THE POLISH INTELLECTUALS
253
by the Poles from what they thought was the actual practice in Yugo–
slavia. But the Poles, so long cut off from Yugoslavia, could not have
known that Tito's workers' councils existed only on paper. We have
here a curious historical phenomenon: the influence of a myth on
which Stalin's condemnation of Tito had conferred the prestige of
reality.
Up until the January elections the intellectuals speaking in the
name of the party's "democratic left" were Gomulka's most reliable
and useful alIies. Their passionate appeals, the hopes they voiced, the
complete freedom with which they discussed the thorniest questions con–
tributed a great deal to the overwhelming vote of confidence the Poles
gave Gomulka. But Gomulka's internal policies reflect the dilemma
I have mentioned above. To preserve his recently acquired independence
of the Soviet Union, he must combat his worst enemies, the Polish
Stalinists; but he must combat them in a subtle way, as tactfully as
possible.
It
seems that each step toward greater autonomy must be
balanced by a concession to those Polish Communists who enjoy the
Kremlin's real confidence, and each measure that decreases the power
of the Stalinists must be balanced by "warnings" addressed to the most
"reformist" Communists-that is, principally, the intellectuals.
In the months preceding October, 1956, the Natolin group, as the
Polish Stalinists are called, sought popular support by promising to raise
the standard of living by 50 per cent (instead of the 30 per cent aimed
at by Gomulka)-a gratuitous and unrealizable pledge, and by promis–
ing to effect a purge along racist, anti-Semitic lines, in the party leader–
ship and the administration. The Stalinists made a rapid comeback after
their defeat in October. True, the replacements in the government
line-up as a result of the October revolution led to other shake-ups,
in the ministries, in all the administrative departments. In the plants,
the workers rid themselves of their Stalinist managers by putting them
in wheelbarrows and transporting them outside. A whole class of "has–
beens" was created in Poland-bureaucrats who had suddenly lost their
jobs, their high salaries, their apartments, cars, secretaries. But it may
be said without exaggeration that the democratization of the Com–
munist world would be greatly facilitated if the executioners of yester–
day could be guaranteed not merely impunity but also sinecures. The
Poles know from their history how dangerous a social group whose
material interests make it dependent on Russia can be. At the end of
the eighteenth century the feudal lords forming the Targowica Con–
federation/ frightened
by
the agitation for refollIl that was to result
