Word: gomulka
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
They offered him various heads on a platter, but held out on Marshal Rokossovsky because they were afraid of Russian reaction. Gomulka was unmoved. "You fear the Russians?" he said. ''It is only necessary to know how to handle them. I remember when in 1944 Comrade Bulganin, at that time Soviet military commander in Poland, arrived in Lublin and sent word that I should call on him immediately. I told the general, 'If the general is in such a hurry, let him come to me.' Imagine, he arrived some minutes later with a smile...
...Gomulka had his chance to get tough with the Russians a few weeks later when Moscow took umbrage at his cavalier firing of Marshal Rokossovsky. A delegation of the Soviet Party Presidium came flying into Warsaw and Khrushchev stepped out, arms flailing, shouting insults at the Poles. Gomulka was calm. When Khrushchev asked, "Who is that?" Gomulka replied, "It is I, Gomulka, the man you sent to jail." The Russians' coup de théâtre flopped because one of Gomulka's supporters had taken the precaution of arming the workers of the Zeran works, and another...
...Moscow trip went off with bands and bunting, and fortnight ago Gomulka returned with a number of small concessions, but no sense of victory. Thousands of Poles, happy and even a little surprised to see him back, jammed the Warsaw station to welcome him, chant and toss bouquets. But to the chanting throng Gomulka would only say: "We went to Moscow and talked to the Soviet leaders as equals, a very important thing for us. We put an end to the great differences between Soviet words and Soviet deeds. Polish-Soviet friendship can now proceed without serious obstacles...
Poles were disappointed that Gomulka had agreed to recognize the "workers" regime in Hungary, though Gomulka had refused to endorse Kadar by name. Instead of getting the Red army out of Poland, he had entered into a new military agreement by which six Soviet divisions would remain in Poland, although their upkeep would in future be paid for by Moscow. His reason: "Safeguarding our security and protecting the sanctity of the Oder-Neisse line." The poison sowed by Stalin was still being harvested by Russia...
...effort to reorganize party and government. Gomulka is pursuing some highly unorthodox methods, by Stalinist standards. He has proved himself far more liberal than Tito. He is sending a delegation to study farm cooperatives in the Scandinavian countries, another to look into the U.S. building industry. He realizes that farm collectivization has failed, but does not know what to substitute. He promised the Roman Catholic Church that he would permit religious education in the schools in return for the recently freed Cardinal Wyszinski's appeal to his followers to keep the peace...