When Big Brother Writes

Last week's letter from the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee to its Polish counterpart was a graphic and forbidding message, couched in the distinct language of Communist doublespeak. To understand the Soviets' criticisms and quarrels with Poland's "socialist renewal," opposite words must, in the fashion of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, be substituted: for "free and independent," read subservient; for "counterrevolution" read reform and democratization; and for "protection of the socialist commonwealth" read intervention by Warsaw Pact forces. Excerpts from the letter, as translated by the New York Times:

Dear Comrades:

The Central Committee of the Communist Party addresses you out of a feeling of great anxiety for the fate of socialism in Poland, for Poland as a free and independent state ... From the first days of [your] crisis, we deemed it important that the [Polish] party decisively resist attempts by the enemies of socialism to take advantage of [your] difficulties. But this has not been done at all. Constant concessions to antisocialist forces and their demands have led to a retreat by the Polish party, step by step, under pressure of domestic counterrevolution.

If the worst came to pass, if Poland no longer benefited from the protection of the socialist commonwealth, it would fall immediately into the greedy hands of imperialism. And who would then guarantee the independence, the sovereignty, the borders of Poland as a state? No one.

Respected comrades, we are not guided solely by our concern over the situation of fraternal Poland, or the conditions and future prospects for Soviet-Polish cooperation. To no less an extent, we are disturbed by the fact that the offensive by antisocialist enemy forces in Poland threatens the interests of our entire commonwealth and the security of its borders -- yes, our common security. The Polish party thus not only bears a historic responsibility for the fate of its own country; comrades, you also bear an enormous responsibility for the common interests of the socialist commonwealth.

We believe that there is still a possibility of staving off the worst. What is needed now is to mobilize all the healthy forces in society to combat counterrevolution. This requires, first of all, a revolutionary will within the party, among its militants and its leadership. Time will not wait.

We wish to assure you, dear comrades, that, in these difficult days, the [Soviet] Central Committee, all Soviet Communists and the entire Soviet nation are in solidarity with your struggle. Our point of view has been expressed with precision in the statement of Comrade L. Brezhnev at the Soviet Party's 26th Congress: "We shall not let socialist Poland be harmed, and we shall not abandon a fraternal country in distress."

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