For the Record

■ Who stands where on Poland? Our valiant neighbor to the north, Pierre Elliott Trudeau: “All countries should respect Poland’s right to settle its own problems its own way.” . . . Willy Brandt, president of the Socialist International (SI), stresses his “hope that detente will not be affected” by the military crackdown on Solidarity. To their credit, his SI associates stiff-armed Brandt’s weasly statement and formally condemned the “brutal repression in Poland.” . . . Only Italy’s Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini showed any immediate inclination to follow the U.S. lead on sanctions. Spadolini said Italy might reconsider its participation in Siberian gas-line deal. … By and large, the Communist parties of Italy, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, and Holland came out more firmly against Jaruzelski’s martial law than did their governments. France’s CP leader Georges Marchais came up with a pallid “we have no wish to pour oil on fire,” which may incidentally touch off a split in that monolithic, still-Stalinist Party. The Portuguese Party approved Poland’s measures against “antisocial and antisocialist groups.”

■ How about the domestic Left? The Socialist Workers Party—the largest Trotskyist group—condemns the repressive measures in Poland outright (“a brutal suppression of the Polish workers and farmers by the Polish regime, backed up by the Kremlin”). . . . Forty leading pacifists (Noam Chomsky, Currie Burris—Clergy and Laity Concerned —Dave Dellinger, etc.) support “the right of the Polish working class to organize trade unions and to strike” but go on to appeal to “the Soviet leadership to continue its policy of recognizing the right of the Polish people to deal with their own problem” (i.e., they urge Brezhnev to let Jaruzelski get on with the dirty job alone). … As for the CPUSA, its version of what has been going on in Poland is from a Looking- Glass World. Daily World headline, Dec. 15: “Poland heeds unity call— NATION GOES BACK TO WORK.” Dec. 19: “victory for polish people: counterrevolution foiled.” Dec. 30: “reagan WIELDS ANTI-USSR CLUB, USES POLAND as pretext.” Devoted World readers learn (Dec. 15) that Walesa was “not among those arrested, and was flown to Warsaw for talks with government officials,” that (Dec. 29) striking miners in Ziemovit and Piast were held underground by force by “extremists” of Solidarity, and “never were genuinely on strike against martial law,” that (Dec. 19) “Reagan’s support for Solidarity and Polish trade union rights [is] hypocritical, pure demagogy in view of his dictatorial, brutal denial of the right to strike for 13,000 air-traffic controllers.”

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■ Who stands where on Poland? Our valiant neighbor to the north, Pierre Elliott Trudeau: “All countries should respect Poland’s right to settle its own problems its own way.” . . . Willy Brandt, president of the Socialist International (SI), stresses his “hope that detente will not be affected” by the military crackdown on Solidarity. To their credit, his SI associates stiff-armed Brandt’s weasly statement and formally condemned the “brutal repression in Poland.” . . . Only Italy’s Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini showed any immediate inclination to follow the U.S. lead on sanctions. Spadolini said Italy might reconsider its participation in Siberian gas-line deal. … By and large, the Communist parties of Italy, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, and Holland came out more firmly against Jaruzelski’s martial law than did their governments. France’s CP leader Georges Marchais came up with a pallid “we have no wish to pour oil on fire,” which may incidentally touch off a split in that monolithic, still-Stalinist Party. The Portuguese Party approved Poland’s measures against “antisocial and antisocialist groups.”

■ How about the domestic Left? The Socialist Workers Party—the largest Trotskyist group—condemns the repressive measures in Poland outright (“a brutal suppression of the Polish workers and farmers by the Polish regime, backed up by the Kremlin”). . . . Forty leading pacifists (Noam Chomsky, Currie Burris—Clergy and Laity Concerned —Dave Dellinger, etc.) support “the right of the Polish working class to organize trade unions and to strike” but go on to appeal to “the Soviet leadership to continue its policy of recognizing the right of the Polish people to deal with their own problem” (i.e., they urge Brezhnev to let Jaruzelski get on with the dirty job alone). … As for the CPUSA, its version of what has been going on in Poland is from a Looking- Glass World. Daily World headline, Dec. 15: “Poland heeds unity call— NATION GOES BACK TO WORK.” Dec. 19: “victory for polish people: counterrevolution foiled.” Dec. 30: “reagan WIELDS ANTI-USSR CLUB, USES POLAND as pretext.” Devoted World readers learn (Dec. 15) that Walesa was “not among those arrested, and was flown to Warsaw for talks with government officials,” that (Dec. 29) striking miners in Ziemovit and Piast were held underground by force by “extremists” of Solidarity, and “never were genuinely on strike against martial law,” that (Dec. 19) “Reagan’s support for Solidarity and Polish trade union rights [is] hypocritical, pure demagogy in view of his dictatorial, brutal denial of the right to strike for 13,000 air-traffic controllers.”