NIS 14, Poland, Government and Politics

by Central Intelligence Agency

WARNING: The NIS is National Intelligence and may not be released or shown to representatives of any foreign government or international body except by specific authorization of the Director of Central Intelligence in accordance with the provisions of National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 1.

For NIS containing unclassified material, however, the portions so marked may be made available for official purposes to foreign nationals and nongovernment personnel provided no attribution is made to National Intelligence or the National Intelligence Survey.

Subsections and graphics are individually classified according to content. Classification/control designations are:

(U/OU): Unclassified/For Official Use Only

(C): Confidential

(S): Secret

A. Introduction (C)

Poland, whose people have consistently regarded their nation as an outpost of Western civilization in Western Europe, has been under the rule of a Soviet-supported Communist regime since World War II. Although the population traditionally has been anti-Russian, anti-Communist, and deeply committed to a unique blend of nationalism and Roman Catholicism, the rulers of the nation are materially and ideologically bound to the Soviet brand of communism and profess to be convinced atheists. The political life of the country and its governmental apparatus, therefore, are based not on the popular will but on the needs of the Communist regime in maintaining power and in attempting to remold Polish society along Communist lines.

After the rebirth of the Polish state in November 1918, internal politics were characterized by a succession of weak parliamentary coalitions which by 1926 finally gave way to a semi-dictatorial government, first under Marshal Pilsudski and later under a collection of military leaders called the "colonels' regimes." Following World War II the geographical position of Poland made its political orientation a matter of vital concern for Soviet strategy in Eastern Europe. Historical anti-German feeling, reinforced by the trauma of the Nazi wartime occupation, was a major asset to the USSR in its promotion of Polish-Soviet Communist collaboration. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945 the Soviet Union sponsored provisional territorial changes which shifted prewar Polish boundaries to the west. Until the conclusion of the Polish-West German treaty in 1970, the Soviet Union's good will was the only major guarantee of the territorial integrity of the postwar Polish state.

The postwar political development of Poland has gone through several distinct periods generally paralleling the changing character of Soviet-Eastern European relations in general. These are: the suppression of democratic forces and the consolidation of Communist power immediately after the war; the Stalinist period of political terror and total subordination of the Soviet Union; the upsurge of liberal impulses and popular hopes following the upheaval of 1956; the ensuing popular disillusionment, economic stagnation, and social and political strain that ended in the workers' revolt of December 1970; and, since then, a period characterized by a new generation of leaders who, though no less Communist than their predecessors, appear committed to a more open style of rule and are pragmatic rather than doctrinal in their approach to the country's problems.

The transition from one to another of these periods has been usually marked by different degrees of violence. On entering Poland in 1944, the Soviet Red Army participated in the forced dissolution of political and military centers controlled by the non-Communist underground and by the London-based Polish Government-in-exile and aided in setting up a Soviet-sponsored body, the Committee of National Liberation. Founded in Moscow and proclaimed in Lublin on Polish territory, the Communist-controlled committee was recognized by the USSR on 5 January 1945 as the Provisional Government of Poland. After the Yalta Agreement and the inclusion in the government of four non-Communist Poles from abroad - including the strong Peasant Party leader Stanislaw Mikolajczyk - this body was recognized on 5 July 1945 by the major Western powers as the Government of Poland.

With most of the important governmental positions under Communist control and with the Red Army and Soviet secret police actively helping to suppress anti-Communist opposition, the government ignored its commitment to hold free elections promptly. Finally, in January 1947, rigged elections were held and Communist domination insured; after his movement had been liquidated by police terror, Mikolajczyk escaped abroad in October 1947. Although armed underground resistance to Communist domination persisted for some years thereafter, Mikolajczyk's flight marked the end of organized, legal, political opposition to the Communist regime.

During the following 9 years the USSR succeeded, to a greater degree than any other foreign power that has ever occupied Poland, in establishing political control, exploiting the country economically, and in suppressing resistance. The only leading Polish Communist to oppose the Stalinist principle that Soviet Communist doctrine and experience were generally applicable to all Eastern European Communist states - specifically Poland - was Wladyslaw Gomulka, the Secretary General and former head of the underground Polish Workers' Party, the Communist party. This opposition led to his removal as Secretary General in 1948 and to his imprisonment from 1951 to 1954.

The death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in March 1953 and the subsequent changes in the Soviet leadership and its modus operandi caused major cracks to appear in the Polish regime's control apparatus, made popular dissatisfaction more overt and acute, and weakened the stability of the party and government machinery. By 1956, some of the Polish Communist leaders themselves became aware that a substantial modification of the system was imperative. Gomulka appeared to be the only Polish Communist leader able to undertake this task without encouraging popular revolt or bringing on Soviet intervention - and the only one willing to try. A series of turbulent events in mid-1956 reached a climax in October, when Gomulka was elected as party First Secretary.

In external relations, a series of skillful political moves helped the Gomulka regime in overcoming initial Soviet hostility, and gradually it obtained Soviet acceptance of Gomulka's formula of internal diversity keyed to national distinctions and external Communist unit under Soviet leadership. At home, the relatively short post-1956 period of acute party instability and weakness coincided with a revamping of major sectors of the political, economic, and social apparatus, and a significant extension of individual and collective freedoms. By mid-1957, however, the relatively rapid consolidation of the regime and its reassertion of party control over all aspects of national life signaled a gradual but steady retreat from the liberal gains of 1956.

What followed were years of increasing bureaucratization, policy immobilism, internecine party strife, and social and economic stagnation. Some feeble and mismanaged attempts were made to reform the system after 1968, but the leadership's misreading of the mood of the people resulted, in December 1970, in an explosion of accumulated economic grievances among the working class who saw their welfare further endangered. The regime's ill-advised use of force led to almost a week of bloody rioting in several cities along the Baltic coast, the collapse of the Gomulka regime, and the installation on 20 December 1970 of a new party leadership, with Edward Gierek, an experienced, tough, but pragmatic "technocrat," at its head.

Under Gierek, a new style of rule, sharply contrasting with the past, has appeared in Poland. During his skill relatively short tenure, Gierek has successfully controlled the social, economic, and political forces set loose in December 1970, and has gained a substantial measure of support from the people for a program of gradual reform. His concrete actions indicate that his views on the need for a continuing dialog between the rulers and the ruled, for enlisting the talents of the broadest spectrum of the population, for a freer flow of information, and for humanizing the party's approach to internal political and economic matters are genuine. Despite certain unorthodox aspects of Gierek's style, he has continued to strengthen the political and materiel support initially gained from the USSR and his other Eastern European allies.

Gierek is no liberal and he has made it clear that the political spontaneity accompanied by loss of Communist party control that characterized the Czechoslovak heresy in 1968 will not be tolerated in Poland. He has stressed that Poland's alliance with the USSR, the basic features of the internal system, and the party's monopoly of power are not to be tampered with. While he has eschewed force, he has hammered home the need for greater national discipline, particularly a dedication by the workers and all strata of the population to a new "work ethic." His moderate program of reform promises no miracles but only hard work, which he has pledged will be justly rewarded. As a result, the workers and the people in general, though still skeptical and occasionally militant in pressing for more positive improvement in their lives, have shown themselves willing to give him the time he needs to fulfill his promises. Most importantly, Gierek has succeeded in improving the political and social climate and in releasing long-repressed popular energies along constructive channels. Moreover, he has done this in ways that are conducive rather than inhibiting to his program of reform and to the prospects for stability.

The key to Gierek's long-term prospects evidently is his ability to achieve results in the economic area. Here, Gierek inherited an inert bureaucracy and a backwardness which made Poland lag even behind other Eastern European countries in introducing technological change and improvements in management and planning. Much has already been accomplished in terms of measurable consumer welfare, but institutional shifts have been negligible and there is no evidence that any major changes toward even a modified market economy are in the offing. Gierek's main intent seems to be a streamlining of the economic apparatus and an "energizing" of the workers and managers with only minimal changes in the basic centralized structure.

While gradually introducing various innovations, the new leadership has attempted to maintain a delicate balance between sometimes contradictory objectives - e.g. an improved "work ethic" within the framework of greater national discipline as against a freer internal atmosphere; the supremacy of the party as against a reformed and democratized governmental system; and greater initiative and responsibility by management as against worker participation in the decision-making process.

Even with the energetic measures that Gierek has taken, he has not eliminated all the well-entrenched domestic proponents of the old way of doing things. Moreover, he must be even more careful of offending similarly conservative elements among his allies, especially in Moscow. Nevertheless, given the embarrassing ideological circumstances of his coming to power - when the proletariat overthrew one Communist leadership and installed another - Gierek has been remarkably successful in obtaining an apparently full measure of Soviet support and confidence. Moreover, within the framework of his firm commitment to the Polish-Soviet alliance, he has apparently obtained approval for a much more energetic pursuit of Poland's self-interest on the international scene, particularly in seeking a more influential role in Europe. If Gierek can maintain the momentum of his reform progress and engage the full energy of the people, Poland's prospects in the 1970s may be brighter than most Poles believed possible at the beginning of that decade.

B. Structure and Functioning of the Government

The Polish governmental apparatus, divided into legislative, executive, and judicial branches, is an elaborate bureaucracy of state administration under a facade of parliamentary rule. It is, however, devoid of practical power, and is designed to implement policies set by the Communist party whose parallel apparatus controls that of the government on all levels. (U/OU)

Broad Communist party control over the entire hierarchy of government bureaucracy is exercised in several ways, and its extent - always pervasive - varies somewhat depending upon the issues and personalities involved. At the national level, the Politburo formulates policy with the First Secretary of the party making the final decisions; the party Secretariat, working with and through appropriate departments of the Central Committee, controls the execution of the policy by the corresponding levels of the government system. The same pattern of party control is repeated at lower levels of the party and government, with the result that it is the first secretary of the provincial party organization rather than the chairman of the local government body who has the real authority in each province. Effective party control has tended to be more uneven at the lowest levels, primarily because there have not been enough competent party functionaries to staff all the positions; however, even there the party rather than the local government apparatus tends to be the focus of power. (C)

There have been few structural changes in the institutions of government since party leader Edward Gierek came to power in December 1970. Gierek's major accomplishment in attempting to restore communication between the people and their rulers has been a change in the political and social climate, and a change in the style of rule exercised by the dominant Communist leadership. Nevertheless, despite the commitment of continuity of Communist institutions, the impact of the changes in Gierek's style has resulted in some important modifications in the practical as distinct from the theoretical relationship between the party and governmental structure, as well as in measures, some still tentative, to shift more of the policy-implementing responsibilities from the shoulders of the party onto those of the government. Without prejudicing the party's controlling role, its policymaking prerogatives, or its ultimate power to intervene at any stage, Gierek appears genuinely committed to establishing a streamlined and somewhat more independent governmental apparatus. (C)

By 1972, Gierek's moves to accord a more significant role to parliament, local government, the trade unions, and other representatives organizations gave credibility to his initial pledge to give the people a wider voice in the system. For example, Gierek has made some gestures toward Poland's two non-Marxist puppet parties and toward various other groups by soliciting their advice on matters affecting their members. Similarly, he has taken steps to reinvigorate the leadership of the several mass organizations to make them more representative of their membership. Most importantly, he has emphasized competence, education, efficiency, and pragmatism in the staffing of both party and government bureaucracies at all levels, and has encouraged feedback between those entrusted with the apparatus of rule and the people. (C)

Although the party's controlling role has, if anything, been strengthened, this does not contradict Gierek's effort - still in the formative stage - to have the party concentrate more fully on its policy-deliberating and policymaking role, and to divorce it in large part from the daily running of the state. In short, the government's role of administering the country, enshrined in constitutional theory but so long usurped by the party, is now to be given some practical content. Politically, these measures are designed to pay several dividends. The government, by being more responsive to the people and more representative of them, acts as the party's primary public opinion agent, and provides a forum for a greater degree of popular expression. By derivation, and probably by Gierek's deliberate calculation, the enhanced interaction between the people and the governmental apparatus may also help to shield the party itself from inevitable daily friction and, possibly, to make it a less easily identifiable target for such violent outbursts of popular frustration as occurred in December 1970. (C)

Despite general institutional continuity, Gierek's efforts to give his varied new programs a legal basis has resulted in a much increased level of legislative and executive activity on the part of the government, as well as in various structural changes. In keeping with its pragmatic and measured pace, however, the regime is deliberately avoiding inflexible deadlines. For example, while Gierek's early commitment to a reform of local government is being fulfilled, the amendment of many unspecified "obsolete laws" is proceeding more slowly, albeit as a first step the Council of Ministers in January 1973 invalidated some 800 outdated government resolutions passed between 1945 and 1969. (C)

1. Constitution (C)

The most fundamental legal proposal put forward by the Gierek regime has been that a new constitution be written to replace the existing one, which dates from July 1952. Initially scheduled for completion some time in 1973, the project, while evidently not abandoned, has been scarcely publicized, and appears to have been delayed. Reasons for the delay are not known, but it is likely these include the regime's concern over a too hasty redefinition of governmental institutions and relationships that are still only in the formative stage. During this phase, Gierek evidently would prefer to maintain a free hand in pragmatically establishing a viable, de facto structure and only thereafter to provide the basic constitutional charter defining the new situation.

As a result, little has been made known as regards the provisions of the envisaged new constitution. A brief general statement on this subject was contained in the Communist party's guidelines issued before its national congress in December 1971. This document averred that the 1952 constitution, "having fulfilled its role in the period of construction of People's Poland, and in view of the development of the socioeconomic and political system in Poland," should be replaced by a new basic charter. The party document also outlined other proposed provisions of the new constitution, including a new redefinition of the rights and duties of citizens stressing their "socialist character," and called for the anchoring of Communist party primacy in constitutional law. This and tentative other evidence suggests that the new constitution, when written, will bring Poland abreast of some other Eastern European countries that have rewritten their constitutions to reflect the "higher" stage of "socialist" development achieved since the immediate postwar period.

So far, nothing in the present Polish constitution has constrained the Gierek regime from implementing its new legislation; the only legal act necessitating a constitutional amendment has been that of the reform of the lowest level of local government, effective of 1 January 1973.

The constitution of the Polish Communist state adopted in July 1952 brought the government framework into close, though not complete, correspondence with its Soviet prototype. In 1947 the Communists repudiated the quasi-authoritarian constitution of 1935 and operated the state provisionally on the basis of the French-type constitution of 1921, modified by a brief set of supplementary rules known as the Little Constitution of 1947. By 1952, however, the form and content of Communist rule had been stabilized, and the constitution of that year did not involve any basic alterations in the existing structure of the Communist system. Its main effect was to codify and formalize the political and social changes following the Communist accession to power and to outline future policy goals. The document is only secondarily a charter setting forth the structure and operations of the government and the rights and duties of citizens.

The 1952 constitution for the first time formally designated the state as a "people's democracy," an appellation used by the Communists even before 1952, and its official name was changed from Polish Republic to Polish People's Republic (PRL). An innovation of more ceremonial than practical importance was the replacement of the traditional one-man presidency of the country with a multi-member presidential board, the Council of State. This body is equivalent to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in the USSR; it is headed by a chairman, who exercises the ceremonial functions of a head of state. In this and most other details the 1952 constitution is a copy, with minor adaptations to the less advanced state of communization in Poland, of the 1936 Soviet constitution. Unlike the Soviet constitution, however (and the "socialist" constitutions of Czechoslovakia and Romania), the Polish document contains no specific reference to the leading role of the Communist party in national life. The constitution does mention the existence of "political organizations," however; this provision gives implied constitutional sanction to the continued existence of certain non-Communist political parties supporting the Communist program. Despite these characteristics of the Polish constitution, the Communist party has made it clear both in theory and in practice that it arrogates to itself a "leading role" in the determination of the country's political, economic, and social policy.

It is here that the Gierek regime apparently proposes to make the party's primacy an explicit provision of the new constitution, and, by derivation perhaps, to define the party's role in national life. The intended enshrinement of the party's "leading role" in constitutional law does not contradict Gierek's parallel intent to give the governmental apparatus a greater role in the daily running of the country. While the party "guides," the government rather than the party apparatus will be charged with implementing the party's guidance. While there is no question as to Gierek's view of the supremacy of the party and its ultimate power to control, the specific institutional role of the party and its relationship to the various levels of government are still being slowly and gradually redefined. The fact that this process is far from finished is probably a major reason for the slow pace of drafting a new constitution.

The 1952 constitution sets forth "socialism," defined in general terms, as the goal toward which the Polish state is tending. Socialized farming, however, is not specified as the predominant system in agriculture as it is in the Soviet constitution; rather, individual farming by "working peasants" is declared to be under state protection. This provision did not prevent the collectivization drive during the first half of the 1950s, but it did obviate a potential constitutional inconsistency at the time of the spontaneous dissolution of collectives in 1956. Unlike the specific or implied provisions in the constitutions of some other Communist states, the Polish document contains no blueprint for the means by which "socialism" is ultimately to be attained. Although it is far from clear whether the present stage of "socialist development" in Poland warrants or permits the proposed new constitution's declaring Poland to be a "socialist state" (as are Czechoslovakia and Romania), the new document undoubtedly will spell out in greater detail both the stage which the country has ostensibly reached and the next developmental goal to which it will aspire.

The present constitution also includes a bill of rights of the Soviet type, stressing the social benefits and duties which allegedly accrue to the citizen under a Communist system. Although the listed constitutional rights of citizens are qualified and may be legally bypassed or ignored at the Communist regime's choosing, the bill of rights often has been used in the past as the basis for public or private protests addressed to the government by some of its vocal critics, such as the powerful Roman Catholic Church, the intellectuals, and youth. The party's statement that the new constitution's provisions concerning the rights and duties of citizens should "stress their socialist character" suggests that little change in the direction of liberalism is to be expected. Yet, if the new document more adequately defined both rights and duties, provides for meaningful guarantees, and leaves less room for arbitrary interpretation, this alone would be welcomed by the people whose articulate spokesmen in the past have focused more on the vagueness of constitutional language that permits arbitrary interpretation than on any specifically repressive provisions.

The 1952 constitution contains a structural delineation of legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government, but there is no system of checks and balances, either in theory or in practice, to enforce an actual separation of powers. Nor are there any provisions which might prevent the arbitrary abuse of power by the government's dominant executive branch, whose key members are simultaneously either members of the Communist party leadership or are their trusted colleagues. Similarly, although the legislature is allegedly the supreme agent of state power, it is in practice a tool in the hands of the few leaders comprising the executive branch. Since the government is, in theory, a parliamentary, multi-party democracy, provisions for orderly governmental succession are implicit in the legislature's power to appoint the President as well as the Premier. However, because parliament's role is dictated and controlled by the Communist party, where no practical provisions for succession exist, the issue of governmental succession is meaningless and is wholly dependent on intra-Communist Party Politics.

Despite the party's admitted control over the use of the governmental apparatus at all levels as an instrument to implement both its domestic and foreign policies, the Polish regime has consistently put great stress on the maintenance of correct legal form and protocol in the relations between the top echelons of the party and government hierarchies, and has insisted on the recognition of the theoretical separation of the two systems when dealing with non-Communist countries. The Gierek regime's emphasis on rejuvenating government's role in the system and perhaps on making its lower levels less subject to ubiquitous party supervision suggests that the theoretical separation of the party and government may be imbued, if only tentatively and experimentally, with some practical content. In addition, Gierek's stress on safeguards against arbitrary abuses of power by both party and government bureaucracies at all levels may result in a more precise if not liberal constitutional redefinition of the relationships of governmental agencies on various levels between themselves as well as with parallel party bodies.

2. Governmental Structure and Practice (C)

A. Legislature

The unicameral Polish legislature, known as the Sejm (assembly, i.e. parliament), is elected by universal suffrage for a 4-year term, and by law must be convened for plenary sessions at least twice a year by the Council of State. Much of the work of the Sejm, however, is done by its 19 specialized committees and commissions, which may review legislation proposed by the executive branch of the government, in sittings outside of the regular plenary sessions. Although parliament theoretically initiates legislation, in practice draft bills are submitted to it by designated deputies acting on behalf of the executive, which in turn acts on behalf of the Communist party. In addition to a Rules and Mandate Commission, there were in 1972 the following 18 specialized bodies working within the Sejm:

Commission for:

• Agriculture and Food Industry
• Communications
• Construction and Communal Economy
• Culture and Art
• Domestic Trade
• Economic Plan, Budget, and Finance
• Education and Science
• Foreign Affairs
• Foreign Trade
• Forestry and Wood Industry
• Health and Physical Culture
• Heavy Industry, Chemical Industry, and Mining
• Internal Affairs
• Justice
• Labor and Social Matters
• Light Industry, Handicrafts, and Labor Cooperatives
• Merchant Marine and Railroads
• National Defense

Until 1960 the Sejm was elected on the basis of one deputy for every 60,000 inhabitants. A constitutional amendment of December 1960 established a constant number of 460 deputies. Because of the country's growth in population, each deputy represents a growing number of constituents. In 1972 this ratio stood at one deputy for every 71,500 inhabitants.

Under Communist rule, the Sejm has never been a genuine legislative and policymaking body; all these functions have been, in fact, performed by the inner councils of the Communist leadership and presented as finished acts for pro forma approval by the parliament. Within these circumscribed limits parliament's deliberative role and its influence on the character of legislation submitted to it has fluctuated in direct relation to the political climate within the Communist party, and to the willingness of the party to air its policies before the population. In 1972, following the first national elections under the Gierek regime (held on 19 March 1972, a year in advance of constitutional requirements), the Sejm once again appeared to be assuming a more prominent role in the discussion of proposed legislation, and its deputies were being increasingly charged by the regime with maintaining close contact with the opinions of their constituents.

None of these changes in emphasis result from shifts in the political spectrum of the legislature; in fact, the apportionment of seats in the Sejm between the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR, i.e., Communist party), the two puppet parties, and the non-party delegates is pre-determined by the regime in advance of the single-slate elections. Indeed, the results of the last three elections - in May 1965, June 1969, and March 1972 - have been identical in this respect. Of the 460 deputies elected in all three of these elections, 255 belonged to the PZPR, which controls the Sejm not only through its numerical preponderance but through a tightly organized caucus (called a "club") of its deputies. Similar "clubs" or executive-style organs insure the responsiveness to Communist policies by deputies of the puppet parties - the United Peasant Party (ZSL) with 117 deputies, and the Democratic Party (SD) with 39 deputies.

Of the 49 deputies without party affiliation who were elected in the 1972 elections, 13 were lay Catholics, but only five of the 13 were adherents to the Catholic parliamentary group Znak (Sign), a grouping with ties to the Roman Catholic episcopate, and one which - unlike the remainder of the lay Catholic deputies - traditionally could not be depended upon by the Communists for automatic support of their policies. After an initial upsurge in Znak influence within the more liberal atmosphere that followed the coming to power of the Gomulka regime in 1956, growing harassment by the increasingly conservative Gomulka apparatus made the importance of Znak more symbolic than real. Nevertheless, it remained the closest approximation to an organized opposition to any Communist parliamentary body. By 1972, the departure from the political sense of some of Znak's formerly prominent members, as well as the Gierek regime's good relations with the church had further diminished Znak's role of gadfly in the Sejm.

Despite the unchanged political spectrum of the Sejm after the 1972 elections, these elections resulted in an unprecedentedly large turnover of deputies and a similarly increased proportion of younger and working-class deputies. This characteristic of the new parliament parallels the rejuvenation of the top party and government leadership under Gierek's tenure. Indeed, in 1972 the average age of Poland's parliamentary deputies, like its top leaders, was the lowest in Eastern Europe.

The dramatic overhaul of the new Sejm is reflected in the fact that 291 of the 460 deputies elected in 1972 were freshmen, a turnover of approximately 63%. Notably, in six of the total of 80 constituencies no incumbent delegates even sought reelection, and only one incumbent stood for reelection in each of 18 other constituencies. Not surprisingly, those constituencies where the slate was completely or virtually new were predominantly those of the Baltic coastal cities that were the focal points of the December 1970 workers' revolt. About two-thirds of the total Sejm deputies are under the age of 50, although only slightly over 2% are under the age of 30; the average age is between 40 and 50. The most numerous occupation group is made up of the 121 deputies who are party, central, or local governmental officials, and leading members of various social and mass organizations. The remaining deputies include 98 workers (an unusually large contingent), 66 peasants, and 175 journalists, teachers, doctors, and representatives of other white collar occupations.

The Sejm elected in 1957 conducted genuine debates and initiated legislation in practice as well as in theory, and for a time was the only legislature operating in the Communist world with a limited voice in policymaking. By 1961, however, its legislative powers were brought fully under the control of the PZPR, its plenary sessions made less numerous and shorter, and its capacity for debate curtailed except when this served Communist purpose. Despite regime strictures on its activity, however, the Sejm never fully reverted to the rubber-stamp pattern of the pre-1956 period. Government draft bills, particularly budgetary items and sensitive measures involving potentially adverse public reaction, frequently got thorough review in the Sejm commissions and were subject to criticism and change in detail. In addition, interpellations, occasional dissenting votes, and carefully phrased criticism from the floor continued to be tolerated, though not encouraged, by the Communist leaders. This floor activity, however, was generally unpublicized.

Under the more permissive and dynamic political climate imparted by the Gierek regime, the newly rejuvenated parliament shows renewed signs of exercising its prerogatives and thus becoming a more genuine deliberative body. Although it is unlikely that the Sejm will play any more of a policymaking role vis-a-vis the controlling Communist party leadership than hitherto - nor can it hope to initiate major legislation without the party's guidance and approval - parliament's more representative composition will enable it to keep in closer touch with the tenor of public opinion. Moreover, the Gierek regime's desire to increase the prestige of the Sejm within the governmental apparatus - to be more in keeping with its constitutional supremacy - is reflected in a new set of parliamentary bylaws and rules of procedure adopted on 28 March 1972 by the newly elected Sejm. This legislation stresses the standing rights of deputies to sit in on the deliberations of local government organs in their constituencies, to present interpellations on the floor of the Sejm, to direct questions to specific cabinet ministries and heads of agencies; it also charges these officials with responding in detail and within specific time limits. Above all, interpellations and answers, like the sessions of Sejm committees and plenary session of the Sejm as a whole, are to be published in full.

The Sejm is a member of the international Interparliamentary Union, whose periodic sessions are attended by Sejm representatives and which it sometimes hosts. Because this activity results in often close contact with Western and other non-Communist parliaments, it is generally conducted under tight Communist party control.

B. Executive

The Chairman and members of the Council of State are chosen by each newly elected Sejm at its first sitting. Although functioning primarily as a collective presidency, the Council of State serves as a legislative body as well, acting for the Sejm in the interim between plenary sessions. It legislates in response to party directives and approves measures on a "temporary" basis so that the government may proceed without waiting for formal action by the Sejm. The function of the head of state is exercised by the Chairman of the Council of State, a post held since March 1972 by Henryk Jablonski, who succeeded Josef Cyrankiewicz, a discredited holdover from the Gomulka regime. Although a PZPR Politburo member, Jablonski is politically uninfluential; he is a respected scholar, a former Minister of Education, and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

In addition to Jablonski, the Council of State in 1972 consisted of four deputy chairmen, one secretary, and 11 members. This membership as a whole is representational in nature and deliberately multi-party in composition. Unlike the strong presidential executive system of the United States and some other Western countries, the functions of the Chairman of the Council of State in Poland are more ceremonial than indicative of political power. Nevertheless, he is the only member of the council with theoretical as well as some practical prerogatives. Over the years, membership in the council has come to be generally considered as a form of political semi-retirement. Although some members of the 1972 Council of State, in addition to Jablonski, are party Politburo members and two of these are also party secretaries. This suggests that under Gierek the council is to be imbued with a greater measure of prestige if not power, as well as indicating a desire for closer party supervision of its activities. Indeed, one of the Politburo members on the council, Franciszek Szlachcic, is probably Gierek's closest confidant within the new leadership.

Nevertheless, the powers of the Council of State remain largely formal, since it performs both its executive and legislative functions on the advice of the Council of Ministers. The constitution gives the Council of State supervisory powers over regional and local government, but these powers are severely circumscribed by the Council of Ministers, to whom the executive units of local government are responsible. The reform of the lowest levels of local government effective 1 January 1973 indicates some dilution in this supervisory function of the Council of Ministers, a factor that may become even more important in coming years if, as the regime has indicated, the current reform is to be followed by a similar overhaul of higher echelons of local government. As of early 1973, however, it was unclear whether these reforms would enhance the nominal supervisory powers of the Council of State as against those of the Council of Ministers.

In December 1957 the Sejm revived the Supreme Chamber of Control, a pre-war governmental control body which had been abolished by the 1952 constitution. The nominally five-member chamber is in theory directly responsible to the Sejm which elects its chairman. Other members are designated by the Council of State on nomination of the chairman. The law which set up the chamber dissolved the Ministry of State Control, an agency of centralized administrative power during the pre-1956 era. Most Poles, therefore, favored the chamber as a means of Sejm control over the economic, financial, and administrative activities of the government. In practice, however, the chamber has been purely a formal instutiton and has been gradually shorn of political power and put under strict party control. Over the years its main practice function has been that of a repository for party and state leaders who had become political liabilities.

The Council of Ministers is the principal executive and administrative organ of the government, comparable to a cabinet in Western parliamentary systems. Unlike such a cabinet, however, and like the Polish Government as a whole, it has no policymaking powers; national policy is determined by the PZPR Politburo, some members of which hold important positions on the Council of Ministers. The council is headed by a chairman, elected by the Sejm, who in turn nominates the members of the council, or his cabinet, for Sejm approval. Since the December 1970 change of regime, the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, has been held by veteran PZPR Politburo member and economic expert, Piotr Jaroszewicz.

In 1973, the 35-member Council of Ministers consisted, in addition to Jaroszewicz, of six deputy chairmen, or deputy premiers, and 26 ministers. The ministers were:

• Agriculture
• Chemical Industry
• Construction and Construction Materials Industry
• Communications
• Culture and Art
• Domestic Trade and Services
• Education and Training
• Engineering Industry
• Finance
• Food Industry and Purchases
• Foreign Affairs
• Foreign Trade
• Forestry and Timber Industry
• Health and Social Welfare
• Heavy Industry
• Internal Affairs
• Justice
• Labor, Wages, and Social Affairs
• Light Industry
• Local Economy and Environment
• Mining and Power
• National Defense
• Science, Higher Education, and Technology
• Shipping
• Transportation
• Veterans Affairs

In addition there were two ministerial level portfolios - that of Chairman of the State Planning Commission, and that of Under Secretary of State for Information. The latter is a post created by the Gierek regime in specific response to the near-cabalistic secrecy which characterized the activities of the Gomulka regime and which came under direct fire by the workers in December 1970. The incumbent of the new information post, a close associate of Gierek, serves as an intermediary between the party-government executive and the country's public information media.

In addition to the ministerial role of the Council of Ministers, there are attached to it 18 permanent and numerous ad hoc specialized, non-ministerial committees, councils, and central agencies which deal with detailed planning, recommendations, and subsequent implementation of directives in various sectors of governmental activity. Many of these specialized bodies have been marked or overhauled and other have been newly created since December 1970 in line with Gierek's commitment to a more streamlined and efficient apparatus. One newly created body is the so-called Legislative Council, established in July 1972, which reports directly to the Premier. The council has no legislative powers, but is charged with continual review and analysis of the viability and shortcomings of existing legislation, and with submitting recommendations for improvement. It may, under some circumstances, "initiate research into the creation of laws," an advisory power which gives a more formal underpinning to the executive's long-held practical control over the legislative process. Most significantly, however, the Legislative Council reflects a genuine effort by the Gierek regime to verify the effectiveness of legislation. This is a pragmatic step that is a sharp departure from the practice of the Gomulka regime when voluminous, unworkable, and often contradictory legislation seemingly became an end in itself.

The organizational structure as well as the focus of activity of the Council of Ministers at any given time have generally been determined by the primary area of policy concern of the regime as a whole. Since the late 1960s - and especially since the Gierek regime came to power at the end of 1970 - this concern has rested in the economic sphere; it is this issue that resulted in several structural changes in the Council of Ministers which, under Gierek, are being gradually refined. The major change was the creation, in 1969, of an inner executive of the council, known as the Presidium of the Government. The Presidium is headed by the Premier and comprises all the deputy premiers, the Chairman of the State Planning Commission, and, in 1973, the Minister of Science, Higher Education, and Technology.

Until late 1964, there had existed the Economic Council of the Council of Ministers, a high-level research body created during the more heady liberal atmosphere of 1957 to study and make recommendations on Poland's economic system. The disappearance of the Economic Council without fanfare in 1964 appeared to confirm reports that its liberal and far-reaching recommendations clashed with the orthodox economic views of Gomulka. Such residual practical functions as this organ still had by 1964 were transferred to the then existing Economic Committee of the Council of Ministers (KERM), headed by the Premier, as well as to the State Planning Commission. When the KERM was abolished in 1969, the newly created Presidium assumed its functions.

The concept of a government Presidium in Poland is not new. Prior to 1956 the Council of Ministers never met as a body, and all executive power was concentrated in its core of ranking Communist leaders also known as the Presidium. With the change of regime in October 1956, measures for some decentralization and "democratization" of state institutions changed the mode of operations of the Council of Ministers; the Presidium lost its separate institutional identity and power, while the council itself was reduced in size and began to hold regular sessions. The Presidium created in 1969 is not wholly analogous to its historical counterpart. Under Gomulka, its functions were largely limited to the economic sphere; moreover, these functions were primarily those of coordination previously exercised jointly by the abolished KERM and the existing State Planning Commission, while most of the formerly detailed responsibilities of these two bodies for economic policy implementation were transferred to appropriate ministries and, in some instances, to groups of horizontally organized industrial "associations." The Presidium's main role, therefore, became the supervision of regime efforts to streamline working responsibilities in the economic area without jeopardizing central control over policymaking.

The Gierek regime has retained this basic structure and its main purpose generally intact; indeed, the new regime's innovations have been few in the area of structural reform of institutions, especially in the area of the economy. Instead, it is focusing its attention on new staffing, "energizing" the system, and improving its lines of responsibility and individual initiative on the working levels. The Presidium of the Government, however, while retaining its primary economic orientation, showing signs of functioning additionally as a genuine intermediary between the cabinet and the government bureaucracy on the one hand, and the legislature - and through it, the people - on the other, i.e., as a representative of the government structure as a whole.

Despite Gierek's evident intent gradually to enhance the prestige and responsibilities of the government machinery within the regime as a whole, the controlling role of the party is unquestioned. Though Gierek does not hold any position within the government (unlike Gomulka who was a member of the Council of State), the practice of interlocking some high party and government positions (which was never as blatant in Poland as in some other Eastern European countries) remains a prominent feature of the system. In 1972, the Premier, a deputy premier, the Chairman of the Planning Commission who was also a deputy premier, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of National Defense, and the Chairman of the Council of State were full members of the party Politburo.

Although the feature of interlocking appointments is retained, the party's control over key areas of foreign and domestic policies is by no means dependent on this practice. Gierek's firm hold over the party-government apparatus as a whole guarantees such control with or without governmental portfolios being held by key Politburo members. Despite this ultimate control over all aspects of policymaking and close supervision over policy implementation, a major feature of the Gierek regime's modus operandi is its emphasis on the utilization of expertise, whether it be found within or outside the party. Indeed, one of the regime's highly publicized practices has been the incorporation of non-party experts into various positions in government agencies previously occupied by party hacks. A newly reinstituted practice of holding joint Politburo-cabinet meetings has been supplemented by bringing into such sessions experts who are members of neither body.

This more freewheeling, pragmatic, and goal-oriented approach that tends to disregard orthodox practice is also reflected in the creation of numerous new ad hoc and semi-permanent advisory bodies loosely attached either to the Council of Ministers or the party and composed of party and non-party experts as well as laymen directly concerned with the problems at hand. These include such bodies as a party-government team to advise on Poland's socioeconomic development through the year 2000 and beyond; a party-state commission on education and youth; a mixed study group on the social and economic role of local government; and numerous "task forces" of mixed composition analyzing specific areas such as foreign trade, internal security, economic planning, scientific-technological research, management, culture, transportation, and the social security system. Gierek's pragmatic and measured implementation of reforms in all these fields dictates a flexible institutional approach, which continues to be characterized by the creation of government bodies for specific purposes, dissolving them when their task is accomplished or if they prove to be ineffective, and the retention of only those features of the new apparatus that have withstood the test of time.

C. Local Government

Poland theoretically has independent local self-government, operating through a hierarchy of popularly elected local government bodies called people's councils, with the Council of State at its apex. In practice, the entire system has been highly centralized and subject to executive discretion by the Council of Ministers and to varying degrees of party "guidance" at every level.

The people's councils are elected every 4 years in direct elections that coincide in time with national (parliamentary) elections. Each council has an executive body and several functional commissions - their number as well as functions may vary depending largely on the level of local government concerned and on the extent and character of the council's jurisdiction. These commissions execute central ministerial directives in the areas of public order, criminal administration, health and social welfare, education, issuance of identity cards, housing and commercial policy, fire prevention, and similar areas of local competence. In addition, they administer all economic enterprises of local (in contrast to national) importance, local retail trade, and the implementation of agricultural policy.

Although the commissions of the people's councils are thus theoretically charged with the implementation of a wide range of local administration, many of their functions, especially in the areas of economic and social policy and in the administration of public order, have been exercised jointly with, i.e., essentially under the control of, the local representatives of other central government agencies such as the trade unions and the police apparatus. Moreover, despite the theoretical competence of the commissions, it is the councils' executive bodies, the presidiums headed by a chairman and under the ultimate control of the Council of Ministers, which have the operative agencies of local and regional administration. Although Communist party members are in a minority within the total number of councilors, party members and other "reliable" personnel tend to make up the majority on each council's presidium.

There are people's councils at every level of the administrative divisions and subdivisions of Poland. The level immediately below that of the central government is that of the province (wojewodztwo), of which there are 22 including five cities - Warsaw, Lodz, Poznan, Krakow, and Wroclaw (Breslau) - which have separate status but are at the same time capitals of the provinces in which they are located. IN 1972, there were below the provincial level 391 district (powiat, i.e., county) councils, 849 city and borough (municipal) councils, and 4,313 gromada (village and settlement) councils, the last category representing the lowest level of local government.

It is the category of the basic unit of rural government that is being reorganized and reformed by the Gierek regime. The reform, effective 1 January 1973, seeks by merger to reduce the number of rural councils, reorganized local lines of authority, and create larger, more self-sufficient, and potentially more independent economic and social micro-regions. This is probably the most ambitious organizational measure yet taken by the new leadership.

The reform is essentially a reversion on the rural level to the local government structure of the immediate postwar years, which did not differ greatly from the traditional structure used in Poland between the two world wars, when a single-man executive called a voivode was in charge of a province, a starosta of a district, and a wojt of a parish. At each level there were elected councils with advisory powers. After World War II the Communist regime retained the outer forms of this traditional system but altered the real character of the agencies involved. Lacking adequate administrative staffing, the party preferred to leave administrative posts in the hands of professionals who were often hostile to the political system and to control their activities by using party members on the corresponding levels of the people's councils. This dual approach ultimately led to an undermining of the prestige of authority in the rural areas and to be party careerists controlling affairs, often against the interests of the party as a whole.

A law of March 20, 1950 abolished the positions of voivode, starosta, and wojt and transferred their functions to the chairmen of the presidiums of provincial, district, and parish people's councils. In this manner the powers of the self-government agencies and those of the local administrators were fused, simplifying and formalizing effective party control over local government. It was, however, the law of 1954 abolishing parishes and creating rural (gromada) people's councils that ultimately led to the corruption, inefficiency and semi-paralyzation of rural local government.

In place of about 2,500 parishes, the 1954 law created 8,790 gromadas with people's councils and the average area within the jurisdiction of the lowest administrative units became correspondingly smaller. The statute reduced the powers of these units, transferring many of them to the district people's councils. As a result, a reform which was supposed to give "power to the people" in fact conferred on the district authorities the right to interfere directly in village affairs. The bill was originally designed to speed up the process of collectivization of the private farms, but preparation of the draft took so long that when the bill was finally passed the collectivization project had already lost its impetus. Only 2 years later, in 1956, the whole system of collective farms collapsed.

Between 1954 and 1972 the total number of rural people's councils decreased by about half, from 8,790 to 4,313. This reduction resulted both from the efforts of the regime to streamline local government operations as well as from the gradual but steady absorption of the lowest level people's councils by the next higher echelons as a result of urban annexations and general urban growth. As such consolidation progressed, the powers of the remaining gromada people's councils were even further reduced until their officials became virtually powerless and dependent totally on the district people's council for approval of every detail of gromada administration.

It is this situation that the Gierek regime seeks to remedy, spurred by general popular resentment against unresponsive and useless state bureaucracy at local levels, that was so much a feature of the December 1970 upheaval. The local government reform provides, therefore, for the replacement of the 4,313 gromada units with some 2,381 parishes (gmina), a move that is essentially a return in both number of rural administrative units as well as in terminology to the situation obtaining before 1954. The average parish area is generally twice as large as that of the gromada and its average population correspondingly increases to about 7,000. There are three types of parishes: the first and most frequent type is one whose area consists mainly of individual farms; the second is one in which state farms are in the majority; and the third is one whose area consists of non-agricultural land such as suburban areas and health resorts. The reform applies also to small towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants, which under the new system are fused into one government unit with the nearest rural parish. This move is designed to facilitate the integration of neighboring villages and small towns into naturally bounded economic micro-regions equipped with all locally needed economic, social, and cultural services.

The new parish councils consist of about 50 councilmen (as compared with 27 in a rural gromada) including at least one representative of each village. The parish councils took over from the district councils the funds which support parish activities. The parish councils and their presidiums have no executive managerial duties but concentrate instead on coordination, organization, and planning. Each council has four commissions: the first for agriculture; the second for problems of supply, budgeting, planning, building, and communications; the third for cultural and educational matters; and the fourth for questions of law and public order.

In addition to the parish council and its honorary elected chairman, there is a parish office representing the state administration and headed by a chief (naczelnik) appointed by the chairman of the provincial people's council. Notably, the educational qualifications for the post of the parish chief are significantly higher than those for the pre-1973 gromada officials. According to regime spokesmen, the parish chief is to be the central figure "in solving the problems of parish development and in satisfying the needs of its population." He will control agricultural services, prepare the drafts of economic plans and budgets, ensure that the people of the parish "discharge their duties," undertake "moves designed to strengthen and preserve public order," supervise the activities of organizational units subordinated to the parish council, and take charge of the registry. The essence of the reform, therefore, lies not so much in the reduction of the number of unit as in the return to a system of division of responsibilities between executive and representative authorities, a separation which was abandoned in 1950.

The single most evident unresolved problem of the new system is the still unclear manner in which local executive authority will be exercised in practice. The "parish chief" is appointed by the executive of the provincial people's council, is responsible for the execution of the resolutions of the parish people's council and, at the same time, is subordinate to the people's council on the next higher level (i.e., the district). This arrangement makes the parish chief directly accountable to the higher echelons of local government rather than the parish council and may lead to considerable friction and frustration at the local level. Moreover, the relationship between the party apparatus at the parish level and the parish chief is not clear. It is possible that the broad party control at this level will be diminished, or that the parish chief will be given more power vis-a-vis the party organization than the regime is willing to admit, lest it be accused of diluting party control.

It might have been easier to draw the lines of authority more closely had the reform not been restricted to the lowest level of local government, but even in its present restricted form, the reorganization has far-reaching implications. Concentration in the parishes of managerial powers over a considerable volume of investment funds, the subordination to the parish authorities of all economic units which provide services within a particular area, and other extensive economic powers may eventually result in the real economic and administrative integration of the parishes. In time these economic micro-regions may become to a large extent independent of outside interference. This may create a material basis for the introduction of a real - not merely theoretical - decentralization.

D. Judiciary

(1) Court System

The Polish court system is generally aligned with the country's administrative structure, being composed of 19 provincial courts, 320 district or county courts, and a number of special courts such as the social security tribunals which deal with disputes arising from the complex system of social security benefits. The court system includes military courts, which can try civilians in cases of espionage. The Supreme Court - whose members are appointed by the Council of State for 5-year terms - is at the apex of the entire court system, which is administered as a whole by the Ministry of Justice. The jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Defense over the military courts is said to pertain "only" to cases involving military discipline and to the "technical" supervision of the military court structure, although its competence undoubtedly is wider.

Cases within the regular court system may be originated either in the country or provincial courts, depending on their gravity. Normally, only one appeal is possible, with the next higher court serving as the court of appeal; unlike judicial systems based on Anglo-Saxon common law, Polish judicial procedure permits appeals against a sentence to be made by either the prosecution of the defense. The Supreme Court serves ordinarily as the court of appeals for cases originating in the provincial courts, and as a court of special appeal. An important part of its business is elaboration on legal theory, although the judiciary as a whole lacks any power of legislative or constitutional review.

In August 1972, the Gierek regime officially announced that work was in progress "on a study of the concept of judicial control over administrative decisions," i.e., over various decrees and regulations by government agencies having the force of law. The aim of this effort was subsequently said to be dual: the "protection of civic rights and social interests," and to ensure conformity of ministerial decrees and regulations with standing superior legislation. It does not appear that this measure gives the judiciary any significant power of legislative review in the Western sense.

Sharing the practice prevalent in continental Europe, the Polish judicial system does not employ a jury; instead, cases are normally tried by a panel of three judges, with sentences reached on the basis of majority opinion. The panel of judges, or the court bench, is composed of both professional and lay judges with equal status. The latter represent a Communist innovation common in one form or another in most Communist countries: Under the guide of increasing popular participation in the administration of justice, deserving and politically reliable activists are elected for 2-year terms to serve as lay judges, a practice which assures the regime of political control over the professional judiciary. Two of the three judges in all courts of first instance are lay judges; all other courts, i.e., military courts, special courts, provincial courts acting as court of appeal from the district level, and the Supreme Court employ only professional judges. Members of the professional judiciary are appointed by the Council of State, although the 1952 constitution contains an unimplemented provision making the office of judge elective. In 1970 Poland's professional judiciary included 105 senior judges of the Supreme Court, 758 judges on the provincial level, and 2,087 judges in district courts.

The nominally independent Office of the Prosecutor General is assigned the commanding role in the entire judicial process. Appointed by the Council of State, the Prosecutor General works through a system of subordinate provincial and county prosecutors in close cooperation with the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (responsible for police activities). A law of April 1967 further underscored the claimed independence of the Prosecutor General's office and entrusted it with the general supervision of the entire government administration of justice. The law also provided that the post of the chief military prosecutor be subordinate to the civilian Prosecutor General. These provisions in many ways paralleled the February 1962 reorganization of the Supreme Court, which is composed of four "chambers" dealing with criminal, civil, military, and social security cases, respectively. Although both of the Supreme Court's absorption in 1962 of the functions of the formerly independent Supreme Military Tribunal and the 1967 subordination of the military to the civilian prosecutor were propagandized as evidence of the supremacy of the civilian system, it appears that the merger in both cases was designed to bring those cases which remain under military court jurisdiction (espionage and security) under greater centralized control. Similarly, the strengthening of the independent status of the Prosecutor General's office, i.e., removing vestiges of its organizational dependence on the Ministry of Justice, has in fact enabled the party to exercise more direct control over prosecutors on all levels and, through them, over the entire judicial system.

Standing outside of the regular court system but supplementing it are the "administrative commissions" of the local people's councils, which act as lay courts and perform a judicial function similar to that of magistrates' courts in the United States. In addition, there exists a system of "social courts" which are supposed to use social persuasion rather than formal penal sanctions in case of "antisocial" behavior and other disputes and activities not susceptible to direct legal prosecution. These "courts," in practice loosely organized groups of selected workers, were established over the years in many factories and other places of work and were formalized by the law of January 1965 which entrusted local trade union bodies with supervising and assisting in their activities. The formalization of the "social courts" and public emphasis on the activities of the "administrative commissions" of local government organs reflect official efforts to curtail hooliganism, offenses against labor discipline, and other misdemeanors, as well as to relieve some of the pressure on the overburdened regular court system.

Prior to 1954 the entire judicial system was devoted primarily to entrenching the Communist regime and to suppressing all real and imagined popular hostility to it. After 1954 the administration of justice gradually improved, primarily as a result of the decline in the power of the secret police and the gradual assumption by both prosecutors and defense attorneys of their formerly usurped functions. For some time after the October 1956 change of regime Polish courts even tended to side with the defense almost as a matter of principle, and were frequently criticized by the regime for extreme leniency.

By the early 1960s this tendency was largely reversed, particularly with reference to economic offenses. Although the judicial system remains relatively free of dominance by the police apparatus, it is not even relatively independent of party control. In 1960, largely as a result of its failure to curb embezzlement and theft of state property, the government reintroduced the death penalty for economic crimes, but did not use it until 1965. Summary court procedure - from which there is no appeal - was introduced for this most prevalent category of criminal activity in Poland. These measures were part of the general overhaul of the legal system which began in late 1960 and which was designed to provide more aggressive prosecutions and more severe sentences for major offenses. There is no indication that the Gierek regime plans to make major changes in the court system or to deemphasize ultimate party control. The new regime's stress on "socialist democracy" and justice is viewed by most Poles as a welcome and probably a genuine commitment, but at the same time there appears to be considerable popular support for the official emphasis on law and order in the general sense or curbing nonpolitical criminal behavior.

The relations of the legal profession with the regime have gone through several stages similar to those within the judicial system as a whole. During the period prior to 1954 the influence and role of the defense within judicial proceedings were circumscribed both by law and by the practical intimidation practiced by the police appratus. Gradually, as the power of the security appratus over the courts declined and then virtually disappeared with events of October 1956, the legal profession regained much of its prewar prestige and its role within the courts. In the late 1950s lawyers were in the forefront of resistance to the gradual but systematic reassertion by the regime - this time the party and not the police - of power over the judicial system. In many cases, the legal profession's opposition to retrogressive measures in both law and procedure proposed after 1960 delayed their implementation. By the same token, however, this opposition caused the regime to increase its intimidation of lawyers and slowly led to legislation designed to bring them once again under strict control.

The campaign against lawyers, accusing them of peddling influence and charging excessive fees, reached a climax with the passage in December 1963 of a law drastically curtailing the influence and independence of the bar. Under the law's provisions, remaining private law practice has been virtually abolished, and all full-time trial lawyers must belong to teams working under a fee-sharing system and under the guidance of the team's party representative. The law of 1963 further provided that lawyers' earnings, which frequently amounted to several times the average worker's monthly wage, were to be regulated to a level "recognized as socially correct." The reassertion of party control over the judicial system as a whole was thus symbolized by the passage of the law on the bar despite the vigorous opposition of the legal profession. Although the bar as a whole is no less independent of the party then any other segment of the judicial process, over the years, there has developed a small number of prominent lawyers who occasionally conduct a spirited and audacious defense before the courts, even in cases with politically sensitive overtones.

(2) Legal Codes

For a long time after World War II, Poland's civil and criminal codes were a compendium of prewar legislation, repeatedly modified and amended by postwar Communist directives, regulations, and decrees. Attempt to recodify this body of disparate legislation into unified civil and criminal codes from early 1950, when a special Codification Commission composed of committed Communist lawyers and other experts was entrusted with the task. The political events of 1955 and 1956 temporarily halted the work of the commission which by then had still produced no results; this work resumed during 1957 in an atmosphere of some political uncertainty and both professional and lay suspicion and hostility toward its intentions. The checkered history of the efforts at recodification is illustrated by the fact that the new civil code and code of civil procedure were adopted only in 1964 and that corresponding criminal codes were not enacted until April 1969, effective from 1 January 1970.

As of late 1972, the Gierek regime has given no indication of making major changes in the 1970 criminal code, which had been hailed by the Gomulka regime as an example of progressive humanism, but left no doubt of its intent to suppress any attempts to challenge regime authority. The code had substantially increased the number of crimes carrying long prison sentences, and listed eight separate categories of crimes - hitherto not so clearly defined - carrying the death penalty. Capital offenses under the code are as follows:

1) high treason, including attempts to deprive Poland of its independence;

2) high treason involving cooperation with a foreign organization and aimed at detaching part of Poland's territory, weakening its defense potential, or changing its political structure;

3) espionage;

4) making an attempt on the life of a public official or political activist;

5) sabotage (a saboteur is elsewhere vaguely defined as one who "attempts to weaken the people's power, sparks disturbances, or induces a mood of general unrest, thereby hindering the normal functioning of the state and its economy");

6) leading an organization which illegally acquired property of substantial value, thereby hindering the proper functioning of the state's economy ("substantial value in elsewhere defined at over 100,000 zlotys, i.e., about US$5,000 at the official exchange rate);

7) leading a group whose activity is likely to do great harm to the Polish economic (none of the operative phrasing of this provision is elsewhere more closely defined);

8) premeditated murder.

It is clear that the provisions calling for the death sentence highlighted primarily the Gomulka regime's preoccupation with protecting its political, social, and economic controls. It is to be noted that the innovations of the new code in this category of crimes lies in wording; provisions permitting the imposition of the death sentence in virtually all of the above cases were already included in the disparate postwar legislation which the 1970 code replaced.

An important provision reflecting the regime's preoccupation with youthful hooliganism is one specifying that minors formerly subject to adult procedures and penalties from the age of 17 may "in certain circumstances" be so treated from the age of 16. At the same time, however, the former sentence of "restriction of freedom" usually imposed in cases of minor hooliganism and other misdemeanors was made more lenient and now amounts to a period of stringently supervised probation.

The criminal code clearly gives the education and rehabilitation of offenders priority over their punishment. Nevertheless, in addition to categorizing many previously less specific capital offenses as well as those that carry the maximum 25-year prison sentence, the code substantially raised prison sentences generally. For example, the holding of unauthorized meetings, public gathering, or demonstrations can be punished with up to 10 years' imprisonment, in contrast to the 5-year prison term permitted under former legislation. Moreover, the code of criminal procedure, otherwise virtually identical in content to the welter of procedural regulations and decrees which it replaces, contains a significant addition relating to secret trials. Thus, Article 308 of the code states that a court may order a trial to be held in camera "if in its view an open hearing would be likely to corrupt good manners, cause public disorder, or make revelations which for reasons of state security or other important public interests should remain secret." Although in practice the regime has always been able to conduct secret trials at its own choosing, this specific provision - including the operative criterion of "important public interests" - had never been a part of the formal body of procedural law.

The 1970 Polish criminal code and code of criminal procedure thus constitute relatively severe legislation that in many instances contradicts the so-called bill of rights embodied in the constitution of 1952. Its importance is both legal and political. In the less important legal sense, the unified legislation appears to close those loopholes which in practice sometimes enabled defense attorneys to obfuscate the prosecution's case by technical references to the mass of often contradictory provisions in the formerly disparate legislation. Politically, the new codes accurately reflect the repressive mood of the Gomulka regime in its last years, but they also reflect the strong disciplinary elements in the party which in fact opposed Gomulka for other reasons and and which later supported Gierek. This flexibility of the 1970 codes, the general if sometimes qualified support of this legislation by various political elements, and Gierek's own penchant for discipline all suggest that the Gierek regime will not seek rapid changes in the existing legislation, but rather will use its flexible features in the characteristic pragmatic manner.

(3) Prison System

The characteristics and modes of operation of the Polish prison system during the postwar period have reflected the fluctuations in the country's political atmosphere more obviously and have had a deeper impact on the individual citizen than those of other sectors of the governmental apparatus. The prewar system, under the Ministry of Justice, approached model lines, making use of convict labor for correctional purposes only. From the end of World War II until the beginning of the post-Stalin "thaw" in 1954 the system was increasingly punitive, brutal, and overcrowded. The entire system, until 1954 under the feared Ministry of Public Security, made extensive and admitted use of forced labor camps, and, although they were never as severe as those in the Soviet Union, during one of their peak periods of occupancy, in 1949-1950, these camps contained an estimated 200,000 forced laborers.

One result of the 1954 reorganization of the security apparatus in Poland was the abolition of the Ministry of Public Security and the consequent transfer of the Prison Service to the newly created Ministry of Internal Affairs in December of that year. This transfer marked the beginning of fairly rapid improvements in the administration of the prison system, culminating in its full reorganization in the fall of 1956. In September of that year the Prison Service was placed under the traditional jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice; in subsequent months brutal prison personnel were purged, and the majority of political prisoners were released in a succession of amnesties. The most important facet of the reforms, however, became the abolition of the forced labor camps, which were declared to be fully out of existence by mid-1957. Because the only judicial body empowered during the early 1950s to impose sentences of up to 2 years in forced labor camps ceased functioning in mid-1955, this official claim was probably true. Since 1957 convict labor has not been used except within prison workshops and under the provisions of compulsory vocational rehabilitation.

Basically, there are three types of correctional institutions, all under the administration of the Ministry of Justice in coordination with the office of the Prosecutor General: 1) major prisons for convicts serving long sentences for serious crimes; 2) jails or detention centers for less serious offenders or those being held for pre-trial detention; and 3) correctional institutions for juveniles. The ministry also operates directly - or supervises their operation by trade unions - a number of juvenile "shelters" which are in the nature of reform schools with vocational training. No official data on the number of institutions with the first two of the above categories are available. It is estimated, however, that in 1970 there were at least 26 major prisons and over 100 major detention centers in the country; together these institutions housed an officially admitted number of 70,943 adult convicts or temporary detainees. In addition, there were approximately 75 correctional and rehabilitation institutions of various kinds for juveniles, with about 6,000 juvenile inmates.

Since the mid-1960s the regime has increasingly stressed the functions of the prison system in the areas of rehabilitation, vocational training, and even academic schooling. Although some of this probably is propaganda, it also reflects true efforts to relieve the overburdened court system and the prisons of adult recidivists as well as juvenile delinquents. Reliable and objective information on general prison conditions is sparse, but there is evidence that in the administration of the prison system there has been less retrogression from the liberal post-1956 reforms than in other sectors of the judicial apparatus.

C. Political Dynamics

When in December 1970 the tumultuous workers' riots along Poland's Baltic coast ended the 14 years of continuous leadership of the Communist party by Wladyslaw Gomulka and catapulted Edward Gierek into power, there was more than a changing of the ruling Communist guard in Warsaw. This was a change from a generation dominated by aged, orthodox, Communist politicians to one of younger, pragmatic administrators committed to a new relationship between the rulers and the ruled, and committed to the proposition that popular welfare and the country's development toward a modern technological society comprise the ultimate test of social, economic, and political theory. (C)

Despite Gierek's innovations in style, the tough and thoroughly pragmatic new party leader has shown that he intends to modify and improve the existing system, not to set in train forces that would endanger its continuity. Indeed, Gierek's reforms of the system are predicated on loyalty to it, and on the premise that the basic features of the system - the Communist monopoly of power and a firm alliance with the USSR - are essentials not to be tampered with. These essentials, which Gierek inherited and to which he is committed, were by 1972 firmly rooted in history, and few Poles, whether Communist or not, sought to negate principles that had determined the political life of the nation for over a generation. (C)

Communist role imposed on Poland in the aftermath of World War II resulted in the elimination of prewar political, social, and economic patters, the liquidation of all genuinely free political organizations and institutions, and the superimposition of a Soviet-style political framework alien to Polish experience. Prewar political parties were for the most part not permitted to resume their activities or were brutally eliminated during the postwar consolidation of Communist power, a consolidation accompanied by prolonged sporadic armed struggle against anti-Communist elements. In December 1948 the absorption of the Polish Socialist Party, once independent but by then thoroughly purged, by the Polish Workers Party to form the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) marked the end of the consolidation process, and the formal establishment of PZPR - i.e., Communist party - dominance over all aspects of national life. (C)

Throughout the postwar period, therefore, Poland has been a one-party dictatorship in a modern totalitarian state. The PZPR has an acknowledged monopoly of political power in the country, with the other two surviving parties, the United Peasant Party (ZSL) and the Democratic Party (SD), recognizing the leadership of the Communists and being retained as representative of the peasants and of the non-Marxist middle class and intelligentsia, respectively. There has been no postwar legislation dealing specifically with political parties. The constitution guarantees citizens the right to organize, and, in listing the types of organizations which can be formed, refers also to political organizations. Although this provision sanctions the continued tolerance of a nominally multi-party system by the PZPR, the reality of unquestioned Communist power negates the theoretical right of citizens to organized political expression. (C)

Despite the Gierek regime's willingness to give voice to public opinion and to provide an institutional basis for it through the government and the mass organizations, these organizations remain under ultimate control of the PZPR. Thus, the apparatus of the state is parallel to but under the control of the PZPR; the national parliament as well as local governments are primarily committed to carrying out PZPR policy and only secondarily to serving as sounding boards for popular reaction to such policy. Similarly, the function of the mass organizations, which together with the political parties form the so-called National Unity Front (FJN), is to be mobilize the support of various special interest groups within the population. Despite Gierek's measures to impart greater prestige to the FJN and to make it more broadly representative of its membership rather than of the PZPR alone, its chief task remains the presentation of a single list of Communist-approved candidates at election time and the conduct of pre-election propaganda. Thus, in spite of the apparently real concern of the Communist leadership that political protocol be observed in inter-institutional relationships, the locus of political power is unquestionably the PZPR's policymaking body, the Politburo, a body unmentioned in the Polish constitution. (C)

1. Communist Party (PZPR) (S)

During much of its postwar existence, especially during the Stalinist era of the early 1950s, the PZPR appeared as a monolith, run with iron discipline by a united leadership. The events of the "Polish October" in 1956, when Gomulka regained power, and the events of 1968, when the power passed through its most profound crisis, publicly revealed endemic, deep divisions within the party that were characterized by genuine political differences and by large-scale breaches of party discipline. Despite Gomulka's temporary stabilization of the intra-party situation in 1968, his compromise with new, rising forces in the party - Gierek's among them - ultimately marked his regime for a fall, more by its own dead weight than by positive action of its adversaries. The nature of the strains that burst forth in 1956 and in 1968, and which ultimately created the preconditions for a rejuvenated regime under Gierek in 1970, had been shared by the origin and development of the Polish party.

A. Background

Until World War II, when the Soviet party itself shifted to stressing patriotism and nationalism, the disparate predecessors of the Polish Communist party were to various degrees anti-nationalist. Consequently, they were in unequal contest with the rest of the Polish socialist movement for the allegiance of the strongly nationalistic workers. The nationalist tradition of the Polish Socialist Party, its services on behalf of Polish independence during World War I, and its subsequent social and political program gained for it the support of the majority of the Polish working class.

In marked contrast, the Communist Workers Party, formed in December 1918, emphasized internationalism and opposed the very existence of independent Poland. This outlook, amidst the general elation over newly won independence, stamped the Communist Workers Party as an alien body, and it was largely regarded as such throughout the interwar period. Although it was not specifically outlawed in interwar Poland, the Communist Workers Party (renamed the Communist Party of Poland in 1925) had to operate semi-legally under the cover of various front organizations. Police persecution and increased infiltration of the party's ranks after 1926 forced it to become largely an underground organization.

Police penetration and intense intra-party factionalism made the Communist Party of Poland one of the least respected members of the interwar Comintern and subjected it to continual interference from Moscow. Of the seven congresses held by this party, all but the first were held in the Soviet Union, and these were generally dominated not by "native" Polish Communists but by those long resident and active in the USSR, the so-called Muscovite wing of the party. The resultant leadership struggles gained in intensity during the Soviet party's own internal struggles of the 1920s. Although a Polish party leadership apparently acceptable to Stalin was eventually installed, the losses incurred by the party in the subsequent round of Soviet-directed purges in the 1930s were enormous. Between 1934 and 1937 virtually all party members of any importance were ordered to Moscow, arrested there, and many of them executed. In March 1938 the Communist Party of Poland was officially dissolved by the Comintern on the double charge of being under Trotskyist influence and of having been penetrated by Polish military intelligence. The party had also become a clear liability to Stalin, whose tactical policies leading up to the signing of the non-aggression pact of 1939 with Nazi Germany were already in the making. (The 1938 dissolution of the Polish party was reviewed in 1955 by the Soviet and other parties who had rendered the original verdict and declared to have been unfounded.)

The Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 resulted in early Soviet approval for the attempts already underway to revive the Communist Party of Poland behind German lines. In 1943, Gomulka, whose lack of rank had saved him from the purges of the 1930s and who chose to stay in Poland during the war rather than seek refuge in the USSR, assumed leadership of the wartime party, which was organized in January 1942 as the Polish Workers Party to disassociate from the party dissolved in 1938.

The Polish party, which spent as much of its energies seeking to counter the influence of the vastly larger and more effective non-Communist underground as it did fighting the Nazi occupiers, remained politically insignificant until the entry of Soviet armies into Poland. It was solely owing to the presence of Soviet troops on Polish soil that the Communists eventually succeeded in taking over the government of postwar Poland. The same factor, however, revealed the basic split among the Communist leaders who emerged from obscurity in 1944; one group under Gomulka comprised the original membership of the party and of several other "native" organizations, and the other was the Communist group which returned from the USSR on the heels of the Red Army.

The growing split within the party took more definite shape in the following 4 years, nurtured by the Soviet party's increasing hegemony over Eastern Europe and Stalin's intolerance of national deviations from the Soviet model. Intra-party differences in Poland centered on Gomulka's declared opposition to the supranational character of the Cominform created in mid-1947 and his criticism of the prewar party for its insufficiently national character and program. Gomulka's subsequent obstinacy in defending his positions led to a prolonged party crisis in 1948. Gomulka lost the leadership struggle to the Stalinist element because he did not have sufficient control over the party machinery, not because of his lack of support from party ranks; most members apparently shared his desire to place Polish-Soviet relations on the footing of close friendship between two sovereign states rather than on the basis of total subservience.

Gomulka's defense of his position was the key factor in the subsequent growth of the legend surrounding him as a "liberal" and "nationalist" leader. The new party leader, Boleslaw Bierut, and his colleagues seemed aware of the dangers of the legend and attempted to counteract it by dealing mildly with Gomulka. Although removed from leadership, Gomulka was never tried. He was not present at the "merger congress" in December 1948 when the Polish Workers Party in effect absorbed the Polish Socialist Party to form the PZPR; nor was he associated in the popular mind with the rule of terror and economic exploitation of the people during the Stalinist period of the early 1950s. When he was released from strict house arrest in 1954, Gomulka's popular image was a major factor in the developments which led to his regaining the reins of power - in the face of Soviet hostility - at the eighth plenum of the party in October 1956.

The earliest harbingers of the 1956 political upheaval, which culminated in the change of leadership in October of that year, were the signs of internal weakness in the terror apparatus after the death of Stalin in 1953, signs which were accompanied by more frequent manifestations of intra-party and popular discontent throughout much of Eastern Europe. In Poland increasing pressure by influential officials - both Communist and non-Communist - within existing regime institutions, together with initially cautious popular pressure undermined the seeming stability of Communist controls and once again exposed the divisions within the party. Traditional Polish nationalism reappeared everywhere, although with less romanticism and tempered with the realization of postwar Poland's vulnerable geopolitical position; Polish Catholicism revealed itself to have been strengthened by persecution; the individualism of the Polish peasant reasserted itself with a new determination born of his experience with collectivization; the social democratic bent of the workers and the intellectuals appeared reinforced by the years of disillusionment with Communism's "dictatorship of the proletariat"; and the pro-Western sympathies of the nation appeared heightened by the years of isolation under Stalinist domination and economic exploitation.

When these accumulated factors burst forth in June 1956 during the workers' "bread and freedom" riots in Poznan, the already shaken Polish party under the leadership of Edward Ochab, the successor to Bierut who died while attending the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist party the previous February, realized that more than palliatives were needed to reverse its crumbling hold over the nation. The disarray within the security apparatus, the Soviet Party Congress criticism of Stalin which fell on ready ground in Poland, the Poznan riots, the intellectual turmoil which exceeded all formerly permissible limits, and the general atmosphere of popular expectation and willingness to bring about change by whatever means gave every indication of coalescing into an uncontrollable revolutionary situation, sweeping aside the party and resulting in a bloodbath through Soviet armed intervention - as occurred later in Hungary. The factors which instead brought about a peaceful change of regime were varied; they certainly included the fear by the people as well as by all elements within the party of direct Soviet intervention. The most important factor, however, appeared to be the availability of a once-deposed leader, reasonable acceptable to all, who was able and willing to try in effect to restore a "ruling" party to power.

Gomulka's reassumption of power in 1956 as First Secretary of the PZPR resulted in a formal repudiation of Stalinist methods, but not of Communist goals, and was accompanied by a brief outburst of political energy during which non-Communist political activity and non-Communist press could and did appear. These visible evidences of a reversal of former policies were not, however, a measure of Gomulka's publicized "liberalism," but rather of the extent to which the party had lost control over the political life of the nation. His main task in the months that followed, apart from implementing the tangible reforms of the party and government apparatus, was to eliminate non-Communist political activity not only for doctrinaire reasons but to preclude the real possibility of belated intervention by a Soviet leadership hostile to and deeply suspicious of the "Polish experiment." Whatever the charges leveled at Gomulka for his subsequent retreat from the liberal innovations of 1956 - most of which he tolerated and in part used but did not approve - achieved the successful transformation of a terror-ridden Soviet satellite into a more flexible dictatorship in strong alliance with the USSR. Despite periodic setbacks and appearances to the contrary, Gomulka attempted to maintain this external relationship with the Soviet Union. This process, however, was accompanied by increased domestic controls and conflict both within the party and between the party and the people.

B. The Politics of Succession

(1) Genesis and Aftermath

The antecedents and immediate circumstances under which Gierek became the First Secretary of the Polish party were substantially different from those that ushered in the Gomulka era in 1956. The character of these differences was traceable to both the accomplishments and failings of Gomulka's 14 years of rule. Having to contend with Soviet hostility during his initial years in power, Gomulka was instrumental in forging a new Polish-Soviet relationship that ultimately became a model for Soviet-Eastern European relations in general - that of internal autonomy and external conformity to Soviet interests. Over the years, however, Gomulka failed to keep pace with the changes he himself initiated. Above all, he ultimately misread the mood of his own people. This failing was rooted in the legacy of October 1956 when Gomulka was installed in power after a long preparatory process marked by intense factional strife within the party, which had been disorganized by the impact of de-Stalinization and the accompanying signs of internal weakness within the apparatus of terror.

Because of the nature of the party he inherited, Gomulka's energies during the decade of the 1960s were increasingly sapped by the need to maintain delicate factional balances within the ruling hierarchy. The factional spectrum ranged from reformed and unreformed Stalinists, nationalistic hardliners and liberal revisionists, to moderates who found themselves more and more isolated within, though often the targets of, the internecine warfare. Superimposed on this factional spectrum, and sometimes cutting across political lines, was the division of the party into "native" and "Muscovite" wings, a division made even more complex by the identification of the latter with the "Zionist" elements of the party.

Thus preoccupied, Gomulka neglected the needs of the country. Alarmed at the periodic outbursts of popular dissatisfaction, Gomulka incorporated into his regime increasing numbers of hardline elements to control the population, but without taking steps to identify and remedy the underlying grievances. This situation fed upon itself and by 1967 had resulted in a miasma of political repression, economic stagnation, stifling bureaucratization, and moral corruption. Most importantly, it also isolated Gomulka and his old guard from the rank and file of the party and heightened the regime's hostility to criticism and change. Facing the isolated and anachronistic leadership were politically apathetic but economically dissatisfied masses, especially the working class. Significantly, however, the leadership also faced a challenge from below - the younger generation of party functionaries who proved to be the main force behind the party crisis that nearly toppled the Gomulka regime in 1968.

The crisis itself was generated indirectly. Israel's victory in June 1967 over Moscow's Arab clients focused Communist attention on the "Zionist" element of the ruling parties of Eastern Europe, an element that was nowhere as numerous as in Poland. In early 1968, students supporting a writers' protest against censorship engaged in sporadic demonstrations throughout the country for almost 2 weeks. Gomulka's opponents in the party exploited these events by blaming "Zionist" elements for fostering the unrest. Poland's subsequent anti-Semitic campaign of 1968 was merely a facet of the protracted political crisis that featured a virtual revolt of the party "apparat" against Gomulka's leadership, using as targets his suddenly vulnerable Jewish supporters in the hierarchy.

Of the two party leaders around whom the "young Turks" seemed to cluster in 1968, the head of the hardline and anti-Semitic faction, security chief Mieczyslaw Moczar, was the more publicized, but it was Edward Gierek, the party boss of Poland's key industrial province of Katowice, who was the more important. Gierek drew to himself many of the same elements that supported Moczar, i.e., tough, young, relatively nationalistic party functionaries with frustrated ambitions. Significantly, however, his supporters also included most of the educated and discontented technocrats and other elements who were seeking remedies for Poland's mounting economic and social problems. Numerous factors, especially the thwarting of the Czechoslovak heresy by the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, eventually helped Gomulka to reimpose a semblance of stability under his leadership, but it was clear to most Poles that change had been postponed, not prevented.

Gomulka's preoccupation with foreign affairs in the 2 years preceding December 1970 resulted in only ineffective half-steps being taken to correct mounting economic stagnation and popular dissatisfaction. Moreover, although his moves - when they came - were economically defensible, they were profoundly insensitive to the political and social mood of the country. Above all, they were ill-timed. Thus, the immediate cause of the relatively short crisis that led to Gierek's remarkable smooth takeover of power was Gomulka's miscalculation in raising prices of food (mainly meat) and fuel just before the traditional Polish Christmas feast.

Sparked by the price increases announced on 13 December, riots began among shipyard workers in the Baltic city of Gdansk (formerly Danzig), spread to nearby Gdynia and, having broken out also in Szczecin (formerly Stettin) on the northwest coast, by 17 December were threatening to spread throughout the country. The explosion of accumulated economic and social grievances caught the Gomulka regime off guard and unable to offer a viable alternative to open warfare with the working class. On 17 December, the then Premier Cyrankiewicz broadcast a condemnation of the rioting workers as "hooligans" and announced a government decision to authorize the security forces and the army to quell the disturbances. The results were catastrophic for the old regime; the total number of casualties resulting from the ensuing incidents between the workers and the security forces are still unknown, but rumors placed them in the thousands. The Gierek regime's own subsequent tally placed the number at 45 killed and 1,165 injured, of whom 564 were civilians, 531 policemen, and 70 soldiers. Of those injured, 153 had been shot.

Most accounts of the events of 14-20 December 1970 assume that some time in midcourse of the crisis Gomulka asked for, but was denied, Soviet assistance; indeed, no Soviet forces took a direct part in the Polish developments. With unrest spreading, bereft of Soviet support, and with the power of his coterie disintegrating, Gomulka apparently collapsed and was hospitalized. The change of top leadership was accomplished on 19 December, and formalized and announced by a Central Committee plenum on 20 December. In addition to the replacement of Gomulka by Gierek, the plenum ratified the ousters from the party Politburo of four of Gomulka's close associates; ideologist Zenon Kliszko, head of State Marian Spychalski, Boleslaw Jaszczuk, who was responsible for the economy, and party cadre chief Ryszard Strzelecki.

Gierek neither schemed to precipitate the crisis nor welcomed the potential danger it posed to Communist rule in Poland, but he seemed ready for the challenge and may have long had in mind the possibility of Gomulka's downfall on the heels of an economic and social crisis. With the country on the brink of open revolt, and with the ideologically embarrassing spectacle of a Communist regime being overthrown by the working class in whose name it was purported to rule, Gierek was face with several immediate tasks. First, he had to defuse the explosive situation among the workers, who showed signs of improving and widening their initially spontaneous strike organization. Second, he had to show that his leadership was prepared to respond quickly to the most acute needs of the people. Thirdly, he had to gain control over the levers of authority, the party and government bureaucracies. Finally, and most importantly, he had to insure that the Soviet Union and Poland's other allies would go along with his style of rule and that they would not renege on their rapid initial endorsement of his regime.

Gierek's success in achieving these goals stemmed largely from several fortuitous factors that were not present for Gomulka in 1956. Most importantly, the worker's disturbances did not take on an anti-Soviet coloration and, although the workers laid their grievances at the feet of the old party leadership, neither the party as a whole nor Poland's socialist system were the main targets of attack. Moreover, the agitation was confined mainly to the urban working class and, even more narrowly, to the skilled workers who felt they had the most to lose from Gomulka's ill-considered price rises and changes in work rules. The mass of the Polish peasantry, whose spontaneous decollectivization of farmland had an important political impact in 1956, remained quiet in 1970, having been largely unaffected by Gomulka's economic measures. Similarly, Polish intellectuals and the youth remained largely inactive, possible still piqued over the failure of Polish workers to support their cause in early 1968 when political and cultural freedom, and not bread-and-butter issues, were involved. Finally, the powerful Roman Catholic Church, despite clear sympathies with the workers, kept its peace except to counsel nonviolence.

Gierek could thus point to these factors as proof that a change in leadership would not entail a danger to the continuity of Communist control, that it would not give rise to dangerous, nationalistic, anti-Soviet political action that had been the hallmark of 1956, and that it did not inherently contain the seeds of a politically runaway situation that Moscow had seen in Czechoslovakia 2 years earlier. The fact that Gierek, unlike Gomulka, assumed power with Soviet endorsement and not in the face of Soviet hostility enabled him to gain substantial early economic assistance from his allies and to turn his attention to urgent domestic tasks. Having weathered a second wave of strikes in early 1971 - primarily by rescinding Gomulka's price increases - Gierek cautiously began to implement his program of domestic renewal, stressing material well-being and social reform. Although his initial steps treated the symptoms rather than the causes of Poland's economic and political ills, they brought about relative peace on the scene, a situation which he needed in order to consolidate his grip on the party and government machinery and to remold it into more effective instruments of rule.

(2) The Dynamics of Consolidation

Despite the fortuitous political assets listed above, the domestic climate remained tense and Gierek's hold on the situation was tenuous. To consolidate his position in the party and among the people, Gierek had to explain the failures of the past and outline some guarantees that they would not recur; to rid the party and government bureaucracy of the ballast that had accumulated during the Gomulka era; and to institute gradual changes in the nature of party and government operations so that the promised new relationship between the regime and the people would appear credible. Gierek's decision soon after taking power to convoke a Party Congress in December 1971 - a year ahead of statutory requirements - suggested that he intended to be energetic in pursuing his goals and that he hoped to obtain a formal mandate from the party as early as possible.

At a major Central Committee plenum in February 1971 Gierek, turning to the causes of the December 1970 crisis, forcefully divorced his regime from its predecessor. He accused the former leaders of mislabeling the riots as a counterrevolution, whereas, Gierek said, they were actually the expression of legitimate grievances. He blamed the clique surrounding Gomulka for having lost touch with the people and mismanaging social and economic policy. Unlike Gomulka's purged old guard, which the plenum unceremoniously ousted from the Central Committee, Gomulka's own membership in that body was merely suspended and remained so until the December Party Congress when he was finally dropped and relegated to the political shadows.

The party that faced Gierek after his assumption of office bore some similarity to that which confronted Gomulka in 1956, but there were also major, and to Gierek favorable, differences. Unlike Gomulka, whose initial support came from often mutually antagonistic leaders with significant political influence, Gierek had around him a group of important party men among whom there was basic unit and none of whom, with the exception of Moczar, has a measurable personal following. At the same time, however, the new leadership included several holdovers from the Gomulka regime and reflected Gierek's deliberate effort to form a team broadly representative of "party opinion." Moczar's role within the new leadership was initially ambiguous, but his reputed status as a potential rival to Gierek was soon resolved both by his own weakness and Gierek's positive skill. In any event, there is strong evidence that Moczar has been divested of his internal security responsibilities on the Party Secretariat before he became ill in April 1971 and certainly before his ouster from the Secretariat the following June. Moczar's ouster from the Politburo at the Party Congress in December was thus anticlimactic. With the passage of time, Gierek progressively whittled away politically embarrassing holdovers from the previous regime and replaced them with his own men.

Gierek's major task in advance of the Party Congress, however, was in gaining firm control over the lower and middle echelons of the party apparatus, where, in Gierek's own words, "the struggle between the old and the new" was most obvious. Gierek's extensive cadre shifts focused on the 22 provincial party organizations, where by mid-1971 he had replaced half of the party leaders who were on the scene in December 1970; on the eve of the Party Congress, only four remained. Most of the new regional party chiefs are younger and better educated than their predecessors and, unlike Gomulka's appointees, most of them gained their experience through work in the provinces they now head rather than in the central party apparatus.

In addition to the changes in the leaderships of the regional party organizations, there was a wholesale infusion of new blood, mainly genuine workers and peasants, into their organizational apparatus. This not only reinforced Gierek's doctrine of reestablishing bonds between the party and the masses, but in many cases had the added value of incorporating working class leaders into the establishment. These personnel changes did not overcome all the passive resistance in the local organizations, but they did result in a party machinery that gave Gierek the delegates and the endorsement he needed at the Party Congress.

Finally, these organizational measures were accompanied by a relatively quiet purge of the rank and file in line with Gierek's theme of "quality over quantity." The carefully phased process of interviewing the party's 2.3 million members (as of December 1970) resulted in an estimated 100,000 members dropped from the rolls or expelled.

With the stage thus set, the Party Congress was a broad-brush affair that formalized what had already been accomplished. The congress endorsed both Gierek and the outline of his reform program, and included in the party hierarchy additional close adherents to his style of rule. Moreover, with almost 60% of the new Central Committee composed of new men, many of them workers, Gierek emerged from the congress with both a leadership team and a central party apparatus on which he could rely to support his programs.

There can be little doubt that Gierek is no less determined than was Gomulka to preserve the "leading role" of the party; indeed, as explained above in the discussion of plans for a new constitution, he has committed his regime to enshrining this principle in constitutional law. Nevertheless, Gierek's practical ideas on just how the party should function within this framework are far different from those of his predecessor. In general terms, he has lowered the party's profile not only vis-a-vis the people, but also in relation to the government. His statements indicate a belief that the party should formulate general policy guidelines - drawing heavily on non-party expertise - monitor and mobilize public opinion, and pressure both the public and the bureaucracy. Without prejudicing the party's ultimate power to intervene, the practical implementation of policy should be left as much as possible to the appropriate branches of the government and to the mass organizations. Streamlining the apparatus of rule and increasing its efficiency appears to be the main consideration, but by divorcing the party from the most visible aspects of day-to-day management of national affairs Gierek also apparently hopes to cushion the party leadership against a future crisis of confidence such as that of December 1970.

With regard to the modus operandi within the party, Gierek has broken with Gomulka's methods by stressing collegial if not collective leadership, and by giving the party's theoretically democratic practices some genuine content. While insisting on party discipline at all levels and moving firmly against a resurgence of old factional groupings, he has encouraged constructive debate, a freer flow of information and suggestions from below, and the delegation of sufficient authority to lower echelons to permit resolution of most local problems without the need for obtaining approval from the central party apparatus. The implementation of the last of these principles has been perhaps the most difficult obstacle to the internal rejuvenation of the party. The major reason is that it is based on the concept of individual and collective responsibility for decisions and actions that goes fundamentally against the penchant of the party bureaucracy for "passing the buck." Gierek has repeatedly made clear that his determination to make the party more responsive to the people will have to be matched by a willingness of party officials at the grass roots to assume commensurate responsibility.

C. The New Leadership

Since December 1970 there has been a dramatic change in the characteristics of the top leadership of the Polish party in comparison with both its predecessors and other Eastern European elites. Nowhere are the differences in the characteristics of the Gierek and the Gomulka regimes more apparent than in the contrast of the personalities of the two leaders themselves. Gomulka's initial political flexibility was soon neutralized by his need to counter intra-party maneuvering, and by his inherent authoritarianism, taciturn nature, and heated temperament. He was largely ignorant and distrustful of the West, which he visited only once when he and other Communist leaders traveled to the United Nations in 1960. Finally, although Gomulka was a skilled politician to a fault, he was reluctant to delegate authority and had none of the expertise to understand the economic and social needs of a developing technological society. By contrast, Gierek had established a reputation as an efficient economic administrator and tough party boss in industrial Silesia long before he became a national leader. A former miner, Gierek was long active in the Communist movements, first in France, and then in Belgium where he spent the war years. His manner is straightforward and sincere, and although he is far from being a political liberal, he believes in listening to the views of his subordinates as well as in issuing orders. Above all, Gierek's approachability, pragmatism, and stated dedication to a just reward for hard work are the same qualities that earned him the respect of Silesia's industrial workers during his 13-year tenure there.

As a group, the new Polish leadership is the only one in Eastern Europe in which the postwar generation predominates. Most of the new leaders are not products of the "revolutionary" tradition, the resistance movement, or Soviet training, but rather of the universities and educational institutions of Communist Poland. Few have suffered for their beliefs and ideological misdemeanors either during the Stalinist or the post-1956 periods. At the same time, however, they have witnessed two major political upheavals that must affect their outlook. Although the impact of 1956 on them may be remote, they undoubtedly are not unaffected by the developments of the 1960s when Poland in effect stood still because of the fundamentalism of Gomulka's views.

Although all 20 members of the Politburo and Secretariat served in some capacity under Gomulka, the vast majority attained their present positions on or since 20 December 1970 when Gierek became party leader. This applies to eight of the 11 full members of the Politburo, all four candidate Politburo members, seven of the eight secretaries (including Gierek), and all three "members" of the Secretariat (a new category created at the December 1971 Party Congress). The only leaders whose positions antedated December 1970 are Gierek, a Politburo member since 1959, Jozef Tejchma and Wladyslaw Kruczek, Politburo members since 1968, and Jan Szydlak, a secretary since 1968.

Perhaps the most striking features of the new leadership are its low average age and high educational qualifications. Of the 20 top leaders, 15 are in their 40s, with the average age being 48.3; in the Politburo this figure stands at 49.7, and in the Secretariat at 46.4. In education, five of the 20 leaders hold doctorates, eight have master's degrees, and three have degrees from technical, teaching, and military academies; the remaining four members of the leadership studied at least 2 years at party higher schools. Although the academic legitimacy of some of the degrees may be questionable, and although Gierek is not the youngest party leader in Eastern Europe (in 1973 Gierek was 60, but Romania's Ceaucescu, at 55, was the youngest), both the educational status and the general youth of the Polish leadership is unequaled in Communist Europe.

The party careers of the members of the leadership group are remarkably similar. Almost all joined the party between 1945 and 1953; only two of them (Gierek and Kruczek) were party members prior to World War II. Communist youth organizations provided the first major executive positions for 13 of the 20 leaders, with most of them subsequently moving into the apparatus of the party proper. Indeed, the party has been the principal proving ground for two-thirds of the present leaders, 14 of whom developed their careers in the central or regional party organizations. The other six members of the leadership owe their advancement to the top to long service in the government, such as veteran economist, Premier Jaroszewicz, Defense Minister Jaruzelski, and former security official Szlachcic.

Another notable common characteristic of the present leadership is its general exposure to countries and systems other than its own. Gierek himself lived more than 20 years in Western Europe, and all the members of the ruling group have traveled abroad during the postwar period. Although much of this travel was within the Soviet orbit, 17 of the 20 leaders also visited non-Communist countries, mostly in Western Europe, on one or more occasion.

Despite the common characteristics of the Gierek leadership, it is not a colorless collective. It contains professional party apparatchiks such as Babiuch and Szydlak; economic specialists such as Jagielski and Jaroszewicz; ideologues and academics; regional party leaders; representatives of "law and order" populism; as well as Defense Minister Jaruzelski, the respected spokesman for the military establishment. While political control over the military remains undisputed, some reports allege that under Gierek the status if not the influence of the military within the party has increased despite its unchanged numerical representation in the top leadership and in the Central Committee.

As a result of the variety of special interests represented within the leadership group, there must inevitably be divergent views on questions of political and socioeconomic development. Nevertheless, if differences exist that cannot be resolved in the party's councils, they have not become publicly apparent or resulted in factional friction. The aura of unity that surrounds the Gierek leadership is, perhaps, the major feature that distinguishes it from Gomulka's faction-ridden regime. This appearance of unity rests not only in the ability of the leaders to reach a consensus, but also - and mainly - in the crumbling or disappearance of the factional divisions of the past, i.e., the struggle between the "native Communists" and the "Muscovites," the generational conflicts, the friction between economic rationalists and orthodox standard-bearers, the controversy over the Jewish element in the leadership, and the perennial witch hunt against "revisionists." By late 1970, and certainly by 1972, these old forces were either irrelevant or highly muted, thus reducing the potential grounds for conflict within the leadership. To what extent basic differences divide the present leadership is difficult to determine, but the trauma and lessons of December 1970, and, most importantly, the power and influence of Gierek, have combined to produce a remarkable stable leadership structure, a situation notably unlike that which faced Gomulka in 1956.

Key Members of the Polish Leadership, 1972 (C)

Edward Gierek, 59: First Secretary, PZPR; former Silesian miner; long residence in Western Europe; pragmatic, tough, experienced administrator; unchallenged party leader exercising overall executive responsibilities with an open, accessible style of rule; degree in mining and metallurgy.

Henryk Jabłoński, 63: Chairman of the Council of State (president); politically un-influential former socialist performing largely ceremonial function; well-travelled scholar; Ph.D. in history.

Piotr Jaroszewicz, 63: Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier), former teacher; most active member of the Politburo; Gierek's alter ego in the governmental apparatus; degree in education and science.

Franciszek Szlachcic, 52: Party secretary and member of the Council of State, former Minister of Internal Affairs (police and security); Gierek's closest and most influential confidant; primary responsibility for party cadre, but also active in science, education, and foreign affairs; M.Sc. in mining and metallurgy.

Edward Babivch, 45: Party secretary and member of the Council of State; like Gierek, a former miner from Silesia; tough, talented bureaucrat responsible for party organizational matters; M.A. in economics.

Jan Szydlak, 47: Party secretary; Silesian born; responsible for ideology, economic, and partly for culture; tough efficiency minded; close to Gierek; headed party investigation into December 1970 workers' riots; 2-year party schooling.

General Wojciech Jaruzelski, 49: Minister of National Defense; possibly of landed gentry origin; respected, thoroughly professional soldier; attained rank of major general at age 33; reportedly refused to order army to fire on workers in December 1970; military academy schooling.

Stefan Olszowski, 41: Minister of Foreign Affairs; son of teacher; veteran activist in Communist youth organizations; intelligent, dynamic, and ambitious spokesman of conservative party elements; M.A. in linguistics and literature.

Mieczysław Jagielski, 48: Deputy Premier, Chairman of State Planning Commission, and permanent representative to CEMA; peasant origin; veteran expert responsible for implementing party economic policies; M.A. in agricultural economics, Ph.D. in management.

Józef Tejchma, 45: Deputy Premier; peasant origin; capable and industrious official responsible for culture, youth, and some aspects of foreign affairs; a liberal; M.A. in history.

Władysław Kruczek, 62: Chairman of Central Council of Trade Unions; conservative but realistic former Stalinist; reportedly one of the first Politburo members to support Gierek in December 1970; party schooling.

D. Organization and Membership

In its organizational theory, the PZPR is a hierarchy of democratically elected bodies, each elected by and responsible to the one immediately below it, and accountable to the membership as a whole. In its procedural theory, the leading principle - as in other Communist parties - is that of "democratic centralism," which means that there is freedom of discussion by all echelons of the party before a decision is reached, but that all decisions of the higher party organs are thereafter binding on all subordinate bodies and are not to be questioned except with regard to their implementation. The basic rules for the membership of the PZPR, as well as for its organization and functions, are contained in the party statute, a document that is adopted and may be amended by the "supreme organ of the party," the Party Congress meeting every 4 years.

After the assumption of power by the Gierek regime, modifications were made affecting not so much the locus of real power, which continues to rest with the top leadership, but in the modus operandi of the party to permit a more genuine flow of information and opinion upward as well as downward through the hierarchy. Most of these modifications are reflected in the changes made in the party statute at the Sixth Congress of the PZPR in December 1971.

Structurally, the organization of the party remains unchanged. The "representative" bodies of the party are the Party Congress at the national level, the conference at the county and provincial levels, and the general meeting at the local level. Prior to a Party Congress (which despite statutory requirements has rarely met at 4 year intervals) the local level general meeting selects delegates to the conference at the county level, which similarly elects delegates to the conference at the provincial level. The provincial conference then finally selects delegates to the conference at the national Party Congress. An exception to this hierarchical election process is made for party organizations within each of Poland's three military districts and in some 308 large economic enterprises; these organization send delegates directly to the Party Congress. In all cases each delegate is supposed to represent 1,000 party members. The rule has not been strictly observed; at the time of the Sixth Congress in December 1971, for example, the claimed party membership stood at 2,272,000, but only 1,815 delegates were selected. Of these 11% were peasants, with the remainder equally divided between blue and white collar workers - the latter category including the full-time party functionaries at all levels who attended the conclave.

At the end of its usually week-long meeting, the congress elects the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission; the latter supervises the party's financial and administrative matters. The Central Committee then elects its executive bodies, the Politburo and the Secretariat, which transact the business of the party on a continuing basis. A similar structure prevails at the provincial and county levels. The Basic Party Organization, or cell, at the lowest level varies according to size, location (whether urban or rural), and importance of the unit. A minimum of five party members is needed to form a basic unit, of which there were over 73,000 in December 1970.

The statutory flow of power upward from the general meeting to the county and provincial conference and thence to the Party Congress and to the Central Committee remains theoretical; none of these bodies in fact have decisive power genuinely to elect delegates to the next higher body, because acceptable candidates are in fact chosen from above. Even the plenary sessions of the Central Committee, which average two or three a year, are called at the pleasure of the party leadership. The real locus of power thus remains in the Politburo, which formulates party policies, and in the Secretariat, which implements them through the appropriate departments of the Central Committee apparatus. In practice, therefore, power flows downward from the Politburo on a continuing basis through its control over subordinate party bodies at all levels.

A major feature of both the party crisis of 1968 and that of December 1970 was a breakdown of the practical flow of power downward and the attempted reassertion by the membership and the party apparatus of the theoretical principles of rule from below. Although Gomulka, after temporarily reasserting his position in 1968, failed to heed the lesson this implied, Gierek has shown signs that while keeping the helm of the party firmly in the hands of its leaders, he intends to give its membership and the apparatus a greater voice in the running of daily affairs, establish a permanent dialog between the upper and lower echelons, and make the regional organizations more responsive to the opinions of their members. For example, the changes in the party statutes adopted at the Sixth Congress lay a much greater stress than hitherto on the responsibility of party organs at all levels to keep their members informed, and to report to them periodically on the organization's activities. New provisions for the "recall" of leading functionaries of such organizations have been included in the statutes. Moreover, the word "election" rather than "appointment" is used with respect to the process of selecting the executive organs of party organizations at all levels. As a result, the Central Committee, for example, is charged with "electing" instead of "appointing" the Politburo, a change implying at once a new responsibility of the Politburo to the Central Committee and the possibility, still remote if not unthinkable, of a non-unanimous vote for the top leadership of the party.

Requirements for membership in the party have been somewhat tightened by the new statute, reflecting Gierek's priority of competence, effectiveness, and dedication over sheer number. Although membership remains open to all persons over 18 years of age, all applicants under the age of 24 (hitherto age 21) are admitted "as a rule" from among deserving members of the mass youth organizations. An applicant must be nominated by a party member in good standing who has known him for at least 3 (hitherto 2) years. Upon acceptance, he serves 2 (hitherto 1) years in the status of a candidate member before being endowed with full membership (essentially the right to elect and to be elected to party posts). In addition, new sanctions are provided in the statute against wrongdoers in the party, especially against members who hold elective positions in the local government machinery.

Membership figures of the PZPR reveal the impact of the several crises that have affected the party. In late 1956, the rank and file was in greater disarray than at any time in the postwar period. Reduction in the size of the party apparatus in 1957 made it less unwieldy, but the subsequent "verification" campaign (screening of party membership) of 1957-1958 and the exchange of party cards in 1959 led to a significant drop in total party membership, and it was not until the early 1960s that it again reached the pre-1956 totals. Thereafter, until 1967, membership climbed steadily as the attractiveness and necessity of party membership for opportunistic reasons increased, and as the party itself put greater stress on organizational and recruiting activity.

In mid-1965 the party decided gradually to revalidate all party membership cards issued prior to 1960. This decision was accompanied by some indications that the party wished to ease up on its recruitment drive and enter a period of retrenchment designed to stress ideological quality. Although party sources simultaneously stressed that the exchange of membership cards would not be accompanied by a "verification" campaign similar to that of a decade earlier, the dissension and turmoil which burst out among the rank and file after the Arab-Israel war of June 1967 adversely affected party rolls far beyond what might have been provoked by a simple "verification" campaign. The Jews within the party became targets immediately, but the process of exchange of party cards served as a useful vehicle to dismiss other party members as well - to settle old scores, remove deadwood from sinecures, and get rid of apathetic and ineffective functionaries. In July 1967 the PZPR claimed 2 million members and candidates, or about 6% of the population. By January 1968 the party officially admitted a decline to 1,951,000, the first absolute decline in party membership since 1960. Even then, the official figures probably fell far short of the facts. Although no reliable data are available, it is estimated that at least 300,000 members and candidates, including some very influential and prominent members, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were either removed or resigned from the party in the months following the June war.

Because of the party's simultaneous, renewed recruitment drive among the workers and the lower middle classes which resulted in a heavy influx into the party in 1969, even as the purges continued and intensified, reliable figures on party membership trends during that year were probably not available even to the party organizers themselves. By June 1968 claimed membership stood at only 2,030,000 or about the same as a year earlier, despite the party's official statement that some 150,000 new members had been admitted during the first half of 1968 along. The subsequent decline in the numbers of members removed from the party together with the steady influx of new members resulted in new growth. On 1 January 1970 the Polish party claimed 2.2 million members, and on the eve of the December 1970 change in regime, claimed party membership stood at 2.32 million members and candidates. A relatively low key but thorough screening of the party membership conducted by the Gierek regime throughout 1971 resulted in a purge of an estimated 100,000 members and a diminished rate of new applications. By December 1971, when the numbers of new applicants again began to increase, the total membership of the party was claimed to be 2.27 million, or about 11% of the population over the age of 18.

Because the process of weeding out party deadwood and inactive or unreliable members is still continuing at a diminished rate, firm data on the internal composition of the party is scanty. Nevertheless, despite the adverse impact of the December 1970 crises and subsequent purges on the total membership of the party, its social composition appears to have remained relatively stable. Workers were said to form a somewhat higher percentage of new applicants in 1971 than formerly, but it is unlikely that workers in fact represent more than approximately 40% of the membership, a ratio which tended to be stable throughout the 1960s. Peasants have shunned the party almost as a matter of principle, with their numbers never rising about 12% of the total membership. Together, the workers and peasants thus form a bare majority within the party's rank and file, while the single most numerous group has consistently been that of white-collar workers who hold about 43% of the membership. Some indication of the relative attractiveness or the necessity of party membership for certain professions is illustrated by official data released in 1968 which claimed that 40% of all engineers belonged to the party, 41% of all teachers, 25% of all scientists, and 17% of all doctors. Significantly, it was also noted that only 4.7% of all students and faculty in institutions of higher learning were members of the Communist party.

The party has given much publicity to the slowly declining average age of party members. As a result of purges and of natural attrition among longtime members over 58% of the membership in 1970 were under 40 years of age, and less than 20% were persons who were Communists before the creation of the PZPR in 1948. About 25% of the membership were under 29 years of age, and about 10% were between the ages of 18 and 24. The proportion of women in the party, never high, is also slowly increasing; in 1970 women formed about 20% of the membership, but almost one-third of the candidates accepted that year. The majority of party members have always tended to reside in the industrial and administrative centers of the country, although growing urbanization of formerly predominantly agricultural areas has tended to make the geographical distribution of party members more even over the years.

Most Poles who are party members, old and new alike, have sought and maintained membership as a matter of convenience, for purposes of career advancement or enhanced material welfare though not social prestige. These motives are often coupled with a belief that by working through, instead of against, the establishment they can better contribute to national development. Probably less than 10% of 15% of the membership are ideologically convinced Communists.

2. Other Parties and Pressure Groups (C)

The PZPR's effective monopoly of power over virtually all aspects of national life has precluded the lasting existence of any of the variety of organized, non-Communist, political and social pressure groups that flourished for a time in the period immediately following October 1956 - a period when the disintegration of party control in effect resulted in an organizational vacuum. Since then, the one significant exception to this rule has been the still powerful Roman Catholic Church, whose ubiquitous presence in Poland and consistent impregnability to Communist infiltration and subjection has resulted in the Polish regime's being the world's only ruling Communist government forced to recognize an organized, albeit unequal, social and political authority in its midst - Catholicism.

Because of Poland's historical struggle against domination by Protestant Prussia and Orthodox Russia, Catholicism became at once a powerful faith and an embodiment of the national identity. Following World War II, the church again assumed its traditional role as a rallying point for resistance against alien rule imposed by a foreign power. Despite the temporary church-state modus vivendi of 1956, alternating truces and crises characterized church relations with the state throughout the Gomulka era. Since the assumption of power by Gierek, the new regime has taken several major steps to place these relations on a significantly different footing. Mindful of the church's identification with Polish nationalism, and realizing that the frontal attacks against it in the past had proved counterproductive, the Gierek regime made a public commitment as early as December 1970 to normalize church-state relations. The regime's major goal evidently remains to utilize Catholicism's ability to unite the people in the pursuit of national interest, and thus to gain popular support on behalf of Gierek's programs. This is particularly important in rural areas, where party control over the peasantry is often nonexistent and where the church as an institution remains the strongest organized influence. There are no mass Catholic organizations in the country sponsored by the church hierarchy, despite the continued existence of the once influential parliamentary group Znak, and of such generally pro-regime groups as the politically ambiguous organization PAX.

Although organized non-Communist political institutions, except as symbolized by the church, do not exist, the variety of ass organizations, the two non-Marxist puppet parties, and even social groupings with avowed non-political interests have an importance in Poland beyond that of similar institutions in other Communist countries. This is so not only because of the tenuous hold of the PZPR on the people but also because of the wide spectrum of political attitudes within the party itself. These factors have impelled the Polish Communists to make generally wider use of ostensibly non-Communist organizations in an effort to strengthen their control over society. In addition to this goal, the regime has taken significant steps with regard to the mass organizations designed to mobilize non-Communist support for Gierek's policy objectives, to give credibility to his pledge to give the people a wider voice in the in the social and political life of the country, and to provide controlled forums for the expression of dissenting opinions outside the framework of the party. Gierek has already made some gestures toward the two non-Marxist parties - the United Peasant Party (ZSL), and the Democratic Party (SD) - by soliciting their views on matters affecting the special interest groups that they represent. In addition, he has rejuvenated the leadership of the political umbrella organization, the National Unity Front (FJN), to make it more representative of the full spectrum of its membership.

Since it was created in 1951 to provide a means of Communist control over all political parties and mass organizations, the FJN has been largely dormant, mainly because direct Communist control over its component organizations made it politically superfluous. It was utilized primarily as a vehicle for the regime's propaganda prior to national parliamentary elections, which it nominally supervised. As a rule, the chairman of the FJN was always the concurrent head of state, who was simultaneously a member of the Communist party leadership. In a clear departure from this tradition, and in line with Gierek's effort to mobilize the broadest strata of the nation in support of his programs, the chairman of the FJN elected in June 1972 is a non-Communist. He is Janusz Groszkowski, the prestigious, 73-year-old former chairman of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a member of numerous foreign academies of science and scientific organizations, and a former member of the wartime, non-Communist underground. In addition to electing Groszkowski, the June 1972 meeting of the FJN increased the number of deputy chairman of the organization from four to six, and the number of presidium members from 18 to 22. The main beneficiaries of these changes were representatives of various Catholic groups, albeit none of them represent the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Despite the Gierek regime's gestures toward the non-Marxist parties and attendant publicity designed to raise their prestige, Communist control over their activities remains effective. As a result, both the ZSL and the SD are echoes of the PZPR in terms of organization as well as general policy. The ZEL, which represents the interests of the peasantry, numbered 413,489 members in December 1970, about three-quarters of whom were peasants. Local ZSL organizations included almost 28,000 basic organizational units, concerned in Lublin, Warsaw, Poznan, and Kielce provinces, i.e., some of the main agricultural areas of the country. The numerically almost insignificant SD, with 88,317 members in 1970, is directed primarily at the non-Communist middle class, especially the professionals, craftsmen, and other self-employed persons. Although neither party is in a position to serve as anything but a special interest group in parliament committed to supporting Communist policies, their role as transmission belts for government directives to their membership has been augmented under Gierek to include the transmittal of non-Communist public opinion in the other direction. The ZSL, for example, shows signs of increasing its relatively important role in the countryside, where the numerically weak PZPR has often relied on experienced ZSL functionaries for meaningful contact with the peasantry. Similarly, the SD, which reportedly increased its membership to about 100,000 by late 1972, is benefiting from the Gierek regime's encouragement of private, service-oriented economic activity, and is useful in providing a legal political outlet for many non-Communist professional people.

Until early 1973, there were five mass youth organizations, all under PZPR tutelage, but only three of them had any political importance. The first was the principal Communist youth organization, the Union of Socialist Youth (ZMS), which was formed in 1957 from splinter groups that arose from the defunct mass youth organization of the pre-Gomulka period. From its founding the ZMS grew from some 50,000 members to almost 1.3 million in 1970. Its main strength lay in its importance to young workers as an indispensable stepping stone to party membership (as provided in the party statutes) and to a promising career. The second youth organization, with somewhat over 1 million members in 1970, was the Union of Rural Youth (ZMW), which accepted the guidance of both the Communist party and of the ZSL. The third organization, and the only one relatively free of indoctrinational activity and of pervasive Communist control, was the Polish Students Association (ZSP), which concentrated on satisfying the material and recreational needs of students in institutions of higher learning.

Communist stress on the function of ideological indoctrination by the ZMS and ZMW, as well as efforts over the years to extend this role also to the ZSP, resulted in slowly growing coordination between the first two organizations, but only in continual friction with the ZSP. These efforts also resulted in a sporadic public debate over the advisability of merging all the youth organizations into one, on the model of the Soviet Komsomol. This debate, which antedated the Gierek regime, was apparently resolved at a PZPR Central Committee plenum in November 1972 by a proposal to form a strong youth federation within which some of the existing youth organizations would retain at least part of their separate status. The reorganization went into effect in April 1972 with the approval of the new federation's constituting documents by its leadership. The ZMS and the ZMW, the latter renamed the Union of Socialist Rural Youth (ZSMW), form the core of the new federation. The major change, the one that appeared to be the main intent of the regime, is the incorporation of the ZSP into the Socialist Union of Polish Students (SZSP), into which also are merged the students (mainly vocational) who had formerly been members of the ZMS and ZMW, and which is now the only organization to which students may belong. By means of this device, the regime evidently hopes to streamline its control over and facilitate indoctrination of the generally non-Communist and ideologically impervious membership of the former ZSP. There are initial indications, however, that membership in the new SZSP - which is not mandatory - will continue to offer students many of the same material and recreational benefits that made the ZSP attractive to them.

Because of the way the Gierek regime came to power - essentially on the shoulders of the working class - labor has remained the single most important pressure group within the population. As a result, the manner in which the political power of this group should be institutionalized, and its relationship to the regime, has become a matter of major interest to both sides. Poland's 10 million-member trade union movement, which before December 1970 was merely a transmission belt for regime exhortation of labor, virtually disintegrated during the workers' riots as the workers formed strike committees which negotiated with the new regime over the heads of the discredited trade union functionaries. Since then, the Gierek regime has taken a pragmatic and tolerant approach to the trade unions, but has made firm effort to retain the existing structure and, through it, to maintain control. While Gierek has been successful in employing this approach in other areas of national life, however, the power relationship between labor and the regime still remains an uneasy one, albeit neither side is predisposed to seek a decisive test of strength.

The first national trade union congress held under the Gierek regime, in November 1972, dramatically illustrated labor's new attitudes. At the congress, regime spokesmen made clear that the December 1970 demands by the workers for independent trade unions would not be satisfied, but they also made clear that the regime now views the trade unions as representing both labor and the government in equal measure, and as a means of both upward and downward channeling of information, opinion, and grievances. For their part, the workers' delegates showed an unwillingness simply to rubber-stamp regime proposals. They rejected a new labor code on the grounds that it failed to adequately define workers' rights, and only narrowly approved a new trade union machinery. The congress as a whole proved that while Polish labor is pleased with the material gains it has made under the Gierek regime, it is equally intent on safeguarding its newly found political influence. Labor has also served notice that while it appreciates the regime's effort to boost trade union prestige and to make the unions genuine vehicles for articulating labor grievances, it will take the regime's stated intent in this regard seriously and will not allow the trade unions to become, once again, a simple regime tool for the exploitation of the working class.

3. The Electoral Process (C)

Under the constitution, simultaneous elections for the national legislature as well as for local government organs are held every 4 years. As in other Communist countries, the electoral process uses the façade of parliamentary procedure to mark what is essentially the appointment of Communist-selected candidates to predetermined positions on all levels of government where they will cooperate well with the corresponding level of the Communist party apparatus. Because the exercise of the franchise is compulsory, and because each voter is presented with a single slate of officially approved candidates - none of whom are identified by political party - the electorate does not elect, it merely votes, i.e., it approves or disapproves of predetermined election results. Indeed, the distribution of seats in the parliament (Sejm) between the PZPR, the ZSL, and SD, and the non-party delegates is predetermined and has remained essentially the same since the elections of 1961.

Since 1957, however, there has been some limited choice among the official candidates, whose number has exceeded the number of seats to be filled. Since the "excess" - usually two or three - candidates are listed at the bottom of the list of about eight to 10 in each of the 80 constituencies, the voter's scratching out of some of the candidates heading the list - usually regime leaders - does constitute a form of popularity poll. Few voters, however, have exercised this right since the 1957 elections, and fewer still take the option of scratching out the entire list, a gesture representing a "no" vote against the slate in its entirety. In the latest elections, of 19 March 1972, this gesture was made by 103,155 voters, or less than half of 1% of the valid votes. In practice, therefore, the voters' ability to cross off one or more names from the ballot does not seriously jeopardize the election "prospects" of the officially preferred candidates, but merely affects the more or less overwhelming vote in their favor.

The National Unity Front (FJN) supervises the distribution and dissemination of pre-election propaganda and the selection of candidates for local government organs as well as for the Sejm. The selection of nominees theoretically takes place at open meetings at all administrative levels, but in reality such meetings merely introduce the Communist-approved candidates to selected groups of their potential constituents.

Postwar Poland has had seven national elections: January 1947, October 1952, January 1957, April 1961, May 1965, June 1969, and March 1972. The 1947 election, the last in which an organized, genuinely non-Communist party contested the consolidation of Communist power, was distinguished by violence during the election campaign. The Communists under Gomulka's leadership employed every method from fraud to murder to insure victory for the official government list and to defeat the Peasant Party of Stanislaw Mikalajczyk. The official results of this election - 90% in favor of the Communist-sponsored list - marked an end to all legal political opposition to Communist rule.

The 1952 parliamentary elections were held under the new constitution's electoral provisions. These specified that elections were to be direct, by secret ballot, under universal and equal suffrage, and without intimidation. All citizens over 18 years of age, of sound mind, and not deprived of their civil rights by court action were declared eligible to vote. In practice, a single list of candidates exactly corresponding to the number of seats filled was presented to the voters by the National Unity Front. The number of seats allowed to each of the three political parties and to "independents" was decided by the Communists even before nominations were made, and party affiliation of candidates was in fact largely ignored even by official propaganda. Together with rampant police terror which made a voter boycott of the elections impossible, this system resulted in a predictably overwhelming government victory.

Both the new political atmosphere after Gomulka's return to power in 1956 and the revised electoral law of October of that year made the January 1957 elections more of a genuine political contest. The new electoral law changed little except to add a provision designed expressly to facilitate some choice among candidates; it stated that the number of candidates "should" exceed the number of seats to be filled "by not more than two-thirds." Although the distribution of seats between the political parties was still decided upon, prior to the election, non-PZPR deputies were assigned nearly 48% of the seats instead of the 36% they had held previously. In all, 723 candidates were permitted to contest the 459 Sejm seats. The 264 "excess" candidates - all approved but not specifically endorsed by the regime - competed for about one-third of the total seats. The dramatic electoral campaign stressed that anything short of an overwhelming popular vote of confidence in the Gomulka regime would bring about the restoration of "Stalinist" rule, probably through Soviet intervention. Apparently agreeing with the regime's assessment of the available alternatives, and in the light of the Catholic Church's urgings not to abstain from the polls, Polish voters cast 98.4% of their votes in favor of candidates specifically endorsed by the Gomulka regime.

Despite this victory for the regime, many voters took advantage of the opportunity to scratch out leading names on the ballot. In one small community in southern Poland voters in fact succeeded in totally depriving a Communist candidate of his seat, the only such instance of wholesale voter revolt in Communist Poland. This and similar dangerous examples of "democratization" impelled the Polish leaders to enact changes in the electoral law in December 1960, 4 months before the scheduled elections of 1961. Under the amended law, the PZPR's representation within the National Unity Front was increased, thus insuring increased representation in parliament; the number of electoral districts was reduced from 116 to 80 in order to provide a greater concentration of leading candidates per district; secret voting was discouraged by urging "demonstrative and open casting of ballots in support of People's Poland"; and, most importantly, the number of "excess" candidates was reduced. Moreover, the amended law stated that the number of candidates "may" exceed the number of seats to be filled "by no more than one-half." Thus the new law permitted but no longer required that extra candidates be included on the ballot. These electoral provisions help explain why the results of the 1961, 1965, 1969, and 1972 elections have been virtual carbon copies of one another.

The significance of the March 1972 elections, the first held under the Gierek regime and a year in advance of constitutional requirements, lay not in the failure of the new regime to institute more democratic procedure in the Western sense, but in there being a necessary, legal prelude to Gierek's planned restaffing of the governmental apparatus to parallel the reshuffling of the party leadership which was formalized at the Party Congress in November 1971. The 1972 elections, therefore, removed most of the holdovers of the Gomulka regime from their remaining governmental positions by the simple expedient of excluding them from the 1972 ballot; at the same time their seats were appropriated by men of Gierek's own choosing.

In some respects, the 1972 elections were more tightly controlled by the central Communist party apparatus than earlier ones; for example, secrecy surrounded much of the background of most but the key candidates, and the prior selection process was more rigid than ever before - probably in order to assure that conservative Communist leaders at the lower levels of the bureaucracy would not negate Gierek's desire to put forward candidates more in tune with his reform programs. On a country-wide basis, 625 candidates were approved to run for the 460-seat parliament; the number of "excess" or "expendable" candidates - 165 or slightly over one-third of the total - was the same as in the elections of 1969.

The results of the 1972 balloting, which most Polish voters combined with a Sunday outing in pleasant spring weather, were predictable. Of the country's 22,313,851 eligible voters, 97.94% went to the polls, casting a total of 21,849,397 valid votes, 99.53% of which were for the officially approved list of candidates. Although a number of political leaders in the new regime made a relatively "poor" showing (albeit still in the 90 percentile range) as a result of voters crossing their names off the ballots, the normal limits of such practice established in previous elections were not exceeded and there was no hint of concern from any official quarter. In any event, Gierek himself received a personal endorsement from his constituency in Silesia that was, at 99.8% of the votes cast, the highest vote for any party leader ever, as well as the highest for any candidate in the 1972 elections. By contrast, the "lowest" winner in the 1972 elections received 91.1% of the votes in his district.

For the Polish voter, the 1972 elections, like others preceding it since 1947, were not a means of expressing his political preference in the Western sense, but merely an opportunity to facilitate in greater or lesser measure the Communist regime's determination to place its chosen personnel in positions of responsibility. The public, insured to viewing the Communist electoral process in this light, thus considers participation in the process as a perfunctory fulfillment of a civic duty and not as a means of making known its opinions on the issues facing the country or electing its leaders accordingly.

D. National Policies

1. Introduction (C)

The basic concern of Poland's Communist leaders in the postwar period has been to formulate domestic policies designed to overcome the fundamental weakness of communism in Poland as much as possible, and to formulate foreign policies designed to serve the country's national interests without violating fundamental Soviet desiderata. Poland during the Gomulka era played a major role in forging new principles for Eastern European-Soviet relations in general - principles of relative domestic autonomy balanced by uniformity of foreign policies. This accomplishment, however, was soon outweighed by Gomulka's conservatism which, together with the energy-sapping intra-party factionalism, gradually resulted in Poland's lagging behind other countries in the area with respect to social and economic development. Moreover, as domestic conditions worsened, Gomulka became increasingly less willing to exercise even that degree of leeway that the USSR has granted to its allies.

The cumulative impact of domestic neglect and policy immobility was brought home by the upheaval of December 1970. In its wake the new regime of Edward Gierek was faced with monumental tasks. These tasks, however, did not consist of radically revamping Poland's national policies, but rather of bringing them up to date and of putting the country once again in step with, and in some ways in the forefront of, the gradual reformist trends prevailing elsewhere in the Communist orbit.

In taking over power and asserting control, the Gierek regime necessarily had to dwell on the failures and mistakes of its predecessor. These were numerous and undeniable, but the accomplishments - within the context of their own time - were equally impressive, and in many ways set the state for Gierek's moderate reformist programs after 1970.

Whatever policy failures and setbacks Gomulka may have suffered after his 1956 restoration to power, his greatest accomplishment was to change himself from a nationalistic outcast barely tolerated by Moscow into perhaps its most sincere ally. After 1956 Gomulka gradually won Soviet acceptance of his ideas and policies - at that time considered unorthodox - by coordinating with Moscow his views on issues of primary importance to the USSR. Essentially, these issues concerned foreign policy towards the West and mutual support within the Communist movement in the face of poly centric trends in general and the growth of the Chinese Communist challenge to Moscow's primacy in particular. In order to accomplish this, Gomulka not only had to reassert party control at home, but to convince a hostile Soviet leadership that his concept of "different roads to socialism" posed neither a threat to the Polish-Soviet alliance nor an ideological challenge to the USSR. Unlike the liberal Communist leaders of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Gomulka succeeded in convincing Moscow; that he did so was partly the result of historical circumstances but mainly a measure of the compromises that characterized Polish-Soviet relations in the post-1956 period.

Because the process of Gomulka's accommodation with Moscow paralleled the development of diversity in Eastern Europe and the growth of nationalism everywhere, Poland soon shed the appearance of being a unique state within the Communist sphere. On the contrary, Gomulka's increasingly close alliance with the USSR made him seem to turn his back on the nationalistic legacy of 1956 and to be out of step with the nationalistic trends elsewhere in Eastern Europe, trends with persisted and grew despite the chastened ideological atmosphere following the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, Gomulka probably believed that he was true to a special form of pro-Soviet nationalism which assumed that pursuit of Poland's national interests was possibly only with explicit Soviet consent in each instance. For this reason, Gomulka repeatedly stressed that Poland's geopolitical position did not permit it to pursue Romanian-style independence; he acted in the belief that Poland does not have this option without becoming a weak pawn in the East-West confrontation in Central Europe. He believed Poland's alliance with the USSR to be historically unavoidable - "for better or worse" were his words at the Party Congress in November 1968 - and the only alternative to another of the national disasters which, in his view, resulted from past Polish alliances with Western powers. His conviction on this score strengthened his simultaneous efforts to seek such openings in Soviet foreign policy as would permit Poland to press its own persistent search for security in Europe.

After years of failure, this search gathered momentum in 1969-1970 when historical circumstances together with largely coinciding Polish and Soviet interests permitted Poland not only to refurbish its 1964 initiative for a European security conference, on behalf of the Soviet bloc as a whole, but also to initiate a mutually long-sought dialog with West Germany designed to reach a rapprochement on the basis of West Germany's acceptance of Poland's postwar borders. The resultant successful negotiation of the Polish-West German treaty was at once Gomulka's greatest foreign policy triumph and his swansong. In the eyes of many Poles it came too late; even more critically, it was brought at the price of social and economic neglect and ineptitude at home. One week after Gomulka observed Chancellor Brandt sign the treaty in Warsaw - on 7 December 1970 - the Polish leader was reaping the bitter fruit of his domestic mismanagement, an uprising of the workers which had resulted, by 20 December 1970, in Gomulka's relegation to the pages of history.

When Edward Gierek came to power in Poland his policy options were extremely narrow. The uprisings in the coastal cities threatened to spread throughout the country as restive workers in other industries began to resort to work stoppages. Gierek's situation was complicated by several factors, not the least of which was the disappointing performance of the economy. Sorely needed measures to revitalize the economy had been delayed so long that by 1970 drastic measures had to be introduced, inflicting severe hardships on the population. The Poles, however, after over two decades of extensive industrialization and limited consumption, were in no mood to accept further deprivations and instead demanded to have their sacrifices tangibly rewarded with an improved standard of living. Against this background, it was hardly surprising that the Gomulka regime's ill-timed move to increase food prices sparked the December 1970 workers' riots. Gierek quickly reversed his predecessor's harsh action, but as for further economic relief to the population at large, he could do little more than promise better things some time in the future.

Gierek also had to cope with the face that the credibility of the Communist regime had been seriously undermined. The vast majority of Poles, who had supported Gomulka in 1956 only to become thoroughly disillusioned with him over the ensuing decade and a half, were not disposed to place unqualified trust in the promises of his successor. The people, in short, demanded action rather than mere promises, and the new leadership could no longer count on their unlimited patience.

Finally, Gierek had to plan his new policies with one eye on Moscow. True, the Soviet Union had acted with unusual restraint during the December 1970 crisis, carefully avoiding any overt interference in Polish affairs. The new Polish leaders were promptly endorsed by Moscow, and in February 1971 the Soviets extended credits to help Gierek cope with the country's most urgent economic problems. Yet, heightened Soviet sensitivity to political changes in the aftermath of the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia was doubtless a factor that Gierek could not ignore. There was the danger that, if the situation in Poland were to get out of hand, the USSR might shed its restraint and intervene militarily.

The combined effects of all these factors was to impose severe restrictions on Gierek's room for political maneuver. Yet, within a relatively short time, he managed to bring the situation in the country under control. He acted energetically and with great political skill, moving on a broad front to attack the most urgent problems first, while not ignoring the others. In this war he not only effectively defused existing tensions but also began - almost imperceptibly - to formulate and implement a long-range program of economic and social reforms. At the same time he left no doubt that he remained in full charge of the reform process.

By the beginning of 1973, Gierek's measured pace had generated impatience among some Poles, while the implications of some of his reforms undoubtedly created concern among conservative Communists both at home and abroad. Nevertheless, it is clear that Gierek's policies are not based on a renunciation of the past; indeed, continuity, especially in foreign policy, remained the watchword. Thus, the basic principles of Polish national policies in the early 1970s reflect considerable - in most instances total - autonomy in domestic affairs, guided by pragmatic considerations, and a strong commitment to the Polish-Soviet alliance in terms of mutual support for common foreign policy objectives. It is clear that in their general nature, these policy principles are close to, if not identical with, those prevailing during the Gomulka era. But, as Gierek's reforms already suggest, he is intent on fully utilizing the room for maneuver which these principles furnish.

In their specifics, Gierek's policies are based on undisputed party supremacy, a recognition of the endemic popular hostility to communism, a commitment to satisfy widespread popular pressure for tangible increases in material welfare, acknowledgement of the special effects of the social and economic individualism of the Polish peasant on agricultural production, acceptance of the traditional role of the Roman Catholic Church as guardian of the national identity, and finally and most important, a style of rule designed to elicit that degree of trust and confidence between the rulers and the ruled needed to fully harness the energies of the people. So far, Gierek has given the appearance of a leader fully confident that he can employ these principles of rule without jeopardizing domestic stability or contravening the letter of the spirit of the Polish-Soviet alliance. He must also realize, however, that his long-term future and that of Poland depend on his being correct in this assessment.

2. Domestic Policies (C)

Gierek's domestic policy has been focused on improving the living conditions of the Polish people and generating the popular support that would make his plans for economic improvement successful. This dual effort has evolved through a first stage of basically stopgap measures into a broader program of more fundamental but measured and moderate social and economic improvements.

Gierek's immediate moves to defuse the December 1970 crisis and to gain support from his militant worker constituency were hindered by the fact that he had little more to offer them in concrete material terms than did his predecessor. He began by scrapping Gomulka's ill-fated wage-incentive system, which had entailed a 2-year freeze for most workers while expanding bonuses for a few, and by raising the incomes of 4 million of the lowest paid workers and pensioners. But these were not the relatively better paid workers who had sparked the riots, and those workers remained skeptical and dissatisfied. A second wave of strikes in January and February 1971 forced Gierek into even more frequent personal appearances before the workers throughout the country; he also had to increase the tempo of local efforts to improve working conditions and, above all, the strikes forced him, in March 1971, to rescind the price rises of the previous December. Moreover, Gierek promised that food prices would remain frozen for 2 years, a freeze that has since been extended to cover 1973. To reassure the workers and housewives about the food supply, Gierek promised substantial increases in meat supply and, largely with the help of a $100 million hard currency loan from the USSR, managed to raise meat consumption considerably. These immediate measures, together with Gierek's strong personal appeal, generated a positive response from the workers and gave him time to fulfill his promises. The workers, aware that persistence and boldness on their part has bred success, have shown that they will continue to hold the new regime accountable for its promises of increased welfare and a new role for themselves in the determination of economic policy. The fact that Gierek's innovations in labor policy were initially forced on him by the workers' militancy does not detract from their novelty nor from the fact that, despite continued shortcomings, a new institutional and operational relationship appears to be developing between the regime and labor in Poland.

Gierek also realized early in his tenure that though the farmers were not involved in the initial manifestations of the workers' discontent, the cooperation of the peasantry would be vital to insuring adequate food supplies. Abandoning Gomulka's long and fruitless search for self-sufficiency in grain, a search which had adversely affected meat and dairy production, Gierek immediately offered the peasants substantial price increases for farm products and other incentives to raise production, even while he was publicizing a comprehensive reform of agricultural policy that went into effect in January 1972. The widely resented system of compulsory deliveries of farm products to the state was abolished and replaced by a contract system that gives the peasants considerable leeway in production. A fundamental change in land taxes was introduced, much red tape that had previously enmeshed the private farmer was cut, and the country's comprehensive system of health insurance was extended to cover most of the previously ineligible private peasants and members of their families, a total of some 6.5 million persons. Most importantly, Gierek eased the peasants' anxieties about future farm policy by guaranteeing that the policy of predominantly private ownership of land would continue; indeed, property laws were revised giving farmers a greater sense of security and many of them received clear title to land which had previously remained state property although they had been tilling it. As a result, Poland remains unique in Eastern Europe (with the exception of Yugoslavia) in the 83% of agricultural land remains privately owned; the vast majority of the remainder belongs to large state farms, with only an insignificant portion composed of collective farms.

These initial changes in the socioeconomic sphere brought about a tangible improvement in th standard of living. The supply of consumer goods increased substantially: the shortages of meat and butter were alleviated, and a greater variety of clothing, including imported goods, was made available. Yet, the government acknowledged that these gains by themselves were insufficient. The year 1971 was described as a period of convalescence after which many new efforts would be needed to attain full economic recovery.

The shape of the next stage in Poland's economic development - through 1975 - was worked out during 1971 by a commission of experts headed by Politburo member Jan Szydlak and was adopted in December by the Sixth Party Congress. Some of the more far-reaching proposals in the "Szydlak reforms" were abandoned for several reasons, among them reportedly the opposition of both Soviet leaders and Polish conservatives. In any event, no comprehensive, far-reaching reform of the Polish economy toward a market system is in sight. Nevertheless, a planning and management reform affecting a number of large industrial units became effective on 1 January 1973. Moreover the "Szydlak commission" reportedly began the second phase of its work in March 1973.

Although Gierek's approach entails caution and moderation, pragmatism, and as little tinkering with existing institutional forms as possible, the goals of the 1971-1975 plan remain ambitious. Personal income is to increase by 18% at the same time that working time is reduced; full employment is to be sought; a comprehensive review and reform of the educational system is scheduled; the variety and quality of consumer goods is to be improved, in part through imports; a substantial number of inexpensive personal automobiles are to be produced and marketed; housing construction is to be stressed, and new hospitals and health centers are to be provided for both urban and rural areas.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether the economic performance necessary to achieve these goals will be forthcoming as a result of Gierek's efforts to "energize" the existing system, or whether fundamental reforms in the system will ultimately be necessary - and, if so, whether Gierek will be inclined to risk domestic and foreign opposition to any significant unorthodoxy. Despite these pitfalls, however, the new program for 1971-1975 implies a new principle in the thinking of Poland's policymakers. The essence of the new approach was published by the regime in early 1972 in a pamphlet outlining the leadership's hopes for the decade of the 1970s:

"The new socioeconomic policy is based on the assumption that it is already possible for the present generation to benefit from the economic progress of Poland... The crux of the problem is, while not ignoring economic growth, to attain the maximum possible standard of living. In short, the objective is to promote parallel social and economic development of the country."

The fundamentally consumerist concept that underlies this policy was stated even more succinctly in October 1971 by Szydlak, who said flatly that "increased consumption is an important and necessary factor in economic growth."

Although Gierek's major domestic policy moves have been directed at gaining the support of those classes and special interest groups that have the greatest economic importance - the workers and the peasants - he has also struck a mutually acceptable, though not close, relationship with the intellectuals, students, and the "middle class" of artisans and white-collar workers. Initially, this relationship was ambiguous. These special interest groups had far fewer economic grievances to be remedied than the workers and were not swept up into the workers' militancy. Nevertheless, Gierek was aware from the beginning that he would need them, especially the intellectuals, to mobilize the population at large as well as to balance the dominant influence of the working class on his regime. The new policy of encouraging private service occupations and private or cooperative enterprises, often under license to the state but otherwise relatively unrestricted, was specifically designed to elicit good will from these elements of the population.

In the cultural field, no major departures from former policies have been made but the regime's olive branch extended to the country's traditionally volatile intellectuals appears to have been accepted, even though cautiously. Gierek's spokesmen on cultural policy have emphasized that although the principle of party control over culture must remain intact and censorship will continue to be exercised, there is artistic freedom for all those who do not produce works "hostile to socialism or challenge our fraternal alliances," i.e., neither the basic orientation of the domestic system nor Poland's alliance with the Soviet Union must be questioned. Most Polish intellectuals, especially the older generation, appear inclined to accept the terms of this softer cultural policy, especially since it has permitted many previously banned authors to reappear in print and, more importantly, has been accompanied by a liberalized policy on foreign travel for intellectuals. Little noticed, but also important, was the government's extension of social security coverage to writers, artists, and others who had previously been ineligible on the grounds that they were self-employed.

A particularly significant policy departure by the Gierek regime, and one designed to gain the support of the majority of the population, has been its commitment to improved relations with the Roman Catholic Church, the institutional focus of the 95% of the people who are Catholics. Three days after taking office, the government offered to "normalize" church-state relations, which for decades had alternated between uneasy truces and outright crises. A meeting in early March 1971 between Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, Primate of Poland, and Premier Jaroszewicz symbolized at the highest level the beginning of a dialog which has since then been extended to negotiations both between the Polish regime and the Vatican. The Wyszynski-Jaroszewicz meeting appears to have led to several government concessions. In June 1971, ecclesiastical property in the former German territories was formally turned over to the Polish church. In February 1972, regulations requiring the church to keep full inventory of its property for tax purposes were abolished.

Although much of the improved domestic atmosphere is cosmetic and church-state friction continues to exist, especially at the parish level, the steps taken by the regime have produced a climate in which a formal domestic church-state accommodation and a Polish-Vatican agreement - possible a concordat - no longer seems to be ruled out. In June 1972, the Vatican regularized the church's status in the former German territories, a move that was hailed by the regime as a major step toward further progress.

Despite the significant policy reforms that Gierek has initiated in the domestic area, the degree of his success in obtaining popular support and generating hopes for a better future stem less from specific policy shifts than from his new style of rule, which is designed to convince the people that he is genuinely dedicated to overcoming the crisis of confidence between the rulers and the ruled which developed during the Gomulka era.

Since coming to power, Gierek has been consistent: he has avoided repression, while indicating that social discipline is one of the key elements for the success of his policy of "national renewal." He has condemned the errors of the past, but has stressed the the party and its genuine accomplishments are unassailable even though leaders may come and go. He has made concessions, but has warned of the dangers for the national interest inherent in excessive pressures from below. He has stressed the need for increased efficiency in government and its responsiveness to the people, but has also emphasized that this is a two-way street. During innumerable face-to-face meetings with workers during his first months in office and with people in all walks of life since then, Gierek has sought to demonstrate an open style and to establish a direct dialog between the party, the government, and the people.

This more open style is characterized by the practices initiated at the top levels of the party and government. For example meetings of the party's policymaking Politburo under Gomulka were rarely held and never publicized. Under Gierek meetings are more frequent, often expanded to include non-party specialists, and the results are regularly published in abbreviated form. Unlike the cabalistic practices of Gomulka's top leadership, members of Gierek's Politburo, Secretariat, and Central Committee departments, as well as government ministers and their deputies are accessible to each other, and maintain contact with the workers and with other elements of the people. Moreover, cabinet ministers, party leaders, and leaders of mass organizations have submitted to often critical interviews on radio and television.

While Gierek has retained firm control over the public information media, he has used more open treatment of domestic problems as a safety valve for popular dissatisfaction, a means to overcome public apathy, and as a catalyst for constructive change. Gierek's creation early in his tenure of a post of Under Secretary of State for Information was a major step in this direction. In the same vein, Gierek has tolerated, and in some cases encouraged, mildly provocative articles in the press bearing on and stimulating public discussion of long-range social and economic problems and options facing the country.

The degree to which Gierek has succeeded in engaging persons from all walks of life in his program reveals another major feature of his scheme for improving the political climate so that his domestic reforms can better take hold; his acceptance of the concept, first articulated by Hungarian party leader Kadar, that "all those who are not against us are with us." Thus, Gierek has not only ostentatiously appointed many workers and respected non-party professionals to numerous positions on all but the top levels of government, but he has pledged himself to eliminate discriminatory distinctions based on an individual's class background or religious beliefs. This concept appears designed not only to buttress his policy of improving church-state relations, but also to heal the wounds in the body politic that had been rubbed raw during Gomulka's last years in power. The politically motivated anti-Semitic purges that characterized the intra-party factional struggle of 1968 and the exodus of many of Poland's remaining Jews that followed have fortuitously made the question of domestic anti-Semitism a moot one for the Gierek regime. Notably, however, Gierek either did not take part in or soon disassociated himself from the anti-Semitic excesses of 1968. Since Gierek came to power, the element of anti-Semitism has not discernibly entered the large-scale housecleaning of officials in the party and government bureaucracies.

These tangible changes in domestic policies, and in the style of rule that is designed to make them convincing, have been accompanied by a massive public relations campaign to project a new image of the party and the government - that of a responsible and responsive servant of the people. While much of this campaign has been self-serving and disingenuous in Western terms, its cumulative impact has had a positive influence not only on the people's view of their rulers, but also on the rulers' view of themselves. Moreover, an important spinoff of this campaign has been Gierek's cautious appeal to Polish patriotism and pride in national accomplishment as a way to generate support for his policies.

At first sight, this appears as a radical and dangerous innovation for a Communist leader, and one that flirts with the sin of nationalism. Gierek has been careful, however, to emphasize the trappings rather than the substance of nationalism and, together with his repeated warnings against non-constructive agitation, has kept the popular response to this campaign within permissible limits. For example, Gierek's decision to rebuild the ancient royal castle in Warsaw - destroyed at the beginning of World War II - has had a strong nationalistic appeal to Poles everywhere, and for the same reason was avoided by earlier Communist leaders throughout the postwar period. The project, however, has channeled nationalism into the constructive and relatively harmless effort of restoring a national symbol, and has commended the Gierek regime even to non-Communist exiles. In addition, a special national fund created to finance the project is helping to bring in hard currency from ethnic Poles abroad. Finally, early in his tenure Gierek directed that the formerly omnipresent portraits of party and government leaders in official buildings be replaced by the centuries-old state seal - the Polish eagle. This gesture perhaps characterizes Gierek's entire approach to domestic reform: that the regime's power, though no less omnipresent in the lives of the people be represented by a symbol that generates pride and acceptance rather than resentment.

3. Foreign Policies (S)

Because of ideological, political, and economic imperatives, Polish foreign policy throughout the postwar period has coincided in all important respects with that of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the degree of mutual support for and the underlying motivations for common foreign policy actions have frequently differed. These differences, which should not be overstressed, have stemmed from the gradually increasing role of national self-interest in the foreign policy actions of all Eastern European states, a feature that has bee the function of the evolving nature of Eastern European-Soviet relations since the Stalinist era.

Former Polish party leader Gomulka played a large role in generating the post-Stalin momentum toward this new relationship. It was his accomplishment that the automatic subordination of Polish foreign policy interests to those of the USSR prevalent during the pre-1956 period was replaced by close cooperation within the framework of a formal though unequal alliance. This principle of Polish-Soviet relations was formalized in the "mutual consultations" clause of the renewed 20-year Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Alliance between the two countries signed in April 1965. The basic identity of Polish and Soviet foreign policies has thus been the result of frequent consultations in which specific Polish concerns and interests in the trend of evolving East-West European relation, Communist unity or lack of it, and other international issues have been expressed.

The somewhat expanded area of maneuver for Polish foreign policy after 1956 was used by the regime to underscore its desire and capacity for semi-independent status in its relations with other Communist countries as well as with the non-Communist world. Poland thus played a more prominent, sometimes leading, international role within the context of Soviet foreign policy, especially in Europe and especially when in Gomulka's view Polish interests were furthered by the joint foreign policy move in question. Within specially defined limits Poland was also the first Eastern European country in the post-Stalin era to enter into special relationships with Western countries and those of the non-aligned and developing world. This was particularly true in the case of the United States, from whom Poland received during 1957-1967 particularly significant economic assistance. Despite the gradual collapse of the "special relationship" with the United States that Gomulka initially enjoyed and despite frequent periods of especially sharp frictions in mutual relations the Polish regime continued to permit a US presence in Poland far exceeding that permitted by any other Communist country.

Gomulka's basic belief that Poland's foreign policy interests not only must, but should, rest on active membership in the "socialist alliance" headed by the Soviet Union is clearly shared by his successor. Despite, and indeed, also because of the domestic upheaval that accompanied Edward Gierek's assumption of power in December 1970, the new party leader immediately made clear his regime's commitment to continuity in foreign policy and ideological fealty to the USSR. As the immediate domestic crisis that he inherited began to recede, however, Gierek embarked on a foreign policy which was markedly more active than that pursued by his predecessor. It has been based on a thorough pursuit of Poland's national self-interest, especially in, but not confined to, expended economic relations with the West.

This new activism does not signify that Poland under Gierek is intent on testing or straining its bonds with the USSR, but rather it is a measure of the new climate of Eastern European-Soviet relations that has gradually evolved, and which Gierek is exploiting to a fuller measure than would have Gomulka. In doing so, Gierek is the beneficiary of two major factors that became operative after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact powers. First, he has inherited a new domestic confidence and a feeling of greater security resulting from the conclusion of the Polish-West German treaty, which in Polish eyes firmly established the territorial integrity of the postwar Polish state. Secondly, he can function within the framework of considerably more open Soviet policies rooted in Moscow's drive toward detente with the West. The logic of the evolution of Eastern European-Soviet relations as a result of Moscow's impulse toward detente evidently underscores Gierek's conviction that Poland - as the second largest power within the Soviet orbit - can exercise greater independence of action provided that this is done within the framework of the Warsaw Pact alliance and not outside it - i.e., that it does not contravene basic Soviet strategic interests in the area. Indeed, Gierek seems to be tapping these impulses which existed in Poland even in Gomulka's last years - and which Gomulka resisted - toward the more vigorous assertion of Poland's national interests within the Soviet bloc.

It is too early in Gierek's tenure and in the process of his consolidation for him or for foreign observers to speculated on what possible leverage vis-a-vis Moscow Poland might actually attain. Nevertheless, the Soviet leadership's benevolent attitude toward Gierek from the very beginning has contained some elements of appeasement as well as being a genuine expression of confidence in Gierek's ability to restore domestic stability and protect Soviet interests in Poland This is not to say that the Soviet commitment to Gierek is ultimately any greater than it was to Gomulka; indeed, the Soviet commitment appears to have been always first to domestic stability in Poland and compatibility of Polish and Soviet foreign policy, and only then, by derivation, to a Polish leader who could guarantee those conditions. While Gomulka fulfilled these stipulations, he was treated as "first among equals" in bloc councils and enjoyed bountiful Soviet support; when he failed in December 1970, he found himself abandoned by Moscow, whose support moved to Gomulka's more capable successor. Since then, Soviet trust in Gierek's ability to fulfill Moscow's desiderata has been demonstrated by his inheritance of Gomulka's mantle within the bloc. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Union in December 1972, for example, Gierek was given pride of place among other Warsaw Pact party leaders, all of whom - with the exception of East Germany's Honecker - are senior to him in tenure. Such demonstrative Soviet gestures, however, are unlikely to blind Gierek to the fact that Soviet trust, and the expanded room for indigenous policy moves that comes with it, remains contingent on the Soviet assessment of the effectiveness of his stewardship of the Polish state.

As is the case in all policy formulation, the determination of foreign policy is the prerogative of the Communist party Politburo. Policies that have a direct bearing on the interests of other ruling Communist parties are generally handled by the appropriate section of the party's Secretariat. Other aspects of policy, such as all policy toward the non-Communist world, are implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Despite the existence of a parliamentary committee of foreign affairs, there is no true foreign policy debate in the Western sense, nor does the governmental apparatus as a whole play a role in the formulation of policy. As a result, the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs in Poland has been intrinsically no more important than is the case in most other Communist countries. Whatever prestige has accrued to the incumbent at any one time has generally been the result of his being simultaneously a member of the party Politburo rather than from his ministerial portfolio. One possible exception was the late Adam Rapacki, who headed the Foreign Ministry from April 1956 to December 1968 and who gained a measure of international prestige because of his sponsorship in 1957-1958 of the multifaceted "Rapacki plan" for East-West disengagement in Europe, and later for being the first (in December 1964) to broach to the United Nations a proposal for a conference on European security. Both the Gomulka and Gierek regimes have underscored the Polish origins of this proposal which, though much modified and under Soviet sponsorship in later years, seemed to be coming to fruition in the early 1970s as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Rapacki was succeeded by former economic planner Stefan Jedrychowski, a bland but able and responsive individual who shepherded the ministry through the negotiations on the Polish-West German treaty, and who, to demonstrate continuity, was retained in that post by Gierek until December 1971. The incumbent since then has been Stefan Olszowski, a young, ambitious, but personable conservative.

In 1971 the Polish diplomatic establishment under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in charge of embassy level relations with 95 countries (including the so-called Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam). Poland, however, maintained resident diplomatic missions in only two-thirds (63) of these countries; moreover, 13 of those resident missions were headed by charges d'affaires. The relative paucity of top foreign services staffing reflects in large party reasons of economy and a reordering of priorities in terms of foreign representation that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This included the closing of several resident embassies in the developing countries, especially Africa. These reductions, however, were partially offset by the staffing needs in those countries with which Poland succeeded, over the same period of time, in establishing or reestablishing diplomatic or consular relations. These include several Latin American countries, Spain, and a number of non-Communist countries in Southeast Asia - most prominently consular ties with Australia and New Zealand. Poland is also one of the three Communist countries - the others are Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia - that have maintained a resident military mission in West Berlin since the end of World War II.

A. USSR and the Communist World

Despite the increasingly sophisticated nature of the bonds between the USSR and its Eastern European allies - sophistication which should not be automatically identified with relaxation - the basic identity of Polish and Soviet foreign policies continues to be conditioned by the similarity in world outlook, strong ideological considerations, and by the social and political goals shared by the Polish and Soviet leaderships. In the Stalinist era, automatic subordination of Warsaw to Moscow prevailed; under Gomulka the factor of mutual consent and compromise was introduced as a principle; under Gierek this factor is dominant and growing. Nevertheless, although permissible and perceptible differences in emphasis and motive exist, and Poland can, within a set framework, make indigenous foreign policy initiatives as well as contribute to bloc policies as a whole, both Gierek and his Kremlin counterparts realize that communism is in power in Poland despite the popular will and not because of it and, as a result, the present regime in Poland is ultimately as dependent on the USSR for its existence as was its predecessor.

These fundamental political and ideological imperatives constitute the basis of the bonds that continue to tie Poland and the Soviet Union in an unequal alliance, and are symbolized by Poland's membership in the support of the Warsaw Pact, the 1955 collective security treaty which stands as the formal political and military underpinning of the system of Soviet alliances in Eastern Europe.

Poland's membership in the Warsaw Pact also underscores its military ties to and dependence on the Soviet Union, as well as the consequent absence of an indigenous defense policy. The Polish armed forces constitute the largest military establishment in Eastern Europe after that of the Soviet Union, and they are well organized and well trained, and are equipped with Soviet and domestically produced weapons. They are, however, logistically dependent on the Soviet Union for extended and sustained operations. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier) is constitutionally vested with the general direction and control of the military, but this and all other aspects of national defense policy are determined in practice by the top party leadership within the framework of its political relation with the USSR. As a result, the joint Polish-Soviet awareness of the importance of the Polish armed forces to Soviet strategic interests in the area and the basic identity of outlook by the Soviet and Polish leaderships preclude any deviation in Polish defense policy from the role assigned to it by the USSR.

This is true despite the anomalous role of the regular army units in the violence accompanying the December 1970 workers' uprising along the Baltic coast. When Gomulka reached his ill-fated decision to fire on the striking workers, Defense Minister Jaruzelski reportedly refused to relay the order, and regular army troops (as distinct from militarized security components and the police) acted in a relatively restrained manner. Whether this restraint, which was subsequently highly publicized within the framework of the military's loyalty to the precepts of the party, was spontaneous and fortuitous, or whether it was the result of timely knowledge of the Soviet position, is still not clear. The fact remains, however, that Moscow reportedly counseled compromise and restraint - advice that Gomulka either did not heed or received too late. In any event, the military's posture was, or appeared to be, fully in a accord with that of the Soviet Union and of the new regime in Poland. Soviet troops stationed in Poland played no direct role in the events of December 1970, apart from presumably monitoring developments.

The presence of two Soviet divisions in Poland, constituting the Northern Group of Forces (NGF), has been justified over the years by the need of the USSR to maintain lines of communication with its military establishment in East Germany and by the general East-West military balance in Europe. The Polish-Soviet Status of Forces Agreement of December 1956 provides the legal basis for the "temporary" stationing of Soviet troops in Poland. Approved government plenipotentiaries theoretically are in charge of conducting formal relations and resolving potential disputes. Only once, in a Soviet declaration of 30 October 1956, were Soviet forces said to be in Poland under Warsaw Pact auspices. The Status of Forces Agreement refers neither to the Warsaw Pact nor to any other treaties as forming the basis for the Soviet military presence. A preliminary joint communique of 18 November 1956, however, cited the following reason for the Soviet presence: 1) the existence of West German "militarism"; 2) West German claims to Polish territory; and 3) support of Soviet troops in East Germany. Whether the conclusion of the Soviet and Polish treaties with West Germany and the general spirit of detente in Europe negate the first two points of this rationale is a moot question since the third point remains operative. Moreover, since the Potsdam Conference also justified a Soviet military presence in Poland because of the need to maintain lines of communication with Soviet troops in East Germany, the stationing of Soviet troops in Poland retains four-power sanction so long as the USSR maintains a military establishment in East Germany.

Just as Poland has been a strong supporter of the Warsaw Pact for political and military reasons, it has also sought, for economic reasons, to improve the effectiveness of the Council for Economic Mutual Assistance (CEMA), an organization which was designed to stimulate Eastern European-Soviet economic cooperation and interdependence. Despite CEMA's sluggishness and failings, Poland's membership in the organization underscores the continuing dependence of its economy on the USSR and other Communist countries for raw materials, markets, and economic assistance. This has remained true throughout the postwar period, despite the post-1956 cessation of the outright economic exploitation by the Soviet Union that had been prevalent during the Stalin era, the inability over the years to satisfy the technological requirements of Polish industry either bilaterally or through CEMA, and the more recent trend toward expansion of Poland's trade - mainly for technological reasons - with the developed non-Communist countries.

Until the signing of the Polish-West German treaty in December 1970 and its ratification in May 1972 there was also operative in the Polish-Soviet relationship another major factor, which cut across political, economic, and military lines, but, because its essential element was psychological, was even more pervasive. This was the realization of all postwar Communist regimes, as well as of the population, that the territorial integrity of the Polish state was totally dependent on Soviet guarantees and good will. Having lost some 70,000 square miles of territory to the USSR in the East, Poland was compensated in 1945 with about 40,000 square miles of potentially more valuable German territory in the west and north, which the Potsdam Conference placed under provisional Polish administration pending a final peace settlement. This wholesale westward shift of the Polish state was Soviet sponsored, and the USSR remained for years - until 1959 when General de Gaulle expressed French support for Poland - the only great power participant in the Potsdam Conference that supported Polish claims to the permanent retention of the so-called Western, or "Regained," Territories. Soviet support on this issue was thus vital to any postwar Polish government, since the state would have been neither politically nor economically viable without the former German territories.

Most importantly, however, the legally provisional nature of nearly one-third of the postwar Polish state nurtured profound psychological strains among the people which were exploited by the Communist leaders. The conclusion of the Polish-West German treaty - whose border provisions are viewed as "final" by Warsaw and, despite qualifications with regard to the continuing four-power responsibilities for Germany as a whole, have been welcomed by the West - has eased these popular strains in Poland. The eventual impact of the disappearance of this psychological factor on Polish-Soviet relations and on Poland's role in Europe is as yet difficult to gauge.

The fact that Gierek came to power with Soviet support and not in the face of Soviet hostility - as did Gomulka in 1956 - has conditioned the Polish-Soviet relationship since December 1970. Although Moscow neither engineered the change of regime neither dictated the Polish party's decisions leading up to it, it publicly supported Gierek within hours of Warsaw's announcement of the change of leadership. Formal endorsement of the new Polish team by the Soviet leadership came during an inaugural trip by Gierek and Premier Jaroszewicz to Moscow on 5 January 1971. A month later, the USSR extended badly needed hard currency credits to the new Polish regime, enabling the latter to rescind Gomulka's price increases and quell a dangerous, second wave of strikes that threatened to spread throughout the country. Moscow's positive assessment of Gierek's ability to handle the situation was subsequently reflected in Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Brezhnev's speech to the 24th Soviet Party Congress on 30 March 1971, when the Soviet leader expressed "deep satisfaction that fraternal Poland has overcome the difficulties which arose there." With public order and regime control progressively restored in Poland, Moscow's realistic appreciation of Gierek's leadership as probably the best one under the circumstances appeared to be vindicated. In December 1971, Brezhnev made a personal appearance at the Sixth Congress of the PZPR to signify his approval of Gierek's course. A year later, as noted, Gierek's status as "first among equals" in Eastern Europe was demonstrated by the Soviet leadership during the observances of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Union in Moscow.

The Soviets' stress on their non-involvement in the Polish crisis, their low-key handling of the change of regime, and their subsequent quick public support - behavior which was undoubtedly in large part conditioned by an unwillingness to risk derailing the movement towards detente in Europe - did not mean, however, that the Kremlin leaders embraced the new Polish team - without reservations. Although both Gierek and Jaroszewicz were known in Moscow and were clearly acceptable, they were, after all, behaving in unorthodox ways in Poland that Moscow could hardly wish other Communist countries to emulate. Statements by Soviet officials during the first months of 1971 clearly showed that Moscow was anxiously watching Gierek's evolving views on the role of the party, on the party's relations with the people, and on the role of Polish nationalism. The appointment in March 1971 of a new Soviet ambassador to Poland, Stanislav Pilatovich, a former secretary of the Belorussian party organization who reportedly knows Polish, was probably at least in part designed to show that Moscow wished to keep close touch with the Polish situation. The Gierek regime's success in overcoming Moscow's initial reserve probably was not only a result of Polish concessions and mutual compromises, but also of the character of the new Polish leadership. Gierek's team appeared from the beginning to be more attuned to the present Soviet leadership than Gomulka's group ever was, and thus appeared to be in a better position to put relations with the USSR on a more equal footing. While Gomulka has good rapport with Khrushchev, Gierek - although he reportedly speaks Russian poorly - probably finds it easier to reach an understanding with Brezhnev. Both Gierek and Brezhnev belong to the first post-revolutionary Communist generation, and both tend to view the world as practical administrators rather than doctrinaire ideologists.

The good relations which the Gierek regime maintained with other Eastern European nations, including Yugoslavia but excluding Albania, in early 1973 has a somewhat more rocky beginning, and were conditioned by Gomulka's sometimes intricate maneuvering in Eastern Europe in the pursuit of what he saw as the Polish national interest. Gomulka's overriding concern for Communist unity was one major reason for his early alarm at the installation of the liberal regime of Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia in January 1968. Although internal and important external reasons soon became the main determinants of Gomulka's support for the August 1968 invasion, this support was suffused with some reluctance to accept the full implications of the Warsaw Pact action. Thus, while Gomulka stressed the justification of the invasion as an act of safeguarding the socialist community, his defense of the so-called Brezhnev doctrine of "limited sovereignty" of socialist states was lukewarm.

The fate of Czechoslovakia's "deviation" in 1968 probably vindicated in Gomulka's mind his own longstanding views of Eastern European-Soviet relations. These views were based on the belief that the growing diversity of Eastern European national interests and the established principle of internal party autonomy should not be allowed to lead to needless irritation of Moscow, preclude Soviet leadership of the international Communist movement, and negate the USSR's role as the ultimate guarantor of the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. Even before the Czechoslovak issue arose, Poland had shown pique at Romania's apparent disregard of Soviet and Eastern European interests in its independent moves toward the West, which led in January 1967 to the establishment of diplomatic relations with West Germany. The Romanian move was made virtually without preconditions, and set in train a series of East German-Polish-Soviet countermoves centering on the conclusion of a series of new and renewed bilateral treaties of friendship and mutual alliance among the remaining Warsaw Pact members. These treaties were designed primarily to insure that potential, piecemeal, bilateral rapprochements between West Germany and individual Eastern European countries would not undercut the vital interests of any of them or of the area as a whole.

The "lesson" of Czechoslovakia came at what must have seemed to Gomulka to be a propitious time for reasons of foreign policy as well as for domestic reasons. The hoped-for tightening of the anti-German alliance by means of the treaties signed in 1967 had not materialized. The net result was an unprecedented Polish commitment to the inflexible demands of East Germany, with the prospect that this virtual identification of Polish with East German interests would lead to their joint isolation in Eastern Europe. It is significant, therefore, that the invasion of Czechoslovakia, a move supported for many of the same reasons not strongly by Poland and East Germany, should have ultimately resulted in a deterioration of relations between the two regimes. The long-term causes were disparate, but centered on apparent East German overconfidence in the strength of Poland's political commitment, and on the chronic unwillingness of East Germany to cooperate meaningfully with Poland in the economic area. In addition, serious frictions apparently arose over Pankow's self-arrogated right to seek a dialog with West Germany while denying the same right to its Eastern European allies.

By contrast, Poland's efforts to shore up the image of Eastern European solidarity in the post-invasion period by improving relations with its other allies bore better fruit. Relations with Hungary party leader Kadar, whose support of the invasion was most reluctant, were fully repaired. Despite short-lived polemics with Yugoslavia and Romania, the only countries in the area who openly condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia, relations with both were restored to an even keel by mid-1969. Finally, the success of Polish efforts to cement relations with the more orthodox Czechoslovak regime of Gustav Husak, whom Gomulka had endorsed before Moscow had fully done so, was symbolized by the series of political and economic exchanges at the highest level which took place in the late spring and summer of 1969.

Most of Poland's Eastern European allies were gravely concerned over the turbulent December 1970 events that threatened to shatter the fragile stability that was established in the area following the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Moreover, noting the main lesson of the Polish upheaval, i.e., that prolonged indifference to public opinion can be fatal even to a dictatorship, they feared the potentially unsettling impact of Poland's new policies on their own domestic conditions. The East German regime of Walter Ulbricht, for example, was deeply disturbed by the riots in Poland, analyzed their cases, and attempted to prevent a parallel situation from developing at home. Similarly nervous reactions and furtive public relations activity was noted among Romanian and Bulgarian leaders. In Czechoslovakia dogmatists among the leadership were particularly vocal in alleging deep Soviet concern over the flow of events in Poland, and, in the process, revealing their own. Only in relatively prosperous Hungary was there few signs of uneasiness.

Gierek took rapid steps to reassure his allies that Polish foreign policy - primarily loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and to CEMA - would remain unchanged, and that his domestic policies were neither as far removed from the general reformist trend in Eastern Europe as they seemed nor were they designed to serve as a model for emulation elsewhere. Immediately after coming to power Gierek sent leading members of his new team to various Eastern European capitals to establish contact with and brief the local Communist leaders. He himself subsequently visited all the countries concerned, beginning with East Germany and Czechoslovakia and followed later by Hungary and Bulgaria. Despite repeatedly scheduled visits to Bucharest, as of early 1973 Romania was the only one among Poland's Eastern European allies that Gierek had not visited. The need for solidarity with the USSR in expressing displeasure over Romania's independent stance within bloc councils apparently was the main reason. For example, Bucharest's maverick stance in support of the interests of small nations at the multilateral preparatory talks for a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, held in late 1972 in Helsinki, apparently was the main reason for yet another postponement of Gierek's visit to Romania. Nevertheless, Poland's relations with Romania have undergone marked improvement since Gierek assumed power as the generally increased flow of working-level delegations would attest. Outside the Warsaw Pact, relations with Yugoslavia have significantly improved, bolstered by the warm welcome accorded to President Tito when he visited Warsaw in June 1972.

The focus of Gierek's Eastern European policy has been on good relations with his immediate neighbors, an emphasis that initially generated a better response in Pankow than in Prague. Polish-East German relations, which had been seriously strained under Gomulka by the Polish policy of seeking reconciliation with West Germany, seemed to improve - especially in their economic aspects - even before Erich Honecker replaced party leader Walter Ulbricht in May 1971. Relations improved even further following the Honecker leadership's decision to fall into line with Moscow and the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries on the issue of European detente. The new atmosphere of friendliness was underscored in January 1972 by the decision to open the boundaries of the two countries to tourist travel, as part of what were to have been reciprocal agreements for such open visa-free travel between East Germany and Czechoslovakia, and between East Germany and Poland. A Polish-Czechoslovak agreement on this score never came to fruition. Czechoslovakia's unwillingness from the beginning to permit its citizens to travel to the two neighboring countries probably was cured by political as well as fiscal considerations.

Economic considerations, however, almost certainly were the main reason for the reimposition of some travel and currency restrictions by Poland and East Germany in late 1972. Polish visitors to East Germany, a total of some 9 million during the year (some 6 million East Germans visited Poland during the same period), engaged in massive purchases of East German consumer goods. This travel not only caused balance-of-payments difficulties, but also seemed to have raised latent ethnic animosities in some areas of both countries. When Premiers Jaroszewicz and Stoph met in November 1972 to review the situation, however, they were quick to point out that permit-free travel would not be abrogated, and they continued to hold the program up as an example of intra-bloc cooperation.

Poland's policy toward Asian Communist states, particularly China, has remained fully in line with that of the USSR; this results mainly from the realization by Warsaw that overriding Soviet interests are operative in this area, especially since the US opening to China and the bearing this has on the process of US-Soviet negotiations on wider issues of detente. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, Polish interest in China was more direct. Gomulka's attempts after 1956 to help in maintaining at least a facade of Communist ideological solidarity in the face of growing polycentric tendencies included a stress on the autonomous right of each party - by implication also the Chinese Communist Party - to formulate its own policies in accordance with its specific needs. This helps to explain his initial 1956 flirtation with Peking in search of support against Moscow (which soon proved to be both futile and needless), as well as his attempts beginning in 1960 first to mediate and later to prevent the formalization of what he soon saw to be an irreconcilable breach between the USSR and China and between their respective allies. After 1965, however, the increasing strains within the Communist movement brought about in part by the Vietnam conflict impelled Gomulka to give unequivocal and vocal support to the Soviet position and to denounce Peking's contribution to Communist disunity. He was a keynote speaker in the burst of condemnation of China by the Soviet Union's allies at the international Communist meeting in Moscow in June 1969. Since Gierek assumed power, Polish leaders, including Gierek himself, have harshly denounced the Chinese for splitting the international Communist movement, and have ascribed devious anti-Soviet motives to Peking for its positive responses to US initiatives.

B. German Policy

Poland's location between Germany and Russia has not only conditioned the national consciousness of the Polish people through history, but has been the major key to the foreign policy of the country. A country so situated between powerful neighbors has a limited number of options, and Poland has tried them all, some more than once in combination. The first is to ally itself with one of the neighboring powers against the other, consenting to be used to a smaller or greater degree in the larger ally's interests. The second option is isolationism, a policy of total independence which might suit a stronger and better situated state. The leaders of interwar Poland, over impressed with the simultaneous collapse of the German and Russian empires, attempted such a policy which ended in the disaster of simultaneous occupation in 1939 by Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. The third option, which also played a role in the interwar policy, was to seek an anchor in some third bloc or country. France provided this alternative for much of the interwar period. It is because postwar Polish leaders saw these options as having failed to guarantee the security of the Polish state that they have implemented a combination of the first option - alliance with the victorious Soviet Union - with a fourth option, namely a search for a general and permanent European settlement in which Poland's position between Germany and Russia would become a mere fact instead of a liability.

Since 1956, Polish diplomacy, whether under Gomulka or under Gierek, has worked to this end. Despite frequent pauses and setbacks in the 1960s, the goal has been consistent: to seek a general settlement in central Europe which would remove Poland from the field of East-West rivalry in which the Poles have felt it would always play the role of a potential pawn. The specific proposals put forward were designed to exclude, or postpone, the reunification of Germany; at the same time these proposals generally have been accompanied by separate approaches, on a bilateral basis, to West Germany.

Like other Polish leaders conditioned by history, Gomulka had a lingering distrust of the big power, including the USSR. The specter of another Soviet-German alliance at the expense of Poland was one of the most important motives for Poland's efforts to secure the Central European status quo by means of multilateral European security schemes guaranteed by the major power. Thus, beginning in 1957, Poland introduced several versions of the Rapacki plan for nuclear disengagement and later the Gomulka plan for a nuclear freeze. Similarly, the concept of a European security conference was originally introduced by the Poles at the United Nations in 1964, and reintroduced by the Soviet bloc as a whole after the Warsaw Pact's Budapest Appeal of March 1969.

The failure of the West - in Polish eyes, especially West Germany - to respond favorably to the Polish, and later joint Polish-Soviet, proposals gradually led to a stiffening of Warsaw's public posture and the multiplication of conditions for the "normalization" of the relations with Bonn.

A countervailing factor, however, was the general unwillingness of Poland's Warsaw Pact allies to limit their freedom of action by acceding to a common policy towards Germany which gave seeming primacy to Polish interests. Awareness of this problem led to an early decision by Warsaw to supplement its various multilateral efforts by bilateral moves towards Bonn designed to keep open channels of communication. Thus, the Poles in many respects led the way in Eastern Europe for entering into a dialog with West Germany. In 1963 they were the first, for example, to conclude a bilateral trade treaty providing, among other things, for the reciprocal exchange of trade missions with the Federal Republic of Germany. Over the years, West Germany became Poland's second largest trading partner in Western Europe, after the United Kingdom. Trade contacts with Bonn later facilitated a sporadic but slowly increasing number of contacts on political matters as well, often conducted by private emissaries of both sides.

As early as February 1968 the Poles made approaches to the head of the West German trade mission in Warsaw, and exploratory talks ensued. These talks were interrupted by Poland's intra-party strife and the Czechoslovak crisis, but were resumed early in 1969 on Polish initiative. At the same time, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reportedly prepared a series of policy papers on Germany, which included contingency plans covering conditions for the establishment of diplomatic relations. The Polish press, too, began to present a revised view of West Germany, characterized by a more complex and differentiated analysis of West German political life than the stereotypes of the past.

The ground was thus well prepared for Gomulka's major initiative in a speech on 17 May 1969 when for the first time he addressed himself publicly to the German question in terms of Poland's minimum instead of maximum negotiating position. The speech led to a quickened pact of bilateral private and public contacts. The first positive result was the initiation in October 1969 of economic negotiations which, with some interruptions, led to the signing in June 1970 of a new 5-year trade agreement.

Although elaborated and subjected to tactical alterations in subsequent months, the core of the Polish political position remained as stated by Gomulka in his speech of May 1969. He then reiterated Poland's new view of Germany possessed of positive as well as negative forces, and proposed a bilateral treaty, similar to that signed by Poland with East Germany in 1950, through which the Federal Republic would recognize in the "final" character of the Oder-Neisse frontier. The proposal was clearly made with Soviet approval but bore no sign of a coordinated Warsaw Pact move. Rather, it seemed to reflect a new Soviet policy of permitting individual Warsaw Pact countries to seek such settlements of selected, specific bilateral issues with West Germany as would be satisfactory to themselves, while the USSR retained control of questions of common interest.

Within this framework, Gomulka's proposal represented simply the ultimate and genuine Polish position vis-a-vis West Germany, stripped of its hitherto accompanying ballast of East German demands. It reflected the Polish desire that the Government of the Federal Republic renounce all claims to the territory east of the Oder-Neisse line without reference to a future peace treaty, in language clear and binding on itself as well as its successors, but without undercutting East Germany - the only Germany that borders on Poland. Just as the Poles did not wish to undercut East Germany, neither did they wish to violate the Potsdam Agreement which awarded them the territories in question. On the contrary, they wished the Potsdam signatories to approve any agreement they reached with Bonn.

Gomulka's speech found a positive response in a formal proposal on 25 November 1969 by the newly installed West German Government of Chancellor Brandt to begin bilateral talks, and talks were initiated in Warsaw on 5 February 1970. Both sides seemed to realize from the beginning that the success of the negotiations was largely dependent on simultaneous West German talks with the Soviet Union, the then incipient East-West German dialog, and the general climate of relations between the superpowers in Europe and elsewhere. Both sides were businesslike and serious in exploring their objectives, the limitations which bound them, and the possible areas of compromise.

Polish leaders probably knew, as did those of West Germany, that the problem of the Oder-Neisse was simple to state and difficult to resolve. For their part, the Poles probably saw that they would have to be satisfied with some form of de facto recognition of the border which they themselves would be free to proclaim de jure. Both sides were aware that if an agreement in principle on this question could be reached, progress on other bilateral issues would follow. These included the longstanding question of the Polish regime's attitude toward the repatriation of the remaining German minority in Poland and certain categories of mutual restitution claims. The ultimate establishment of diplomatic relations was understood to stand at the end and not the beginning of the negotiating process.

The negotiations on the treaty took place alternately in Warsaw and in Bonn throughout 1970; the negotiators were West German Under Secretary of State Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Jozef Winiewicz. A compromise agreement on the crucial wording of Bonn's acceptance of the Oder-Neisse border was reached by midyear, i.e., in advance of the initialing in August of the West German-Soviet treaty. In November, a final marathon negotiating session in Warsaw between West German Foreign Minister Walter School and his Polish counterpart, Stefan Jedrychowski, led to the initialing of the treaty on 18 November. Formal signing of the document took place on 7 December 1970 during Chancellor Brandt's visit to Warsaw.

When Gierek took office in Warsaw less than 2 weeks after the signing of the treaty, he allayed the fears of some both at home and abroad by quickly stating his commitment to bring the rapprochement with West Germany to fruition. During 1971 the new leadership continued active contacts with West German representatives, welcoming to Warsaw not only supporters of Chancellor Brandt but also several ranking members of the opposition Christian Democratic Union, including the party's head, Rainer Barzel. During the lengthy debate in Bonn over the West German treaties with Poland and the USSR, the Polish leadership reached with relative restraint, although the press did not conceal its apprehension and occasionally lapsed into polemics. Meanwhile, in line with an understanding technically separate from but in reality intrinsically connected with the spirit of the treaty, the Polish regime permitted the more rapid repatriation of ethnic Germans from Poland - an estimated 30,000 between December 1970 and mid-1972. Procedural, economic, and frequently, tactical considerations later reduced the number of expatriates below West German hopes and expectations, but there was no indication that the Polish regime was intent on reneging in principle.

When in May 1972 the Soviet and Polish treaties were finally ratified by the West German Bundestag (parliament), Warsaw was quick to follow suit, ratifying the Polish-West German treaty later the same month and hailing it as a development that was "opening new perspectives, even a new chapter, in the postwar history of Europe." In this respect, there is a significant difference between the Polish and Soviet interpretations of West Germany's obligations under the two respective treaties. While the USSR implicitly accepted the Bundestag resolution which held that the treaties do not prejudice the ultimate settlement of German boundaries at a peace conference, Poland made it clear that it regards the territorial provisions of its treaty with West Germany as final. Indeed, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs (appointed December 1971), Stefan Olszowski, explicitly stated before the Polish parliament in late May 1972 that "all of the reservations of the unilateral resolution of the Bundestag have no validity in international law."

The ratification set in motion mutual moves toward diplomatic relations. On 5 June 1972 Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Jozef Czyrek visited Bonn to exchange ratification documents, and it was announced that diplomatic relations would soon be established by electing each country's established trade mission to the status of embassy and by appointing ambassadors. Following a delay, probably as a result of Warsaw Pact pressures on Poland not to get too far ahead of its allies (especially Pankow in its negotiations with Bonn), formal diplomatic relations were officially established on 14 September 1972 during Foreign Minister Olszowski's visit to Bonn - the first such visit by a Polish cabinet member to West Germany in the postwar period. Ambassadors were named in late October, and accredited in Warsaw and Bonn on 7 and 8 November 1972, respectively.

C. The Non-Communist World

Immediately after taking power, the Gierek leadership made it clear it would make more dynamic utilization of the possibilities of the "new international situation," in which Poland's alliance with the Soviet Union and a policy of improved relations with the West are not only compatible but complementary. Indeed, a week after Gierek assumed power an authoritative article in the Warsaw daily Zycie Warszawy stated that:

"We are faced with a completely new situation in which Poland's pro-Soviet course is no longer incompatible with other international associations. At present, the Polish-Soviet alliance is helpful to us in expanding relations with other countries... Our participation in the socialist camp provides us with an opportunity to reach a Polish-German reconciliation and to revive ties with our traditional friends in the West."

As in other aspects of Gierek's foreign policy, the newfound dynamism in seeking to expand and improve relations with the non-Communist world has tended to obscure the basic factors of continuity and the framework that Gierek inherited from his predecessor. After 1956 Poland's role in presenting to the West either indigenous or joint Warsaw Pact initiatives such as the disarmament and European security proposals provided Polish policymakers with useful vehicles for increased diplomatic activity within the non-Communist world as a whole. Although this role in the international arena reflected the predominantly European focus of Polish foreign policy, often being viewed with justification as an adjunct of its policy towards Germany, the Polish regime also vocally supported such aspects of Soviet foreign policy as "peaceful coexistence," general disarmament, and other steps designed - in its view - to foster improved relations between the superpowers. For example, on 3 May 1969 Poland became the first Communist country whose parliament officially ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Polish officials also privately indicated strong support for US-Soviet strategic arms limitation talks and the agreements reached in 1972, and for the continuation of the negotiations.

Economic and cultural contacts with the West were also maintained on a relatively high level throughout most of the Gomulka period, albeit influenced by internal as well as external political considerations, and were welcomed by the Polish people. Largely impelled by economic needs, Poland successfully expanded its relations with most of the major Western European countries, especially Italy, the United Kingdom, and France. In the case of the latter, this expansion was bolstered by the political factor of French de facto recognition in 1959 of Poland's western borders, a fact reiterated by former French President de Gaulle during his visit to Poland in September 1967. Poland negotiated significant long-term trade agreements with France and Italy at the end of 1969 and the beginning of 1970. Relations with many of the smaller Western European members of NATO were cultivated avidly, mainly on the basis of what Poland believed to be their receptivity to its various proposals for European security and disarmament. Similarly based contacts have been established and maintained with Europe's neural countries, especially Finland and Austria. In July 1969 Poland was the second Eastern European country, after Romania, to take advantage of the Spanish Government's willingness to supplement its existing commercial ties with some Communist states by the establishment of consular relations. Much of the diplomatic activity by the Polish Government in 1969 was clearly an effort to reestablish some of the momentum of its foreign policy prior to the internal crisis of 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, events which seriously damaged Poland's image in the international arena.

The Gierek regime has developed these established and broad contacts with Western Europe with the dual objective of expanding bilateral relations - especially economic - and paving the way for a CSCE. Poland's relations with France, which had chilled appreciably after 1968, significantly improved and permitted an official visit to Paris by Gierek and Foreign Minister Olszowski in early October 1972. Warsaw viewed the visit, which included the signing of a 10-year agreement on cooperation in various economic fields, as successful in political and cultural terms as well. Relations with Italy were marked by the signing in October 1971 of an agreement for the mass production of small Fiat automobiles in Poland, and in November of the same year a protocol guaranteed long-term Italian credits for the project. In late 1971 a Polish-UK venture of the joint production of machine tools was agreed upon, and in mid-1972 a major contract was negotiated with the British Petroleum Company for participation in construction of an oil refinery at Gdansk.

Gierek has paid particular attention to expanding Poland's traditionally close relations with the Scandinavian countries. The Polish desire to broaden contacts in all fields, but especially economic, was perhaps symbolized in a tentative agreement with Sweden which is to build a luxury hotel in Warsaw. Political considerations, however, appear to have been paramount in Poland's expanded ties with Finland, which has been in close consultation with the Poles on preparations for the CSCE. In early 1972 Warsaw appointed a senior diplomat, former Deputy Foreign Minister Adam Willman, as ambassador to Helsinki, evidently already with an eye to the multilateral preparatory talks on the conference which were held there late that year. Polish views on European detente and Warsaw's role in it also figured prominently in Foreign Minister Olszowski's extensive travel in both East and West during 1972. He visited Austria, Norway, Romania, Bulgaria, and the USSR, and later in the year he traveled to Bonn, Stockholm, and the UN General Assembly - in addition to accompanying Gierek to Paris. The idea of a CSCE has also been vigorously promoted through numerous informal contacts - such as discussions with foreign diplomats, scholars and journalists - and through the airing of Western views on European problems in the Polish press.

The Gierek regime has also continued the established policy of active development of relations with the non-Communist developing countries although never to the detriment of the predominantly European focus of its foreign policy. Relations with the developing countries, often accompanied by sizable credits, have generally been governed by considerations of economic advantage. Results for Poland in this respect have been uneven, and sometimes disappointing, and have caused some shifts of emphasis. For example, in the early 1970s Poland continued to redirect its interests from some African countries to those of Latin America both in diplomatic and economic terms.

Since Gierek came to power, reciprocal moves by Warsaw and Washington to bring about a thaw in the generally cool climate that prevailed in US-Polish relations during the last years of Gomulka's rule have resulted in some of the most publicly visible, significant, and popularly welcomed developments in Polish foreign policy since December 1970. Here too, Gierek's efforts were hindered as well as helped by the legacy of the Gomulka era.

Poland and the United States have maintained full diplomatic relations throughout the postwar period, and after 1956 the Gomulka regime attempted to expand those economic and cultural contacts which it considered beneficial. This was true despite the wide fluctuations in political relations which were particularly marked during the peak of the Vietnam conflict in the second half of the 1960s. In 1959 Poland and the United States agreed to the opening of consulates in Poznan and Chicago. In December 1960 the United States restored the most-favored-nation clause to bilateral trade with Poland, in part as a result of the successful settlement of postwar US nationalization claims against the Polish Government. Despite being periodically jeopardized by political strains, the most-favored-nation clause in large degree helped Poland to achieve a favorable and rising balance of trade with the United States. At the same time it permitted Poland to maintain scheduled repayments of sizable US credits extended in the decade following 1957. The bulk of these credits, amounting to a total of about US$500 million, were designated for the purchase of surplus US agricultural commodities, mainly grain. After long negotiations, Poland agreed in April 1967 to the utilization by the United States of a portion of the so-called counterpart funds (Polish currency credited to the United States and ultimately convertible into dollars) for "mutually beneficial" projects in Poland. Hopes for a future expansion of the relatively large number of official and private exchange programs and research projects operating between the two countries were cut short by Polish indecisiveness and by the general chill in relations that accompanied Poland's internal crisis in 1968 as well as its participation in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The year 1968, coinciding also with the peak US involvement in the Vietnam conflict, was thus one of particularly strained US-Polish relations, especially on the working level.

During 1969, Poland's deliberate diplomatic efforts to improve political and economic relations with the West resulted also in Polish efforts to improve the climate of relations with the United States. Working-level contacts improved, and by midyear Polish officials, projecting a new appearance of reasonableness and confidence, expressed belief that the time was ripe for a major improvement of relations with the United States. In May the regime responded to a similar US move 2 years earlier by partially lifting restrictions on the travel of US diplomatic personnel in Poland. These restrictions were imposed in 1964 in retaliation for restriction on Communist diplomatic movements in the United States instituted in late 1963. Some progress subsequently was achieved in settling or reaching tentative agreement on a number of political and economic issues which had long been irritants to mutual relations. The long-stalled negotiations for a consular agreement were reopened, and some specific questions in the area of Polish indebtedness were resolved. Some relative progress also was made in the area of cultural contacts, although cultural exchanges remained about 40% below the 1966 level. Hinting that the Polish decision to modernize its industry could involve significant purchases in the United States as well as other Western countries, Polish officials again privately urged the United States to ease its credit policy to help Poland finance the modernization of its obsolescent postwar, Soviet-equipped steel and petrochemical industries.

Not surprisingly, Gierek's first moves with regard to Polish-US relations centered on the economic sphere. Warsaw's interest in developing commercial and technical cooperation with the United States was emphasized by reports in early 1971 that the regime intended to appoint a leading economist, Witold Trampczynski - a veteran of both the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the State Planning Commission - as ambassador to Washington. (Because Trampczynski's expertise was needed in Warsaw, this appointment was not formally announced until October 1971.) Shortly thereafter, two high-level Polish economic delegations, one headed by the Minister of Chemical Industry and the other by the Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, visited the United States. In June, Gierek and Premier Jaroczewicz, paying a visit to the American pavilion at the annual Poznan international trade fair, expressed an interest in increased trade and in gaining access to US technological know-how. The swift and positive US response to these overtures was received warmly in Warsaw. In August 1971 the United States granted a request originally made by the former Gomulka regime for an export license allowing Poland to purchase a catalytic cracking plant, a key element in Poland's plans to expand its petrochemical industry; in October a credit was made available for the purchase of US agricultural products; in November the then US Secretary of Transportation John Volpe visited Warsaw to sign an agreement on cooperation in research on transportation problems; and in December the then US Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans went to Warsaw to explore further the prospects for expanding mutual trade.

By early 1972 the new Polish leadership saw the way clear for more dramatic steps. In a foreign policy assessment before parliament in March Premier Jaroczewicz publicly welcomed the "interest of the United States in expanding economic, scientific, and technical relations" with Poland. Less than a month after the installation of the new Polish Government following the elections of 19 March, the Polish ambassador in Washington extended an invitation to President Nixon to visit Poland, resulting in the President's stopover in Warsaw on 31 May and 1 June on his return from the summit meeting with Soviet leaders in Warsaw.

The official reception accorded the President was well in keeping with the greatly improved climate of mutual relations. The official communique after President Nixon's two meetings with Polish leaders acknowledged continuing differences, but recorded significant agreement on a multitude of issues. Notable, it cited agreement on the setting up of an institutionalized framework for holding regular bilateral consultations on trade and scientific cooperation, increased personal contacts, and steps to establish reciprocal air and sea connections. The long-stalled consular agreement was signed on 31 May, paving the way, among the other things, to the reciprocal establishment of new consular missions in New York and Krakow, respectively. In a matter of crucial interest to Poland, the communique placed the United States on record as welcoming the treaty between Poland and West Germany - "including its border provisions: - and as endorsing the Polish view on early multilateral consultations to prepare for a CSCE.

The Polish regime showed undisguised pleasure at the results of the visit, seeing it as having enhanced the prestige of the Gierek leadership both at home and abroad; the press, for example, stressed President Nixon's invitation for Polish leaders to visit the United States. More broadly, the visit was publicly hailed in the media as the beginning of a "new chapter" in Polish-US relations, while giving appropriate credit to the Moscow summit for having made this possible. Most revealing of the Gierek regime's thinking, however, was a press assessment which viewed the visit as demonstrating that the role of Poland and other "middle powers" on the international scene would increase proportionately to the progress of detente in East-West relations. In bilateral terms, the visit opened even further the door to a wide range of cooperative endeavors. This was reflected in the conclusion on 30 October 1972 of a bilateral agreement on scientific and technological cooperation, and on 8 November of a wide-ranging trade agreement which was expected to triple bilateral trade by the second half of the 1970s.

D. International Organizations

Poland has been a member of the United Nations since October 1945. In 1956 it rejoined a number of specialized UN agencies from which, like other Communist countries, it had withdrawn at the outbreak of the Korean conflict. The International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development are the only major UN specialized agencies in which Poland does not have membership. Poland is a member of the UN Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission for Korea. It was also one of the three members - together with Canada and India - of the International Control Commission in Indochina, commonly known as the ICC. This body, after years of ineffectiveness and controversy, showed signs of passing out of existence with the conclusion of the Vietnam cease-fire agreement on 27 January 1973. At that time, Poland became one of the four members (together with Canada, Indonesia, and Hungary) of a new International Commission of Control and Supervision created to oversee the cease-fire.

In 1972 Poland's role in the United Nations was highlighted by the election of Polish Deputy Foreign Minister, Stanislaw Trepczynski, to the presidency of the regular fall session of the General Assembly. Trepczynski's competent and suave performance in this post was generally assessed as having enhanced Poland's image in the international organization. In addition, Poland in 1972 was a member (until 1974) of the Economic and Social Council, and a ranking Polish jurist (whose term expires in 1976) was one of the 15 members of the International Court of Justice. Even more clearly than elsewhere, Poland's policy in the United Nations has consistently followed that of the Soviet Union and its other Communist allies. In line with the general thrust of Poland's diplomacy over the years, it has played a major role in behalf of the Soviet bloc's disarmament and arms limitation proposals and in pressing such aspects of Soviet-sponsored measured toward detente as have been presented before the United Nations.

Poland has also sought expanded contacts with or formal membership in non-UN, Western, primarily economic organizations. On 18 October 1967 Warsaw succeeded in its long efforts to gain full membership in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), of which it had been an associate member since 1961. Like some other Eastern European Communist nations, Poland has dealt repeatedly although informally with offices of the European Community.

E. Threats to Government Stability (S)

1. Discontent and Dissidence

Coming to power on the heels of a working class revolt against a regime theoretically representing the "dictatorship of the proletariat," the Polish leaders of the early 1970s are aware than any of their postwar predecessors of the limitations of their doctrine, and, above all, of the limits of popular tolerance toward a dictatorship indifferent to public opinion. This awareness probably is the Gierek regime's strongest asset; if the leadership maintains its apparently strong dedication to further reducing the gap between the rulers and the ruled, it could achieve a more broadly based stability while avoiding the pitfalls of its immediate predecessor.

Given the circumstances under which Gierek came to power, then the country was, in his own words, "on the brink of civil war," his policies appear to have achieved a remarkable degree of success. The emergency stopgap measures taken to deal with the immediate crisis proved effective. Subsequent moves toward overcoming the apathy and stagnation of the last years of the Gomulka era and in instilling a new sense of direction in the people.

Nevertheless, Gierek's credit with the population undoubtedly is not unlimited, and the ultimate stability of his regime depends on his maintaining momentum toward the implementation of an effective, long-range program of reform. Indeed, the main danger to stability is the possibility that sooner or later the regime may become less cohesive and more rigid in its thinking, and that material conditions will not continue steadily to improve. In this regard, Polish public opinion could be divided into three fluid and sometimes overlapping segments. The first and most prevalent view apparently is that Gierek will continue to take effective steps to deal with the country's long-range problems, and will ultimately succeed. A second segment, while also trusting the basic motives of the new leadership, feels that Gierek as unlikely to succeed in view of the magnitude of the difficulties that face Poland over the long term. Finally, a third segment simply appears to have no confidence in the new regime, believing that once it has fully consolidated its power it will revert, whether by design or unwillingly, to the inertia of the later Gomulka period. Notably younger people apparently display much more confidence in Gierek's prospects than older persons.

The divergent trends in public opinion contain elements that are at once conducive and inimical to change in Poland, and thus to the long-term stability of the regime. The existence of widespread confidence in the Gierek regime generated by expectations of real economic progress is a factor that not only induces the regime to maintain its momentum and to fulfill its pledges, but also contributes to increased productivity and efficiency at all levels - the keys to the success of the reforms. By contrast, however, the fact that popular expectations almost certainly exceed the regime's ability to fulfill them creates a potentially destabilizing situation. The people, especially the older generation, are still disappointed by what they regard as Gomulka's betrayal of the promises of 1956, and may adopt an attitude which considers any slackening of Gierek's course as an abandonment of his entire program. Such skepticisms could lead to a self-accelerating shirking of efforts, and endanger the very reforms that all of the people seem to want. In short, Gierek's chances of succeeding are necessarily dependent on maintaining a psychological climate conducive to a high degree of broadly based popular support.

In this respect, Gierek has been at the head of regime spokesmen who had repeatedly pointed out that they mean to remedy the mistakes of the past. They have stressed that it is not so much the lack of material or moral resources in the country but rather the inability of former leaders to exploit them which has been responsible for the stagnation of Poland's social and economic conditions. At the same time, they have emphasized that while the quality of political leadership is all important, it is the work ethic and the energy of the people that ultimately determine the success of that leadership. At the party conference in January 1973, Gierek and other leaders summed up their view by saying that alongside the "creative unrest" and "constructive dissatisfaction" which they welcome, there must also be among the people a "patriotic feeling of responsibility for honest toil."

In viewing the regime's own prospects for stability, its leaders must recognize that the main key is the future performance of the economy, with the attitudes of both labor and management as the most important elements. The regime is placing the most competent people at all levels of economic management regardless of party membership; at the same time it must overcome the strong resistance of the middle and lower echelons of the bureaucracy - not all of which has been, or could be, purged - to the adoption of such new criteria. One of the main threats to regime stability, therefore, continues to be the existence to powerful vested interests in the political and economic bureaucracy who Geel that passive resistance to Gierek's reforms will permit them to outlast even this latest threat to their sinecures.

Most educated Poles ultimately are brought face to face with the fundamental question of whether or not the Gierek regime will be predisposed to expand the political freedom in Poland, and, if so, whether this will enhance or detract from the prospects for stability. The Gierek regime has so far trod very careful in the arena, certainly taking no irreversible steps. Among the main factors that inhibit the regime from taking positive and decisive measures to increase political freedoms is Gierek's inherent caution in assessing the degree of economic and political change in the system that Moscow will tolerate. The fate of the Czechoslovak heresy, which was rooted in the sin of political spontaneity, is an ever-present lesson. More recently, the Soviet criticism of Hungarian economic reforms must also make the Poles wary. Moscow's concern that the gradual Western acceptance of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe will weaken the ideological justification for it may be another reason why any meaningful overhaul of the political system in Poland is unlikely. An ancillary factor inhibiting change in this area is the very success of the Gierek leadership in gaining its present degree of stability. Despite the marked difference in outlook between the new leaders and those of the Gomulka regime, there is probably a strong tendency among them, as in any totalitarian regime, to view internal stability as a mandate to disregard public opinion. Moreover, the Communist system, with its inherent tendency towards inertia, is one to which the present leaders - no less than their predecessors - are wed, i.e., the desire of the party to protect its power is, as it has been in the past, the main inhibitor of political reform.

Finally, there is the issue of the "proper" degree of popular pressure on the regime, and its relation to that kind of stability which would enhance and not inhibit chances for reform. Too little pressure could generate overconfidence in the leadership and produce a regression toward the former inertia. Too much pressure could raise anew the specter of a loss of party control, possibly bringing about a situation in which the use of force - by the Polish regime itself and/or the Soviet Union - could become the only recourse.

On balance, the Gierek leadership probably feels that the second of these possibilities is remote, despite the vestiges of militancy among the working class and the regime's own measured encouragement of "creative unrest." Not only are the Polish masses, after a generation of Communist rule, psychologically handicapped when facing a determined and cohesive leadership (by December 1970 Gomulka's group had possessed neither of these characteristics), but the political realism of a great number of the Polish people also inhibits them from exerting what they would now regard as counterproductive pressure. Whether this political realism and resultant restraint will continue to be an important factor of stability remains to be seen. The new generation that will gradually become dominant during the 1980s could well fall under the influence of a new psychological climate born of East-West detente, and if this materializes, lose sight of such constraints as are now operative on Polish leaders and are likely to continue to exist in the future.

2. Subversion

Except for the immediate postwar period when the advent of Communist rule was restricted to the variety of active subversive networks, there have been no known subversive organizations operating in Poland on a national scale. The rapid decline in subversive activity by the early 1950s was primarily a result of the effective terror tactics used by the Communist regime. Gradually, however, the main reason for the absence of active subversion has become the enhanced political realism of the Polish people which has created a climate inhibiting the formation of organized subversive organizations intent on a violent overthrow of the regime. No organized subversive activity was involve in the two instances of postwar social, economic and political change - those of 1956 and 1970 - both of which were characterized by spontaneous outbursts of repressed popular grievances, but neither of which was essentially subversive in intent.

This situation contrasts significantly with that of the immediate postwar period, when Poland was the only country in Eastern Europe where Communist rule was for a time effectively resisted by force of arms and by subversion, accompanied by covert Western help. Initially, this seemed not only from the anti-Communist, anti-Russian, strongly individualistic, and religious attitudes of the people, but also from the predisposition of most Poles to regard themselves as part of the West. Circumstances surrounding the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent occupation of the eastern half of the country by the USSR strengthened these attitudes, and wartime underground resistance against Nazi rule was predominantly Western-oriented.

Until 1948, open combat between armed non-Communist partisans bands and the regime's forces prevailed in many areas of the country. Thereafter, consolidation of Communist political power, skillful Communist penetration of the subversive networks, and a series of amnesties combined to liquidate armed resistance. The non-combatant subversive networks which supplemented the armed groups persisted for several years, but by 1951 the lapsed loss of effectiveness of the London-based Polish Government-in-exile, lax security and the absence of common operational guidance contributed to the disappearance of these networks.

Under the post-1956 Gomulka regime, the rapidly tightened internal discipline and the fading away of the liberal atmosphere that characterized the regime's first months in power combined to create both dissidence on the one hand and apathy and fear on the other. Dissent, however, was generally concentrated within small and generally ineffective groups advocating often contradictory remedies, and factors making for dissent were outweighed by the people's political realism, general public apathy, and the increased effectiveness of the police apparatus. Thus, although there were a variety of elements within the Polish population which could serve as the basis for subversive activity if united in a popular cause, their internal lack of cohesion and organization together with the popular conviction that nationwide subversive activity would have no change of success prevented these elements from constituting a meaningful threat to Communist rule.

Small, localized groupings of articulate individuals that existed on both sides of the political spectrum were most often not even subversive in intent, but the Gomulka regime portrayed them as such for political and propaganda reasons. For example, the regime's raising in 1968 of the straw man of a "Zionist, revisionist conspiracy" had no basis in fact, being merely a public propaganda cloak behind which a factional struggle within the party took place. Because of the chronic internal disunity of the Gomulka regime, the greatest potential for serious "subversive" activity in fact rested within the party itself.

Disappointing economic conditions, growing restrictions on personal expression, bureaucratic corruption, and policy stagnation had over the years engendered the existence of small, semi-secret groups among university students devoted to an often overt spread of philosophically idealistic but generally "democratic" alternatives to the Communist system. Probably few if any of these groups survived the regime's countermeasures following the student demonstrations of March 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August that year.

There is no hard evidence that prior contact with students in Czechoslovakia or elsewhere played a major role in sparking the 1968 unrest in Poland, although during the initial stages of the student demonstrations clear support was shown for the then newly installed liberal regime in Prague. There is also little to suggest that interest among Polish students in various Western student movements had a significant influence on the course of the ferment in Poland.

In late 1968 the number of alleged student leaders of the March unrest still awaiting trial was augmented by additional students and youth charged with sporadic protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia that August. One group of these was tried and sentenced in October 1969 for distributing leaflets protesting Polish participation in the invasion. In February 1970 the Gomulka regime brought to trial a related and allegedly major group of young people accused of smuggling subversive material from Czechoslovakia into Poland, passing these and other materials to Polish emigre organizations in Paris, working on behalf of "foreign intelligence," and finally, of preparing a "plot" to overthrow the Polish Government. There is no evidence, however, that more than smuggling and disseminating of pro-liberal and anti-regime publications was involved in this case. The Polish regime's blatant escalation of the charges against the group, the wide propaganda exploitation of the open trial, and the relatively lenient sentences all suggested that the major function of the trial was to provide an opportunity for a propaganda barrage against alleged Western "centers of intelligence activity against Poland" and to further intimidate the Polish public.

There appeared to be a similar propaganda intent in the publicity surrounding the occasional arrest and trials of persons charged with serving Western intelligence organizations. These alleged spies was never said to operate as part of a widespread network, nor was it said that they were members of an underground organization. The press unusually stressed their individual recruitment, deliberately leaving the impression that material gain and not anti-Communist sentiment was the main motive for espionage. These cases invariably were used to underscore other official propaganda designed to increase popular "vigilance" against Western intelligence efforts in the country.

Since the Gierek regime came to power in December 1970, the party's and the government's more open style of rule, encouragement of "constructive dissent" by the people, and the eased political and social climate in the country have further reduced the potential for subversive activity. More simply, the Gierek regime's willingness to provide legitimate political and social channels for the controlled articulation of dissent has reduced the need of its critics to organize clandestinely.

At the same time, however, the new leadership has made it abundantly clear that it remains just as intolerant and just as watchful of activity aimed at the primacy of the party, the Communist system, or Poland's alliance with the Soviet Union as was its predecessor. Moreover, the regime's clear willingness to continue taking its lead from Moscow in terms of bloc-wide campaigns against "ideological penetration" by the West has been demonstrated. This has been especially true with regard to the Soviet campaign for vigilance that has paralleled the momentum toward detente in Europe. While Polish official echoes of this campaign have been weak and pro forma compared with Moscow's exhortations, few Poles doubt that a full-scale "vigilance" campaign could be mounted at any time in conformity with Soviet desiderata.

The danger of subversion from elements favoring the Chinese Communist ideological position has always been minimal both within the Polish party and among the people in general. In early 1966, however, China - working through its sole European ally, Albania - initiated a propaganda campaign designed to exploit the sentiments of the remnants of Gomulka's Stalinist opponents. This campaign was facilitated by the defection in February 1966 of formerly prominent Polish Stalinist Kazimierz Mijal to Albana. Since that year, Mijal's activities have centered on anti-Gomulka (later anti-Gierek) and anti-Soviet broadcasts beamed to Poland by Radio Tirana. These broadcasts generally attack the "revisionist, neo-capitalist clique" that has allegedly ruled Poland since 1956, making apparently no distinction in its value judgements between Gomulka and his successor. In early 1966, Mijal also extolled the alleged formation in Poland of a so-called "Provisional Central Committee of the Polish Communist Party" and of numerous "cells" of its pro-Chinese Communist adherents.

Although Mijal's activities were evidently designed at most to cause embarrassment for the Polish regime, Gomulka demonstrated little serious concern over the impact of this propaganda and Gierek has shown none. The new Polish leadership is probably aware that, while receptiveness to criticism of some of its policies remains, the essentially Stalinist remedies advocated by Mijal are unlikely to find fruitful ground among the population. In the late 1960s some pro-Chinese, anti-Gomulka and anti-Soviet printed propaganda reportedly was disseminated in Poland - probably through the Chinese and Albanian embassies in Warsaw - but there is no evidence that organized groups of Mijal's supporters actually were operating within the country at any time. In general, therefore, these developments can be viewed more as a propaganda facet of the Sino-Soviet dispute than as actual subversion. Broadcasts similar to Mijal's have in fact been beamed by Radio Tirana to the USSR and to all other Eastern European regimes with the exception of Romania. These broadcasts have also hailed the alleged formation of similar "clandestine, truly Marxist-Leninist" parties in most of these countries.

F. Maintenance of Internal Security (S)

1. Police

The regular, blue-uniformed police, called the Citizens Militia (MO), is responsible for the maintenance of normal public order and safety, including traffic control. Although theoretically the MO is at the service of, and in practice indeed cooperates closely with, the executive units of local government organs in both urban and rural areas, it is in fact a unified, national, and closely centralized police force under the direct operational control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW). The MO generally, but not always, patrols in pairs, whether on foot or in vehicles, and is normally armed with sidearms. In times of civil disturbances, truncheons, helmets, submachine guns, and tear gas are among the equipment available.

The MO is functionally and organizationally a component of Poland's integrated internal security and intelligence system, whose broad functions are the protection of state and party power and the collection of foreign intelligence to serve Polish and Soviet interests. The entire system has been modeled on the Soviet pattern in purpose, organization, and techniques, although several organizational variations were introduced after 1956 and in 1965. The MO is a component of that part of the system which is subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs; this group of services is charged with the peacetime security of the state in both its domestic and foreign aspects and with foreign political, economic, and scientific technical intelligence. Services under the control of the Ministry of National Defense (MON) are responsible for military intelligence, for security within the armed forces, and for broad rear area defense - including population control and the security of key installations - during time of crisis or war. At such times, as in December 1970, both the services under the MON and the MSW are brought into coordination. Thus the MO is merely the most publicly visible component of the regime's system for public order and security of the state.

Although piecemeal improvements in the efficiency and facilities of the MO were noted after 1957, more significant measures to strengthen the organization were particularly evident after 1965. These gains included an increase in wages and salaries, especially for the lowest paid policemen, increased educational qualifications, and a recruitment campaign among reservists leaving the regular armed forces. Criminological facilities, which are generally pooled by the MO and the secret police, also were improved. Organizationally, a new plainclothes detective service was formed within MO units in the larger cities, with plans for eventual expansion throughout the country. This element evidently was created in part to free the secret police from conducting detective work and investigations in routine, non-political cases. In addition, special MO units, the so-called Frontier Service, were created to perform customs control at frontier entry and exit points.

The secret police, or the Security Service (SB), remained the most important and most powerful arm of the regime's security and intelligence apparatus. Since 1956 the SB has been theoretically subordinate to the MO commands on the local level in the performance of its internal security functions. Although the SB functionally cooperates with the MO, its organizational links to the MO are tenuous at best. Only slightly camouflaged, the SB is the successor to the UB (Security Bureau), the main agency of police terror that existed before 1956, and is sometimes informally called by its former name or called Bezpieka (Security), which was also the nickname of the UB. Except for a period from late 1954 until late 1956, it has remained, in practice, an autonomous service within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is responsible, as in the past, for non-military foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, domestic political security and counterespionage, and surveillance of foreigners.

The Volunteer Reserve of the Citizens Militia (ORMO) continues to be an important auxiliary of the MO. Its officially claimed strength in 1970 was 379,400. According to the law of June 1967, control over the activities of ORMO is vested in the executive bodies of local government organs, although close operational coordination with local MO units is maintained. The organization, whose members are distinguished by a red armband bearing the letter ORMO in white, is in effect a regular police reserve whose core consists of former police informers, and includes citizens frequently pressured into service. As such, it is highly unpopular.

A thriving adjunct of police terror during the Stalinist period, ORMO steadily declined in numbers after 1956, reaching a low point of some 99,000 members in 1960. Thereafter, however, the regime has stressed its changed role in the support of "socialist justice" and the need for its revitalization because of the rising incidence of hooliganism, economic crimes, and "social indiscipline." The law of June 1967 evidently was designed to transform ORMO into an "independent social organization" and improve its public image by dissociating it from the general police apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Nevertheless, the role played by the hard core of ORMO's thugs during various crises, including participation in some of the instances of brutality during the workers' riots of December 1970, has hindered official efforts to give this organization a better public image.

No reliable figures on the strength of the MO are available, in keeping with the various degrees of public secrecy surrounding the security apparatus as a whole. The entire Ministry of Internal Affairs, excluding ORMO elements, reportedly employs close to 200,000 persons. The SB (UB) components are estimated to number about 23,000, and the strength of the regular police is estimated at about 100,000 uniformed militiaman.

The responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for law enforcement brings it into contact with all other governmental agencies. In addition, the ministry is responsible for "assisting" local government organizations. At this level, close contact exists between the MO, especially the local component of the SB, and the appropriate commissions of the local people's council. It also centrally administers all vital statistics, issues and controls personal identity documents, investigates and passes on applicants for passports for foreign travel as well as visa for visitors, and conducts mail censorship, wiretapping, and other physical means of surveillance. These activities necessarily call for close coordination with other central government agencies on a continuing basis.

The attitudes of the public towards the MO have most often been only a facet of attitudes toward the entire apparatus of internal security and, by derivation, the political forces which it served. These general attitudes thus fluctuated from fear, suspicion, and hate during the pre-1956 period, to pleasure over the apparent weakening of the system during the initial months of Gomulka's rule. As the security forces - the MO included - regained their power, the average citizen again became highly resentful of their ubiquitous nature and their practices, which were characterized by arbitrariness and intimidation.

Nevertheless, many Poles - especially the educated - have tended between to differentiate between the MO and the rest of the security apparatus, which they view as being far more culpable for the excesses of the past and more symbolic of the potential for repression that rests in the hands of the regime. Moreover, they tend to understand that members of the MO, being inevitably in the "frontlines" of any violent or potentially violence confrontation between the people and the regime, would likely be motivated in their action as much by fear of an aroused populace as by loyalty to their commanders. For example, popular resentment against what was acknowledged police brutality during the riots of December 1970 has been tempered in some quarters by the passage of time and by the realization that because the MO was first on the scene its members were also among the first casualties of the violence. These considerations, however, do not obscure the widespread resentment, especially among workers, of the role of the MO - in conjunction with the militarized security units - in December 1970. This legacy helps in parts to explain the relatively intensive public relations campaign subsequently employed by the Gierek regime to refurbish the image of the police. This campaign has sought to stress the normal responsibilities of the MO for public order and for crime fighting. Combined with a campaign to foster a new sense of police-community relations, this approach has had some success in differentiating in the public mind between those elements of the security apparatus which are viewed as repressive of the people as a whole, and those - like the MO - who are charged with protecting the population against crime and politically unmotivated antisocial behavior.

2. Countersubversive and Counterinsurgency Measures and Capabilities

The internal security forces of the country are well trained, adequately equipped, and sufficiently loyal to the precepts of state and party power to fulfill their mission of safeguarding Communist rule in Poland. The ultimate failure of these security forces to prevent political upheaval in December 1970 was not a result of their own lack of efficiency, but rather of the weaknesses and strains inherent in the political leadership, the absence of Soviet support for that leadership, and the subsequent collapse of clear command channels. Indeed, the acknowledged brutality of the internal security components - as distinct from the bulk of regular army units deployed during the disturbances - demonstrated that these security forces were responsive to the Gomulka regime even as its power was crumbling. Despite a politically motivated housecleaning of some of the upper echelons of the security forces by the new regime of Edward Gierek, the prominence and power of these forces under Gierek indicates a mutual trust and confidence between the regime and the internal security apparatus.

In addition to the regular, uniformed police and the secret police, both subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the internal security forces consist of fully militarized units called the Internal Defense Forces (WOW) which, as an integrated component of the armed forces, are subordinate to the Ministry of National Defense. The WOW was created in mid-1965 as a result of the merger of the former Internal Security Corps (KBW), a highly militarized police guard, and the Border Guard (WOP), which was charged with the security of state frontiers. At the same time, the command of those merged services passed from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of National Defense where they became the core of an integrated system of rear area defense under the command of a vice minister. In 1972, however, the WOP was resubordianted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

For 10 years after the establishment of the Communist regime in 1944 the internal security apparatus concentrated on successfully combatting armed resistance by anti-Communist subversive groups and in suppressing other anti-state activity. Changes in the political climate beginning in 1954 resulted in a period of organizational flux, and a decline in the efficiency and morale of the security forces. These factors contributed materially to the political instability and outbursts of popular dissidence that accompanied the coming to power in October 1956 of the regime of Wladyslaw Gomulka.

Parallel with the consolidation of Gomulka's power, the security apparatus gradually regained much of its former preeminence through steady increases in its size, effectiveness, and morale. Nevertheless, it no longer employed the widespread former tactics of the Stalinist era. More importantly, unlike the period of the early 1950s when it often effectively usurped the party's power in many areas, the security forces were brought under effective party control.

After 1959, however, the security apparatus became increasingly dominated by the party's hardline faction which, under the leadership of security chief Mieczyslaw Moczar, advocated greater national discipline. Moczar's increasing dominance over the security forces paralleled the growth of factionalism in the party in general, and the development of increasing friction between Moczar and Gomulka in particular. This friction erupted into a full-scale party crisis in 1968, which Gomulka survived in part by reaching a compromise with the party elements represented by Moczar.

On the eve of the December 1970 workers' revolt the militarized security forces - specifically the WOW component of the armed forces - were under the command of Vice Minister of National Defense Korczynski who had long been considered a sympathizer of Moczar, but loyal to Gomulka. Despite the complexities of political allegiances involved, the fact remains that Korczynski's forces, together with the police, responded brutally to Gomulka's fateful order to suppress the workers' riots, while his immediate superior, Minister of National Defense Jaruzelski, reportedly either demurred or openly opposed such action. When the Gomulka leadership - devoid of support both at home and in the Soviet Union - collapsed of its own weight, the prescient attitude of Jaruzelski stood vindicated while Korczynski and the security forces under his command bore the brunt of public rage and Gierek's displeasure.

When Gierek took power, therefore, one of the innumerable problems he faced was how to maintain the effectiveness and morale of the security apparatus while establishing his own control over its command structure and satisfying the popular clamor for an accounting of its past excesses. Gierek's moves to solve this problem were characteristically pragmatic and in the end successful. As a first step he made known his basic decision to avoid the use of force in the future unless recourse to "all available political means" failed. To make this decision credible, the police and security apparatus kept an extremely low profile. While the restraint of the regular army units in December 1970 was highly publicized, the brutal measures against the workers by the security forces were roundly condemned; culpability for the excesses, however, was skillfully deflected from the security apparatus itself to the ousted Gomulka regime. Scapegoats were also provided, although in a relatively low-key fashion. Korczynski was unceremoniously ousted from his position and "exiled" as ambassador to Algeria where he later died. A thorough review of security practices and a purge of personnel in the upper echelons of the security apparatus in 1971 served a dual purpose: to weed out those persons with lingering loyalties to Moczar, and to change that image of the security forces so that public cooperation would be enlisted in the maintenance of law and order. The major tool in this public relations campaign has been a balanced, relatively sophisticated, and moderate approach to what might be called "police-community" relations. This approach includes projecting an image of greater contact between the security forces and the population, and the open solicitation of public help in maintaining law and order. While there may be more appearance than substance in this campaign, the Gierek regime has shown in other ways that it seeks public respect, not fear and hate, for all organs of state and party authority.

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