A letter by a former high ranking Polish Communist Party leader accusing deposed Party boss Wladyslaw Gomulka of using anti-Zionism as a guise for anti-Semitism, was circulated among the 1,815 Polish delegates and representatives of 60 other Communist Parties attending the sixth Polish Communist Party Congress which opened in Warsaw today. Leonid Brezhnev, Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party, is representing the USSR at the Congress.
The letter was written by former Secretary General Ochub of the Polish Communist Party who was replaced by Gomulka in 1956. He charged that his successor “used Stalin’s methods to despotically rule Poland….” The letter, quoted at length in the newspaper Le Monde, cited as examples “spreading legends, myths, provocations and nationalist fairy tales which did not hesitate to use anti-Semitism.” It compared Gomulka’s methods with the Stalin “Doctors’ Plot,” the Slansky case in Czechoslovakia and the claim that “The Zionist fifth column” threatens Polish Socialism.
The letter suggested that among “necessary” reforms were the elimination from posts of authority, especially in the press, the publishing world and all information media “of the immoral adventurers who for years have been the foundation of the regime.” The letter claimed that “It is these men who under the guise of anti-Zionism have fought against the Jews and the (real) Communists.” The fact that the letter was circulated at the Congress and reached Western newspapers was seen by observers here as an indication that the new Polish regime now openly favors increased liberalization and an end to anti-Semitic practices.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
