ELECTIONS IN POLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 January 1947, Page 5

ELECTIONS IN POLAND

FOUR-PARTY BLOC'S FOREIGN POLICY SECURITY POLICE ACTIVE WARSAW, January 6. A foreign policy based on close friendship with Russia was propounded in an election manifesto isued by the four-party democratic bloc in Poland. The manifesto added that the policy would also be to maintain good relations with. Britain and America, but “relations with each Allied State will be determined by that State’s relations with Germany, since a protector of Germany could never be friends with Poland,” The parties in the bltjc are the Communists, the Socialists, the Democrats, and Peasant Party members opposing Mr.' Mikolajczyk, With the Polish election approaching, the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Warsaw interviewed a number of supporters of the Peasant Party, who described how the Com-munist-controlled security police, known as U. 8., arrested, intimidated, and tortured them. The victims’ stories included these: —

A coalminer: After signing a list supporting a Peasant Party candidate, the U.B. arrested him and tried to make him remove his name from the list. He was punched, beaten with rubber hose until he was unconscious, made to crouch doubled up for hours, and was kicked and threatened with a pistol. A young middle-class woman: After signing the Peasant Party list, she was forced to stand for five hours in a temperature below freezing point until she fainted. A mechanic: He withdrew his signature to gain his freedom. A policeman told him that the “whole Peasant Party are bandits, with Mikolajczyk at the head.” A garage proprietor: Arrested for collecting money to buy a banner for the Peasant Party, he refused to answer questions by a uniformed Russian officer. He was told he was one of those who wanted the Russians out of Poland and that Mr. Mikolajczyk was a bandit working for London, and “we shall never allow your party to go to'the elections.” A woman factory worker: She had to stand in a courtyard for five hours in frost. The U.B. chief asked: “Why do you belong to a party that is financed by England, which is preparing atom bombs to drop on Poland?”

The correspondent says he does not find it easy to believe these people were lying or exaggerating. They ran too great a risk in talking to an Englishman, because their movements were closely watched.