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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.
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
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