ABSTRACT
The instruments of Moscow’s splitting tactics included media campaigns, official visits, and perhaps Soviet security police incitement of dissension. The national Party organ Trybuna Ludu praised Wyszynski as “one of the architects of the new social contract” represented by the Gdansk accords. The image of staunch Polish Communists caught in a crossfire between Solidarity extremists and Party liberals was drawn in Pravda. Pravda states that speakers gave the Nazi version of the crime, or blamed the Soviet authorities even though a USSR commission of inquiry had established Nazi guilt and its findings were widely known. “Antisocialist, counterrevolutionary elements” were held responsible for this “anti–Soviet witches’ Sabbath.” The TASS communique on Suslov’s mission avoided the use of any phrase that might have created an impression of interference in the internal affairs of a fraternal Party. The reprinted passages were those critical of moves to de-Sovietize the Communist party in Poland and to tolerate freedom of expression along Western lines.
