agree with the verdict of more than fifty observers from the staffs of the American and British Embassies-that the election was fraudulent and accompanied by intimidation, a complete violation of the Yalta promise. (This verdict was unanimous, that is, except for correspondents of the Soviet Press agency TASS, from the Communist Press, the Federated Press, the Overseas News Agency, and, of course, Ralph Ingersoll of PM). Now there should remain no slightest doubt in the minds of even the pseudo-liberals who always seek to find excuses for Soviet imperialism, as to exactly what the Communists mean by "democracy." Added to the evidence of elections in other Soviet-dominated countries, the proof is overwhelming that in any truly free election in any nation occupied by the Red Army the Communists can obtain only a small minority of the votes. The Soviet Press unanimously hailed the election as a model of democratic procedure, and said that in view of Mikolajczyk's link with the underground bandits and foreign imperialists, permitting the PSL to run at all was almost unwarranted magnanimity (Pravda, Jan. 2.0). While the Polish Communists do not dare go so far as to say that the PSL and the bandits actually work closely together-they only charge collaboration on the fringe of the PSL and underground-the Moscow papers directly accuse the entire party with identifying itself with the bandits, and hold Mikolajczyk responsible for all the murders and thefts committed by the criminal elements of the underground. Pravda's Warsaw correspondent Polevoi also confirms the fact that balloting was not secret ; he boasted that workers from factories voted en masse displaying their ballots marked number 3. Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald-Tribune, Sidney Gruson of the NY Times, Robert Conway of the Chicago Tribune, Christopher Buckley of the London Telegraph, Toni Howard of Newsweek, G. E. R. Gedye of the London Herald, William Forrest of the London News Chronicle, the AP and UP and many others have described in detail how the electoral campaign was run and how the voting was rigged to ensure a Government Bloc victory. These reports have been confirmed 10 BibliotecaGino Bianco
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