Echoes from the forgotten masses of Polland

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Part of Socialism today

Title: Echoes from the forgotten masses of Polland
Language: English
Source: Socialism today August 1936
Year: 1936
Rights
Fulltext: ,August, 1936 SOCIALISM ·TODAY Page 11 ECHOES F·ROM. ·T-HE ... FORGOTTEN MASSES OF POLAND ... WARSAW. I N THE third-class compartment on the train from Lemberg to Warsaw there was a policeman with his wrist manacled to the wrist of a rather thin man in his early thirties with beady but bright and cheerful eyes. I assumed the prisoner a thief, for it is quite common for policemen, their wrists manacled to those of their prisoners, to be seen walking Polish streets. A woman with a kindly, sympathetic face, a rather cocky self-assured man, my translator and I occupied the rest of the compartment. "I'm on my way to Koronova to do five years.' "You are well dressed, eh? Then why are you riding third-class, tell me that!" Before my translator could tell me what he said, the thief continued angrily: "I am not good enough to be spoken to, eh? But I have been spoken to by teachers -tP,e best of them! By professors and scholars and men who know more than all of you will ever know!" He made a quick motion with his hands and the manacled one fell back. The cocky man with the contemptuous smile now laughed openly. "I suppose they invited you to their house for tea?" he asked sarcastically. "I lived with them!" the thief exclaimed. 'In. the Lemberg prison!" "Fine people," the man commented dryly, "to be in prison". "They were not in prison for stealing," the thief said quickly. "They are not like me. They would not take a groschen from anybody. They are good men, but very unfortunate. They were political prisoners." "Oh," said the man. "Communists, eh? They-" "Don't you say a word against them!" the thief interrupted harshly. "They are better men than you and me." ''.You got out on parole and now you are on your way to do five years in Koronova. You learned a lot from the Communists I" • "And now I got five years I I.have always been very unfortunate. Even when I was in Lemberg and we started a hunger strike because they were beating us I was the one who got the biggest beating I" · "The Communists..-" the man began' tauntingly. "I will not hear a word against them,'' the thief interrupted sharply. "I can tell you do not like them aiid I will not hear a word against them! They are not like us. When we thieves and robbers went By JOHN L. SPIVAK on· a hunger strike against the· rotten . food and the way we were being beaten, the Communists also went on a hunger strike-just to show their sympathy for us! Tell me, who would do that for a thief? Instead of spitting on us, they used to tell us about the world and the history of the world. They used to tell us more th~n I ever learned in school-" The woman nodded her head sympathetically. "I'm on my way to do five years in Koronova," he continued, turning to her, "to do five years at hard labor. Eh! That's nothing. I do not care. I like to work." "You'll get a chance to like it;'' said "You will take my word-a thief's 1 word?" , . . .. · "If you ·give it," said the police;rrian solemnly. · "I give it", said the thief·. "See, you".,.... he turned upon the cock inan-"follolii- us and see whether a thief can keep his wQJ;d ! When you talk to me like that," he said, turning to the policenian,' "I would walk all th.e w~y to Koronova without a guard and appear at the prison walls ... That's the way to talk to a thief!" he said loudly, turning again to the man who had irritated him. "Human, this · policeman-almost like a Communist!" the man dryly. I LEFT him and went wandering "Tell me this," the thief turned upon to the great market at Hale Mi'him. "They give me five years to do roskje, where the people came to buy hard work. Why did they not give me from the little traders, those who can work when I was free? Tell J!le that!" afford only "a little stall or unable to· The man stared at him without answer- afford even that, stand about on the ing. curb so closely togethet that they form "When I was young I got four zloty a a solid line of humanity.· One old woman week for working and I was hungry, so stood at one of the street corners clutch! began to steal-" the thief continued ing seven thin radishes in her hand. It thoughtfully. "And now that I have was ob\1iously all she had to sell and as · grown up I steal because they will not I passed she held them out, calling, give you work. They give you work only "Prosha pana.'' when you steal!" "I don't want any radishes," I said, He shook his head and laughed as shaking my head. though the absurdity of it was terribly She smiled a friendly little smile .. funny. "But they are good radishes,'' she "I wish I were on my way to do five protested, holding them toward me. years for doing what the Communists "And only five groshen for one.'' did-to make speeches and organize the "I am not buying radishes,"· I exworkers-instead of stealing," he volun- plained, 'I just wanted to see how you teered. When no one answered him, he live and work in this market." shrugged his shoulders and added re- "I was not always like· this," she. said gretfully, "But I am a dark man and I quickly~ "Once when I was young I was do not know enough; but they are a servant girl fo. a g.rand house. Then I good men, those Communists." was happy and had a place to sleep in all The policeman, who had not opened his my own and all I wanted to. eat." 'She mouth, let the prisoner talk. As the looked at' radishes and smiled a little train entered the Warsaw station, the wistfully. "But that was· long ago. I thief laughed ch~~rfully. married a man and so I lost my nice "Change for a five-year ride," he called place to live.'' loudly. He bowed with exaggerated de- "And your husband? You are still ference to the man who had aroused his with him?" ire. "Good day to you, sir" he said, "No. He is dead. But I have two holding his left hand to his heart. d~ugl!i.tere. . One is il). Americ.a and the The policeman, whose stolid .expressiol!- other is in Lodz but I never ·hear from had not changed during the entire ride; either of them. I do not know i:t'they ~re now turned to his prisoner. living or dead.''; . 1'We shall have to walk thro)lgh the "Then whom do you ·Iiye 'with?'.' streets," he said. - "I do not want to· "I have a so,~ Bu~-he is not '\vorkil'J,,. shame you by having thtjse · handcuffs He cannQt find work-.-" on your wrist. If you ''\vill give me your. "Do y~u. live in Warsaw?" word not to try to escape I will t'~ke · "·~ o/' she'· sl;lqok'· her. head, "I' Iiv;.e sethem off.'' · ,' ,: .· · ven niiles from Warsaw iil a little '11The thief looked ·at him in ;astonish· ·la~;"· · · · ' ' · •··· · ' ment. '(Confi~~d o~ pag~ 13) August, 1936 SOCIALISM ·TODAY ECHOES·· FROM THE.FORGOTT~N ... "How did you get here?" "I walked, of course," she said. "At two o'clock this morning I got up and with my radishes walked to Warsaw .because everybody comes to buy here on Tuesdays and Fridays. · These are the big market days and I had to be here all five o'clock. It takes me longer,'' she added apologetically, "because I am old now and cannoit walk so well." "But it snowed and rained last night " "Yes. It snowed and then it turned to rain. Just before I got to Warsaw it turned to rain and the roads were very muddy and it was hard walking." · "And you stay here how long?" "All day until it gets dark and then I walk back to my village." "How much do you make #lfter a day's work like that?" "Sometimes a zloty and fifty groshen and sometimes two zloty and sometimes not even fifty groshen." "And on that you have to live half the week?" "Me and my son. He is ill now and cannot get up from bed or he would be helping me,'' she added quickly. does not in any way signify a tendency towards laxness in this field. Today, side by side with the struggle with acts against public preperty, which is the main force of resistance of the remnants of hostile elements, special attention is devoted to the fight with crimes 'against the person. In the Soviet Union, where the human being is looked upon .as the most valuable capital, the person of the citizen, his property and his rights are placed under special protection. This is precisely the reason for the measures for punishing more severely certain categories of crimes such as ruffianism, wilful refusal to pay alimony and similar cases. The unusual results in the Soviet Union's struggle against crime have been obtained on the_ 'basis of the abolition of exploitation of man by man, the abolition of poverty and unemployment, and the rise in the standard of living and the culture of the population. A tremendous role in the effectiveness of the Soviet juridical policy is played by the principles of corective labor, the whole idea of which consist in changing the minds of people, who, in the past were enemies of a socialist society and, under the Soviet system of education, have largely become converted into new people who have forgotten their previous customs and habits. We are confident that this fight with crime wil, as a resutl of the vitcory of Communism, lead to the final and complete abolition of crime in the land of the Soviets. · "When you have so· little; .what do you eat?" I asked. • "Bread and potatoes. Wbat else is there to e~t? PotatOes a~e very cheap but the bread is dear. Sometimes if I· make only fifty or sixty groshen after all day here I buy only potatoes and we have them. But if I am lucky to make a zloty, then we can have a bread too." I had been taking her time which she might have used to sell her radishes and I gave her a zloty. She offered me the seven radishes she held in her hand. "No, no," I said. " I have taken up your time so you keep this zloty." "The whole zloty!" she exclaimed, holding it in h~r hand and looking at it with unbelieving eyes. "Yes, of course. You keep it. Put it away. I guess you can use it. Life is pretty hard, isn't :il;?" And sud<jenly those old eyes filled with tears and she began to cry. "Ai, pana, pana," she sobbed, "no one knows how hard our life is". T HE desire for "something to happen-ariything"-is widespread and there is a whole vast area in Poland extending from 100 to 200 miles from the Russian border and running about 1,000 miles from the Il()rthern frontier of Czechoslovakia to the southern frontiers ttf ·Lithuania and Latvia where the "anything" is being translated into action with organization behind it. This is the "pacification area," so named because Poland is trying to "pl;lcify" the peasants. How the peasants feel and how they are being "pacified" is not being made public by the government or by the Polish press nor does the iron cens9rship permit news of it to seep out if it can be stopped. "Pacification" first began in 1913 in the region immediately north of the Carpathian-Russ section of Czechoslovakia and has become increasingly brutal and ruthless. The men and women; both radical and conservative, who told me what is being done to the peasants there were as frightened" as those who speak in Ita- . ly or Germany, for in Poland the authorities need only to suspect that you talked of these matters to find yourself on the way, without a trial, to the concentration camp at· Bereza Kartuska. 'Not far away was the Soviet Union where the peasants had been miserable but now news was seeping acros~ the frontier that Russian peasants were eating again, th~t they -had salt for their potatoes, that they ate meat, that they had bread, that things were getting better while in Poland life for the peasants was steadily growing worse .. Peasants turned their eyes eastward ·wh'ere Soviet soil now offered a haven of plenPage 1~ (Continued from .pa,ge 11) ty. A" strong Communist' s.entiment d,eveloped and this · resulted in the o:ffort · :t!> "pacify;' the regio~ •. . ·Battalions of sol~rs swarmed on villages seeking the leaders but th~ peasants refused to surrender them and in desperate 'efforts to root out the "Reefs" the officials introduced the custom of "common responsibility." This proeedure is quite ·simple, soldiers surround a village where a Communist is suspected of being active and line up all village residents. • The ·officers then announce that the village is "commonly responsible" for the existence of a Communist in their midst and unless he is s.urrendered with. in one our. every fifth i>erson, man, woman or child above fourteen, chosen at random, will be placed under arrest, beaten severely and then imprisoned on suspicion of being themselves Communists. Ori my way to the village of Kolki in the Volhynia district, where I had heard children had b.een "pacified" for asking for free schools I talked with peasants who told me many things with anxious pleas . not to tell that they had talked· with me, pleas as anxious as any I enco.untered in Italy or Germany. Even government officials in Warsaw, sick of the occurrences in the "pacification area" talked. And I heard tales· like the one when the n\i!itary swept upon and surrounded the little village of Bobraka where a Communist . was atcive. "The threat of "common responsibility" was made and either because the peasants were terrified or because there was an informer in their midst the Communist was found and taken away to prison "and the izba (peasant hut) where he had lived was burned to th(\ ground and over the cold ashes plows were drawn and the land was plowed so that no one would ever know even the ground where a Communist had lived." · There were many such tales as l went wandering around the Volhynia district, stopping' at izbas that sagged from the weight of their snow-covered strawthatched roofs and then I came to Kolki where an old and bearded peasant told me of what happened on May Day of 1935. The new Polish Constitution had guaranteed ~free schools and there had been joy in· the hearts of the "dark .people". The illiterate and hungry peasants had heard that the educated did not hunger and they wanted to see their childi:en educated so they "would not hunger as we ·are, hungering." When no schools were burl.t the -peasants began 'to demand them and at first shyly and with many apologle!j and tb'en a little irritably they asked ~Jly · the schoo1s • wer.e not being built f(),r the children · and _ th&· Page .l4 SOCIALISM TQDAY auth~ritl.es had.no answer. On May Day· to K!>Iki," hi!! said. · "T-hey ·will threate!l JOSEP;H '5'1-'A'LlN of 19~15 a twenty·two-yearii-old Co]Jll)lU• ' us." • ' ' (l;ontinued frorYi pag~. S) ' ' ' nist, the local school teacher, organized "We are.·not children tcfbe ~rightened," cow., in Austria, and was ab1e to take the peasants .from the neighboring said another. •"I •have )leen a soldier and 1 part in the· cottference of the party· ~ith farms and led ·a May Day march on the I am not frightened so easily._'' "Lenin, when he was ·~dected a member village. They carri~d a red banner ins- They placed the children in the front of the Central Committee. cribed with the words "Give Us Schools line so that the soldier could see they Some Russian revolutionists of this for Our Children" and well over a thou- were on a peaceful mission, placed them period spent con~iderable time abroad sand peasants, ancient Poles whose an- right behind the teacher who was lead- studying in comparative security; 1 Not cestors had tilled the soil for generations, ing- them and carrying the red banner so Stalin. He was always lit the most their wives, younger folk and children of asking that the children be not allowed to dangerous front, giving himself unschool age, marched upon the village of grow up in the darkness of their elders. sparingly to the illegai work of his parKolki. There was a picnicky air about it. The officer in command of the soldiers ty. In 1913 he took part in the elecThe long winter was over. May and the shouted to them to stop. The teachers' tive campaign for ihe fourth Duma· sun and warmth were here and tQ most face flushed as red as the banner she (congress) and became leader of the of the gay and laughing line it was a carried and she turned to the peasants Bolshevist faction. At that time he was great big party to be enjoyed, a sort of behind her. also one of the editors of- the ·illegal communal celebration. The young tea- "Let us sing!" she called loudly. "All Bolshevist papers, "The Star" and "The cher Jed the procession and as they ap- Truth." In February, 1913, he waE artogether-as we go to demand the en<;lpf proached the long, level road leading to darkness for our children!" rested for the sixbh time and exiled unthe village they met a group of police- der a heavy guard. This time he did not She waved the red banner and her men obviously on their way to intercept escape $Id was freed only by the Febthem. voice came strong like a challenge to ruary revolution. ' battle: "Where are you going?" the police de- In the Bolshevist Revolution Stalin manded. "Arise! Ye prisoners of staravtion-" was one of the committee of ,five who "To the village to ask for free schools," The children who had learned the song managed the uprising, working shoulder. the teacher responded gaily. joined in. Quavering peasant voices to shoulder with Lenin and strongly fa"Our children will not be as dark and picked it up and then the voices were voring the seizure of power, in opposit'ion drowned out by a burst of machine-gun to Zinoviev and Kamenev, who cautioned ignorant as we," said several peasants fire. crowding around the police. delay. From 1917 to 1923 he was Nineteen were killed. Twelve little People's. Commissar of Nationalities, the "You cannot march on the village," said the police. children who had gone to plead for free man who initiated the successful policy schools that they might not grow up in of giving cultural autonomy and . local "But the new constiution has guarant- the darkness of their elders, the teacher, freedom to the nationalities within the eed us free schools," the teacher protest- · still clutching the banner even in death Union. Besides this, from 191~ to 1920, ed. • and six peasants, They had been "pa- he was People's Comirissar for Workers "You will have to disperse," said the cified." . and Peasants Inspection, and from 1920 police. "You cannot march on Kolki." "We could not even bury our dead," to 1923, a member of the Revolutionary "But all that these peasants and child- said the old peasant, rubbing a grimy War Council of the Republic. · rent want is to ask for the free schools hand over his nose. "We were told that The intervention in Russian affairs the constitution has guaranteed them," here and there they are buried, the tea- of England, France, Japan and the the girl protested. cher and the children. There were many United States threw him into. the· civil 'the police oficer shook his head an- wounded and when we fled we carried war. He was sent from one front to'.angrily and spread out his arms to signi- them with us to our homes." other, serving against Udenitch, D•nify that the road was barred. The girl Not a. word of the massacre was pub- kin and the Poles, and, for b,is heroism turned to the peasants and waving the lished. The organ 0 f the Socialist Party, he was decorated with the highest So~ red banner with the words "Give Us Robbotnik, learned of it and tried to viet order of the Red Sign. . ' Schools for Our Children" she called· publish an account of what had hap- It is always the custom1 for the Red "We have the right to march to Kolki pened and the issue was promptly con- Army soldiers to greet· a commander and we ·are marching." fiscated. with a cheer; On thj! front .near Pet. The policeman slapped her and in a "And now?" I asked. rograd one December, Stalin .noted that· few moments the gay and happy pea- 'He stared. at the floor. the soldiers did :riot greet him with ens ants and their wives had so set upon thusiasm. Halting one whose tightly the police, kicking and cuffing them, that "Now we remember our di:ad," the old compressed lips indicated complete sipeasant said quietly. they beat a hasty retreat. Jenee, Stalin asked, "Why?" The man We sat silent f&r a while, none of us · d h" f I "Ah," sighed the old peasant, "we pomte to is own eet, c ad only in · feeling much like talking after this tale. laughed---even the children laug)led when straw sandals. Staljn immediately took we saw them running back to Kolki; and "Some day", said the peasant slowly, off his own fine leather boots, gave them the. teacher laughed and said that that "where. those children died and where to the soldier, and took in return tile showed what we could do when we were that teacher lies buried, blood will run straw sandals, which he wore· all winter, like a river in the spring and it will not h · th d I t' 'th b" determined, that a few policemen could s armg e epr va 10n w1 · is m~n. be the blood of peasant children." f h' d s Id. h" not stop us." One o 1s comra es, turo, to . , is· They marched on again, singing the "They will shoot you down as before," adventures during the direst days ·(if the Interna,tional, laughing and joking about I said. civil war, when it was a race' betwee~ how the police had run away. "They will shoot many of us· down," starvation and defeat at the . .'.: 'J Alli~s' And then they saw a detachkent of he returned .quietly, "but there"_;.he mo- hands. Stalin was 'fopd dictator. Said soldiers in the distance and an old pea- tioned to the east--"not a two ~rs jour- Sturo: sant, wise in the ways of the military, ney by 'even· a starvin~ hOTse, are sol- "l. was commiSsioned to ~ecure food called a halt. diers of ~he peasants. They are ·our sol- for Baku. At the ·time Baku had a "They are there to stop us from going diers •. And they wil come to hil!lP QS,'; (Continued ·on flCiOe 27)