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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.
FIGURE 11. Chairman of the Committee for Reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw Jozef Kepa (also Warsaw party first secretary) and a member of the committee, Jerzy Modzelewski, suffragan bishop of Warsaw, at the inaugural meeting of the committee. Note liveried footmen in background (U/OU) (picture)
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
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7
