To find out what this was all about, two of our comrades were allowed to take part in this conference. At the conference, Obest presented himself as someone who had come to Poland with a special mission: there was a need for them to have their own trusted individuals at all factories, people who could provide information about what was being done at the factories and so on. When asked what he knew about the new PWP, he replied that the PWP was being led by people the Comintern trusted and that he did not intend to interfere in this work; on the contrary, people from his organization would have to be sent to the PWP to find out what was being done there. In private conversations with our comrades, this Obest said that before the dissolution of the Communist Party, he had worked in the Comintern’s Passport Department with Krajewski. According to him, Manuilsky is now heading this department. Although Obest does not explicitly mention Manuilsky, he speaks in such a way that listeners themselves conclude that he is someone the Comintern trusts and that it was Manuilsky who sent him. During the conference, at Obest’s suggestion, a committee of three people was selected, consisting of three of our comrades. A few days ago our comrades received blank form number one, which asks them to fill in the family names of reliable people from the PWP at factories and to provide their home addresses. These forms clearly show that we are dealing with a Gestapo agent-provocateur. Our special group was assigned to find his apartment, take all of his papers, and kill him. 55

55 RGASPI, f. 495, op. 184, d. 18, incoming 1942 from Poland, ll. 188–187, sent 21 November 1942, received 23 November. Anton Krajewski (real name Władysław Stein) was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Poland and a member of its Central Committee. In 1932 he became the head of the ECCI Personnel Department, and from 1935 he was a member of the Comintern ICC. On 26 May 1937 he was arrested by the NKVD and was executed.