THE PROTEST OF POZNAN
AST week's working-class revolt in the Polish town of Poznan seems to have followed fairly closely the pattern of the East German rebellion of 1953. There, too, what began as a demand by workers for better pay and conditions of work was turned into open insurrection by the attempts of local security forces to suppress the movement. There, too, the rebels were crushed by the intervention of overwhelming military force. And in Poland as in East Germany the disturbances followed on a relaxation of Communist policy. It remains to be seen whether the repression will be equally ruthless. The Polish Prime Minister, Mr. Cyrankiewicz. has stated that his Government would not stop 'the process of democratisation of Poland's political life,' and a certain amount of moderation does seem to have been exercised so far. Trybuna Ludu has said that the workers' demands were justified, but that 'foreign organisations' operated within the demonstrations organised to support those demands. On the other hand, the total number of dead in the fighting certainly comes to far more than the latest official figure of forty-eight (some estimates put it at 300), and many of these casualties were probably rioters caught with arms and shot out of hand. It seems probable that various Polish resistance groups took advantage of the situation, and it is highly unlikely that any mercy will be shown to them.
These events must pose once again for the rulers of Eastern Europe the revolutionary dilemma stated in its most lapidary form by Saint-Just : 'Un gouvernetnent a la vertu ,pour Principe; ninon la terreur. Que veulent ceux qui ne veulent ni la vertu ni la terreur?' If relaxation of the terrible pressure exercised by Communist States on their citizens is followed by blind outbursts of protest, how can the necessary evolution of society proceed except in convulsions? And, if it does not proceed, what alternative is there to a rigid terrorism of the Stalinist pattern? The leaders of Poland were committed to a policy of liberalisation (far in advance of that practised in the other 'Popular Democracies,' where the results of the Twentieth Congress have made themselves felt to a lesser degree). It is yet too early to say exactly what the results of Poznan will be, but the rising must surely have put weapons into the hands of those Communist leaders who are opposed to the 'democratisation' policy, which has been adopted, willy-nilly, by Mr. Khrushchev.
There is, indeed, already some evidence to that effect. A decree of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party speaks of Stalin in terms noticeably less harsh than those of Mr. Khrushchev's speech to the Twentieth Congress and also declares that 'capitalist and imperialist elements' are trying to take advantage of his dethroning. The Poznan riots are instanced as an example of this. In Hungary the Government has warned 'enemies of the party' who, at recent meetings, have criticised the leadership of Mr. Rakosi, the First Secretary of the Party, while from both Rumania and Bulgaria there are reports of reaction against the recent orgy of self-criticism.
Of course, the maintenance of the 'soft' line is by no means certain. A struggle is felt to be going on within the Soviet system, whose stages are only dimly to be perceived from the West, but on whose outcome will depend the future course of Communist policy. Whatever we may think of the B. and K. combination, there is no doubt that it is infinitely preferable to have a Soviet foreign policy bent on lowering world tension than one creating war psychosis throughout the world. The threat to Western interests may be greater in the long run, but the risk of catastrophe is less. The danger of incidents like Poznan is that they might enable the `hard' faction within the Soviet leadership to eliminate the moderates, and, while this would simplify ;'le tasks of Western diplomacy, to welcome . it would be to inaugurate a politique du pire, whose outcome could neither be foreseen nor controlled.
The attitude of the West to events like the East German and Poznan risings involves one of the most painful moral choices imaginable. For those who died in Poznan there must be pity and honest indignation.. Their fate is symptomatic of the impotence of the individual in the grip of the modern State. For it is the merest wishful thinking to imagine that any Communist government in Eastern Europe can be over- turned without a world war. The best that can happen is that there may be an internal evolution leading to better conditions. The nature of that evolution is still obscure, but it seems likely that even those opposed to the present regimes in the `Popular Democracies' would accept by and large the economic struc- ture introduced by Communism, and that the burning question is the old one of civil liberties. Any progress on these lines can only be hindered by Poznan, but since the West is not willing to pay the price of war to support resistance to the present Polish regime, it is morally bound to abstain from judgement on the actions of those who oppose Communism from within. We cannot ask others to risk death if we are not prepared to do so ourselves, but neither can we fail to render homage to men fighting for liberty. The tragedy is that so many should die in vain.
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