Pinhole Protest

There are Polish apples unobtainable by Polish children . . . there are boys forced to lie, there are girls forced to lie, there are people who are blackened and spat at, there are people who are robbed in the streets . . . by thugs for whom legal definitions are sought,

there are people waiting for papers . . . t here are people waiting for justice. . . . we appeal for locks that fit the door,

for rooms with windows, for walls which do not rot, for contempt for papers, for a holy human time for a safe return home . . .

When a Polish Communist poet (Adam Wazyk) can publish such eloquent and disturbing words in a Polish Communist journal, something is astir in Communist Poland.

Poland, the largest (pop. 26 million) of Russia's six European satellites, is in political ferment. In the past two months, nine cabinet ministers and two top justice officials have been fired from their jobs. Last week Vice Premier Jakub Berman, long regarded as Moscow's No. 1 man in Poland, resigned because of his "mistakes." Poland, stoutly Catholic, staunchly anti-Russian, has proved a hard outpost to rule.

Unforgotten Crimes. The mistakes Moscow has made in Poland date back to 1938, when Dictator Stalin liquidated almost the entire leadership of the old Polish Communist Party. The Stalin-Hitler pact, by which Germany and Russia partitioned Poland for spoils, the massacre of 10,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk in 1940, the failure of Russia to aid the underground Polish armies, and the deliberate stand-off by the Red army during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis in 1944, are Russian crimes which Poles do not easily forget. Nor, apparently, do Polish Communists. The recent downgrading of Stalin by Moscow's "collective leaders" has given them a golden opportunity, by joining the anti-Stalin chorus, to attack Russia. In no other satellite has anti-Stalinism been so violent or so vociferous.

Instead of cautiously downgrading the "cult of personality," the Polish Communist press has called Stalin almost every name in its considerable vocabulary of vituperation. It has accused him of murdering Polish leaders. His record as a war strategist has come in for contemptuous reappraisal, his pact with Hitler bitterly criticized, and suspicion cast on his (or Russia's) failure to help the Polish Home Army. In the course of explaining why they had not exposed the Stalin evil earlier, young Polish Communist intellectuals have self-accusingly described in detail their previous efforts to twist historical facts into the party line.

Reported TIME'S Correspondent Flora Lewis from Warsaw last week: "At the center of the new movement are Polish intellectuals, either Communists or sympathizers, most of them fairly young. Behind them are amorphous groups of youngsters, university students and veterans of the underground war against the Nazis, whose pent-up resentment needed only a pinhole through which to escape." Last week the pinhole threatened to become a full-sized blowhole as letters poured into newspapers from agonized young Poles describing how they now had "no foundations for believing anything." Typical was a moving letter from an 18-year-old student, Michael Bruk. Excerpts:

"When I was ten I was told that my beloved brother Lech was killed in the Warsaw uprising for a falsehood. When I was ten I ceased to believe in the hitherto sacred word Fatherland. When I was 15 I ceased to believe in God. God had proved to be an ally of the murderers of Lech. For long hours I knelt in a dark, empty church. The day finally came when the cross became to me only a piece of wood.

"A friend five years older than I gave me help. He was a Communist. These were my happiest years. I rushed from one meeting to another. I believed.

"Now I am 18. It has turned out that what my family said was true--about the cruelty of secret police investigations and about the dictatorship of Stalin. It has turned out that history was really forged. And I? I do no know how to change my soul for the fourth time without fear that it will become a rag."

Out of Hand? In party circles there was violent and (for the first time) anonymous criticism of every phase of the Communist effort. When First Party Secretary Edward Ochab warned against allowing criticism to develop into "hysteria," a young Communist replied in a letter to a newspaper that talk of hysteria was no more than an attempt to stifle criticism.

Ochab is not the only top Polish Communist to fear that relaxation of controls may be getting out of hand. Some older Communists are continually putting the brakes on; others do not agree that the past was wrong, and although they are willing to accept some changes, they are still clinging to the old line.

Jakub Berman. a onetime Stalin hatchetman, was one of the leading old-line Communists. Round-faced, quick-witted, Berman served on the Moscow end of the Polish Communist apparatus until the end of World War II, when he moved into Warsaw. Multilingual Berman lied smoothly to Western reporters in four languages, while he masterminded the ousting of Peasant Party Leader Stanislaw Mikolajczyk in 1947 and the later disbanding of some 100,000 Socialists. It was not clear last week how far Berman has been downgraded, but the effect of his official firing is a victory for the younger party members.

Moscow's encouragement of anti-Stalinism, for all its unpredictability, is leading optimistic young Poles to expect many more, possibly faster and bigger, changes. The police apparatus is already less noticeable, check points on routes into Warsaw have been removed, a few passports for travel abroad are being issued, and party members are acting more humanly.

The descent from cloudland is still relative. Reported Correspondent Lewis: "Even though Polish Communists will admit in conversation that the mass of people is against the regime, they do not consider this a reason for deposing it. It is important to remember that so far ordinary Poles are not involved in the changes that are taking place. They are scarcely interested. They long ago slumped into complete apathy about the inner machinations of Communist politics and devoted their thought to the problems of getting food, housing and shoes. Living standards in Poland are better now than they were a year or two ago, but they are still pathetically low, and there are little prospects for any quick improvement. Until this breaking strain is eased, the majority of Poles are not likely to consider the sudden appearance of a critical press, the emergence of some liveliness in the theater, and the beginnings of debate in Parliament as being very important."

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