REPORT OF A PARTICIPANT ON THE KOLAKOWSKI CASE
A year ago, on October 21, 1966, the noted philosopher Leszek Kolakowski made a speech on the tenth anniversary of the Polish October at a meeting under the auspices of the Socialist Youth Union at Warsaw University. In it he expressed the bitter disillusionment of many Communist intellectuals with the policies and performance of Gomulka's regime.
Kolakowski, who had long been a bone in the throat of the bureaucracy, was immediately expelled from the party for his outspoken criticism. His exclusion provoked a series of confrontations between the authorities and dissident professors, students and writers which continue to reverberate in Polish cultural circles.
Kolakowski's ouster was linked with the cases of Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski, two young Communist scholars and well-known members of the Socialist Youth Union, who were imprisoned in July 1965 for their revolutionary oppositional views. Kuron was freed this May and Modzelewski in August.
University students incensed by their repression vigorously expressed their protest in front of the Communist dignitaries on the platform during the 1966 May Day procession in Warsaw by shouting: "Socialist democracy" and "power to the workers' councils." [See "Polish Intellectuals Agitated by Kolakowski's Expulsion" by George Novack, World Outlook, December 23, 1966, and "Kuron Released -- Modzelewski Still in Prison," World Outlook, June 30, 1967.]
A first-hand report on the events in the Kolakowski case was published in the Austrian magazine Neues Forum by Dr.P.K.Raina, an Indian historian who worked at the University of Warsaw's Institute for Contemporary History on a fellowship from the Polish Ministry of Higher Education. It has been translated into English by I.A.Langnas and appeared, in a slightly condensed version, in the September-October 1967 Dissent, a New York bimonthly of Social-Democratic coloration.
Dr. Raina was expelled from Poland for "antistate activities" -- for his contact with Kolakowski. The Polish police confiscated two of his completed manuscripts, a biography of Gomulka and a study of Poland's political parties during the period 1939-1944.
Dr. Raina vividly portrays the meeting at which Kolakowski spoke. It "was due to start at 6:00 P.M. By 5:30 it was impossible to enter the hall, which normally holds 100 people; several hundred stood outside the door. Students stood on chairs, desks, windowsills, and on each other, their feet on the shoulders of their fellow students, their backs against the wall. Men who found a place to sit had women on their knees, who, in turn, supported other women on their laps. No one complained. Everyone was excited and expectant."
Kolakowski started by asking: "Why are we here? Oh, yes, it is the tenth anniversary of our October Revolution. On October 21, 1956, the Central Committee of the United Polish Workers Party(CP) met to give formal recognition to Gomulka's leadership; Stalinism was condemned....A new Poland was to arise -- sovereign, free, liberal. Poland's road to socialism had begun. But that was 10 years ago. What have we got to celebrate today? Nothing, absolutely nothing."
Amidst extreme tension and complete silence, Kolakowski reviewed the landmarks that led up to the Polish October and the events associated with it: Stalin's death, Beria's liquidation, the East Berlin uprising, the Twentieth Congress, the Hungarian revolt and the Soviet intervention.
He concluded: "There is no genuine democracy in this country; there is very little chance for the people to choose their leaders. The leadership which is not really elected becomes arrogant and supercilious. There is no opposition; hence, there is no confrontation between those who have power and those who do not. And so our political system is ridden with incompetence and bureaucracy.
"The government does not feel responsible to the people. A system of privilege prevails for a few people who are above and outside the law....
"There is no public criticism. There is no freedom of assembly. The censorship is extremely severe. The situation, if possible, is worse in literary criticism, modern sociology, and contemporary history; for here the consequences are even more deadly.
"All this has weakened our society, there is no prospect, no hope. The state, the Party and society all have become victims of this stagnation.
"There is nothing to celebrate."
There was tumultuous applause from everyone but fifty party members of orthodox opinion who were busy writing everything down.
The next speaker, Pomian, also a philosopher, condemned the Association of
Socialist Youth for its deadly bureaucratic spirit. Dr. Raina himself opened the discussion by praising Kolakowski as a great thinker and moralist. He criticized the absurd censorship and low level of the books on contemporary history.
Then a mathematics student, Duracz, proposed a resolution for adoption demanding the freeing of Kuron and Modzelewski. During the explosive discussion another student challenged orthodox members to "come up and explain to us why Kuron and Modzelewski were jailed."
The chairman, a young historian, declined to accept the resolution because it was not on the agenda. Whereupon a physics student, Sawicki, submitted another resolution consisting of quotations from Gomulka in 1956 emphasizing that Marxists in the party could hold different opinions.
Although expressing sympathy for the resolutions, the dean of the faculty prevailed upon the audience not to press for a vote on them then and there, warning that innocent people would suffer.
Kolakowski's summary remarks were brief. "Socialists," he said, "must be rationalists. Reason and democracy are inseparable. Socialists despise demagogues."
The speeches were tape-recorded by agents of the Ministry of the Interior. Some days later Kolakowski was expelled from the party on order of the Central Committee without consultation with the party organization of the university. The Rector expelled six students from the university for "indecent behavior," that is, speaking in defense of Kuron and Modzelewski.
The party organization of the university was convoked on November 15, 1966, to hear the official reasons for Kolakowski's expulsion. This was its first meeting in about two years. Attendance was compulsory. The session lasted from 5 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., with short breaks. The minister of education and five other Politburo members were present.
Kliszko, the secretary of the Central Committee, Gomulka's number two man and chief ideologist, presented the party's case against the iconoclastic philosopher. He chided the weak party organization at the university for tolerating his transgressions for so long. "The difference between the Party's thinking and Kolakowski's lies in the attitude toward socialist and proletarian democracy," he said. "This difference produced a crisis when Kolakowski defended Kuron and Mod~ zelewski in court....
"The PUWP [Polish CP] is no Social Democratic party. It has no independent factions or groups with separate policies. We will not tolerate such groups: Party discipline is compulsory. The PUWP is a party in which there is no stagnation."
His report did not silence criticism. In fact, remarks Raina: "...for the first time the members came not to listen to a Party leader but to tell him what they thought -- with new candor and courage. It was the most open discussion in the 22 years since the restoration of Poland. Never before had the Party leadership been so violently challenged by the intellectuals; never before did it have to defend its bureaucratic position with so much rhetoric, demagogy, and cynicisn."
Some examples: Holzer, a young assistant history professor: This "was the only meeting in the whole city to commenorate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution....The freeing of Kuron and Modzelewski is not a bad thing; they must be freed. The Small Penal Code of 1945 is a bad thing that must be abolished."
Mme. Zakrzewska, professor of the law faculty: "Kolakowski is a great humanist. (Sustained applause.] He was not iven the opportunity to defend himself. Fapplause. | Kolakowski is a great representative of socialist thinking. [Stormy applause.] I support him and his ideas. [Violent applause. ]
"The students want more freedom; they have not lived through the period before 1956 and so have no standard of comparison."
Myzner, dean of the faculty of journalism: "The Party is on the defensive. The meeting in the Historical Institute was a confrontation of opinions. Party members had a chance then to proclaim their opinions; they did not take it. Discussions should be held without fear.
"The University has inherited a new feudal bureaucracy. This structure must undergo a fundamental change. The University must become the center of political thinking."
Lesnodorski, dean of the faculty of law: "...youth is skeptical; it lacks confidence. It may be undisciplined, but it is not bad. In capitalist countries youth adapts itself to the existing conditions; under socialism it is always active. There is great hope for the future of socialism because of the skepticism of our youth."
There were other pro-Kolakowski speakers, including the dean of the philosophy faculty, Morawski.
A brutal reply came from Stanislaw Kociolek, first secretary of the Warsaw
Party Committee: "I am against discussions, dialogues, seminars. Party unity is the supreme goal, the supreme law in the life of the Party.
"Modzelewski's ideas are spreading; his ideology is impure. He has adherents not only among the youth. We cannot remain indifferent to this group. Modzelewski's followers are not immature. Their policy is cold and calculating. They organize demonstrations and meetings; they print political pamphlets. Their aim is to discredit the Party....
"Intellectuals can become as useless as the plague; it is the Party's duty to discipline them. They must submit to that discipline for the Party will not tolerate sectarianism. Whoever shows these tendencies will be destroyed."
In his summary Kliszko admitted there were two distinct groups in the audience: for and against the party; and he repeated the warning that sectarianism would not be tolerated.
During late November and December every party member at the university, students and faculty alike, had to appear before a McCarthyite investigation commission to be interrogated on their attitude toward Kolakowski. Only a few professors stood firm on their convic-— tions.
The last act in this dramatic confrontation took place on December 12, 1966, when the party members of Warsaw University met to elect a new executive
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