The Warsaw Commune: Betrayed by Stalin, Massacred by Hitler. Zygmunt Zaremba 1947
After the defeat of September 1939, which marked the collapse of the dictatorial semi-Fascist regime, Polish political life was sustained by the working classes. The Socialist and Peasant Parties formed the basis of the Resistance, both on the social and the military plane. The Union of Armed Struggle created at the end of 1939, soon transformed into the Home Army, had as its basis the alliance of the workers and peasants. [1] The Chief Political Council, the first leading organisation of the Resistance, and the Council of National Unity, a secret parliament, above all rested upon the working and peasant masses. From now on it was they who assumed the responsibility for the struggle and the reconstruction of the state. In spite of the opposition of more backward elements, this transformation called forth a lively response in the life of clandestinity, which was completely suffused with democratic ideals.
The declaration of 15 August 1943 published by the political representatives of the country became the programme of fighting Poland. The Warsaw Uprising, the culmination of the national struggle against Hitlerism and Russia’s imperialist designs, expressed this ideal.
On 15 August 1944, after 15 days of the existence of the Commune, the Council of National Unity addressed to the people a manifesto which read:
In this war Poland is not only fighting for its existence and political independence, but for the highest objectives as well. The Atlantic Charter, which defines the military aims of the United Nations, has ensured for Poland its own aspirations and its historic needs. [2] Threatened with repeated imperialist aggression, it must be assured of security and the possibility of working in peace for many generations. It wishes to govern itself according to its own principles and its own laws. These principles have already been published in the declaration of 26 July 1944. They have guaranteed that the regime of the future republic will be based upon political freedom and social justice.
The principles of Polish government, a democratic republic, are as follows:
1: A constitution ensuring that governments conform to the will of the people.
2: A democratic electoral law faithfully reflecting public opinion at the time of the general and municipal elections.
3: An agrarian reform sharing out all agricultural land in excess of 50 hectares along with German landed property, as determined by prior decree; the excess of population being directed into industry and manufacture.
4: The socialisation of key industries.
5: The participation of the workers in the management of enterprises and workers’ control of industrial production.
6: All citizens have the right to work and to a decent standard of living.
7: A proper distribution of social revenue.
8: All citizens have the right to education and culture.
This was a rough draft for an honest democracy envisaging a fundamental transformation of the economic and social set-up of the Polish state.
The Socialist movement should feel proud of the fact that its ideas have found general approval here.
The Council of National Unity, led by our Comrade Kazimierz Puźak, [3] the General Secretary of the PPS, made this programme its own. Moreover, taking advantage of the possibility of meeting together, it set to work immediately to implement the principles of Social Democracy by means of adequate laws and decrees. The preliminary preparatory work was completed by the specialists of the governmental delegation who had studied these problems during the long years of occupation.
Nothing was stranger than the sessions of this secret parliament. In the first phase of the Commune’s existence – up to the month of September – they took place practically daily, at different places, chosen according to the intensity of the bombing. For quite a long time they were held in the vicinity of Napoleon Square, which was constantly subjected to bombardment from German artillery and aircraft. Some 50 party delegates, members of the Council of Ministers, and representatives of the army command met on the ground floor of an old three-storey house situated at 2 Przeskok Street. The sole means of defence of this house resided in the fact that it was surrounded by other much higher buildings blocking it off from artillery projectiles which were chosen in preference by the German airmen, who were looking for prime targets. Missiles exploded in the immediate neighbourhood; the earth trembled, windows shook, and Comrade Puźak quietly chaired the meeting; the speakers expressed themselves in an unaffected manner, only shouting when it was necessary to rise above the noise of an exploding bomb. Discussion went on as in a normal parliament. One day, however, bombs dropped upon the neighbouring houses reduced the area to ruins. The Council was obliged to withdraw from its ‘permanent seat’.
This is how the main legislative decisions were taken that gave the Commune not only the character of a national insurrection, but of a social revolution as well. The greater part of the decrees that created the framework of the new order were elaborated here. That is how the principle of the above-mentioned agrarian reform took legal shape. The great landowners lost the right to dispose of their property, which, with all its agricultural equipment, passed automatically under the control of regional committees created by the legislature with this end in view.
The statute of works committees, a corollary and guarantee of the socialisation of production, applied democratic principles to the internal life of factories and mines. It brought in workers’ participation in the management of enterprises and the control of production. It was a first step towards workers’ management.
This statute, elaborated in conditions of clandestinity, meant putting into operation that working-class representation which was to mark a new order of economic planning, a transition to Socialism.
Another law, relating to communal and municipal autonomy, guaranteed power to the people. It looked forward to the calling of municipal councils elected by universal suffrage immediately after the German occupation. For local self-government, also elaborated in clandestinity, was to become the basis of the reconstructed state, to protect it as far as possible both from bureaucracy and dictatorial inclinations. The same concern dominated the elaboration of the rules governing the security forces set up during the Commune and published in the Law Journal. The old police force was to be dissolved and replaced with security organs with precisely defined functions. This reform was intended to rid the state of any police character. A municipal guard, responsible to the communal or municipal authorities, was to fulfil most of the tasks of the police.
Among the legislative acts elaborated by the Council of National Unity, we are only quoting those that are most typical of the Warsaw Commune. But we should note that many other laws and decrees were prepared in the same spirit, such as on social insurance, for example, on the freedom of the press, etc, which put the social ideals of the new Poland in sharp relief.
These tendencies were later either brutally suppressed, or badly applied by the Committee of National Liberation, hoisted into power with the help of foreign bayonets, whose allegiance was to Communism.
This revolutionary inspiration brought about by the Warsaw Commune came about not only on the doctrinal and legislative plane. Life was every day filled with it.
Life was strange on this small island of liberty. Administration was partly carried on by the High Command of the Home Army, and partly by the cadres of the civil administration prepared in secret. The main part, however, was played by the buildings and house block committees, which were freely obeyed. Police were not needed. The entire city had become a completely socialised commune. The inhabitants shared their food with the soldiers, and with refugees from those parts of the city that were still occupied by the Germans. Communal kitchens were set up in the houses which provided for the inhabitants and for guests passing through. When private stocks ran out, through the intermediary of the house committees the administration distributed free food captured from German storehouses. Money played no role whatsoever. There was a fraternal community of all the fighters, dominated by the happy knowledge that we were all finally free. We were proud of having liberated ourselves by our own strength, of beating the Germans, and of forcing them to surrender and give up their weapons to ‘our lads’, as we called the soldiers of the Home Army. It was remarkable that no one took revenge on the prisoners; the people stared at them curiously in the streets when they were made to construct fortifications; very often an ironical remark addressed to the ‘Herrenvolk’ was let slip, but no prisoner was either struck or lynched. [4]
Cannon of a heavier and heavier calibre bombarded Warsaw incessantly. The population had to take refuge on the ground floors and in the cellars. Holes were cut through to join one cellar with another; tunnels were cut under the roads, and so an entire system of subterranean communications was created. Sewers permitted liaison with detachments that had been cut off from free Warsaw by the Germans. You could go for several kilometres underground without coming up to the surface.
All the central organs of the secret Polish state, and all the leaderships of the political parties were assembled upon this island of freedom, and political life was in full swing. A throng of street sellers sprang up, selling dailies, weeklies and leaflets. Now almost all the clandestine press appeared openly, there was complete freedom of the press. There was no censorship. There was indeed one functionary who attempted to submit a plan for the control of the press, but he had to withdraw in the face of the unanimous protest of the representatives of all the political parties. Robotnik, which had been the central organ of the Polish Socialist Party since 1895, and which had appeared in clandestinity before the uprising, became the daily that was most widely read. All the parties, and even the Communists, came out in favour of the uprising. Their principal aim was now to strengthen military activity, and the ambition of each party was to have the greatest number of its sections in combat. The true size of each party could now be estimated, since all bluffing had become impossible. So when during the second phase of the uprising the Communists withdrew from the conflict on orders from outside and began to declare that the insurrection was a reactionary attempt, every inhabitant of Warsaw was able to understand that this order was followed by only a few sections, that it could have no influence on the development of the struggle, and that they could treat with quiet contempt the mouthings of the Communists and their sympathisers. So the ideological legacy of the Warsaw Commune, a product of the social changes and new ideas born in the Resistance, has lost nothing of its value. It still remains as the basis upon which Polish society aspires to develop, and governments imposed from abroad cannot avoid conforming to it. Thanks to this legacy, a touchstone of any act of social and political life, the structural reforms recently introduced by the Provisional Government are appreciated at their true value and according to their promises for the future. [5]
The Provisional Government cannot claim to have originated these great ideas, which are the work of the working masses which it all too often caricatures. And as far as reactionary elements are concerned, the achievements of the Commune prevent them from dreaming of a return to the period before September 1939. Prefiguring a new Poland, the Warsaw Commune confronts both of them with a clear vision of a community set up and organised in accordance with the principles of Social Democracy.
1. The Polish resistance movement first emerged in September 1939 as the Victory for Poland Service (SZP), which became the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) in early 1940, and then the Home Army (AK) in February 1942. There was concern amongst the democratic political parties that the military leadership, which was mainly reactionary in outlook, was too strong and required a political counterweight, and this led to the formation of the Chief Political Council in December 1939. [Editor’s note]
2. The Atlantic Charter was signed by Churchill and Roosevelt on 12 August 1941. It put forward some principles for the Allies’ public war aims, including the abandonment of force in international relations, the right to democratic government, assurances of sovereign rights of nations, economic cooperation amongst nations, etc. [Editor’s note]
3. Kazimierz Puźak (1883-1950) joined the PPS in 1904, was active in the 1905 Revolution, and was jailed in Russia during 1911-17. A leading member of the PPS, he became the General Secretary in 1926, and was a deputy in the Sejm during 1919-35. Secretly organising PPS fighting squads prior to the Second World War, he was active in the workers’ defence of Warsaw in September 1939, and led the PPS in the Polish underground. He was arrested whilst in Moscow with 15 other prominent Poles, and was sentenced to 10 years in a show trial in Moscow in 1945. Released after four months, he was rearrested in Poland in mid-1947, sentenced to five years, and died in jail. [Editor’s note]
4. Ordinary Wehrmacht prisoners were not harmed, but members of the SS and others involved in atrocities were executed. [Editor’s note]
5. A Government of National Unity was established in June 1945, and was recognised by the ‘Big Three’ as the legitimate government of Poland until a general election could be held and a permanent constitutional system established. This government was comprised of representatives of the PPR, the PPS, the Peasant Party and the Catholic Labour Party, although it remained largely under the control of the Stalinists, who more or less controlled who from the non-Stalinist parties would join the government (it should be remembered that the PPR had set up fake Socialist and Peasant Parties, and therefore some ostensible non-Stalinists were little more than Stalinist stooges). The structural reforms to which Zaremba refers include the Nationalisation Law of January 1946, which put under state control all industries employing over 50 workers per shift, representing about 90 per cent of Poland’s enterprises. This and the Three Year Plan of 1947 were mainly inspired by the PPS, rather than the PPR. [Editor’s note]