Warsaw, Poland
Wars fade slowly in sore countries. In Poland, the war with Germany has barely ended. Warsaw and other Polish cities were splashed with posters and banners this past May when the 25th anniversary of the “defeat of fascism” was celebrated. Movie houses play the war films. Book stores display memoirs and histories of the great battles. Among points of interest recommended in tourist brochures in Warsaw is Palmyra cemetery where one can see the graves of 2,000 men, women and children shot by Germans. Auschwitz and Treblinka are preserved as infamous monuments to the war. The Polish -press gives special emphasis to trials of German war criminals (most recently that of Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka where 750,000 people were methodically executed). Plaques attached to Warsaw buildings record mass killings of partisans or civilian hostages. Many Poles refuse even now, a quarter century after World War II, to speak German. Almost everyone over the age of 35 has a personal recollection of brutality and atrocity at the hands of Germans. In all, they tell you, some six million people were killed in Poland, or about one of every six (and including most of three million Jews). On orders of Hitler, Warsaw was razed before German forces retreated; hardly a building survived.
That, then, is the starting point of recent history. The Warsaw rebuilt over the past 25 years reveals much of Poland’s privations, strivings and politics. Constructed in chunks and with little attention to beauty, Warsaw strikes the eye as barren and empty. It crouches low and flat. The headquarters of the Polish United Workers Party—the Communist Party—sits solidly on the main intersection of Nowy Swiat and Jerozolimskie streets, a bland, unimaginative structure typical of committee architecture. Far more imposing is Stalin’s gift to Poland, the 35-story Palace of Culture modeled after Moscow’s “Stalin skyscrapers.” It dominates Warsaw’s skyline, a testament to Poland’s enforced alliance with the Soviet Union, a monstrosity of taste, a proletarian cathedral without grace but durable. Warsaw will be with it for many decades.
To recapture its own past, Warsaw has also recreated from the postwar rubble the Old City. And in recent years, as the country’s industry revived and more money was alloted for consumers, the standard glass and steel forms have gone up. The Sawa department store high-rise apartment building complex in downtown Warsaw is representative of slow, though still insufficient, satisfaction of needs for the country’s 33 million people.
Clockwise: Party headquarters, the Palace of Culture and the Sawa department store in Warsaw.
Aside from a few shops where Poles can buy very high-priced foreign imports or domestic luxuries, Warsaw provides minimum comforts and conveniences. Poland has yet to step very far into the automobile age. Heavy, swept-back Warzawas do duty as taxis. The bureaucracy here, as elsewhere in eastern Europe, has provided itself with black Mercedes. The working man, with an income of 2,000 to 2,500 zlotys a month, pinches to buy a suit for 1,500 to 2,000, a refrigerator for 9,000 or shoes for 500 zlotys. The wage-price ratio produces the inevitable, a thriving black market for dollars. For the tourist, two or three offers a day is not uncommon, the going rate being 100 zlotys for the dollar, while the official tourist exchange rate is a fourth of that (plus a “bonus” of 16 zlotys in the form of coupons that can be spent in the Orbis tourist hotels and restaurants).
The relative poverty of consumer goods is balanced some by low-rent housing, government medical care, education and old-age pensions. And it is explained in part by the war devastation, the lack of capital and orientation of the Polish economy toward the Soviet Union. But there is also much inefficiency and waste. As in other east European countries, the central economic planning bureaucracy, with its unrealistic targets and guidelines, has proved over the past decade to be as much a hinderance as a help to economic growth. Poland is experimenting with economic reform, trying to free enterprises from minute control of central ministries, to develop a system of incentive bonuses and to manage the economy with the levers of credit, investment and taxation.
The Poles seem to realize that economic reform in an integrated, one-party system has political consequences. But the Polish leadership, no less than the Soviet, is unwilling to give up its authority. The result is a half-hearted effort at “rationalization” of the economy. A market socialism such as Yugoslavia is gradually putting together, and which Czechoslovakia was ready to attempt in 1968, has no admirers in Warsaw. In lieu of a more daring assault on overplanned economics, the Poles tinker with the mechanics.
No one seems to know precisely what is being done. Speaking in May at a party central committee meeting that dealt with the economy, First Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka put most stress on an incentive system which is supnosed to direct investment to profitable production and to encourage workers to perform more efficiently. In effect, the better the yield, the more the say. What remains to be tested when the “new principles” go into effect this January is whether individual enterprises or industrial groupings will be able to manage themselves without clumsy intervention of government ministries.
It is clear in any event that Poland does not intend to go very far in decentralizing decision-making power in the industrial economy. The farms, where half of the population still lives, remain mostly in private hands, the result of a 1956 decision to allow voluntary disbanding of collectives. Except for Yugoslavia, Poland is the only Communist country where private agriculture exists, but the system is more a paradox in Poland where industry is almost entirely under state control.
The private plots are, of course, a concession to Poland’s tradition and popular preferences. The same can be said for the Catholic Church which functions as a power in its own right under a strong-willed Cardinal Wyszynski. Warsaw photo shops exhibit pictures of children dressed for their first communion and when the cardinal delivers his major pronouncements, parish priests congregate with tape recorders. Estimates are that more than 90% of Poland’s population is Roman Catholic. Neither Gomulka nor any successor can avoid that fact and Gomulka, since he came to power in 1956 after the Poznan riots, has judiciously allowed the church its realm in return for peaceful coexistence. Although the regime and the church clashed in 1966 when the church celebrated its millenium, Gomulka and the cardinal seem now to have reached a truce.
As well, the aftermath of student protests in 1968, a purge of old guard party functionaries, the intense “anti-Zionist” campaign and an intra-party struggle between Gomulka and former secret police chief Mieczyslaw Moczar has left Poland in a politically stagnant state. Moczar still directs the Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy, a war veterans group considered strongly nationalistic. But, challenged by the party nationalists, Gomulka skillfully resisted, in part by conducting the “anti-zionist” campaign, and informed opinion now is that Moczar has been neutralized for the present.
However, he and Edward Gierek, a party Politburo nember, are mentioned as possible successors to Gomulka. Gierek, who spent most of his years until 1946 in France and Belgium as a Cormunist agitator and organizer, is 57, a year older than Moczar, with a background in industrial management. Moczar has come up through the internal ministry apparatus. The talk of succession is mostly speculative. Gomulka, who was 65 last February, has said nothing about relinquishing his position and until he does, or until he becomes ill or dies, the succession problem is one of those tonics much discussed, but about which no one knows much. Like the Soviet, the Polish Communist Party does not reveal its internal politics.
For the moment, a balance of forces and interests seems to have been struck. While the standard domestic problems weigh on the leadership—the housing shortage, agriculture, industrial growth—no one in Warsaw seems to feel that there is any major issue to stir factionalism in the party or to create popular unrest. Gomulka is sufficiently permissive that the youth can mimic their western counterparts within limits. They copy the dress, the hair styles, music and mannerisms, but are prevented from overt political protest. There is enough space within the censorship mechanism that writers and artists can have their say without too much distortion. A few Warsaw cabarets engage in political satire sufficiently low-key and short of the mark that it is basically harmless, while providing comic relief for more sophisticated Poles.
Generally, one gets the impression that the party leadership in Poland has avoided harsh cultural repression. While Gomulka acts more the authoritarian now than he did in the years immediately after 1956, he provides relief valves and thus is not faced with the situation of the Soviet leadership, where arrests and trials of dissidents are arousing protest among segments of the intelligentsia.
The only conspicuous movement is in foreign policy. Polish negotiations with West Germany on recognition of the Oder-Neisse line, the de facto frontier between Poland and East Germany, have advanced to the point that Poles are optimistic of achieving a long sought objective. The events that produced the present discussions go back a year when Gomulka, speaking in May, 1969, commented favorably on a statement by Willy Brandt, then West German Foreign minister and head of the Social Democratic Party. Gomulka noted Brandt’s and the SPD’s readiness to “respect and recognize existing frontiers in Europe, particularly the present western frontier of Poland, until the time the boundaries of Germany are finally determined by a settlement under a peace treaty…. “ But Gomulka, while admitting that the statement was an important change, said that Poland demanded recognition of the Oder-Neisse line “as final and inviolable without any reservations.”
Since then Brandt and the Social Democrats have come to power, Brandt as chancellor initiated his “eastern policy” and, as it involved Poland, State Secretary Georg Duckwitz has had three rounds of talks in Warsaw concerning the frontier issue, and a fourth was held in Bonn in June. The obstacle is a choice of wording. The Poles want clear recognition exmressed in such a way that there can be no hedging by the Germans in the future. The Brandt government has tried the words “acceptance” and “take note of” the Oder-Neisse line.
What is involved is German renunciation of any claim to about 40,000 square miles of territory to the east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. This area was assigned to Poland at the Potsdam conference pending a peace treaty with Germany. Thus, Poland was compensated in part for about 70,000 square miles of land incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1945. Most of the some five million Germans living in the western territories fled or were exiled and Poland now claims that the region is ethnically Polish.
In postwar years, West Germany has moved from a position (endorsed by Chancellor Adenauer) of firm refusal to ever recognize the Oder-Neisse line to the present conciliatory policy of Brandt. Brandt, of course, has opposition within his own country and Poles are aware of his difficult position. More in private discussion than in public, they acknowledge that Brandt has progressed far and that he expresses the majority of West German sentiments. PAP, the Polish news agency, reported in mid-May that the German magazine Sterneditorially advocated recognition of the frontier and cited a Stern-financed public opinion poll that gave support to this view.
Gomulka, in a speech on May 9, attempted to prod Bonn further: “Unfortunately, he (Brandt) is probably still afraid of making indispensable moves which would draw a distinct line between the policy of his government and the stand of the opposition which demands in practice a continuation of the former GFR government’s line towards the socialist countries. This issue cannot be dodged. And I think that the overwhelming majority of West German people want to close the pages of the past…”
If the border issue is settled, informed Poles believe that Poland will soon join the Soviet Union and Rumania in establishing diplomatic relations with West Germany. Although Warsaw has also advocated Bonn’s recognition of East Germany as a separate state, the Gomulka leadership now seems to place this question on a separate agenda. As for what Brandt would receive in return for a declaration on the Oder-Neisse frontier, the Poles say he will get nothing except “good will.” The question is not open to bargaining as far as the Poles are concerned.
Area outlined was assigned to Poland at the Potsdam conference, but never officially recognized in a peace treaty. This map, taken from a West German, magazine, indicates that the Polish-East German frontier along the Oder and Neisse rivers is tentative.
Given the wartime experience of Poland, not to mention a long history of conflict with Germany, it is understandable that Warsaw presses adamantly on the frontier issue. Until recognition is achieved, Poles say, the “revanchist” spirit will remain alive in West Germany and there always will exist the opportunity for an aggressive Germany to lay claim to a large section of Poland.
That the Oder-Neisse line separates East Germany (not West) and Poland does not really matter. For Poles think that West German acceptance of the frontier will symbolize a momentous change in that country, toward a more conciliatory policy, and thus provide a means for Poland to improve relations with western Europe.
A country situated on an immense, flat area stretching from the North Sea to Russia’s Ural mountains, Poland has for hundreds of years had to fend off either the Russians or the Germans. Its lack of natural barriers has made Poland a favorite battleground in Europe. In the postwar period, under Soviet hegemony, Poland has had very little room for diplomatic maneuvering. But if the country is ever to reduce its dependence on the Soviet Union, Poland must be able to improve its economic and political relations in the west. By “normalizing” relations with West Germany, the Poles glimpse the opportunity.
They are cautious, of course. Few Poles sympathized with Czechoslovakia’s attempted reform in 1968, not because liberalization was distasteful, but because they thought (rightly as it turned out) that the Soviet Union would not tolerate it. But Moscow is conducting its own negotiations with Bonn and thus it seems a propitious moment for Poland to do the same. Gomulka, it seems, does not want to be locked into a Soviet agreement that would, in establishing the status quo in Europe, prevent any chance for independent movement.
What is unclear at present is how tightly Polish policy is coordinated with Soviet and East German. Some observers believe that Moscow will not allow Poland to drift very far westward in its commerce and diplomacy. And East Germany scarcely wants Poland to eliminate its major difference with West Germany—the frontier—unless East Germany achieves recognition by Bonn. Officially, Poland demands that. But in private discussions with
Poles, one gets the impression, that they do not much care. They obviously have no enthusiasm for a reunited Germany (although this has become an academic subject). The enmity of Poles towards Germans seems to make no distinction between east and west.
The influence of the Catholic Church in Poland is evident in Warsaw street scenes.
Within Poland, Gomulka himself contends with perhaps moderate opposition to “normalizing” relations with West Germany. The military is reportedly cool to the policy. And some informed Poles contend that Gomulka is ahead of mass Polish sentiment in making any gestures of conciliation with Bonn. To modify public opinion, which for years was nurtured on the concept of a “revenge seeking” Germany, the Polish press has for the past year become more objective in its reporting of West Germany.
If Gomulka is successful, if Bonn recognizes the Oder-Neisse frontier, his position will be unassailable. But if for some reason negotiations collapse, Gomulka would be vulnerable to internal attack. He could be accused of misreading West Germany and of commiting himself to a delusion. That probably will not happen, but talk of this kind in Warsaw indicates how far in the view of some Poles Gomulka has gone, even if he appears intransigent elsewhere.
© 1970 Mark W. Hopkins
Received in New York on June 15, 1970.
Mark Hopkins is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner on leave from The Milwaukee Journal. This article may be published with credit to Mr. Hopkins, The Milwaukee Journal and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
