468 POLSKA LUDOWA
contrived to attend, and to be late for, both. School-children, sent on an obliga-
tory free excursion to the mountains, learned that their home town lay on the
route of a visiting Cardinal. Their coach-driver, like the good Catholic he was,
would see that they returned home early in order to cheer His Reverence (whose
visit was the cause of their excursion in the first place). In this 'Slavonic
Clochemerle', Don Camillo would have felt perfectly at home.
The official ideology was Marxism-Leninism, which no one openly admitted
to believing. For Marx expressed the German view, and Lenin the Russian one,
and the meeting of these particular minds had always spelled Poland's ruin. On
the other hand, whereas few people bothered to denounce the state ideology
openly, all too many, in the eyes of the clergy, attended church as a matter of
habit and social tradition, or merely as an assertion of their right to a life of their
own.
Attitudes to Poland's neighbours were nicely ambiguous. The necessity of the
'alliance' with the Soviet Union could not be openly questioned, but the fre-
quency of anti-Soviet prejudices was often less marked among the population at
large than among the higher planes of the Party bureaucracy, who have the
unenviable task of dealing with Soviet officialdom direct. Where else, if not in
Poland, could one overhear a Party official describing the Russians as unter-
menschen! As some wit remarked, the Russians ought to be described as uber-
menschen. Antipathy towards Germans was still widespread, and was officially
encouraged by all the media. But the contention that all evil Germans were con-
centrated in the Federal Republic whilst all 'good', 'democratic', 'anti-fascist'
Germans had somehow been assembled in the DDR, cut very little ice.
The Poles, above all, were patriots. It had been proved time and again that
they would readily die for their country; but few would work for it. As the
authorities periodically confessed, 'labour problems' continually disrupted the
smooth flow of economic progress. The workers felt little sense of identity with
the state enterprises for which they laboured, and in whose management they
had no real voice. Czy sie stoi, czy sie lezy, dwa tysiqce sie nalezy (Two thou-
sand zloties are your due, whether you stand up, or whether you lie down), was
the best known jingle in the land. Absenteeism and alcoholism were rife. The
workers pilfered heartily and expertly, and used their winnings to support thriv-
ing private concerns. Anyone who tried to build a private house in Poland knew
that bricks, mortar, and cement were virtually unobtainable on the open mar-
ket. But in most suburban areas, even casual visitors could see just how many
private houses were actually being built.
The outward fictions of the classless society were maintained. In all official
correspondence, people were addressed in revolutionary style as 'Ob' - the
accepted abbreviation of Obywatel, or Obywatelka (Citizen). But in private
intercourse, the old Polish gentilities were universally cultivated. Bowing, heel-
clicking, and hand-kissing remained standard form. Everyone, including the
peasants, now talked to each other in the third person — as Pan (Sir) or Pani
(Lady): and they attached handles and titles to their name with a truly Austro-