436 POLSKA LUDOWA
(PRL). On the model of similar communist constitutions, all citizens were guar-
anteed the right to work, to leisure, to health, to study, and to the freedoms of
speech, assembly, and conscience, without regard to race, sex, or creed. The
growth of the state's productive forces was assured on the basis of a planned
economy. Supreme authority in the state was conferred to a legislative Sejm of
460 deputies, directly elected every four years by secret ballot and by universal
suffrage. Executive power was to be exercised by a Council of Ministers, which
together with the President and his Council of State, and the Supreme Board of
Control (NIK), was to be appointed by the Sejm. Judicial authority was to reside
in a Supreme Court, formed from a bench of independent judges appointed by
the Council of State. The Church was separated from the State (to which, in
fact, it had never been connected). On all these points, the appearance of an ide-
ally democratic machine was carefully maintained. In practice, all chance of
effective democracy was nullified by the as yet extra-constitutional 'leading role'
of the Party and its National Front as the 'guardian of the state'. According to
the canons of Leninist Democratic Centralism, all effective power lay in the
hands of the Party's Political Bureau and of its First Secretary. All appointments
within the State, and all decisions at every level, were subject to prior approval
by the appropriate Party organs. All Ministries answered to corresponding
departments within the Party. All candidates for election to the Sejm were to be
selected in advance by the Party. In effect, 'the working people of town and
countryside' whom the Constitution named as the receptacle of political power,
were its helpless victims. They possessed no means whatsoever to influence the
work of their nominal representatives. The People's 'Democracy' was a legal
fiction. The reality lay in the Party's dictatorship over the people.^34
The habits of Stalinism penetrated into every walk of life. Statues of Stalin
appeared in public places. The Republic's leading industrial centre, Katowice,
was renamed 'Stalinogrod'. Everything and anything, from the Palace of
Culture in Warsaw downwards, was dedicated 'to the name of J. V. Stalin'.
Soviet Russian civilization was upheld as the universal paragon of virtue. An
attempt was even made to modify the Polish language by introducing the
Russian practice of speaking in the second person plural, per Wy (You) in place
of the decadent Polish habit of speaking in the third person singular, per Pan
(Sir) or Pani (Madam). In art, 'Socialist Realism', once described as 'the orches-
tra of the concentration camp', gained exclusive approval. In the sciences,
Lysenko superseded Mendel, Newton, and Einstein. In the humanities, Soviet
'Diamat', the scientific analysis of all human problems, the pill of Murti-Bing,
was indiscriminately applied. Nonconformity of any sort was promptly pun-
ished. The militiaman and the petty bureaucrat walked tall.
Even so, Stalinism never attained the same pitch of ferocity in Poland that
reigned in neighbouring countries. Behind the scenes, the native communists of
the PZPR fought a steady rearguard action against the Soviet stooges in their
midst. They protected the comrades who had fallen into disfavour, and blocked
any moves towards wholesale revenge. Show trials were never adopted as an