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From Labor Action, Vol. 11 No. 20, 19 May 1947, p. 8.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Dear Editor:
Comrade Stone reproaches me for a false analysis of the political character of NSZ (nationalist armed forces), a reactionary and anti-Semitic formation in the Polish underground. Unfortunately, Comrade Stone did not notice the incongruity of the sentence he attacked in the context of the entire content of my work.
It is a question of a lamentable error in translation, since I do not write in English and the translator’s knowledge of the language in which my work is written was deficient. The original says correctly “NSZ (armed nationalist forces), of right and anti-Semitic character, HAVE minor importance” (sic), meaning that NSZ, REACTIONARY AND ANTI-SEMITIC, IS LESS important in the Polish underground than other groups such as the WIN (Liberty and Independence) and the AK (home army). And this is exact.
Derek Selby, British correspondent, says that NSZ had hardly 2,000–3,000 armed men, while the secret armed detachments in Poland are today calculated to be about 100,000 strong. Besides, a part of this force passed into the North American zone of Germany, according to Stalinist sources. Another principal fraction came to an agreement with the Stalinists. According to information from anti-Stalinist social democratic sources, the secret police (Polish GPU) used the NSZ in various anti-Semitic pogroms, especially in Kielce, where the nationalist detachments walked about the streets of the city in broad daylight without being attacked by ttfe police or by the army stationed there.
The Stalinist officers handed over the Jewish victims to the populace, which was freely gathered together all day in front of the Jewish community. NSZ played the role of Stalinist agent-provocateur, organizing the pogroms and military actions in order to compromise the democratic and social-democratic opposition. This information is fully confirmed by the fact that the highest chief of the NSZ, Piasecki, a barefaced fascist, known as the organizer of the pogroms in the universities before the war, together with his companion, Dziarmaga, came to an agreement with the GPU, in virtue of which they not only go freely about the streets of Warsaw but have even founded a “Catholic” organ (denied by the Catholics) with an abundant quantity of official paper, sub-administered by the government, in which they openly proclaim collaboration with the Stalinist government, certifying their paper as “progressive” and “national.”
My intention was precisely to underline. the reactionary and anti-Semitic character of NSZ, which for this reason has less importance in the underground, controlled in its left wing by the PPS (social democrats). The editors, on the other hand, ask explanations of me before taking up my defense. In spite of the excellent quality of the translations, which keep the color of the originals very well, mistakes occur due to deficiency in the knowledge of my language. I have no possibility of correcting these errors in time. Comrade Stone did good work in criticizing the error, but he should not have drawn such hasty conclusions. I beg the readers to excuse these errors, which are inevitable under our working conditions. And with this I think the business has been made clear. Thanking you in advance for this rectification, I remain, yours and the cause’s,
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