London-Based Regime Unswayed by Warsaw’s Reforms : Exile President Still Dreams of a Free Poland

It will be a sad day for Kazimierz Sabbat when Poland’s National Assembly meets in Warsaw today to elect a president.

It’s not that its choice will in any way affect Sabbat, who contends that whatever happens, he will remain Poland’s real president--with the state seal to prove it.

But even for someone who sees this week’s events as a moral charade, it would be nice if the “pretender” were a man of different background. Instead, it appears that the two houses of the National Assembly will name Communist Party chief Wojciech Jaruzelski as president, with the blessing of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.

“It’s a very unpleasant situation--a revolting situation, because (Jaruzelski) is responsible not only for martial law but for all that has happened in Poland for 30 years,” said Sabbat, 76, who is president of the London-based Polish government-in-exile.

Wartime Creation

This other “government” that the retired sporting goods manufacturer heads is a creature of the World War II Nazi invasion of Poland and its postwar domination by the Soviet Union.

Formed in exile nearly half a century ago and pledged to return only when Poland is truly free, this government has remained in London rather than recognize what it considers an illegitimate Communist dictatorship maintained by force. To many, the refusal of the “Free Poles” to accept the admittedly brutal realities of postwar Europe is at best eccentric--and at worst ridiculous.

Theirs is a “government” recognized by virtually no one except a close circle of anti-Communist Poles. The Vatican, which was the last political entity to officially honor their claim, quietly dropped their representative from its diplomatic list a generation ago.

The exile government’s entire budget probably wouldn’t keep the White House typing pool in coffee and doughnuts. It is run by people who haven’t even set foot in Poland for almost 50 years.

Maybe so, said Sabbat in a weekend interview. But, he insisted, the significance of his government is “more than meets the eye. . . . There is much of the symbol in what we are doing.”

The Polish exile government’s goals remain the same as when it was established, said Sabbat: “To bring about free elections in Poland and a free Parliament. Our function will finish when in Warsaw there will be a really free and democratically elected Parliament.”

While admittedly a lot more representative than at any time in the last 50 years, today’s National Assembly in Warsaw doesn’t meet the test.

In spite of its virtually all-Solidarity Senate, the National Assembly by prior agreement still contains a majority for the Communist Party and its allies, noted Sabbat. The party also remains in control of the army and the security forces.

Even if this National Assembly were to choose Solidarity’s Walesa as president, rather than Jaruzelski, it wouldn’t change the situation. “I don’t think Walesa would be suitable at this time,” Sabbat said.

The moment that there is a truly free election, the Polish exile government is committed to return the official seal and the original copy of the 1935 constitution under which it claims legitimacy.

“Whether it will be in my time, I do not know,” Sabbat commented wistfully. “I wish I could perform that historic role, but. . . .”

Meets at Residence

Meanwhile, the government meets every Monday afternoon in the dining room of Sabbat’s official residence in London’s posh Belgravia section. The multimillion-dollar property at 43 Eaton Place is identified only by a modest brass plate on the door engraved in Polish: “President of the Republic of Poland.”

Sabbat, who divides his time between the Belgravia address and his private residence overlooking the Wimbledon Common park south of the Thames, is the fifth Polish president in exile.

Like most of the exile government’s ministers, he was a young soldier when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, triggering World War II. Dispersed Poles wound up fighting on many fronts--Sabbat joined Polish forces in France. “Like most of us, I did not return to Poland” after the war, he recalled. “There was not much point.”

The Polish government-in-exile was formed in the early days of the war, based first in France and then, after Nazi forces occupied that country, in London. The first president was a prominent attorney and former Speaker of the Polish Parliament, the late Wladyslaw Rackiewicz, and the prime minister was the late wartime military hero, Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski.

Succession in the London government is guaranteed by a typically Polish article in that 1935 constitution granting the president the right to appoint his successor in the event of the country’s being overrun.

The government consists of eight ministers responsible to a Parliament-in-exile composed of representatives of Polish groups in the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Its primary mission is to keep the dream of a free Poland alive. It maintains contacts with whatever Western opinion leaders will listen to it, tries through informants in Poland to stay on top of developments there and publishes both a quarterly magazine in English and a monthly newspaper in Polish.

While some may snicker, the Communist authorities in both the Soviet Union and Poland acknowledge the importance of the government-in-exile, if only indirectly.

During the original rise of the Solidarity trade union movement in 1980 and 1981, the Soviet newspaper Literary Gazette blamed “the Eaton Place Cabinet” for allegedly directing nothing less than counterrevolution against the Communist government in Warsaw.

Want to Repatriate Body

And the Polish Communists have long wanted to repatriate Sikorski’s body in hopes of reinforcing their claim to legitimacy. Sikorski, who died in a mysterious 1943 plane crash and is buried in England, said he wanted to be reburied in Poland only when his country was free.

What the exile government here has to offer, in the end, is only its endorsement. But that endorsement, in a Polish context, is significant.

“The life of a nation is composed of many factors,” said Sabbat. “We never thought that we were the only, or even the main factor. We saw our specific role to be a symbol of national aims and a sort of gathering point for Polish political activities in the free world.”