THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 425On the same day that the fraudulent results of the Referendum were awaited- 4 July 1946 - a vicious pogrom was perpetrated in the town of Kielce.
Rumours had been spread that a boy was missing in accordance with the ancient
blood libel. A mob gathered. A hostel housing Jewish transients from the Soviet
Union was attacked; and c. 45 Jews were dragged out and lynched. The outrage
was widely reported in the foreign press, displacing other news. A handful of
locals were punished. But no thorough investigation was held. Officials of the
regime shamelessley told western reporters that the atrocity had been carried
out by remnants of the Home Army and NSZ on orders of the Government-
in-Exile. This was a total fabrication. Decades later, it was confirmed that a
senior Soviet officer had been present, that armed Communist militia had initi-
ated the affray, and that the missing boy had actually been kidnapped by the
police. So it had been a 'provocation'. But it was a provocation with which some
local people had co-operated. In comparison with the mass repressions of the
period, in which tens of thousands were dying and disappearing, it was a rela-
tively minor affair. But it gave the signal for the majority of survivng Jews to
leave Poland. And from the regime's point of view it worked. The world did not
forget the Kielce Pogrom. But it hardly noticed that the Polish nation had been
robbed of its democratic rights.
Within the ranks of the government, the communists of the PPR were preoc-
cupied with deep calculations of ideological strategy and tactics. Their broad
strategy in this period preceding the open assumption of power was based on
their concept of a Democratic Bloc. In this, they proposed a specific variant of
the front technique, which differed in several crucial respects both from the
'Popular Front' of the pre-war years, and from the so-called 'National Front' in
neighbouring Czechoslovakia. In Poland, the communist movement was so
weak that it could never have contemplated open competition with the 'bour-
geois' parties. Their only possibility was to conceal their weakness, and to con-
centrate on the destruction of their rivals. Their Democratic Bloc did not
envisage any genuine concessions to their partners in the government, and was
mainly designed as an instrument of delay and control. Ideological tactics relied
heavily on camouflage. Words such as 'communist' were carefully avoided, even
in the Party's name. Kulak was one of the few words of abuse which were not
applied. In the internal jargon of the Party, the Russian-sounding samokrytyka
(self-criticism) was questioned by comrades favouring the Romish autokrytyka.
Political tactics concentrated on the splitting of rival formations in the classic
Leninist manner 'from above and from below'. Rivals who refused to play
found themselves faced with bogus parties bearing the same name as their own,
and led by former colleagues who had been successfully suborned. Such was the
fate of Mikotajczyk's Peasant Movement, and of the old anticommunist PPS.
Administrative tactics sought to monopolize the levers of power. Positions of
nominal authority in each of the ministries could safely be left in the hands of an
opponent so long as a couple of communist deputies were there to hold their
chief in check. Slowly but surely, by fair means and foul, the PPR was working