ACTIVITY ON THE POLISH-AMERICAN LEFT-DOC ALSO MENTIONS-ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITY IS BEING PLANNED ON THE POLISH-AMERICAN LEFT TO BRING PRESSURE ON THE POLISH GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE TO COME TO TERMS WITH SOVIET RUSSIA

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 00039213
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2022
• Case Number: F-2022-01153
• Publication Date: October 29, 1943

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mk,c,
NATIONAI ITV THE LUTED STATES.
SER.!CES FF:_,M THE FCREICM Nr.1101"3.1..MES cci ]umber B-101
EIICRAIIDI.A4 TO THE OTECTCR OF STRATEGIC
29 Cotober 1943
/1'0607
CTIVITY ON THE POLISH-AMERICAN LEFT
Orcsinzati:-aal ir b-atng plahned
)11 ti PcrAiican Loft. Amr1,7, T hos 3
ln n:anr. for an t:
preach Pclish-Russlan friendihip Axe,-
WE,Acw Scyaa. Lance, 147d tRe-
er:q1d Stani,,iaus Or.mansk
Leit-win;: i'3i3h-A1erican3, fired by the reluctance
3f .r.nderate and right-wing groups to bring presaure on
the iolish Government-in-Exile to come to terms with Soviet
.'.1:ssla, are calling a private :-leeting to be held in Detroit
Novcnbcr '1943 to set up an crganization for that pur-
a.. 1
platform of this organization will call for
tlenent of the border question with Russia and thor-
ouh-;oinz agrarian reform and denocratization in postwar
Invi:ations to the neeting are being iasued by
l';aclaw S3yda, editor of tie Detroit labe--sacialist week-
ly, Nasz Swist- Professor Oscar Lange of the University
of Chicago, author of a much-discussed declaration entitled
"Call to Reason" (see FN Number B-53: 15 July 1943) \sill
te one of the chief speakers, "A priest from Boston" will
be the other,
en?'a
co
76
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Waclaw L.'eyda An el&.rly. wel:
jeurna:ist,
teilic,ent and capable
As
he is probably ;he lead'nr fit!ur;:t
American oups in Detrr.it, At ':CP-0'1:
associated with non-3oc.a1ist
now the, L'ec-.2o:t orza�
He dis?naf.:77f ".'re:r.
chief of Dziennik eoi in !J'.37 r pr-. �
L �r-
views during a strie aEainst that IE.pel
cused of being a Co=unist, he to2d s
he has cooperated with the Cor:LunisIr as th.e
group on the Left. "I am not a faac:s':,' nc
am also not a hater of tne Co l';:t Ira
fol1o7,. the Co=in13"
Soyda :oDes :hat :Iciand Y;I:1 1:=e Lis,,uz.e2 ,asT-
ern territcrles.
'2he areas innabIL-e:'
say34 have always teen SOUT:1 cf rc2 an pr-
inces of Whit Rusaia ard Volhynia nre c:veced
by rich Polish Lancilc,rds as a mean :f thf,
tkrainlan and Whit,: Russian peasa1z.-7 the-7.c-
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Soyda is not optimistic on the score of the Polish-
Americans. In an interview in June he said that most
Polish workingmen in the United States who are liberal
in viewpoint as to the American scene are anti-Soviet on
the question of Polish borders. "They are," he said,
"very poorly educated. Many cannot read and know less
about geography, and to them any city with a name that
has a Polish sound belongs to Poland. It is hard to ex-
plain the Atlantic Charter to them. They know Russia
wants half of Poland and they are not ready to give it up.
As they cannot read the American press they know only
what they read in the Dziennik Polski of Detroit."
Oscar Lane Oscar Lange, formerly professor at the
University of Cracow, is ncw a professor
at the University of Chicago. Recently he restated his
position in a letter published in the New York Herald
Tribune 5 October 1943. The intransigent Poles, says
Lange, based their denunciations of Russia's plan to
dominate the Ukraine and White Russia upon an erroneous
belief in the weakness of Soviet Russia. The proven
strength of the USSR requires the adoption of another pro-
gram. If Poland is to be free and strong that program
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must be based upon a closer understanding with the Soviet
Union and Czechoslovakia. Poland can help protect Russia
from Germany, and Soviet Russia can in turn offer the
same Protection to Poland as the United States offers
Mexico and Canada. All attempts to promote misunderstand-
imss between the Anglo-Saxon Allies and the Soviet Union
plainly threaten suicide for Poland since the only alter-
native fos a syste:a df collective security is a system
of "exclusive spheres of influence" in which Poland would
fall completely within the Soviet sphere.
"A final prerequisite for Poland's future," Lange
argues, "is an amicable solution of the boundary dispute
with he Soviet Union. The Polish nation must recognize
the right of the Ukrainians and White Ruthenians to
national reunion with the Soviet Ukraina and Soviet White
Ruthenia ite Russia7. Attempts to force these peoples
into Poland against their will can result only (as it
has in the past) in a weakening of the Polish state by
internal dissension." Requiring coercion, such attempts
would also make democracy within Poland impossible.
Poland must democratize and undergo an agrarian re-
form "which will eliminate the feudal elements in the
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country by giving die lane to the peasants." Tho Polish
Govarnment-in-Hxile, :ang( continues, must be reorganized
with "an understanding of the democratic elements in that
government with the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR
and with democratic Polish groups in other places."
Professor Lange demands Polish sovereignty over East
exzest for its Lithuanian section. "A democratic
Poland will have to ekpropriate the Junl:,ersx to ship them
out of the country, and to settle their estates with peas-
ants. Poland should have all of Upper Silesia with a
prevailingly Polish population, a step both in democracy,
since the Poles there are peasants chiefly, and also a
step towa:d wea;:ening Ger-aan militarism by removing war
industries." "Centers of Polish culture" in Galicia,
such as Lwow, should be left to Poland even though they
are located in ethnographically Ukrainian or White Russian
terr:tory. This feature of Langets program is being at-
tacked by Ukrainians in the United States as a manifesta-
tion of Polish imperialism from the Left.
To the bulk of Polish Socialists Professor Lange and
those Socialists who with him signed the "Call to Reason"
are still renegades.
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Orttnber -1943
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Stanislaus It is probable that the "priest from Boston"
Orlemanski
is the Reverend Stanislaus Orlemanski of
the Church of St. Mary of the Rosary in Springfield,
Massachusetts. Orlemanski was born in Erie, Pennsylvania,
12 December 1889. He has for a long time been concerned
with various Polish activities and problems. In 1932 he
wrote a brochure on The Folish Immigration in the U.S.A.
Two years ago he arou6ed attention through his opposi-
tion to a Polish Day which was to be sponsored in Spring-
field by local followers of KNAPP. Several months ago
he took a stand against officic,1 Polish policy and an-
nounced his endorsement of the Polish Kosciuszko Divi-
sion organized in the USSR. He thereupon organized a
group known as the Kosciuszko Legion in Springfield,
which aims to extend moral and material support to Polish
forces in the Soviet Union, and he issued an appeal to
other Polish-Americans to follow suit. The rightist Polish
press has of late been taking him severely to task for
propagating the idea of Polish-Soviet cooperation. He
has been writing articles both for Soydals Nasz Swiat
and the pro-Communist Glos Ludowy.
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These activities of the Reverend Orlemanski have
evoked charges that he is a Communist, or at least a fellow-
traveler. This view, ofton presented by such newspapers
as the Nowy Swiat of New York, is not generally shared.
Some moderate papers, like the Jersey City Glos Narodu,
regard him as a man of goodwill who during these times
uf confusion is seeking a road toward the better tomorrow�
Glos Ludowy recommend t him as a "foe of fascism," and in
printing hs articles often reminds its readers that they
represent the Reverend's own views. Father Orlemanski
says of himself: "I am a priest, I am a patriot, I am an
American who loves the people of his descent. And I want
to aid the Polish people, but in the American way."
People who know Father Orlemanski categorically deny
that he is a communist and compare his views with those
of certain liberal Protestant ministers. He cannot be
considered as a leader of any movement, but merely as an
individual with strong political and social interests
which have made of him a public figure. It is recalled
that in Poland there were occasional radical priests who
identified their interests with those of the common people
and became exponents of their needs. One of the better
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known was Father Okon, a laember of the Polish Sejm.
Beginning with last July, Orlemanski has published
a number of articles reflecting his views on various cur-
rent problems. It is his contention that the Polish
Governmeni,-in-Exile and Polish statesmen are to blame for
the bad relations with Soviet Russia. "Polish diplomats,"
he sa:rs, "are viewing Russia and Germany through glasses
of the past. Thereas-present-day Germany is a greater
foe than the former Germany ever was, post-revolutionary
Russia considers collaboration with Poland as beneficial
to both countries." Only Soviet Russia, he continues,
can help Poland culturally and economically, and only a
policy of Soviet-Polish friendship can guarantee the fron-
tiers of Poland As to religion, Poland can keep its
traditional motto, "God and the Fatherland," while Russia
can do as she pleases.
Outside Support The arguments of Soyda, Lange, and
Orlemanski are closely aligned to
those advanced by some Polish-Americans of sympathies more
definitely to the Left, including Boleslaw Gebert, head
�
of the Polish-American Section, IWO. In a recent series
of articles in the Glos Ludowy Geber.6 demanded from KNAPP
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a statellent as to the source of its budge; of $422000,
which he declared to be in need of explanation in view
of the small membership of only 600, (KNAPP officers claim
a membership of 1475.;
Polish-American liberals and leftists have found sup-
port in the Detroit News. where Philip Adler has been run-
a series of articles, the latest of which attack the
anti-.3emitic record csfi' the Polish Government. KNAPP lead-
ers say Adler is benind a left-wing "unity organization"
of trade union groups nominally headed by Szymon Kaminski,
formcrly editor-in.c:lief of the Socialist Robotnik Polski
of New York City, with which he broke in protest against
its anti-Soviet policy. Other Socialist leaders who left
the Robotnik Polski for similar reasons were Stefan Arski
and Dr, A. Penzik, co-signers with Lange of his "Call to
Reason.'
State Senator Stanley Nowak of Michigan has recently
been addressing pro-Soviet Polish meetings c The charges
brought against him on the ground that he failed to declare
his alleged Communist sympathies at the time of applica-
tion for citizenship in 1938 were dropped early this year,
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