POLISH PARTY HISTORIAN REVIEWS STALIN'S INFLUENCE ON POLISH COMMUNIST PARTY ORGANIZATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000700130260-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 23, 2011
• Sequence Number: 260
• Publication Date: September 14, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

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CLASSIFICATION RESTRICTED
SECURITY INFORMATION
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS
COUNTRY Poland
SUBJECT Political - Party history
HOW
PUBLISHED Monthly periodical
WHERE
PUBLISHED Warsaw
DATE
PUBLISHED Mar 1953
LANGUAGE Polish
?NC 10,. Or ?0 0.0. 000E ?O ,0000.0. 1,0 1 ?+ OL01O, *00 O.N..
LOTION OF .,O C04,l,U TO 00 060v, .v ? , ?10.0 ? N .0
REPORT
CD NO,
DATE OF
DATE DIST. / ! Sep 1953
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
The eollowing information is taken from ore of the ccnmentdries
rude by dignitaries of the PZPR (United Polish 11or'.:ers' Party) at the
.ghth Plenum of its Central Committee, held 28 March 1953. Each of
in cc:.u:entaries, given in abrid, c form in 1;owe Drop;i, is an ampli-
ication of Dierut'a l:ey-u to address.
Tudeusz Danisueweki, director of the Party History Division,
points in the presen' ccn?:ent:ry to previous partl successes and
failure based on adherence t.^ or deviation frcc, the USSR line.?
Stalin had close tics with the Polish labor movement. In his earliest
-corks, he expressed his deep sympathy for the enslaved Polish nation and for
the Polish people's strup;le for national and social freedom. The heroic
actions of the proletariat in the Dabroa Be! in, in Lyra-dow, ana in other
Polish towns were received sy-nathetically thr u-hout Tsardom and were re-
flected in Stalin's pronouncements in the ille al Press of the RSDRP (Rus-
sian Social-Democratic Labor Party) ,group in the Caucasus. At the st.art.of
the 1905 Revolution, Stalin cnaracterized the October strike movement which
paralyzed not only the center of the state but all of Russia by writing
...all Poland and...all of the Caucasus have arisen and are t'.u?eaterinthe
espot."
Like Lenin, Stalin emphatically pointed out that "the unity of all workers,
regardless of nationality, is necessary for victory over Teardsn," and that
soli?larity with the Russian proletariat on the part of the struggling masses
of all nations oppressed by Tsardom, including Poland; is an indispensable
precursor of their ccmplete independence. Stalin addressed the following
words to the Polish electorate during the elections to the Duma: You are
struggling for the right of free national development; remember that na-
tional freedom is impossible without universal freedom."
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Stalin rated the SDKPiL (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland.and
Lithuania) very highly for its international position, despite its ideological
immaturity and the erroneous viewpoints which he criticized. In his "Notes of
a Delegate to the London Congress of the RSDRP," Stalin noted with satisfaction
that all the Polish delegates of the SDKPiL decisively backed the Bolsheviks.
In another article on this period, Stalin stated that, in opposition to the
Mensheviks, "the industrial centers for the greater part support '.,,e Bolsheviks.
Bolshevik policy is accepted with confidence in Petersburg, Moscow, the central
industrial region, Poland, the Baltic country, and the Ur;pls."
The following fact illustrates the growing brotherhood of arms between
the Polish and Russian proletariat and the steadfast bond which united the
SrKPiL with the party of Lenin and Stalin despite all their differences. In
protest at the bloody massacre on the Lena, which evoked a great wave of in-
dignation and initiated a period of revolutionary revival, Stalin wrote in the
Petersburg Zvezda in April 1912: "The salvos on the Lena have broken the si-
lent ice and the river of the people's movement has surged forth." Soon there-
after, the SDKPiL's Czerwony Sztandar (Red Panner), as if in reply to Stalin,
stated: "The class unity of Polish workers and Russian workers, the unity of
their revolutionary goals, and the unity of their actions ha. again become
plain and evident. The salvos of the Lena have struck: the Polls' and Russian
proletariat as one organism out of which a common cry of pain and protest has
come, as if common blood flowed in the veins of Polish and Rusrian workers
and as if they were vitalized by one common heart."
We are proud that the creators of the Bolshevik party of Lenin and
Stalin, on the eve of World War I, fashioned their strategy and tactics on
Polish soil. "Marxism and the Question of Nationalism," written by Stalin
in this period, had a special meaning for the Polish liberation movement.
The ideas included in this work, which was a declaratio. of the Bolshevist
program on the national question, were realized, after the victorious October
Revolution, in Stalin's "Declaratior of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia,"
which proclaimed the right of free national self-determination, even to the
point of secessi a and the creation of indepe-?dent states.
The vista of national and social ;aeration was opened to the Polish
nation. Stalin stated in 1911: "Thc .:crl.d has been split decisively and ir-
revocably into two cr.,ns: imreria?.in and socialism.... Estonia and Lithuania,
the Ukraine and Crimea, Tor'kostan and Siberia, Poland and the Caucasus, and
even Russ. a rersel :,- not goals in themselves, but only an arena in the mor-
tal battle between ineerialisri, -.;hir?`. _?ies to ;;Lrom;then the yoke of slavery,
and socialism, which is atrur7,Jin;, ';;r '.iberation from slavery."
The I41P (Cr.:;munist Lit,' of Pc l: nd) ::as the sole force in Poland fighting
for socialist,, L-.ainst. in-, crialisr.,, rand for friendship of Poland with the USSR,
and against economic and political dependence of Poland on the imperialist
world. The IT'P was the solo force ctrur ling for true independence, because
it was based cn the authority c the people end on friendship with the Russian
Revolution and progressive revolutionary forces throughout the world. But the
KPP could net fulfill its historic mission in the early years of its existence
because it vas hardened down b; the lc:-acy of erroneous Lnxembur ist concepts
and opportunistic theories inhcr t?e: form the PPE; (Polish Socialist Party)-Left.
It was only after thu sad experience of defeats at Lhe bands of the class enemy
on one hand and with the e::ample of t;!, y,vn 2wiet tale which showed the
correctness in the Practical application of Bolshevik principles on the other
hand, and finall,- the unceasing help from Lhe Cot:ontern and its leading section,
tlrc VT(b) (All-Union Commu;,i.st Party (D3olshevik)), that the iE.'P gradually as-
s imilatel 1.ar::isra-Lenin ism.
In the words of Ceua?ade Bier;rt: "'the i2., frog: the time of its Second
Congress In 1923, became a party which introduced Lenirierr into the history
of the Polish worker movement."
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The process of assimilating and applying Marxist-Leninist principles to
conditions in Poland by the KPP was long, difficult, and painful. The matter
was complicated even more by the fact that enemy agents operated within the
KPP, sometimes within its directing organs. These agents obstructed the Bol-
shevization of the party by employing crafty methods, sectarian tactics, and
loud revolutionary phraseology.
For many years after the Second Congress, party authorities continued to
make serious errors either of an obviously rightist character or of an ultra-
lef`?ist character. Every error of this kind victimized the party and the working
class. Paraphrasing Lenin's statement that "Russia attained Marxism through
suffering," we can say that Poland, too, purchased the victory of Marxism-
Leninism by great sacrifices and sufferings.
Stalin personally gave all-round, valuable aid to help the UP overcome
its errors on the path to Marxism-Leninism. At the end of 1923 and the begin-
ning of 1924, the UP authorities committed a series of opportunistic errors
and supported the rightists in other sections of the Comintern, the Fifth Con-
gress of the Comintern created a Polish commission to help the party meet the
crisis. The leader of the Russian delegation and also the chairman of this
commission, which included the most distinguished representatives of affiliated
parties, .as Stalin.
A UP brochure on the commission stat d: "The high point of the com-
mission proceedings was Stalin's talk. Clearly, emphatically, and thoroughly
he presented the essence of the conflict between the icaders of the Polish
right and the Comintern and offered a solution."
In this talk, Stalin characterized the liberal attitude toward op-
portunistic deviations as a remnant of social democratism. To this day, we
have not rooted this remnant out of our daily lives completely; the following
is one example of this: Every important publication in the USSR is subject to
critical analysis by the press for faults and merits. It is unimportant
whether the criticism pleases the author or not. Our reviews are more of a
reporting and informational character, and are handles as e matter of courtesy.
For example, the publications of the Party History Division for some reasrn
do not draw critical remarks in the party press, althou-h these would only
be a help in our work.
Again in July ]925, Stalin cave advice and assistance to the UP. which
this time was going through an ultro_leftisi. crisis. At a meeting of the
reconstituted Polish commission, Stalin exposed the ultraleftist phraseology
of the group gathered around Domski and stigmatized its reactionary attacks
against the Comintern.
Stalin was the ingenious teacher and educator of Polish Communists. lie
taught them how to avoid various deviations from the general Leninist line.
how to realize the Bolshevik principle of keeping pace with the masse*, how
to lead the masses, how not to tar, along behind reactionary lines and pre-
judices but still not to g,o too far ahead an' thus cut themselves off from
the masses.
In criticizing the "lay blunder" of the MI. Stalin gave a Penetrating
analysis of the internal situation of Poland at that time: "Poland, at the
present time, constitutes : tangled web of basic contradictions which in their
eventual development must inevitably lead Poland into an immediate; revolutionary
situation. These contradictions rppear in three basic problems: the worker,
the peasant, and nationalism." Stalin taught the U F that it must stand at the
head of the entire movement as the leader of all the oppressed and exploited,
and that it must direct all sources of revolutionary energy in the country into
one channel.
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In discussing the Comintern prograr:r at the Central Committee of the VKP(b)
in 1928, Comrade Stalin placed Poland in the category of countries with mod-
erately developed capitalism and remnants of feudalism and described it as a
country with a special agrarian question. The petty bourgeoisie, especially
the peasantry, undoubtedly would have great influence in the event of a re-
volution and would require certain temporary measures, such as the dictatorship
of he proletariat and the peasantry, on the road to the dictatorship of the
Proletariat. It seems that the 1CPP did not use all the suggestions of this
important directive of Stalin, that it did not fully appreciate the extent of
the feudal remnants in Poland, especially the peasants, but expected to follow
a straight line toward the dictatorship of the proletariat.
A letter of Comrade Stalin entitled "On Certain Problems of the History
of Bolshevism," coblished by the periodical Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya, was of
great importance for the ideological development of the KPP and the assimilation
of Marxism-Leninism. In this letter, Stalin made a severe, but just, evaluation
of the leftist social democrats in Germany, especially of the Luxemburgists,
whose ideology coincided somewhat with Trotsky's. Although an overwhelming
majority ~f SDIPiL activists took the Leninist position, there were also many
units which had held cn tenaciously to old, erroneous concepts and had suns!
into the morass of Trotskyism.
Stalin's letter bore fruit. The Central Committee of the KPP passed
two far-reaching resolutions In which it criticized the inheritance of er-
roneous concepts of the SDi- iL and the PPS-Left. nevertheless, it did not
discount the services of these parties; especially the [;rest, immortal ser-
vices of the SDKiL in its international attitude toward the Trttu?ing and
later victorious Russian Revolution, as the sole path leading to the srrcial
and national liberation of Poland.
Stalin became the rallyin:, point for the ?dish Communist movement in
these years. The Central. Conritteo of the 1 'P sent a letter of ;rectinj, to
Stalin on his 0t!: cullinf; him the staunch f i,pater for the purity
of the Leninist line." :11 07 S?alin'c bas-!.e works ::nd statements were
cited and widely discussed in h..c: ii opal Co:::::u:nist press crud where
possible in the ]oral press. Tlic! ce '.a7. cran o: the 1LpP, Czerwony Sztandar,
consenting ^.n tie 17t!: Congress n pi;l ?l i ;hed an article called
"Stalin foot Be Our Guide." . . _ c . . thel:hrc:.'. o llitlerite a ,gressicn, the
Fourth P].enur:r;f the 17P's Central Committee published a memorial Reclaration.
This declaration st.:tad that the . 'izh Cc:ccrraists, as the inheritors of the
finest democratic and liberatir. tradition:: o' the Polish i,eople, -here uniting
the problem.: of P'jli.sh national :nde:.,endence indissolubly with the overthrow of
the fascist yol:e and the liber:a: .., of eu:;,',:r ated. peoples under Polish ic!-
perialism. As the IH'P assimilated tiro tea chins Lenin and Stalin, it
matured in the role of the natior'e leader.
In a letter to Denian Diedny, ^ ; a].: r.urcte .of his conversations
Polish, German, and French :.orlcera: i_ey .'re e;:cal eat re:olutionar
arterial. Everythin, indicates that in the 5?cnt a real revolutionary . .utred
of the bour eoir svoter: is growing. It attic joy tir.t. I _stcncd `?o thei.r
sir_pl' but sorceful uordc ,rxprer cin.? h. 'dories $t: :tart a ccvc].o ion en the
Russian modeh at hone. Gne more characteristic o_' these y orkers struck r:e:
their strong, sincere, and iluosl. motherly 1:?7e cf o,::? cr, rary and their
boundless faith in the ri:htecusnese of jur _:s icier, capabilities,
and power."
During the occupation, the Polish Fiorkers' larty foilcaed the Stalinist
path and raised high the banner of ratriotism and internationalism. This
path was and is followed also by the Gaited Polisi ':ork_rs ?arty and is the
best guarantee of our ultimate victr:ry.
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