THE POLISH INTELLECTUALS
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been made a member of the Council of State. And the first directive
the Central Committee addressed to the party authorities after the
elections proclaimed the necessity to fight on two fronts-against the
Stalinists and against the "anarchistic-minded" elements among the
intelligentsia.
It cannot be said that the general tone of the Polish literary press
has changed, in the face of these warnings. But the party leadership
has restored to censorship the authority it had lost. Needless to say, it
is no longer the old Stalinist censorship: it is inspired by strategic
rather than ideological considerations. It no longer portrays itself as
the instrument of a dogma, but as a manifestation of prudence required
for "reasons of state." (There is a joke about this in Warsaw: What is
the difference between Yugoslavia and Poland? In Yugoslavia it is
permitted to attack the Soviet Union but never Yugoslavia, while in
Poland you are free to attack Poland, but never the Soviet Union.) The
little Torquemadas have thus been transformed into little Machiavellis.
There is often even a certain complicity between the journalist or
writer and the censor, the latter pretending that he shares the view
to which he forbids publication under the pretext of safeguarding its
potential future. Nevertheless, this censorship, as is always the case,
generates an instinctive self-censorship in the writer. Thus a new con–
formism is taking shape, one that is subtle and difficult to define. There
is
no question in Poland of a return to Stalinism, nor even of imposing
a uniform theory of Polish "socialism." In a totalitarian state, the
writer's problem is a simple one: either he continues to write, giving
himself body and soul to the dictatorship, or he is silent at his own
risk and peril. But Poland is no longer a totalitarian state. "I think
that we are moving toward a leftist
Sanacja,"
a Polish writer told me
recently, referring to the authoritarian pre-war Polish government that
succeeded Pilsudski. It is quite difficult to find the "right tone," even
for a born conformist, in an authoritarian country governed by a single
party, which is within the Communist bloc, and which nevertheless
avails itself of freedom of expression.
The truth is that the Polish intellectual Left is in a particularly
difficult situation. On the one hand, it runs the risk of being disavowed
by the regime it helped to establish. On the other hand, it is a target
for continual attacks from Polish Catholic, nationalist, and anti-Semitic
reactionaries, whom the government and the party try to spare and to
conciliate for strategic and demagogic reasons. The recent agreement
between the vomulka government and the Church
is
certainly welcome
i
