Kremlin. The Communist Party is synonymous with the government, and political choice is nonexistent. The captive nations are also the victims of Soviet economic exploitation, in particular through the Soviet practice of price discrimination. It has been reported, for example, that in 1956 the Soviet Union sold wheat to its European satellites for $82.60 per ton, while at the same time the Soviet Union was importing wheat from the West at an average price of $62.30 per ton. In addition, the captive countries have been used as pawns in the Soviet drive for influence among the underdeveloped countries, for they have been forced into unfavorable trade agreements and credit arrangements with underdeveloped countries through pressure by the Soviet Union. The desire for freedom still exists in the hearts of the captive peoples, however, for we have considerable evidence of discontent in Eastern Europe. The revolts in East Germany in 1953 and in Hungary and Poland in 1956 are examples. The resistance of the human spirit to the arbitrary control of communism is nowhere better evidenced, in fact, than in Poland. The valiant defiance of the Poles in 1956 forced the Communists to moderate their policies and stop short of the destruction of traditional Polish society. The peasants refused to allow their farms to be collectivized, with the result that over 85 percent of all farms in Poland are today privately owned. We read stirring accounts of the continuing influence of the Christian religion in the life of the Polish people the churches are filled with both old and young every Sunday. The fact that atheistic communism has gained few converts to its beliefs is testimony to the inability of the Communists to gain control over the minds of the people. Our own dedication to the principles of self-determination and our sympathy for the plight of peoples made, unwillingly, captives of communism demand that we continually show our interest in their cause and our desire to help them. The United States is currently engaged in some trade with Eastern Europe, within the restrictions against exports of strategic or potentially strategic material. Our trade should be continued. In fiscal 1961 we committed $5.1 million in economic assistance to Poland; fortunately the Congress has reauthorized aid to Poland and Yugoslavia for the coming fiscal year. For let us not overlook the fact that trade and aid are means of making the captive nations less dependent on the Soviet Union. They are also symbols of our support for the captive peoples, and as such they can help to keep alive the hope for freedom and to spur action toward attaining that goal. Finally, our Captive Nations Week observances-though on a less concrete scale also demonstrate our sympathy for the captive peoples and our faith in their eventual liberation. We must constantly remind the captive European nations that we are on their side. STATEMENT BY HON. SEYMOUR HALPERN, MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK, ON CAPTIVE NATIONS, JUNE 21, 1962 Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to have the opportunity to present my views on the important matter of captive nations. I commend these hearings as having historic significance in highlighting the plight of the captive nations, their needs and what we, here in the United States, can do to give them heart, furnish them with succor, and nourish their stamina in order that they can carry on under newly fortified hope despite the tremendous burdens suppressing them. I want to compliment the diligent chairman and members of this committee for their continuing interest and laudable efforts in behalf of the more than 100 million people from the Baltic Sea to Vladivostok, the legions of Lithuanians, Germans, Poles, Albanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Rumanians. Eventually, we hope, these peoples will benefit from the legislation we seek to be favorably enacted. It has been my pleasure in both the 86th and 87th Congresses to have joined with the ever-increasing number of colleagues who have lent their voices and energies to this extremely imperative matter. Mr. Chairman, today I urge with all my fullest fervor the approval of House Resolution 211 which I am proud to have cosponsored, my resolution being House Joint Resolution 215. It would create a Special Captive Nations Committee of Congress for the purpose of making a careful and precise study of conditions in the captive nations of the world with the aim of recommending policies by which the United States can assist these unfortunate people by peaceful means, to regain their freedom and independence. It is our job, Mr. Chairman, as representatives of the greatest democracy ever devised by man, as spokesman of the people who have espoused the meaning of the word "liberty" to the rest of the world, that we offer these captive peoples needed encouragement and unequivocal support in their endless yearning for freedom. We should pay particular attention to the fact that these slave nations serve as living contradictions to the Soviet claim that the marriage of the many satellites to Moscow maintains the warm fragrance of an eternal honeymoon. The captives of Europe confront us, and the world, with the daily lesson that reveals Russia's path to power as nothing more complicated than the imposition of a naked force. It is an unwilling path for the captive nations to trod-one marked with human misery, privation, and indignities. In addition, these nations serve as a constant reminder and warning to all who might be tempted to follow the Soviet path, as the unfortunates of Cuba are bitterly learning this very day. It is all too clear to everyone that being a Russian captive nation is not synonymous with being a Russian affiliate. Does anyone need more proof than Berlin in 1953, or Hungary in 1956? Or, for that matter, the infamous slithering wall that faces us now in Berlin? But these are just the more dramatic instances. It is the thousand and one daily deeds of oppression which make heavy the burden of these enslaved peoples. It is this burden that the Committee on Captive Nations would seek to lighten and perhaps someday to help relegate to eternal oblivion. The committee would also serve in another capacity. It would help educate the American public, which, unfortunately, is not fully aware of the variety of enslaved non-Russian nationalities within the U.S.S.R. itself, to the mountainous facts of Soviet oppression. In the forced Communist union barely 50 percent are true Russian stock. In the total breakdown there are almost 200 ethnic groups, 125 languages and dialects, and 40 religions. This could be a significant source of potential weakness within the Communist camp. How significant we do not know at this time. The proposed committee could delve deeply in this matter and determine the extent and significance of the situation. From Poland to Albania these unfortunates are restless. There is no question of the need for further knowledge about these countries and their people. We must know how we can help them, and perhaps some day, how they can help us. I might point out that in an emergency it is conceivable that these people could inflict great havoc on strategic installations, transportation facilities, and food stockpiles behind the Iron Curtain. Yet, today, we do not know what to expect from these people. We are ignorant as to what to expect or how we can proceed to increase the possibility of pro-Western support within the colonial Communist structure. In every area of the Soviet bloc, within the Soviet Union itself, there are human beings striving for freedom, for safety, for dignity. Such aspirations can be nurtured by the work of a Special Committee on Captive Nations such as we propose. Among the many functions of the committee would be its service in becoming a storehouse of knowledge which could be drawn upon for future policy. In summary, Mr. Chairman, let me say we must not overlook the fact that the issue of captive nations presents the world with a crucible in which the basic Russian-American conflict is highlighted. For it is in these captive nations that the central issue between the East and West is spotlighted-the issue of freedom versus slavery. It is here that the Kremlin is most sensitive for it sits on a powder keg of suppressed nationalities, people with a history of freedom. The facts about these captive nations explode the myth of alleged Soviet cohesiveness and show it to be a monumental piece of fiction. A congressional committee of the type proposed by this resolution would attack the issue from three sides and the cause of freedom would be served in these important areas. It would expose the Communist tyranny within the United States, within the captive nations themselves, and throughout the world at large. 87355-62-23 Hon. EDNA F. KELLY, Chairman, Subcommittee on Europe, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.: WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3, 1962. Being called upon to testify before the Subcommittee on Europe of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, I would like to make the following statement concerning the American economic aid to Poland. Poland's present status within the Communist bloc is that of a Communistgoverned country where Western attitudes and ideas are allowed a relatively free play, and Warsaw remains an important point where most Western influences enter the Soviet bloc countries. This is accomplished by the imports of books, films, plays, and merchandise and by the exchange of scientists and intellectuals between Poland and the United States and Western Europe. In order to strengthen and expand these positive changes the Polish political emigration in America and in Europe, with only a very few exceptions, supports the idea of continuing the U.S. economic aid to Poland. It is a well-known fact that the entire Polish nation is looking forward to this aid, and that the continuation of American aid to Poland is also desired by the 7 million Americans of Polish descent, as can be seen from the statement of policy adopted by the Supreme Council of the Polish-American Congress at its meeting held in Washington, D.C., June 15-16, 1962, which is fully indorsed by the Polish exile representation in the Assembly of Captive European Nations. The American economic aid helps the Polish people to maintain as much independence as they can achieve by their own efforts. It is also designed to show the Poles that they are not forgotten or abandoned and to encourage them to keep the torch of freedom burning. It can be assumed that in spite of all the Communist efforts to the contrary, the Polish people will continue to exert pressure on the Communist regime for a further expansion of rights and liberties and in this respect the political and psychological value of American aid will even exceed its economic value. STEFAN KORBONSKI, Chairman, Polish Delegation to the Assembly of Captive European Nations. STATEMENT OF POLICY Adopted by the Sixth National Meeting of the Supreme Council of the Polish American Congress, held in Washington, D.C., June 15-16, 1962 The Supreme Council of the Polish American Congress, assembled for its Sixth National Session at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on June 15 and 16, 1962, having considered the problems which face our Nation today, and in behalf of the 7 million Americans of Polish descent whom we represent, do hereby subscribe to the following statement of policy: We hereby support the President of the United States in his statement made at a press conference on June 7, 1962: "The Polish people want to be independent and they are not Communists by choice but by hard circumstances forced upon them, and I think we should continue to hold hope for them ***. I do think that we should not slam the door in their faces." We hold no sympathy for Wladyslaw Gomulka and his Soviet imposed regime. We deplore the absurd attacks on the United States made by the Soviet Communist puppets now dominating Poland. We realize that the extension of economic aid to Poland may create certain problems. Nevertheless it is our considered opinion that mutual benefits to be derived from American aid to Poland far outweigh any annoyances which may result. Therefore, we reassert our firm belief, as previously expressed in the Polish American Congress memorandum of August 17, 1961, submitted to the President of the United States and the Secretary of State, that: "The political efforts of American assistance to Poland are real and important. They will not win over or even soften the Communist hard core which rules Poland on Russia's behalf, it is true. However, they constitute a set of factors which have already placed Poland in an exceptional situation among the satellite states. They forced the Warsaw regime to leave the door ajar toward the West, permitted tourist movements in both directions and granted a measure of tolerance to Western cultural influence which permeates the Polish atmosphere and outlook." We, therefore, urge the Members of the House of Representatives to reject all amendments to the foreign aid legislation which would restrict the President's authority to extend aid to the peoples of Poland whenever he finds this to be in the interests of the United States. We believe that imaginative use of American counterpart funds in Warsaw for cultural and health projects in Poland will accentuate the historic friendship between the American and the Polish Nations, and will convince Poles that America has not forsaken them in the general strategy of cold war. The Krakow Children's Hospital and Research Center, for instance, is already creating a countrywide enthusiasm of the Polish people for America, and is drawing an increasing number of excursions to its site from all parts of Poland. In a larger view of history, Poland, due to its geographic position, its national temper, its thousand-year-old ties with Latin culture, stands as an invincible barrier in the path of Soviet designs for world conquest, and will remain so for generations to come unless the Poles are further weakened and frustrated by accumulated betrayals and indifferences on the part of the Western World. We wholly subscribe to Mr. Kennedy's statement, that "One test case for the possibilities of peaceful change within the Communist world and for a new American policy in Eastern Europe is still Poland" (Strategy of Peace, 1960). BERLIN CRISIS AND THE ODRA-NYSA LINE We believe, that our position in Berlin, firmly established by the right of conquest and the right of postwar investments therein, is nonnegotiable. Berlin in itself, is not the pivotal point in the cold war. It is only a very sensitive nerve center in the complex body of international tensions. Thus, we believe, that it could be solved permanently only within the framework of an all-European settlement, which would force Russia to relax its stranglehold on Eastern European nations. It is our deep conviction, that the first step in a grand strategy of peace, so clearly and forcefully defined by the President of the United States, then Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960, should be final and irrevocable recognition of the Polish-German frontier along the Odra-Nysa Rivers. "This question," stated Mr. Kennedy, "perhaps more than any other serves to create gravitational pull in Poland toward Russia. It is not possible or proper to freeze the legal status of these territories until there has been a final peace conference." After 17 years, since the Potsdam Agreement, this frontier has already taken a permanent status. For the Poles, the post-war years have been difficult enough even if they had not been hampered by communism. They took over from Germany a wasteland, left by the Wehrmacht scorched earth policy and Russian looting. Nevertheless, the Poles have sunk their roots deeply in the anciently Polish soil on western territories. By now, there are 3,200,000 Poles born in these territories. They, too, have a "right to homeland." Industrial and agricultural output and services in these territories are already higher than in the prewar years under Germans. We believe that the United States has three alternatives in this tremendously important matter: (a) To back Bonn's demands for a revision of this frontier. That is precisely what the Russians would like the Americans to do. It would go a long way in increasing Polish allegiance to communism. (b) The United States could go on being noncommittal, as it has been since Potsdam. It is a line of least resistance, which makes us unpopular with boththe Poles and the German revisionists and exponents of a new Drang nach Osten. (c) The United States could remove the cause of Polish, Czech, Slovak fears by recognizing the Odra-Nysa line. It would convince the peoples of east central Europe that German aggression eastward is definitely checked by the Western Powers, and that these people, who suffered so much under German conquests and occupation do not have to rely on Russia for protection. German revisionists declare that they will not use force in effecting boundary changes. This is meaningless to the Poles, who base their rights on the Potsdam Agreement as well as on economic, demographic and historical factors. We, therefore, express our unalterable belief that the Odra-Nysa line is vital for the national life of Poland, and therefore, cannot be regarded as negotiable. Equally empty are proposals by certain Western diplomats that the German declaration of nonviolence in settling the Odra-Nysa line dispute be guaranteed by the NATO powers. Such a guarantee, in itself, would imply a possibility of revision of this boundary and would force Poland to even greater dependence on Russia in defense of these Polish western territories, which are a matter of life and death to the Polish nation. We believe that there should be no final settlement of all European problems which will continue the domination of once free peoples by the Soviets or their agents. We will accept no determination of Poland's boundaries which does not assure that nation not only her present western boundary, but also the return to her of her territory on the east annexed by Soviet Russia. The Polish American Congress will continue its efforts that the Congress of the United States assist the victims of nazism to receive compensation out of the war claims fund under the administration of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. POLAND'S MILLENNIUM We are approaching Poland's millennium. The year 1966 will mark the 1,000th anniversary of the baptism of Poland. Through this act, Poland became an integral and creative force in Western culture, keeping at the same time constant watch on eastern ramparts of Christendom. One thousand years represents one-half of our Christian era spanning from early Middle Ages through modern times. In human values, this millennium represents 40 generations. These generations have built one of the most powerful and enlightened states in Europe; they knew the glories of victory and rewards of spiritual progress, the sorrows of defeats, the depths of sufferings, the sustaining power of heroism and faith in face of mortal dangers. They learned in times of glory and in periods of adversity how to put into practice the ideal of brotherhood of man-"Za waszą wolność i naszą" for your liberty and ours. To a sincere student, Poland's history shows great depth and dimension of political and social philosophy, and lights of genius that foretold the development of modern thought and outlook. And this is our message for the forthcoming millennium of Poland: We should strive to enlighten fellow Americans about Poland's past and her potentialities for the future. Our millennium commemorations should bring to full light Poland's contribution to the Western World, not only as a sentinel on the eastern ramparts of Latin culture, but as a truly creative and pioneering force in the development of Western thought in political philosophy, in precepts of social justice, in concepts of brotherhood of man, in arts, and in sciences. Statement of policy committee: Sidney Grabowski, Frances Dymek, Frank Wazeter, Joseph Dylong, STATEMENT OF HON. HARRIS B. MCDOWELL, JR., MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE, ON "EUROPEAN CAPTIVE NATIONS" Mr. Chairman, since the end of World War II, more than 800 million people of the world have been shut behind the Iron Curtain. The overwhelming majority of them have been carrying on their fight against Communist tyranny. In fact, the heavier the oppression, the more powerful is their resistance. The demonstrations by workers in East Germany in 1953, the uprising by the Polish people in 1956, the Hungarian revolution in October of the same year, the anti-Communist revolution by the Tibetan people in 1959, and the anti-Communist movements by the people under domination in various parts of the Chinese mainland in the past years are indications how the captive peoples feel about their rulers. The subcommittee will focus the attention of the free world on the importance of |