424 POLSKA LUDOWA
a joint decision of the victorious allies. The management of the expulsions left
much to be desired, if only because the Polish authorities did not possess the facili-
ties to organize such a vast operation in comfort. Men, women, and children of
all ages were taken from their homes and concentrated in collecting centres in the
most primitive conditions. In some instances, as at Lambinowice (Lamsdorf) in
Upper Silesia, the site of Stalag VIII, they were obliged to assemble in facilities
recently vacated by the Nazis. On the short journey to Germany, they were
herded into accommodation reminiscent of other people's more extended travels
into Russia. Some were beaten up; others were robbed or raped; many fell ill, or
died; all were subjected to a violent experience they will never forget. For the first
time in their lives, a great mass of ordinary and decent Germans were reduced to
the sort of predicament which most ordinary and decent citizens of Central and
Eastern Europe had come to regard as normal.^17
Agrarian reform affected every village in Poland. As the natural sequence of
earlier declarations of intent issued by its predecessors, the TRJN completed the
existing movement towards parcellization by its Decree of 6 September 1946. In
the Western Territories, the peasants were to be offered lots of 15 hectares for
arable fanning, or zo hectares for pasture. Elsewhere, all private estates over 50
hectares gross were to be broken up. In all, more than one million peasant fami-
lies benefited from the scheme; 814,000 new farms were created.^18
In the midst of such momentous upheavals, the Provisional Government was
obliged to tread very carefully. Stalin was suspicious of his Polish proteges, and
held them on a tight leash. As early as October 1944, he had ordered Bierut,
'either change your methods or clear out.' Now, according to Mikolajczyk, the
communist leaders of the government met every Thursday morning with an
anonymous Soviet Colonel (whom he believed to be Ivan Serov, the head of
'Smyersh') to receive their orders of which he, as Deputy Premier, was kept
blissfully ignorant. The non-party Ministers were intensely suspicious of their
communist colleagues; the PPR was suspicious of their rivals; and the electorate,
if it had time to think of politics, was suspicious of everyone. The undertaking
to stage 'free and unfettered elections' was constantly postponed. In its place, on
30 June 1946, a Referendum was held, whose terms of reference were blatantly
spurious. By inviting the electorate to vote 'THREE TIMES YES' to questions
lifted bodily from the established platform of the Opposition, the government
abandoned any pretence of moral integrity. But it forced its opponents into the
dilemma where they had either to give unanimous support to the 'Government
Bloc' or else to renege on their commitments. In the trial of strength that ensued,
Mikolajczyk's Peasant Party chose the latter course. By asking the voters to say
'NO' to the first proposition about the abolition of the Senate, they merely
sought to give the lie to the government's deception. In those few districts where
opposition tellers were admitted to the count, the opposition learned that 81 per
cent of the voters had followed its instructions. Elsewhere, the votes were
counted by government officials in secret. The government announced a 68 per
cent vote in its own favour.^19