THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 429So, if Gomulka did command a solid following, dominant in the Party by 1948,
the only possible source of concerted opposition lay in the Kremlin itself.
For another thing, the standard description ignores the dynamics of conflict
within a totalitarian movement, where both sides are constantly on the move,
each constantly shifting its ideological ground to avoid the embraces and
encirclements of the other. The one thing that the weaker element must avoid at
all costs is to agree publicly with the stronger element, since 'harmonization'
leads swiftly to complete submergence of its identity and separate existence. In
1944, when the divergence between the PPR and the Soviet line was first appar-
ent to people in the know, it was the Soviets who occupied the conservative posi-
tion. It was Stalin who said that 'introducing Communism to Poland was like
putting a saddle on a cow'. At that juncture, Gomuika and the PPR with their
'homeland line' were in a leftist, messianic, 'victorio-logical' mood, expecting to
build Communism in Poland 'as on a triumphal march'. After 1944, Stalin's
confidence grew. He began to press even more insistently for real, socialist
changes, approaching ever more nearly to Gomulka's original position, and
berating Bierut for his lack of revolutionary ardour. Gomuika, meanwhile,
faced with the practicalities of 'saddling the cow' was being pushed in the oppo-
site direction, expressing the opinion that he was unlikely to see true socialism,
not to say communism, in Poland in his lifetime. Hence, the ideological conflict
assumed the form of a scissors movement, in which over four years the two con-
testants neatly traversed from diametrically opposed positions. Gomuika in
1948 was making statements which coincided very closely with the Soviet view-
point in 1944, and vice versa.
The Polish comrades were bound to note changes in the external relations of
the USSR. In 1944-5, the USSR at war was weak and courting any sort of ally
who would join the cause. Ideological divergences were permissible. By 1948,
the USSR had won the war, and made the Bomb. The schism with Tito, the
Arab-Israeli conflict, the German crisis, and the Berlin Blockade, were all com-
ing to a head. It was time to close the ranks. Divergences were no longer per-
missible.
Thus, Gomulka's fate was sealed. As an old hand, he seems to have sensed the
danger before it arrived; but he sailed into the storm head-on. At the June
Plenum of the Party's Central Committee, he launched into a rambling lecture
on the historical traditions of Polish communism, criticizing the Luxemburgist
flavour of the SDKPiL, and the Trotskyite KPP, but praising the stand of the PPS
on 'national independence'. It was an act of open defiance. Thereon, he seems
to have been put under house arrest. His associates, Spychalski and Ochab, were
induced to denounce him, while he himself was browbeaten into making a pub-
lic recantation. At the September Plenum, he was exposed to the insults of his
friends, confessing his faults in a bitter display of self-criticism. In particular, he
confessed to having grasped the importance of the USSR for the Polish Party in
its immediate aspects but not 'on the higher plane'. At the end of the scene, he
was replaced as General-Secretary of the Party by President Bierut, who to this