The Beginnings of communist rule in Poland

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THE BEGINNINGS OF COMMUNIST RULE IN POLAND_ December 1943—June 1945 ☆

☆

Edited by Antony Polonsky and Bolesław Drukier

THE BEGINNINGS OF COMMUNIST RULE IN POLAND This study is based on previously unavailable documents brought to the west in 1972. It provides a detailed account of the problems faced by a communist party taking power in a country in which it was opposed by the great majority of the population. The period covered is from the establishment of the National Council for the Homeland (KRN) by the Polish Workers Party in December 1943, to the enlargement of the Polish provisional government by the entry into it of a number of non-communist politicians, led by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, and the granting to it of official recognition by the western powers in June-July 1945. These eighteen months were crucial for the establishment of communist rule in Poland. They saw the setting up of a governmental structure effectively dominated by the communists, and the emergence of a security apparatus which was already displaying an alarming degree of independence, controlled by the Soviet ‘advisers' within it. The documents bring out clearly the conflicts within the Polish Workers Party over strategy and tactics, as well as the complexity of its relationship with its smaller coalition partners. They also reveal very dearly the way Soviet officials, above all Stalin himself, exercised close supervision and control over the situation in Poland. The work is thus significant not only because of the light it sheds on Polish politics in the last years of the Second World War, but also because of the way it illuminates the general characteristics of Soviet policy in these years. As well as the documents themselves, this book includes an introduction by Antony Polonsky, aglossary of organizations, a list of pseudonyms and biographical details of individuals. As such, The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of how Soviet power was established in Eastern Europe, and will be essential reading for all those interested in the area and in the problem of the origins ofthe Cold War.

ISBN 0 7100 0540 7

£14-50 net

'

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

THE BEGINNINGS OF COMMUNIST RULE IN POLAND

Antony Polonsky and Bolesław Drukier

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL London, Boston and Henley

First published in 1980 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 39 Store Street, London WC1E 7DD, 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA and Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1EN Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Ltd Trowbridge and Esher © Antony Polonsky and Bolesław Drukier.1980 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from th_e publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Polonsky, Antony The beginnings of Communist rule in Poland . 1. Communism - Poland - History - 20th century - Sources I. Title II. Drukier, Bolesław 322.4'2'09438 HX315.7.A6 80-40408 ISBN 0 7100 0540 7

CONTENTS

Preface The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

vii

1

Glossary of abbreviations and political terms

140

List of pseudonyms

155

Biographical list

157

List of documents

187

Documents Part one

Part two

Part three

v

From the establishment of the National Council for the Homeland (KRN) to the creation of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) (January-20 July 1944)

191

From the creation of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) to the setting up of the Polish Provisional Government (22 July-31 December 1944)

247

The Polish Provisional Government (January-June 1945)

403

Index

456

MAPS

1

Polish frontiers 1921-39

2

The new western and northern frontiers of Poland

24

3

Area administered by the PKWN, July 1944February 1945

91

4

vi

Poland within the frontiers of 1945

facing page 1

184

PREFACE

The Polish text of the documents reproduced in this book has been deposited in the British Library of Political and Economic Science where it is freely available. In our translations we have tried to be as literal as possible without sacrificing readability. The translation of Polish place names and political terms poses many problems for which only arbitrary solutions are possible. We have used the term 'province* for województwo and 'district' for powiat. For wojewoda we have used 'governor'and for starosta 'sub-prefect'. We have employed the Polish form for all towns except Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna and Lvov. The introduction was written by Antony Polonsky, making use of material provided by Bolesław Drukier, which has also been deposited in manuscript form in the British Library of Political and Economic Science. However, Antony Polonsky bears sole responsibility for the opinions expressed in it. We should like to express our appreciation to the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Social Science Research Council for their material and moral support. We also owe thanks to Messrs Jaime Rey¬ nolds and Tadeusz Zawadzki and to Drs Jan Ciechanowski and Józef Garliński for reading and commenting on the manu¬ script. The maps were drawn by the always helpful map room of the LSE Geography Department. Finally, we owe a special debt to our families without whose help and under¬ standing this work could never have appeared.

Vll

1 Polish frontiers 1921-39

THE BEGINNINGS OE COMMUNIST RULE IN POLAND

People's Democracy did not arise as in 1917, as a result of an armed uprising at the height of the revo¬ lution, but as a result of victory by the Soviet Union (Bolesław Bierut, Speech at the first conference of the PZPR, 15 December 1948). Marxist historiography unequivocally regards the beginning of the Socialist construction process as the fruit of internal developments ... that is how the revolutionary process works ... although there are several relevant debatable issues (Norbert Kołomejczyk, 'Z poła walki',1975, No. 3, p. 123).

INTRODUCTION The period covered by this study starts with the estab¬ lishment in December 1943 by the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) of the National Council for the Homeland (KRN), a recognition that its policy of trying to win broader sup¬ port in Poland had failed and that it would have to rely above all on its own strength. It saw the liberation of Poland by the Red Army together with the Polish Army, which had been established in the USSR and which by early 1945 comprised nearly 280,000 men. This liberation was accomplished in two phases: the Red Army offensive of spring and summer 1944 drove the Germans beyond the Vis¬ tula, though it failed to free Warsaw. The renewed assault which began in January 1945 liberated the whole of Poland up to the Oder-Neisse boundary line by late April 1945. Already in July 1944 a Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) was created to administer the freed territories, and in December this Committee was rec¬ ognized as the Provisional Government of Poland by the 1

2

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Soviets. The study ends in July 1945 when this Govern¬ ment, enlarged by the entry into it of Stanisław Mikołajczyk and four other pro-western politicians, was recognized by Britain and the USA. These eighteen months were crucial for the establish¬ ment of communist rule in Poland. They saw the setting up of a governmental apparatus in difficult conditions and against the opposition of the vast majority of the Polish people. They saw also the creation of a large Polish Army and of a security apparatus which was already showing disturbing signs of independence from the Polish govern¬ ment and which was, in fact, effectively controlled by the Soviet 'advisers' within it. In addition a number of social reforms were introduced, above all a large-scale land reform, which aimed, not always successfully, to broaden government support. Finally, the growing politi¬ cal bankruptcy of the political parties linked with the London government became ever more obvious. The Warsaw uprising effectively destroyed the power of the Londoncontrolled underground, the Home Army (AK). After this the pro-western politicians in Poland and abroad split into two groups. One, whose principal spokesman was the Peasant Party leader Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who resigned as Prime Minister of the Govemment-in-exile in November 1944, believed that some compromise should be sought with the Soviet Union and the communists in Poland. The other group, which took power in the Government-in-exile after Mikolajczyk's departure, believed that the Polish question would be satisfactorily resolved only if confrontation arose between the Western powers and the USSR. There was thus no point in making any compromise with the Soviets, whose terms were anyway regarded as totally unacceptable. With the entry of Mikołajczyk into the Provisional Govern¬ ment in June 1945 the London Government in fact ceased to enjoy any significant role, and the struggle for power was now played out within the Government in Warsaw between Mikołajczyk and his Peasant Party (PSL) on the one hand and the PPR on the other. The documents on which the study is largely based were brought to the west by Bolesław Drukier, formerly Pro¬ rector of the Higher School of the Social Sciences attached to the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, who left Poland in 1972. They are notes which he made in the course of his own research as one of the people who were allowed access to this material. The first question raised by them is inevitably, are they genuine? Since Mr Drukier left Poland, a number of the documents have in fact been published in Poland and in the west (in Poland, nos 7, 9, 11, 18, 26, 48, 51, sections 1,

3

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

3, 4; abroad. Nos 3, 17, 41, 42, 44, 45). This has en¬ abled a direct comparison to be made between the Drukier text and texts published both in Poland and abroad. What this reveals is that the Drukier text is clearly genuine but contains a small number of omissions of unimportant material, as could be expected to occur when a researcher works under pressure of time in an archive. In order to let the reader judge for himself we print the Drukier ver¬ sion of section 4 of document No. 7 alongside the version published in Poland.

Drukier version 4 CKL. Comrade Tomasz spoke. He explained the fundamen¬ tal differences between the PPR and the CKL: 1 Attitude to the London government; 2 Who is to rule after the Liberation; 3 Policy on borders and towards the USSR. He suggested co-operation with the CKL on the basis of fighting the invader. Olek disagreed with Tomasz and argued that we should aim for a merger of the CKL and KRN. Ignac: It was not worth discussing a merger be¬ cause the issue is really decided by the individual political parties. It was necessary to intensify efforts to create a national front. Franek: The CKL is a body which prevents consoli¬ dation. It must be both attacked and ignored. Wiesław summed up. He disagreed with Tfomasz] and F[ranek] and argued that there is only one differ¬ ence between the KRN and the CKL: the border issue. We must do all we can to act together and unite with the CKL in order to act jointly towards the SL and WRN. He moved that a CKL-KRN commission should be set up to act jointly towards tke SL and WRN.

Version published in Poland 4 CKL. (really the general position). Comrade T[omasz] stated that a merger with the CKL was not so easy: he went on to explain the three fundamental differences between us and the CKL: 1 A favourable attitude to the London government; 2 Who is to rule after the Liberation, 3 Policy on borders and towards the USSR. He suggested co-operation with the CKL purely on the basis of fighting the invader.

4

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Comrade 0[lek] disagreed with Comrade T[omasz] and argued that we should aim for a merger of the CKL and KRN. Comrade I[gnac] considered that it was not worth discussing a merger because the issue is really deci¬ ded by the individual political parties. He went on to explain the necessity of intensifying efforts towards the creation of a national front. Comrade F[ranek] maintained that the CKL is a socio-political body and prevents consolidation. It must be both attacked and ignored. He was of the opinion that certain comrades (0[lek], I[gnac] and probably W[iesław]), underestimated the strength of our party. Comrade W[iesław] disagreed with Comrades T[omasz] and F[ranek] and argued that there is only one differ¬ ence between the KRN and CKL: the border issue. We must do all we can to act together and unite with the CKL in order to act jointly towards the SL and WRN. He moved that a CKL-KRN commission should be set up to co-ordinate decisions and act jointly towards the SL and WRN. In addition to the documents brought out by Mr Drukier, we have printed a nunber of other documents which are neces¬ sary to make clear the course of developments. They com¬ prise one letter and two speeches by Gomułka (Nos 1, 51 section 2, 65 section 3), two speeches by Zambrowski (No. 65 section 1, No. 73 section 2) and one by Mine (No. 73 section 1). These have all been published in Poland, in the case of Nos 51, section 2, and 65, section 1, with some omissions. Mine’s speech has however not been re¬ printed since 1945 and is difficult to obtain while Zam¬ browski 's is crucial to an understanding of how the land reform was implemented.

1 FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR TO THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE HOMELAND (KRN) IN DECEMBER 1943 What is new about the documents? Above all they enable us to chart with much greater accuracy and detail than was previously possible the evolution of Polish politics between the end of 1943 and July 1945. The circumstances of occupation dictated that during the war Polish commu¬ nism should have two directing centres, one in Poland, the other in the Soviet Union. Initially these two centres did not diverge in tactics and strategy. On the con¬ trary, the creation in January 1942 of the Polish Workers'

5

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Party (PPR) had been the work of the Comintern and the policy and personnel of the new party was closely super¬ vised by the general secretary of the Comintern Executive, Georgi Dimitrov. The Communist Party of Poland (KPP) had been dissolved by Stalin in mid 1938 on the grounds that 'agents of Polish fascism managed to gain positions of leadership'. (1) Most of its principal figures perished in Soviet prisons or labour camps. A small number of pro-Soviet leftist underground organizations with names like 'Spartacus', 'Union of Peasants and Workers' the 'Revolutionary Councils of Workers and Peasants' and 'Association of Friends of the USSR' continued to exist in Poland after 1938 and were even able to function in the initial period of German occupation, but their influence remained minimal. Their support had largely evaporated as a result of Polish bitterness at the Soviet occupation of much of eastern Poland in September 1939 and they were almost wiped out by German repression after the outbreak of the Nazi-Soviet war in June 1941. Some Polish commu¬ nists in the USSR did manage to survive the purges, and as Soviet-German relations began to deteriorate from the middle of 1940 the Soviet authorities began to take a more sympathetic view of their position. Already in autumn 1940 a number of them, including Marceli Nowotko, subse¬ quently the First Secretary of the PPR, were sent for political training to the Comintern school. They were allowed to issue a declaration following the German inva¬ sion of the Soviet Union, which ignored the Polish govern¬ ment in London and called on Poles in the USSR to join the volunteer Polish corps which they believed would be estab¬ lished as part of the Red Army. (2) For the moment the Soviets were more concerned to establish good relations with the Polish Government in London under General Sikorski, with which they signed an agreement on 30 July 1941. This was followed by a mili¬ tary agreement on 14 August making provision for the re¬ cruitment of a Polish Army from Poles deported to the USSR which was to be 'part of the armed forces of the sovereign Republic of Poland' while being 'subordinated operational¬ ly to the High Command of the USSR'. As a result, the Polish communists were kept very much in the background and were not yet allowed to form their own party. By the beginning of 1942, however, it had become apparent to the Soviets that the hopes they had entertained of an accommo¬ dation with the Sikorski government were not being ful¬ filled. Disputes had arisen over recruitment to the Polish Army and over an amnesty for the Poles who had been deported to the USSR following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, and who numbered about one million.

6

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Above all, Sikorski proved quite unresponsive to Soviet suggestions that he reach a settlement with them on the Polish-Soviet frontier, ceding territory in the east in return for a Soviet-guaranteed frontier, acquisitions in the west and Soviet support for his government. (3) As a result Stalin, while not yet prepared to break with the Polish Government-in-exile, became increasingly willing to build up a Polish communist group in order to strengthen his hand in negotiating with the London Poles and the western allies. An 'initiative group' was formed from the trainees at the Comintern school to re-establish a Polish Communist Party. Following pressure from Dimitrov, general secretary of the Communist Internation¬ al, it was decided not to revive the name Communist Party of Poland (KPP). Instead, the party was called the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) in an attempt to stress its break with the 'anti-national' political stance of the KPP and its character as a radical, leftist but non-communist party. (4) The aim of distancing the party from pre-war Polish communism can be seen even more clearly in the Party's first declaration, 'To Workers, Peasants and the Intelligentsia. To all Polish Patriots'. This con¬ tained no mention of socialism, class struggle or revolu¬ tion, and stressed instead the need for a broad national front to defeat the Nazi invader. The PPR, it claimed, had 'no intention of competing with other parties which fight wholeheartedly for the liberation of tire Polish nation. On the contrary, it endeavours to co-operate with them as closely as possible and to fight together with them against the common enemy.' (5) Although for propaganda purposes it was claimed that the new party was not a section of the Comintern, it was in fact subject to detailed control by that organization. On Dimitrov's instructions, it was decided not to estab¬ lish a central committee.from among communists in Poland but instead to parachute into that country a three-man leadership team selected from among the Poles in Moscow and headed by Marceli Nowotko. This was duly done, and in spite of some objections from old-guard communists who felt that the new policy was too reformist, a meeting was held in Warsaw on 5 January 1942 at which the PPR was for¬ mally established. By June 19 42 it was claiming a mem¬ bership of approximately 4,000 Party menbers with 3,000 partisans organized in the People's Guard (Gwardia Ludowa - GL). (6) Throughout 1942 and early 1943 the party continued to support the policy of a broad national front. It was increasingly critical of the Government-in-exile, which it attacked for the under-representation in its ranks of the

7

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

'Polish working class, peasant masses and toiling intel¬ lectuals'. It was also hostile to the decision of the London-controlled underground, the 'Armia Krajowa' (Home Army - AK), to avoid large-scale confrontations with the Germans and to preserve its strength until German defeat was imminent. Yet the party's attempt to create National Committees for Struggle ('Narodowe Komitety Walki') in order to strengthen its own position and establish a national front from below, open to all groups from the communists to the right-wing nationalists which would by¬ pass the political parties supporting the London govern¬ ment, proved a fiasco. The party was further weakened by the assassination of Nowotko on the instigation of another member of the leadership 'troika', Bolesław Molojec, who was subsequently executed by the party for treason. It thus decided it had no alternative but to seek a compro¬ mise with the representatives in Poland of the London gov¬ ernment. Contact was made in November 1942 with Kazimierz Bagiński, a veteran Peasant Party politician, and in January Gomułka, future party secretary, issued an open letter to the London government's 'Delegatura' (rep¬ resentative in Poland) calling for the establishment of a broad national front which would accelerate the creation of an 'Independent Poland'. (7) Talks between the PPR and representatives of the Delegatura and the AK took, place in the second half of February. During these the PPR called for a broad poli¬ tical agreement between all anti-German political parties in Poland with the exception of the Sanacja, the pre1939 governing group and the fascist National Radical Camp (ONR) . This agreement would make possible the creation of an underground authority which would supersede the London government after liberation. The two guerilla organizations, the GL and AK, should be placed under one leadership, while each preserved its autonomy and AK tac¬ tics should be modified to take advantage of the change in the course of the war and should seek to spark off an im¬ mediate national uprising. (8) Similar views were ex¬ pressed in the declaration issued by the PPR on 1 March 1943, entitled 'What are we fighting for?' This did put forward rather more radical social policies than had pre¬ viously been advanced, for which it was criticized by Dimitrov. Yet it did not rule out the possibility of co¬ operation with the Sikorski government;, calling for the preparation of a 'general national uprising to drive out the bestial Hitlerite occupying forces and liberate a free and independent Poland.' (9) From now on, events contributed to the radicalization of PPR policies. The growing crisis in relations between

8

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

die Government-in-exile in London and the USSR culminated in the Soviet decision to break off relations with Sikorski in the aftermath of the discovery of the bodies of 4,000 Polish officers in a mass grave at Katyn near Smolensk. This in time adversely affected the negotia¬ tions between the AK and the PPR. It had always been un¬ likely that an agreement would be reached, but Colonel Grot-Rowecki, Commander of the AK, was now determined to offer terms which he knew would be unacceptable. His message to the PPR of 28 April demanded as a precondition of any co-operation that the PPR declare itself in favour of the complete independence of Poland within its 19 39 frontiers. It was further to affirm that it was not a part of the Comintern and was to subordinate itself 'with¬ out reservation' to the London government's Delegatura and the AK command. This reply effectively brought to an end PPR hopes of reaching some accommodation with the forces supporting the London government in Poland. Increasingly the party came to advocate a narrow national front, sometimes referred to as a 'democratic national front', which would be effec¬ tively dominated by the PPR. Already in its May state¬ ment the party questioned the legitimacy of the Sikorski government and expressed doubts as to its democratic char¬ acter. In the editorial in the PPR journal 'Trybuna Wolności' of 1 July, this attack on the London government as 'undemocratic' was taken still further when all laws issued by it were declared to be invalid on the grounds that they had been issued in terms of the 'fascist' con¬ stitution of 1935. In the same month steps were taken to transform the People's Guard (GL) into a People's Army (AL - Armia Ludowa) with the express intention of super¬ seding the London-controlled AK. By September the PPR was affirming the need for independent political and military action by the 'united democratic forces'. (10) The new line meant that the PPR now had to find part¬ ners for its democratic national front. This need was made still more acute when the Government-in-exile trans¬ formed its Political Co-ordination Committee (PKP) into a Political Representative Committee (KRP). The committee was intended as a sort of underground parliament in which the four parties supporting the London government (Polish Socialist Party - Freedom, Equality, Independence (PPSWRN), National Party (SN), Labour Party, and Peasant Party (SL)) would be represented. The PPR leadership felt that they would have to respond by creating a rival body, which was described on 24 November in a letter from the Party's secretariat to the GL command in the Lublin province as 'a government at home'. (11) As partners in the creation of

9

The beginnings

of communist rule in Poland

this body, the PPR ruled out the PPS-WRN, which with about 12,500 members was the largest of the socialist groupings in Poland. It was made up of the bulk of the pre-war Polish Socialist Party (PPS) but it was a part of the London government and was strongly anti-Soviet and anti¬ communist. The PPR had stronger hopes of establishing satisfactory relations with the Polish Socialist Workers Party (RPPS) , a group with about 3,000 members which was made up mostly of the left wing of the pre-war PPS and which was in opposition to the Government-in-exile. How¬ ever, although the social policy of the RPPS was very radical and indeed somewhat to the left of the PPR, its attitude to the Soviet Union was decidedly hostile. In addition it considered the PPR to be a 'Soviet party' and was unwilling to work with it. At its conference in September 1943 only four of the twenty-four participants, led by Edward 0sóbka-Morawski supported the PPR policy of establishing a new political body. Indeed, in October the RPPS established its own collective body, the Popular Executive Committee (NKL). The PPR also hoped to estab¬ lish links with various groups on the left wing of the Peasant Party (SL) in order to give some reality to slogans about a worker-peasant alliance. However, as the internal memorandum of November made clear, if no toplevel agreement were possible, the PPR should go over the the heads of the leaders of these groups and create a rep¬ resentative body from the grass-roots upwards. The PPR was indeed increasingly confident that events were moving in its direction, above all because of the evolution of the international scene. The Moscow foreign ministers' conference in October 1943 even stimulated 'Trybuna Wolności' to comment on 22 November: 'The ideo¬ logical basis of the conference can and should also become the ideological basis of a socio-political breakthrough in Poland'. The new party line was given clear expression in the policy declaration of November 1943 'What do we fight for'. (12) This explicitly denied the legitimacy of the Government-in-exile and its right to rule Poland after the war. Instead power was to be held by a provisional gov¬ ernment, which would be based on an 'anti-fascist national front'. This front was also to enjoy the support of a new underground army, the AL. The manifesto also called for large-scale territorial acquisitions at German expense in the north and west, thus following the line set out by Alfred Lampe, a veteran Polish communist in the USSR, in 'Wolna Polska' on 16 April 1943. (13) In its social policy, the new declaration was rather less radical than that issued in March, reflecting the PPR's response to

10

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Dimitrov's criticisms on that occasion. It raised the size of estates liable for confiscation under the proposed land reform so as not to alienate larger peasants, and stressed that both peasants and agricultural workers were eligible to receive land. The restitution of small farms seized by the Germans, as promised in the March declara¬ tion, was now extended to medium-sized farms The radicalization of the PPR and its increasing inde¬ pendence from Moscow was partly the result of certain changes in its leadership. It is true that the entry into the central committee in July 1943 of Bolesław Bierut, a long-standing Comintern functionary, probably constituted an attempt to assert a greater degree of con¬ trol by Stalin. But in mid November Paweł Finder, the PPR's secretary, was arrested by the Gestapo, as was Maria Fornalska, another Comintern-trained activist. The post of party secretary thus fell to Władysław Gomułka, who was much more independent of Soviet control and who was deter¬ mined to accept only policies which he regarded as suit¬ able to Polish conditions. Finder's arrest with the PPR code book also meant that for a period of six weeks con¬ tact between Moscow and the PPR was difficult if not im¬ possible. (14) It was in this period that the PPR pro¬ ceeded to take steps to create a kind of representative body, for which the name National Council for the Homeland (Krajowa Rada Narodowa - KRN) was chosen in order to emphasize the primacy of the Polish centre in taking deci¬ sions over that in Moscow. In moving towards the estab¬ lishing of the KRN, the PPR was almost certainly influen¬ ced by the development of the situation in Yugoslavia. Here an Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) had been created in November 1942 and had set up a committee of national liberation with the powers of a provisional government the following November. (15) The PPR was however unable to obtain the support of either the RPPS or the left wing elements in the SL. Thus when the manifesto proclaiming the estab¬ lishment of the KRN was issued on 15 December, of the fourteen signatories only the PPR was referred to as a party. The others were described as 'groups' or 'commit¬ tees' with titles like 'group of socialist activists', 'group of independent democrats' or 'group of Polish teachers'. On this occasion, the KRN was described as 'the real political representative of the Polish nation, entitled to act in the name of the nation and to guide its destiny until Poland's liberation from foreign occupa¬ tion'. (16) (Italics in original.) The first meeting of the KRN took place on 31 December. A manifesto was issued denying to the London government

11

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

any right to represent the Polish people. At the 'appro¬ priate moment' the KRN would establish a provisional gov¬ ernment and in the meantime it would administer the country through regional councils ('rady narodowe'). In the east, the country's frontiers were to be settled on an ethnographic basis, while in the west and north they would reach the Oder and Baltic. Though no mention was made of socialism, the nationalization of industry and the expro¬ priation of large estates and those in German hands was promised. (17) The post of president of the KRN was assigned to Bolesław Bierut while Michał Rola-Żymierski took command of the People's Army (AL) which was now established with the People's Guard (GL) as its core. In terms of the decree establishing the AL, all Polish armed forces, both in Poland and abroad, were to be subordinated to the authority of Rola-Żymierski and the KRN. In the USSR, Polish communist politics had evolved in a rather different manner. Early in January 1943 a number of long-standing Polish communists had requested Soviet permission to set up a 'centre for Polish affairs' in the USSR which could become the nucleus of a future Polish government. This Stalin was not prepared to allow, but as relations with the Sikorski government reached a criti¬ cal point, he agreed to the formation in March 1943 of the characteristically named Union of Polish Patriots (Związek Patriotów Polskich - ZPP) a front organization with non-communist menbers, but effectively controlled by the communists. The ZPP immediately declared its willingness to accept the Curzon line and even before the breach of relations with the Sikorski government was cal¬ ling for establishment of a Polish military force under its control on Soviet soil recruited from the many Poles who had been deported to the USSR. (18) In June 1943 the ZPP issued a policy statement. (19) This was similar in character to that published by the PPR in March 1943, though it was 'more wary and less farreaching' to quote a leading Polish historian. (20) It strongly criticized the Sikorski government, but failed to suggest an alternative, though it did proclaim that it stood for a democratic parliamentary system with 'real power for the people'. Land was to be distributed free to small farmers and agricultural labourers, exploita¬ tion by landowners and cartels was to be ended and national reconstruction facilitated by state aid for artisans, traders and industrialists. Following the break in relations between the Soviets and the London Poles, the military force advocated by the ZPP was established in the form of the Kościuszko divi¬ sion. It was commanded by Colonel Zygmunt Berling, a

12

The beginnings

of communist rule in Poland

pre-war officer captured in 1939 who was determined to co¬ operate with the Soviets and who in April 1943 had deliv¬ ered a petition to the Soviet authorities proposing the establishment of a Polish military force. (21) Its men were largely conscripts from the Poles in the Soviet Union, but given the Soviet murder of perhaps 8,000 of the 9,000 Polish officers they had captured in 1939 (22) and the departure of many others with the Anders Army in mid1942 there was a marked lack of officers. This shortfall was made good with Red Army officers, in some cases of Polish origin. Between May 1943 and March 1944, 1,465 officers were sent from the Red Army to the Polish corps which had developed out of the Kościuszko division, in¬ cluding 6 generals, 17 colonels, 54 lieutenant-colonels and 113 majors. Between April and July a further 3,221 Soviet officers were sent to the corps, which had now become an army. They included 4 generals, 49 colonels, 99 lieutenant-colonels and 285 majors. By January 1944, as Table 1 shows, nearly three-fifths of the officers in the new Polish Army had previously served with the Red Army. (23) TABLE 1

Service experience of Polish Army officers

Date

1 Oct. 43 30 Dec . 43 1 Jan. 44

Service experience Pre-war Red Polish Army Army % % 15.3 21.6 21.4

75.8 63.8 58.6

No service experience

% 8.9 14.6 20.0

The Polish corps sedulously followed pre-war Polish military traditions in its uniforms and decorations and even in its songs. Simultaneously, attempts were made to give it a pro-Soviet character, although its loyalty was to be questioned by the communist authorities in Poland, particularly in the tense period after October 1944. Clearly it was intended to be a tool facilitating the es¬ tablishment of a pro-Soviet authority in Poland. This was later openly admitted by Berling to Oskar Lange, the pro¬ communist Polish Professor of Economics at Chicago Univer¬ sity who visited the USSR in April and May 1944. Berling affirmed: 'Today we have 100,000 soldiers but tomorrow we shall have a million and this will be a force which will enable us to shape the future structure of Poland.' (24) Even before Berling made this somewhat boastful state¬ ment, political claims were being made on behalf of the

13

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

army. In October 1943 a number of communist political officers put forward this idea in Thesis No. 1 which proposed the establishment of an 'organized democracy' in which the army would play a major role. The'whole con¬ cept was attacked as 'neo-fascist' by leading Polish com¬ munists in the USSR and sanctions were subsequently taken against its main protagonist Włodzimierz Sokorski. Even Berling himself was not immune from criticism (see docu¬ ments Nos 4, 81). (25) A second rather more moderate proposal. Thesis No. 2, put forward by two leading communists, Hilary Mine and Roman Zambrowski, also failed to win widespread approval in communist circles. What is striking is the unusual freedom of debate and the wide spectrum of views expressed, which was only possible be¬ cause of the absence in the USSR of a disciplined Polish communist organization. It was with the intention of creating some degree of ideological uniformity that the Central Bureau of Polish Communists (Centralne Biuro Komunistów Polskich - CBKP) was formally established on 10 January 1944. (26) This was to be a 'para-party' body and was given the task of organizing communists in the army and the ZPP and of 'co¬ operating with the PPR' especially on liberated territory. This last function was particularly important. In recent months there had been virtually no information from the PPR, which could not fail to alarm the Moscow authorities determined to exercise strict control over party affairs in Poland and still suspicious of the party because of the dissolution of the KPP. Such aspects of PPR internal affairs as the murder of Nowotko were certainly worrying, while the lack of communication meant that the Moscow authorities did not know that the reason for Finder's being replaced by Gomułka was his arrest by the Gestapo. At the same time, in late Decenber, unaware of the establishment of the KRN in Poland, th.e Polish communists in the USSR were planning a new initiative on the Polish question. The working out of this proposal was left to Alfred Lampe and it took the form of a Polish National Committee (Polski Komitet Narodowy - PKN) which was to be the democratic representative of the Polish people until a provisional government could be established. A comparison of the programmes of the KRN and PKN reveals how far the political conceptions of Polish communists in Moscow and Poland diverged. (27) Both condemned the London government, demanding its replacement by a new pro¬ visional government, and both were sympathetic to the Soviet Union, calling for the settlement of the PolishSoviet frontier on the basis of ethnographic prin¬ ciples. (28) Both described themselves as leading the

14

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

nation's struggle: the PKN was the nation's 'provisional representative', the KEN its 'administration'. But unlike the KRN, the PKN stressed its adherence to a par¬ liamentary regime. The PKN claimed that it was 'an ex¬ pression of the national front which was coming into being', whereas, after its inability to win significant support outside the PPR, the KRN called for a 'democratic national front'. In its social policy the PKN was con¬ siderably more moderate than the KRN. While the PKN was prepared to offer 'fair compensation for landowners and especially for those 'who had participated in the struggle for independence or the families of those murdered in this struggle' the KRN offered none. Both manifestos called for the confiscation of industrial property from the Ger¬ mans and traitors. Yet the PKN promised to return enter¬ prises to their rightful owners after a temporary period of state administration. The KRN called simply for nationalization. In addition, th.e PKN stressed its wil¬ lingness to aid entrepreneurs while the KRN made no such assurances.

2 FROM THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE HOMELAND (KRN) TO ESTABLISHMENT OF THE POLISH COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL LIBERATION (PKWN) JANUARY-JULY 1944 The renewal of contact at the beginning of 1944 enabled the two centres again to exchange information. In his letter of 12 January 1944 (document No. 1), which is probably a reply to an earlier communication from Moscow, Gomułka as secretary of the PPR attempted to justify the establishment of the KRN. The failure to base this organization on a wide political spectrum was not the result of left-wing sectarianism but of conditions in Poland. The PPR [he affirmed] could not make the establishment of the KRN conditional on an understanding with the leadership of other parties because they are still under the control of Sanacja agents (difficult to remove because inner-party democracy is impossible under the occupation) and in practice are under the influence of the reactionaries. In its decision to create the KRN, the PPR decided to assume the leader¬ ship of the masses and not be dragged in their rear. A feature of the letter was its unequivocal insistence that Polish questions should be decided only 'by people in Poland or those representing them'. The establishment of the PKN was thus criticized, although it was conceded that it had a role to play as the foreign representative of the

15

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

KRN. The Moscow communists were also bitterly reproached for their failure to provide adequate arms for the AL. Certainly, as Gomułka himself was to admit in 1962, 'before 1944, Russian arm-drops were infinitesimal', (29) a situation which only changed in May 1944 when a Partisan Staff was created under the command of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union. Indeed the mood of suspicion which prevailed on the part of the Soviets towards the AL was to occasion some bitter conflicts in early 1944 between a liaison unit of Polish partisans under Leon Kasman which was linked with the Soviets and Mieczysław Moczar, com¬ mander of the AL in Lublin province. These aroused strong disagreement on the PPR Central Committee and the matter had to be referred to the 'Chief (Stalin) for settlement (documents Nos 5, 11). Finally, the letter is striking for the mood of confidence with which it is permeated. The PPR felt that international events were moving in its direction and that 'we are becoming the decisive force in Poland'. The letter did not entirely reassure the Polish commu¬ nists in Moscow who, according to two Polish histor¬ ians, had reacted to the formation of the KRN with 'reser¬ vation and anxiety'. (30) It was acknowledged that its establishment had made the concept of the PKN redundant. Nevertheless, as was stated by Andrzej Witos, non-commu¬ nist chairman of the ZPP, that organization only abandoned its plans to create a Polish administration made up of emigrants in the USSR in spring 1944 as a result of orders from Stalin. (31) Certainly in a telegram to the PPR central committee, which had previously been shown to Dimitrov for his approval, the ZPP implicitly called into question the quasi-governmental status of the KRN, advis¬ ing it to refrain from issuing decrees 'which have no chance of being immediately executed'. It also suggested the expansion of the KRN's political base to create a broadly-based national front, including the PPS, SL, right-wing National Democrats and other civil and military bodies (document No. 2) . This communication cannot have been to the taste of the PPR central committee and it is probably no coincidence that its reply of 7 March (document No. 3) was addressed not to the CBKP but to Dimitrov. It attempted to rebut charges of sectarianism, giving a detailed account of the attempts of the PPR to win the support of the RPPS and SL and claiming that it was the hostility of these parties to the Curzon line as Poland's eastern frontier which had prevented the establishment of effective co-operation. The creation of national councils could not be seen as an indication that the PPR was seeking a sovietized Poland.

16

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

On the contrary, they were a relatively successful attempt to create a national front from below. Nevertheless it was admitted that the bitterness of the class struggle in Poland had given rise to some sectarian attitudes at lower levels of the party when members had argued that the future of Poland would be either 'fascist' or 'soviet'! The PPR again made an appeal for more arms. Substantial arms supplies would enable the AL to become 'the key factor in Poland' and would render the authority of the KRN 'unchallenged'. The central committee accepted the CBKP assertion that the 'KEN is not a government'. Nevertheless 'until another government arises, either acceptable to the KRN or created by it, the KRN itself is a kind of substitute government, without in fact being one'. The tone of the letter was optimistic though not quite as confident as in January. 'The KRN', it asser¬ ted, 'thus has increasingly firm grass-roots support which will make up for the lack of co-operation at top level'. A delegation would be sent to Moscow to give the CBKP full information on the PPR policy and actions. Throughout this period, the PPR continued its attempts to widen its political base. The AL did succeed in acquiring the support of several units of the Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie - BCh), the military wing of the SL, and even won over a few small AK groups. But on the political front, the situation was still very unsatisfactory. In late January the pro-PPR faction in the RPPS had established a 'provisional central committee' headed by Osóbka-Morawski, but its influence remained small. So too did that of the 'People's Will' group of the SL which was also encouraged by the PPR to establish its separate existence at this stage. A conference was held on 21 February 1944 at which the Peasant Party leadership was condemned and a resolution passed calling the Peasant Battalions (BCh) to join the AL. A news¬ paper, 'Wola Ludu', was established and an executive com¬ mittee was elected headed by Stanisław Bańczyk. The PPR failed entirely in its attempts to win over the bulk of the SL. Negotiations with the anti-KRN majority of the RPPS were also not bearing fruit, in spite of an offer by the PPR to give the RPPS's co-ordinating body, the Popular Executive Committee (NKL), enough votes to deprive the PPR of its formal (though not real) majority in the KRN. Instead the RPPS proposed the establishment of a new organization incorporating both the NKL and KRN, which was unacceptable to the PPR since it did not wish to abandon the KRN. As a result, in February, the RPPS had trans¬ formed the Popular Executive Committee into a somewhat broader Central Popular Committee (Centralny Komitet

17

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Ludowy - KL) , which on 19 March declared its opposition to the KRN on the grounds that it did not 'guarantee full independence'. (32) In addition, the KRN was still not entirely accepted or trusted in Moscow. In spite of the failure of the attempted British mediation between Stalin and Mikołajczyk in February 1944, Stalin still seems to have had hopes of reaching an accommodation with some sections at least of the Govemment-in-exile. Thus no mention was made of the KRN in the Soviet press, other than Polish newspapers pub¬ lished in the USSR. As late as 11 May, the CBKP submit¬ ted a memorandum to the Soviet authorities in which it was suggested that the idea of a Polish National Committee to govern the territories shortly to be liberated, should be revived. (33) The isolation of the PPR and its failure to widen its political base led to a division within the central com¬ mittee as to how to break out of the political impasse in which the party found itself. This first became apparent in April, and the dispute scon became so acute that it led to the taking of minutes at the central committee from May, in spite of the security risk this entailed. Three members of the central committee, Bierut, Jóźwiak and Chełchowski, sought to widen the political base of the PPR by co-operation with those groups (the pro-KRN faction of the RPPS and the 'Wola Ludu' group) in whose creation the PPR had played an important part and in which secret PPR members held important positions. The other faction, made up of Gomułka, Kowalski and Loga-Sowiński hoped rather to strengthen the PPR by an 'opening to the right', and the establishment of co-operation with the official SL and the majority of the RPPS. At the meeting of the central committee on 5 May (docu¬ ment No. 5) conflict focused on PPR attendance at the forthcoming conference of the pro-KRN faction of the RPPS. This conference was referred to as the 'fourth conference' of the party in order to stress that the minority group was the real RPPS and that the new conference was the natural follow-up to the party's third conference held in September 1943. This was bound to make more difficult negotiations with the anti-KRN majority of the RPPS. At the meeting of the central committee Kowalski opposed what he claimed were attempts by the Bierut group to revise the party line in relation to the PPR's coalition partners. Gomułka, while conceding that the emergence of the pro-KRN faction of the RPPS was a 'positive factor', argued that it was also 'an obstacle to our plans', since it made more difficult negotiations with the RPPS majority. He sug¬ gested that the group be referred to as RPPS-opposition so

18

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

as to cause less offence to the majority. The pro-KRN faction duly held its conference on 27 May with twentyeight participants. It elected a central committee, headed by Os6bka-Morawski, and passed a series of resolu¬ tions calling for co-operation with the KEN and the PPR. (The nomenclature of the two RPPS groups is somewhat con¬ fusing. After the May conference the pro-KRN faction, referred to in the minutes as the ’left wing of the RPPS' took the name of 'new' PPS. At the same time, the antiKEN majority adopted the name PPS-left wing.) Talks between the PPR and CKL continued during May. Their importance now increased since the CKL was also attempting, for the moment without success, to win over Mikołajczyk's Peasant Party to a policy of remodelling the London government to give it a more left-wing character and to make possible the entry into it of the PPR. On 19 May the PPR central committee reported to the CBKP a pro¬ posal by the CKL in terms of which both the KRN and CKL would join the Council of National Unity (Rada Jedności Narodowej - RJN), the underground parliament established by the political parties supporting the London government on 9 January as a successor to the Home Political Repre¬ sentation Committee. In the RJN the two left-wing groups were to function as a united opposition. The CBKP was very hostile to this proposal. It replied that it was a trick aimed at subordinating the KRN to the London govern¬ ment and added that this was also the view of the KRN delegation, part of which had arrived in Moscow on 16 May. (34) The Soviet authorities and the CBKP clearly took the view that they had no need of CKL mediation if they wished for an accommodation with groups making up part of the London government. Indeed, on 23 May Lebedev, the Soviet minister to the Government-in-exile in London, made contact with Stanisław Grabski, a politician close to Mikołajczyk, and the President of the Polish National Council in London put relatively conciliatory proposals to him. (35) In addition the CBKP was probably suspicious of the anti-Soviet and Trotsky-ite elements in the CKL and was already aware of the fact that the Soviet authorities were showing an increasing interest in making use of the KRN when Polish territory was liberated. It is not clear whether the CBKP message reached the PPR central committee before its meeting of 23 May (docu¬ ment No. 7). On that occasion, the Gomułka group put forward the view that the Peasant Party (SL) should be used as the means to unite the three underground represen¬ tative bodies, the KRN, the CKL and the Council of National Unity (RJN). This went further than their earl¬ ier plans for a CKL-KRN merger and was strongly opposed by

19

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Bierut and his supporters. Against the will of Bierut and Jóźwiak, who accused Gomułka and his supporters of underestimating the strength of the PPR, the party secre¬ tary put forward a motion establishing a joint CKL-KRN commission to 'co-ordinate decisions and act jointly to¬ wards the SL and WRN'. However, by this stage, unknown to the PPR central com¬ mittee, events were beginning to move in favour of the KRN. On 22 May, Stalin met the KRN delegation for the second time and informed them that he would not recognize the London government in its present form. He also moved towards recognizing the KRN, informing the delegation that relations would be established with the KRN executive as soon as it was established (36) (see document No. 8). He also instructed the Soviet press to discuss the KRN fcr the first time. After taking the delegation on a tour of inspection of Polish army camps in the Soviet Union, he observed, 'The KRN has no army and the Polish army in the Soviet Union has no government'. (37) It was clear that even though the KRN has not received official recognition, Stalin was now prepared to make use of it in achieving his own objectives in Poland. The new status of the KRN was reflected in a change of attitude by the CBKP. Already in its undated letter to the PPR central committee (document No. 6; this letter was almost certainly sent in mid to late May), it had stated that it 'welcomed the creation of the KRN', al¬ though still criticizing it for adopting an excessively sectarian stand. It concluded that the aim of Polish communists must be to 'prepare the ground for a provision¬ al government, widely-based and democratic, which will in¬ clude, apart from the KRN, all groups supporting the war with Germany in alliance with the USSR, plus representa¬ tives of the emigres; especially the ZPP, the Polish Army in Russia, the Poles in the USA and democratic elements in London'. The ZPP statement of 23 May went still further and recognized the KRN as the 'motivating force' in the struggle for a new democratic Poland. It was no coinci¬ dence that on the following day the Soviet press for the first time mentioned the existence of the KRN and the fact that its delegation was in Moscow at that very moment. The PPR central committee met again on 29 May (document No. 9) and the differences within it were still acute. Gomułka welcomed Stalin's reception of the KRN delegation, although there seems to be a trace of bitterness in his statement that the KRN had now been recognized 'after five months of existence'. However, Kowalski warned against the party becoming 'dizzy with success' on account of the new position of the KRN while Gomułka still expressed his

20

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

hope that the KRN, CKL and RJN could be merged into 'one national representative body at home'. In order to win over the SL, less support should be given to the Wola Ludu group. The Bierut faction dissented and even accused its opponents of trying to 'liquidate' the KEN. The party should do all it could to uphold the 'new' PPS and the Wola Ludu group. Neither group was, however, willing to push its position to extremes. Gomułka accep¬ ted that it had been necessary to establish the KEN while Bierut admitted that some elements in the London govern¬ ment might be won over and withdrew his allegations that his opponents were in favour of the 'liquidating' of the KEN. Some attempt to reconcile the position of the two groups was made, as can be seen in the rather confused 'Notes for a speech to the Central Committee of the PPR' (document No. 10). The Soviet acceptance of an important (though still un¬ specified) role for the KEN did not resolve the conflict within the PPR central committee. At the meeting of 18 June (document No. 11) Gomułka again expressed his dis¬ agreement with Bierut and Jóźwiak and his hope that an understanding could be reached with the Peasant Party. In his view there 'could be no top-level agreement on the basis of the KRN' and he even suggested changing the name of this organization 'if it proved an obstacle'. In fact, events were rapidly resolving the situation. On 22 June Stalin again met the KEN delegation and authorized it to set up an administration for those areas of Poland soon to be liberated by the Red Army. (38) The following day the Red Army commenced its offensive towards Poland. Simultaneously, the atmosphere of the Lebedev-Mikolajczyk talks which had developed from the Soviet contacts with Grabski took a turn for the worse. Mikołajczyk was pre¬ sented with what was in effect a Soviet ultimatum demand¬ ing the total reorganization of his government and the immediate recognition of the Curzon line, which he rejec¬ ted. On 24 June, the ZPP issued a statement recognizing the KRN as 'the nation's true representative' from which it hoped a provisional government would emerge. In its original version, this had referred to the KRN as 'the nation's only representative'. (39) Stalin had clearly decided to use the KEN to form the basis of the adminis¬ tration he was planning to establish on Polish territory. Gomułka made one last vain effort to advance his own policy. On 1 July his close friend and supporter, Władysław Bieńkowski published an article in the PPR paper 'Trybuna Wolności' appealing to the Peasant and Socialist (WRN) parties to join the PPR in creating a broad national front. They should even be prepared to use force to take

21

The beginnings

of communist rule in Poland

over the London underground and the AK and establish friendly relations with the USSR. Military developments were now exercising a vital influence on the situation. The summer offensive of the Red Army was pushed forward with great success and by the second half of July Soviet and Polish troops were approaching the Curzon line. This made acute the problem of establishing an administration for the liberated terri¬ tories. Already on 6 July the second part of the KRN delegation headed by Rola-Żymierski had arrived in Moscow and was soon involved in constant discussions with the CBKP and the Soviet authorities (documents Nos 12-16). In these exchanges it is striking how the CBKP was still determined to uphold the idea of a broad national front and retained even its hope of winning over the right-wing but anti-German National Democrats. On 15 July the KRN delegates and the ZPP agreed on a memorandum for submis¬ sion to Stalin (document No. 18, appendix 1). After making highly optimistic claims on behalf of the KRN and PPR in order to buttress its case, the memorandum called for the establishment of a provisional government with the KRN as its core, but strengthened by the addition of the ZPP and 'representatives of democratic organizations in the country and abroad'. The creation of a provisional government of this type was further than Stalin intended to go at this stage, well aware of the strong reaction such a move would provoke from the British and Americans. On the same day he told Rola-Żymierski that he was in favour of a 'committee of national liberation' and on the 17th he informed a larger group of Poles that the estab¬ lishment of such a committee was imperative. The Presi¬ dium of the ZPP executive committee met on the following day together with the KRN delegates in Moscow (document No. 18). At this joint session it was decided not to follow Stalin's suggestion of establishing a committee of national liberation, which seems to have been felt to be inadequate for the tasks of administering the liberated areas. Instead, on the suggestion of Jakub Berman, it was decided, following the London government's precedent, to establish a KRN Delegatura (representative authority) for the freed territories. Of its eleven members, five were KRN delegates. On 19 July Stalin officially noted the establishment of the KRN Delegatura. He did not comment on the fact that his suggestion had not been followed, though Molotov remarked that the action was 'excessively modest'. Stalin did urge haste. 'You don't know how to climb to the governmental level, you're behind events....' He also criticized the ZPP statement declaring its 'acces-

22

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

sion' to the KRN (document No. 18, appendix 2) stating that a stronger formulation was required and that the KRN should 'show its teeth'. (40) His advice was followed on the 20th when the KRN delegation proclaimed the authority of the KRN over the ZPP and the Polish Army in the Soviet Union. The first and only meeting of the KRN Delegatura took place the same day (document No. 19). Osóbka-Morawski, who took the chair, told the members of the Delegatura, whose numbers had been augmented by a number of additional ZPP members, that Stalin had given his 'approval' to the decision to establish the representative body. After a break, in which he spoke to Molotov, Morawski changed his position and at the evening session proposed the creation of a Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego - PKWN), which was duly accepted. The PKWN met for the first time on 22 July in the headquarters of the ZPP in Moscow. The establishment of the PKWN was a clear victory for the Polish communists in Moscow over those in Poland. The PPR had played no role in the decisions taken in July. At the beginning of that month, the party central commit¬ tee had resolved to transfer most of its leaders from Warsaw to liberated territory and accordingly a reserve 'leadership troika' was established. It was decided, however, to defer this transfer until the end of the month because of the possibility of an AK uprising in Warsaw (document No. 81, account of Jóźwiak) and perhaps also on account of ignorance of how the situation was developing in Moscow. The PPR central committee only reached Lublin on 2 August, the day before the first meeting of the PKWN there (earlier meetings had in fact taken place in Chełm, the first town to be liberated). The CBKP had already informed the PPR central committee of the course events were taking in a rather hectoring letter of 18 July (docu¬ ment No. 17). This explained that a governmental author¬ ity was about to be established for Poland. It warned the PPR against adopting sectarian positions on land reform, nationalization and the question of a national front on the grounds that this could make the task of es¬ tablishing a secure political base in Poland more diffi¬ cult and 'would make Poland a bone of contention between the Teheran powers', which 'would not be in accord with the policies of the USSR'. The predominant position of the Moscow communists was clearly reflected in the composition of the PKWN. Its chairman was Osóbka-Morawski, a member of the KRN and also leader of the 'new' PPS, but its two deputy-chairmen were members of the ZPP, Andrzej Witos and Wanda Wasilewska.

23

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Ten of its fifteen members came from the ZPP. The PKWN manifesto of 22 July also reflected the political ideas of the Moscow centre, based as it was on Alfred Lampe's pro¬ posals for the Polish National Committee rather than on the KRN manifesto of November 1943. (41) It rejected the PPR's concept of a 'democratic national front' and was drawn up in such a way as to attract as wide a spectrum of support as was possible. The manifesto is striking for its avoidance of radical and above all socialist phraseo¬ logy. Thus, though formerly German factories were to be nationalized, other industries were to be placed under 'provisional state management' and compensation was prom¬ ised to former owners. Small and medium enterprises were to remain in private hands and were even offered state aid. As regards land reform, the landless, small peasants and medium peasants with large families were all to profit from it, and the aim of creating an average-sized holding of 5 hectares was set out. This, it was hoped, would gain for the PKWN the widest possible support. All estates owned by Germans and traitors were to be expropri¬ ated, as would other estates above 50 or 100 hectares depending on the region. Landowners were to receive com¬ pensation in the form of 'supply' with larger amounts for those who had demonstrated their patriotic credentials. The confiscated land was to become part of a Land Fund. Except for estates retained for special purposes, it was to be distributed to private individuals at a nominal cos t. In relation to the political situation, the 1921 con¬ stitution with its parliamentary democratic principles was to remain in operation until new elections could be held. The only indication of any major political change came in the assertion that the PKWN would exercise power through national councils. As regards frontiers, ethnic prin¬ ciples were to be followed in the east, while Poland was to expand at German expense in the west and north. In fact, it was just at this time that Stalin gave way to demands from the Polish communists that the Polish-German frontier should be as far west as the Oder and western Neisse rivers.

3

THE PKWN IN POWER:

JULY-OCTOBER 1944

Once established in power, the PKWN continued the policy of seeking to establish a broad national front. Its aims were formulated so as to win the widest possible support. 'Our principal goals', the PKWN manifesto had proclaimed

24

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

2 The new western and northern frontiers of Poland

25

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

'are the liberation of Poland, the re-establishment of a state apparatus, the pursuit of the war to its victorious conclusions, the acquisition for Poland of its rightful place in the world and the beginning of the reconstruction of the country.' These goals 'cannot be achieved without national unity'. Thus, though the new administration was in practice dominated by the PPR, considerable efforts were made to stress that it was a coalition of different political groups. Of the fifteen members of the PKWN, five belonged to the PPR, four to the Peasant Party, three were socialists, one a democrat and two were unaffiliated (Berling and Sommers tein). The problems of taking power for the moment papered over the divisions within the Polish communist movement. On 5 August the bases of the new policy were expounded, with, some interesting differences of emphasis, at a meet¬ ing of PPR activists in Lublin by Gomułka and Hilary Mine, formerly a prominent member of the ZPP (document No. 26). While arguing that the ultimate historical aim was the introduction of socialism, Gomułka stressed that the main task of the PPR at this stage was to mobilize 'the whole nation in the struggle ... for a free, democratic and independent Poland*. He went so far as to claim that the PPR had 'fought to establish social justice and is far re¬ moved from communism'. The intransigence of the suppor¬ ters of the London government had made necessary the creation of the KRN and PKWN but 'it is ... incorrect to assert, as some comrades are doing,that co-operation with other groups in the country is unnecessary'. On the con¬ trary it was vital 'to build and realize co-operation' with the Peasant Party, the 'key element in our attempt to achieve a national front'1, and the socialists. The PPR was not a 'monopolistic party' and for the moment 'the settling of political accounts is out'. Only in this way could the reactionaries be deprived of their support in the country. For his part, Mine claimed that there were no good reasons for not attempting to create a national front. Without it, economic reconstruction would be impossible and 'our opponents will entice the masses away from our side, which would lead to civil war'. Like Gomułka, he argued that 'socialism cannot be built now, because ... we need a long-lasting peace and our government's policies need to get recognition not only from the Soviet Union, as is the case at present, but also from the USA and UK. The USSR will accept no other policies in Poland.' The party must attack only landowners and capitalists and seek to unite 'workers, peasants and the bulk of the petitebourgeoisie' . What would distinguish the new Poland from

26

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

the pre-1939 situation would be 'the absence of large landowners and the transfer of large enterprises into state ownership'. Efforts were thus continued to strengthen links with PPR sympathizers in the peasant and socialist movements. These were not particularly successful. The SL Wola Ludu set up a Provisional Central Board in August 1944 and held a conference in Lublin on 17-18 September, when it appropriated for itself the name Stronnictwo Ludowe (SL). Even before the conference, a conflict had devel¬ oped between the SL and the PPR over the role of national councils, with the SL calling for elections which the PPR was not prepared to allow. The two groups also differed over land reform, the PPR favouring its rapid implementa¬ tion while the SL was for more discussions. On land reform, the PPR had proved willing for the moment to com¬ promise, but on the national councils it had proved quite unyielding. At the conference, which was attended by about a thousand people, a clear division was evident between those members of the Wola Ludu group, who were closely linked with the PPR, and those who wanted the SL to adopt a more independent posture. Land reform re¬ mained a key issue of disagreement, but dissension also arose over other matters, such as the attitude to be taken towards the underground SL ROCH, which was linked with the London government. The conference was also marked by the fissiparous tendencies and changes of position which had always characterized peasant politics in Poland. KotekAgroszewski, for instance, now emerged as an opponent of the Wola Ludu group of which he had previously been a leading member. The resolutions passed at the conference reflected the confusion which prevailed in the SL. The conference de¬ clared itself in favour of the PKWN, without accepting all of its policies. It condemned the Government-in-exile but stopped short of criticizing Mikołajczyk and the SL ROCH. The land reform proposals were not directly attacked, but the hope was expressed that they could be revised in the next few years. Given the divisions within the party, it is not surprising that five candi¬ dates (Kotek-Agroszewski, Andrzej Witos, Janusz, Maślanka and Czechowski) were put forward for the post of chairman. This was won by Kotek-Agroszewski and all the different factions obtained representation on the execu¬ tive committee. (42) At the same time, PPR officials continued their efforts to make contact with SL ROCH. On 5 September, for instance, thirty-five of the members of this group were arrested for holding an illegal conference in Lublin.

27

The beginnings of communist rule in Póland

They expressed their willingness to co-operate with the PKWN and were accordingly released. Not surprisingly they did not return to pursue this offer. Indeed, the experiences of the PPR with the peasant movement as a whole were not particularly satisfactory, and by 9 October we find Bierut claiming, 'A rotten group of people have got into the SL leadership.... We have permitted kulak and reactionary elements to get into the SL leadership' (document No. 49). Relations with the socialists proved more satis¬ factory, partly because the pro-PPR elements in the RPPS were rather weak and thus needed communist support to maintain their position, and partly because the areas first liberated were largely agricultural and contained little heavy industry and few concentrations of industrial workers. The left wing of the RPPS, which from September 1943 had referred to itself as the 'new RPPS' formed the core of the re-established Polish Socialist Party (PPS) which was set up after the creation of the PKWN. An executive committee constituted itself in mid August made up mostly of members of the RPPS together with several pre-war PPS activists who had returned from the USSR. The party was formally re-established at a conference in Lublin on 10-11 September, subsequently referred to as the XXV conference in order to underline the continuity be¬ tween the pre- and post-war party. The participants at this conference were almost entirely self-selected, since party district organizations were at this stage practical¬ ly non-existent. Of the 220-odd participants, most had been linked in some degree with the underground WRN, which supported the London government. The percentage of WRN activists was estimated by Bolesław Drobner, one of the leading figures in the new party, to be as high as 70 per cent. It was also commented on by Julian Finkelsztajn, an official of the PPR central committee in a letter to Pukhlov, one of the Soviet officials on the staff of General Bulganin, the Soviet representative attached to the PKWN (document No. 50). This meant inevitably that a large proportion of them were attached to the traditions of the pre-war PPS and caused tension between them and the leadership which tended to be more sympathetic to the PPR. The conference expressed its support for the left wing and united front traditions of the PPS and RPPS and de¬ clared its adherence to the policies embodied in the PKWN manifesto, including the alliance with the Soviet Union and the new eastern border of Poland. The PPS and PPR were described as 'two fraternal parties', and in some of its social policies the PPS even adopted rather more radi¬ cal positions than the PPR. At the same time the confer-

28

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

erce resolved that the PPS should take a leading role in the struggle for 'liberty, independence and socialism', and called for the establishment of a single socialist party embracing all socialists including those in the WRN. While WRN policies were criticized, all WRN members were urged to join the PPS. The attitude to the WRN in fact revealed a clear division within the leadership, the pro¬ tagonists of a conciliatory line towards that organization being led by Bolesław Drobner, while those who wanted a more intransigent position found their spokesman in Stefan Matuszewski, also one of the strongest advocates of close links with the PPR. (43) There were other areas of potential conflict between the PPS and the PPR. One of these was caused by the struggle for position on the factory committees, estab¬ lished to help run industry in the liberated areas. Yet given the pressing tasks facing the administrators at this time, these councils were for the most part left to their own devices and it was only on 2 October that the PPR cen¬ tral committee issued its first instructions on their functions. A more difficult problem was the re-estab¬ lishment of trade unions. This was seen as a vital area by the PPR which favoured the setting up of a single trade union movement effectively under its own control. At the same time, as Gomułka admitted at the August conference, while the initiative should come from the PPR, some co¬ operation with the PPS was desirable. The PPR leadership was not agreed on the question of how trade unions should be organized. After some dispute, it was eventually agreed to set up unions based on a factory or industry rather than by using occupational criteria. This meant that all kinds of employees in a particular place of work would be represented both in a union or unions and in their own factory council. These councils would be con¬ trolled by the trade unions and were eventually to super¬ sede the factory or workers' committees which had sprung up spontaneously in many places following liberation. By mid August a Provisional Council of Trade Unions had been established in Lublin. At its inaugural conference, there were delegates from a number of factory committees and about twenty fledgling trade unions. Similar bodies were established in Białystok at the end of August and Rzeszów in early September. Yet it was only in late November that a joint PPR-PPS conference created a Central Commission of Trade Unions (Komisja Centralna Związków Zawodowych - KCZZ). Both the conference and the commis¬ sion were dominated by the PPR: at the conference it had seventeen representatives against the PPS's nine. The chairman, secretary-general and deputy secretary-general

29

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

of the commission were all members of the PPR, while the deputy chairman and treasurer belonged to the PPS. (44) The PPR even extended its conciliatory policy towards the AK and the representatives of the underground state loyal to the London government. (45) This was partly be¬ cause, as Osóbka-Morawski, chairman of the PKWN, put it on 11 September, 'We have decided to begin our work without major repression' (document No. 37). But even more it was dictated by the desire to win over the SL ROCH, whose Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie) made up about half of the AK's strength of between 300,000 and 350,000 men. Indeed attempts were made to distinguish between the various elements within the AK. As Stanisław Radkie¬ wicz, head of the Department of Public Security, explained to the PKWN on 4 October, 'We tried to be selective towards the AK; very strict with the NSZ as well as the Piłsudski - Sanacja backbone of the AK, very mild with the BCh' (document No. 46). In addition, in spite of its fairly large numbers, the AK,although something of a threat to the PKWN, was largely incapable of effective action. It was not well armed and the country was saturated with Soviet troops. According to Soviet sources, two and a half million Soviet troops, together with 6,000 tanks and 500 aeroplanes, took part in the liberation of Poland. (46) A polish historian, Jan Zamojski, has calculated that in 1944-5, something like 4 million Soviet soldiers crossed Polish territory. (47) Moreover, AK strategy, in the form of Operation Burza (Storm) was proving entirely unsuccessful. This strate¬ gy, which the AK command had adopted in November 1943, called for AK units who were fighting the Germans to make known their presence to the advancing Soviet troops and to offer to fight alongside them in order to manifest the existence of a substantial body of military support for the London government. Just in case the Soviets proved unco-operative, some units were to remain concealed in a conspiratorial anti-communist organization, which was to be given the name Nie. (Niepodległość means indepen¬ dence; Nie also means 'No', a reference to the political stance of the new body.) The basis of the new strategy was that, in the words of the AK commander. General Bor-Komorowski, 'By giving the Soviets minimal military help, we are creating political difficulties for them.' In fact, events did not work out like this. The Soviets made use of Polish military assistance to fight the Germans but once the battles were over, demanded of the AK troops that they subordinate themselves to the Soviet-controlled Polish Army or be disarmed and interned. Most chose the latter alternative and by the time the PKWN

30

The b eginnings of communist rule in Poland

was established, the AK outside Warsaw was limiting itself to simple demonstrations in which officials of the proLondon underground state came into the open and estab¬ lished an administration, challenging the PKWN to take action against them. This was the pattern, for instance, in Białystok, Zamość, Krasnystaw and Biłgoraj (documents Nos 23, 24) and it was easily dealt with by the new gov¬ ernment. There were however some cases of armed clashes between AK units and NKVD troops responsible for this dis¬ armament. By mid August, too, the gamble of the Warsaw uprising as a result of which the AK command hoped to establish a pro-London authority in the capital which the PPR would either have to crush with Soviet aid or come to terms with, had clearly failed. (49) Attempts were made to enforce a boycott of PKWN activities in the liberated areas and there were also a number of assassinations of PKWN officials. These were mostly the work of the fas¬ cist NSZ, but some were committed by AK units acting against the order of the AK command. They were compara¬ tively few in number in August, but in September thirtyeight people were killed (nine Red Army soldiers, five soldiers of the Polish Army, sixteen members of the mili¬ tia and eight officials) and twenty-one were wounded. (50) Yet the PKWN clearly had ample force at its disposal to retain its hold on power. As Radkiewicz brutally put it on 15 September 'It is unthinkable that anybody could take over when we have four divisions at our disposal. The [Polish] Army will be able to carry out our plans and should there be any illegal attempts to overthrow the authorities we can summon the help of General Kieniewicz [the Red Army's front line artillery commander]' (.document No. 41). The PKWN leadership still hoped that a national patriotic upsurge, sparked off by the desire to fight the Germans, would overcome the widespread distaste for com¬ munism and the Soviet Union. This patriotic upsurge would make possible the large-scale recruitment of AK officers and men into the Polish Army and would obviate the need for large-scale repression. As late as Septem¬ ber, Osóbka-Morawski was claiming with some pride that only 170 members of the AK had been arrested by the Polish authorities, while on 15 September General Rola-Żymierski, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army, was telling the PPR Politbureau, 'Everything should be done to enlist AK mem¬ bers in the Polish Army. 20-30,000 uniforms should be obtained' (document No. 40). The decrees of 15 and 24 August disbanding all secret organizations and establish¬ ing a partial mobilization were intended to facilitate this process, as was the recognition in September of ranks and length of military service in the pre-war Polish Army

31

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

and the AK, and the creation of four reserve battalions made up of former members of underground organizations. The policy was not particularly successful. In Lublin negotiations did lead to the AK laying down its arms, but on 2 August Radkiewicz was complaining that this agreement was not being fully carried out (document No. 25). (51) Similarly, the negotiations with Colonel Władysław Filip¬ owski, commander cf the 5th AK Infantry Division in the area around Lvov, and with the AK area commander in Praga (Warsaw east of the Vistula) Lt-Colonel Antoni Żurowski (ps. Andrzej) did not lead to the hoped-for wave of en¬ listments (documents Nos 25, 45). (52) AK dislike for the new authorities and bitterness over the Soviet failure to aid the Warsaw uprising were far too strong to be rapid¬ ly overcome. In addition the mass arrests and deporta¬ tions of AK members carried out by the Red Army further destroyed the basis of PKWN policy. Indeed, on a number of occasions PKWN officials protested about Soviet activ¬ ity, usually with little result. Thus on 28 August, Bierut told the PKWN that he had raised with Stalin 'the problem of the arresting of Poles which must be settled properly since it infringes Polish sovereignty'. On this occasion, he even claimed to have raised the question of the arrest of Polish communists in the USSR in 1937 and told the PKWN that Stalin had 'ordered a review of Polish affairs in the years 1934-39 and possibly their reapprai¬ sal' (document No. 29). Similarly on 6 September Bierut told the PPR Politbureau that during a meeting with Bul¬ ganin, the Soviet representative attached to the PKWN, Stalin had telephoned to 'ask if the Soviet authorities know that they are not allowed to make arrests' (document No. 32). Yet on 4 October, Radkiewicz was still telling the PKWN, possibly disingenuously, that 'We do not have all the details or the explanations of arrests made by Soviet authorities' (document No. 46). These complaints were linked with resentment at the looting carried out, often with the support of their officers, by Red Army soldiers (document No. 44). Looting of this type took place in spite of a Red Army GHQ order forbidding requisi¬ tion and asking the Soviet forces to safeguard property and hand it over to the Polish authorities (document No. 57). The PKWN was rather more successful in setting up an administrative apparatus. This was something of an achievement given the general lack of support which the new regime enjoyed, a fact which has been conceded by historians in Poland in recent years. According to Bronisław Syzdek, 'It must be openly admitted that in the first few years of liberation the forces connected

32

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

with the London government had the upper hand. The in¬ fluence of these groupings was ... extensive and they had considerable resources at their disposal.' (53) The new regime thus lacked experienced and qualified administra¬ tion and civil servants. As Mine told the PPR central committee on 9 October, ’The PKWN was created out of mate¬ rials at hand.... Our activities are inadequate not only because our cadres are inadequate, but also because they have been poorly organized or rather disorganized' (docu¬ ment No. 49). Nevertheless, in spite of these difficul¬ ties, a functioning administrative system was established, more or less capable of carrying out its tasks. The narrow social base of the government and the strength of its opponents made necessary the creation of a new and loyal police force and security apparatus. By a decree of 27 July, the pre-war police (the so-called navyblue police) , which had continued to function throughout the German occupation, was disbanded and a new Citizen's Militia was established. At the end of August, this was placed under the command of Franciszek Jóźwiak. At the same time, a security system was also set up. The mem¬ bers of both of these groups came mainly from the AL and the Polish Army and, particularly in the security appara¬ tus, Soviet 'advisers' were prominent. Initially, in terms of the decree of 15 August, the militia was to be the responsibility of the national councils, the local government bodies established by the PKWN. It was quick¬ ly brought under the control of the Security Department whose authority was confirmed by the decree of 7 October. By this time the militia numbered some 13,000 men. PPR members dominated in its ranks, but its rapid expansion meant inevitably that it had in Radkiewicz's words 'many inadequacies', so that the decree of 7 October made pro¬ vision for a drastic purge of 'undesirable elements'. More care was devoted to the organization of the security cadres, a fair proportion of whom had been trained in the USSR. Another element in the apparatus of coercion was the Assault Battalion transferred from the army to the militia in August 1944, when it became the nucleus of the Armed Forces of the Interior. The PKWN could also in principle rely on the Polish Army established in the USSR, which in July comprised some 78,000 men on the first Byelorussian front with another 40,000 still under training in the USSR. (54) By now the army had become a fairly reliable force, in spite of the fact that the bulk of its soldiers was made up of men who had been deported by the Soviets from Eastern Poland in the period between September 1939 and June 1941. As we have seen, the large majority of its officers had pre-

33

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

viously served in the Red Army, while its political officers, who numbered about 400, were Polish communists or people closely linked with the communist movement. During the stalemate on the front, which began in August and lasted for several months, the army was engaged in few military operations, apart from some skirmishes, the cap¬ ture of Praga (the part of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula), and the unsuccessful attempt to establish a bridgehead during the Warsaw uprising. Throughout this period the army could thus be employed to carry out the internal policies of the PKWN - buttressing the new admin¬ istration, ensuring that the peasants supplied their agri¬ cultural quotas, and helping in the implementation of the land reform. The PKWN had ambitious plans for expanding the army, which it was hoped would increase the popularity of the new government by demonstrating its patriotic desire to fight the Germans (document No. 25). Its aim was the creation of a Polish front of three armies ultimately com¬ prising 400,000 men, a figure which was reduced to 300,000 by the end of 1944. Part of this number was to be provi¬ ded by the AK rank and file, who could thus be incorpora¬ ted into the new political system without the need for severe repression. In fact, given the widespread hostil¬ ity to the PKWN, these hopes were vain and straight mobilization proved to be the only possible means of ex¬ panding the army. In early August it was thus decided to call up 100,000 men in the first instance (document No. 25). On 18 September Rola-Żymierski, the army's comman¬ der, a man very prone to take his desires for reality, reported to the PKWN that 72,000 men had been mobilized (document No. 42). However, only 910 of the proposed 2,400 officers had entered the army and he thus called for a reduction in the number of exemptions from military ser¬ vice. In fact, his figures were somewhat exaggerated. A later study has revealed that in the period between the issuing of the mobilization decree on 15 August and 24 October only 66,000 of the proposed 90,000 soldiers were mobilized, with barely 2,000 officers. (55) The short¬ fall was caused largely by pressure from the various anti¬ communist underground organizations. In September under¬ ground activists killed the commanders of the army re¬ cruiting officers in Zamość and Siedlce and the secretary of the registration commission in Jarosław. Desertions from the army also increased its difficulties. In Sep¬ tember, 160 men fled to the forests from a unit estab¬ lished under the command of a former AL officer, Robert Satanowski (document No. 36). A more serious incident occurred on 13 October when 667 of the 850 men in the 31st

34

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Infantry Regiment of the Second Army deserted near Krasnystaw. The regiment’s commanders were sentenced to death for 'lack of vigilance’ but were subsequently re¬ prieved. This mass desertion took place at a time when the PPR leadership was extremely nervous because of their fears of a possible AK 'putsch' in the aftermath of the Warsaw uprising. (56) The weakness of the new government s support soon com¬ pelled the PKWN to abandon its plans for a democratic system of local government. The manifesto of 22 July had affirmed that 'the PKWN exerts power through the provin¬ cial, district and parish national councils’ and had called for the establishment of such councils where they did not already exist. Their membership was to be made up of 'Poles - patriots enjoying the confidence of the people regardless of their political views'. The decree on local government of 28 August fundamentally changed the situation. It re-established the pre-war centralized two-level administration structure of governor {wojewoda) and sub-prefect (starosta) who were appoin¬ ted by the central government and responsible to it. As a result the councils were transformed into instruments of 'social control' and their power was effectively done away with. The principal reason for the decree was the fact that the councils had in many cases not proved amenable to PKWN (and in practice PPR) directives. Their composition had varied widely and as a whole PPR members had numbered only 30 to 40 per cent of all councillors. Some councils even lacked any PPR members. The parties allied with the PPR were still very weak and ineffective and many councils were dominated by members of the Peasant Party sympathetic to Mikołajczyk. There were even cases of AK-controlled councils. According to incomplete figures, in November 1944 there were 544 PPR representatives on national coun¬ cils of various levels, 216 from the PPS, 1591 SL, 137 BCh and 2,728 unaffiliated. (57) Even after this restriction of the councils' power, the majority of the PPR central committee opposed Bierut's suggestion on 6 September that elections should be held for community (gmina) and parish (gromada) councils (document No. 32). Berman felt that if elections were held at this level, people will ask, why not elections to the Sejm. Some members of the Politbureau were even blunter. Spychalski, chief of staff of the Polish Army, affirmed that 'We must not let the element of chance interfere with our taking power, which must be built from above', while Gomułka argued that to establish an electo¬ ral apparatus now would prevent the PPR gaining influence

35

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

in the countryside and would 'give the reactionary forces a legal basis'. This was not the end of the matter and the question of elections led to a certain amount of fric¬ tion with the SL. At the KRN meeting of 9 September (document No. 34), Andrzej Witos, brother of the redoubt¬ able peasant politician Wincenty Witos, was forced to withdraw a motion calling for a general election, while a majority also decided against a proposal by the SL repre¬ sentatives Stanisław Kotek-Agroszewski, head of the PKWN Administration Department, and Stanisław Mazur calling for elections to parish councils. In the same month, the PPR intervened to secure the dismissal of Witold Jedliński, the SL chairman of the Rzeszów Provincial National Coun¬ cil, who had issued a memorandum advocating the holding of elections (document No. 38). Jedliński probably acted with the tacit support of Kotek-Agroszewski, who was dis¬ missed in November, on the grounds that 'he wants a crisis in the PKWN' (documents Nos 56, 60, 66). A major part of the efforts of the PKWN in its first months in power was devoted to reviving the economy. (58) The economic problems faced by the new administration were indeed extremely serious. The country had been devasta¬ ted by the war and PKWN economic plenipotentiaries estima¬ ted that agricultural losses in the areas liberated between July and September ranged from 30 to 70 per cent. (59) The government had to bear a part of the costs of the continuing operations and its economic plans were further hampered by widespread popular hostility and the lack of competent officials and managers. In addi¬ tion, it was faced with the usual post-war inflation, which was exacerbated by the circulation of four curren¬ cies (German marks, zlotys issued by the German occupying authorities, roubles and zlotys issued by the PKWN). As a result, between July and September prices rose approxi¬ mately 300 per cent, which rendered impossible the PKWN's plans to double wages which had been frozen under the Occupation. The financial policy of the PKWN had two aspects: on the one hand to withdraw from circulation the Occupation currencies and on the other to increase the amount of its own notes in circulation (document No. 34) . The withdrawal of Occupation currencies and their exchange into zlotys (500 zlotys were allowed per person, except in the Białystok province where the quota was 300) was only begun in October, and because of the inefficiency of the governmental apparatus was only completed in January 1945. (60) The introduction of PKWN zlotys also ran into difficulties. In August, the PKWN decided that there should be an injection of 2.5-3.000 million zlotys between 1 August and 1 December. Of this, 1,570 million was to

36

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

be used for state expenditure and 900 million for the Polish Army. In addition, 2,000 million zlotys of Polish currency were also to be set aside to pay the Red Army and prevent more roubles entering the economy. These sums were insufficient for government needs and the estimates for the issue of notes were increased in late September to 8,000 million for the PKWN, with 2,000 million again being set aside for the Red Army. In fact, less was needed; the total new currency to the end of the year amounted to 8,500 million zlotys, of which 3,500 went to the PKWN, 2,000 million for the needs of the Red Army and 3,500 mil¬ lion for reserves. A proposed internal loan of 2,000 million was also not floated. (61) The government was also faced with severe budgetary problems. Its ambitious programme of reforms required a major increase in expenditure. Yet given the low level of economic activity and low tax flow, its income, which was derived primarily from indirect taxes, was quite in¬ adequate to meet its outgoings. It was only at the beginning of November that the PKWN felt itself able to introduce budget estimates. In that month the deficit was estimated at 350 million zlotys, a disastrously high figure and budgetary cuts were introduced to reduce it to 250 million zlotys, while efforts were also made to improve the collection of taxes, whose yield had been estimated at only 3.5 million zlotys. Further economies meant that the deficit was reduced to 136.5 million zlo¬ tys in November and to 54 million zlotys in December. In January, however, the estimated deficit was projected at 180 million zlotys. In the whole period from July to December, PKWN expenditure was 850 million zlotys, while the deficit was 570 million. The situation was still more serious since these figures exclude 200 million zlotys for supplying the Red Army, while a reserve of 700 million zlotys was retained for expenditures in the still unliberated parts of Poland. (62) Given the international position of the PKWN, the only possible source of outside economic help was the Soviet Union. Some hopes were expressed that western economic assistance could be obtained, but in practice they proved vain (documents Nos 29, 66). Soviet aid was undoubtedly of major significance in Polish reconstruction, but it has to be set against the dismantling and requisition of machinery by the Soviets and the Soviet take-over of Polish military factories. Soviet aid consisted of the supply of oil, raw materials and some consumer goods, as well as technical assistance in the rebuilding of the transport and energy sections of the economy. A short¬ term agreement was concluded between the PKWN and the

37

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Soviets on 20 October which made provision for the bilate¬ ral exchange of goods to the value of 105 million zlotys, in addition to a 5-million-rouble credit already granted. These sums were not large and they had to be paid for by the export to USSR of agricultural and industrial pro¬ ducts. Their impact was further diminished by the PKWN's obligation to supply the Red Army with food, which in 1944 amounted to 430,000 tons of grain, 250-300,000 tons of potatoes and several hundred tons of meat. One of the first tasks the PKWN faced was the securing of agricultural supplies to feed the towns and the Polish and Red Armies. The PKWN manifesto had asserted that the compulsory delivery of agricultural goods by the peasantry would be abolished. It soon became apparent that this rash promise could not be fulfilled. On 17 August the question of supply was discussed by the PKWN (document No. 29)'. On that occasion, the proposals of Hilary Mine, the PPR's economic expert, that the supply quota be reduced by a third was rejected by seven votes to two. Instead Andrzej Witos's call for a reduction of a quarter was accepted on the grounds that it was necessary to build up stocks. A larger reduction was accepted for war-damaged areas. This measure was inevitably unpopular since the price paid for grain was barely 4 per cent of its market value and had only risen to 20 per cent by autumn 1945. (63) It was this which led Osóbka-Morawski at the KRN meeting of 11 September to oppose the proposal to pay peasants with government bonds. If this were done, he claimed, 'the reactionaries would immediately accuse us of taking grain for free' (document No. 37). Resentment was also caused by the fact that in many cases inefficient calculation meant that supply quotas were now higher than they had been during the Occupation. This was admitted by Aleksander Litwin, head of the PPR provincial economic committee in Białystok at the Party conference of 10-11 October (document No. 51, p. 333). The actual problem of securing supplies was also not satisfactorily resolved. The quota collecting agency established in September was not particularly efficient and its difficulties were increased by the opposition of the peasantry and their suspicion of the new government. In late 1944, for instance, agricultural production reached barely 40 to 50 per cent of its pre-war level. The PKWN thus decided that stronger measures were required to compel the peasants to hand over supplies. This was made more urgent by the PKWN agreement with the USSR as a result of which the Poles were required to supply the Red Army, an obligation which amounted to about 60 per cent of all compulsory deliveries. (64) In order to make the

38

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

peasantry more co-operative, a further reduction of supply quotas was introduced. At the same time, military 'supply regiments' and 'executive brigades' were set up to provide stronger instruments of compulsion (document No. 40). These measures did not lead to a major improvement in the situation and by the end of the year only 65 per cent of the projected quantities of grain, 53 per cent of those for meat and 72 per cent of those for potatoes were being collected. (65) Given the primacy of military needs, this inevitably meant a reduction of the amount of food available for civilians. On 22 August Mine proposed the introduction of rationing to the PKWN (document No. 29), and eventually the bulk of the urban population in the liberated areas was fed in this way. Inefficiencies in distribution led to considerable inequalities between regions and to the emergence of a flourishing black market. (66) At the same time, prices rose rapidly both on the official and on the black market. Rather more success was enjoyed in the revitalization of industry, which also posed serious difficulties. (67) The areas first liberated were largely agricultural, though there was some heavy industry in Rzeszów province and a number of large textile plants in Białystok pro¬ vince. Wartime devastation had been severe and was made worse by post-liberation looting and the shortage of raw materials. Recovery was also delayed by the widespread destruction of power plants and the transport network. Indeed the difficulties of restoring the transport system, which was of vital significance for military operations, led in November to the railways being placed under military control with Soviet plenipotentiaries in command (documents Nos 58, 63). The bulk of the revived industrial output was directed to military use and a number of factories which produced armaments and aircraft were placed under Soviet management. Though there were examples of a reluctance to participate in reconstruction on political grounds and more cases of inexperience lead¬ ing to production shortfalls, in practice the revival of industry proceeded fairly smoothly. Liberation stimula¬ ted a patriotic upsurge and a desire to aid the recon¬ struction of the country among many workers, in spite of the low level of wages which at the end of 1944 had still not advanced beyond 40 per cent of their pre-war level. By the end of 1944, 85,000 people were working in industry in the areas under PKWN control, virtually the same figure as had been employed before 1939. We have seen that the question of the nationalization of industry had been a source of conflict between the Polish communists in Moscow and those in Poland. The

39

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

PKWN in its manifesto had ultimately adopted a version of the policy advocated by the Moscow-based CBKP. Germanowned factories were to be nationalized, but other heavy industry was merely to be taken into 'provisional state management' and compensation was to be provided for the former owners. The demand for ’workers' control' through factory committees, which had been a feature of PPR policy, was also absent from the manifesto. Instead, the PKWN merely asserted that the government and workers' committees should 'make secure' deserted factories. In practice there was little opposition to nationaliza¬ tion even from supporters of the London government. Most heavy industry had been taken over by the Germans and it was widely accepted that this should pass into state hands. Moreover, there was considerable enthusiasm amongst communist and some socialist rank and file for taking over even small and medium enterprises. The PKWN was not particularly happy when factory committees took over many plants employing less than fifty workers, since it wished to co-operate with the owners of small enter¬ prises. It was even encouraging limited operations by private banks at this time. In practice, however, the government acquiesced in these 'de facto' nationaliza¬ tions, which were given tacit approval by the decree of 7 October halting property claims. (68) According to the official figures, 7,392 enterprises had been put under state management by 31 March 1945. A large number of these were small factories, since the nationalization decree of January 1946 refers to the take-over of nearly 2,800 firms employing more than fifty workers. (69) At the same time, the PPR was concerned to limit the func¬ tions of the factory committees which had in many cases initiated nationalization and they were soon supplanted by PKWN deputies with wide powers. The September decree on factory management laid down that factories were to be run by a 3-man body, composed of an appointed managing director, a representative of local government and one from the factory committee. The director was to be 'sole manager and administrator of the enterprise', while the other two individuals were to exercise 'social control' and lay down the 'general lines' of the manager's work. (70) This decree did not finally settle the role of factory committees, which was to cause further conflict between the PPS and PPR (documents Nos 68, 72) . A far-reaching land reform formed an essential part of the plans of the PKWN. (71) By this means, it was hoped to win a degree of support from the peasantry and at the same time destroy the landowning class, the most irrecon¬ cilable of the PPR's opponents. Yet though there was

AO

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

unanimity on the need to introduce a land reform, there was considerable disagreement within the PPR on the nature of the reform itself. These conflicts dated back to the Occupation, when the PPR and KRN had advocated a radical land reform favouring the poorest peasants and agricultu¬ ral labourers, with no compensation for landowners. The ZPP and CBKP in Moscow had been for more moderate measures which would aid their policy of creating a 'broad national front'. In their view, the land reform should be formu¬ lated in such a way as to win the widest possible support among all sections of the peasantry. In addition 'fair compensation' should be provided for landowners, with more going to those with 'patriotic' credentials. The PKWN manifesto reflected more the position of the ZPP and CBKP. In the hope of gaining the widest possible support, land reform was to benefit the landless, small peasants and medium peasants with large families. The aim was to create an average holding of five hectares and to achieve this all estates owned by traitors and Ger¬ mans were to be expropriated along with other estates of more than 50 ha and 100 ha depending on the area. Landowners were to be given compensation in the form of pro¬ duce with more for those who had demonstrated their patriotism. This confiscated land was to become part of a Land Fund, and with the exception of some estates re¬ tained for special purposes by the state, was to be dis¬ tributed to private individuals at a nominal cost. This was still a fairly vague formulation and circum¬ stances soon demonstrated the difficulties inherent in its implementation. The expected spontaneous demand for land on the part of the peasantry simply did not emerge. In fact, there were only two cases in the immediate post¬ liberation period of peasants seizing estates, and on both occasions the decisive factor seems to have been the presence of the AL. (72) The fact was, as Polish his¬ torians have admitted, that there was neither a 'revolu¬ tionary situation' in Poland nor a 'mass anti-landowner movement'. (73) Inevitably this meant that land reform would have to be carried out from above. Yet the PPR leadership remained convinced that if the land reform was to have the desired political consequences, a degree of 'revolutionary initiative' was essential. This question of how far the land reform should be carried out through grass-roots activity at the local level led to a clash in August with the pro-PPR Wola Ludu faction of the peasant movement, one of whose leaders, Andrzej Witos, was head of the PKWN Agriculture Department. Witos and his party wanted a carefully prepared and legally implemented land reform which would be carried out by the state bureau-

41

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

cracy. The dispute centred on the powers of the Land Offices (Urzędy Ziemskie) which were to be set up by the central government to supervise the land reform. On this occasion the PPR showed itself willing to compromise to preserve its links with the Wola Ludu group and aban¬ doned its proposal for the creation of 'worker brigades' to carry out the reform. As a consequence, while village land reform committees with limited powers were estab¬ lished by decree on 15 August, the implementation of the reform was entrusted to the civil service in the form of the centrally appointed Land Offices (documents Nos 25, 28) . A number of problems still had to be resolved before the actual distribution of land could take place. Docu¬ ments on land ownership were often lacking and there was a serious shortage of surveyors. More important, the land available in the liberated areas was simply not sufficient to fulfil the manifesto's promise that each family would receive a farm of five ha. According to estimates made by the ZPP Research Bureau in Moscow, to establish a 5 ha norm in the central and northern areas of Poland would re¬ quire 3.9 million ha. Yet the land available was calcu¬ lated to be no more than 1.3 ha. (74) In the event, these estimates proved too optimistic. According to Góra, the available land in Rzeszów province was barely 10 per cent of what was needed, while in Lublin province the percentage was 25. (75) These conditions led to a division of opinion within the Wola Ludu group, now calling itself the Peasant Party (SL) . Some voices were heard calling for a post¬ ponement of the reform until the complete liberation of the country had been achieved and larger supplies of land were available. The PPR however was determined on an immediate start to the land reform.. As Gomułka explained at the PPR conference on 11 October, 'we must never forget that the sooner the land is redistributed the weaker Mikoóajczyk's position will be'. PPR pressure was suc¬ cessful on this issue, but even on the basis of an imme¬ diate reform, wide differences were apparent within the SL. Some, like Stanisław Mazur and Jan Czechowski, ad¬ vocated raising the size of the new farms to 8-10 ha, even if this meant abandoning the principle of giving land to all those entitled to it (documents Nos 33, 34). Others called for the reduction of the upper limit of expropria¬ tion from 50 to 35 ha, while those like Jan Król, who were closest to the PPR, argued that land should be given only to agricultural labourers and the owners of very small farms. The PPR, for its part, favoured giving land to as many people as possible on political grounds, even if only

42

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

small amounts (2-3 ha) could then be distributed. The party leadership feared that if only large grants were made, there was a significant risk of losing the support of much of the poorer peasantry. At the same time they opposed lowering the upper limit on farms to 35 hectares for fear of alienating the more prosperous peasants. Some leaders in the PPR at this time may have also be¬ lieved that the creation of uneconomically small farms would facilitate the subsequent introduction of collecti¬ vization . The land reform decree was issued on 6 September after considerable dispute. In its final form, which was drawn up by Witos and Hilary Mine, it reflected for the most part the viewpoint of the PPR. It set the goal of land reform as the increase of all farms smaller than 5 ha and the creation of new farms for farm labourers and small tenants. All land in the hands of the state, of German collaborators and traitors, would be seized, as would other estates larger than 50 hectares, of agricultural land or 100 hectares in total area. In Pomerania, Poz¬ nania and Silesia the upper limit was set at 100 hec¬ tares . Compensation was to be granted in the form of new farms remote from the original estates or a fixed monthly pension. The future of church lands would be settled by parliament in the future. Land was to be distributed by the Land Offices in co-operation with village land reform committees. Newly created farms were not to exceed 5 ha and could not be sold, sub-divided or rented without Land Office consent. The price of the land was set at 10 per cent of its value in cash or kind. The decree thus deviated from the PKWN manifesto in that it went back on the principle of a 5 ha distribution norm and failed to set a lower limit on the size of new farms. In addition, middle-sized farmers were not to benefit from redistribu¬ tion . The land reform was slow in getting under way. The Land Offices were staffed in many cases by opponents of the PKWN and delays occurred in the take-over of estates and in stock-taking. A large number of estates were granted exemption from the reform often on spurious grounds, and in September almost no land was redistribu¬ ted, a lull which was exploited by many landowners to move goods and livestock away from their estates. In addition^ the village land reform committees only came into existence with many delays and showed little inclination to initiate parcellation. The basic problem was that the peasantry, largely hostile to the PKWN and under the poli¬ tical influence of the SL ROCH, was failing to show any great enthusiasm for the reform. Even the pro-PPR SL

43

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

expressed strong reservations about the actual form of the 6 September decree and at its conference in the middle of that month proposed its modification in the future. Underground calls for a boycott of the land reform also contributed to the passivity of the peasantry. (76)

4

THE

'OCTOBER POLICY TURN'

Land reform was not the only area where PKWN policies were running into difficulty. The ambitious plans for expand¬ ing the army were also not proving successful and there was some alarm among the leaders of the PPR that the army itself might prove politically unreliable, which were in¬ tensified by desertions, such as that of the bulk of the 31st Infantry Regiment on 13 October. (77) The hope that AK troops could be persuaded to serve in the new Polish Army because of a mass patriotic upsurge of anti-German feeling also proved vain. This was shown clearly during the Warsaw uprising. The PPR leadership had been greatly encouraged when the AK area commander for Praga Lt-Colonel Antoni Żurowski (ps. Andrzej) had issued an appeal on 18 September, shortly after the liberation of the area, call¬ ing on AK soldiers to come into the open and enlist in the Polish Army. By 26 September, however, Lt-Colonel Żurowski had reconsidered his position and sent Berling, deputy commander-in-chief of the Polish Army, a letter withdrawing his offer of co-operation. (78) At the same time, two of the parties with which the PPR was normally in coalition, the Peasant Party (SL) and the PPS, were showing disturbing signs of a desire to make themselves more independent. Criticism of the unsatisfactory nature of the PKWN land reform became increasingly vocal within the SL, while in the PPS the desire for an accommodation the underground socialist group WRN, with its links with the London authorities, was becoming ever more manifest. Dissatisfaction with the conciliatory political line was first expressed by the representatives of the security apparatus. Already on 11 September Kazimierz Witaszewski of the Army's Political Education Staff was asserting in the KRN that, 'if the Department of Justice does not act more firmly, the AK will start a civil war' (document No. 37), while on 4 October, Stanisław Skrzeszewski, formerly a leading member of the ZPP, told the PKWN that 'We must put an end to wrongly-conceived ideas of national unity. National unity yes, but purged of our enemies' (document No. 46). These views were shared by the head of the security services, Stanisław Radkiewicz. On 15 September he warned the PKWN of the danger that the SL ROCH and the

44

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

PPS might join forces in order to establish a political authority linked with the London government (document No. 41). On 27 September both he and Rola-Żymierski, comman¬ der-in-chief of the Polish Army, stressed the negative position adopted by the AK towards the new authorities. On this occasion Żymierski called for the abandonment of attempts 'to settle our differences in a friendly way. This has proved impossible because of the AK's hostile attitude, as well as that of other organizations' (docu¬ ment No. 45). Radkiewicz expounded his views at more length to the PKWN on 4 October (document No. 46). On this occasion, he denied the possibility of any real poli¬ tical conciliation, asserting that 'The general political situation was characterized by a division into two politi¬ cal centres: the PKWN and the emigres, with no signifi¬ cant split between Mikołajczyk and Sosnkowski. Mikołajczyk was becoming the rallying point of all our enemies.' He went on to claim that until now our policies have not been determined enough ... we tried to be selective towards the AK, very strict with the NSZ as well as the Piłsudski-Sanacja backbone of the AK, very mild with the BCh. This selective policy did not correspond with reality. Our criterion for judgement could not be wishful thinking, but the attitude of the different groups towards the PKWN ... the line of division is between the PKWN and the rest who oppose the PKWN and the war against fascism and Germany. Even more important, Stalin himself was becoming in¬ creasingly dissatisfied with the achievements of the PKWN. Already on 6 September, when the Politbureau reported on its meeting with Bulganin, the Soviet representative attached to the PKWN, it was clear that Stalin was unhappy with the government's stance over the Warsaw uprising. The PKWN, Bulganin asserted, 'had taken an insufficiently determined stand. It should make a clear statement, critical of the London government' (document No. 32). The Soviet leader met a PKWN delegation composed of Bierut, Osóbka-Morawski, Witos, Rola-Żzymierski, Rzymowski, Minc and Jędrychowski early in October. He was in a confident mood, convinced that the Warsaw upris¬ ing had demonstrated that the alliance between the USSR and the two western powers would not fall apart over the Polish question. He told the delegates that the support for the Polish Government-in-exile came largely from Britain 'where the government depends mainly on the Con¬ servative Party', and strongly attacked the Government-in¬ exile, which he described as 'the reactionaries' govern¬ ment, the government of Raczkiewicz and Sosnkowski, who

45

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

use Mikołajyczk as their screen'. In the presence of a smaller group made up of trusted PPR members he was sharp¬ ly critical of the domestic policies of the PKWN. He argued that 'the slow pace of land reform' would enable the PKWN's opponents to organize. Bierut summed up Stalin's views as follows, The abolition of a whole class is not a reform but a revolution and cannot be executed with the full majesty of the law. Stalin does not think we are using revo¬ lutionary techniques. We should create a mass move¬ ment. [In a clear reference to the role of Witos and the Peasant Party (SL) in the reform, Stalin said that] It was a mistake to leave land reform in the hands of one party or one man. He was sharply critical of our softness, asking for instance why not one landowner had been arrested and why members of the SL group which boycotted the reform and organized an illegal meeting have been released. We must according to him 'improve or get out' (perestroitsa ili ustupit). Stalin even went so far as to ask the PPR members, 'What will happen if the Red Army moves westward with the Polish Army? Who will you be left with?'. According to Bierut, the Soviet leader 'noted that the presence of the Red Army had created a favourable situation for us. Yet there is danger that later, "they will shoot us like par¬ tridges'" (documents Nos 48, 49). When he met the PWKN delegates which came to Moscow during the second week of October, Stalin expressed his anger at the desertion of the 31st Infantry Regiment and 'complained of the bad treatment of the Red Army'. He also criticized the PKWN for being excessively lenient towards the AK (document No. 56) . Stalin's assessment of the international situation was certainly correct. The Warsaw uprising had indeed crea¬ ted major problems for the PKWN. It had led to suspi¬ cions among the government's supporters and even among members of the PPR that the Red Army's failure to advance to the aid of Warsaw had been dictated by political con¬ siderations. Stalin attempted, not wholly successfully, to allay these suspicions. According to Bierut, he told the delegates The offensive stopped after a 500km drive. Ammunition convoys were lagging behind. During the two-day halt, the Germans managed to bring up their forces. The Soviet command had hoped to take Warsaw, but the delay enabled the enemy to bring up his reserves. Drawing far-reaching conclusions from this, as has occurred in our ranks, was incorrect. Another offensive is being planned and will probably start in two to three months.

46

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

In addition, the PPR leadership seems to have enter¬ tained fears that the AK, desperate in the aftermath of the uprising, might attempt to stage a 'putsch' and these were given colour by desertions from the Polish Army. On 29 September, for instance, the governor of Białystok province, Jerzy Sztachelski, had reported to the PKWN: the AK is beginning to intensify its activity here ... setting up armed detachments. In the Białowiesża forest they are thought to number 17,000. Other large forests also have their units (Augustów, Sokółka).... Unconfirmed rumours are circulating that a large-scale armed demonstration is being prepared with 14 November or another, later, date being mentioned. (79) In the event, nothing of the sort occurred. The collapse of the uprising was a major political defeat from which the AK never recovered. Its command was held responsible by many Poles for the recklessness with which it had been prepared to risk the lives of the inhabitants of Warsaw. War-weariness and a willingness to come to terms with the communists increased greatly. The uprising had aroused indignant protests from both the British and Americans at the refusal of the Soviets to allow allied aircraft to aid the Poles in Warsaw and then land on Soviet airfields. (80) But, as Stalin correctly perceived, the American protests were much more muted than those of the British, since Roosevelt was unwilling to en¬ danger their shuttle bombing arrangement with the USSR. In the event, British pressure did persuade the Soviets to modify their stance and allow a large supply flight to Warsaw on 18 September. This was only of symbolic signi¬ ficance and the insurgents finally surrendered on 4 October. The British were, however, sufficiently encour¬ aged by their apparent success in changing Stalin's mind that they decided to make another attempt to resolve the Polish question by negotiation. Churchill and Eden thus induced Stalin to invite Mikołajczyk to their talks in Moscow in the second week of October. On this occasion the British were able to convince Mikołajczyk to accept the Curzon line as the Polish eastern frontier on condi¬ tion that Lvov remained in Poland. When this was rejec¬ ted by Stalin, they put further pressure on Mikołajczyk who declared himself willing to agree to the Curzon line without Lvov, but as a 'line of demarcation' rather than a frontier. When this was also turned down by Stalin, Mikołajczyk decided to return to London to try to persuade his associates to accept the Soviet terms. Stalin had also told Churchill on 18 October that Mikołajczyk as Prime Minister could have 50 per cent of the portfolios in a reconstructed government, though he 'rapidly corrected himself to a worse figure'. (81)

47

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Representatives of the PKWN were also in Moscow during these talks. They found Stalin in an even more confident mood, telling them that Poland was of 'secondary impor¬ tance' at the conference, 'The fundamental problem was the Balkans, and British fears for Greece and the Adria¬ tic.' The willingness of the British to compromise was shown by the fact that 'it was Churchill who invited the PKWN delegation'. There had been no official talks be¬ tween Mikołajczyk and the PKWN delegation, but the Prime Minister of the Government-in-exile had had an inconclu¬ sive private meeting with Bierut. In addition, Bierut recounted that when the PKWN delegation talked with Stalin, it was agreed to give Mikołajczyk one third [of the posts in a reformed government]: the position of Prime Minister, and the portfolios of reconstruction, reparations, finance, art and culture and social security. It is to be expected that they will propose General Żeligow¬ ski to command the army. In which case General Żymierski would be his deputy (document No. 56). Mikołajczyk duly returned to London, but he found the task of persuading his cabinet beyond his powers. As a result he resigned and on 29 November a more intransigent cabinet was created under the leadership of the veteran socialist Tomasz Arciszewski. All these developments greatly weakened the position of the Government-in-exile and correspondingly strengthened that of the PKWN. The largest political grouping in Poland, the SL ROCH, no longer had representatives in the London government and it was accordingly more willing to reach some accommodation with the authorities in Poland. (82) At the same time, the belief that Mikołajczyk would return to Poland in some capacity as a western-sponsored politician increased the need for the PPR to consolidate its hold on power. On 29 October, for instance, Gomułka stressed to the Politbureau the need to establish firm control over the army 'in view of the possibility of an understanding with Mikołajczyk' (document No. 58). The need for a new political line was accepted at the PPR central committee meeting of 9 October (document No. 49). Strong criticism was expressed of the way the PKWN had operated. According to Zambrowski, 'We have devel¬ oped a fetish about participating in the government. We try to achieve things by decrees.' Mine went still further: 'The PKWN', he asserted, 'was created out of materials at hand.... It is an Idiotenregierung, a decrepit workhorse.... Our activities are inadequate not only because our cadres are inadequate, but also because they have been poorly organized or rather disorganized.'

48

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

The PPR local organizations were attacked for being insuf¬ ficiently revolutionary and for failing to take suffi¬ ciently strong action against its enemies. 'Our party', claimed Leon Kasman, 'has caught the parliamentary dis¬ ease. It is in power and has not used terrorist tactics on the reactionaries.... We have been soft with our enemies. Not one head has fallen. Even the French and Italian governments are behaving differently.' The party's first task was to accelerate the land reform, which, in Gomułka's phrase 'must have the impetus of a social revolution.... Once the Party's energies are mobilized, within two weeks there will not be a single un¬ distributed hectare.' New methods were needed. Accord¬ ing to Zawadzki, the functions of the Land Offices must be limited to technical matters, whereas the peasants' com¬ mittees should be bolstered. 'We should arrest every single landowner and farm manager. Then the peasants will stop vacillating.' Kliszko and Zambrowski also called for the use of brigades of soldiers and workers to carry out the redistribution of land. It was recognized that the new hard line on land reform would provoke a crisis with the Peasant Party. Yet this was regarded as inevitable given the nature of that party. In Gomułka's words: 'The SL will not carry out the reform, because it is split in two directions.' Bierut went even further, 'A rotten group of people have got into the SL leader¬ ship.... We have permitted kulak and reactionary ele¬ ments to get into the SL leadership.' Jóźwiak, for his part, complained: 'It is we who organized the SL. We have permitted Witos to form a group which is against us.' Some muted objections to the new hard line were expres¬ sed by Edward Ochab. He argued that the difficulties the party was experiencing had occurred because 'We have been demoralized by the fact that the Red Army is looking after us'. The SL should have been given more autonomy by the withdrawal of 'our men' in it, and the crisis in relations had occurred because 'we ignored criticisms of our land reform. This has made the kulaks feel insecure and even the middle-sized farmers.' It was true that a hard line was needed to deal with the reactionaries, 'but the sec¬ urity department and the militia are not up the job'. His views were disregarded, however, and the basis of the new line was outlined for the party rank and file by Gomułka in speeches on 10 October and 12 November (docu¬ ments Nos 51, 65). While still stressing the need for the 'union of all the democratic forces in the country in one camp, in a united democratic camp', the party secre¬ tary defined this unity in much narrower terms than pre¬ viously. In the initial period of the PKWN, PPR propa-

49

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

ganda had called for the establishment of a 'national front'. This was now significantly qualified to a demand for a 'democratic national front', a phrase which recalled the PPR hard line during the occupation. Gomułka was quite explicit as to the meaning of this change. The world [he asserted] has crossed the threshold of People's democracy, a new type of democracy, very dif¬ ferent from the kind of democracy that existed before the war.... Not only does [this new democracy] not allow the activities of the reactionaries, as happened in the pre-war period, but ... it considers the des¬ truction of fascism and reaction as a necessity for its existence. The situation in Poland was indeed 'characterized by the struggle of the democratic national front against the re¬ actionary camp'. The groups supporting the London gov¬ ernment were violently attacked. Their claim that no Polish Quisling had emerged from their ranks was dismissed as the result of Hitler's own unwillingness to seek col¬ laborators from among the Poles and they were bitterly assailed for initiating the Warsaw uprising. This was 'a terrible crime perpetrated by the reactionaries on the Polish nation', which was 'meant to demonstrate to the world the influence possessed by the reactionaries and the London emigres and justify their claims to rule Poland'. The emigration was dominated by the forces which had ruled Poland before 1939 and Mikołajczyk was making himself their tool. 'Our party has never in the past forbidden Mr Mikołajczyk to return to Poland; nor do we do so now. We have, however, always made one condition: he should cut himself away from the Sanacja and its constitution, and join the anti-Sanacja camp of Polish democrats. All emigres who do not do this will put themselves automatic¬ ally beyond the pale of democracy.' Gomułka further stressed that 'the sponsor of this new democracy is the working class, led by the Marxist-Leninist parties'. Although this phrase was amended in the published text to the more anodyne 'systematically Marxist parties', it could only refer to the PPR, whose claims to rule were underlined by Gomułka. Our party [he asserted] has been tempered by the hard struggle against the German Occupation. Our blood and our lives are the foundation stone of the reborn Poland. We pioneered her liberation. Blood and combat have given us the right to determine her future and character. Our political line has proved correct, our political judgements have stood the test. In his speech on 10 October, Gomułka argued that the way to defeat the reactionaries was to deprive them of

50

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

their 'material base' by accelerating the land reform. This would eliminate the landowning class, 'the most re¬ actionary social class in the nation', and would widen the basis of support for the new democracy. The reaction¬ aries had realized the significance of the land reform and this was why they had attempted to sabotage it. On 12 November, he was even more explicit about the nature of the new democracy. The slogan of a democratic Poland, he claimed, needed careful definition, since it had been 'taken up even by the bitterest enemies of democracy ... democracy has become a Trojan horse which even its worst enemies are trying to jump into in order to seize power'. The new Poland would only be democratic if the machinery of government was in the hands of democrats. Of the four elements of the administrative structure, the government, the armed forces, the civil service and the apparatus of justice only the first, in the form of the PKWN, was securely in the hands of the democrats. 'The others have, to a greater or lesser extent, been infiltrated by the anti-democratic elements who supported the pre-war Sanacja regime'. The reactionaries were making use of the lack of trained people among the supporters of the PKWN to 'infiltrate as many of their own people as pos¬ sible into the state apparatus in order to paralyse the work of democracy'. Democracy would only be safe when it had achieved secure control of all the elements of state power, above all the army. This was 'one of the basic factors which determines the character of any country.... A country cannot be democratic if its army is undemocratic and reactionary'. Inevitably, the carrying out of these new policies had to be entrusted for the most part to the PPR. (83) By early October, a dominant position in the higher ranks of the party had been achieved by the Polish communists who had been in the Soviet Union during the war. Of the six members of the Politbureau, only Gomułka, who retained the post of First Secretary, and Bierut, who was made an 'un¬ official' member, a fact which was kept secret even from party members, had spent the war in Poland. Bierut was moreover a special case, since he was a long-standing Comintern official and was one of the Soviet dictator's most trusted subordinates. In February 1945 the Polit¬ bureau was enlarged by the addition of Spychalski, who had been .chief-of-staff of the AL, and Zambrowski, one of the creators of the Polish Army in the USSR. Similarly only five of the sixteen members of the party central commit¬ tee, which met for the first time on 9 October 1944, had belonged to the wartime PPR. Repatriated communists from the Soviet Union took over

51

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

many important positions in the slowly developing party apparatus and in the administration. They also dominated the political apparatus of the army and the Ministry of Security. A significant proportion among them were of Jewish origin, a fact which was frequently used by right¬ ist forces to attack the PKWN. It also caused some ten¬ sion within the party itself, where considerable resent¬ ment was felt by old PPR and AL activists at the way they were being by-passed in the allocation of jobs. This was openly expressed by Loga-Sowiński and Gomułka at the plenum of the PPR central committee held on 20-21 May 1945. Loga-Sowiński, one of the members of the PPR cen¬ tral committee during the war and at this time First Sec¬ retary of the PPR provincial committee in Lodz, claimed, 'The Party School is producing a kind of anti-semitism. Most of the lecturers are Jews. When Mijał [a prominent PPR member] came for a lecture, he received an ovation be¬ cause he is an Aryan.' Gomułka went still further: The Director of the Personnel Department in Krakow, which is the responsibility of Jasny [Włodzimierz Zawadski, a non-Jewish KPP and PPR activist expelled from the PPR for sectarianism in 1945], took in 2,000 people, all obviously Jews by their appearance and speaking Polish with a poor accent. This was a cheap trick, but it is difficult to say to what extent it was sectarianism and to what extent sabotage. These divisions were to play an important role in the sub¬ sequent history of Polish communism with the dismissal of Gomułka and Loga-Sowiński for 'nationalist deviation' in 1948, their return to power in 1956, and the purge of Jewish communists after 1956 and to a greater degree after 1968. The party as a whole expanded from 20,000 members at the time of the establishment of the PKWN (5,000 in the liberated territories) to over 300,000 by 1945. (84) This enormous increase in membership inevitably created problems. The areas of Poland first liberated were largely agricultural and it is thus not surprising that the bulk of the party - perhaps up to 70 per cent in 1944 - was composed of people of peasant origin. (85) At the November conference of PPR activists, Witold Konopka, the PPR First Secretary in the Lublin province even went so far as to suggest, 'The name Polish Workers' Party did not correspond to the stage we have reached. Perhaps it should become Peasants' and Workers' Party although the SL would not be pleased' (document No. 65). Talk of this sort seems to have alarmed Stalin, who told the PKWN dele¬ gation in early December that 'it would be bad if the PPR were overrun by peasants. Its base should be the wor¬ kers' (document No. 69).

52

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

The membership of the party came partly from the pre¬ war KPP, partly from the AL and wartime PPR, and partly from political activists who joined from a combination of idealism, conviction and opportunism in the period after liberation. They were mostly lacking in technical quali¬ fications, since the intelligentsia was by and large hos¬ tile to the PPR. This lack of administrative skills was a source of worry to~the party and led to the establish¬ ment of a Central Party School in late 1944. The party rank and file was also strongly in favour of the use of revolutionary and violent methods against its opponents. Its members saw themselves as part of an embattled minor¬ ity and were determined to act as firmly as possible. Even after the adoption of the new hard line in October we find Gomułka, in his summing-up at the party conference of 10-11 October, warning, 'Our comrades all too often still have sectarian attitudes' (document No. 51). Attempts were soon made to remedy this situation and bring the party under firmer central control. The condi¬ tions in which PPR had functioned during the occupation had had paradoxical effects on its behaviour. On the one hand, the nature of underground work had made necessary a high degree of centralization which was very much in line with the views of the leadership as to how a MarxistLeninist party should be organized. At the same time it had also stimulated independent action by local groups, called upon in the face of new conditions and the absence of adequate means of communication to exercise their own initiative. Immediately after liberation steps were taken to tighten party discipline. Referring to party organization at the conference of 5 August, Gomułka ex¬ plained, 'During the Occupation this was decentralized. Now it must be subordinated to central control and expan¬ ded.' This need for a centralized and disciplined party became even more obvious with the October policy turn. Already on 10 September the PPR central committee had issued an instruction affirming 'Party membership depends on membership of a cell' and the procedures for admission to the party were tightened up. (86) The implications of this directive were clearly spelled out by Gomułka at the party conference of 10-11 October, 'A very important task for the Party which must be carried out as quickly as pos¬ sible is its reorganization as a body of efficient cells. The Party cell is the strength of our organization. The effectiveness of the Party depends on the effectiveness of the cell. In our organizational structure we are differ¬ ent from the PPS and the SL. The establishment of Party cells throughout our organization is a key matter for us' (document No. 51, pp. 323-4).

53

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

The first manifestation of the new line was the adop¬ tion of a much more repressive policy against the proLondon underground. This was partly dictated by the in¬ tensification of opposition to the PKWN. Indeed by early October the security situation was far from satisfactory though it did not justify the anxiety of the more alarmist members of the government. The AK was now beginning to recover from the disastrous effects of the Warsaw uprising and had stepped up its activities attacking militia posts and prisons and attempting to disrupt the army. (87) The PKWN itself certainly felt threatened by these develop¬ ments and on 4 October Radkiewicz, the man in charge of security, warned that, 'We cannot rule out attacks on PKWN members' (document No. 46). A Polish historian has cited Ministry of Public Security files giving the names of AK officers who had been chosen to lead an attack on the PKWN headquarters. (88) In addition, as we have seen, the PPR leadership even seems to have believed that the AK would attempt a putsch during Mikołajczyk's visit to Moscow in the second week of October. Pressure for the new hard line came in the first in¬ stance from the security apparatus itself. As Radkiewicz put it on 4 October, 'Our use of force until now has been haphazard. Henceforth it must be systematic and farreaching.' It also reflected the feelings of the party activists. At the PPR conference of 10-11 October, Edwarda Orłowska, First Secretary of the PPR provincial committee in Białystok asked, 'Why have there not been any death sentences yet? We must use repressive measures on the leaders [of the AK].! Mieczysław Janikowski (ps. Stały), PPR provincial secretary in Rzeszów, asserted that 'Large-scale sabotage has occurred. We have evidence to prove who is responsible. I demand punishment for these people.1 Similarly, Witold Konopka, PKWN commissioner for the Rzeszów province, argued, 'Apart from our propa¬ ganda, we must also use repressive measures, we must shoot at them [the AK] and put them in prison. If we do not, we will let them grow insolent' (document No. 51). Before the new hard line could be implemented, the gov¬ ernment had to be sure it could depend on the means of co¬ ercion at its disposal, the security apparatus, the militia and the army. None of these was in a very satis¬ factory state. As Ochab put it in the Politbureau on 9 October, 'We should be ruthless towards the reactionaries, but the security department and the militia are not up to the job' (document No. 49). The situation was worst in the militia. By October this had risen in strength to about 13,000, but as Jóźwiak, its commander, told the PKWN on 4 October, only 3-4,000 of its members were in uniform

54

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

(document No. 46). 13,000 was not a large figure for a police force for the areas under PKWN control. During the German occupation, in the roughly comparable Generalgouvernement, there had been 26,500 police of which 16,500 were members of the pre-war navy-blue police. (89) In addition, not all members of the militia were up to the tasks entrusted to them. This was particularly true of the many members of the AL who had been enrolled in the militia. At the November party conference, for instance, Gomułka commented that this process had led to 'the de¬ moralization of many useful ex-partisans', a phrase which was omitted from the published version of his speech (document>No. 65). On 17 December Jakub 3erman was even blunter, admitting that 'Enlisting partisans in the mili¬ tia had led to bad results' (document No. 71). The PPR leadership was also alarmed by the possibility that the militia (and indeed the security apparatus) was being in¬ filtrated by individuals linked with the AK. A number of measures were introduced to improve the situation within the militia. On 19 October the PPR central committees resolved on a drastic purge of 'at least 50 per cent' of the militia and an exchange of personnel with the army, which would both stiffen the militia and remove from it AL elements unsuited to police work. (90) At the Politbureau meeting of 29 October it was decided to allocate 2,000 men from the army to the security department (docu¬ ment No. 58), while on the 31st, Rola-Żymierski urged the Politbureau to transfer 160 militia officers to the army (document No. 60). Rola was supported by Gomułka, who in his speech of 12 November criticized the consequences of recruiting partisans on a large scale for the militia and urged that the AL be incorporated into the Polish Army 'as quickly as possible'. About half of the AL veterans in the militia, should, he argued, be sent to the army (docu¬ ment No. 65). These measures did strengthen the militia, but they did not do away with all its shortcomings. As late as 17 December we find Jóźwiak reporting to the Politbureau: 'There were 14,000 in the Citizen's Militia. Investiga¬ tion had shown that 7,000 would have to be dismissed. In Rzeszów province the AK was penetrating the militia.... The transfer of 50 per cent of the Party cadres from the Citizen's Militia to the army had still to take place.... Only, 50 per cent of the militia had uniforms' (document No. 71). The security apparatus, which was under much stricter party control, caused fewer problems, but even here the situation was not entirely satisfactory. On 17 December Radkiewicz, head of the security department, told the

55

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Politbureau that the security apparatus now numbered 2,500 people in the liberated areas. He complained that 'they were young and their leaders were of poor quality* and further asserted: 'The Party underestimates this depart¬ ment'. The Party leadership was indeed strongly critical of the security department, as it was of the militia. Bierut at this meeting asserted, There were widespread complaints against the militia and security: the Party was ill-informed and should keep tighter control. The problem of liaison with other branches of the administration was still un¬ solved. The militia and security shy away from con¬ trol ... our coalition allies were dissatisfied ... there were tales of bribery in the militia. Gomułka, for his part, warned that the mistakes which had been made must not be repeated in the liberated areas (document No. 71). The army posed even more serious problems for the PKWN. As we have seen, the ambitious plans to increase its num¬ bers had not proved successful and by the end of October it had only been possible to mobilize about 66,000 men in addition to the 78,000 already under arms and the 40,000 undergoing training in the USSR. Desertion was also proving something of a problem. This was not always politically motivated. In many cases it was the result of fears that soldiers would not benefit from the land reform. As Ochab put it at the meeting of the KRN of 11 September, 'The soldiers are interested in the land reform, but are worried that they might be overlooked' (document No. 37). At the October conference of PPR activists, two of the questions about land reform asked about soldiers. PPR instructions were that priority was to be given to families with members in the armed forces but, paradoxically, that soldiers were not to be given land immediately (document No. 51). At the same time, the AK campaign to persuade soldiers to abandon the army was having some success, as in the mass desertion from Satanowski's unit in September and from the 31st Infan¬ try Regiment of the Second Army on 13 October. The officer corps was a cause of particular alarm. The general mobilization had proved particularly unsuc¬ cessful in this area and had led to the acceptance into the army of only 2,000 new officers by the end of October. (In mid-June 1944 the army had 8,900 line officers.) (91) As we have seen, AL partisans did not join the army in large numbers, while the attempt to persuade AK officers to enlist proved by and large a failure. It was particu¬ larly difficult to find political education officers, who were regarded as a key element if the political reliabili-

56

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

ty of the army was to be maintained. They were, in Gomułka's phrase of 12 November 'the ideological soul of the army' (document No. 65). In the Politbureau on 22 October Alexander Zawadzki, the deputy commander-in-chief for political education matters complained that 'the poli¬ tical apparatus [in the army] was undervalued' (document No. 56), while a Polish historian has estimated that there was a shortfall at this stage of approximately 1,500 political education officers. (92) In these conditions the importance of Red Army offi¬ cers, in some cases of Polish origin, remained very great. According to the official Polish military history of the Second World War, by 25 October 1944 over 11,500 Soviet officers had been sent by the Soviet High Command to serve in the Polish Army. (93) Another source reveals that between May 1943 and July 1945 19,679 Soviet officers, including 36 generals, served in the Polish Army and that in March 1945, Soviet officers still constituted 53 per cent of the entire officer corps. (94) Without these men, the Polish Army could not have been created. As Gomułka put it in his November speech, 'At the moment the army still relies on the valuable aid of Red Army officers and will continue to do so for a long time yet. Without this aid, neither we nor anyone else would have been able to establish an army good enough to go to the front' (document No. 65). But inevitably their presence aroused nationalist resentments. The Soviet officers were often referred to as POPs (Pełniący obowiązki Polaków - people fulfilling the obligations of Poles) a punning reference to the Russifying activities of Russian orthodox priests (Pop: an orthodox priest) in Poland before 1914. It is in this context that Berling's call in October for the creation of a Polish Division which 'would not have Soviet officers' must be understood (document No. 56). In ad¬ dition, though the attempt to recruit AK officers was by and large unsuccessful, a fair number of men who had fought with the pro-London underground did enlist, some out of a patriotic desire to fight the Germans, and some, no doubt, in order to undermine the loyalty of the armed forces to the PKWN. An AK organizational directive of 6 November had instructed some members of the underground to penetrate the army and militia where possible. The num¬ bers of AK officers are difficult to estimate, but they probably constituted at least 10 per cent of the officer corps. (95) In view of their wartime record and the growing resentment of the Soviet control their authority was considerable within the officer corps and also with the soldiers, many of whom had also been involved in some way with the AK and the BCh. This soon aroused fears on

57

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

the part of the PPR leadership that in Gomułka's phrase, 'the army which we have built could become an instrument of the reactionaries' (document No. 58). These fears seem to have originated above all from Stalin himself, for the question of the political relia¬ bility of the army was first discussed by the Politbureau and central committee on 22 October, in connection with Bierut's report of his meeting with Stalin in mid October. Stalin on that occasion expressed his anger at the deser¬ tion of the 31st Infantry Regiment and 'complained of the bad treatment of the Red Army' (document No. 56). This may have been a reference to the intensification of at attacks on Soviet troops by anti-communist partisans, but seems more likely to have been a reference to resentment at the role of Soviet officers in the Polish officer corps. In the absence of the commanders-in-chief RolaŻymierski, one of his deputies, the army chief of staff General Marian Spychalski, made a report in which he ex¬ amined the Party's influence in the army. General Aleks¬ ander Zawadzki, the deputy commander-in-chief for politi¬ cal education matters argued that the high command was not acting 'as a collective' and that 'there was no Personnel Department'. As a result, 'many ex-AK specialist offi¬ cers are joining up and occupying the key positions'. He went on 'the political apparatus was undervalued. The Soviet people in the Counter-Intelligence Department lack judgement,' The minutes record that 'several personnel changes ... were discussed', but in fact no new policy was implemented (document No. 56). This was not the end of the matter, which occasioned angry debate in the Polit¬ bureau on 29 and 31 October (documents Nos 58, 60). On the 29th Rola-Żymierski even went so far as to say that 'the fact that the issue had been raised he considered as an expression of no confidence', Gomułka, who was the party spokesman on military matters, reported: Recently we had decided to build the Polish Army with AK people. Now we discover that the majority of them are hostile to us. The danger is great in view of the possibility of an understanding with Mikołajczyk. The army which we have built could become an instrument of the reactionaries. We are in control of the top levels, but by no means do we control the whole machine. An old machine is useless for revolutionary change. Bierut for his part asserted that 'we cannot build an army using the AK', while Berman argued that the critical situation in the army was comparable to that which had developed in the implementation of the land reform. It was crucial to establish 'the Party's presence within the army' .

58

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

On 31 October Gomułka presented a resolution for the reform of the army to the Politbureau. It stated that the numerous desertions and terrorist tendencies in the army were disquieting and that attempts to create ’purely Polish units are intended to turn the army against the PKWN'. Greater supervision should also be exercised over former AK officers in the Polish Army. In the debate on this proposal Rola-Żymierski attempted to defend his run¬ ning of the army. He denied responsibility for its shortcomings, complaining that the party had not transfer¬ red the appropriate cadres from the AL to the army: 'One hundred and sixty militia officers should be transferred'. He argued that 'a large share of the responsibility for the present situation must be borne by Red Army officers', but agreed that a hard line should be taken towards former members of the AK. 'Three to four hundred AK officers must be interned.' The resolution was nevertheless approved and it was decided to send it through Bulganin to Stalin for comments. Whether it succeeded in allaying his fears is unclear. Certainly a feature of the debate was the universal acceptance of the need to adopt a hard line towards the AK. AK officers and rank and file arrested by the Soviets were now to be sent to camps in¬ stead of being merely placed in reserve battalions. At the same time, steps were taken to strengthen PPR influ¬ ence in the army. Party delegates were assigned to aid units, the political education apparatus was strengthened and a military department headed by Gomułka was estab¬ lished in the central committee. The 'struggle for the army' was one of the central issues at the party conference on 12-13 November. In his speech, Gomułka argued that the party had paid insuffi¬ cient attention to the armed forces. The AK had exploi¬ ted this lack of vigilance to place their men in prominent positions within the officer corps. The result was that the army had been 'infiltrated by anti-democratic elements who supported the pre-war Sanacja regime'. The party was being forced to fight 'on two fronts: against the Germans and against their objective allies, the reactionaries in Poland'. A democratic Poland could not exist without a democratic officer corps. For this to be created, dis¬ loyal elements who had joined the army in order 'to gain control of it' would have to be purged and new officers trained. For a long time, the army would be dependent on Soviet help. But there was much that could be done to strengthen the army and build up the officer corps. Gomułka called on the PPR to nominate '500 good party members.... The time has come when we must send politi¬ cally conscious peasants and workers, irrespective of

59

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

their formal education, to officer training schools so that they can become the basic cadres for our army.' In addition, a voluntary enlistment of 10,000 men was to be organized by the parties of the PKWN coalition, social organizations and youth groups. Their party affiliation was not to be taken into account, but they should be sym¬ pathetic to democracy and should come, above all, from the working class. Their recruitment would infuse into the army a healthy democratic element. Since liberation, many AL groups had been allowed to lapse into inactivity, while too many former partisans had been assigned to mili¬ tia work for which they were not particularly suited. These men should be sent to the army where they could pro¬ vide many valuable officers. The party secretary stressed the importance of the political education appara¬ tus in the army. 'Without political officers', he asser¬ ted 'it is impossible to have an army truly dedicated to democracy.' Similar views were expressed in the discussion of Gomułka's speech. The seriousness of the threat of AK subversion in the army was generally recognized. Accord¬ ing to Wiktor Grosz, one of the leading figures of the army's political education department, 'the reactionaries were now fighting the army from within', while Eugenuisz Szyr, also of the political education department, claimed that 'many hostile AK elements had crept into the army'. Mine indulged his usual penchant for homely phrases: 'To erect a big building, one must choose tough material, whereas we have tried to build our army on AK dung. Our ideas for filling the officer corps were wrong. We looked for Poles without asking what kind of Poles. An officer does not need to be a member of the intelligent¬ sia. Let the workers and peasants see that democracy has real content.' The officer corps as a whole was harshly attacked. General Zawadzki, deputy commander-in-chief for political education affairs criticized the generals for not being present at the discussion and argued that 'the army com¬ mand and Polish democrats did not speak the same lang¬ uage. ' He also complained that 'there were Soviet offi¬ cers at the Land Reform Ceremony in Łańcut but no Polish officers'. Zientarski, the land reform commissioner for the Rzeszów district, asserted 'There were many instances of the officers' unfavourable attitude to the democratic camp. Polish Army officers even attended the funeral of Prince Sapieha.' Witold Konopka, PPR First Secretary for the Lublin province went so far as to argue that 'there was a split between the army and society'. It was almost universally accepted that the party had

60

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

exercised too little supervision over th.e army. Accord¬ ing to Szyr, ’When the army entered Poland it was not con¬ scious of the Party, even though it supplied people for the land reform and supply duties.’ More control was necessary and the 'army must be purged of its internal enemies'. Teodor Naumienko, a former AL commander, even 'expressed satisfaction that at last the Party had de¬ clared war on the army'. These critical comments did not go entirely unchallenged. Grosz stated, 'The First Army which until a year ago was a reactionary mass is now a democratic army', and he went on to affirm, not entirely convincingly, 'There were no symptoms of a negative atti¬ tude to the Soviet Union.' According to Roman Zambrowski, who had been one of the organizers of the Polish Army in the USSR, 'Zawadzki's criticism of the generals was un¬ founded. It was a misunderstanding. The army was not a subsidiary of the party.' Mine for his part conceded that 'there were going to be changes in the army. But the change in the party's attitude ... would not by itself be decisive.' In conclusion, Gomułka argued that it was not true that there were no men available to fill the posts in the army. A 'bold cadre policy' and a deter¬ mined effort to educate Party comrades would solve the problems facing the army. One of the casualties of the new hard line towards the officer corps was General Berling, the first commander of the Kościuszko Division and of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union. (96) Already in 1943 Berling had run into difficulties over 'Thesis No. 1', a proposal by a number of army officers for the establishment of an 'organized democracy', dominated by the army, which was attacked by Polish communists in the USSR as 'neo-fascist'. Probably as a result of doubts over his political reliability, Berling had been passed over as commander-in-chief of the Polish Army when the PKWN was established. This post went to Rola-Żymierski, former commander of the AL, and Berling was made deputy commander-in-chief together with General Aleksander Zawadzki. During the Warsaw uprising Berling made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a bridgehead on the Vistula to aid the insurgents. It is still not clear whether Berling was acting without the authorization of his Soviet superiors. It seems unlikely that he could have done so, but in his taped account of 12 February 1959 he states (speaking of himself in the third person): It is true that he himself was responsible for the landing. General Bewziuk [at this time a majorgeneral in the Polish Army] was ill. So Berling him¬ self went up to the front and took command.... That was when he took the decision, irrespective of any

61

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

military or political considerations. What counted was that Poles were fighting across there [in Warsaw] and they had to be helped. He realized that the land¬ ings could only be made by the Polish Army and that the sole function of the Red Army would be to assist them. The quarrel between the Polish Army and the AK was a matter for Poles alone (document No. 81). It is interesting that at the PKWN meeting of 18 September Skrzeszewski, who had been sent to Warsaw together with Bolesław Drobner, reported, 'In Berling's own words, the Polish Army High Command, after receiving reports of the desperate position of the insurgents in Warsaw, decided to move forward by 24 hours the landing of Polish troops on the left bank of the Vistula. On the night of the 15/ 16th a battalion of 700 men crossed the Vistula' (document No. 42). (9 7) Not surprisingly, after the failure to establish a bridgehead, Berling was quietly removed from command, so as not to affect the prestige of the army. He remained deputy commander-in-chief, however, and in this capacity was still a member of the PKWN. On 7 October Matuszewski informed the PKWN that 'the €migr£ Ministry of Defence had ordered official mourning on account of the uprising'. The PKWN decided to organize its own memorial ceremony and entrusted the main speech to Berling (document No. 47). On 20 October Berling complained in the PKWN that Rzecz¬ pospolita, the PKWN organ, 'when it published his speech at the Memorial ceremony for the Warsaw uprising, omitted the passage condemning the AK leaders' (document No. 55). We do not know what form his original speech took, but by this time condemnation of the AK had become official pol¬ icy and that organization was even referred to in a notor¬ ious poster as the 'accursed offspring of reaction'. (98) Berling's complaints should be seen rather as an attempt to defend himself at a time when his position was increas¬ ingly shaky. Two days later Radkiewicz told the Politbureau that Berling had called for the establishment of a purely Polish Division 'which would not have Soviet offi¬ cers' (document No. 56). This touched a very raw nerve and as we have seen, on 31 October, the Politbureau, in a specific reference to Berling's remark, resolved that attempts to create 'purely Polish units are intended to turn the army against the PKWN' (document No. 60, note 3). Given Berling's reputation, to remove him openly could have had serious consequences for the PKWN. It was deci¬ ded on 9 November to send him into honourable exile as head of the Polish military mission to Moscow (document No. 64). Berling at first refused to accept this trans¬ fer. He offered his resignation as deputy commander-in-

62

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

chief and according to a letter he wrote to Gomułka on 20 November 1956, which was subsequently published in an emigre journal, he even sent a telegram to Stalin which read, 'I beg you to save Poland for the Soviet Union from the hands of groups of agents and bandits of international Trotskyism.' (99) It was probably this telegram, if it in fact reached the Soviet leader, which led Stalin to describe Berling to Bierut in December as an 'agent provo¬ cateur' (document No. 69). Berling also acted as a thorn in the flesh of the PKWN, provocatively asking Jędrychowski , in the course of a discussion of foreign affairs on 22 November, whether there had been 'any talks with Fierlinger about Teschen', thus bringing up the sore point of the territorial conflict between Poland and Czechoslovak¬ ia (document No. 66). On 15 December the PKWN resolved: 'The PKWN affirms that General Berling has shown that he is an enemy of Polish democracy and has thereby disassoc¬ iated himself from all democrats fighting to liberate Poland' (document No. 70). No punitive action was taken against him and he was sent to Moscow as a Polish repre¬ sentative to the Military Academy. This was in spite of the fact that on 3 December the Politbureau had decided no longer to put him forward for this office of representa¬ tive of the Polish Army in Moscow and was probably the consequence of Stalin's desire to avoid taking too overt action. Berling's exile in fact saved him from a much worse fate in the purges of the army high, command between 19 48 and 1953. As a result of the measures taken in November firm PPR control over the officer corps was established. In Nov¬ ember political officers in the army were instructed: Every political officer must understand that today there is no room for any compromise with the AK in the army. If former members of the AK want to co-operate with us, we will conclude no 'non-aggression pacts' in relation to their former ideology. They must break with their past, condemn it and distance themselves from it. Only then will there be a place for them in the Polish Army. This is not an agreement between equals.... Advocates of a 'neutral' or conciliatory attitude to the AK should be treated as AK members unless they immediately engage in active struggle with the AK. (100) Many AK officers were now dismissed and some were even in¬ terned. Party influence was further strengthened by the attachment of party delegates to all units. In particu¬ lar the PPR dominated the political education department of the officer corps. At the end of 1944, PPR members made up 15 per cent of those in this department. Of the

63

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

150 senior officers here in early 1945, 91 were members of the PPR, 14 of the CPSU, 3 of the PPS, 1 of the SL and 1 of the SD. (101) It proved more difficult to expand the officer corps as a whole. Gomułka's call for activists led to 431 men being sent to officer school, where in addition another 13,000 people were undergoing training. The first gradu¬ ates would only emerge in spring 1945 and this meant that a serious shortfall of officers would persist in the imme¬ diate future, particularly in the middle and upper ranks. (102) One consequence was that starting in Octo¬ ber a further 8,000 Soviet officers were assigned to the Polish Army. The army as a whole did not expand as rapidly as the PPR hoped. By the end of 1944, of the 124,000 men who had been registered in terms of the mobilization decree, barely 100,000 had been called up. Of the 5,700 officers who had registered (6,800 were supposed to have register¬ ed), 4,200 were mobilized. By January, therefore, there were 200,000 men in fighting units, as against the 400,000 originally hoped for, and 280,000 in the army as a whole. (103) Another source claims that the number of men in fighting units was still lower, about 172,000 (104) These shortfalls did not prevent the vain¬ glorious Rola-Żymierski from telling the Politbureau on 3 December that he was going to raise with Stalin the lack of adequate Soviet supplies for the army and that 'after the Vistula is crossed, the Polish Army should be expanded to 20 divisions in spite of a lack of officers' (document No. 67). In the event, it was the PKWN delegation which discussed the question with Stalin in the second week of December. Stalin gave them short shrift, vetoing the proposed creation of a Polish front. He argued that there were insufficient forces for this, but his main motive was probably his doubts over the army's reliabili¬ ty. He did concede that 'a Polish sector of the front' could be created. He cannot have been entirely happy with the situation, for as Bierut reported military matters were only 'partly settled' by this discussion (document No. 69). At the same time a 'Polish Internal Army' was established, a para-military force which could be used for anti-guerilla operations. The PKWN did not have to rely solely on the security department, militia and Polish Army to maintain order. It could also call on the assistance of the Red Army which played a large role in suppressing the AK, particularly during and after Operation Storm (Burza). According to the incomplete AK figures, the Red Army interned or depor¬ ted 5-7,000 of its members during that operation in the

64

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Vilna province, about 500 in the Lvov province and nearly 3,000 in the Lublin province. (105) These arrests con¬ tinued throughout the year. On 31 October we find the Politbureau discussing what should be done with the AK men arrested by the Red Army (document No. 60). Red Army assistance was regarded as something of a mixed blessing by the party leadership. It certainly greatly facilita¬ ted the problem of holding power. But it also increased the unpopularity of the PKWN and raised the question of how far it could establish its power independent of Soviet support, as something th.at was seen as a problem even by Stalin (document No. 49). The activities of the Red Army in the security field were particularly resented by the PPR's coalition part¬ ners. On 20 October the Politbureau decided to place the railways under martial law and discussed whether it would not be necessary to use Soviet units to safeguard the security of communications. This development aroused the opposition of the left-wing SL activist, Jan Michał Grubecki, who was in charge of the PKWN Department of Com¬ munications, Posts and Telegraphs, and he had to be re¬ placed by the more compliant Jan Rabanowski of the Demo¬ cratic Party (documents Nos 58, 63). The militarization of the railway system seems also to have been opposed by Bolesław Drobner, one of the more independent members of the PPS, and this was used in a discussion with Stalin to demonstrate his political unreliability (document No. 69). It was certainly difficult to establish, any control over the Red Army, whose kommendatura and security units were prepared to exercise their authority in a very wide sphere, particularly since it was almost impossible to make a clear distinction between the front-line area and the rear. This led to resentment on the part of the PPR leadership that its prerogatives were being disregarded. As we have seen, already on 28 August Bierut had told the PKWN that he had taken up with Stalin the question of Red Army arrests, 'which must be settled properly since it in¬ fringes Polish sovereignty'. Stalin had subsequently in¬ formed Bulganin that the Soviet authorities were not allowed to make arrests (document No. 32), but at the be¬ ginning of October we still find Radkiewicz asserting, 'We do not have all the details or the explanations of arrests made by Soviet authorities' (document No. 46). This sit¬ uation did not change significantly in the following months. Armed with these weapons, the government was in a strong position to deal with its opponents. It was now determined to act much more ruthlessly and on 30 October a decree for the Defence of the State introduced the death

65

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

penalty for a number of offences. The repression was directed in the first instance at the AK. Whereas in his October speech Gomułka had drawn a distinction between the AK and the NSZ, in his address to the party conference on 13 November he spoke bluntly of 'the NSZ and AK murder¬ ers'. In the Politbureau on 17 December Roman Romkowski similarly asserted that 'the AK presented the biggest danger' (document No. 71). As a result, the number of arrests increased significantly in addition to a fair number of summary executions. From mid November to mid January joint 'offensive operations' to 'disarm the ter¬ rain' were undertaken by the Polish Internal Army and NKVD units. Mass identity checks were carried out on men aged between sixteen and fifty and anybody suspicious was taken into custody. We do not possess satisfactory figures for arrests at this time, but they probably were not much less than 30,000 in each of the Lublin, Białystok and Rzeszów provinces. (This includes Ukrainian partisans who were very active in the eastern part of the Lublin and Rzeszów areas.) This is very likely an underestimate. Arrests of AK men in October almost certainly exceeded the 3,000 mark and probably rose by a factor of two or three. In addition, repressive measures were also used to carry out the land reform. In one month in the Rzeszów pro¬ vince, according to the PPR First Secretary there, 'About 400 people had been arrested - all the landowners and their farm managers. 150 have been released as a result of pleas made by peasants' (document No. 65, p. 371). By the end of the year, the security situation had im¬ proved somewhat. This was only partly the result of re¬ pression and was also a consequence of winter conditions and of the fact that the AK was modifying its tactics, as was conceded by Radkiewicz and Gomułka in the Politbureau on 17 December (document No. 71). The AK leadership was by now convinced that a direct military confrontation with the PKWN was impossible and that a mass organization could only be maintained with great difficulty. They were thus thinking of abandoning the military struggle and creating a new conspiratorial organization with a largely political and civilian character. Already on 26 October the new commander of the AK, General Okulicki, had issued new 'Guidelines for activity during the winter period 44-45' in which he frankly admitted 'the great confusion and chaos' which prevailed in AK ranks and stressed the need 1 to overcome fatigue and a kind of stupor'. (107) It was vital for all underground military organizations to be grouped together under the control of the AK and prepara¬ tions should be made, on the lines suggested in the guide¬ lines for plan 'Storm' adopted in November 1943 (see

66

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

above, p. 27). He again specifically ruled out armed resistance to the Soviets, but he also abandoned the policy, which had had such disastrous consequences, of re¬ vealing AK units to Red Army commanders. A logical con¬ sequence of this was the dissolution of the AK on 19 Janu¬ ary 1945, and although the conspiratorial anti-communist organization mooted at the end of 1943 remained in exis¬ tence, it did not prove an effective force. At the same time, not all members of the AK were prepared to obey Okulicki's orders. The nationalist elements in the Underground established in November a National Military Union (Narodom; Związek Wojskowy - NZW) which, hoped to co¬ operate with the more intransigent NSZ. For the moment, however, these two groups were also fairly quiescent. The improvement in security was bought at a heavy price. Speaking in 1962 Gomułka claimed that 'the party was careful to hit only the guilty people', (108) but this was, in fact, far from the case. In practice repression had a circular effect. Since it gave the AK partisans no choice but to resist, it led to an increase in their attacks on the government, which was in turn used to jus¬ tify further repression. Until October PKWN deaths had numbered barely forty to fifty. By the end of December the total had risen to over 400, the bulk of whom were PPR members. (109) Many others were wounded or subject to physical assault. In addition the Red Army between August and December suffered 277 deaths and 94 wounded at partisan hands. (110) Moreover, while the AK leadership was now thinking in terms of a political struggle, much of its rank and file, like the bulk of the NSZ and the nat¬ ionalist National Military Union, could see no alternative to armed resistance. Guerilla activity thus continued and in the next three years was almost to assume the pro¬ portions of a civil war. In addition, the need for re¬ pression meant that the security apparatus became increas¬ ingly powerful and came more and more to act as a state within a state. The unsatisfactory state of security was apparent to the PPR leadership by the end of December. Some, like Berman, called for harsher repression: ’Until now in our struggle with the reactionaries we have only been dealing with the problem on a superficial level: we should have dealt with it root and branch.’ Others were for more sophisticated methods. Bierut sharply criti¬ cized the failings of the security apparatus, pointing out that as a result 'our coalition partners were dissatis¬ fied'. Stefan Wierblowski, soon to be the PKWN's repre¬ sentative in Moscow argued that 'in addition to repres¬ sion, we should make more efforts to split hostile organi¬ zations' (document No. 71). This discontent within the party was to grow in the coming months.

67

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

In accordance with Stalin's instructions, a central feature of the new political line was an acceleration of the pace of land reform, which in Gomułka's words 'must have the impetus of a social revolution'. Already on 3 October, the central committee issued a declaration attacking ’landlords' attempts to sabotage and slow down the reform'. (Ill) As we have seen, this question was extensively discussed at the central committee meeting of 9 October which sanctioned the October policy turn. On this occasion, it was decided that the Politbureau should draw up new instructions for the land reform. Their essence was agreed on at the meeting. It was recognized that hopes for a spontaneous upsurge of revolutionary land hunger on the part of the peasantry had proved vain. As Mine put it, 'Our land reform is an agrarian revolution in special conditions'. It differed from that in Russia since it 'is not a spontaneous movement. It has been im¬ posed from above.' Thus, given the unreliability of its coalition partners, the PPR would have to take the domi¬ nant role in carrying out the land reform. New tech¬ niques should also be used to redistribute the land. The Land Offices should be restricted to technical questions, while the peasant committees should be encouraged to take more initiative. Landowners should be arrested to show the peasantry that the power of the PKWN could not be flouted, and workers' and soldiers' brigades should be established to aid in carrying out the reform. In addi¬ tion efforts should be made to win over middle-sized far¬ mers, who had until now been passed over by the reform, although as Mine recognized, the shortage of land would inevitably mean that most would have to go to agricultural labourers and small peasants (document No. 49). The need for a new initiative in relation to land reform was explained to party activists at the party con¬ ference of 10-11 October. Here Gomułka claimed that it was vital to accelerate land reform so that the reaction¬ aries could be defeated by depriving them of their 'mate¬ rial base'. 'Land reform is a great revolutionary act affecting not only the countryside but the nation as a whole.' Through it the landowning class 'the most reac¬ tionary social class in the nation' would be eliminated and democratic institutions would be given a much firmer foundation. This had been realized by the reactionaries who have tried to undermine land reform both from within and without. They have been infiltrating the Land Offices which in many cases have been used to sabotage and interrupt the PKWN land reform decree. On a public level they have been agitating furiously against

68

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

the reform by suggesting ... that the PKWN's rule will not last long and that the peasants will be punished for taking land. Armed attacks against those carrying out the reform had also increased. To deal with this threat land reform must be implemen¬ ted 'at an accelerated rate.... Our Party should treat land reform as its most important task.... We must commit all our forces to accelerate the execution of this decree.' Zambrowski's speech, whose text we do not possess, was entirely devoted to the question of how the party could be mobilized to carry out the reform, while Radkiewicz, head of the security department, asserted '... this conference's guideline is that of an offensive against the landowners and the mobilization of the forces of our Party and those of our allies. This offensive must be on all fronts.' The new policy received enthusiastic support from the floor. The slow pace of the land reform was blamed on sabotage by conservative interests, the weakness of the party in the countryside, the passivity of the peasantry and the failure to give land to the middle peasants. Now all this would be altered. According to Marian Czerwiń¬ ski, PPR district secretary in Lublin, 'If our Party had had the kind of freedom we have now, the peasants would already have the land'. Mirosław Szuflat, district land reform commissioner in Krosno, asserted, 'The masses are waiting for us.... They are passive and undecided, wait¬ ing to see what will happen, but they are not completely hostile.... There is no doubt that a firm stand by the Party on land reform will contribute enormously to winning over the masses.' In his summing-up, Gomułka stressed the importance of not excluding middle peasants from the reform. He concluded that in order to destroy the reac¬ tionaries as quickly as possible, the party must act deci¬ sively and firmly. 'The instructions relating to land reform that are issued by us were absolute commands ... the sooner the land is redistributed the weaker Mikołajczyk's position will be.' Ore of the first casualties of the new determination to implement the land reform was Andrzej Witos, head of PKWN's Agriculture and Land Reform Department and vicechairman of the PKWN. Witos had already clashed with the PPR over the terms of the land reform decree. He was aware that his position was weakening and attempted to maintain his hold on office by taking a tough line during the discussion of the security situation on 4 October, asserting, 'The Land Offices were being infiltrated by re¬ actionary elements. We could afford to step up the

69

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

struggle now' (document No. 46). In fact, his fate was already sealed, and any doubts that the PPR leadership may have had on this question were resolved by Stalin's com¬ ment 'It was a mistake to leave land reform in the hands of one party and one man' (document No. 49). Accordingly, Bierut in his capacity as chairman of the KRN wrote to Osóbka-Morawski on 7 October and asserted that the land reform was not being satisfactorily imple¬ mented. Two days later when Gomułka raised the question of expelling Witos from the PKWN in the Politbureau, he was told by Berman that the matter had already been set¬ tled (document No. 49). On the following day Gomułka told the party conference that 'the KRN Presidium has felt obliged to intervene and has demanded a new Director of the Agriculture and Land Reform Department', a step which was welcomed by a number of speakers from the floor. Officially, ill-health was given as the reason for Witos's resignation. However, in order further to undermine his political influence, he was also attacked for failing ade¬ quately to supervise the former concentration camp at Majdanek and was compelled to resign as chairman of the Polish-Soviet war crimes commission for the camp (document No. 52). His dismissal was strongly resented by his supporters in the SL. According to Berman, KotekAgroszewski had argued that at least Witos should be allowed to remain in the PKWN, while Czechowski had strongly attacked that body (document No. 49). The SL leadership discussed the question for two days and even contemplated sending a delegation to Stalin. By this stage, however, the deep split in the party between those who were effectively controlled by the PPR and those who wanted to take a more independent line made any effective action impossible. (112) The new head of the Agriculture and Land Reform Depart¬ ment was Osóbka-Morawski himself, but day-to-day adminis¬ tration was entrusted to Edward Bertold, a member of the SL with close links with the PPR. His view of the reform did not differ significantly from that of the party. As he told the PKWN on 16 October, The latest instructions had meant that land reform was no longer a matter for state organs but had been en¬ trusted to social organs. The civil servants, even when they could not be accused of bad faith, did not understand that land reform was now connected with a social revolution ... (document No. 52). Indeed, the powers of the Land Offices (Bertold's 'state organs') were now effectively destroyed and their personnel was also subjected to a large-scale purge. Given the downgrading of the Land Offices, one might have

70

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

expected the dominant role in carrying out the reform would have fallen to the villages' committees and estates' committees established in August. In fact, these bodies, particularly the estates' committees, had failed to show any dynamism and had been quite unable to influence the activity of the Land Offices, as has been admitted by a communist historian. (113) The whole trend of party practice was, moreover, running against the use of volun¬ tary bodies, whose political loyalty was anyway suspect, and in favour of centralized control and initiatives from above. Thus, to carry out the reform land reform commis¬ sioners were appointed by the central government at all levels. They were, in Gomułka's words, 'to have all the prerogatives of Commissars'. They were entitled to re¬ verse Land Office decisions, dismiss estate managers and even arrest officials on the charge of sabotaging the land reform. Their official powers also gave them authority over local government officers and even members of the security apparatus. They were instructed moreover to carry out the distribution of land immediately even where there were no surveyors to measure out plots. In addition, to aid the land reform commissioners, workers' brigades were now established. Initially they numbered about 1,000 men, mostly workers; this rose even¬ tually to nearly 1,500. Of this number 60 per cent were members of the PPR and slightly less than 20 per cent be¬ longed to the PPS. There were also several hundred members of the communist youth organization League of Fighting Youth (ZWM). They were aided by soldiers' bri¬ gades established slightly later and which participated in the parcellation of a significant number of estates. Also participating in the reform were 120 militia men from the Operational Brigade in Rzeszów and approximately 600 officers and soldiers from the army. (114) There were even plans in mid October for large-scale military manoeu¬ vres in areas where land reform was taking place. (115) These did not in the event take place, but the fact that they were proposed is some indication of the fears which prevailed at this time in the PKWN. The Politbureau may also have been uneasy about the effect of contact with the countryside on the uneasy loyalty of the army. In order to make the reform more popular, middle-sized farmers with large families (defined as those with more than 7 members) were also now to benefit, in terms of a circular of the Agricultural Department issued on 11 Octo¬ ber. According to this directive farm labourers and the landless were to be given priority in the redistribution, receiving 2 hectares. Dwarf farmers were next to be dealt with and their farms were to be made up to 2 hec-

71

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

tares. If there was any land left, this was to be given to small farmers and middle farmers with large families. In practice, farm labourers and the landless were not satisfied by the low distribution norms and this meant that their demand for land prevented significant amounts being given to small and medium farmers. As a result, on 25 October the central committee felt obliged to issue a memorandum criticizing 'the inadmissable favouring of farm labourers at the cost of peasants, which could lead to a dangerous rift between peasants and agricultural labour¬ ers'. It could easily result in 'a conflict between farm labourers and small farmers, and between the most impover¬ ished peasants and middle-sized farmers and give consider¬ able aid to the reactionaries in their attempt to win over the middle ranks in the countryside*. (116) Accordingly on 27 October the PKWN Agricultural Land Reform Department issued a new circular which revised redistribution quotas upwards. Farm labourers and the landless were now to re¬ ceive 2-3 hectares, dwarf farms were to be increased to this size, and small farmers and middle farmers with large families were now to be given at least 1 ha. Yet given the shortage of land in the areas under PKWN control this meant that redistribution had to be limited to villages adjacent to a given estate. Even this new circular was not the final word on the subject and it had to be further modified in a new pronouncement on 2 November. (117) Land reform now proceeded rapidly with landowners being expelled from their estates. Force was not always neces¬ sary, but it was employed on occasion as in the Rzeszów province where 400 landowners and estate managers were arrested. (Of these 150 were released 'as a result of pleas made by peasants' (document No, 65).) The progress of the reform was discussed at the party conference on 12-13 November (document No. 65). On this occasion. Zambrowski reported that in the period since 'the central committee mobilized the Party for the execution of land reform', 500 estates had been redistributed, a third of those available. (118) A further 500 estates were in the process of being divided up. Altogether, 40,000 farm labourers, small and middle peasants had received land. In the implementation of the land reform a break¬ through has taken place in the last month. There is now every chance of completing the land reform before the month is out.... Our Party has shown itself capable of great efforts once it girds itself for action. A great success has been achieved thanks to a correct Party line and thanks to the great efforts made during the reform. This was not to say that the situation was entirely

72

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

satisfactory. The land reform was not proceeding every¬ where at the same pace. It had been most effectively implemented in Rzeszów and Białystok provinces, while it had gone more slowly in Lublin province. Zambrowski cited certain objective problems which were particularly responsible for the slow progress of the reform in some areas. In the first place, he argued, 'the supply of land is small'. This shortage of land was certainly a problem. Zambrowski himself reported at the plenum of the central committee in February 1945 that only 10-15 per cent of those entitled to land had received any (document No. 73, item 2, p. 415). According to a later estimate 21.9 per cent of the land required to satisfy the provin¬ ces of the land reform decree could be redistributed in the Lublin province, 22.7 in Białystok province and only 8.5 in Rzeszów province (which rose to 12 per cent after the redistribution of land formerly in Ukrainian hands). (119) In addition. Zambrowski argued, 'the peasants have scruples about the legality of land reform'. Many peas¬ ants still had doubts as to the permanence of the PKWN and still expected Mikołajczyk to establish himself as the dominant figure in post-war Poland. Fears that the land reform was the first stage to collectivization were also widespread. In the debate on Zambrowski's speech Maria Kamińska, an official of the PPR central committee, re¬ marked, 'The population was terrified by the spectre of Soviet-style collective farms'. Moreover, in spite of intensified repression, propaganda by the AK and NSZ against the government and the land reform continued and was accompanied by some acts of terror. In October 1944, for instance, the PPR secretary in Krasnystaw was killed, as were two peasants who had received land in the Sokół district. It is true that the removal of the landowners and the activities of the workers' brigades had a positive effect on the attitudes of many farm labourers and peas¬ ants to the reform. Yet there were still too many cases of what Zambrowski referred to as a 'kind-hearted attitude towards the landowners'. This was also attacked in dis¬ cussion by Stanisław Bieniek, deputy director of the PKWN Agriculture and Land Reform Department, who complained that 'landowners are being treated too gently'. In many areas the attitude of the peasants was very reserved. According to Stoliński, the delegate from Sokołów, 'The mood of the area was very passive. The peasants did not want to come out of their houses at all. It was a mis¬ take to overlook the middle-sized farmers, but they had literally to be dragged out to the parcelling. ' Peasant attitudes to the reform were marked by a curious mixture

73

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

of traditional land hunger and greed, and suspiciousness of the new authorities. Nevertheless, Zambrowski felt, an effectiye mobiliza¬ tion of all Party organizations would enable this problem to be overcome. Great efforts should also be made 'to establish close links with the radical wing of the SL and eliminate reactionary forces within that party'. Attempts should also be made to stimulate peasant initia¬ tive. 'Our organization has not succeeded in making use of the energies of the peasants. The peasants should feel that it is they who are taking the land, because this will give them a vested interest in democracy. If land reform is imposed on the peasants, it dampens their ini¬ tiative'. He particularly criticized the workers' bri¬ gades in this regard and claimed slightly ingenuously that 'the job of the land reform commissioners should be simply that of organizing and co-ordinating efforts'. The way land had been divided up was also criticized by Zambrowski. There had, he claimed, 'been a universal trend to favour agricultural labourers at the expense of peasants'. In addition, small farmers had often re¬ ceived inadequate additions to their plots, while middle peasants, 'even those with large families', had frequently been excluded from the subdivision. These developments were probably inevitable given the shortage of land and the nature of the reform which was intended both to help the dis-advantaged and also to win over the middle peas¬ ants. The fact was that the minimum for a self-suffi¬ cient holding was about 5 ha and there was no way all plots could be brought up to this size in the area under PKWN control in 1944. The land reform decree had pro¬ mised an upward revision for the norms of redistribution once the country was liberated and the western territories incorporated. Yet, as a Polish historian has admit¬ ted, 'the peasants did not always believe that the [west¬ ern] territories would be regained and in addition prefer¬ red a suitable local grant of land. This made it much more difficult to achieve an equitable distribu¬ tion.' (120) Though most land went to the landless and small farmers, the PPR was determined for political reasons to demonstrate to the middle farmers that they would not be by-passed. In his speech Zambrowski affir¬ med 'Land reform must be implemented with ruthless disci¬ pline. Anybody who consciously goes against PKWN prin¬ ciples should be removed from his post.' In addition, he informed the party activists that 'All the mistakes made in redistribution should be corrected, even if the land has already been handed out'. He was, however, cautious enough to add 'but not in cases where land deeds have been

74

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

granted'. In the following period some not very effec¬ tive attempts were made to redress the balance in favour of middle peasants and the land reform commissioners in Radzyń were arrested and those in Zamość and Lubartów dis¬ missed for failing to implement government policy. (121) It was generally felt that land reform had been a great victory for the PPR and the PKWN. As Mine put it, 'The peasant masses have become active and the general position has improved. Our Party was formerly afraid of the smallest thing, even a Witos, but now it feels its strength and senses that it can win this great fight.' In order to consolidate the political gains the party had achieved. Zambrowski proposed the establishment of 'a mass peasant organization, a co-operative trade organiza¬ tion.... It would be a replacement for the Agricultural Labourers' Trade Union and would draw the peasants into the democratic camp.... A mass non-Party organization of this type,' he concluded, 'which would involve the PPR and SL, would embrace former rural workers, former landless, small and middle peasants and would play an enormous role in the countryside.' Steps were soon taken to create this organization and it was finally established in Decem¬ ber as the Peasant Self-Help Union (Związek Samopomocy Chłopskie - ZSCh) at the Peasant Congress on 30-31 Decem¬ ber. It soon numbered 100,000 members and was dominated by the PPR. Its political character was also indicated by the name originally chosen for it, which was rather more restrictive than that suggested by Zambrowski, the Union of Landless, Small and Dwarf Farmers. The organi¬ zation was to form the basis for a new co-operative move¬ ment, the existing co-operatives being suspect in PPR eyes, dominated as they were by the PPS and SL. In addi¬ tion, it would form a bulwark of PPR influence in the countryside, when the instability of the SL was becoming increasingly apparent and there was a real possibility that Mikolajczyk's SL ROCH would come into the open. Gomułka made this clear at the Politbureau meeting of 17 December: 'If the SL became a mass organization it would be open to penetration by hostile elements. The decision to create the Peasant Self-Help Union (ZSCh) will make it possible for us to establish mass support in the country¬ side' (document No. 71). His views echoed Stalin, who had told the PPR delegates to Moscow in early December that his attitude towards the Peasant Self-Help Union was 'favourable', while at the same time making 'derogatory remarks' about the SL and observing, 'It would never be a powerful party and would always respond to various influ¬ ences' (document No. 69). The next few weeks saw the successful completion of the

75

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

land reform in the areas under PKWN control. What had been achieved? Altogether about 110,000 families benefi¬ ted from the land reform, nearly 15 per cent of all rural families. 212,000 hectares were parcelled out, about two-thirds of the land available. Of the remainder, some was not redistributed because it was still mined or lay near the front line, while 10 per cent was directly taken over by the state. The PPR quite deliberately kept a re¬ serve of land, as they had been instructed to by Stalin, which could form the basis for a ’state-socialist’ sector in the countryside. (122) In addition, 85 per cent of forest land (3| million ha) was held by the state. The average gain per family which received land was 1.93 ha. There were, however, considerable local varia¬ tions: the average in Lublin province was 2.2 ha, in Rzeszów province 1.4 ha and in Białystok province 2.8 ha. It should perhaps be added that by 1949, when the formerly Ukrainian farms had been redistributed, the average land gain rose to 3.4 ha. Of those who received land, 31.6 per cent were landless peasants or agricultural labourers who obtained 41 per cent of the land redistributed. Dwarf and small farmers made up 63.2 per cent of recipients and re¬ ceived more than 50 per cent of the land redistributed, while middle-sized farmers constituted 3.8 per cent of the total and obtained 6 per cent of the land. The average amount of land obtained by each group was as follows: Agricultural labourers and landless Dwarf and small farmers Middle-sized farmers with many children

2.8 ha 1.5 ha 1.4 ha

The redistribution and the cancellation of debts did improve the position of the poorer peasants. Yet, as the figures show, the actual quantities of land handed out were quite small and did not significantly alter the structure of agriculture. In 1949 the average farm size in the provinces of Lublin, Rzeszów and Białystok was still only 3.4 ha, well below the FA0 minimum estimate for self-sufficiency of 10 ha. (123) In addition, the land reform had led to the creation of an additional 34,000 farms with less than 3 ha, and, as we have seen, the middle peasantry had gained very little from the reform. Post-war economic problems added to the difficulties of the peasantry. The country was in the throes of economic reconstruction and state aid for agriculture was just not available. The war also imposed a heavy burden on the peasantry in the form of compulsory supplies, requisitions and the effects of mobilization and large-scale troop movements. The effect of these factors together with the

76

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

reform was to cause a fall in agricultural production, though there were hopes that the situation would improve when the whole country had been liberated and the western territories acquired. Gomułka summed up the view of the party at the central committee plenum in February 1945 when he asserted, 'The land reform has created for us ... a strong political base in the countryside, but there might be a negative effect on agricultural produc¬ tion. ' (124) In May he went still further, admitting that 'agricultural production will be diminished for a certain time on account of the land reform' (document No. 75, p. 424) • How far is it true that land reform established for the party 'a strong political base in the countryside'? In his speech at the central committee plenum in February 1945, assessing the results of the reform. Zambrowski as¬ serted that the PPR 'has won enormous authority amongst the peasantry. It has obtained such authority that all even our allies, the PPS and the Peasant Party - have been forced to admit that the decisive role in the implementa¬ tion of the land reform was played by the Polish Workers' Party (document No. 73, item 2, p. 414). The new confi¬ dence of the party was symbolized by the establishment of the Peasant Self-Help Union (ZSCh). A Polish histor¬ ian has gone still further, claiming that 'land reform was intended to bind and did in fact bind people ... to People's power by the very fact of redistribution.' (125) It is certainly true that the Party gained a new prestige in the eyes of the peasantry by its successful expulsion of the landowners, the masters of rural life for centu¬ ries. The authority of the PKWN increased considerably and the London authorities lost in legitimacy particularly after Mikołajczyk's resignation in November. Neverthe¬ less, although many peasants took land, it would be wrong to see this as an acceptance on their part of the new authorities. Even a Polish historian has admitted that '... active participation in the realization of land reform ... did not always indicate positive support for the PKWN or recognition of its programme'. (126) In ad¬ dition, the land reform was not directed against the larger peasants, whom the PPR still hoped to win over, at least in some degree, to support for its policies. Yet their attitude to the reform remained one of 'hostile neutrality', while they continued for the most part to support Mikołajczyk's SL ROCH and to exercise a strong in¬ fluence on the rest of the countryside. Moreover, the fact that Polish agriculture was still dominated by small and uneconomic plots fed fears that the land reform was the first stage of collectivization and weakened the

77

The beginnings

of communist

rule in Poland

influence of the PPR among the peasantry. As Gomułka put it in May 1945, ’many peasants are full of doubt.... In Białystok province during the previous levy operation, the peasants' attitude was favourable. Now they refuse sup¬ plies and instead feed the guerilla bands' (document No. 75). At the same time the successful carrying out of the reform was a significant victory for the party, for which it was praised by Stalin. Bierut reported to the Politbureau after his visit to Moscow in December 1944 that, 'Above all, Stalin was interested in the land reform and relations with the PPS. He was pleased with the execu¬ tion of the reform' (document No. 69). The October policy turn also affected most other as¬ pects of government policy. In his speech of 12 Novem¬ ber, Gomułka had asserted: The struggle for a democratic Poland is at the moment principally a struggle for the machinery of state.... If we try to base the new democracy on the old machin¬ ery of state we will run the risk of having that demo¬ cracy overthrown.... It is not enough to replace the old Sanacja-Ozon government with a new democratic one, the PKWN. We must put people who are totally commit¬ ted to the camp of democratic Poland and who think in the same way as its government in all the key jobs in the civil service, the armed forces and the courts.... Unless we replace the governors, sub-prefects, civil servants, army officers and even local government officials of the old Sanacja-fascist state apparatus, they will not just hamper our work. Before we know where we are, they will overthrow the democratic gov¬ ernment and replace it with one of their own (document No. 65) . The period after October was thus characterized by a purge of 'unreliable elements' in the civil service and state apparatus. The PPR already had a dominant position in the security apparatus and militia. In the words of a Polish historian, 'the key areas of the law enforcement agencies ... were run from the start almost exclusively by the PPR'. (127) According to the official account, between 1944 and 1947, members of other political groups constitu¬ ted only about 15 per cent of militia members and 3 per cent of those in the security apparatus and they did not hold any senior offices. (128) PPR dominance was scarcely less marked at the beginning than at the end of this per¬ iod. The Land Offices, whose power had anyway been drasti¬ cally curtailed, were the first to be purged. Over 80 per cent of their staff were former officers, Zambrowski com¬ plained at the Politbureau meeting of 9 October, and they had seriously obstructed the progress of the land reform

78

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

(document No. 49). The weeding out of politically suspect individuals was soon extended to other parts of the admin¬ istration. It is difficult to put figures on it, but in 1945 five provincial governors were members of the PPR, three of the PPS and three of the SL. Of the sub-prefects 113 were PPR members, 55 PPS and 49 SL. (129) In addition by this stage the PPR had established, as is conceded by a Polish historian, an exceptionally strong position in the economic bureaucracy. (130) The other coalition partners still retained supporters in the civil service, and PPR pressure to establish a dominant position aroused some re¬ sentment. On 9 November, for instance, Bierut reported to the PPR Politbureau that Osóbka-Morawski, leader of the PPS, had proposed a PPS member for President (mayor) of Warsaw and had complained that his party was being treated as an 'appendage' (document No. 64). We have seen that even before the October policy turn, the PPR had severely restricted the powers of the national councils established by the PKWN manifesto. The party had been unwilling to hold elections for these bodies, something which had led to a crisis in relations with the SL and had caused the dismissal both of Witold Jedliński, the SL chairman of the Rzeszów provincial national council who had advocated the holding of elections. It had also caused the dismissal in November of Jedliński's superior, Stanisław Kotek-Agroszewski, head of the PKWN Administra¬ tion Department, because he 'supported Jedliński over elections to district councils on the basis of a fraudu¬ lent decree' (document No. 66). Agroszewski had already been attacked in the PKWN in the course of a discussion of the degree of control which national councils should exer¬ cise over provincial governors for 'wanting to preserve the old ways' (document No. 63). This may indicate that he opposed the reduction of the powers of the councils, or that he may have felt that prerogatives of the central government should not be excessively restricted. At the same time as curtailing the powers of the national councils, the PPR was determined to retain them as instruments of 'social control', particularly in areas where its own power was not well established. It was thus determined to increase its rather weak support on the councils, a problem which came up frequently in the dis¬ cussion at the party conference of 10-11 October. On this occasion Berman explained. The national councils are a new form of administration and they must create a new form of rule. They need constant looking after. There are Party organizations which consider that the councils might replace the Party. Other organizations in turn prefer to ignore

79

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

the councils. The Party must control and direct the councils (document No. 51). Gomułka for his part explained that the party would only increase its influence if it co-operated with its coali¬ tion partners. He therefore criticized the PPR organiza¬ tion in Zamość 'where our Party is trying to monopolize power'. At the same time it was important not to make too many concessions, as was explained by Witold Konopka, the PKWN commissioner in the Rzeszów province. He claimed that in the creation of the national council in the town of Mielec, the party had made 'too many compro¬ mises'. Originally the council was to be made up of ten PPR, ten PPS and 10 SL members, but eventually it was agreed to double the SL representation. A similar situa¬ tion had occurred in Sanok. The present task was to establish 'councils with mass support* though 'this should not be at the expense of the Party'. It proved relatively easy to increase PPR representa¬ tion in provincial councils, but at a more local level it was weak. As Konopka put it in October, 'The parish councils are the weak link in the chain'. Some success was achieved. In the Chełm district national council for instance, whereas in November the PPR had seven members, the SL eleven, and the remainder were unaffiliated; by the following month the situation had shifted with ten PPR members, six SL and two PPS. Yet at the end of the year, the situation was still not satisfactory. Zambrowski, writing in the party paper 'Trybuna Wolności' on 22 Decem¬ ber, stated that 'on the whole Party organizations under¬ estimated the necessity for expanding and mobilizing the national councils.' Another area of concern for the party were the trade unions. At the October conference, Gomułka had expressed satisfaction that the PPR had succeeded in persuading its allies of the need to establish a single trade union move¬ ment. This movement was however threatened by two dan¬ gers. On the one hand some party members, as was the case in Lublin, had been too sectarian in their attitudes and 'do not co-operate sufficiently with our PKWN allies ... [in the] work done in the trade union movement'. At the same time, the trade unions were very vulnerable to infiltration by elements hostile to the new regime. 'We must not forget that the reactionaries will try to subvert trade unions so that they become tools in their hands. We must exercise extreme vigilance in the trade unions.' Between October and December trade unions expanded rapidly, and by the end of the year their membership reached 100,000, two-thirds of this in the Lublin pro¬ vince. The most important unions were the Railway

80

The beginnings

of communist rule in Poland

Workers' Union, (18,000 members), the Metal Workers' Union (5,000 members), the Sugar Workers' Union (2,500 members), and the Oil Workers' Union. As the unions grew, so too did PPS influence within them, particularly in areas where the party had been strong before the war. This was clearly shown in the first union elections. In December the Oil Workers elected ten PPS and seven PPR men to its executive. In January fifteen PPS and ten PPR members were elected to the Railway Workers' executive. The largest steelworks in the area. Stalowa Wola, with 3,000 workers, was dominated by the PPS, as was Wedel's chocolate factory in Warsaw-Praga. PPS influence was also significant among post office workers. Precise fig¬ ures are not available for this period, but certainly PPS influence in industry was as strong as that of the PPR. According to the incomplete information for the end of 1945, the distribution of seats on factory councils, which were subordinated to the trade unions, was as shown in Table 2. (131) TABLE 2

Factory councils and trade unions

PPS PPR Unaffiliated

Lublin province

Rzeszów province

52 61 182

44 34 33

This growth of PPS influence was highly unwelcome to the PPR, which was already becoming rather unhappy about the internal evolution of the socialists. Moreover, the two parties differed in the role they envisaged for the trade unions. The PPR, in line with its Leninist prin¬ ciples, saw the trade unions above all as the party's 'transmission belts' which enable the government's econo¬ mic policies to be more effectively carried out. One feature of the radicalization of policy after October had been the abandonment by the PKWN of its decree handing small factories back to private ownership. (132) The PPR now also sanctioned the de facto nationalizations which had occurred since July 1944. This meant that the bulk of industry in the areas controlled by the PKWN was under state control and that in the eyes of the party leadership the central committee resolution which included in the functions of trade unions the defence of workers against the 'arbitrariness of employers' ceased to have any rele¬ vance. (133) There were still senior party members who did envisage a large role for the trade unions and factory councils in production and management. One of the PPR

81

The beginnings

of communist rule in Poland

representatives on the Trade Union Central Commission wrote in the PPR paper 'Głos Ludu' on 2 January 1945 that 'workers and entrepreneurs are now equal partners' in the production process. These views tended however to be in¬ creasingly disregarded. Within the PPS there was a strongly developed syndica¬ list tradition which now called for an autonomous role for the trade unions in the management of industry. When the Wedel chocolate factory, in which PPS influence was strong, reopened in Praga, many management functions were taken over by the unions. PPS activists also resented the monopolistic aspirations of the PPR and in a number of areas. Mielec, Krosno and Praga, opposed the establishment of a single trade union system. (134) This dispute was connected with another point of conflict between the two working-class parties, the role of factory councils. (135) As we have seen, it had only been on 2 October that the PPR central committee had finally issued instructions on the role of these bodies. With the October policy turn, the party now sought to win wider working-class support by offering to increase the functions of the councils. Yet this went against the centralization of economic and poli¬ tical life favoured by the party leadership and as a re¬ sult long delays occurred. The draft decree on factory councils which had been ready in October was withdrawn, ostensibly to make possible the formulation of a more rad¬ ical draft, and new proposals were worked out by the PKWN's Administration and Labour Departments, the latter headed by Bolesław Drobner, one of the more independent members of the PPS. This draft was discussed by the Trade Union Central Commission (KCZZ) in November, but by December it had still not been accepted by the government. On 12 December, when the question was discussed in the PKWN, Minc stressed the different functions which workers' councils and trade unions should serve in the private and public sectors, while on the 28th Bierut argued that fur¬ ther discussion with the trade unions was necessary. It was also decided to 'refer for further redrafting' the question of the extent to which factory councils should exercise control over production. This aroused the ire of Drobner, who had already bluntly affirmed 'the working class demands that the decree be enacted as quickly as possible' (documents Nos 68, 72). Another area where the two parties conflicted was over co-operatives. The co-operative movement had been a stronghold of the PPS before the war and many members of the 'reborn' PPS, including Osóbka-Morawski himself, had started their political careers within it. This placed the PPR at something of a disadvantage when the movement

82

The beginnings

of communist rule in Poland

revived. The strong position of the PPS was clearly evi¬ dent at the first Co-operative Congress which took place in late November. Indeed, reporting to the PPR Politbureau on 9 November just before the conference Zambrowski complained that 'the congress had been prepared in secret by the PPS and Morawski'. He claimed that the Rolnik co¬ operative organization had compromised itself by collabor¬ ation with the Germans and that there were also many 'com¬ promised people' in the largest co-operative Społem. He concluded: 'There are five times as many PPS candidates as those of our party. We must disassociate ourselves from reactionary elements within the co-operative move¬ ment' (document No. 64). When it met, the Congress did vote to support the PKWN, although some voices were raised in support of a non-poli¬ tical stance. Though the number of PPR supporters in executive positions did increase, the PPS retained its predominant role, particularly in Społem. In these con¬ ditions, one of the main functions of the new peasant organization which was proposed by Zambrowski at the November conference was to provide the basis for a new co-operative movement which would be dominated by the PPR. In the discussion of Zambrowski's report, Mine even went so far as to assert, 'Co-operatives were becoming an issue. That was where the fight would take place. It was a bigger problem than the redistribution of land' (document No. 65). When, several months later, the Peasant Self-Help Union (ZSCh) began to establish its own co-operatives, this was strongly resented by the PPS. The ZSCh, it argued, should be simply 'a social and pro¬ fessional organization' and the fact that it was setting up co-operatives was a direct attack on Społem. (136) The parties also did not see eye to eye on the organi¬ zation of young people. In this area, PPR policy was similar to that followed in the trade union field. The Party thus favoured the establishment of a single youth body which, as Gomułka explained at the August Congress, was to be organized 'on the basis of a broad-based nat¬ ional front' (document No. 26). This was not that easily achieved, since the party also hoped to make its own youth organization, the League of Fighting Youth (ZWM), the core of the new body. Gomułka put the problem clearly at the October party conference. 'We want and indeed must build a broadly based homogeneous organization for working youth, which will encompass all young workers and members of the intelligentsia. Until we reach agreement with the PPS on this question, our Party must help young people in the ZWM' (document No. 51). This agreement was not that easy to reach. Two days before Gomułka made his speech a

83

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

conference had been organized by the socialists which had proceeded to re-establish the pre-war Youth Organization of the Society for a Workers' University (OM TUR) , a sort of Polish Workers' Educational Association, which before the war had been controlled by the PPS. The socialists were certainly in no hurry to create a single youth body. The PPR kept up the pressure however and as a result in early November a Joint Commission of Youth Organizations was set up. It included representatives of youth groups from the PPR and PPS as well as from Wici, the reconstitu¬ ted youth organization of the SL. The radicalization of policy in October inevitably caused a deterioration in relations between the PPR and its coalition partners. The PPR was still concerned to maintain the appearance of coalition unity and co-opera¬ tion, but was determined to take control of all issues. Already in September 1944 a central committee resolution 'On the political situation and the tasks of the Party' had clearly revealed the contradictions inherent in this position. The national front, it affirmed, should be maintained and expanded, but the PPR by its role during the war 'has acquired for itself the leading role in uniting the nation'. (137) At the October party confer¬ ence, Gomułka attempted to counter accusations that the PPR was aiming at a monopoly of power. He stressed that the way to defeat the reactionaries was to strengthen re¬ lations with the PPS, SL and the democrats. '[The Demo¬ cratic National Front] is not intended by us to be some¬ thing transient, to exist only as long as the war lasts. We need the National Front just as much as Poland needs it, both while the war is going on and in the post-war re¬ construction period' (document No. 51). At the same time he underlined the dominant position of the PPR. 'Our Party built the foundations ... of what today is the basis of our state.... Our blood and our lives are the founda¬ tion stone of reborn Poland.... Blood and combat have given us the right to determine her future and char¬ acter. ' It soon became apparent that the PPR would have to take action to keep its partners in line. Already in Septem¬ ber it had proposed a permanent PPR-SL co-ordinating com¬ mission and in November it succeeded in setting up a 'cen¬ tral co-ordinating commission for the democratic parties'. Similar bodies were subsequently set up at provincial and district levels and proved an important means of exercis¬ ing control over the allied parties. At the same time, the PPR continued its policy of by-passing the leaders of the PPS and SL and attempting to gain grass-roots support within these parties. Radkiewicz explained this strategy

84

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

at the October conference, stating that in relation to the allied parties, 'winning over the masses will be the deci¬ sive factor and not manoeuvring in the upper echelons' (document No. 51). The most acute problems were posed by the SL, with which the PPR had already clashed over land reform and elections to national councils. After the conference in mid September which formally established the SL, the party began to organize itself and set up local branches. A significant proportion of its new members came from the SL ROCH and the Peasant Battalions (BCh) and they intensified the already mounting opposition within the SL to the PPR. Voices were increasingly heard, reminiscent of pre-war agrarianism, arguing that the PPR had no right to arrogate to itself the leading role in the government since the majority of Poles were peasants. For its part, the PPR was determined to accelerate the pace of land reform even if this meant a clash with the SL. Indeed, it had al¬ ready been criticized by Stalin for leaving the implemen¬ tation of land reform in the hands of the SL (document No. 49). One of the first steps the party leadership took in October was to secure the dismissal of Andrzej Witos as head of the PKWN's Agriculture and Land Reform Department. When the new hard line was discussed by the Politbureau on 9 October the SL was harshly criticized. Bierut bitterly criticized the SL leadership, while, according to Jóźwiak: 'It is we who organized the SL. We have permitted Witos to form a group which is against us.' Gomułka, for his part, claimed that 'the SL will not carry out the reform.... There is a lot of passivity in it' (document No. 49). Witos's dismissal created a severe crisis for the SL, which was already deeply divided between the pro-PPR ele¬ ments within it and those like the party chairman, KotekAgroszewski, who favoured a more independent line. Two days of debate by the SL leadership failed to produce a coherent response and the party's plans to send a delega¬ tion to Stalin protesting against Witos's removal proved abortive. The PPR leadership was now determined to get rid of Kotek-Agroszewski and his adherents and establish a more compliant group at the head of the SL. The central committee thus attempted to acquire as much compromising material as possible. On 19 October, for instance, Kazimierz Sidor, a PPR member who before the war had be¬ longed to the peasant youth organization Wici, reported to the central committee on Agroszewski's 'anti-PPR acti¬ vities'. He wrote: At a secret meeting of the SL and Wici, Agroszewski ex¬ plained his aim: breaking the PPR monopoly and getting

85

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

a majority of Peasant Party (SL) members on to the councils. This was his guideline in the nomination of district officials. He is sabotaging the land reform decree. He is trying to split the SL from the PPR, calling it the 'Jew-ridden PPR' (document No. 53). The establishment of a new SL leadership was a fairly lengthy process. The situation in the peasant party was discussed by the Politbureau and central committee on 22 October. Bierut and Gomułka reported that Agroszewski had been criticizing Stalisław Janusz, one of the pro-PPR members of the SL, who had replaced Witos as deputy chair¬ man of the PKWN. He had demanded the resignation from the PKWN both of Janusz and of Bertold, the new head of the Agriculture and Land Reform Department. They conclu¬ ded: 'He wants a crisis in the PKWN. Kotek must be re¬ moved by an SL party court' (document No. 56). Two other members of the SL whom the PPR was particularly eager to dismiss were Witold Jedliński, governor of Rzeszów pro¬ vince, who had tried to organize elections to national councils, and Jan Michał Grubecki, head of the PKWN Department of Communications who had opposed the militar¬ ization of the railways. The SL was slow to act, how¬ ever, and the matter had still not been settled by 31 October, when Bierut told the Politbureau that 'until the SL remove Kotek, we must resort to a policy of faits accomplis' (document No. 60). By 9 November a new SL executive had been set up, headed by Stanisław Janusz and composed mostly of people loyal to the PPR. Grubecki, who had now made clear his willingness to co-operate with the PPR, was deputy chair¬ man, and of its other members Józef Maślanka and Jan Aleksander Król had close links with the PPR, leaving only Jan Czechowski to press for a more independent line (docu¬ ment No. 64). It required another wto weeks before the committee was formally ratified by the SL supreme council on 22-23 November. By now the party was effectively dominated by pro-PPR elements. The council declared itself in favour of the policies advocated during the occupation by Wola Ludu and called for closer links with the PPR. It also issued a strong condemnation of the SL ROCH. Tighter organizational and ideological discipline was imposed and Agroszewski's position was further weak¬ ened by his dismissal from his post of head of the Admin¬ istrative Department of the PKWN on 20 November on the grounds that he had supported Jedliński's attempt to organize national council elections in Rzeszów province (document No. 66). Inevitably this crisis weakened the SL considerably. The new leaders lacked authority and the party was in-

86

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

creasingly seen by most peasants as a tool of the PPR. Even a historian in Poland has admitted that the November resolutions of the SL supreme councils were ’misguided' since they treated 'anybody who came out in favour of Mikołajczyk as an enemy and traitor to the peasants' cause'. (138) The new leadership was rather demoralized by the way it had come to power. It lacked dynamism and was for the moment unable to effect any 'fundamental poli¬ tical or organizational changes' in the party. (139) Stalin himself was well aware of the inadequacies of the Peasant Party. Reporting on this meeting with the Soviet leader in early December, Bierut told the Politbureau that Stalin 'made derogatory remarks about the SL: it would never be a powerful party and would always respond to various influences' (document No. 69). The Politbureau reviewed the internal situation of the SL on 17 December in the context of the political problems involved in the transformation of the PKWN into a provisional government. Bierut was sharply critical: He described the situation in the SL: the state of our activists was critical. They need maximum help. Czechowski is moderately active, Janusz does nothing, Bertold is fickle in his views and preoccupied with his department: Grubecki would like to work with us and is prepared to join the PPR. Kapeliński is supposed to have worked with the Germans. Maślanka is unbalanced. As provincial governor he gave the Red Army all the hay and fodder, thereby creating a difficult situation. Gomułka reported that the SL had grown in certain areas but was still much weaker than Mikołajczyk's SL ROCH. The situation was difficult. If the SL became a mass organization it would be open to penetration by hostile elements. The decision to create the Peasant Self-Help Union (ZSCh) will make it possible for us to establish mass support in the countryside. Nevertheless the SL was needed in the long term. It needed strengthening. Some activists should be allocated to it. His ideas were challenged by Berman, though it is not clear whether he was giving his own views or those of Stalin. He argued that 'the SL could not be treated as a permanent institution. It had a certain role to play, at least until full liberation.' His belief that the SL was dispensable was shared by Jóźwiak, who claimed that 'large numbers of peasants are attracted to the PPR'. He saw no point in sending activists to the SL as this would merely 'make things easier for the AK'. Yet the majority seem to have agreed with Mine, who stated that the 'SL did have a certain importance', and Bierut, who wanted certain

87

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

people to be allocated to work with the Peasant Party so as to strengthen PPR influence within it (document No. 71). Given this degree of interference it is hardly surprising that the SL was slow to emerge as a viable and effective political force. Relations with the PPS were not as difficult. The PPS was rather weak in the areas under PKWN control and by the end of the year it had a membership of only 5-8,000 and branches in not more than two-thirds of the liberated dis¬ tricts. (140) The party's response to the October policy changes had been somewhat ambiguous. It supported the dismissal of Witos and Os6bka-Morawski, the chairman of the party central executive committee, had also supported the militarization of the railways, though this was opposed by Drobner, chairman of the supreme council. In the second half of November, the Party's supreme council met and passed a resolution calling for closer links with the PPR and criticizing local PPS organizations for their passivity and lack of commitment to the implementation of government decrees, particularly those on land reform and the army. At the same time the council condemned the attempt to differentiate within the party between ex-PPS and ex-WRN people since both had an equal role in the cre¬ ation of party unity. As we have seen, there were a number of areas where the two workers' parties were in conflict - trade unions, co¬ operatives, workers' councils and the youth movement. The two parties also clashed over the PPR's drive to achieve a dominant position in the administration. Osóbka-Morawski, for instance, had complained of being treated as an 'appendage' when the PPS candidate for the mayor of Warsaw was rejected in November (document No. 64). But the PPS was not subjected to the same degree of control as the SL and as a result co-operation was more wholehearted. Towards the end of the year a three-way division developed within the PPS. (141) On the left of the party was the group led by Stefan Matuszewski, the party's general secretary. It was totally loyal to the PPR and had been encouraged by the October policy turn to adopt an intransigently left-wing position which made its views similar to the rank-and-file activists in the PPR. In the centre was the RPPS group led by Osóbka-Morawski, which had been closely linked with the PPR during the Occupation and continued to favour co-operation. At the same time, it was trying to establish its autonomy and increasingly resented the PPR's determination to dictate policy. On the right of the party was the group led by Drobner, which was most resistant to PPR influence. Drobner, who was the only figure in the party with a pre-

88

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

war reputation, was determined to make himself spokesman for the traditions and autonomous aspirations of the party, something which was increasingly resented by the PPR leadership. Indeed the PPR was far from satisfied with the internal situation of the PPS. When the Politbureau discussed the matters it would raise when it met Stalin in early Decern- . ber, it was decided: '3. We must show Stalin the PPS cen¬ tral executive committee's resolution about the line towards the WRN and also Arciszewski's article in 'Robot¬ nik'. Thereby pressure will be put on Osóbka-Morawski to oppose the WRN group within the PPS' (document No. 67). Stalin told Bierut that he was particularly interested in the PPS and that his attitude to Osóbka-Morawski was 'favourable'. He also informed the larger PKWN delega¬ tion that Drobner should be sent into honorary exile as PKWN representative to Moscow or even Kiev. He seems too to have called for other personnel changes in the PPS. This angered Osóbka-Morawski, who strongly defended Drobner. His irritation was directed above all at Bierut. According to the minutes, 'After this meeting Morawski exploded at Bierut: "In your ranks you have got bandits and Sanacja men. Purge yourselves and not our Party". An unpleasant exchange. They did not say goodbye to one another' (document No. 69). The internal situation of the PPS was again discussed by the Politbureau on 17 December. On this occasion Gomułka bluntly stated 'The problem of the PPS was similar [to that of the SL] and perhaps more difficult'. Accord¬ ing to Bierut: 'The PPS could not be rebuilt in its pre¬ vious form. Drobner represented the old PPS ideology' (document No. 71). These tensions were to become more acute in early 1945. By the beginning of December Stalin was determined to make a new move in relation to the Polish question. The PKWN had by now consolidated its authority, while the position of the London Poles had been seriously under¬ mined. After the resignation of Mikołajczyk as Prime Minister on 24 November, a new and less compromising gov¬ ernment had been created under the veteran socialist Tomasz Arciszewski. Western policy had been based on the assumption that an agreement should be reached between the London and Lublin Poles as a result of which a coalition would be established and the Curzon line recognized as the Polish-Soviet frontier. The Arciszewski government was not prepared to consider such far-reaching territorial con¬ cessions, and despite Churchill's hopes that it would spee¬ dily collapse so that Mikołajczyk could return to power, it was soon too firmly established to be dislodged. This

89

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

placed the British in a great quandary. Churchill deci¬ ded to recognize the new government in spite of the advice of his ambassador in Moscow that this would mean 'a headon collision with Stalin'. (142) He wrote to the Soviet leader on 3 December explaining that his decision to recognize the new government was dictated by the practical problems of dealing with the Polish armed forces under the control of the Government-in-exile, which now numbered over 80,000. British policy still aimed at 'the recon¬ stitution of a strong and independent Poland, friendly to Russia'. The British attitude to the Arciszewski govern¬ ment would be 'correct, though it will certainly be cold' and Churchill expressed the hope that Mikołajczyk would shortly return to power. (143) Stalin interpreted this letter as an admission by the British that their policy had failed. The Red Army offensive against Germany which would liberate Poland was due to begin in January and he was therefore determined to transform the PKWN into a provisional government in order to increase its authority. The western reverses in the battle of the Ardennes, which led to Roosevelt twice writ¬ ing to Stalin and asking him to bring forward the date of of his offensive, further strengthened his belief that he enjoyed a virtual free hand in Poland. The PPR too, thought that the international situation was becoming more propitious. When he addressed the PKWN on foreign affairs on 22 November, Stefan Jędrychowski, head of the Propaganda and Information Department, claimed that attitudes towards the new government were becoming more favourable in both Britain and the United States (document No. 66). In early December Stalin summoned a delegation to Moscow to discuss the transformation of the PKWN into a provisional government. In the Politbureau on 3 December it was agreed that this should consist of Bierut, Rola-Żymierski and Osóbka-Morawski, although in the end Berman also accompanied the group. The delega¬ tion was instructed that 'although Mikołajczyk has re¬ signed from the London government, we will still continue to propose him joining the PKWN, but not as chairman'. This was probably an indication of greater self-confidence on the part of the PPR, since when Stalin had asked Bierut in early October whether he favoured an understanding with Mikołajczyk, the latter had replied, 'We want an under¬ standing, but we should prefer it if this took place later.' (144) Stalin was also to be informed of the in¬ ternal developments within the PPS which were causing growing concern among the PPR leadership (document No. 67). A few days later on 7 December, in an interview with 'Rzeczpospolita', Gomułka explained that 'the time to set up a provisional government has arrived.'

90

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Bierut reported to the Politbureau on 14 December on the course of the talks in Moscow. According to the minutes, 'Above all Stalin was interested in the land reform and relations with the PPS'. The Soviet leader vetoed the return of Mikołajczyk for the moment, probably because he believed that this would have too disruptive an effect on the government. According to Bierut: Stalin stated that in his opinion Churchill had advised Mikołajczyk to resign from the government. Churchill wanted his protege in the government in Poland. There was evidence to show that Mikołajczyk is involved with the terrorists. The USSR would not let him in as long as the Red Army is in Poland (document No. 69). This statement should not be taken at face value, since Stalin was well aware of Mikołajczyk’s true position and of his opposition to anti-Soviet guerilla activities. He seems above all to have been concerned with the effect Mikołajczyk's return would have on the SL, which he had strongly criticized for its political unreliability, since 'it would always respond to various influences' (document No. 69). According to Berman, who was probably repeating Stalin's views, 'The SL had been seriously deluding itself in thinking that Mikołajczyk will return. We know that he will not' (document No. 71). The final preparations for the establishment of the provisional government were taken at the Politbureau meet¬ ing of 17 December. It was decided that the PPR, PPS and SL were each to have five seats in the cabinet and the Democrats one. Czechowski and Drobner were not to be given office. The Administrative Department was to be given to the SL, while that of Health was to go to the PPS. The new government was duly proclaimed on 31 Decem¬ ber 1944. Its composition reflected the political changes which had taken place since July. Not only were Drobner and Czechowski excluded but also Kotek-Agroszewski, Witos, Berling and Grubecki. The dominant position of the PPR in the cabinet was clear. Nominally it controlled only five of the sixteen ministries, but these included the crucial Ministry of Security, under Radkiewicz; Minc was now made Minister for Industry and Trade and Gomułka became first Deputy Prime Minister.

5

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT:

JANUARY-JUNE 1945

The period from the establishment of the new government at the beginning of January to its enlargement in June by the entry into it of Mikołajczyk and four other pro-western politicians was dominated by the international

91 The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Provincial boundary

M r>

* Elbląg

\

• Giżycko • Mrągowo

Biskupiec*

/

#^

-

Position of front in August 1944

\

. Druskienniki

/

•OLSZTYN Ostróda •

•Grodno

Grajewo* • Szczytno

Goniądz •

/ Jedwabne*

|

• Łomża • Mława

•Ostrołęka

Ciechanów.

i

( Łapy>

-Różan Maz

N

J BIAŁYSTOK

>

-Swisłocz

J /

* Ostrów Maz Ciechanowiec • Wyszków

•Płock

Serock • Modlin*

Siemiatycze

.Radzymin

• Kobryh

WARSZAWA /Mińsk* ^ Maz '

Łowicz • •Żyrardów

">,• BRZEŚĆ Międzyrzec. .Garwolin

Biała

'Łukó" Podlaaka > .Radzyń * Maloryta ‘ Oomaczewo

) u / • Magnuszew \

Parczew •

v

.Dęblin • Piotrków Tryb.

Radom • • Szydłowiec

Włodawa

^ * Ruławy /J* Janowiec

* Lubartów

\ (

•LUBLIN

• Siedliszcze -Kowel

Dorohusk^ Lubomi

I \ >J ) Józefów

Ostrowiec •

> /»Zabuże \ #

.Tiirzysk

Chełm vf •Krasnystaw

Chopniów. Werba-

• Kraśnik

#Kjwerc6

• Włodzimierz Wołyński

Hrubieszów •,

KIELCE*

Roższcze*

•ŁUCK

• Zamość (

• Sandomierz

/• Szydłów •Baranów

/

Frampol

Ulanów

T omaszów •

I

Nowy Korczyn • ^

KRAKÓW*

5w. Tarnów. Okocim*

./ Niemirów

\

/ * \

• Dębica

-RZESZÓW

^ . • Brzostek \ ^ \

•Nowy Sącz

.Jarosław/ /

X

•Brody

•Żółkiew

• Jaworów • LWÓW

Przemyśl •

\ • Krosno

\

l j

Kamionka Strumiłowa

Leżajsk N

Tarnopol^

/ -Sanok/

\

^

/

• Mikołajów

/ Sambor

• Drohobycz

•Zakopane

\ ^Bolechow Dolina

3 Area administered by the PKWN

.Stanisławów

July 1944-February 1945

92

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

situation. (145) The final Soviet offensive against the Germans began on 12 January. Within a matter of weeks, the Soviets succeeded in freeing all of Poland and in early May the war in Europe came to an end. From mid March the provisional government was in control of the whole of the country, including the large areas of former German territory which had been assigned to it by the Soviets in return for accepting the Curzon line and in order to make its rule acceptable to th.e majority of Poles . The liberation of the whole of Poland meant that new diplomatic moves were inevitable if the Polish question was not to become a serious bone of contention between the wartime allies. The resolution of this problem was one of the principal objectives at the Yalta conference in February. The British and Americans now formally agreed that the Curzon line, with minor modifications, should be the Polish eastern border. They expressed disquiet at the scale of compensation which was envisaged at German expense, however, and as a result it was merely agreed that Poland should obtain substantial accessions of terri¬ tory in the North and West, which would be ratified at the peace conference. The key problem was the composition of the Polish government. What the British and Americans sought was an entirely new government, made up of members of the provisional government, democratic Poles in Poland and Poles abroad. This would hold office until free elections could be held. Against this, the Soviets wanted it to be made clear that the provisional government was to be the core of any new regime. In the event, a rather cloudy compromise was agreed on. It stated: 'The provisional government which is now functioning in Poland should ... be reorganized on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad.' The London government was thus explicitly by-passed. Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, was to consult with British and American ambas¬ sadors in Moscow as to how the broadening of the govern¬ ment could be achieved. Finally, the new Polish adminis¬ tration was pledged to hold free elections. The vagueness of this agreement inevitably led to con¬ flict. Stalin almost certainly saw it as a face-saving formula which would enable the western powers to acquiesce in his control of Poland, and his commitment to free elec¬ tions can hardly be taken seriously. Yet the western leaders, above all Churchill, seem to have been convinced that Stalin would implement the Yalta terms in a sense acceptable to them. Churchill told the War Cabinet on 21 February that the 'acid test' of Soviet intentions was

93

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

whether Mikołajczyk would be allowed to return to Poland. (146) But, as we have seen, Stalin had now, at least for the moment, decided that this would have too disruptive an effect on the stability of the provisional government and he was not slow to make his views known to the western powers. The dispute soon became highly acrimonious with each side accusing the other of distorting the sense of the agreement. The western powers were not, however, pre¬ pared to break with the Soviets on this question, and in a joint note of 18 April conceded that 'we have never denied that among the three elements from which the new provi¬ sional government of national unity is to be formed, the representatives of the present Warsaw government will play, unquestionably, a prominent part'. (147) Stalin too by April was convinced that it was now safe to with¬ draw his veto on Mikołajczyk, insisting only that the latter make a declaration accepting the Yalta agreements, which he did on 15 April. At the same time, in an act calculated to underline his support for the authorities in Poland, Stalin conducted a Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Assistance and Post-war Co-operation with the provisional government. Agreement was still delayed by the anger aroused in western circles in early May by the revelation that the Red Army had arrested General Okulicki, the last commander of the AK, and fifteen prominent members of the pro-London underground, including the government delegate. The men had disappeared at the end of March and in what was almost certainly a conscious effort to delude western observers, the Soviets had spread rumours that they were negotiating with these men in order to reorganize and widen the Polish government in Warsaw. Churchill was so angered by the Soviet action that he was determined to have no further discussion of Polish questions until the forthcoming meeting of the Big Three. Truman decided to make one last effort and sent Harry Hopkins to Moscow at the end of May. Hopkins succeeded in reaching an understanding with Stalin which was accept¬ able to the Americans and to a lesser degree to the Brit¬ ish. After some hesitation, Mikołajczyk and Stańczyk, representing the PPS in London, went to Moscow for talks on 16 June. These negotiations proved easy and cordial in spite of the jarring back-drop provided by the simul¬ taneous trial of the sixteen underground leaders, some of whom received heavy sentences on 21 June. On the same day agreement was reached and Mikołajczyk and his suppor¬ ters were given five cabinet posts out of twenty. Miko¬ łajczyk became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of

94

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Agriculture. The still outstanding issues were resolved at the Potsdam conference. The western powers now with¬ drew recognition from the government in London in favour of that in Warsaw. A compromise was also reached as a result of which the western powers accepted the OderNeisse line as the provisional western frontier of Poland in return for Soviet agreement to a western formula on reparations from Germany. These developments dominated the evolution of political life in Poland. The anti-communist forces were increas¬ ingly divided in their view of the situation and their influence diminished. Aware of the disastrous conse¬ quences of plan 'Storm* (Burza), the AK command announced the formal dissolution of its forces on 19 January shortly after the beginning of the Soviet offensive. At the same time the AK commander activated the anti-communist under¬ ground organization Niepodległość (Independence - some¬ times also referred to as Nie, the Polish word for 'No') which he had set up in November 1943, and which was inten¬ ded to carry on a political struggle against the Soviet forces in Poland and the provisional government. In his order dissolving the AK, he stated that 'We do not want to fight the Soviets, but we will never agree to live except in an entirely sovereign, independent, justly-governed Polish state. The present Soviet victory has not ended the war.' (148) This left ambiguous the question of what sort of resistance was envisaged, and on 8 February the President of the London government, Wladisław Raczkiewicz, attempted to dispel the confusion by specifically declar¬ ing that all armed resistance had ceased. It proved dif¬ ficult to find a proper role for Nie and it was severely hit by the arrest of the leaders of the underground at the end of March 1945. As a result it was decided that it should be dissolved and a new conspiratorial organization created. From May to August this took the name of the Delegation of Armed Forces (Delegatura Sii Zbrojnych) and was finally given the name Wolność i Niepodległość) WiN Freedom and Independence). Its goals were primarily political and it called in May for the establishment of a new regime in which supporters of the provisional govern¬ ment would be in a minority, which would be followed by free elections. For the most part, it now took the view that a further continuation of the armed struggle would be counter-productive. It did set itself the task of 'liquidating particularly harmful persons' and of under¬ taking 'armed resistance to the nation's destruction as well as to the depopulation and devastation of the country'. Yet it also attempted to halt unco-ordinated resistance and issued two appeals pointing out the dangers of provoking the Soviets. (149)

95

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Following the Soviet offensive the Council of National Unity (RJN) and the government Delegatura decided to con¬ tinue as underground organizations. At the same time, their willingness to reach some compromise with the Warsaw authorities was increasing. On 22 February, for instance, the RJN announced that it was prepared to take the decisions of the Yalta conference as the basis for talks which would finally settle the Polish question. It also made clear its desire to forgo its underground acti¬ vities and to co-operate in the creation of the proposed government of national unity. (150) This put it clearly at odds with the London government which had rejected the Yalta decisions on 13 February. An even more concilia¬ tory approach was taken by the largest of the parties in the RJN, the SL ROCH. At a conference of ROCH and Peas¬ ant Battalion leaders on 11-12 March it was decided to allow local party organizations to come into the open, al¬ though this was shortly afterwards rescinded. The con¬ ference also resolved that an open confrontation with the Soviet Union could only lead to national extinction. The struggle was now a political one and the only way it could be effectively pursued was by accepting that the Yalta agreements meant that conspiracy had to be abandoned in favour of legal political activity. (151) The arrest of fifteen leading members of the underground parties toge¬ ther with the last commander of the AK at the end of March was a devastating blow to the underground organiza¬ tion from which it never recovered. Particularly galling was the failure of the western powers to respond to this Soviet provocation. According to the last delegate of the London government, 'In the place of excitement and ex¬ pectation there succeeded disappointment and deep depres¬ sion '. (152) The once powerful underground state was now in the throes of dissolution. Dissatisfaction was strongest in the SL ROCH although there were also conflicts within the PPS-WRN over the question of whether it was desirable to discontinue underground activities. On 30 April the SL ROCH succeeded in getting the RJN to call for the dismis¬ sal of the president of the London government, Władysław Raczkiewicz. Its motion calling for the dismissal of the Prime Minister Arciszewski failed, and in early May it withdrew from the RJN, though its representative Korboński remained government delegate until 27 June. Four days after his withdrawal, on 1 July, the RJN dissolved the Delegatura and itself, formally ending the existence of the underground organization. (153) While the anti-communist forces were, for the most part, becoming increasingly conciliatory, the PPR main-

96

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

tained the hard line it had adopted in October 1944. This was made clear by Gomułka in his speech at the party plen¬ um on 6 February. (154) Though he still maintained the importance of preserving the government coalition, he underlined also the leading role within it of the PPR: The democracy which the Polish nation is now building is a people's democracy, a democracy embracing the whole nation. The political expression of this fact is that it is based on the democratic national front, on the understanding of the four democratic parties which arose as a result of the initiative of our party.... Through the national front we wish to mobilize the whole nation to the great taks of rebuild¬ ing the country. Yet though he warned against 'sectarian attitudes' which held that the PPR should seek a political monopoly, he clearly underlined the dominant position of the party: The position and significance of our party in the Polish nation has grown enormously. The whole working class and the whole Polish nation looks today to us, to the Polish Workers' Party, and expects from us, above all, instructions and answers to various basic ques¬ tions.... The correctness of our assessment of poli¬ tical phenomena and the political far-sightedness of our party, which is derived from the Marxist character of the PPR, has created a situation where the PPR from the start was the leading party of the democratic front in Poland and was marked off from the other democratic parties. For our party, from the moment of its origin, put forward those ideas and political princi¬ ples which lie at the foundation of the Poland which is being reborn. Some new arguments were also presented to justify the position of the PPR. In the first place, 'we, as a party, traditionally represent a point of view favouring sincere and friendly co-operation with the Soviet Union'. Then 'our party is a party of the working class and the working masses of town and country and the leading role of the working class led by a Marxist party has been yet again confirmed by the great historical changes which are at present taking place in Poland'. Gomułka concluded his speech with a call for a further tightening of party discipline: We must build a party, a great party, based on healthy ideas and principles, a Marxist-Leninist party which will be able to unite the whole nation in pursuit of its objectives. This is why our party must be built on military principles ... military discipline is nec¬ essary.... The future is ours - our labour, our effort will form the face of the country.

97

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

Gomulka's warning against sectarianism was very much to the point. The party expanded from about 34,000 (22,000 in the liberated territories) to 300,000 members in the period between January and April, (155) and the rank and file were very prone to 'left-wing extremism'. They saw themselves as an embattled minority and were determined to impose their will on society. On 2 March 1945 the pro¬ vincial secretary of the PPR in Bydgoszcz reported that 'unhealthy sectarian tendencies have revealed themselves among the old comrades - they do not understand the reason for the democratic bloc'. (156) Similar criticisms were made by party provincial committees in Kraków, Lodz and Poznań. Some examples of what this 'sectarianism' meant in practice were given by Gomułka at the May plenum: The PPR propaganda department in Lodz applied to the Censor's office to find out whether permission was nec¬ essary for printing Democratic Party invitations. Party secretaries order SL groups to give notifications of all meetings. In one of the provincial security offices a song ending with the following words was sung 'Long live the Polish Soviet Republic'. The May Day proclamation of the district committee in Skierniewice stated, 'One nation, one party'. Similarly, according to Aleksander Kowalski, who had taken over as party secretary in the Krakow region from the hard line Włodzimierz Zawadzki 'in the Libiąż coalmine near Chrzanów a motion was passed on May Day urging Poland's incorporation in the USSR. It carried the stamp and sig¬ nature of the Town Council and the PPR' (document No. 75). The massive expansion of the party also brought into ranks many people who joined purely out of opportunistic motives. They often took a line which was regarded by the leadership as too conciliatory. Thus priests were even invited to bless party offices or standards and little control was exercised on the political credentials of applicants for party membership. The central commit¬ tee secretariat felt compelled to take steps to remedy this situation. On 24 April it issued orders on party organization, according to which party registration was to be subject to tighter control, as were applications for party membership. In addition 'all party members should be instructed to report in writing incorrect and censur¬ able actions by their comrades.... The central committee should set up a central commission to carry out a purge' (document No. 74). On 7 May, the central committee duly issued a circular 'concerning the question of regulating party membership and purging the ranks of the party of un¬ desirable elements. Commissions for party control were established and by July party membership had been reduced to 189,000. (157)

98

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

The main priority for the party was the revitalization of the economy. As Hilary Mine put it at the February plenum: If today the provisional government has real authority in the newly liberated territories, one of the reasons for this is its economic achievement in the previously liberated territories.... Compared to what has been achieved east of the Vistula our present tasks are much greater. What is Stalowa Wola next to Lodz, the Dąbrowa basin and Silesia? The question is, can we become masters of the country, can we solve all its economic problems in the way we have done east of the Vistula? The future of democracy and our victory hang on this (document No. 73). Economic recovery was difficult to achieve partly be¬ cause of the scale of wartime devastation. By 1945 nearly 65 per cent of all industrial plants had been des¬ troyed. (158) All heavy industry and many small and medium-sized factories were taken over by the state and there was a serious shortage of people with technical and managerial skills. The heavy wartime population losses (six million dead, half of them Jews) also hampered plans to revive the economy. A high percentage of those who had died had been urban dwellers and there was a serious shortage of skilled workers and artisans. The mass murder of Polish Jews, who had dominated trade before the war, also hampered the re-establishment of a smoothly functioning system of exchange. Little outside help was available and the government's commitment to an egalitarian wages policy, a product of the October turn, also hindered recovery. The government frequently asserted its desire to co-operate with private entrepreneurs in rebuilding the economy. According to Mine, in his February speech: As a democratic state, we cannot today directly take over all industrial production, agriculture and crafts. We cannot be like the dog that guards a pile of bones and denies them to others. We must set in motion all the minor production units which can create a structure of the economy which will permit the devel¬ opment of small market-trading peasants, the existence of kulaks and small urban businessmen and craftsmen (document No. 73). He placed particular emphasis on the role of co-opera¬ tives : Through co-operatives the state can control the inde¬ pendent capitalist elements. Hence co-operatives are the most accessible and satisfactory instrument for reaching the masses. They are the easiest way of

99

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

transforming the system. They are a means of control¬ ling private capitalism and are the mainspring of pro¬ gress . In practice, however, local party officials placed numerous obstacles in the way of the revival of private industry and did everything they could to hamper initia¬ tives by entrepreneurs. Some success was achieved in getting people back to work, and by May the number of industrial workers had risen to 370,000, about 60 per cent of the pre-war figure for the comparable areas of Poland. (159) This was a significant achievement although there were still some areas of high unemployment. The government was also able to extend over almost the entire country the single uni¬ fied currency which had been established by the PKWN and significantly reduce the rate of inflation. Yet produc¬ tivity remained very low. In April the index of indus¬ trial production had barely reached 19 per cent of its pre-war level and it only rose to 36 per cent by the end of June. (160) Wages too were very low, amounting to less than 10 per cent of their pre-war level in the first half of 1945. (161) The effects of the land reform, which was now extended over the whole country, the needs of the Soviet and Polish Armies and the malfunctioning of the supply system also created serious food shortages. Drastic measures had to be taken to deal with this prob¬ lem, such as the sending of workers’ brigades into the countryside to collect quotas from the peasantry. These measures were only partially successful and did not always alleviate discontent. According to Mine at the May plenum of the PPR, 'A month ago there was no bread in Lodz. Now the people demand dripping' (document No. 75). The difficulties of the economy and the discontent among the working class which this created inevitably affected other aspects of the government's industrial policy. This was the case with workers' councils which were seen by the party as a vital aid in winning the battle to raise productivity. (162) The decree on workers' councils which had caused so many problems was now introduced in February shortly after the liberation of the industrial areas of the country. It gave to the workers' councils far-reaching powers, including a degree of participation in management. At the February plenum. Mine strongly defended the granting of such large rights to the workers' councils. 'Our party', he claimed, ... must put a lot of emphasis on correct relations be¬ tween management and workers' representatives. The workers' representatives should be elected first and they should then decide who are to be the managers in

100

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

their factory. They must be given the power to say 'No, that man is bad, but this man is good’. As soon as the management is determined, the workers' representatives should operate within the framework of the rules governing workers' councils. This means one important thing: worker-management relations in our state factories will be very different from those in state factories at the time when politi¬ cal power was in the hands of the large capitalists. Workers will have a different attitude to work. They will know that they work for their own democratic state, for the whole nation, for society (document No. 73) . The new system did not work smoothly. Perhaps inevit¬ ably there was frequent conflict between the factory manager and his technical staff, who stressed the impor¬ tance of their expertise, and the factory council, domina¬ ted by manual workers, who felt that their role in manage¬ ment was being undermined. One of the principal issues over which the two sides clashed was incentive schemes and bonus payments, the councils favouring an egalitarian wages policy, while the factory management often hoped to use differentials to raise productivity. Indeed it has been argued by some Polish historians that the radicalization of the party line had led many workers to adopt an 'anarcho-syndicalist' position. (163) This was toler¬ ated as long as the party needed allies to aid in the im¬ plementation of its hard line, but was condemned at the May plenum as 'sectarian' and a barrier to industrial re¬ covery. There were also fears among the party leadership that the still-underground PPS-WEN would exploit anti¬ communist sentiments in areas where socialist support had been strong before the war to take control of workers' councils. Certainly one of the most effective leaders of the WRN, Kazimierz Pużak, was active in Silesia at this time. (164) Difficult problems were also posed by the trade union movement. By May, this had already expanded to a member¬ ship of 460,000, and in June its numbers reached 700,000. (165) Yet the party was increasingly alarmed at the extent to which the PPS was establishing itself in a strong position. According to Kazimierz Witaszewski, the PPR head of the Trade Union Central Commission, who repor¬ ted to the central committee secretariat on 23 June, We were in the majority in heavy industry, but we were weak amongst the intelligentsia. Party organizations did not sufficiently value the trade unions. There were only two PPR members out of nineteen on the fac¬ tory council at Stalowa Wola.... The PPS was trying

101

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

to take over the trade unions.... We should work towards a congress and strengthen the Trade Union Central Commission. His conclusions were noted by the central committee and Zambrowski conceded that 'Our Party has given the trade unions insufficient leadership' (document No. 79). Even more serious was the fact that in some areas eco¬ nomic difficulties and hostility to the communists had led to anti-government strikes and riots. According to the report of the Lodz party committee to the central commit¬ tee for April-May 1945: Against the background of food supply difficulties, strong tension of feelings in the factories. In the period of the report, especially in the past few days, a dozen or so brief strikes in Lodz, Pabjanice, Końskie.... The strikes last as long as the shopfloor meetings which the factory councils call as soon as the stoppage begins.... Factory cells display com¬ plete impotence towards the strikes. As a rule the meetings are very stormy: the workers and especially the women workers heckle the speakers; they shout 'Fine democracy when there's nothing to eat', 'The parasites stuff themselves as always and the worker starves', etc.... It is clear that the strikes are initiated by people sent in by the reaction¬ aries .... (166) These anti-government strikes were seen as a serious threat by the party. According to Stefan Wierblowski, speaking at the May plenum, they were 'the most important aspect of the crisis'. Gomułka, however, was less alarmed, arguing that 'Food riots do not indicate hostil¬ ity to the provisional government and a democratic Poland. The working class, or at any rate the bulk of it, supports the present system' (document No. 75). Attempts to build up the .communist League of Fighting Youth (ZWM) and also to establish a single overall youth organization continued. Neither was particularly suc¬ cessful. Indeed, it was only in July 1948 that a single youth organization was established. On 11 June Jerzy Morawski, one of the ZWM leaders, reported to the central committee secretariat. He stated that 'until now [the ZWM] had been more of a movement than an organization. A lot of the young intelligentsia belonged [as was the case in] Krakow; also petits-bourgeois, as in Lodz, where the factories were being penetrated with difficulty. The working class in Silesia was a healthy element. Half the ZWM came from the countryside, mainly from families with small-holdings. In certain areas there was a clear divi¬ sion; Wici - kulak youth; ZWM - poor youth. The cadres

102

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

situation was bad; some had moved to other organizations - Security, the army, etc.' In the discussion the party leadership complained that the ZWM spent too much time organizing entertainments and lacked an ideological platform. The need to set up a single youth organization was also stressed (document No. 76) . The land reform was now extended over the whole country. A few days after the beginning of the new Soviet offensive, the provisional government issued an appeal reaffirming the land reform decree of 6 September 1944 and calling on peasants and agricultural labourers to elect farm committees and land distribution commit¬ tees. (167) In central Poland, the problems posed by the implementation of land reform were similar in character to those in the area ruled by the PKWN. There was a short¬ age of land to be redistributed and most holdings were so small that even with the addition of extra land their economic viability was rather doubtful. In western Poland the situation was different. Here the agricultu¬ ral system was characterized by a three-fold division into large landowners, prosperous peasants, many owning quite large plots, and landless agricultural labourers. The land reform thus enjoyed more popular support and in addition it had strongly national and patriotic overtones since many of the landowners, and indeed of the large peasants, were of German origin. At the same time the area was highly efficient and produced a large agricultu¬ ral surplus, which the government was hoping to make use of to alleviate its supply problems. Thus at the February plenum it was decided to treat central Poland differently from western Poland. In cen¬ tral Poland it was accepted that the land reform should be carried out before the spring sowing on the spurious grounds that landowners east of the Vistula had sabotaged the winter sowing. In western Poland the central commit¬ tee stressed that the land reform was above all an act of national self-assertion. (168) In Zambrowski's words at the February plenum: ... [The] agrarian peasant revolution has another spe¬ cific feature in Poland, in that it is linked with a war of national liberation, with the struggle for libe¬ ration of the whole nation.... The nearer we approach the west, the more land reform becomes not only an ex¬ propriation of the landlords as a whole, but in ever greater degree it is directed against the Germans who expelled the Polish peasant from these areas and seized the land of both peasants and landowners (document No. 73, item 2, p. 412).

103

The beginnings

of communist rule in Poland

The land reform could not take place immediately be¬ cause the villages had been depopulated by the expulsion of Poles, and farms would first have to be restored to their former Polish owners. The highest priority, given the government's desperate need for agricultural produce, was the spring sowing, and party organizations were in¬ structed to mobilize Polish peasants and farm workers to compel the Germans still in these areas to participate in this. In the event the demand for land proved too strong and on 15 March the central committee had had to order all party organizations to carry out the reform before the spring sowing. In an attempt to ensure that crops would be adequately sown the new directive asserted that farm labourers would receive land only if they participated in the sowing. (169) From now on progress was fairly smooth and was largely completed by the summer. A start was also made in the handing out of land in the territories acquired from Germany, but this was only to take place on a significant scale after June. The results of the land reform are set out in Tables 3 and 4. Economically the results were rather similar to what had occurred in the areas under PKWN rule, although the amounts of land allocated to individual holdings were slightly larger than those originally made in eastern Poland. Basically too many small, unviable plots were created and the government kept a large amount of land (34.4 per cent) in its own hands to form the basis of a 'socialized sector' in the countryside. This land, had it been distributed, would have created more viable hold¬ ings, but would still not have resolved the problems of Polish agriculture. Indeed in the next few years the position of the peasantry did not improve markedly, par¬ ticularly since the price scissors moved strongly against the countryside. Compulsory deliveries continued and there was also far too little capital available for in¬ vestment in agriculture. An FAO agricultural mission which visited Poland between July and September 1947 argued that the most economic minimum size of a holding in Polish conditions was 10 ha, larger than most plots at that time. It also felt that efficient large farms of up to 25 ha were necessary if a significant agricultural sur¬ plus was to be achieved. Its judgment of the reform was damning. The type of subdivision which had been carried out merely converted the land from one uneconomic socially undesirable form of administration to another equally undesirable. It impoverished the former labourers by leaving them with new dwarf farms too small to provide

104

The beginnings of communist rule in Poland

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