POLAND: The Somewhat Free Election

Statesmen often act in a Machiavellian manner, but could a whole people be Machiavellian? Could Poland knowingly vote a Communist government into power, not because it likes or wants Communists but because that way it avoids trouble with the Soviet Union? This was the question some 18 million Polish voters, free from secret-police threats and reprisals for the first time in 19 years, had to answer this week.

Coming to power last October on a wave of popular resentment against the Soviet Union, Party Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka had been forced to promise that the postponed Polish general election would be “free” and held forthwith. Gomulka arranged that the 459 seats in the Sejm (Parliament) would be contested by 723 candidates (chosen from a list of 60,000 names), about half of whom would be members of the Polish Workers (Communist) Party. Although the slate was rigged in such a way that the Communists would obtain a majority, for the first time in a Soviet country the electorate had a chance of voting for non-Communist members of Parliament.

Cross-Questioning. As the election campaign proceeded, grave dangers assailed Gomulka’s experiment in limited democracy. Communist candidates were greeted with such cries as “What did you do to prevent the bad years?” and “I’m for Gomulka, but right after he came in prices went up.” Listening coldly to candidates’ ingratiating speeches, voters debated which was the better way to manifest their disgust with Communism: to boycott the elections, or to cross off all the Communist names at the top of the ballots. Their defiance was subtly encouraged by the Stalinist Communist leaders whom Gomulka supplanted, who did not hesitate to appeal to Poland’s latent anti-Semitism and describe the Gomulka faction as a “bunch of Jews.” From their viewpoint, an anti-Communist demonstration at the polls would constitute a massive nonconfidence vote in Gomulka, and justify a Stalinist revival in which they would return to power, if necessary with the support of Soviet tanks.

The example of Hungary was too vividly before Gomulka for him to doubt that the Russians would be glad to return in strength. He maneuvered in two directions. First he appealed for full support for his “National Unity Front,” emphasizing that “to cross out our party’s candidates is to cross out Poland from the map of European states.” He insisted that Poland had to be Communist now: “The fate of Poland, its independence and security . . . are bound up with the camp of socialism.” In fear of non-Communist strength, he demanded that some candidates, notably Socialist Edward Osubka Morawski, onetime Prime Minister (1945-47), withdraw. But by far the most important of Gomulka’s moves was his alliance with Roman Catholic Cardinal Wyszynski. Apparently convinced that many church freedoms won last October would be lost if Gomulka was rebuffed, the Roman Catholic Episcopate told Catholics that they had a duty to vote. Result: thousands of Poles rushed to the precinct stations to make sure their names were on the electoral rolls.

The Troika. As polling day approached, the campaign took on the color of a hard-fought and genuine democratic election. Unity Front headquarters sent teams of three candidates (Communist, Peasant, Democrat), called “Troikas,” galloping through the suburbs, while hundreds of larger teams descended on the provinces. In Lodz, Aeroclub planes dropped Unity Front leaflets, and Boy Scouts canvassed from door to door. In Warsaw there were two masked balls, with mazurkas and rock ‘n’ roll, under huge banners: “Remember October achievements when you vote.”

This week voters flocked to the polls in impressive numbers. Under the critical scrutiny of more than 100 Western newsmen, the majority were seen to do as Gomulka and his wife did: take a ballot and place it directly in the ballot boxes without crossing off Communist names. Nobody seemed to mind, however, when others went behind the curtain (a rare privilege in a Communist country) to mark their ballots as they pleased. However (“to avoid the kind of excitement that would lead to violence”) and to be on the safe side, the government planned to make public total counts rather than precinct by precinct, and the result, said government officials, would not be issued until later in the week. As some Communists frankly admitted, this provided an opportunity for a Machiavellian manipulation of the result, in the event that the voters had not been Machiavellian enough to see the peculiar merit of Gomulka. Poland was still a Communist state.