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c
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR A FREE EUROPE, INC.
350 Fifth Avenue, New York 1, N. Y.
Telephone: BRyant 9-2100
LABOR AND THE SOVIET SYSTEM, by Romuald Szumski,
is a factual story about the destruction of
democratic trade unions under Russian Bolshevism.
The author clearly shows that real trade unions
do not exist in Russia or its satellite countries.
He describes Soviet slavery and the extension of
this most barbaric system of Russian imperialism
into Eastern Europe. This hard-hitting account is
the answer to those who think free workers have
nothing to fear from the Kremlin's "dictatorship
of the proletariat*1.
I strongly urge you to read LABOR AND THE SOVIET
SYSTEM and see the deceptive and fraudulent tactics
and devices of Russian communism exposed.
I ask you to join us in the relentless battle
to restore and preserve freedom and peace.
Please write me if you would like further details
of our Committee.
April, 19^1
C, D. Jackson
~; President
By Komuald Szumski
LABOE
and the
Soviet System
National Committee for
a Free Eurbpe, Inc.
o
ONLY A WORLD BUILT ON THE IDEALS
OF FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY CAN LIVE
IN PEACE
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR A FREE EUROPE, INC.
301 Empire State Building
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Additional copies, while available, may be had for 5^
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o
Labor
and the
Soviet
System
o
Romucdd Szumski
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR A FREE EUROPE, INC
O
Introduction
/
N the ever-expanding conflict between the forces of democracy
and totalitarian dictatorship now raging in many parts of the
world, organized labor is destined to play an increasingly strategic
role. For it is in the free and democratic trade unions now existing
in practically all countries outside the Iron Curtain that the men
of the Kremlin who guide the destinies of Soviet Russia are encountering one of the greatest obstacles to their design for world
domination.
The existence of democratic trade unions bitterly opposed to
communist totalitarianism is a categorical repudiation of the myth
that the Politburo's dictatorship is a progressive idea, or that
communism offers anything that will advance the interests of
international labor. It is precisely because the role of free and
democratic trade unions is so dynamic that Soviet attacks on them
are so full of fury.
Lenin, the founder of Russian Bolshevism, once hoped that
trade unions would be "schools for Communism." But Joseph
Stalin, his ruthless successor and faithful disciple, long ago real- f
ized, as did Hitler and Mussolini in their day, that a free and
independent labor movement was incompatible with totalitarian
state control.
Thus, wherever the Cominform operates today, it must either
capture, dominate, or destroy the free trade unions—as a first and
major prerequisite for the eventual capture of political and economic power. Indeed, it has long been clear to students of international affairs that the extent to which trade unions remain free
and independent will be of decisive importance in determining
democracy's future and in destroying the carefully laid plans of
the Cominform.
In the countries outside the Iron Curtain the Cominform
aims, through widespread penetration of the independent trade
unions, to prevent economic recovery and to perpetuate political
instability and chaos. By attempting to control the major industrial and economic centers of the non-communist world through
trade union domination, the Cominform hopes to deny to the
democratic states economic reconstruction and a continual improvement in the standards of living.
Suppression
of
Workers
the West, communists, through their influence in the trade
INunions,
hope to deny power to the forces of democracy. But in
the countries of Eastern Europe under Soviet domination —
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania
and Eastern Germany — trade unions are employed by the totalitarian state as an instrument for consolidating communist power.
The fate of the once flourishing and firmly rooted organized
labor movement in Poland is typical.
Poland's trade unions and pro-labor political parties developed parallel with the country's agelong struggle for freedom from
the oppression of the Russian czars. Prior to the Stalin-Hitler
Pact of 1939, followed by the Nazi invasion of Poland, trade
unionism had already gained a firm foothold among the industrial
workers and was well on the way to becoming an important
factor in the country's economic development. Throughout her
stormy history, Poland, overrun in turn by Austria, Prussia and
Russia, has never submitted in spirit to any foreign or domestic
tyranny. From the middle of the 19th century until the Nazi blitzkrieg, the Polish factory worker was the courageous and unflinching defender of his country.
The political system that prevailed in Poland prior to the
outbreak of World War II can perhaps best be described as a
"semi-dictatorship". It was certainly not a democracy in the ac-
cepted Western sense. Yet despite fierce opposition on the part
of the reactionary "Colonel's Regime", (the prewar, semi-Fascist
government of Pilsudski) the Polish workers had their own free
trade unions and political organizations. The semi-dictatorial government never succeeded in breaking the strength of the trade
unions or abolishing the basic right to strike.
In the year 1937 alone, strikes occurred in 25,242 industrial
enterprises embracing 565,000 workers. As a result of this strike
wave the government was forced to relax its strangle-hold on the
country's economy, and collective bargaining, as it is practiced
in the United States and other democratic countries, won universal recognition in Poland in the second half of the nineteenthirties. This was, indeed, the crowning achievement of the progressive Polish labor movement and its mature leadership.
But ten years later, in 1947, a strike of textile workers in
the city of Lodz was suppressed by the new communist regime
with a ruthlessness undreamed of under the prewar reactionary
government. The largest textile center in continental Europe,
Lodz was always known as the "citadel of Polish trade unionism".
So popular were the trade unions in Lodz that in the municipal
elections of 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the war, Jan
Kwapinsky, President of the Democratic Trade Union Congress,
was elected Mayor of the city by an overwhelming majority. Yet
it was precisely in this "citadel of unionism" that the Moscowdominated communist regime chose to break the back of Poland's
organized democratic labor movement by resorting to brute force
and bloodshed.
Even more ruthless methods of suppression were employed
by the cohorts of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, the Stalinappointed dictator of Poland, in the strike of longshoremen which
occurred in the city of Szczecin on October 29, 1950. The strike
was caused by the arbitrary decision of the Government to revaluate the Polish zloty. Suggested by Moscow, it was a clever scheme
to peg the zloty to the Russian ruble and thereby increase Poland's
dependence on the Soviet Union. As a result, however, most of
the savings of the population were wiped out overnight.
On the night of October 29th the men working on the second
shift refused to load Polish sugar on Soviet ships waiting in the
Szczecin harbor. But the communist dictatorship went into im-
mediate action. A bloody massacre followed. With the aid of the
Soviet secret police (MVD) and Communist Party "activists", the
Polish police forced the longshoremen into submission.
The suppression of legitimate strikes by resorting to terror
and imprisonment in Russia's widespread net of slave labor camps
is a standard Communist practice, not only in the Soviet Union,
but also in all countries under its domination. This pattern is
followed with a deadly monotony in every satellite state of Eastern
Europe where the communists succeeded in seizing power with
the aid of the Red Army.
Cominform propaganda claims that labor in Poland has
been liberated from "capitalist oppression and exploitation"
while, before the present Warsaw regime came to power, it
suffered under the yoke of capitalism and dictatorship. The truth
is, however, that in prewar Poland even under the rule of a semidictatorship, labor enjoyed more rights and greater freedom than
in the present full-fledged communist totalitarian state.
In pre-communist Poland a majority of the strikes ended in
a complete or partial victory for the strikers. Wherever and whenever the prewar Colonel's regime interfered with the right to
strike, it encountered labor's determined resistance.
In 1936, in Cracow, during a strike in the famous "Semperit"
plant, the police ejected the strikers by force. In protest, the
trade unions called a general strike. The Governor of Cracow,
Switalski, ordered the police to use force and arms against the
striking workers. But the workers would not yield to force. The
reactionary government was finally forced to dismiss the Governor
and admit defeat in order to prevent bloodshed and acts of violence. Thus, labor again demonstrated its right to strike for better
economic conditions, even under a semi-dictatorial regime.
Under communism, strikes are punished by death or exile.
As in the case of the Lodz strike in 1947, and the longshoremen's
strike in October, 1950, the Warsaw Communist government does
not hesitate to employ the crudest reprisals in order to break the
spirit of the workers.
Indeed, not only is the worker forbidden to strike, but he
is not even permitted to change his job without the permission
of his communist bosses. Many of the legal rights, achieved by
working men and women in the civilized countries during the
last century, have been cynically abolished by the communist
rulers.
According to a decree published in Warsaw's official journal,
Dziennik Ustaw, of May 5, 1950, entitled, ironically enough,
"Concerning the Socialist Discipline of Work", a worker who
absents himself from work for four days in succession is liable to
legal prosecution. Punishment for such an offense consists in the
mandatory continuation by the worker of the work he has been
doing for a period of three months but at lower wages. From ten
to twenty-five percent of his wages are deducted as a fine.
During the term of his three-month sentence, imposed by a
court, or administratively by the communist manager of the enterprise, the "guilty" worker is literally chained to his job. He has
no right to seek other employment. The penalty for any infringement of this rule is punishable by six months' imprisonment.
Modelled on a similar law in force in Soviet Russia for many
years, the decree of May 5, 1950, not only deprives the Polish
workers of the right to strike, and, consequently the protection of
their economic interests, but of all other basic rights normally |
enjoyed by labor in civilized communities. It applies with equal
severity, not only to industrial workers, but to all employees of
nationalized factories, workshops, government offices and public
institutions.
In promulgating this drastic decree the Warsaw government
hoped:
1. To insure a supply of labor for the disastrous Six-Year
Economic Plan;
2. To kill labor's spirit of resistance until it has become a
powerless and obedient tool in the hands of the communist bureaucracy.
Only in a country ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship is such
a law even conceivable. Such laws were in force in Germany under
Hitler, and in Italy under Mussolini. Such laws, too, are the rule
rather than the exception in Stalin's Russia.
As already indicated, the decree "Concerning the Socialist
Discipline of Work", in addition to imposing court sentences also
calls for administrative penalties. Such penalties are usually im-
. 8 •
I
o
u
posed by the plant, or office manager himself, in "consultation"
with the factory or office Council (usually dominated by Communist Party members) or with a representative of the secret
police who as a rule acts as the spokesman of the "trade union"
organization.
A worker who is absent one day from work is liable to a stern
warning on the part of the management or to a deduction of one
day's wages. Should he miss two days' work he is fined two days'
pay. But for an absence of three days, six days' pay are deducted
from his wages. Moreover, the manager has the right, arbitrarily,
to transfer him to a lower category of pay.
It is noteworthy, that even before the decree of May 5 was
introduced, the right to strike was non-existent in the "People's
Democracy" of Poland. A strike was permitted only in privatelyowned enterprises. These utilize less than 15 per cent of all workers employed, since private enterprise in the communist state is
little more than a fiction. The few remaining privately-owned
enterprises are constantly being squeezed out of existence through
the imposition of prohibitive taxes and other restrictive measures.
The vast majority of Poland's workers (more than 85 per cent)
are employed in nationalized industries or in municipal and cooperative enterprises owned directly by the state. And it is always
a crime to strike against the omnipotent communist state.
The fiction is, of course, that it is the workers who "own"
the factories in Poland and one cannot strike against himself. To
lend credence to this communist myth, the official propaganda
agencies of the Warsaw government cite fantastic facts and figures
about the rate of Poland's economic recovery and social progress.
According to these official handouts, wages are constantly being
raised while prices are decreasing.
But according to statistics published by the United Nations
in 1949, Poland has the lowest per capita income of all the industrialized European countries. Only in Soviet Russia is the per
capita income lower. On the other hand, in the United States,
chief villain of communist propaganda, the average working men
and women enjoy the highest standard of living. Nevertheless, so
powerful and widespread is Soviet propaganda, that the fiction
that workers enjoy a higher standard of living in the communistdominated states persists in many parts of the world.
Trade Unions
Under
Dictatorship
July 1, 1949, the state-controlled trade unions of Poland,
O NTIL
which claim a membership of 4,000,000, functioned under
prewar legal provisions: the decree of January 18, 1919, and the
"Law on Associations" of October 27, 1932.
f
But the law promulgated by the communist regime in July,
1949, drastically changed the trade union structure and established unlimited communist control over Poland's organized labor
movement. In typical communist double-talk, the July law "Guarantees to manual and white collar workers the right to associate
freely in trade unions and to participate to the maximum in the
exercise of the people's authority".
However, while stipulating among other provisions, "the
continued improvement of labor's material welfare and cultural
life", the law also decrees "the mobilization of the working class
for the carrying out of (the state's) production plans . . .". It calls
for increased "productivity" and the development of socialist
"competition".
On the surface, the law concerns itself with such threadbare
communist cliches and slogans as "welfare of the working people",
"improvement in living standards", "people's authority", etc. But
these slogans have no practical value and serve merely to conceal
the real aims of the Communist Party which, incidentally, is so
. 10 •
\
o
unpopular in Poland, that it has to parade under the name of the
"United Polish Workers' Party".
Of essential importance in the July law are the provisions for
carrying out the totalitarian state's production plans for an increase in productivity and the development of competition. These
are the actual functions of the trade unions in communist states.
A basic right "enjoyed" by the trade unions, is to cooperate
with the authorities and institutions of public administration, and
to supervise the national economy in accordance with "procedures
established by law". But in a communist state this "right" is
merely a duty. "Cooperation" consists of the strict execution of
orders issued by the government which, in turn, following the
Soviet pattern, is subject to the unlimited will of the Communist
Party's Politburo.
Members of trade unions are granted officially the right to
elect their officials; but only officially. In reality, lists of candidates
for trade union offices are designated by communist "activists" in
agreement with Communist Party Committees. All voting is done
in the open. Trade union members must therefore go through
the motions of voting for the Party candidates or risk reprisals,
even banishment to slave labor camps, as "enemies of the people".
Communist Party cells exist in every enterprise and every
trade union of Poland. They are charged with the political supervision of the workers and non-Party managers. Criticism of the
Communist Party or the government is considered a crime against
the state. For merely voicing dissatisfaction a worker is liable to
imprisonment or forced labor.
Trade unions in Poland, as in all other satellite states, are
directly subordinated to the Communist Party. Membership is
compulsory. In a speech at the congress, which merged the socalled Polish "Socialist" Party with the official "Polish Workers'
Party", President Bierut of Poland declared: "The (Communist)
Party must, and should play, through the trade unions and their
affiliated organizations, a leading and decisive role in the great
production and educational tasks confronting the country". Shedding the communist mask for once, he made it quite clear that
the "Trade unions form the basic transmission belt between the
Communist Party and the non-Party masses".
. 11 •
u
Thus, unlike the democratic countries, the function of trade
unions under a totalitarian dictatorship is not to safeguard the
worker's economic rights, but to serve as tools of the communist
dictatorship which seeks to gain complete control over the minds
and bodies of the working people.
In the nationalized plants and factories of Poland the worker
has absolutely no protection against ruthless exploitation by the
state. The entire machine of the state is against him. Although he
pays union dues—which is also compulsory in a communist State—
the trade union merely serves to enslave him rather than protect
him.
In an article in the "Workers' Economic Review" of July 2,
1946, Wlodzimierz Sokorski, a prominent communist trade union
official, sheds additional light on the role and structure of trade
unions in Poland. Polish trade unions, Sokorski points out, are
non-partisan but not non-political. This is another way of saying
that the trade unions are closely linked to the Communist Party
and subject to its control. In a subsequent article published in
the same review (January, 1948), Sokorski describes the tasks of
the Polish trade unions as follows:
^~
1. Protection of the worker against various forms of ex- '
ploitation in privately-oiuned enterprises, against extortion and speculation.
2. Protection of the worker against bureaucratized elements
in the state apparatus.
3. Trade unions must actively participate in the daily struggle for raising the level of production, carrying out the
State's economic plans, raising the national income and
stimulate "socialist" competition. All for the benefit of
the worker, of course!
However, since it is the primary task of the trade unions to
protect the workers employed in private enterprise, less than 15
per cent of Poland's workers receive the "benefits" of such
"protection". For in Poland only small enterprises are in private
hands and these, as already indicated, are constantly being
squeezed out of existence. What about the 85 per cent of the
industrial and white collar workers employed in government,
municipal and cooperative enterprises, and institutions — all
• 12 •
O
o
owned by the State? Wlodzimierz Sokorski, a typical communist
trade union official, is mute on this question. And yet, it is in the
state-owned enterprises where strikes are forbidden and where
workers are exploited to the maximum.
Let us now examine the "Constitution of the Trade Union
Association", adopted in June, 1949, at the second Trade Union
Congress of Poland. According to this constitution, the tasks of
the trade unions coincide with those of the "People's Democratic
State". But here again it is made clear that the primary, if not the
only task of the trade unions, is "to combat capitalist exploitation
in private enterprise, increase the vigilance of the working class
against the manifestation of any activity on the part of the enemies
of the people". And again, of course, the constitution calls for
labor's interest in the raising of production. Hence, the trade
unions "mobilize the broadest working masses for the struggle for
the accelerated fulfilment of the (state's) production plans through
the organization of socialist competition, the struggle for discipline and also for a new socialist attitude towards work and social
property".
Whether in the declarations of communist leaders or in the
myriad resolutions adopted by various trade union congresses, the
one and only refrain—raising of production levels, discipline, competition — is ever present. The lip service paid in these declarations to the "protection of workers" is less than meaningless.
Trade unions in a communist totalitarian state, it must be
pointed out repeatedly, are entirely a tool of the state-machine,
dominated and directed by the communists. In practice only,
Party members or "loyal non-Party workers" are elected to the
governing bodies or executive boards of trade unions. Only on the
lowest organizational levels are free elections ever permitted. But
this, of course, is merely a democratic camouflage, because in a
highly centralized state only the top political organs exercise real
authority and power. In fact, the top bureaucracy of the centralized trade union has the unlimited right to simply invalidate the
elections of the lower echelons. It has the right to remove any
legally elected executive board, appoint a new board and call for
new elections, this time under the bureaucracy's direct supervision.
In order to create the illusion that labor exerts real influence
. 13 •
u
on the economic life of the country, and also on management,
Factory Councils were established by a decree of February 6, 1945.
But in 1947, when the communists succeeded in consolidating
their power, this decree was amended by another decree, (January 1, 1947) which linked the Factory Councils to the trade
unions.
Ostensibly the Factory Councils represent the workers in
their relations to the employer — the State. As part of "management", however, they too, must see to it that production is
accelerated, increased, and improved in accordance with the general directives of the state's economic policy.
Communist propaganda presents the decree on the Factory
Councils as a great gain for labor. But in reality, and at best, the
Councils are only consultative bodies. They do not actually participate in management and have no right to make independent
decisions. Resolutions of Factory Councils are subject, in all
essential matters, to confirmation by the communist authorities.
Members of the Councils, if they do not want to land in jail,
must at all times be subservient to the orders of their communist
bosses.
Of course the Factory Councils consult periodically with their
managers. But these consultations, again, concern only the raising
of levels of production, discipline, etc. In reality, the function of
the Councils is to drive the workers harder and prevent them from
excessive grumbling.
Whenever there is a question of punishing a worker, the
Factory Councils are consulted. They also participate in the hiring
and firing of workers. Thus the State is able to shed some of the
responsibility, to point out to the workers that they themselves
are their own exploiters — all in the name of "Socialist progress".
Those elected to the Factory Councils are trusted people,
mostly Party "activists". Theoretically, to be sure, any employee
over 18 years of age, who has worked in a plant or an office for
three months, has the right to put forward his candidacy for
membership in a Factory Council. But in practice candidates are
appointed by the Communist Party cell. No one dares to run
against a candidate designated by the Party.
The organization of work in Poland follows in every detail
^
the pattern established in the Soviet Union. The "Sovietization"
of labor in Poland went through several stages and is now rapidly
approaching its completion. In 1945 and 1946, when noncommunist political parties with limited independence were still
permitted to exist, the process of "Sovietization" proceeded at a
slower pace. But following the election to the Sejm (Parliament)
of 1947, which heralded the liquidation of all political opposition, the tempo of "Sovietization" gained in force and speed.
Today, there is very little difference between conditions in Soviet
Russia and in Poland.
15
U
Ill
Techniques
of Economic
Exploitation
trade unions, though claiming millions of memCfirstOMMUNIST
bers, do not fulfill the fundamental role for which trade unions
came into being. Totalitarian dictatorship strives for total
monopoly in all phases of political, economic and social life. It
cannot tolerate views, or beliefs, which diverge in the slightest
degree from those officially sanctioned by the monolithic party.
It stamps out heartlessly the slightest sign of freedom of thought,
speech and worship. Any organization, regardless of its purpose
or function, is subordinated to, and controlled by, the Communist
Party which, according to the Soviet constitution, is the mainspring for all social organizations. All decisions are vested in the
Communist Party and the top layer of its leadership known as
the Politburo. In Soviet Russia, Stalin, as the undisputed head
of the Politburo, wields unlimited power, which reaches beyond
the frontiers of the U.S.S.R. His power extends to all Sovietdominated countries of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, to all
political parties and trade unions included in the Cominform, or
professing pro-communist beliefs. Similarly, the trade unions in
Poland are under the domination of the Polish Communist Party
and entirely subject to its control.
In the democracies, trade unions enjoy freedom of action,
within limits prescribed by law, and are thus, in a position to protect to the maximum the economic interests of labor. Union
16
<J
members are free to elect their officials and exercise a decisive
influence in the conduct of union affairs. Candidates for office
cannot be chosen or elected by a restrictive and all-powerful political group as in the Communist Politburo. The right to strike as
well as the right of assembly are guaranteed by law. Membership
in unions is voluntary and not compulsory.
In the totalitarian state, too, membership in unions is theoretically voluntary — but only theoretically. Refusal to join a trade
union leaves the worker open to the charge that he is an enemy
of the people. Trade unions in the communist states, despite their
millions of members, are thus merely a powerless tool in the hands
of the totalitarian dictatorship, employed to exploit rather than
protect the workers.
Poland has officially an eight hour working day and a fortysix hour week. However, the worker is not paid for the number
of hours he works but for the amount of work he produces under
the state-established production "norms". These norms are, as a
rule, set by the factory or office management acting on behalf of
the dictatorship. Any worker who fails to fulfill these norms in
an eight hour working day receives a lower rate of pay.
Production norms are set high and are constantly being increased. To earn the bare necessities of life, the worker must
work at breakneck speed, frequently overtime, to meet the management's production quotas. These are set by special technicians
(efficiency engineers) on the basis of the norms achieved by the
so-called privileged "shock workers". If several workers in a plant
manage to fulfill the production norms in an eight hour day, or
even exceed them, the norms are at once increased for all the
workers in the given industry. In practice, this of course means a
corresponding decrease in wages.
Before the outbreak of World War II, under the Colonel's
regime, the Polish trade unions vigorously opposed the piecework
system as a special form of exploitation. Only in special cases and
under clearly defined conditions was piecework sanctioned. In
collective bargaining agreements the trade unions always endeavoured to fix the rates for such work.
Now that the trade unions are under the complete control
of the totalitarian state, production norms are the rule rather
. 17 •
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than the exception. Communism, in theory, is opposed to the
exploitation of labor. In practice, however, this exploitation is
now applied in the Soviet-dominated states to a degree unprecedented even in the most backward capitalist countries.
In democratic countries with a capitalist economic system,
organized labor, because of its strength, solidarity and democratic
organization, has succeeded, through higher wages, social services
and other benefits, to reduce the employer's surplus profit. But in
Soviet Russia, as in Poland and the other satellite countries, the
surplus profit derived from human labor considerably exceeds
such profit gained by employers in the capitalist countries.
Under the norm system the exploitation of labor is glaringly
demonstrated. The worker is being driven to exhaustion. Before
long his productive capacity is completely sapped. He actually
gives his life to tighten the strangle-hold the totalitarian state has
over him, as under the Soviet system, the surplus profit goes for
the maintenance of the immense government apparatus, including
the secret police, ever-expanding army and the Communist Party
with its vast propaganda machine.
The Soviet system has also developed a new type of labor
exploitation known as "socialist competition". Under such competition the worker agrees to produce "voluntarily" even more
than his required quota.
Socialist competition is carried out either individually or
collectively. As a rule, a worker, under party or trade union pressure, declares that he plans to exceed the established norm by,
say, 30 per cent, and challenges his fellow-workers to do the same.
Failure on the part of the other workers to meet this challenge
is frowned upon by management and may even be interpreted as
an act of sabotage, punishment for which is a term of slave labor
in "corrective labor camps".
In group competition, the entire crew of a plant or factory
challenges the workers of another industrial enterprise to exceed
production norms or to fulfill the government's plan at an accelerated speed. This type of competition is especially popular on
national or communist holidays, when the workers announce that
they will "voluntarily" contribute their labor free, so as to honor
the holiday and speed up "socialist production". Such challenges
. 18 •
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o
to socialist competition are, of course, extensively reported in the
communist press.
In an article entitled "The Problem of Competition", (Workers' Economic Review of February, 1949), Z. Kratko claims that
one million Polish workers have already responded to the call of
socialist competition. "Work in Poland", he writes, "has become
for the majority of working men and women a matter of pride
and honor. The reason for their enthusiasm is the nationalization
of industry, as a result of which the workers do not work for the
capitalist but for themselves, their class and state".
These high-sounding words are used to camouflage the most
ruthless exploitation of labor in modern society. Actually, only
the regime of terror which reigns in Poland's industry could induce the overworked and underfed Polish worker to engage in
socialist competition.
Resolutions urging socialist competition and the contribution of voluntary labor are adopted at factory meetings by open
vote. They are either introduced by a communist representative
of the trade union or by an emissary of the Party itself. Thus the
worker is coerced to vote for the resolution, since to oppose it or
even abstain from voting leaves him open to the charges of "enemy
of the people", an anti-social element destined, sooner or later,
to land in prison or in a forced labor camp.
Socialist competition, as practiced in Poland, is based on the
Soviet system long in vogue in Russia, where it is known as the
"Stakhanov System". Stakhanov was a communist miner who
allegedly exceeded his norm by 500 per cent. The first "Stakhanovist" in Poland was a young miner by the name of Pstrowski
whose triumph was short-lived. He died prematurely in an effort
to overfulfill the Government's norm. He has since become a
symbol. Chcesz sie udac na sad Boski — pracuj tylko jak sam
Pstrowski, is now a popular proverb among the Polish workers.
(If you are eager for the Lord's Judgment, work like Pstrowski).
Cash prizes, honorary badges and decorations of all kinds are
supposed to give the worker the necessary incentives to engage
in socialist competition. But only the strongest ever attain this
happy state.
On paper, to be sure, the communist regime introduced a
. 19 •
number of improvements in prewar labor legislation: restoration
of the forty-six hour week, one month's vacation annually for
those engaged in physical labor for ten years (holidays and Sundays are not counted in the vacation period), extension of the
collective bargaining law of April 14, 1937 to local government
employees and farm workers. Also, Labor Courts are now competent to sit in civil disputes between management and labor.
However, these paper "privileges" are but slight compensation
for the basic rights which labor has lost under the communist
regime.
o
20
IV.
Persecution
of Democratic
Labor Leaders
labor leaders are, as a rule, the first victims in a
DEMOCRATIC
state where communists attain power. They are the first target
of the totalitarian regime — and with reason. Democratic labor
leaders — men and women who oppose the exploitation of labor
whether by the capitalist or the ruling communist oligarchy — are
a serious obstacle in the dictatorship's road to total power.
Because of their lifelong experience and devotion to the cause
of free labor, the democratic leaders are singularly equipped to
challenge the communists on their own ground. Those who
refuse to betray their principles by succumbing to the usual communist offers of bribes, honors and other privileges, and collaboration with the dictatorship, are exterminated ruthlessly. On the
other hand, collaborators are given positions of honor and leven
power.
Andrei Vyshinsky, who rose to fame during Moscow's famous
blood purges and is at present the Soviet Minister for Foreign
Affairs, is a case in point. Vyshinsky was originally an anti-communist member of the Russian Social Democratic Party, but he
turned renegade in time to become a member of the Bolshevik
oligarchy. As a prosecutor in the famous "trials" of 1936-1938 he
displayed great zeal in extracting "confessions" from Stalin's former colleagues and opponents. He is thus enjoying privilege and
power entirely by the grace of Stalin. One day, he too, may share
• 21 •
U
the fate of the "Old Bolsheviks" whom he hounded so relentlessly,
and forced to "confess" his early sins. Such is the nature of the
Bolshevik dictatorship.
Immediately prior to and following World War II, whereever the Soviet Red Army became the army of occupation, it was
always followed by the secret police known by its initials M.V.D.
{Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Diel). Wherever the M.V.D. came,
democratic labor leaders were at once placed on the proscribed
list.
When, in September 1939, Soviet troops occupied the eastern
territories of Poland — as agreed to in the Stalin-Hitler Pact — the
Moscow authorities at once commenced the liquidation of the
independent Polish labor movement, both its political and trade
union sections. Existing trade unions were "reorganized" along
Soviet lines and subjected to the supervision of the Communist
Party and the secret police.
Well-known and active democratic labor leaders were at once
arrested and subsequently sentenced without trial administratively, to long terms of forced labor in Siberia. Many of them
(information has since reached the western world) died of undernourishment and exhaustion due to hard labor and the severe
Siberian climate.
Among the prominent Polish labor leaders "purged" by the
communist authorities were such outstanding men as Zygmunt Piotrowski, former Socialist member of the Polish Sejm (Parliament)
and editor of the "Railway Worker's Journal"; Artur Hausner,
former member of the Sejm and chairman of the Socialist Party
of Lwow; Mieczyslaw Mastek, chairman of the executive board of
the Railway Workers Union; Stanislaw Grylowski, SecretaryGeneral of the same union; Bronislaw Skalak, outstanding labor
leader from Lwow; Edward Skwirut of Tarnow, and many others.
Piotrowski, Hausner, Grylowski and Skwirut, it is now
known, died in Soviet prisons. The Moscow authorities, however,
refused to disclose details of their deaths or even where they were
imprisoned.
Particularly tragic was the fate of the outstanding leaders of
the Jewish Labor Union (Bund) of Poland, Henryk Erlich and
Victor Alter. In 1939, soon after the Red Army occupied the east-
• 22 •
u
o
em territories of Poland, they were arrested by the Soviet M.V.D.
and sentenced to death.
Following the outbreak of the Russo-German war in June,
1941, and the conclusion of an alliance between Poland and the
U.S.S.R. in July of the same year, Erlich and Alter's sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment. Subsequently, they were granted
an amnesty and released from prison. They were employed for a
brief period in the Polish Embassy in Moscow and later in
Kuibyshev.
During this period Erlich and Alter were devoting all their
energy to the organization of aid for Jews from the eastern territories, who were deported by the M.V.D. to Russia in the years
1939 and 1940. Many of their co-religionists who found themselves
homeless, ragged and hungry in Russian Siberia, Kazakhstan and
other outlying regions, were saved from certain death due to the
indefatigable efforts of these two great Jewish labor leaders.
But Erlich and Alter, though Socialists of extreme left views,
were strongly opposed to the Bolshevik principle of dictatorship
and totalitarianism as early as 1917. Stalin, whose opponents they
were in the early day of the Russian Revolution, was determined
that these two gallant men should not leave Russia alive. Thus,
after a brief spell of freedom, they were arrested again by the
M.V.D. in December, 1941 — despite strong protests on the part
of the Polish government whose ally Soviet Russia ostensibly was
at the time.
Although Erlich and Alter were citizens of Poland, both by
birth and freedom of choice, Moscow, arbitrarily, declared them
to be citizens of Soviet Russia. In violation of all precepts of
legality and the accepted diplomatic tradition, the Polish Embassy
in Moscow was repeatedly forbidden by the Soviet Foreign Ministry to interview them or intervene on their behalf.
Little was known of the fate of Erlich and Alter for nearly
two years. Despite repeated requests for information about them
on the part of prominent personalities throughout the western
world, particularly on the part of the free labor movements in the
United States and Europe, the Soviet government refused to disclose their whereabouts. Not until 1943 did the Soviet Embassy
in Washington, pressed by William Green, President of the
. 23 •
American Federation of Labor, Philip Murray, President of the
Congress of Industrial Organizations, David Dubinsky, President
of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and other
leaders of the American Federation of Labor, announce that
Erlich and Alter (who as Socialists and Jews were determined foes
of Nazism and struggled relentlessly against it) were executed for
"collaboration with Nazi Germany".
This announcement stunned Erlich and Alter's friends and
admirers in the United States and Europe and resulted in spontaneous protest demonstrations throughout the civilized world.
The accusation of "collaboration with Nazi Germany" was, of
course, a deliberate falsehood of the type frequently resorted to
by the communist dictatorship in order to whitewash its own
crimes against human decency.
At the beginning of 1942, the Soviet government established
under its aegis in the city of Saratov, on the river Volga, a "Polish
Patriots' Association" composed in the main of members of the
Polish Communist Party. This association was to be the nucleus
of a future Polish Communist government, completely subservient to Moscow.
In December, 1944, when the Red army entered Polish territory in pursuit of the retreating German army, the former
"Polish Patriots' Association" now rechristened "National Liberation Committee" was recognized by the U.S.S.R. as the legal Polish
government. This despite the fact that Russia's western allies continued relations with the legal Polish government-in-exile, whose
seat was in London.
Both in the so-called "Liberation Committee" and the new
"government", communists, who in the meantime organized
their own political party disguised as the "Polish Workers Party",
were placed in a controlling position. The Polish Socialist Party
which was supported by a majority of Poland's labor was banned,
its leaders purged and only an emasculated version of the "Polish
Socialist Party" was permitted to exist.
Simultaneously with the purge, carried out by the secret
police among the Polish Socialists, Moscow also ordered a purge
of the trade unions. Perhaps the most prominent and most widelybeloved leader of Polish labor purged by the communists was
Zygmunt Zulawski, former Secretary-General of the Central Com-
• 24 •
mittee of the Polish Federation of Trade Unions and a member
of the Polish Sejm from 1919 to 1935. Zulawski was also known
beyond the frontiers of Poland as a member of the executive board
of the International Federation of Trade Unions.
Zygmunt Zulawski became active in the ranks of Polish labor
in his early youth and because of his energy, selflessness and intellectual qualities, soon achieved a leading position. A staunch
supporter of democracy in its broadest sense, he was firmly opposed to all forms of dictatorship — whether communist or fascist.
Because he sought to preserve trade union independence and
revitalize the Socialist Party, Zulawski became a favorite target of
the communists. Nevertheless, despite violent communist opposition, he was elected in 1947 to the Sejm on a coalition ticket
headed by the former Prime Minister of Poland, Stanislaw
Mikolajczyk.
Only Zulawski's popularity with labor and with Polish citizens generally prevented the communist regime from sending him
to a slave labor camp. However, exhausted by the unequal struggle, weakened by illness, he withdrew from public life in August,
1949. He died in Cracow soon after. Only death saved him from
sharing the fate of Erlich and Alter.
In May, 1947, the communist regime arrested three hundred
leaders of Poland's trade unions and Socialist Party, including
such outstanding figures as Antoni Zdanowski and Kazimierz
Puzak.
Puzak, like Zygmunt Zulawski, was one of the great leaders
of Polish labor. Before World War I, he participated actively in
Poland's revolutionary struggle against the Czar. Arrested by the
Czarist police, he was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in
the notorious Schlisselburg fortress. For six years of his imprisonment he was chained and in solitary confinement. He was released
from his dungeon following the first (Kerensky) Russian Revolution of March, 1917.
Immediately upon his release, Kazimierz Puzak associated
himself with the struggle of the Russian people to throw off czarist
oppression. Subsequently he returned to Poland, which by now
had gained its independence, and in 1919 was elected a labor
deputy of the Sejm. A year later he became Secretary-General of
the Polish Socialist Party.
. 25 •
During the prewar semi-dictatorial Colonel's regime, Puzak
fought unflinchingly in defense of democracy. In 1939, following
the occupation of Poland by Germany, he organized a widespread
underground movement against the nazis and was elected Speaker
of the underground parliament. When Soviet troops occupied
Poland in 1945, Puzak was invited, together with fourteen other
underground leaders, for a conference at the Red army headquarters. The Russians informed him that he and his co-workers
were to go to Moscow, ostensibly to negotiate a Polish-Soviet agreement. However, no sooner did his special plane, supplied by the
Red army land at Moscow, when he was arrested by the M.V.D.
Tried by a secret Soviet court martial, Puzak and his friends of
the underground were sentenced to prison. After having served
his prison term, Puzak returned to Poland but did not remain
free for long. In June, 1947, he was again arrested by the Polish
communist regime, kept in prison without trial until 1948 when
he was sentenced by a Warsaw court-martial to ten years' imprisonment. It is characteristic of the present satellite communist
regimes in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, to have military
courts try civilians charged with political offenses.
Sentenced together with Puzak were, Jozef Dziegielewski,
former member of the Sejm and one of the bravest underground
leaders during the nazi occupation of Poland; Tadeusz Szturm de
Sztrem, well-known economist, Ludwik Cohn, leader of the Labor
Youth Organization, who spent five years in a German prisonerof-war camp, and many others.
In 1950 Puzak died in the notorious prison of Rawicz. His
body was delivered to his family in a sealed coffin. The family was
ordered by the communists authorities not to open the coffin nor
to send out death notices. This lent credence to widespread rumors
that Puzak was actually murdered in prison.
The news of Kazimierz Puzak's death spread all over the
world causing great indignation against his murderers. Democratic labor organizations everywhere voiced a strong protest
against this heinous crime committed by the communist regime
of Poland.
The mock trial and death of Kazimierz Puzak who gave his
life in the struggle for democracy and social justice, is another
. 26 •
glaring example of the terror that now reigns in Poland under
the communist totalitarian regime.
In the Paris Combat of July 13, 1947, the well-known liberal
French journalist Texcier wrote:
" . . . W. R. N. stands for three Polish words meaning Freedom, Equality, Independence. This was the name of the underground organization of Polish Socialists during the whole of the
German occupation. The much advertised 'spying activities' of
the W.R.N. consist simply in the fact that they have been informing their comrades of the Western democracies of the political
conditions in their own country. The crimes of which the W.R.N.
are being accused are strike waves. It must be added here that for
a similar reason — incitement to strike — a working class leader
has recently been sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.
"As a result of the discovery of this 'plot' — which is but
striving for freedom — thirty-six Socialists have now been arrested.
They are being accused of maintaining contact with Zygmunt
Zaremba and Ciolkosz, as 'leaders of the W.R.N. abroad'.
"Zaremba, whom French Socialists know well, was a leader of
the Polish Socialist Party under the occupation and — together
with his friends —• organized the magnificent and tragic Warsaw
Rising. As for Ciolkosz, he was throughout the war delegate of the
Polish Socialist Party in the Committee for the Reconstruction
of the International in which he co-operated with Camille
Huysmans.
"Amongst the arrested men there is Kazimierz Puzak, a former
inmate of the Tsarist prisons, from which he was released by the
Russian Revolution. In the period between the two wars Puzak
was uninterruptedly Secretary-General of the P.P.S. During the
German occupation he was Chairman of the Council of National
Unity, a body corresponding to the French Comite National de
la Resistance.
"Also arrested are, Jozef Dziegielewski, former secretary of
the Warsaw District Committee of the PPS and, during the war,
member of the Central Executive Committee; Wilczynski, organiser of the workers' sport associations and head of the workers'
militia which defended Warsaw in 1939; Feliks Misiorowski,
general secretary of the Transport Workers' Union; Ludwik
• 27 •
Cohn, secretary of the Socialist Youth organisation; Tadeusz
Szturm de Sztrem — a prominent Socialist theorist; Wiktor Krawczyk — secretary of the Clerical Union.
"Such are the 'plotters'! Such are the 'Fascists'! And such is
the fate of leaders of a party which still believes in freedom and
which maintained its noble name from the period of struggle:
Freedom, Equality, Independence . . . "
Equally tragic was the death of another well-known Polish
labor leader, Antoni Zdanowski, former editor of the "Workers'
Economic Review" and Secretary of the Tobacco Workers Union.
Arrested in June, 1947, Zdanowski was released after seven
months of confinement, broken spiritually and physically. He died
four days later.
On the occasion of Zdanowski's death, the Polish Socialist
Delegation-in-Exile issued its famous proclamation entitled "Stop
the Savage Persecution of Socialists in Poland". It was released in
London in April, 1948.
"Antoni Zdanowski was strong, healthy and vigorous when
arrested in June, 1947", the proclamation stated. "Today we are
expected to believe that meningitis and tuberculosis were the
causes of his mysterious death. There is a sinister implication in
thie fact that Zdanowski was released from prison at the end of
January, 1948 — just in time to die".
As in the case of Puzak, according to the proclamation, Zdanowski's body was buried in a sealed coffin. There was no autopsy
and obituaries were forbidden by the communist regime. Only his
nearest relatives were given permission to attend his funeral which
was conducted under the strict supervision of the secret police.
In 1947, Zdanowski was to be a candidate for election to the
Sejm on the ticket of the anti-communist Polish People's Party.
But the government's election committee, composed of communists and fellow travellers, eliminated him from the list ostensibly for the reason that he had collaborated with the Germans
during the occupation. As usual, the regime manufactured facts
to suit its purposes. The truth is that Zdanowski was one of the
leaders of the anti-nazi underground. Why this hideous charge
then? Until June 22, 1941, when Germany attacked Soviet Russia,
Stalin's communists throughout the world collaborated with the
28
o
nazis on Moscow's orders. But after the outbreak of the war, in an
effort to erase their pro-nazi activities, they made fantastic charges
of collaboration with Hitler against genuine and courageous antinazis. Antoni Zdanowski was one of them.
"In the face of this unspeakable horror", concludes the London proclamation, "we ask all decent men and women to join
with us in demanding from those responsible for the present rule
in Poland: What have you done to Antoni Zdanowski?"
The report of Zdanowski's death was soon followed by other
tragic news from Poland: Janina Pajdak, wife of Antoni Pajdak
who was arrested by the M.V.D. in 1945, herself an active leader
in the Polish labor movement, committed suicide. According to
the official police version, she jumped through a window from the
third story of her Cracow prison. As in the case of Zdanowski, no
autopsy was permitted by the government and, of course, no
obituaries, so that her friends would not know that she was dead.
Meanwhile, nothing has been heard of her husband, Antoni
Pajdak, abducted by the Russians in 1945. He was to have been
tried in Moscow together with other anti-nazi leaders of the Polish
underground. But when his colleagues finally appeared for trial
in Moscow, Pajdak, who was a prominent labor leader and Minister in the anti-nazi underground parliament, was missing. What
happened to Pajdak? The Soviet authorities refuse all information
and the satellite Polish regime does not want to claim this famous
Polish citizen and labor leader. Has Pajdak, too, met with the fate
of Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter?
What has happened to the following labor leaders arrested
by the secret police, and who have since disappeared without a
trace:
Antoni Wasik, Marian Bomba, Stanislaw Sobolewski, Stefan
Zbrozyna, Boleslaw Galaj?
Antoni Wasik, former Secretary-General of the Food Workers' Union, was a heroic revolutionary fighter against the Russian
Czar. During the nazi occupation of Poland, he took active part
in the underground movement. What happened to this Polish
worker whose only crime was his belief in the fundamental principles of democracy?
. 29 -
This list of Polish labor leaders arrested, tortured and purged
by the communist regime is, of necessity, incomplete. The families
of those arrested or killed are afraid to make their fate known
publicly for fear of further brutal reprisals against themselves.
But no Iron Curtain can hide the fact that Poland today, like all
the Soviet-dominated states, is a ruthless dictatorship ruled by
terror and based on widespread exploitation of the working
people.
Subservience to the rules of the Soviet Politburo, to the
exclusion of all national interests, is the lot of the satellite states.
It was because Stalin sought to bleed Yugoslavia white in the interests of Russia that Marshal Tito broke with the Cominform.
But in the satellite countries, still under the yoke of the Cominform, all deviation from the "Party line", the slightest attempt at
independence, is nipped in the bud by the secret police under
the direct guidance of the Soviet M.V.D.
The Polish worker is forced to toil under difficult conditions
so as to feed the ever-expanding Soviet war machine and the growing bureaucracy — the new communist aristocracy — of the totalitarian state. "Poland exports coal to the Soviet Union so that the
Soviet Union could import Poland's sugar". So goes a popular
saying in Poland today. This is literally true. Much of what
Poland produces is taken by the Soviet Union on the basis of a
series of unilateral treaties concluded by Moscow with its satellites.
What remains in Poland is used for the reconstruction of the
country — and, it cannot be denied that, due to the enormous
sacrifices on the part of thie population, some progress has been
achieved in the reconstruction of the country, and for the maintenance of the vast Soviet bureaucracy and its Party apparatus.
What has transpired in Poland since the communists, with
the aid of Soviet armed might, seized power, is additional testimony to the basic truth that only a free and democratic society
creates the conditions under which labor can advance economically, politically and socially. Communism is as much a system of
labor exploitation as was Hitler's Nazism and Mussolini's Fascism.
It matters little to labor whether the master wields a black or red
whip.
30
O
o
T H E N A T I O N A L COMMITTEE FOR A FREE
EUROPE, INC., is a group of private citizens who have
drawn together to carry out concrete and direct action to
restore and strengthen man's most valued possession —
freedom.
The Committee has as its active allies numerous exiled
democratic leaders who have found haven in the United
States from the Communist tyranny of Eastern Europe.
Radio Free Europe, of the National Committee for a Free
Europe, is setting up facilities that will enable these trusted
patriots to be heard again by their own people. Not only
does Eastern Europe hear the exiles' impressions of the
United States, but American messages of hope and encouragement are transmitted, and, above all, the truth which
totalitarian governments forbid their enslaved peoples to
hear.
©
Freedom or the enslavement of men's minds and souls,
is the vital issue. What shall we pass on to our children—
their rightful heritage of freedom, or the spiritual devastation of Communism? At this very moment the kind of world
they will inherit hangs in the balance. The issue is for you
to decide. In the vital conflict for the preservation of freedom, the National Committee for a Free Europe offers every
single citizen the opportunity to throw in his weight.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR A FREE EUROPE, INC.
301 Empire State Building
350 Fifth Avenue
New York 1, N. Y.
• 296
O
@FedFRASER