THE WARSAW COUP
By J. E. M. ARDEN
AT the height of Communism's postwar victories, George Orwell wrote flatly that its system 'will either democratise itself or it will perish.' He admitted that he could not say how these regimes would destroy themselves. But we can now see in Poland and Hungary the ways in which a totali- tarian regime can collapse.
The totalitarian State is an apparatus designed to make one man or a small group in the right place the equivalent in social dynamics of a whole class in the freer societies about which Marx wrote. It may be compared to the fulcrum Archimedes asked for by which one man could move the world. There is nothing new in the fact that the Hungarian and Polish peoples are almost 100 per cent. anti-Soviet. But the same can be said of the other Eastern European peoples. Indeed, the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Anton Yugov, rather naively admitted as much the other day when he said that his regime's rapid suppression of an abortive campaign for freedom of speech in the party newspapers saved Bulgaria from becoming another Hungary. So long as the totalitarian apparatus is performing its function, the masses opposed to it are unable to get into action. Thus, analysis of such details as manoeuvres within the Central Committee is not merely an interesting hobby of Kremlinologists, but a social study quite as important as reviews of the movements of the masses.
We at last know definitely what happened in Poland. The rumours about an attempted coup d'etat against Gomulka by the Stalinist faction have been confirmed in a broadcast over Radio Gdansk by the delegate of the Shipyard Party Com- mittee. He traces the events in Warsaw first of all to the fact that at the Zeran Motor Works Khrushchev's 'Secret Speech' was made available to all workers by the local party secretary. As a result, 'after an outburst' the Zeran workers, followed by the rest of Warsaw. became the storm troops of the anti- Stalinist movement. At the time of the decisive October meet- ing of the Central Committee Zeran workers maintained con- tact with the 'progressive section' of the Central Committee. `They met them secretly in private houses,' and 'they had their men everywhere.' During the night of October 18-19 they `intercepted a list from which it appeared that the Natolin group [the Stalinists on the Politburo] had decided to arrest in Warsaw members of the Central Committee, progressive Communists, comrades from Zeran, in all a group of seven hundred persons.' The 'progressive' leaders then went into hiding, and bodyguards were formed to protect Gomulka and others.
`Suspicious troop movements started now'—a fairly tactful description of the attempt to support the projected coup with Russian arms (though the speaker specifically names Marshal Rokossovsky as one of the plotters). But the Polish security troops took the side of 'progress,' and Gomulka's men had `prepared leaflets urging the army to co-operate,' which it did. As we know, the failure of the actual coup and the preparedness of the Polish forces made the Russians hesitate to move in. And the victory of Gomulka, supported by mass demonstrations, was assured—a sort of coup de Prague in reverse. (The previous methods of the Soviet leaders are revealed by the speaker when he states that Khrushchev had personally intervened to prevent the election of the non Stalinist, Zambrowski, to the Polish Party Secretariat.) The Gdansk broadcast did not give details of how the Stalinists' plans fell into Gomulka's hands. It has been stated that a copy went to an official of the security police whom the Stalinists believed to be loyal to them, but who had actually gone over to Gomulka. In any case, it was clearly the merest of accidents, and we see by what a small technical error the Russians failed to destroy the Polish movement. In Communist circumstances, important historical changes hang on these details.
This is not to say that a Stalinist coup supported by Soviet armies would not have met with bitter resistance from the Polish masses. just as in Hungary. But the masses had already been aroused in both countries by Soviet manoeuvres which were themselves the results of the struggle for power within the USSR—like the Khrushchev speech and the abortive recon• ciliation with Tito. The resulting wave of discussion has swept back even into the Soviet Union where students, always the first to move, are turning obstreperous. Now that fraud is beginning to lose its value and only force remains as the Kremlin's main prop things are bound to get shakier still. The struggle for power in Russia goes on. Bitter disputes on Policy continue to rage. Even if the next palace coup in the Kremlin brings a reversion to completely repressive Stalinism, even if Hungary and Poland are temporarily reconquered, sooner or later it may well be shown that Warsaw and hudapest are typical, not exceptional, of the coming era of Communist development.
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