Smiles

Down the night sky onto a Moscow airfield slid the big Russian plane from Cairo. Out stepped Polish Premier Stanislaw Mikolajczyk and five colleagues. Joseph Stalin's reception committee pounced on them, whisked them off in a big black official car to the official Guest House on Ostrovsky Street. Next morning the Poles dashed to the Soviet Foreign Commissariat, the U.S. and British Embassies. They dropped in at the Lenin Library, the Botanical Gardens, the Park of Culture and Rest. On the Kamenny Bridge Premier Mikolajczyk heard the boom of cannon announcing a Red Army victory. Said he : "It makes more noise than the buzz bombs."

Then they waited for the conversation with Stalin which, more than anything else, would decide whether London's Polish Government in Exile and Moscow's Polish National Committee of Liberation would unite in a free Polish government.

Late at night (an old Bolshevik custom) the summons came from the Kremlin. Mikolajczyk and his colleagues hurried over. Joseph Stalin greeted them affably. Two and a half hours later, Premier Mikolajczyk left the Kremlin, noncommittal but smiling. His smile was the only political news of his historic conference.

There were few smiles in the Russian press. Said War and the Working Class's leading editorial: "It is now very clear that only those elements which can unite around the Polish [National] Committee . . . have a future. Only in this light must be regarded the trip of Mikolajczyk to Moscow, which was made, as the foreign press remarks, 'with great delay.' "

Said Pravda: "During the short period of its existence, the Polish Committee of National Liberation has become a decisive factor in uniting the Polish nation. . . . There is no unity among Polish emigres. .. ." Said Izvestia: "If the London emigre government wants to reorganize it must break away from the Sosnokowski group, cease anti-Soviet slander, rally around the new Polish Committee."

Later Pravda's front page announced the arrival of Polish National Committee .delegates for talks with Premier Mikolajczyk. From liberated Poland to Moscow a Russian warplane flew Committee President Boleslaw Berut, Chairman Edward Osubka-Morawski, Vice Chairman Andrei Witos and Defense Chief General Michal Rola-Zymierski. A Red Army band and a guard of honor welcomed them. Chairman Osubka-Morawski made a speech. He too was smiling.

Gravely, the London Poles and the Moscow Poles next day began discussions which would affect Poland's (and Europe's) history for generations.

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