Liston M. Oak - Free and unfettered

Antoni Zdanowski, colleague of Zulawski and famous trade union leader, was also a candidate on the PSL list number 4. His name was taken off because he was accused of being a leader of the WRN (" Freedom, Equality, Independence") resistance to the Nazis. The irony is that he was not-but his accusers, including Cyrankiewicz, were WRN leaders, who have since become " Government Socialists " and dropped their opposition to Communism. In a village near Warsaw there were 2,073 on the registration books as eligible voters after all "unreliables " had been crossed off. Of these, 1,640 actually voted, II 5 of them for the PPRPPS Bloc, the others for the PSL. This was one of the few districts where the PSL had watchers, and in addition there happened to be an honest PPS member on the board. They report that they received written instructions as to what the final count should be. The PSL in this case was to be allowed 750 votes. But the UB overruled the instructions and told the board to allot only 17 votes to the PSL, and 2,000 to the PPRPPS coalition-more than the total of ballots cast. A gigantic red and white sign spanned the main street of many villages, reading : " Vote for the Democratic Bloc number 3 or Mikolajczyk will take away your land and your cow." Another slogan was : " A vote for the PSL is a vote for the Anglo-Saxon rearmament of Germany." Another "Mikolajczyk and the Anglo-American warmongers want to rob us of our reconquered Western territories." The Jan. 18 issue of Mikolajczyk's paper, Gaz.eta Ludowa, would have carried the following headline, if the censor had permitted: "Go and vote secretly. Listen only to your own conscience. The Constitution guarantees secrecy." But this counsel was deleted. Editors of PSL and Catholic publications told me that during the campaign from 50 to 75 per cent of what they wanted to print was cancelled by the censor. Also, they could get only a small fraction of the newsprint allotted to the PPR and PPS papers. Similarly, PPR and PPS posters were everywhere, but no PSL posters could be found It seems that even the Virgin Mary has become a fellowtraveller riding the wave of the future, In Lodz, a four-page 15 BibliotecaGino Bianco

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