DEFEAT IN VICTORY. The strong protests which the USA and Britain made to the campaign of intimidation, the wholesale arrests, the political murders, the suppression of the opposition by any and every means, were scornfully rejected by both the Polish and Soviet Governments. The meaning of this is clear : the East challenges the West. Stalin throws down the gauntlet. He knows that we dare not take the appropriate action to enforce our pledges. In the eloquent phrase of Jan Ciechanowski, Poland has suffered yet another "defeat in victory," and so has the cause of freedom everywhere. The Kremlin's purpose is to include Poland in a union that will be stronger than any alliance or dynastic union of the past, as part of a Pan-Slavic federation hitched to the USSR. This will give Russia hegemony over the Continent, especially if all, or the Eastern part, of Germany can be sovietized. The logic of events is that there will be an even more vicious campaign against the Peasant Party and the independent Socialists, and ultimately against the Church. Mikolajczyk and Zulawski are too popular to be arrested now and tried as traitors, and the Church is too powerful to be openly attacked. First their strength in the country must be whittled down. They will be more and more isolated. The PSL will be further split, and its rival the SL, fake peasant party which has been given governmental posts, will be built up. The SL, allotted 106 seats in the Sejm, was given Cabinet posts in order to create, as General Grosz candidly put it, " the appearance of a democratic coalition." But to murder Mikolajczyk now would be risking civil war. The next step is to manoeuver him out of the leadership of his party. His critic:s within the PSL have already been offered Cabinet posts if they will oust Mikolajczyk or bolt the PSL. Czeslaw Wycech and Wladyslaw Kiernik, who held posts in the pre-election Cabinet, are possible candidates. With the defiance of Britain and America by Soviet Russia and the puppet Polish Government, we are taken one step nearer to the inevitable showdown. The irreconcilable conflict be39 BibliotecaGino Bianco
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