TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/81/81.35

Text File | 1992-09-25 | 10KB | 186 lines

                                                                                February 23, 1981

POLAND

A General Takes Charges


The new Premier may be Kania's last chance to restore order
peaceably


His green uniform gleaming with nine rows of ribbons on his
chest and four silver stars on each epaulet, General Wojciech
Jaruzelski strode to the rostrum of Warsaw's parliamentary
chamber and formally took over as Poland's new Premier. In the
clipped tones of a military commander, he addressed both a plea
and a stern warning to the troubled nation. "I am appealing at
this moment for three months of uninterrupted work, 90 days of
calm," said the general. He went on to promise that his new
government would be willing to sit down with Solidarity, the
independent union federation, to examine those labor reforms
that "the country can afford."  At the same time, he warned that
the government "has enough power to halt those who are striving
for counterrevolution."

Referring to the wave of strikes and sit-ins that have shaken
the country for the past eight months, Jaruzelski issued a
final admonition:  "Further destructive activities may lead to
conflict and to fratricidal war. Every Pole should arrive at
his own conclusions." Whatever those conclusions might be, it
was clear to everyone by the end of the 50-minute nationally
broadcast address that the new Premier meant business.

Jaruzelski, 57, had replaced the ineffectual Jozef Pinkowski
three days earlier at a stormy meeting of the Communist Party's
140-member Central Committee. He thus became the only military
man to head a Soviet-bloc government. More important, his
accession marked the fourth major leadership shake-up since the
eruption of labor unrest last summer and, in the opinion of many
fretful Poles and foreigners alike, perhaps the last opportunity
for the Warsaw authorities to restore order peacefully.

In addition to his new job, Jaruzelski retained the defense
portfolio he has held since 1968, giving him control over both
the Cabinet and the army. That double duty made the
Soviet-trained World War II veteran the second most powerful man
in the government after Party Boss Stanislaw Kania. Jaruzelski,
who has a reputation as a tough military professional as well
as a staunch party loyalist, wasted not time in taking command.
His predecessor had hardly cleaned out his desk when the
general sacked two Deputy Premiers and five of 40 Cabinet
ministers, many of whom were holders from the regime of deposed
Party Boss Edward Gierek.

The Cabinet reshuffle drew differing analyses from Western
observers. Foreign policy experts in Bonn see Jaruzelski as an
orthodox party loyalist whose rise presages direct action by the
Polish armed forces if the labor situation deteriorates further.
U.S. State Department analysts, pointing to Jaruzelski's past
reluctance to use force against strikers, predict that he will
support Kania's relatively moderate policy toward the unions.
If that happens, Kania will have gained a valuable
counterweight in his struggle against extreme hard-liners like
Politburo Member Stefan Olszowski who have been arguing for an
immediate crackdown. Finally, Jaruzelski is trusted by the
Kremlin; thus his entry into the government may reassure the
Soviets that Warsaw intends to move firmly and effectively to
restore order. Says one West German expert:  "Jaruzelski is the
last chance Moscow is prepared to give Warsaw."

Indeed, Soviet patience seems to be wearing steadily thinner.
Official press organs throughout the East bloc were continuing
their attacks on Polish unions and dissidents. The Soviet news
agency TASS charged last week that "counterrevolutionary forces"
in Poland had launched a "frontal attack" on the Communist
Party. Soviet diplomats in Western Europe have been circulating
the same message in their private conversations. Said one
senior official at the Soviet embassy in Bonn:  "The point has
been reached when it is a waste of time to negotiate [with
Solidarity]. It's time to get tough."

The intensity of current Soviet criticism has rekindled fears
of a possible invasion. In a terse official statement last
week, the State Department carefully declared that "military
intervention in Poland is viewed as neither imminent,
inevitable, nor justifiable on any grounds."  But that public
reassurance was intended to counter widespread reports that
Secretary of State Alexander Haig is becoming pessimistic about
the outcome of the Polish crisis. Privately, Haig and his top
aides believe that it may deteriorate into chaos and create an
unacceptable challenge to Moscow. Experts in Bonn and London
tend to share that gloomy view, but still feel that the Soviets
would move only as a last resort. Says one senior British
diplomat: "If they send in the Red Army, they will have created
a nightmare that will make Afghanistan look like a tea party."
The Soviets still have 55 divisions poised within striking
distance of Poland. While there is no sign that they have
stepped up their state of readiness, the upcoming Warsaw Pact
winter maneuvers could serve as a cover for a Soviet move.
There seems little chance of intervention, however, before the
Soviet Party Congress in Moscow later this month.

Meanwhile, it appeared that a new cycle of labor calm might ease
the rising tensions. In southwestern Jelenia Gora, workers
ended a two-day general strike after the government agreed to
convert a party sanitarium into a public hospital. After
Jaruzelski's dramatic public appeal for a 90-day moratorium,
Solidarity's national commission in Gdansk canceled a threatened
printers' strike and ruled out all other work stoppages for the
time being. But Union Leader Lech Walesa added that "our
ultimate response to the call for a moratorium will depend on
what happens during negotiations with the government."  Those
union-government talks currently under way concern a range of
topics: the drafting of a new trade law, the granting of radio
and television time to Solidarity, and the continuing question
of legalization for an independent farmers' union known as Rural
Solidarity.

IN its long-awaited decision on Rural Solidarity last week, the
Supreme Court executed a deft compromise that at first appeared
to defuse a dangerous possible confrontation. Thousands of
peasants from all over the country, many of them wearing
colorful local costumes, had converged on Warsaw to hear the
court's decision first hand. They sang and cheered as Walesa,
sport a short-brimmed peasant's cap, entered the gray stone
court building to attend the hearing. He got a less
enthusiastic reception when he emerged onto the steps five hours
later to announce the court's verdict:  the farmers were
forbidden to form a union, but were invited instead to register
as an "association."

The court argued that the country's 3.2 million independent
farmers, who own their own land, were not employees and under
Polish law were therefore ineligible for membership in a true
union with the right of collective bargaining. By holding out
the vague offer of association status, however, the judges hoped
to stave off the widespread strikes and protests that had been
threatened in the event of an outright rejection. Though here
was disappointed grumbling outside the court building, Walesa
helped keep tempers cool by calling the verdict "a tie, but one
that gives us a great deal."  He added:  "We must now take time
for a respite, for organization and for an end to strikes."

Though they later rejected the idea of an association, Rural
Solidarity organizers said that they would continue to seek
union status through legal channels rather than with strikes.
But the next day in Rzeszow, where 300 peasants have occupied
a government building for six weeks, the group's leaders
suddenly reversed themselves. They now threatened not to plant
crops this spring unless they are granted full union status.
They also received an influential new endorsement: Poland's
Roman Catholic hierarchy issued a bold statement declaring that
farmers' "right to free assembly as trade unions must be
recognized."  Once again Walesa's calls for moderation were
tending to be undercut within his own ranks and among his own
allies.

Another source of unrest was the continuing student strike that
erupted three weeks ago at the University of Lodz and later
spread to several other cities. Government negotiators in Lodz
had already accepted some of the strikers' demands, for example,
granting students a voice in the administration of the
university. But the unresolved goals carried inflammable
political overtones:  no censorship of academic papers, free
access to foreign books, abolition of obligatory courses in the
Russian language and fewer courses in Marxism. Even if those
issues remained understandably deadlocked, however, student
leaders last week discouraged further university strikes
"because of the difficult situation in our country."

Meanwhile, Poland's economy progressively worsened. According
to government statistics released last week, industrial
production has fallen 7/6% since January 1980, while wages have
risen by 19%. That sort of socialist stagflation, compounded
by a $24.5 billion foreign debt, spells economic collapse unless
there is a huge influx of outside financing. Warsaw's major
Western creditors may defer Polish debt payments when they meet
in Paris later this month, thereby providing some emergency
relief. But substantial long-term aid from the West, if it
materializes, would probably take the form of a multinational
package that would be conditional on economic reforms and
political liberalization inside Poland. Assuming Moscow would
stand for it, that sort of capitalist bailout would give an
ironic twist to the Marxist maxim that economic conditions
determine the course of political change.

--By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Richard Hornik/West Berlin
and B. William Mader/Bonn