APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7
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
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7
