by Ambassadors Arthur Bliss Lane and Victor CavendishBentinck. Repetition is like flogging a dead horse, but I want to add a few details to the picture they have painted. Some of the following incidents I witnessed, others were seen by persons in whom I have confidence, but whose names cannot be cited for obvious reasons. For the election period, orders went out to the ubiquituous UB, the Security Police (estimated strength, II8,ooo, according to Berman), to ignore the electoral law and permit foreign correspondents to enter polling places. Only a few of us experienced any interference with our freedom of movement. The whole campaign followed faithfully the familiar pattern \ of Communist " democracy "-a united front was formed under i) terms dictated by the Communists ; the opposition was split \ by organising fake Socialist, Peasant and Christian Labour parties; those who refused to surrender were branded as traitors, Fascists, anti-Semites, in league with the underground and with im- \ perialist warmongers abroad. Oppositionists were daily castigated in the Press, over the radio, at meetings, and in posters plastered on every wall. Any means is justified against individuals and parties so characterized-everyone who blocks the revolutioriary road must be ruthlessly removed. So I was told by Cyrankiewicz, and so other PPS and PPR leaders stated in forthright terms. Nothing was permissible which threatened to defeat the regime in power. Cyrankiewicz, Bierut, Osubka-Morawski, Gomulka and other leaders of the Government Bloc frankly justified the drastic measures taken to ensure victory for " democracy " as they conceive it-to prevent "the unpleasant fantasy," as Osubka put it, of a PSL triumph.· The official attitude was that in the midst of a revolution we cannot stop to argue interminably, we cannot afford the luxury of " soft " democratic procedure as practiced in Britain and America. Anyone who stands in our way must be removed. Those who are not with us are against us. Russia is our only trusted friend, the protector of our Western frontiers. Geography and ideology dictate an Eastern orientation. The industrial workers, who are a minority in this agricultural land, are our main support, and more weight must 11 BibliotecaGino Bianco H'or riazione Alfred Le" u Jlioteca Gino Bianee
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExMDY2NQ==