EULOGIZES J. LENSKT
Under the collective signatures. of a group of journalists of Pravda in Moscow and Trybuna Ludu in Warsaw, an article was published in the January 7 Pravda commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of J, Lenski, one of the leaders of the Polish workers movement in the years following the first world war and a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. He was the victim of one of Stalin's blood purges in 1957,
It was probably at the request of the Polish Communist party that the eulogy was published, Together with Warski and Kostrewa, Lenski was one of the most important. leaders of the Polish Communist party, although he stood in the left wing of the party for a time while the others were in the right wing. For years he was a follower of Stalin, particularly in the disastrous period before the arrival of Hitler to power,
But the Polish organization never won Stalin's confidence. This party was intimately linked with the Bolshevik party and, still worse, its principal leaders, including Lenski, had been trained in the school of Rosa Luxemburg, - Thus one of the culminating points of the purges of the thirties was the dissolution of the Polish Communist party under accusation of being a nest of provocateurs and spies and its refugee leaders in Moscow, Lenski among them, were executed, ,
In the Pravda ‘article Lenskits early life and his participation in the October 1917 Revolution are dwelt on, but the authors become reticent beginning with 1923. The only clear part deals with his participation in the policy of the Popular Front which contributed | heavily to blunting the combativeness of the Polish Communist party. Still worse, the eulogy describes Lenski's end in these words, "In 1937, J. Lenski became the victim of a provocation during the period of the cult of the personality,"
Model euphism! A perfect way of writing history! What provoca~ tion destroyed him? Pravda is still not the place where you can con= fidently expect to find the truth.
KIND REMARKS STING STATE DEPARTMENT
At a New Yearts reception in Paris, President de Gaulle singled out the Cuban ambassador for a few minutes of very congenial conver~ sation. Ears burned in the State Department. Press wires grew warm with queries. Was it possible that de Gaulle was becoming a Castroist?
No one thought of the obvious cxplanation. The lordly general was only showing that he is a connoisseur of the American "rib." It was his way of digging the spurs intc a certain Texas rancher, The French court got a big laugh out of the consternation in “nahdnaton,
26m
"TQ SPLIT OR NOT TO SPLIT"
Left Wing