ZYGMONT ZULA WSKI'S FIRST SPEECR IN THE NEW PARLIAMENT IN WARSAW, February 8th, 1947. (CENSORED PASSAGES ARE IN HEAVY TYPE). It is 12 years since I last mounted this rostrum. For the first time I now take part, as an independent Socialist, in the debate on the declaration of the new Government, which, in effect, is nothing new, but represents the continuation of the same political thought that was revealed already in Lublin. 1 And were it not for the ruins which surround me, were it not for the absence of my old comrades-in-arms, Barlicki, Niedzialkowski, Czapinski, Lieberman, Piotrowski, Dubois, Ziemiecki and others, together with whom I fought against the totalitarian schemes of the "Sanacja," 2 were it not for the knowledge that, in the meantime, a monstrous storm had passed over our heads-I would say that nothing had changed here. It is the same Chamber, the same compact majority, drunk with power and victory, the same ideas, propagated then by the "Sanacja" Bloc and today by the Democratic Bloc according to which " forces of Polish democracy took on themselves all responsibility before the Nation," the same commonplace slogans about " everything creative and healthy in the Nation having joined forces within the Democratic Bloc," exactly on the pattern of the "Camp of National Unity "3 of old days, the same proud boasts about the achievements of the Government in the field of Poland's construction or re-construction. The same weak opposition which to-day-as in those days-is being accused of inability to do anything constructive, but of vainly repeating again and again the same complaints about the lawlessness of the authorities, about arrests, electoral abuses and the violation of the freedom of speech and of the Press. And finally, in the same way as it 1 Zulawski refers to the '•Polish Committee of National Liberation" P.K.W.N., better known as the "Lublin Committee," brought into Poland in July 1944, in the wake of the advancing Russian armies, to become the Russian-sponsored Provisional Government of Poland. • "Sanacja "-a nick-name for the regime of Pilsudski and his followers. 3 A Semi-Fascist organisation created by Pilsudski's followers after his death. 45 Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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