.. :·:, \ ,I ·.;~ . ,.f, :,; :; . ·~ -. ., .. . .it'-! . • f ' /.t',.' ' . ·-1 The tragedy of Poland, as Dorothy. Thompson ha~ ,iiitten, is that those democratic Polish forces which fought{ ~gafpst Nazism, and before that against the pre-war dictatorillJJ;>s,are not the forces ruling Poland today. Those Poles who arc.,¾:arry,ing on the campaign of coercion are Poles who were bein& ~rained in Russia for their present role during the Nazi 6ccuRation. But all the terror and torture which they have employeq oh a wholesale scale has not cowed the Polish people...Lyet. They still struggle and hope for aid from the Anglo-American, world. If legal opposition is now crushed, as seems probable, there will be a vast increase of illegal opposition in the underground. Poles who have a centuries-old tradition of struggle for in.depend- · ence will not easily surrender, even though the UB,. backed by the NKVD, is far more efficient than the Gestapo, or \he Okrana in Tzarist days. Poles have an incredibly strong will-to-resist. Berman's promise to abolish the UB within the year .is sheer demagogy ; if the Security Police go, and the Red Army is with-. drawn, the Government will collapse as did the "autonomous" government of Azerbaijan in Iran. We must not let the Poles down. We cannot abandon them to totalitarian Communism or Fascism. Protests .should continue, encouragement should be extended to the democratic forces, and Russia must be compelled to retreat. The !}ext step is to present the whole problem to the United- Nations Security ,Coundi. If it cannot stop Soviet imperialism in Central and Eastern Europe, it cannot solve any conflict whatever, and we will continue to drift toward war. ' · If we " drop " Mikolajczyk and all that he symbolizes, for the sake of expediency and to get a better bargain in Germany, we may as well drop the pretence of upholding the principles of the Atlantic Charter and all our fine promises and impose _onour part of the world a Pax Americana as Russia has 1mposed on the Soviet sphere a Pax Sovietica. If we are too weak or too cowardly to rescue Poland, let us at least drop our hypocrisy, and prepare for the war which Russian aggression and our, weakness and appeasement are making inevitable. If we give the kiss of death to Polish aspirations,_let us kiss goodbye to the hope for enduring peace. .Poland remains the test. · ·· 41 BibliotecaGino Bianco
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