Ext 6116/46(S) 'Secret Weekly Political Intelligence Summaries, nos 356-416, August 1946-November 1947' [‎16v] (32/978)

4
Party is a negligible factor; the Com
munist onslaught upon the Slovak Demo
crats—a party which, with the exception
of M. Frastacky, the Vice-Chairman of the
Board of Trustees, and M. Kvetko, Trustee
for Agriculture, lacks vigorous leadership
has given rise to considerable pessimism.
Current opinion in Slovakia believes that
the Democrat Party will be liquidated
before the elections are held next May. In
that event, the Social Democrats would
emerge as the party in Slovakia most likely
to resist further Communist infiltration; a
fact of which the Marxists are only too
conscious.
In the meantime the Communist offensive
against the Democrat Party continues to
meet with success. The Parliamentary
immunity regulations have been lifted in
regard to M. Kempny and M. Bugar; the
two Deputies are now reported to be in
gaol in Bratislava awaiting trial. A Com
munist-inspired attack upon M. Hodza, the
Secretary of the Democrat Party (he is the
son of Milan Hodza, a former Prime
Minister), has resulted in a charge being-
preferred against him of actions tanta
mount to anti-State activities. Latterly, as
a result of Communist accusations of gross
mismanagement, M. Fillo, the Trustee for
Food, has been forced to resign. He will
probably be succeeded by M. Frastacky.
Details of the Five-Year Economic Plan
(in this the Social Democrats have been
keenly interested) to succeed the present
Two-Year Plan have been announced by
M. Gottwald, the Communist Premier. Its
principal aims are stated to be threefold :
to raise the living standards of the popula
tion in food consumption and in health,
cultural and educational organisations; to
increase industrial output substantially
above the level planned for 1948, particu
larly in heavy industry; and to expand
Czechoslovak economy by full association
with the “ planned economies of Soviet
Russia and other people’s democracies.” A
preliminary analysis suggests that the
aspect of the Plan which is probably of
most importance is the re-orientation of
Czech Trade, which is of quite a radical
nature, the target of 15 milliard crowns
exports to the U.S.S.R. and orbit countries
by 1954 amounting to an increase of
approximately three times the value of
current exports to these countries. More
over, the plan implies that the bulk of
Czech exports will go to the Soviet sphere
of influence, compared to the current pro
position of about 17 per cent. Commenting
upon the nation’s serious food position, the
Premier said that food and feeding-stuffs
to a value of 6,000,000,000 crowns more
than last year would have to be imported,
and 4,000,000,000 crowns worth less ex
ported. (See also under “ Hungary ” and
“ Latin America.”)
POLAND ^
The disappearance of M. Mikolajczyk,
leader of the Polish Peasant Party
(P.S.L.) from the Polish capital on the
20th October, and his reported arrival in a
foreign country, can hardly come as a great
surprise when account is taken of the long
series of events which have rendered the
Peasant leader’s position so untenable.
The enmity existing between M. Mikolaj
czyk and the Government bloc is well
known, and the latter have sought through
the various trials of members of the under
ground movements to show the connection
which they allege existed between these
movements and the P.S.L. chief. Further,
the left-wing of the Peasant movement
have for some time been calling for
M. Mikolajczyk’s resignation.
In the early hours of the 26th, as soon as
news of M. Mikolajczyk’s disappearance
had been confirmed, Warsaw reports
describe how members of the left-wing
group of the P.S.L. took possession of the
party’s press and its principal daily news
paper, the Gazeta Ludowa. This group
has thus partly realised what seems to have
been a long-standing ambition. Its leaders
have never liked the policy followed by
M. Mikolajczyk and the majority of the
party, of standing outside the Government
coalition. Similar opinions in the Polish
Socialist Party had the assent of the great
majority of its members. In the Peasant
Party, at all events as late as the General
Election in January 1947, they were only
held by a small minority. Part of this
minority had already broken away in the
summer of 1946, and formed the new party,
the “ Polish Peasant Party New Free
dom, ’ which obtained seven seats in the
election. The majority of this party
shortly afterwards (February 1947) joined
forces with the (“Lublin”) Peasant
Party.
In the same month a further group, led
by M. Wycech, a former Socialist minister,
started a campaign for aligning the P.S.L.
policy with that of the Government. Its
leaders, who published their views in a new
periodical, The Peasants and the State,
were promptly expelled from the party, but
they, of course, maintain that the expulsion
was illegal and therefore invalid. It is
this group which now claims to be the
rightful heirs to the leadership of the