THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

P R O E C C L E S IA D E I , P R O R EG E E T PA T R IA

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V O L . 186 N o . 5 4 8 8

L O N D O N , J U L Y 14th, 1945 _____________________

S IX P E N C E

THE AUTHENTIC VOICE OF EUROPE

The Catholic Population, and its Significance

MEDITERRANEAN ENQUIRY V : The Peninsularity o f Spain. By Douglas Woodruff THE HOLY SEE AND THE AXIS POWERS A Documentation o f the Absurdity o f Calling the Vatican “ pro-German” or “ Fascist”

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Abandonment of Poland

Polling D ay was chosen by the Prim e M in ister to consummate the abandonm ent o f Poland to Russia, a shameful and miserably wrong act, o f which th e essential character h ad been so fa r as possible confused and glided over in the natio nal Press, The Times leading by one, very wrong, head, with th e Telegraph a little more decently uneasy. We have lo st a g reat deal, i f ever we w ant to offer our guarantees again, and th a t, no less th an the accession o f uncontrolled te rrito ry and people, is a great gain to the Soviet U n ion in its persistent weaning o f all Central Europeans from their wistful lingering belief th a t in the West are strong and friendly Powers.

their careers which acutely embarrasses their biographersPoland will be the bad patch fo r the eventual biographers o f Mr. Churchill. Mr. Eden is Foreign Secretary today because he resigned in 1938. H e has n o t resigned over Poland, but neither has he signed ; his illness is n o t diplomatic, but it may prove a stroke o f great good fo rtune if n o t o f prescience, for should the Conservative Party, recovering its morale, grow heartily ashamed o f this business, i t will be M r. E d e n ’s strength th a t he was n o t acting as Foreign Secretary when it was done. Who M . Bierut is

What else could we have done ? The answer is th a t we should have saved something even though we could n o t stop the Russians from setting up their Government in Poland. We should have given the leaders o f th a t Governm ent more reason to behave well th an they have now, when they are already showing an increased arrogance as the recognized sovereign State. The Poles have no so r t o f doubt in deciding th a t they would have been better off if Britain and America were n o t co-signatories and accomplices a t Moscow, fo r the rest o f the world would have followed th e Anglo-American, no t the Russian diplom atic lead. But even after accepting Lublin we could have done much more in showing th a t a perfunctory and contem ptuous promise o f elections some time is n o t enough. The Lublin Poles have no sooner seen the ink dry on their recognition than they have said the elections must be dependent on the re tu rn o f absent Poles and must anyway be rem ote ; a t the most, a tedious form ality one day.

When i t is remembered th a t the Arciszewski Government only came in to existence a t the end o f last November, and the Russians set up and recognized Lublin on January 1st, i t becomes highly im probable th a t any acts o f th e Arciszewski Governm ent had anything to do w ith a Russian policy which has gone fo rw ard step by step as the Russians have tested and proved the readiness to give way poin t by po in t in London and Washington. That, and no malice and stupidity on th e p a r t o f Polish leaders, has b rought us to th e present pass o f eating so many o f our fine words and burying so many agreements made with the Polish Governm ent by the simple device o f calling another group o f Poles the Government.

I n a very dignified le tte r to Mr. Eden, which we p r in t on another page, th e Polish Ambassador, C ount Raczynski, has explained why he cannot, n o t being in a position to,

‘ ‘delegate his function, power and office to anyone, w ithout appropriate instructions from th e President and Government o f th e Polish Republic, who continue to be the sole constitutional and independent representatives o f P o la n d .” H e recites the agreements, eleven in all, which th e British Governm ent has made w ith the Polish Governm ent w ithout ever doubting its credentials o r its right to sign such documents.

This is, we are confident, a docum ent th a t will be accepted in th e fu tu re as a ju s t and justified description o f th e transaction to which we have p u t our h and in this our singularly unfine hour. M ost historical figures have some passage in

The Times has no t touched a lower poin t o f baseness than it reached on Friday, when it to ld the Poles th a t it was their duty to go back and subm it themselves to the new Government. I t made, i t could make, no prom ises about how those who went would fare. I t could n o t say they would no t be deported in to the depths o f Russia while Russians are brought in to Poland, o r th a t th e m ore intellectual and independent would be safe from the Soviet political police. The only certainty the Poles have is th a t whatever injustice and cruelty they suffer will be kept o u t o f The Times, lest readers should come to appreciate how little rela tion the editorial language bears to the grim tru th . Obviously, i f The Times wants the Poles to go back, i t should itse lf conduct a campaign to get the deported Poles back from Russia, and to establish free intercourse by sea and a ir between Poland and th is country.

The reason The Times makes no efforts fo r all these unhappy people is n o t callousness. I t is a well-grounded conviction th a t i t would achieve nothing beyond a page in Pravda calling P rinting House Square a kennel o f fascist dogs. But i f The Times thinks i t dangerous o r vain to write, how can it tell o ther people to risk their liberty ? I t will probably be the tem porary tactics o f the Communists who have been installed to ru le Poland to act and speak with moderation. B u t from the natu re o f the case they cannot allow in Poland either the degree o f personal o r political freedom or the stan dard o f living to be much superior to th a t o f the Soviet Union.

The Polish forces a re re-affirming their loyalty to the Polish State and to President Racziewicz, who is in the extraordinary position o f having an Army which looks to him b u t no country. I f anyone sharing th e simplicity o f mind o f the Edito r o f the Spectator has illusions about th e sort o f men to whom Poland is being handed over, let him consider the man who now emerges by the grace o f Stalin as President.

Bierut was bom in 1891 in the locality o f Laczna, near Lublin. H is real nam e is Krasnodebski. The nam e Bierut was made ou t o f the first two syllables o f his two pseudonyms which he used in his party activities, namely those o f Bienkowski and Rutkowski. U nder th e nam e o f Bierut, K rasnodebski accepted Soviet citizenship in 1921. Attached a t once to the Polish section o f th e Com intern, he spent several years on theoretical train ing and practical courses in Moscow. In December, 1923, he was sent to Poland fo r the first tim e, and alm ost a t once he became one o f th e leading personalities o f the Polish Communist Party. F o r a tim e he was organizing dem onstrations and rio ts to underm ine the in stitu tions o f the Polish State. I n 1925 he organized the escape from prison o f a prom inent member o f th e Comin­