COMMUNIST SPLIT EXTENDS TO POLAND

Grey River Argus, 8 September 1948, Page 5

COMMUNIST SPLIT EXTENDS TO POLAND

Workers’ Party Leaders And Members Suspect LONDON, September 6. It is officially announced in Warsaw that Poland’s leading Communist, M. Wladislaw Gomulka, has been relieved 1 of his duties as general secretary of the Polish Workers’ Party, and that the President of Poland, M. Beirut, will succeed him. The announcement said that M. Gomulka fully agreed with the party decision and had confessed his “■heretical point of view” in a selfcritical speech to a plenary session of. the party’s central executive committee.

The announcement added that M. Gomulka had committed three major ideological errors. First, he had not appreciated the Soviet Communist Party’s decisive role in the fight against imperialism, and had fallen under nationalistic and bourgeois influences. Second, he had failed to appreciate the necessity for a stern class struggle against capitalistic peasants. Third, he had favoured conciliatory tactics towards the Yugoslav Communist leaders.

The announcement also named the leader of the Communist Party in the Polish Paarliament, M. Zenon, Kliszko, and the chief Communist spokesman in Parliament, M. Wladyslaw Bienkowki, as dissident supporters of. M. Gomulka’s policy. Reuter’s correspondent in Warsaw says that the decision to. dismis M. Gomulka was unanimously reached by the party’s central executive committee.

The correspondent adds that M. Beirut will combine his duties as President with those of the party's general secretary. The Under-Secre-tary of State in the Ministry of Security (M. Franciszek Jozwiak) has been co-opted to the Communist Politbureau to fill the vacancy caused by M. Gomulka’s dismissal.

“CRITICAL SELF-ANALYSIS”

The announcement also said that the Communist Party from the Politbureau downwards, had to make a profound critical self-analysis to eliminate all “deviationist trends,” and they named a number of major failings in the present conduct of the Polish Communist Party which must be eradicated by “relentless ideological struggle.” . t All Polish provincial Communist leaders have been- summoned to a special plenary meeting to-day, when M. Beirut and M. Gomulka will S P eak< , . XV The Warsaw correspondent of the Associated Press says that the statement on M. Gromulka’s dismissal claimed that half the Polish Workers Party’s 1,000,000 members were nationalistic and . Rivht-Wing deviationists from the orthodox international Maxist line. The correspondent comments that M. Beirut’s efforts to resolve the most serious crisis in the party’s historv will determine whether the Communists will retain their grip on power in Poland. The “Daily Telegraph,” in a leading article, says: ‘"The shackles seem to be rising against the Cominform in practically all of Moscow’s satellites. For instance, the jargon in the Polish communique admitted ‘Rightist and nationalistic deviations’ ana signifies a reluctance among local comrades to be completely subservient to Russia in domestic and foreign policy. ~ c “The mere fact that rumbles of discontent are clearly audible from behind the Iron Curtain is highly significant. They are widespread. From both Hungary and Czechoslovakia come strong indications of an impending purge. Even Bulgaria provides Tumours of nationalist heresy. . . , “It looks as though Slav imperialism, operating under cover of the Cominform, is stubbin" its toes on precisely the same snags as German imperialism when it operated under cover of the Anti-Comintern Pact.

Dismissed Secretary Toes The Line With Self-Accusation [Associated Press Cable]. (Received September 7, 10.45 p.m.) WARSAW, September 7. The Vice-Premier of Poland, M. Vladislav Gomulka, who has been dismissed as the Secretary-General of the Polish Communist Party has announced that he has settled his ideological differences with the Communist Party’s leadership. M. Gomulka admitted that he had pursued “a false and anti-Marxist line,” and had encouraged Rightist and Nationalist deviations within the Communist Party’s membership. He said there would not be any further danger to the Party’s stability along that line.