The Return of Little Stalin

In Nov. 1949, tough, bald-pated Wladyslaw Gomulka, once known as Poland's "Little Stalin," walked the plank. He was expelled from the Polish Communist Party for Titoist tendencies, and one of his former colleagues on the Politburo scornfully charged that lifelong Communist Gomulka had become "a symbol of reaction for the bourgeoisie and rich peasants." Nearly seven years later, in a characteristically Marxist twist of fate, 51-year-old Wladyslaw Gomulka's appeal to "reactionaries" turned out to be his political salvation.

Gomulka's real crime had been his demand that the U.S.S.R. respect Polish sovereignty and let the Poles find their own "road to Socialism," but the Bezpieka, Poland's security police, did its best to persuade Gomulka to confess to a formal charge of "lack of vigilance with regard to enemy agents." Instead of confessing, bullheaded Wladyslaw Gomulka counterattacked his interrogators with such vigor and skill that in the end the party had to abandon its plans to use him as the piece de resistance in a show trial of Polish Titoists.

Early this spring, as part of Poland's contribution to destalinization, Gomulka was let out of house arrest, after more than four years of confinement, and let part way out of the doghouse. Edward Ochab, who now has Gomulka's job as Party Secretary, announced that the charges on which Gomulka had been arrested were false. They were drummed up, said Ochab in Moscow's best voice and most up-to-date explanation of such things, by Polish accomplices of "the Beria gang." Ochab was careful to explain, however, that Gomulka's release "does not mean that the party approves of his political opinions."

Two months later, after the bloody Poznan riots (TIME, July 9), Poland's desperate Communist bosses had to go further to assuage nationwide discontent. They admitted "immense wrongs" done to the Polish workers, promised widespread pay increases, and even swore by Marx and everything else holy that the Communist Party was about to abandon direct management of the Polish government and economy.

A fortnight ago, as yet another gesture, Radio Warsaw announced that the Central Committee had decided to readmit Gomulka to party membership. This time there was no denunciation of Gomulka's opinions. Instead the broadcast emphasized that "representatives of the Politburo met with Comrade Gomulka" to consult him on "fundamental problems." The Politburo's purpose seemed clear. Gomulka's nationalism had won him the admiration of many Poles, including some antiCommunists, and by re-garbing him in the raiment of Marxist grace, the party hoped to win favor with people who say that if they must be governed by Communists, better a Communist who sometimes remembers he is also a Pole.

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