When Cyrankiewicz took the first disastrous step down the steep slippery slope that ends in Bolshevism, he made himself so dependent upon Soviet Russia that he cannot avoid subsequent steps downward. He is already an unwilling prisoner of the Kremlin, and it seems unlikely that circumstances will give him a chance to escape. Like the Russian Mensheviks who similarly took the first step-Maiski, Vishinsky, etc.-he will take the final step into the Communist trap. But for those who would understand the nuances of Polish politics, it must be made clear that there is a difference between Cyrankiewicz, Premier and leader of the official Socialist Party, and Jacob Berman, Communist Under-Secretary of State, and between Rusinek, Socialist secretary of the Polish trade unions and Minister of Labour, and Hilary Mine, Minister of Industry. Certainly the PPS hopes for withdrawal of the Red Army at an early date. Few Poles, except Moscow-trained Communists, are happy under Russian control. And even the Communists desire at least a degree of autonomy. The Socialists really want independence and. will make a feeble and probably futile effort to resist complete Sovietization. In writing this I am revealing no secret unknown to the Polish Communists. I suspect that the shrewd, crafty Bolsheviks, Berman and Mine and Gomulka, regard Cyrankiewicz as a more difficult opponent than Mikolajczyk, for he operates in Machiavellian ways familiar to them, and does not place his trust in the Western democratic powers which have betrayed Mikolajczyk,· and Poland. The capitulation of Cyrankiewicz to terms dictated by Stalin was due largely to the ugly fact that he was smart enough to know that the United States and Britain would not give effective support to Mikolajczyk such as Russia gave to the Communists. Hard-boiled realist, Cyrankiewicz drew the logical conclusions and made a deal. If he is a traitor to social democratic ideals, our policy of appeasement has made him play that role, just as our policy has made martyrs of Mikolajczyk and · Z'ulawski; though they are not yet jailed or shot. If you were a· Pole, ·lpved your country and desired neithe; to be a martyr or·an emigre, what course would you chose? 24 BibliotecaGino Bianco
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