NEW COURSE FOR POLAND

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28105, 22 October 1956, Page 11

NEW COURSE FOR POLAND

Return To “Road Of Life”

Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) WARSAW, October 20. Poland's reinstated leader, Wladyslaw Gomulka, in a broadcast today, mapped out a new course for socialism in Poland with the main emphasis on “democratisation.” Mr Gomulka, who has suddenly been rehabilitated after more than three years in gaol as a “Titoist,” spoke after the Soviet leaders, Messrs Khrushchev, Molotov, Mikoyan and Kaganovitch, had returned to Moscow after their sudden, unexpected flight to Warsaw yesterday for talks .with the Polish Communist Party’s central committee. Mr Gomulka said a country had the right to be sovereign and that sovereignty should be respected. “We shall defend ourselves with all our means so that we may not be pushed off the road of democratisation.” He said there could be many models of socialism. It might be in a form such as was found in Jugoslavia or in the Soviet Union. An unalterable principle in socialism was the abolition of the exploitation of one man by another. Any outstanding issues between the Polish Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union should be settled quietly and amicably, he said.

Warsaw Radio said the central committee of the Polish United Workers’ (Communist) Party was being flooded with thousands of resolutions from all over the country supporting ••democratisation’’ of life in Poland. Warsaw Radio broadcast the speech made to the party’s central committee by Mr Gomulka. He began by recalling that when he last addressed the plenary session committee seven years ago—before his downfall and imprisonment —he had felt he was speaking to it for the last time. He then swiftly switched his speech to criticising some aspects of the Government’s’ economic policy. He compared coal production "figures for 1949 and 1955. The Government’s policy had led to a depression in Poland’s coal production, he said. He also criticised the payments policy and said the July session “glamorised” Poland's achievements in the past. Mr Gomulka countered with a slashing attack on many aspects of the industrial and agricultural life of the country, and presented an analysis of the Government's statistics. He showed that individual farms were on the whole doing better than State farms, particularly in breeding. He spoke of “financial fiddlings” in State statistics dealing with co-opera-tives and added that bigger invest-

ments in co-operatives had actually achieved poorer results. Mr Gomulka said the housing situation was alarming. “The housing catastrophe is growing bigger every year. Under the six-year plan there should have been 900,000 rooms built in the last six years. Actually only 370,000 rooms were built. Mr Gomulka asked: “What is to be done, comrades, to remedy the situation?” He gave this answer: “The future depends entirely on the attitude of the working class, and that attitude depends on party policy.” What that policy should be was evident from the Poznan riots, where the workers said: “Enough of this. We cannot carry on like that, we must return to a road of life.” Mr Gomulka added: “The cup is full. It cannot be overfilled with impunity.” Mr Gomulka, in his broadcast, said to remedy the situation it was not enough to change the people. “We must tell workers the truth about many factories not operating owing to lack of raw materials. The situation does not allow us to make pay increases.” He called for economy in labour. Taxes, which would not ruin artisans, should be fixed. He added that private enterprise might be put to good use.