Poland's diehard Stalinists had been waiting the opportune moment to make a comeback. In the seven months of Wladyslaw Gomulka's leadership, no longer tied to Moscow or supported by police terror, the Polish Communist Party had lost much of its former authority and force. The time had come, said one opportunistic Communist leader, Boleslaw Piasecki, to end the "ideological chaos" and get closer to the Soviet Union.
For three months Gomulka, the man on a tightrope, had delayed calling the ninth plenum of the party's 80-man Central Committee while he attempted to...
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