. The South, which takes
care of its own, could muster
2,188 widows of the men in

7000 Civil War widows in U.S.

gray, according to a survey
of the 11 states of the old
Confederacy plus the border
states of Kentucky, Oklahoma
and Missouri.

Albert Woolson, 109, of
Duluth, Minn., is the sole
survivor of the 2,900,000 men
who fought for the North,

Three old soldiers are left
‘of the estimated 600,000 who
answered the South’s call to
arms. They are John Salling,
109, of Slant, Va.; William

Lundy, 107, of Laurel Hill, —

Fla., and Walter W. Williams,
109, of Franklin, Tex.

Union widows . receive

monthly checks — either pen-

- sions or compensation’ pay-

ments — ranging from $40.64

to $87, depending upon sev-

persation payment is about

eral factors, including —
whether their husbands had
service connected disabilities,

Amounts paid to the Con-
federate widows range from
$20 a month in Oklahoma—
pro-Southern Indian  Ter-
titory during the war — to a
whopping $478 monthly in
Missouri, which was held in
the Union by Northern sym-
pathizers. The latter figure,
however, is for the care of
just one widow, an invalid
who requires a home and full-
time care.

The average monthly com-

$85 in the South. Nine of the
states also provide a funeral
grant for Confederate
widows.

May 18, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 9