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in favor of strengthening the socialist system" he has taken a longer
stride away from the Leninist and Stalinist conception of the poli–
tical dictatorship of the minority Communist Party than he is aware
of. When he also calls for the revitalization of the Sjem, its assump–
tion of greater legislative tasks, and control over the work of the
government and state organs, when he proclaims that "In my opinion
Sjem control over the executive organs of state power should be
exercised by an institution subordinated directly to the Sjem and not
to the government as has been the case up to now," who can fail
to hear with his inner ear, despite the uncertain words and reluctant
tone, the voice of parliamentary democracy? That voice is muffled
and fearful, to be sure, lest it be overheard by the Kremlin, inter–
preted as an abandonment both of socialism and the Warsaw Pact,
and serve as a pretext for Soviet invasion.
All Gomulka need say explicitly to promise the restoration of
political democracy as we understand it, is that in the legally recog–
nized competition among political parties to achieve the best system
of social justice, all proposals can be put forth,
even
proposals to
abandon socialism. It would be unreasonable to expect him to go
as far as this at once, especially if socialism is defined as "social jus–
tice"-since this makes everybody a socialist. In the end, a demo–
cratic society must go this far, but the task today is to win vic–
tory for the right to propose different roads to socialism
within
Poland. In such a situation the Communist Party, or any other,
would have to win its leadership, and not claim it merely in virtue
of the fact of dictatorship.
As if he were reading the minds of his listeners, Gomulka as–
sures his fellow Communists that "we shall not allow anyone to use
the processes of democratization to undermine socialism." Now, how
does anyone go about "undermining" socialism if one really believes
in, and employs, the processes of democratization? Actually, Gomul–
ka's fear is not so much that democracy will undermine socialism as
that it will undermine the Kremlin's patience. Capitalism is largely
an anachronism, anyway, in countries that have existed for a decade
under Communist rule. Even in a country like England, the Con–
servatives accepted a good deal of the socialized sector of industry
because of the social costs involved in returning it to private hands.
Many of the moves away from total or extreme collectivization
