'I forces which •Will. ·decid~-·Poland's future." The Government has p'romi~ed amnesties before-only to arrest·those who ~ame out of '4i4ing. 'Np body, believes· in its· pr?mises any more, especially '.after the terror in this " free and unfettered " election. It is certain that if the Government were a democratic and representative one, enjoying the confidence of the people and independent of Russian domination, most Poles abroad would return, and anti-Semitism and other manifestations of reaction could be wiped out, banditry would disappear, and Poland could take the road to drastic but sound social reform. But in Poland as elsewhere, the stronger the Communists become the greater the growth of Fascism. In addition to intimidation, dishonest counting of ballots, political assassinations, suppression of all civil liberties, the methods used to ensure in advance a PPR-PPS victory included voting en masse in an ostentatious, demonstrative manner, pressuring people to sign a pledge that they would vote for list number 3 (the Government Bloc), open rather than secfet voting, the use of the Army and Security Police in the campaign and in supervising the balloting so that citizens literally voted with a gun at their backs, locating election booths in places difficult for peasants to reach, and sundry other tricks unknown even to the worst machine politicians in America, which contributed to the mood of confusion, futility and fatalism which prevailed. One of the striking facts about the new Poland is the omnipresence of soldiers and policemen. Walking 12 blocks from the Hotel Polonia to the American Embassy, I counted all the males on the sidewalk between the ages of 15 and 50; 30 out of every hundted were in uniform. During the election they were everywhere ; in one polling place I counted 26 soldiers , , • with sub-machine guns slung on their backs, herding the dejected, unenthusiast(c voters along, scrutinizing every vote casfthere were no. screeri.s·behind which the citizen q:mld retire to place his ballot in the envelope. It was easy to tell hqw each person voted-if his ballot was folded so that the number on jt was not visible, it meant an anti-Government vote: · ·· In Cracow, 1 5,ooo PSL members were ane~ted on Ja~. 13 BibliotecaGino Bianco
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