Poland Submerged
When Marshal Rokossovsky was made military Commander-in- Chief and Minister of War in Poland it was at once made clear that his object was to make the Polish Government and people as subservient to Russia as he was himself. But when, in announcing last month that ex-service men and others who might be of use to the army would be organised into a League of Friends of the Soldier, he both omitted all reference to the fact that the organisa- tion was Polish and made it quite plain that its first allegiance was to the Russian Stalin, he was almost certainly storing up trouble. It is easy to underestimate the power of Communist doctrine over individuals of all nationalities and to overestimate the powers of resistance of Eastern European peoples to a Russian domination which they have always feared and hated. But it is also possible to make mistakes as to the amount of pressure that subject peoples will stand. The Poles have, with some justification, been regarded as the foremost of the Eastern European peoples in their will to independence, their military tradition and their contempt for Russian rule. Even the Russians have until recently taken account of these factors, if only because it was unsafe to forget them. But rules which have been observed by Russians can be apparently ignored by the Caucasian Stalin and by his trusted servant Rokossovsky,
himself a Pole: Yet the probability remains that the rules were sound all the time. Gleichshaltung as between Russian and Pole is too much to expect. This does not mean that a Polish 'revolt may be expected. Indeed, since one of the objects of the new League is to tighten Marshal Rokossovsky's control overall impor- tant Polish political organisations, there is every prospect that any movement of revolt can be stopped at its source. What it does mean is that millions are being added to the numbers of people in Eastern Europe who see their only hope of freedom in the outbreak of a general war.
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